Runequest Thursday #151 - Transitory Enlightenment and Heroquesting!
I have returned from the wilds of Northern Ontario, where I ascended the Sleeping Giant, offering my thanks to both Nanabosho and Gonn Orta for allowing me to visit! When I say this, I am not being flippant. Climbing the Sleeping Giant is a difficult undertaking for just about anyone, and with such endeavors often there is a spiritual aspect. I think this is the essence of pilgrimage: Something (travel, privation, cold, exhaustion, or a combination of these and other states we often attempt to avoid) must be endured and overcome, granting us a deep sense of accomplishment or the "runner's high". When combined with a view or other culminating event, this can take on something like spiritual potence - a transitory enlightenment, if you will.
I certainly felt something like that on the chest of the Sleeping Giant. It lasted for the time I spent atop. And for much of the descent I found myself buoyed up by what I (a 56 year old, slightly-too-sedentary, man) had achieved. Certainly, the view was extraordinary (you can see one side, not the best one, but the only one I thought to film, in the clip embedded in this post)!
But the rarity of the event also had something to do with it. In all likelihood, I will not visit Sleeping Giant again, which is something of a shame, because it IS magnificent AND spiritual, and well worth repeated discovery. But as John Wortley, an old professor of mine used to say: You will never get to read all the books you want to before you die! So it is with travel, and pilgrimage. There are too many other things I want to do, see and touch, and I have already touched - and been touched by - Sleeping Giant.
On a related note: A few months back, I had the privilege of traveling from the Texas Hill Country to my home in Winnipeg, with my good friend Michael O. Varhola as road-companion. He suggested that we visit the grave site and the family home/ museum of Robert E. Howard (arguably the originator of "Sword & Sorcery", but certainly the creator of Conan the Cimmerian, King Kull, Solomon Kane and my personal favorite, Cormac Mac Art).This was less a test of endurance and athleticism, but it certainly had emotional and spiritual weight for both of us. We stopped at the cemetery where Howard was interred, under the same stone as the mother he cherished and the father who never "got" him. We shared some Texas sipping whiskey (found by the grace of Fortuna, on the way to the cemetery), and thanked this inquisitive, unusual and singular mind for giving us so much fuel for our imaginations! From there, we visited the home in which REH grew up, worked, and wrote. In speaking of the visit with Mike later, we both expressed a sense of connection to Robert E. Howard that we had not gotten from our reading of his work, as if the man were still there in some way. We left with a different sense of the the author, the man, and a slightly different view of the world.
If you are still with me after the above ruminations, maybe you are wondering how this is a Runequest Thursday post. Maybe you are looking for ways to deepen the spiritual connection your player characters have to the places and peoples in Glorantha, and to the gods and spirits that provide them with spells, runes, power and life. I had to give you the above background bits (both the Sleeping Giant hike and the Howard pilgrimage) to show that there is more than one way to get to "there" - wherever there is.
At any rate, THIS is where I start to try to tie privation, pilgrimage, and transitory enlightenment into gaming - specifically to Glorantha and Heroquesting!
I have written about some of this before, touching on symbolism, ritual, heroquesting and the celestial, but I have talked "around" the mindset without getting to it. I'm not sure If I will get there this time either, but in speaking with my wife, Penny, who also climbed Sleeping Giant, we corroborated what the other felt in the sense of transitory enlightenment and the nearness of the ethereal. Others, Mike Varhola included, have told me much the same about similar quests that they have undertaken.
Looking at the last sentence, I think the word "transitory" is the key, rather than the initially more appealing enlightenment (though that certainly has its place). The notion of transition is central to the experience - and should be central to a significant religious experience in Glorantha: be that participation in a Sacred Time rite, a shamanic journey, the investiture of a player character as Rune Level or a Heroquest. The participant is somehow mystically transported or connected to the divine or spiritual. So how do we do that is the framework of a game session?
Here are four things to keep in mind when you are try for Transitory Enlightenment in your session, more or less broken down into phases:
Note: These phases are presented for clarity in explanation. Don't reveal this structure to the players and don't feel like you have to adhere to it any more than it is helpful.
1 - Pilgrimage/ Privation: This beginning is comprised of hardship of some kind, and core to the experience: preparing the questor for what is to come by instilling exhaustion physical and mental, thus aiding in the creation of a receptive state of mind: which we can call Spiritual Mind for the present purpose, but which might also be thought of as a euphoric state. A physical journey is only one possibility, but is often the easiest in a game setting: travel to The Paps, the ascent of Stormwalk Mountain, even venturing into Elder Wilds on a solo, coming of age, hunting quest. For a sorcerer or shaman, it might mean hours of ritual cleansing, fasting, chanting and meditation, or complete isolation and the ingestion of some narcotic substance.
During Phase 1, the Gamemaster should point out the strain the questor is experiencing, leading the willing player into an awareness of his character's physical and mental stress and impending exhaustion.
Mechanics: This sense of exhaustion can be reflected by the quester making POW, or CON, checks, beginning at STATx5%, and diminishing by 1 multiple for each increment of the "pilgrimage". Skilled characters might be allowed to substitute a skill like Theurgy, Shamanism or Sorcery if they prefer, but they should need to to so multiple times and the chance of success should be reduced by 20% per check as they progress: reflecting the experience testing their knowledge to the utmost. The quester should make checks until failure, keeping track of the total number of successes gained. Upon failure, the quester has reached as deep a level of Spiritual Mind as he is able for this current endeavor, and the Gamemaster should give the quester's player a number of Success Tokens equal to the number of successes they accrued.
2 - Spiritual Mind: This state is one in which the quester perceives the normal world, but in an abnormal way. Once the quester has reached exhaustion by failing her check in Phase 1, the Gamemaster should help the player realize that the character has reached an "extended" state of consciousness. Do this by allowing a cultist to hear the temple's allied spirits or a shaman the voice of a beloved ancestor. The voice might be that of a guide or an obstructive entity (an otherworldly gate keeper or a cult spirit of reprisal, for example). In stead of, or in addition to, the above, you might have this Phase include insight, revelation or even actual sight by beginning the Phase in darkness and allowing the quester to see once they have begun to transition and perceive with more than their physical senses.
Mechanics: Depending on the nature of the experience, the quester might be required to escape, avoid, placate or overcome this entity in order to progress to Phase 3. Roleplay the encounter, using an appropriate skill check, or a POW vs. POW contest as the test. The cost of failure will depend on the type of encounter. A cult Spirit of Reprisal is likely to treat a Rune Level candidate more kindly than a guardian demon would an over-inquisitive sorcerer intent on glimpsing the forbidden Scrolls of Skolos. Here is where the number of successes your quester racked up in Phase 1 comes in: Success Tokens gained in Phase 1 can be used to improve any roll the quester makes by 20%. Although it cannot translate a roll into any sort of special success, it can negate a Fumble.
A Token can also be spend to mitigate the penalty for failure. So if a questing sorcerer has several Success Tokens and the penalty for their Spiritual Mind Check is being eaten by the demon guardian, they hoped to pass, they can spend a Success Token to replace being eaten with eternal torment. Another Token could reduce it further to "service to the demon for a period of a year and a day", or whatever else the Gamemaster thinks is fitting and fun. Success Tokens can be used in any later Phase of the quest and are not limited to Phase 2.
Finally, if you want to be nice to the player of the quester you can, during the beginning of Phase 2 or even in Phase 1, foreshadow the cost of failure with the fate of others who have gone before. Perhaps the quester glimpses the torc worn by a former mentor among the gifts most-prized by the spirit of reprisal, or notices the bones and skulls of former questers scattered around the spiritual landscape.
3 - Transition: This state transports the quester completely out of normal existence. Depending on the nature of the transition, the actors involved, and the degree of success in Phase 2, this transportation might involve the mind only, or the quester could physically transport along with his soul. It is even possible that incomplete transition is the price of incomplete success, which might trap or otherwise imperil the soul of the quester.
Mechanics: There is no need to make a quester roll to Transition unless they failed or succeeded only partially in Phase 2. This is the Phase most open to the Gamemaster to tailor to the current character(s) and circumstance, and the campaign. Foreshadowing of future events or prophecy, glimpses of various godly strongholds (like the Storm Realm for Orlanthi, for example), maddening chaotic displays or charging beasts, visions of the future, faces of lost friends or family, are all possible - and more besides. If you decide to use foreshadowing or anything in which interpretation of the scene is significant, you can determine the degree of comprehension with an INTx5 or POWx5% check. For each increment below x5, the quester come closer to the intended meaning as defined by you.
4 - Supernatural Space/ Ecstasy: The state to which heroes can hope to attain when they serve at the right hand of their god in the afterlife, or, at the culmination of a lifelong quest for secret lore, or ultimate understanding. It should remind the character, and the player, of how much he has done, how far she has come, but simultaneously show how much remains undone. Yet for an enduring instant, the quester has attained something of godhood - and existence is revealed is a dizzying whirlwind free of the constraint of Time. Allow the quester the answer to a question that has plagued them since their earliest days, a chance to ask a new question of the cosmos, a momentary glimpse of their Fate, or even the next epic adventure they undertake.
Although this state is the goal of the pilgrimage, it probably should not last long for the quester. As the saying goes: Leave 'em wanting more.
Mechanics: Depending on the nature of the quest, there may be mechanics in place already (like a prospective Rune Lady's roll for acceptance). If not, don't feel like you have to invent some. If you have built up a convincing narrative for the transition, the character and player probably don't need any and you can roleplay the whole thing.
Notes:
- If your quester is struggling, and you want to be helpful, feel free to grant ways to gain more Success Tokens in later phases. A particularly smart ruse, a use of a myhtic element special to the quester or his goal, or simply a player really buying into the experience can all be worthy of a Token.
Tokens will quickly be seen by the quester for the currency of success that they are. Play upon this to ramp up tension as that currency is lessened or exhausted. You don't have to tell the players that there could be ways to gain more until you award it.
As you have probably guessed, this is probably the framework I will be keeping in mind for any Heroquesting in my own games. If you use it, or if you have ideas on how it can be improved, please let me know how things go by posting in the comments.
