Experimental HeroQuesting

GAZZA:
The reason I ask is because it opens up the possibility of going on the HeroQuest and deliberately failing it, or doing nasty things. For example, one could go on the Zorak Zoran version of the Hill of Gold quest and befriend Yelmalio, voluntarily giving up Fire powers, and then maybe ganging up on Orlanth. This would be a useful thing to do if you were a Yelmalion, for example.

Me:
Yes, you could, in theory. In practice however, since you are not a cultist of the cult you will find that going on a HeroQuest to a god whose secrets you do not know is likely to be very difficult, after all if you use my rules your Passions will not aid you, and may well hinder you in the main. Secondly, you do not know the ins and outs of the Quest, although a Thanatari, having sucked the pure knowledge straight out into their own heads would have less problems with this. They would understand the ins-and-outs of the Quest just as well as the person they brain-sucked did. The last problem is the dangers of Experimental HeroQuesting. Say that somehow that the Yelmalio worshipper does indeed get the ZZ version of the Hill of Gold Quest and enacts it, so that he can screw it up to Yelmalio's advantage. Firstly, while you may want to befriend Yelmalio, Yelmalio will still "see" you as Zorak Zoran, Darkness Demon, Destroyer, Devourer of the Thousand Races etc... and will attack anyhow. But let's say you get over this problem, let's say you know a secret magic word of friendship for Yelmalio that means he befriends you. Well, you gang up and kill Orlanth. Great. You happily return to the mundane world after your HeroQuest. Now, we'll forget the pissed off trolls who will, from divinations and omens, notice that someone is messing with their myths (and probably so will the Orlanthi, almost certainly branding you a God Learner for engaging in such nasty myth mucking) but return to the Yelmalions. The effects of the HeroQuest will affect the Yelmalio worshippers who supported the HeroQuest, so your temple which supported your HeroQuesting activities will, sure enough, find themselves granted access to really cool magic that they never had before, such as Sunspear and whichever spell it is that Orlanth stole from Yelmalio (I can't remember what it is Orlanth stole from Yelmalio, but I think it was his spear, so they'd probably get access to TrueSpear or Impale as Rune Spells), and will find that Orlanthi lose in battle more to them. They will, however, find themselves ineffective against the trolls, indeed they may gain access to a Rune Spell that engenders troll friendship. They suddenly find their associated cults stop answering their calls, the Sun Dome they built dims, and sometimes you'd swear it was made of lead. Yelm no longer answers their prayers - after all these Yelmalions associate with trolls! Why in Aether's name would Yelm want to associate with them! Instead worshippers find themselves with the associated cult of Zorak Zoran. Worse still, they find themselves being plagued by chaos, and not being able to do anything about it, for without Orlanth the chaos that Yelmalio later meets is far stronger. The Orlanthi in the region almost certainly get eaten up by chaos beasties, which gets rids of the Orlanthi but leaves you with a bigger, nastier problem. Finally, as the Quest was enacted differently, Yelmalio never faced all the horrors of the Darkness, and so never identified himself as the Spark Within the Darkness, that rendered him, and some of his heroes Immortal. This means little in game terms, but in Gloranthan terms, the temple that supported such a Quest slowly gets assimilated into being little more than human allies of Zorak Zoran, perhaps ending up as little more than an addition to Amanstan.

GAZZA:
That's an excellent point! You really should stick this (or something like this) on your web page - it really helps novices like myself to understand the dangers and repercussions of experimental HeroQuesting.