We begin the year 1332 much the same as we have in the two previous years, save that we decide to attempt a heroquest this year and so allocate extra magic to Questing. This is when the entire clan combine to pray so that a chosen clan member, the quester, may enter the plane of the gods and reenact the events of a chosen myth. The magic of the clan and the skills of the quester will be sorely tested. But if successful, heroquests can bring great benefits, enrich the magic of the clan and greatly raise the mood of the entire clan.
At the beginning of the year, our god-talkers tell us that we would be greatly rewarded by Oranth and Uralda if we successfully increase the size of our herds over the course of the year. So we begin by building a shrine to Uralda to gain the permanent effects of the Calf Blessing, which increases the fertility of our cows. Next, we review the knowledge we have on the myths. We can only attempt heroquests for myths for which we know the complete story. We can gather such details either by sacrificing to the gods or learning about them from other clans.
One myth that we do know is the story of Orlanth and Aroka, in which Orlanth defeats the Blue Dragon Aroka to end a drought. There are several benefits that we can seek to receive for each heroquest. For this one, we choose to strengthen the warriors of our clan. After carefully studying the story, our quester faithfully reenacts the events one by one, which ends with the defeat of Aroka, freeing Heler, the rain god, who was trapped in the belly of the dragon. Olanth and Heler then together went to confront Daga, Orlanth’s own nephew, who was the source of the drought. Upon our quester’s return from the god plane, our warriors are strengthened and the entire clan is overjoyed.
Since it is now the Fire season, we take advantage of our new power to mount a full scale raid against the Eagle clan. Previously, we only embarked on cattle raids, which involves sneakily trying to penetrate an enemy’s tula and stealing away their cattle. A full raid however involves sending many warriors to attack and sack the enemy tula. There are no deaths on either side as our magic blows away that our enemy and our warriors drive the enemy from the field. We manage to plunder 36 cows, 5 horses and 27 cows worth of loot, a good haul. We spend the rest of the Fire season strengthening our defenses once again, building ramparts.
Later that year, the Ernaldori clan comes to us to ask for a gift of divine favour to help with their spell of bad luck. As our successful heroquest has left us with plenty of magic, we choose to be generous. We then follow this up with an offer of alliance, which the grateful Ernaldori find impossible to turn down. Turning the neighbouring clans into our allies is a useful step in uniting them into a single tribe but it is also good to keep one or two clans as enemies so that our warriors have someone to raid.
As you may recall, we currently have two feuds going on. The Eagle clan near us, has the target of many of our raids but the other enemy clan, the Kardarvi, are far to the south, too far to carry out cattle raids against. We could send full raids against them but our warriors will need extra time to travel. We decide therefore to try to make peace with them, so as to discourage them from raiding us. This takes a bribe of many goods but our diplomats successfully end the feud.
It is fortunate that we have more friends than enemies because we soon attacked by a powerful raiding force consisting entirely of mounted warriors. These horse nomads are no Orlanthi, they are foreigners we know nothing about. Our friends in the White Horse clan warns us of their approach and so we are able to raise our entire tula to defend ourselves. Our skirmishes manage to scare them off and they fail to close to melee. Not long afterwards we learn that these horse nomads hail from somewhere in the west and worship Yelm, Orlanth’s enemy, and delight in taking thralls.
Near the end of the year we sacrifice to Elmal, god of the sun, to learn the Steadfast blessing which helps us when defending our tula against enemies. In the Storm season, we try to raid the Eagle clan again but they manage to drive us so that we are unable to loot any plunder, though we still kill and wound more of their warriors. We also send out a team of explorers to the west but the distance is far enough away that we will only hear of them next year.
This year has been more violent than previous years but the mood of our people are jubilant due to a successful heroquest and we have won most of our battles.
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