Hello, and welcome back to A Long Time Ago, the ongoing column that explores ways for you to use the rich trove of world mythology to make your roleplaying characters, stories, and events come more powerfully to life. Last week, you may recall, we began exploring the Hero's Journey, a.k.a. the Monomyth, in order to show some ways that this potent, universal story framework can inspire vibrant  roleplaying in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Remember, Lucas leaned hard on the Hero's Journey in scripting the original Star Wars trilogy, so there's a lot to be gained by putting it to work in your own personal Old Republic saga.

Last week we had just barely dipped our toe into the Hero's Journey by looking at the Call to Adventure, the first sub-stage of Departure. (Departure itself is the first of the three main chapters that together make up the Monomyth. The other two, you may remember, are Initiation and Return, both of which will get their own columns in the coming weeks.) In order to demonstrate some concrete applications of the Hero's Journey, we focused on two example Old Republic characters: the young Jedi Consular Heran Sol, whose player wants to roleplay an ongoing subplot in which Heran falls in love with exactly the wrong person; and Torr Kleshic, a murderous Sith Warrior whose player is exploring a dangerous rivalry between Torr and another player's Sith. Let's follow these two through the next few stages of their Departures and see how their players might use the Monomyth for storytelling and roleplaying inspiration.