PJO & HP for Dummies

PJO: Quests

I haven't updated this guide in so long.... Sorry guys, I've been focusing on writing Moros that I almost forgot about this 😅 But on a lighter note, yesterday I finished writing chapter nineteen for Moros! 

Okay, now onto the actual topic: quests. 

I'll be talking about canon quests first.

People ALWAYS include their OC into Percy's quest, and that's perfectly fine but the thing is... it's not that easy. Three is a very important number in the PJO world; three Fates, the Big Three, THREE QUESTERS. 

Chiron said it himself, it's only three questers allowed. If the prophecy says there's more than three, then some demigods die that way only three would come back (remember The Titan's Curse?). So going off on this, I still think it's important for you authors to follow the rule of three because Chiron literally talks about it in canon, so how would you explain why your OC was able to attend a quest when it's strictly three people only? You can't exactly have Chiron say shit like, "It's important that there are only three people per quest... Oh but it's okay if *OC name* joins because she's special!" 

Nooooo. Please avoid doing that.

Before you start spamming the comments with "but author there were more than three kids in this one quest—!", let me give you a rundown on how the quests went in the canon series. 

The Lightning Thief: 

It was only Percy, Grover, and Annabeth. So three. Pretty simple. 

The Sea of Monsters: 

Clarisse was the only official quester.

Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson were unofficial questers, whose main goal was to basically rescue Grover. Again, see how it's still three people??? 

They sneaked out of camp, did all the quest shit and rescued Grover. Grover was not an official or even an unoffical quester, he was just being rescued by the questers. So he does not count.

So near the end of the book, they had Clarisse go back to camp alone, as she is the official quester and the prophecy even stated that she would come back alone. That leaves the three unofficial questers and Grover. They get captured by Luke, blah blah blah, escape, and go back to camp.

Again, it's Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson—the three unofficial questers—and Grover, who they rescued. 

The Titan's Curse: 

First of all, RIP Bianca di Angelo, Zoe Nightshade 😞 And RIP Nico's happiness...

Okay, the prophecy this time states that five people will be part of the quest. Those five people are Zoe, Bianca, Thalia, Grover, and Percy (who sneaked out of camp to join the quest). Phoebe was supposed to come, but she got ill and Zoe decided not to ask anyone else to join them. That's where Percy came in. He sneakily joined the quest and actually became the fifth quester. 

Their objective is to rescue Artemis and Annabeth. 

And well... you guys probably already know what happens. Bianca gets killed and then Zoe gets killed. But hey, at least they rescued Artemis and Annabeth........

😭 😭 😭 😭

So yeah... they all go back to camp, the three questers (Percy, Thalia, and Grover), and Annabeth, who was rescued and was not a quester. 

The Battle of the Labyrinth: 

Another prophecy, this time Annabeth's the one who gets it. She chooses Percy, Grover, and Tyson, which makes four people. 

I got this part from the wiki because they explain it better than me: 

"During the quest, Grover Underwood and Tyson were separated from Annabeth and Percy. Percy was then separated from Annabeth, but found his way back to camp. Before going to try again, they picked up a mortal girl named Rachel Elizabeth Dare to help, bringing the number back to three."

The quest was mainly about finding Daedalus, which is what Annabeth, Percy, and then Rachel, were more focused on. Grover and Tyson separated pretty early from the quest to find Pan, so I guess, in a way, they were no longer 'official questers' since their goal was different than the actual quest itself. 

Oh and Nico is a part of this quest too, but he's not actually a quester. He was already in the Labyrinth when the quest began and he pretty much just went with the flow of the things. So yeah, he's not a quester. 

The Last Olympian: 

No quest. Just war. And death. And pain..............

HOO: 

Don't even get me STARTED on this train wreck omfg. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE RULE OF THREES RICK?!?!?!?! 

Like... I love the characters (except Piper), don't get me wrong. I don't WANT any of them to die, but... but Rick emphasized the rule of threes in the first series and then in HOO it all just... disappeared??? Whyyyyyy

The only one who died was Jason and Leo, but that doesn't even count CUZ THEY COME BACK TO LIFE!!!! Piper charmspeaks Jason back to life (somehow, wtf), and Leo comes back in TOA through the Physician's Cure. So it's still seven demigods who live!!! I honestly expected four of them to die so only three would come back home because, you know, THE RULE OF THREE!!!

SO YEAH, THREE PEOPLE ONLY.

If you wanna add your OC into any of the canon quests, you'll have to be a bit more creative on how. 

So option 1: they don't HAVE to be an official/unofficial quester. Just like with Annabeth from The Titan's Curse, they could maybe be rescued by the questers and join in on the adventure. Or they could be like Nico from The Battle of the Labyrinth, where the questers find the OC and the OC just... joins in on the adventure and shit. 

But if you wanna do option 2, which is having your OC be an official/unofficial quester, then you'll still have to be creative on how. 

Firstly, you'll have to change the prophecy if they specify the number of questers. That's the easy part. 

But the rule of three still stands, so you're gonna have to figure out how your OC returns to camp without breaking that rule. You can either kill your OC off... or do something else that makes it so the OC returns to camp WITHOUT the other three. 

(I'll let you guys figure that part out though, so have fun!)

(Also, please don't replace a character just so your OC could be part of the quest.)

Now... making your own quest... 

This is gonna be so short since I have zero experience with it, but here we go.

You gotta make you're own prophecy, unfortunately, but we'll deal with that later. You should plan the PLOT of your quest first and then make the prophecy based off of it. 

As for the prophecy, you gotta make it rhyme. I know, it's hard, I'm sorry, but the prophecies always rhymed. Your prophecy should be pretty vague though, and it should be confusing, but still have some helpful details for the questers. 

Now, your quests don't HAVE to be world-ending like most of Percy's quests. Luke was given a quest by Hermes to get the golden apple and the world wasn't gonna end if he failed. 

But it should still be a pretty big deal like "if you fail then THIS horrible thing will happen", but the consequences don't have to be 'the end of the world'. 

....THIS IS ALL I HAVE! SORRY! Like I said, I have zero experience in making my own quests...