I'm convinced. You guys may mock, but _I_ can tell the difference.
>Who is the patron of rice noodles? Rice Krispies.
Clearly, you are.
>I think it's important to state which folktales were literary
>inventions and which were adapted from earthly folktales
Okay, I'll fess up. Here are sources for all my tales:
MR. MAN'S DIATRIBE: pure Sandy
THE COUNCIL OF THE GODS (in which Pamalt is put on trial for wounding
Qualyorni): mostly Sandy, but part taken from Admiral Doenitz's
successful defense of submarine warfare at the Nuremberg trials.
A TYPICAL PAMALTELAN ANIMAL STORY (Brontothere and Fennec): taken from an American Indian source. Sadly, I don't remember which tribe, but it was a plains tribe -- originally Brontothere and Fennec were Bison and Coyote.
ARTMAL'S BATTLE WITH CRONISPER: based on an old English fairy story that my kids love.
PAMALT'S PROBLEM (in which Sikkanos and Vangono vie for Pamalt's throne): based on Abraham Lincoln's successful handling of Seward's and Chase's simultaneous attempts to wrest control of the government from him.
DUALA AND THE SEVEN MONSTERS: based on a West African folk tale.
You can see that I'm perfectly willing to steal from real events as much as from folk tales.
>I am not willing to accept an assassins' guild as reasonable in any
>game world, certainly not in glorantha. Since dart warriors seem,
>on the surface, to be remarkably similar to assassins' guilds, there
>must be something more to them that hasn't been revealed.
Dart warriors are NOT assassin's guilds, any more than the Blue Moon cult, the Black Fang underground, or Thanatari headhunters are an assassin's guild. While Glorantha probably does not have any assassin's guilds, it certainly has assassins. The dart warriors are not drawn from a guild -- they're murderers and spies, plain and simple. Some may be hired thugs, drawn from the dregs of Dara Happan society. Some may be professional gladiators or magicians, "turned" from their normal profession by bribery. Some may be trusted servitors of the Lord, sent on a secret mission against a rival house. Some may be actual members of the Lord's family -- a younger son, or daughter, given a false identity and sent out against a rival.
Let me give an example: Let us say that both Loren Miller and I were Pelorian nobility, and that his house was opposed to my own. Now, to deal with this menace, first I offer Tatius the Bright 50,000 lunars to have an "accident" during maneuvers in which Loren's son, one of Tatius's centurions, was tragically trampled to death. Then I had my house sorcerer summon up an incubus and sent it to Loren's bedroom in an attempt to seduce his chief wife -- once seduced, I plan to have the incubus talk her into telling me all Loren's plans. Then, at the county fair, I sneak poison into one of the lemon meringue pies that Loren's trusted seneschal is going to have to taste, since he's one of the judges. Then I hire a gang of scruffy Orlanthi bandits to kidnap Loren's local Chalana Arroy priestess for a few weeks ("Don't hurt her, just keep her incommunicado."), so she can't resurrect anyone while I'm doing all this. Etc.
Now, are Tatius the Bright, the incubus, the lemon meringue pie, and the Orlanthi bandits all Dart Warriors? Technically, I suppose. But I think this is more the way that the Dart Competitions go -- like a trashy spy novel, not a hokey assassins-guild quarrel.
>Q: If dart warriors kill children and extinguish bloodlines, as I
>presume they must, then would they not be much hated and reviled,
>and killed out of hand when revealed for what they are?
Who would hate and revile them? The peasantry? Only if they are loyal to their lords (questionable), since it's only the lord's heirs who are slain. Not the guy who's hiring them, for sure. Other Lords? They might hate it, but remember that there is no overarching rule of Law in Peloria -- the noble's words is law, and so if he doesn't condemn the dart warriors, who will? No doubt if an assassin is caught sneaking into the nursery, the guards will make short work of him (or perhaps torture him for information first), and no doubt a dart warrior's life is often a short one, but I don't think there's any laws catching them en masse.
>Q: I've been told by people who should know that Dart Warriors must
>identify themselves as such upon entering territories, and that they
>must pay excise fees and various tariffs.
This sounds completely bogus to me, unless they are identifying themselves only to Lunar Examiners bound to secrecy.
>Q: I've also been told by people who should know that dart warriors
>must wear bells on their clothing, which must be brightly colored
>like a clown's motley, in carmania.
This is no doubt an advertisement of their availability and macho-ness, much like the colorful tattoos boasted by Japan's gangster class. I suspect they don't wear the bells & co. when on a mission.
>Q: In a situation where the ruling noble of an area has hired dart
>warriors, and they walk around free in the area, would they not be
>targets for ambushes and assassination attempts at least as often as
>they originate such attempts?
Of course.
>Q: Do nobles use dart warriors against commoners?
Yes. But only when the commoner's death somehow helps him in his plans. For instance, murdering the cook so that you could replace him with your own man.
>Q: Do commoners use dart warriors against nobles?
I doubt it.
>Q: Where do dart warriors come from? Are they soldiers gone bad,
>gutter criminals, houseless noble warriors, foreign thugs,
>thanatari,krarshti, or what?
I have attempted to answer this above.
>Q: Did any famous lunars ever start as dart warriors?
Probably. I don't know enough about contemporary Lunar nobility to answer this. Technically, Tatius's undermining of Fazzur's authority and eventual usurpation of his position is a mild dart competition of sorts. No doubt Fazzur's incompetence in defending himself against Tatius's machinations was the result of his long stay on the frontier, where he had gotten rusty at such maneuverings.
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