Sword Stories.

From: Alex Ferguson <alex_at_dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: Sun, 19 Mar 95 18:49:24 GMT


Sandy Petersen agrees with the thoughts of:
> Dave Cake describes a Babeester Gor myth in which she attains Death
> by grabbing it off Zorak Zoran's axe while still in the womb.

> >I dislike this version, because in this version Babs got her death
> >powers from ZZ, which hardly seems write for the premier Earth death
> >deity to have got her powers second hand from a Darkness guy.

The whole Sword Story has people getting it off of the most implausible of people, so I see little difficulty there. Even Humakt gets Death "second hand", and everyone else is third, fourth... etc.

> I don't accept this version either. I think she did not
> obtain death until she added the "Gor" fragment to her name, which
> occurred after her birth.

The Orlanthi tale seems to have Eurmal as the intermediary in most, if not all cases, so an obvious ploy would be to have Babs pulp the little bleeder to get the weapon, and then castrate him with it.

Of Erik's Eurmal steals Death from Humakt to give to Orlanth theory:
> Your drama was so amusing I weakened. But it still has the
> one remaining feature that Humakt has already cut off his kinship,
> which I don't think happens until after Orlanth steals the sword and
> offends Humakt.

I'm sure this is right, but that's just an aside, not a key part of the story. With this deletion, I should think that Tricksters, at least, tell it pretty much this way. I sniggered greatly at the bit where Eurmal calls Orlanth "darling": a Camp Luvvie aspect of the Monomythic Tricker God, anyone? (Perhaps following the example of S. Fry, this is a combination of the Fool and Truant aspects.)

I was about to take Sandy to task for apparently insisting on One True Version of the myth, but I now approvingly note that he gives two versions; one where Orlanth is given the sword willingly (the most common Orlanthi version, doubtless), and one where Orlanth himself steals it (a shocking imputation, only told by cynical, embittered Humakti types, I'm sure). A version where Eurmal steals it is ambiguous where the "blame" lies, and also fits the "pattern" of Eurmal always being the intermediary, so is doubtless told by diplomatic skalds and God Learner symps (to wit, Issaries cultists in both cases).

TZ trolls:
> I would suggest that we concur that Humakti and Eurmal have the
> status of foreigners.

I would suggest we concur that they're not remotely of the same status. Tricksters are Outlaws. No, really. That they're not (always) (mis)treated quite as harshly as someone who is outlaw for some crime or other doesn't alter this basic legal fact. Tricksters aren't just people with a wergeld of zilch, which would not normally allow them to be killed with impunity, they can, in fact, be killed with impunity, unless they have sworn loyalty to some Orlanthi type, in which case you now have him to answer to.

Humakti aren't in any way outside of the law, it's just that they might have chosen to be "not kin" to some greater or lesser extent. To what extent is partly a matter of local custom, and partly down to the discetion of the particular cultist. If it's in his sordidly personal or political interests to remove himself from his family, or from his bloodline, or his clan, or indeed his whole tribe, then he has a handy precedent for doing so. Wanting to cut oneself off from the whole of Orlanthi society would be something of an extreme case, to say the least.

Nils is still, amazingly, west of the Zola Fel:
> So what I'm saying is in summary that a Sword may marry and have a family,
> but cannot engender any children. This is just a clarification, not an
> effort to drag out an even longer discussion.

I think this is backwards, myself. If it is believed that Swords' fertility Don't Work No More, this would first of all manifest itself as a social prohibition (no marriage, and/or no nookie), and only in more extreme cases as an actual physical or magical impediment in one's, uh, smallsword.

Aidan Dixon:
> Going on the RQ3 principle of the gift reflecting the geas, or vice
> versa, my thoughts/suggestions for an appropriate gift fall into 3
> groups. Perhaps one of the following might work:

My preference would be for a "social" type of Gift, so that for one thing Gift and Geas would be somewhat self-balancing whether one's game is roleplaying-heavy, or a hackfest. (Present company excluded from the latter, I'm sure.) Something on the lines of Gain Impressive Macho Aura of Death Aspectedness, perhaps.

> It should be noted that unless you consider the gift/geas to render
> the Humakti sterile, or play that all appropriate Gloranthan cultures
> have a 100% effect contraceptive or abortifacient spell or herb, this
> geas is effectively equivalent to a total celibacy geas.

Not in the first instance, though having such an Unplanned Offspring would presumably break the geas. Though possibly, a male cultist could avoid the affects by refusing to acknowledge the child as his...

Alex.


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