>> Does anyone know what the Lunar attitude to wereguild is?
The PCs in my campaign (lunar soldiers occupying Sartar) are about to find out. After a young, drunken Sartarite attacked (well, sort of) one of the PCs, Scivio Porcinius (their superior) demanded blood in retribution (he wasn't too particular on whose, just so long as it was Sartarite blood). The malefactor beat feet to the hills, taking refuge with a notoriously anti-Lunar clan chief. The PCs decided it was too dicey to root him out and too heinous to punish somebody else, so they turned to Sartarite justice to punish him. Their first blunder was to agreed to accept weregild for the attack, rejecting it only when they realized how little the weregild was for drunken assaul. They then decided on a duel to first blood, which the designated PC won (at no great injury to the young Sartarite). The Sartarites are satisfied, as are the PCs. They have just returned to Scivio Porcinius to report the success of their mission. He is not pleased.
The way I figured it, weregild goes hand-in-hand with a vendetta system. It's an acknowledgement that you can't stop people from killing each other, so it's at least some deterrent to retribution (if not the original act) to compensate the victims. All this is anathema to the Lunars, who value the rule of law (especially their law). Ever since they conquered Sartar, the Lunars have been trying to stop the Sartarites from fighting each other and stealing each other's livestock.
I think Scivio has decided the PCs are incapable of handling the situation. Accordingly, he has assigned some less squeamish troops to take care of the situation. You just can't let the natives get away with stuff like that. What that does to the PCs credibility both with their superiors and with the local population remains to be seen.
Dennis
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