>Humakti, IMHO, are not generally disassociated with healers (except for
some
fanatics) and their healing magics.
Put it another way: who, aside from the chaotic deities and possibly Zorak Zoran, is _less_ beholden to Chalana Arroy than Humakt? Humakt supports the Lead Cross HeroQuest, and has no obligation or special relationship to CA. Humakt owns Death. This makes him as unassociated with healers a PC deity can get.
I consider the anti-healing magic geas to be complete. The Humakti has severed himself from Life by joining his soul to Humakt. Accepting that geas is but an extra step. He may even feel revulsion or nausea from magical healing.
(Aren't Humakti geasa chosen?)
>After taking that particular oath, though, to allow themselves to be
magically healed, would be to break faith with Humakt. Similarly, the
Humakti
have a pact that once they're dead, they stay dead. err, that is, they
proudly go to fight by Humakts side.
This is another way to look at it - more from the Truth point of view.
>However, they [healers] would use first aid, and any plants, medicines,
healing
techniques, strenghtening exercises etc at their disposal to aid healing
(sometimes close enough to what can be achieved with magic but taking
seasons).
Well, yes, if they already had answered the first question: "Who the heck is this butcher and why should I waste my time?"
>And now, after having tried to fit the above in Glorantha, methinks the
mechanism is for game balance.
Instead of worrying about game mechanics, consider why the initiate chose the no-healing/double damage pact. Such is not the action of a sane person wishing to live a long and complete life. It is the choice of a desperate person with a terrible and final goal. Once that goal is achieved, the initiate is only seeking to join Humakt anyway.
Ask, too - why did your PC choose Humakt? It it because Humakt embodies the values they want to explore, or because he has all the cool combat spells?
Geasa in General
I am a fan of geasa coming from mythical reasons. Only a few cult descriptions have written geasa, but I give them to many Gloranthan cultures. Praxians and Hsuncheon have many taboos, Yelmies have the 237 Laws of Cleanliness, and Ernaldans preform a hundred little rituals daily. But peoples think of these obligations in different ways. Thus the Humakti, with an Orlanthi attention to legal detail, would think: "I've made a pact with Humakt; I will accept no magical healing, and in return he will strengthen my blows." A Yelmalian, with solar empasis on ancestry and community, would think "I must not harm a horse because it would displease Yelmalio and harm a distant brother." An Ernaldan would say: "I do this because my mother did, and her mother did... This pleases the Earth spirits, so we will have cabbages in the spring."
Pam
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