> Do you always play a person who always understands the other person's
> point of view? Is this not as one-sided as the Wargamer's frothing
> Storm Bull? This is not a criticism, it's a query.
Nice to know you have such a high opinion of my tolerance and reasonableness (undeserved, IMHO). But nope, my characters are always partial, prejudiced and ignorant, whether they're big hairy barbarians, small squeaky page-boys, skinny Lhankor Mhy sages, fervent Lunar missionaries, chinless Imperial officers...
Thorgeir (my main Greydog character) just wants a quiet life. He married Placella (a big girl) so she'd stop the other clansmen beating him up, but she throws him out of the stead most summers so he isn't underfoot between sowing and harvest, which is when we go "adventuring" -- for the most part, this means doing whatever our chieftain needs done, whether it's trading with the Grazers, fighting for the Lunars, arranging our cousin's wedding, or making sure the Auld Mutz gets delivered along the Goodale Path.
Like most clansmen, Thorgeir respects his clan chieftain: *if* the chief told him to fight the Lunars, he'd pick up his hard hat and spears and join the fyrd. But if the chief *doesn't* tell him to do so, he wouldn't dream of starting Kinstrife and getting the Greydogs in trouble by going off on his own and offing a passing taxman. He just isn't a lone nut: he has a wife and kids and kin back home, and Greydog Village is down in the lowlands and unfortified (unless you count the tower the Lunars built nearby...).
Sure, you can agitate for whatever you want at the Weapontake meetings: rant in favour of genocidal war against all Chaos Fiends (if that turns you on). Many Orlanthi are outspoken hot-heads. But they're also Orlanthi: they shut up when the chief calls them to desist, and if the decision goes against them, no good Orlanthi would go off on his own to act directly against the wishes of his clan and chief. (That's what Gagarthi would do: that's how Kinstrife, Outlawry and Divorce happen).
It's perhaps because so many characters in the infancy of our hobby were quite context-free (no family or clan behind them, no respected social superiors to direct them, off wandering the Wastes or Wilds, a long way from their homeland) that "killing Lunars on sight" appears a viable way to behave. When you have to justify your actions to your community, or gain their approval ahead of time, or live as a normal member of society, at home with a wife and kids, it becomes obvious why Sartarite rebellions *aren't* constantly breaking out: once per generation seems to be the rule...
> In what period do you play? If you start charcters in the 1620's
> then maybe a character could have such feelings towards the Lunars.
> Twenty years is not a long time for bad feelings to disappear.
The Greydog Game has reached around 1617: our last major interactions with the Lunars were fighting for them as mercenary auxiliaries at the sack of Smithstone, after attending the Governor General's banquet at Boldhome, where we disgraced our clan chieftain (some say) by offing one of his other guests (a long-standing personal enemy from Far Point) in breach of the rules of hospitality and earned a hefty fine. Our characters have been "on the go" for years'n'years, now. Other games are from a variety of periods, mostly 1620-1625.
I don't agree, however, about how fast "bad feelings" would evaporate. I've been trying to argue that bad feeling against the Lunars is *not* so widespread and fervent that every True Sartarite would willingly kill any Lunar on sight, which certainly makes for more interesting games. Remember, it took 11 years after the Lunar Conquest before the first rebellion against it (Starbrow, 1613, which we Greydogs joined): this did NOT receive sufficient support to succeed, and was NOT crushed with overwhelming violence, atrocity and persecution: it looked more like the leaders selling out for a cushy deal in the face of insurmountable odds.
Sartarites are *good* at holding grudges: twenty years is nothing in the context of a clan feud. But they're not stupid: they fought against the Lunars in 1582 (and lost), 1602 (and lost), 1613 (and lost). Makes you kinda leery of provoking them unnecessarily, doesn't it?
There *are* Sartarites who lost "everything" in the Lunar Conquest, or at some subsequent point: families killed, clans destroyed. These guys can walk around in Rune Metal armour agitating for continual uprisings, if they want to: just remember that they don't have clans or kin to suffer in the aftermath...
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