Bear with me and Caste in iron

From: Erik Sieurin <BV9521_at_utb.hb.se>
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 17:59:01 +0100

Loren:
> > Friend of all bears, Able to speak with bears,
> > Able to hibernate along with an army of followers, Able to
> > control bears, and will never be attacked by bears. +50% Body
> > for defense.

Peter:
> I don't think so as he's apostate from the Rathori. Hence all
> bears (save the Polar Bear) would hate him.
Yes, but they might still FEAR him, and thus obey him (though grudgingly) and won't attack him out of fear. Jose Ramos on caste mobility:
> - Travel and simulation. Simply, you go far away and assume a caste
> you do not have. The most usual are Farmers as Knights and Knights as
> Lords, as other simulations will be harder. The drawbacks are that you
> cannot return (openly), you have to be really far (much further for a
> lord)

Which is a relative thing, considering how little people travel. However, this also means that since they know it is a possibility that a false knight may try to fool them, at least Lord may try to check such things up (keeping in touch with politics, and asking Those Who Have Been There, like knights on campaigns, pilgrims and (shudder) merchants).

> For obvious reasons, not many people impersonate wizards.
Hehe. A Wizard may try to pretende he is greater than he is, however. And certainly, when you are dealing with peasants whose local village wizard knows three spells and only can manage to bless newborn children due to the ancient baptismal font with an enchantment in it, and barely reads Western, you can put on quite a show of "holyness".

> - A Lord incapable of defending his subjects, or supporting his
> retainers will be disgraced, lose his fief and turn into a knight (in
> extreme cases a farmer). Losing the fief is usually enough. Second and
> later sons, as they will usually not get a fief, will be inmediately
> knights (although it will be easier for them to rise up again).
I think of Lords as being of two types: ecclesiastical and mundane. Thus, IMG a Bishop is of the Lord caste. I thus would add the ecclesiastic equivalent, which is a bishop, archbishop or abbot deposed by a superior, rival or the massed outrage of underling priests and monks. He will be declared a common Wizard and usually forced to become a hermit or retreat to a monastery.

"The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea, in a beautiful pea-green boat..."
>From "The Owl and the Pussycat" by Edward Lear

Erik Sieurin
bv9521_at_utb.hb.se
Bodagatan 39, 2 tr
50742 Boras
Sweden
033/141731

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End of Glorantha Digest V4 #186

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WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html