Moi aussi. Lismelder Reproductive Fitness would take a bit of a hammering were this true. However, I do agree that for a variety of reasons, Humakti are, in the main, Less Successfully Fertile than the general populace, so David D.'s -3/-6 may be justified in at least that sense, if not by any direct magical effect (which I'm currently agnostic about).
Including:
> I think it very appropriate that a possible geas be "never have children"
> or "never engage in coitus." However, I think automatic infertility upon
> inititation is too extreme.
And more to the point, much less colourful and interesting than Fine Suggestions like the above.
There are also rather mundane reasons for possibly low(ish) Humakti reproduction rates, such as lifestyles incompatible with homebodiness, self-selection of candidates making them unlikely to be the rake about town, comformance to Humakti stereotype, low marginal propensity to sit around with flowers in their hair at Ernaldan rituals, and generally poor chat-up lines. ("Do you come here often?" "My business is Death, and business is good.")
> This, of
> course, avoids the question "Should the Humakti Beserker spell really be
> redefined as 'Death Song'?", which came up on the Digest several years ago.
It does? How's that, then? I thought, personally. the question arose mainly because Death Song is a Cool Name.
> I think it far more appropriate that infertility be a side-effect of some
> special Humakt heroquest. Or, perhaps some GMs might introduce the idea of
> gifts & geasa of increasing severity; only Swords could take them.
Pretty much the Same Difference, really. Any Sufficiently Advanced Gift is Indistinguishable from a HQ power. ;-) Or put less frivolous: to get any geas ought to require a minor HeroQuest; for progressively more elaborate G&G's, simply delete the "minor". My own feeling is that resemblance between the restriction on the cultist of a geas, and the much-argued-about phenomenon of Loss of (Free) Will from HQing generally is not coincidental.
One might also lose one's fertility in an _unsuccessful_ HQ, rather than calculatingly sacrificing it. Cf. HQ's to Asrelia's Hut (I think), as an analogue for such.
The practice of genital mutiliation or amputation is _certainly_ plenty "colourful", and has ample RW precedent, too. (And clinchingly, a mention in _Soldier in the Mist_.) But that's not so much a Death God thing, methinks, as a Malign Earth custom, at least principally. Most obviously, Babs Gor and her Auntie Maran, but I think the pattern is likely to be bordering on the Monomythically General. (See Jresteli Institute of Mythtechnics research monograph KRR55/8765/T4B, Figure 23, "Guys with filled-in Runes plotted against ambient genitalia count.")
Generically,
Alex.
Powered by hypermail