> One of my players is so disgusted with the lack of response by his
clan
> to his rallying cry for them to join Starbrow's Rebellion that he
has
> asked me if he can disavow them and leave the clan. What's the
standard
> Orlanthi view on this? Can he? Does he have to do something weird
and
> mythological? (I know about the Humakt rituals: he's an
Orlanthi...)
Umm, does he really want to leave mummy and daddy and all his uncles and cousins to chew rotroot on some lonely upland hearth? Does he really want to leave behind those complex webs of support and obligation he's spent all his adult life developing? Has he considered what the alternatives really are?
I guess the analogy is wanting to give up say citizenship in protest of something our government has done. ('No I didn't vote for him either'). We talk abou it, but when it comes to the practicalities... Giving up your clan is giving up family as well, and most of your economic intangibles, and your religion (the difference between kinship and religion is blurred for most heortlings) and your shares in the stead and crops and some of the herds. In short, you may breath a big wind about the clan's cowardice, cause noises about it in the moot, call your thanes lie-me-downs and worse, but beyond all the huffing and puffing, changing clans would be a drastic and practically difficult step.
For the heortlings, being cut off from kin - in effect outlawry- is worse than death. Psychologically, I think it often amounts to the same thing. People can be adopted into other clans, but it would take years to reestablish yourself. He could do a humakti severence ritual, or become a trickster, but the greatest effect would probably come from him continuing to be a sulky, loud-mouthed, stubborn wearior whose very presence shames the cowards around him.
Perhaps your player will find another way, gather those loyal to Sartar about him, hone his sword and wait for the freedom wind to blow. It can't be more than a decade or two away. :) Come the hurricane!
John
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