HEORTLING WARFARE / POINTY BITS

From: John Hughes <nysalor_at_primus.com.au>
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 15:34:43 +1100


HEORTLING WARFARE Mat <Bender the Robot>:

> Mike and others speculate about why spears were so prevalent in RW armies.
> Col. David Grossman, in his book "On Killing," has an extensive discussion
> about this very issue. One important point (no pun intended): a minor
> puncture wound can be deadly, while a slashing wound tends to get air in
it
> and is more likely to avoid tetanus. Further, the fear of pointy things
is
> deeply ingrained (it's why nobody likes getting shots), and a pointy
weapon
> has a powerful psychological effect on foes, which wouldn't be present in
an
> SCA fight. Third, spears lend themselves to unit combat, in which it is
the
> unit which takes responsibility for killing, thus lessening the psychic
> burden of killing a fellow human being. YGMV, and in fact official
> Glorantha may vary, depending on whether healing magic is common or rare.

Grossman's book blew me way, and I'd recommend it heartily to anyone wanting to pierce some of the more gung-ho mythology about warfare, the behaviour of men in battle, and the effects of media culture. On a similar topic, I'd also recommend the first chapters of "Battle Cries and Lullabies - Women in War from Prehistory to the Present" by Linda Grant De Pauw.

Matt's insight leads me to raise the broader topic of Heortling warfare, why it occurs, and what is about.

I think there's a definite continuum of Heortling battle practice that we've tended to ignore - from game-like 'friendly' battles with other clans or 'ritual' enemies to the all-out kill-or-be-killed bloodletting associated with Chaos incursions.

I believe that most Heortling battle practice has traditionally been closer to the "battle as sport" end of the scale. My reason: MONOGAMY. Though Heortling society is violent, and most warriors are male, it has never had to adjust itself to a shortage of men: polygyny (taking multiple wives) is very rare. (The argument could be developed and expanded, but I'm in broad strokes mode).

Just as a Heortling's social universe has close kin at the centre stretching out to non-kin, then non Orlanthi non-kin (fourways), then non-humans, so I think that appropriate battle behaviour also has implicit or explicit "rules" depending on your relationship with the enemy and the reason for the fight. (Ditto with cattle raiding and other activities).

In certain circumstances there may well be good reasons to discourage lethal weapons or zero/all tactics in order to concentrate on the colour, the insults, the rash daring and the loud boasting. And if you're defending against raiders or less than totally-committed foes, flash, thunder and bravado may do a better job in driving them away with little or no risk to you and your kin.

Why do warriors fight battles? There are lots of reasons, many of them nothing to do with strategy or economic needs. Warfare is considered a rite of passage that makes men "men", a demonstration of courage that grants you acceptance as a man/adult. Its a way of proving and increasing your status and reputation, of showing off your best moves, of building trust/bonding with your kin, and of gaining those martial anecdotes so necessary at feasts and fireside. (In a warrior culture, if there aren't reasons for occassional battles then it becomes necessary to invent them.)

At risk of over-generalising, I think we have to give more emphasis to the psychological /ritual side of Heortling battle, ESP at the inter-clan and tribal level, and see it more dependent on the effects of boasting, cheering, insults, taking coup, rash deeds and the clash of champions than on gross body counts. The HW system, with its de-emphasis on direct battle magics, is already pointing in this direction.

I do not see it as inconceivable that two clans might been feuding or rivals for a century or more over, say, a contested piece of territory, and have an annual battle over its possession. Nor do I think it inconceivable that they would meet on an agreed day at an agreed spot, with the noncombatants on nearby hills to cheer them on. They boast, insult and jeer for hours, as much for fellow clansfolk and onlookers as the enemy, their champions clash, and then they engage with relatively few deaths or even casualties until one side's shield wall breaks and they flee the field. Their will be a joint feast afterward, and perhaps even inter-clan marriages to celebrate or seal the outcome. This is obviously at one pole of the spectrum, war-as-ritual, war-as-game, but this model is extremely common in real world tribal warfare.

Even with *real* enemies, there are very strong disincentives to killing - an area explored by Col. Grossman in the book mentioned by Matt.

There is the other pole of course, the dread reality of the eternal battle with chaos - against goat-kin and worse where death is the most benign outcome and mercy is neither given nor expected, the battles that drive men and women mad and throw survivors into pathological cults like Urox, Humakt and Gor Gor Maran. I don't want to deemphasise this other extreme. I *do* wish however, we used a bit more creativity and imagination in considering the range of Gloranthan warfare - that's what the Lozenge is supposed to be all about.

The Lunars break most of the "rules" for civilised battle -fighting out of season, killing prisoners etc.- and the last twenty years have seen tremendous as Heortlings have learnt "from scratch" to effectively battle Lunar forces. Nonetheless, Heortling traditional ways remain strong.

This is an enormous topic, deserving a few systematic essays - certainly far more than I can cover in a lunchtime post. I look forward to the discussion.

Cheers

John



nysalor_at_primus.com.au John Hughes

His eyes like furnace doors ajar.

When he had got its weight
and let his industry console his grief a bit,  'I'll fight'
he said. Simple as that. 'I'll fight.'

And so Troy fell.

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