> accepts to take him as an "oathguest", then the whole clan is bound. The
> oathguest and his host swear an oath by Orlanth in presence of the clan
> chieftain. In some clans, only the chieftain may take a man as an
oathguest.
In most societies, guests can remain until they drive the host insane,
unless
they promise to stay only a limited time. This is just one of the reasons
that accepting a guest is a sacred thing. This is also why wise hosts ask
a prospective guest how long they intend to stay, up front (if the guest
is caught lying about it, he can be ejected with no loss of honor, although
not if the guest is forced to stay for reasons beyond his control, like
being snowed in), rather than giving an open-ended commitment. This is
usually handled in the Greeting, of course, but not all guests are handled
so formally all the time. For example, when your children or step-children
from another clan show up.
> The oathguest still has no kin, no political rights, but he is free (and
> must work for the clan). As DLoD says, a thrall without the name.
A thrall isn't free, though, and can be casually killed like any other animal, with the payment of a small fee to the owner. The oathguest would have to be at least as free as one of the host's children. The oathguest also still has his own kin somewhere, by the way, who WILL take vengence for slights to whatever extent that they can.
> I'm not sure what responsibilities are involved by becoming the host of
> an oathguest. I think the oathguest owes his safety only to his host
> clan's honor. If your Uroxi psychopath wants to kill him, no law will
> protect him. The guest has no kin to defend him. The Uroxi usually
> keeps quiet when the host is the chieftain, though.
If your Uroxi psychopath wants to kill anyone, including his closest kin, no law will protect them. It can only make restitution when possible, and punishment when not, after the offense is committed.
In any society that I have heard about, if a Uroxi kills your guest he has severely dishonored you, and probably owes you as much weregeld as if he had killed you, instead. You, in turn, will owe weregeld to the guest's relatives if they ever show up, and you cannot keep it quiet in the hope that they don't, any more than any other murder can be legally kept quiet. If you ever visit them, expect to pay then, if it has not been handled before this.
Of course, normally you and your family are expected to try to stop Hannibal Uroxi before he kills your guests, not wait until it happens and try to make a profit from the difference in bloodprices.
> If the oathguest does some wrong to a clan member, the victim's kin will
> have no problem beating him and kicking him out of the tula, or just
> killing him.
If a guest does some wrong, the guilt for his offense is transferred to the host, who is responsible for any fines or weregelds (ignore the redundancy here). If the host wants to demand repayment of any fine, later, that is a sub-judicial matter between the two people.
> I even think that if the guest is an Alakoring and all his kin is dead,
> he still has kinship ties with the Alakorings as a bunch, and won't
> change to Heortling so easily.
No, his kinship ties are to his kin, not to any abstract thing like Alakorings (or even to Orlanthi in general). If he chooses to make new ones because his old are gone that is between him and the new group, and maybe his ancestors if they are strong enough to care. We can also ignore that Alakorings ARE Heortlings, here.
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