Wesley Quadros says:
me:
> > >> We know that there are plenty of Gloranthan cultures
>with unsavory
>> >>practices -- Aramites, Uz, the Carmanians, the Char-Un and their
>
>IMO the Char-Un (and the Pentans) practise no more unsavoury practices
>than anybody else does. People seem to be fixated on a Char-Un
>propensity for rape. I don't know where this comes from.
I certainly don't know. It seems to be received wisdom. Certainly the Char-Un as portrayed in _Tarsh War_ are ugly pieces of work.... If rape isn't so prevalent , there's still torture, needless cruelty, burnt-earth tactics, and other crimes against nature.
[snip]
>IMO this is a repuation that they have developed - in certain places -
>over centuries of fanatic service to the Goddess being used as terror
>troops in the Empire's conquests. I don't think that there is any more
>rape going on in CHar-Un homelands than there is in Glamour or Sartar
[snip]
>Don't forget that most atrocities committed by any army, including the
>Char-Un, are not done at home. They are done in somebody else's city or
>village. So if there is a general rape of somewhere the chaos that is
>birthed/grown/summoned by that act will be drawn there. By the time
>that it has manifested the Char-Un that did it is long gone.
I hadn't thought of that -- Char-Un soldiers are as likely to "leave chaos behind them" as suffer it themselves. It's a "tactic" that might appeal to nomads. Maybe the Shaman can nominate a scapegoat to take on all the bad karma of the raiding group before they return home, keeping the nastiness away from the tribe.... On the other hand, I don't know if "psycho on the warpath, decent pillar of the community at home" is a realistic psychological profile....
Peter Larsen
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