>> I am still trying to figure out what the actual odds of dying are,
>> though.
I'd put them as very low provided everyone follows their roles correctly - probably on the level of being killed in a car accident. It's not a high risk quest, it's something the clan performs several times a year. With the Hero Wars this changes because people are mucking up the Hero Plane and interfering with other people's quests to gain advantage.
>Sorry, can't help. I'm just trying to make the point that even a
>very low chance of dying (in terms of clan survivability) is pretty
>scary when applied to you, personally. Much nicer odds have scared
>people off eating raw eggs, British beef, and driving without a
>seatbelt (picking the nearest examples to come to mind)
Conversely Heortlings don't share our western fear of mortality, they know that after death they will go to Orlanth's or Ernalda's halls until they are ready to be reborn. Their equivelent fear is being destroyed utterly by chaos.
>> Still, an intriguing concept. Would you think that the
>> girls/women could
>> have some influence on this? After all, Ernalda has many
>> husband/protectors in other cultures. All Orlanthi would
>> think of it as
>> being Orlanth, but that's an Orlanthi all. Does not Ernalda
>> provide some ability to choose her own husband?
>
>There's also the Ernalda subcults, many of whom are daughters of
>Ernalda and married to someone other than Orlanth. I'm not sure
>if this applies at this level of initiation, or whether it comes
>later, or what?
I think Esrolian women are really shocked that their sisters in Heortland mostly rely on a single husband/protector. I don't see the initands having much influence here - they'll be starting to think of husbands but won't have met any possible matches yet. What I see happening is that the clan women chose a few men from the clan to play the parts of Orlanth and the Thunder Brothers in the HQ without telling them what's actually going on. These are older married men who can be relied on to follow their role and keep their mouth shut. So it's subcults like Durev, Orstan and Orlanthcarl rather than Destor and Vangarth who tend to be represented. Of course at times someone unexpected turns up, like an Uroxi drawn to the chaos on the hero plane.....
It's not so much about choosing a particular husband, which is later, but social conditioning in what a good husband is like. Like most conditioning it works an Orlanthi all of the time.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/ ------------------------------
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