But only you like that sort of issue in your game :-)
>
> > >bear in mind that abandoning
> > >family and clan is one of the worst crimes in Heortling society
> >
> > but they are not "abandoning family and clan", they are serving
> them by
> > taking a ritual and legal role essential in Heortling society...
> >
>
> If it was just a 1 hour ritual and then everything went back to
> normal then perhaps I would agree but in most cases the prospective
> Humakti leaves the clan for at least a year to learn how to be a
> proper Humakti amongst a warband.
I don't recall anything to this effect in the books. Storm Tribe says Humakti can resheath 'after your initiation', which is admittedly vague, but I've always assumed to mean 'immediately after, if you like' (which is what I believe 95% or so of Humakti do). It could be I'm just forgetting some piece of information somewhere, though, in which case <shrug> my Glorantha varies...
> If they then resheath there is no
> particular reason why they should do so in their birth clan. By
> contrast most Heortling men never leave their tula.
In contrast, I would say that the vast majority would, indeed, resheath in their birth clans - even if they do leave for a year. Resheathing to a different clan would be a really unusual event, IMO - although it would be much more common to resheath to something other than a clan, such as a tribal king or the Royal House of Sartar.
> > but I think they _do_ benifit from the emotional and ritual bonds
> of society
> > even if they do so indirrectly - for a real world parrallel,
> everyone hates
> > coppers and they consequently live largely outside of the rest of
> society
> > (only dating/marrying/drinking and socialising with other coppers),
>
> *bzzzt* My sister is living with a policeman and she has most
> certainly never been in the police herself. Poor metaphor perhaps.
One of my players is a policeman. I'm fairly sure I'm not one, so I guess he must socialise with at least one non-cop :-)
> A better metaphor might have been executioners, who used to wear a
> hood precisely to avoid the sort of reaction that I believe Humakti
> should get.
Yup.
> , but IMO they are a lot less interesting than the basically
> > sane individuals (with family, wife and kids, who chose to deal
> death as a
> > profession (e.g. professional soldiers, mercenaries etc in the real
> world)
>
> In which case perhaps you could just use Stakval, Destor et al and
> don't bother with the Humakt cult at all.
That doesn't really work if you want all the powers, geases, etc. from the Humakt cult, and its just the anti-social stuff you want to minimise. Far easier, IMO, to change the one detail about Humakt than to change all the powers, etc. for Starkval or Destor - especially if you want both sets of powers available in your game!
> IMO the point of having
> cults like Humakt in the game is to allow for outsiders who are a bit
> different in attitude and outlook and who don't quite fit in.
I do actually agree with that, funnily enough, but the 'nobody wants to socialise with them' is not an aspect of their difference that I'm interested in exploring. Sure, its in the official rules, and I'm under no illusion that my campaign is non-canonical in that respect, but I'd rather do what's fun for me :-)
-- Trotsky Gamer and Skeptic ------------------------------------------------------ Trotsky's RPG website: http://www.ttrotsky.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
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