Upon meeting a roofmaker:
Well met, maker of home's high thatching! Strong you build, but breeze blows briskly. Show me now your finest labors. If they defeat me I'll gift you gladly!
Storm lords regard a roof as a challenge--it's a human effort to defeat the weather. When a Storm Lord meets a roofmaker, he demands that the man show him a roof he has built. The storm lord will try to make rain fall through the roof (matching his wind and storm powers against the roofmaker's skill). If he fails the contest, he must give the roofmaker the price of two roofs, besides the cost of repairing any damage he did to the house. If he succeeds, he leaves with bragging rights, and the roofmaker has to repair the damage uncompensated.
Typically, a heortling roofmaker will leave one corner of a stead's roof partially unthatched, so rain can fall straight through (this is regarded as pious, showing that human efforts cannot hold out Orlanth). The roofmaker can bring the Storm Lord to such a house. In such a case, the storm lord will simply summon a shower, rain will fall through the roof, and the challenge will be over. If a roofmaker wishes, though, he can show the storm lord to a solidly-built (or thatched) roof, and let the storm lord do what he can. This is almost suicidally foolhardy, since the storm lord might just blow the whole building over in his efforts to break through the roof...
Okay, half-joking on this one. I'm just a wacky guy.
--AMS, who things heortling poetry needs more alliteration
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