That's a great idea, Julian. The PC's adulthood rites can each have some unique feature which is amazing/troubling to the clan. They can then spend a good deal of time trying to find the answers to their oddness, or celebrating it/developing it.
Thanks!
> > (2) Is there a reference to something on the 'net about what
> > the rite feels like from the Not Adults' point of view? The
> > description in /TR/ is evocative, but not very detailed.
>
> Literature. Just read some Heroic Fiction, Mythology, see
> some classic movies.
>
> Big Hint :if it's in Star Trek, then that's probably not what
> you're looking for ...
I have read lots of heroic fiction, and I'm not novice to mythology, or "classic cinema", and realize that Star Trek is mostly narrative pablum. However, I was hoping for some insight into *Orlanthi* experience, and not necessarily, say, Trobriander experience, or Balinese experience, or Arapaho experience...
> A *real* initiation is always an atrocious, heart-rending,
> emotionally violent, physically difficult, desperate
> undertaking : one that shouldn't usually be provided by an RPG
> ... we *are* doing this for FUN y'know ... :-)
But part of the fun is overcoming atroicous, heart-rending, emotionally violent, difficult in-game circumstances. Otherwise, it's merely stickpicking and Lunar-slaying, isn't it?
> I don't really think you should run it as a real scenario.
OK. Why do you think this?
> Anyway, the core Heortling Initiations are provided in two ways :
[snip]
Thanks for this analysis; there's some good ideas in here, too.
> > Finally, I know that female and male rites happen on a different
> > time scale amongst the Orlanthi:
>
> That's not quite true : probably the most important initiation
> rite gathers the males and females together, establishing once
> and for all *exactly* why men and women are different.
But, /Thunder Rebels/ explicitly says that the female rites are an annual event, but the male rites every four or five years. So which not-adult males participate in this conjoined rite in the years in which the male rites are not celebrated?
> > (To what extent to other groups playing fantasy rolegames
> > deal with this fact-of-female-life? Are there any essays on
> > the net on incorporating it, or accounting for it, in one's
> > game?)
>
> Yep. They boil down to "don't do it, it's a bad idea."
Why? For the same reason that players in rolegames rarely pay attention to the sex lives of characters? Or rarely pay attention to the time that characters spend voiding their bodies of waste? Or for some other reason?
> OTOH : Menstruation in RPGs : Just Say No.
Glib phrase, but I still don't understand why.
If death, injury, food, sleep, violence, wealth, and sex are fair game for rolegames, why not menstruation and defecation/urination?
My assumption is the answer is "because the hobby is predominanly male", but I'm still curious to see if other groups have handled the topic and how.
(Jane? Any comment?)
-- Viktor
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