Well that is the question ,isn't it ? Unless the Devotion itself justifies a specific death then it may be hard to find someone who is close to the would-be Devotee and whose death is (otherwise) justified.
[...]
>
>
>> >If the guy's only got one friend, he'd probably be
>> >facing a different test. Sounds like he hasn't got
>> >much left to learn about Humakt being more
>> important than friends.
>>
>> More likely he's neglected his other Relationships,
>> established no
>> new ones and only associates with the other PCs.
>
>As a player, yes. So the character is as I describe:
>in-game, and ignoring the fact that he's a PC, why
>does he do this?
I'm just pointing out that a more realistic situation few friends, with the most important ones being other PCs rather than just one friend.
[...]
>
>
>> And I don't remember any
>> accounts of mass slaughter of friends, relatives or
>> even subjects
>> associated with the Household of Death.
>
>Nor me: nor do I know of any evidence that they were
>Disciples, though, since the term wasn't invented at
>the time the HofD was written up. What have you found?
I'm relying on KoS plus what I remember from a web writeup or two.
I would have expected the Household to be almost entirely Devotees. Salinarg's children, however, may well have been Disciples - certainly they went beyond the usual level of Devotion.
>
>OTOH, read ST p 97, and you'll see some sample
>Disciples of Humakt. "wiped out ten villages..."
>"killed everyone in three towns..." they're not nice
>people!
The first actually had a good reason - stopping a plague. Presumably most of those killed would have died fairly shortly from the plague and the survivors would have spread it so that even more died. I'm not saying that Disciples of Humakt aren't prepared to bring death on a grand scale, only that I think that there needs to be room to top the requirements for Devotion. That is to be a Disciple you don't have to wipe out a village - even though you become the sort of person who WOULD be prepared wipe out a village.
-- -- "The T'ang emperors were strong believers in the pills of immortality. More emperors died of poisoning from ingesting minerals in the T'ang than in any other dynasty" - Eva Wong _The Shambhala Guide to Taoism_ Paul K.
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