> I like this view. It has a kind of French Foreign
> Legion feel to it - a
> place for those who want to leave all of themselves
> behind.
Exactly. Great for the Humakti mercenary, much less for for the ones who want to resheath.
> I'd think
> there would be only two potential catches. The
> first is that the new
> initiate has to mean it when when they embrace honor
> and death.
This is a catch?
> Second, initiates have to be endorsed by a
> Humakti battle comrade.
Makes life a little more tricky, but only a little.
> BTW: This brings up why I don't buy the idea of the
> newly made initiate
> or devotee having to kill someone during the process
> of assuming the new
> status. An initiate seems to have to have killed in
> battle before they
> can even try to get in, and I wouldn't allow a
> devotee who wasn't extensively blooded.
Well, yes, I don't think the question is likely to be "is this person capable of killing?". Not often, anyway.
The formal "tests" (as opposed to the ceremony that gives the status) will surely only be for areas where the "examiners" are unsure of the candidate's abilities. I'd be quite surprised if they didn't already know how good they were at waving a sword around, and how they reacted to being in lethal melee. Various situations over the preceding few seasons will have shown if they're "honourable" (in whatever sense that means to the people involved). (And some of those situations may have been those "why me?" incidents that mean Humakt's doing a bit of testing in advance!) Most of the real testing will be over long before the "examiners" and rituals get involved.
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