RE: Punishment in Orlanthi Law

From: Andrew Solovay <asolovay_at_...>
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 23:25:32 -0700

Light Castle [mailto:light_castle_at_...]
> So she steals the kid and gets rid of it. (she's a bit of a
> hothead) Even so, she can't bring herself to kill it, not
> outright. We haven't yet decided exactly what she does. One
> theory is throw it in the river, the other is leave it on a
> mountaintop. Both classical ways to do infanticide. The last
> is the rather disturbing idea of her secretly bringing it
> into a heroquest and using it as something that is sacrificed
> or lost during that, thus stranding it in the otherworld.

Yes, I seem to have read any number of myths like this. You do realize, I trust, that the child was rescued somehow, will grow up ignorant of his orgins, and that the sage (by abandoning the child in whatever way) has actually set in motion the chain of events that will lead to the child destroying the tribe?

Just checking...

> What I want to know is what would be the expected punishment
> for this? Would it be considered kinslaying and she slain on
> sight? Would she be branded as a traitor of some kind and
> exiled? In the end she gets away, although not unscathed. I'm
> trying to figure out what the Orlanthi reaction to this would be.

I *think* the usual course of action would be to outlaw the sage, and kill her on sight. But the tribe might well give her a day to get out of dodge, so the tribe wouldn't be put in the position of incurring still *more* blood-guilt by killing their own. Luckily for her, nobody recognizes her when she takes the beard off, so she was able to slip away easily enough...

And yes, I'm fairly sure that killing anyone else in your clan is considered "kinslaying". And as far as the tribe knows (and as far as your PC knows), the chief's child is dead. Though perhaps, if the child lives, she wouldn't suffer the usual divine curses that attend kinslaying.