Jane:
> You're set that long ago? Yes, just read your 3 sentences -- nice! In
> fact, better yet. Clearly one person does bother about it these days.
> The honour-obsessed one. And she isn't even a local.
>
> And if anyone else wants to use it in their game/story, they can revive
> the tradition.
Sounds fair enough. The way we're playing things there was a change between a healthy and confident Humakti battalion twenty-something years ago, and a much less sound unit a decade later. I'm guessing that either the battalion honoured an agreement which turned out to require it to wield death inappropriately, or someone high up started using the battalion as a tool for personal or factional gain in the wider arc of events during the Pharaoh's early years. Either way, Humakti got caught between promises and morality (and I believe that Humakti do -- or did -- have some strong ideas about when it was appropriate to use death).
A number of surviving fighters in the battalion saw out their agreed time of service, did not renew, and left to find ways to live with themselves while seeing out their remaining days. Our clan champion, Broddi, was one of them, who wandered for a while before returning to the clan of his birth and re-sheathing. (Yes, Broddi is based on John Hughes' Broddi Clapsaddle, but significantly modified in our game: I hadn't met John's Broddi before I met Stephen's Broddi.)
Now there is a canker in temple life. Those who remain from the old days are split between claiming that death need not be discriminate to be glorious, and adopting a submissive "annihilate me and end the pain" philosophy which calls on Humakt truth-seer to betray them. While I wouldn't say Humakti were, by normal lights, well-balanced at the best of times, I see this as a response to impossible internal conflicts. The relative ascendancy of this strand of Humakti thinking is a barometer of the "health" of the cult.
So I think the dawn kata has different meanings for different people. At one time it was both a training tool and a symbol of unity. While it still records the basic repertoire of cuts and parries and movements, the meditations that go with the actions are now very different depending on your school of Humakti thought. For some, this is a time for the Meditations on the Blade: for others it is the Dawn Muster. ("Helden", by John Hughes, includes the words of both the Dawn Muster and the Seventh Meditation on the Blade.) And while the meditation was traditionally done in silence (geases and taciturnity) there are now cadres which -- either for bonding or as a loyalty test -- expect members to conclude the kata by speaking words from one or other of the traditional sources.
Our rural Humakti is blithely unaware of all this. He started doing the kata back home because Broddi and Vikka were doing it, and it seemed the right thing to do. Vikka had told him that there was a temple of Humakt at Nochet city with an arena where the Humakti gathered before dawn to do the kata together, so when they went to Nochet "take part in the dawn kata at the temple" topped his list of off-mission things to do. He wasn't there long enough to be caught up in the undercurrents.
But I am not a specialist on Humakti. Vikka Vingudottir knows -- and cares -- more about them than is perhaps proper: Broddi has provided not only the base and bedrock of her fighting style, but not infrequently the bed she sleeps in. I, like Vikka, find them fascinating, frustrating, and very, very "other".
"The Duel":
> For now, go and buy a copy of "Magnus Liber Rerum" (the Continuum con
> book). Once that's out of print, the story will be back on line with the
> rest of them, here:
>
> http://www.jane-williams.me.uk/glorantha/stories/index.cfm
Bother. How do I go about getting the big book of stuff? Looks like I might have to set up a PayPal account...
Cheers,
Jennifer
-- Jennifer Geard
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