"Andrew Solovay" <asolovay_at_...> wrote:
> I think "defaced" rather than "removed". A knife-cut straight
> across each tatoo ought to do it, yes?
> Though presumably clans also know how to repair damaged
> tatoos--since anyone might get an inconvenient wound in
> battle.
The (pre-european) Maori chiefs used to have considerable body tattoos, and AIUI there were weapons designed specifically for defacing those tattoos in combat. Having your tattoos defaced was considered significantly embarrassing, but I don't know how much ritual effect it was considered to have.
I could see a situation where if the tattoos are part of the tie to the clan wyter, and defacing them somehow limited access to the wyter, then there would be weapons designed to do considerable surface damage to interfere with those tattoos (e.g. Klanth's with obsidian chips in parrallel as well as series) as ritual champion combat weapons.
Stephen
-- "Games are very educational. Scrabble teaches spelling, Monopoly teaches cash-flow management, and D&D teaches us to loot the bodies." -Steve Jackson
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