Ian, I'm glad you liked it. Some thoughts on your thoughts in-line
below.
>
> Some thoughts:
>
> Might not the local matriachy have 'bee' influences. How about the
> queen, the bloodline matriach having a polagymous relationship with
a
> number of drones/husband-protectors. Perhaps there are competitions
> to become a drone and perhaps, in the sacrificial king tradition of
> Esrolia, the clan knows of rites to sacrifice these drones to renew
> the hives in hard times. Of course the rites may not have been
needed
> for years, until...
Heh, a little over the top for what I was thinking, but certainly a good plot hook! I would certainly think that it could be appropriate for the matriarch to have a series of year-marriages. I view the blood-line as being allies with the bees, and influenced by their allies over the centuries, but not necessarily idolizing bees--they could even view that as scandalous ("What? No, that is what the bees do, and is appropriate for bees. We're human, of course we do things as Ernalda taught us to. With weird thinking like that you could be a danger to the bees, perhaps we should send you to cousin Rana in Nochet city.") But obviously do with it as you will.
>
> Considering the relationship of Trolls to insects perhaps we have
an
> Argan Argar/Old Earth clan, and every dark season the honey tribute
> is paid to the trolls of the shadow plateau. Having Argan Argar as
> the men's main god instead of Orlanth makes these people a little
> different from run-of-the-mill Heortlings.
I like this in a lot of ways. I think the insects trolls favor tend
to be more nocturnal and eaters of plants or dead matter, rather than
sunlight oriented fertilizers. But maybe I underestimate troll
society. I do view the bloodline as old and stable, so obviously
they did have some sort of understanding with the old (troll)
regime. I'm not familiar with the "Argan Argar/Old Earth clan"
archetype, so I can't comment on the suitability. I can see
Honeyhearth having, in the past, shipped quite large amounts of honey
off to the trolls along with almost their entire harvest of royal
jelly, shipments that were guarded so well the people always thought
that the trolls did more than just gobble it up. Of course, that
hasn't happened since the Pharoah took over. But of a sudden a troll
shows up, looking to purchase quite a lot of royal jelly, jelly that
the mead-making bloodline would normally purchase, but this troll
maybe has important knowledge to trade....
>
> Dancing rituals may be important to the clan too, heroes might be
> able to learn useful rituals to take back to their clan to increase
> the local hives, perhaps they are sent by the king's brewer...
Yes, I'd think dancing would be a big part of their rituals. They may also have a sign language based on the bees dances....since they know most of the dances it is just natural to use those patterns to signal to each other when they don't want to talk out loud. That the sign-language has whole other uses is just a lucky side effect.
--Bryan
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