Genghis Khan, while he was beating his fellow Mongols into submission, was once wounded by an archer whose aim he admired. He had the captured soldier brought before him and honored him by admiring how well he had fought to protect his master. Then he asked the guy if he would fight equally as well to protect his new master. This man went on to become one of the Khan's greatest generals and was with him until the day the Khan died. Now while Mongols aren't Orlanthi, I don't see where the clan system is much more different. Your leadership should definitely play a part in how well you can control these 'captured' thanes, or recruited vagabond thanes for that matter. If you're a loser of a stickpicker chief who has trouble with his own cottars, then you can expect trouble out of your proud warriors. If you're a kingly chief whose clan has grown and become rich under your leadership and you have defeated and subjugated most of your enemies... you're not going to have too much trouble winning the loyalty of these guys. They're thanes... they live to fight.... Of course they want to be on a winning side.
Clans aren't too poor to support mercenaries at all. In fact, it appears some of them in KODP survive by acting as mercenaries between feuding clans. At least that's what the one event says...
The option to create the clan that reflects your own ideals is what makes KODP such an open-ended game. If I choose to deviate from the normal Orlanthi ideals somewhat, then those options are open to me as long as I honor the forms and compensate in other ways. Orlanth would prefer I raid for cattle... but I can have a clan that prefers trade if I want. I can also have a clan whose members are made up of vagabonds and former outlaws if I choose, though I pay the price in the form of poor manageability.
You guys are blasting these ideas on the basis of your love for Orlanthi society. You would all make GREAT kings in the proud tradition of said society. However, you can not pretend that the options for other styles don't exist. Stop jumping on the bandwagon and think about it. If all we could do is pattern the SAME type of clan over and over, and we were identical to the 100 other clans in Dragon Pass... this game would have survived on my hard drive about two days.
-----Original Message----- From: KYER, JEFFREY [mailto:jeff.kyer_at_...] Sent: Friday, February 18, 2000 9:46 AM To: KingOfDragonPass_at_onelist.com Subject: Re: social promotion From: "KYER, JEFFREY" <jeff.kyer_at_...> Very well put. And besides, do you REALLY trust those folks who come by and say, "Hi. Put me in charge of your valuable livestock and I'll guard and patrol for you, hyuck." Better just make them cottars. And you've *CAPTURED* them. How in Elmal's name are you going to ensure loyalty? If I only can have a very few, proud, tough fellows intbetween me and Rude Strangers, I want to make sure they are not going to run away. "Serve or Die" sounds like something out of KODT (Kinghts of the Dinner Table...) KODT is a similar acryonym but not quite the same subject matter. (grin) Clans are probably too poor to support mercenaries adn I think the social system is a bit poor to do it as well. Its 'justnot done' except by the truly desperate -- like those fellows you just told you wouldn't stop raiding. There's probably some sort of magic/mythic penalty involved. Pretty well put. Though, perhaps, being able to hire those (clan x) mercenaries to whack on someone ELSE before they cream your Inner Ring is probably good. But probably not a 'kingly' thing to do.
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