RE: Subject: Which is Worst?
Snappy1988:
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CRIME Kinslaying is the ultimate crime in stead-based Orlanthi society, in both the moral and practical sense.
Kinslaying reveals the shattered heart of Orlanthi culture, as the legal system is based on bloodlines and clans, not individuals. In kinslaying, 'justice' is difficult if not impossible to obtain - in pursuing it you are destroying your bloodline and so yourself. The myth about kinslaying in Harmast Sage (an unpublished work by Greg Stafford) reveals that the only 'cure' for it is to erect ritual objects to help erase the hurt. Even Orlanth Justicebringer has no solution.
Secret murder is a crime dragged into Glorantha from Icelandic/Norse society as portrayed in the Icelandic sagas, and sometimes I think it should have been translated a little less wholesale. In a magical world, few crimes will ever remain secret if enough resources are directed to them, and so the Orlanthi perspective on secret murder focuses on the lack/loss of personal honour, a central part of the Heortling psyche. After all, murder needn't necessarily be serious if done for the right reasons (and honourable revenge is often a 'right' reason). In fact murder can even be undone if acted upon quickly - another facet of the seriousness of secret murder is that it decreases the chance of sucessful resurrection.
UROX Urox (sometimes called the Storm Bull) is a brother of Orlanth. Apart from the sequences of the Ages, time and causality are very fluid before the Dawn. Urox was certainly around in the early Storm Age when both he and Orlanth were made adults by hostile giants. Or so the myths tell us. Further clarity (huh!) can only be gained by making a number of (arbitrary) assumptions about the nature of both myth and deity in Glorantha - there's a kind of mythological uncertainty principle at work
ORLANTH THE FARMER One of the planned essays for Thunder Rebels - 'Become the Thunder' which is about everyday Orlanthi life - should (barring unforeseen gregisms) place farming and farmers squarely back where they belong, which is at the very heart and centre of Orlanthi life and society. Everybody ploughs. Even Orlanthi ploughs.
The clan generation system should appear in the Orlanthi scenario book rather than TR, along with other gm material.
John
nysalor_at_... John Hughesjohnp.hughes_at_...
... a flying arrow, a crashing wave, night old ice,
a coiled snake, a bride's bed talk, a broken sword, the play of bears, a king's son.
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