Jeff and I had an off-list conversation about the resposibilities of tribal kings towards members of that tribe, quite a while back. It seems to be possible to interpret it in several ways. If your king sticks to the letter of the law, they don't have much to do.
"The king must protect the weak. He must lead in
dealing with all issues of justice through the force
of law and arms. He must choose a tribal council. He
must muster the people against enemies, and divide all
plunder among the clans. He must employ a master smith
and a master brewer."
� Andrin's Words
Protecting the weak does not include protecting twits who deserved all they got... there's lots of ways you can quibble out of the obligations.
The tentative conclusions we came up with were that Leika, wanting to be recognised as King of the Colymar, will fulfil those obligations at "letter of the law" level, plus helping her own kin, and people who might provide her with useful support.
Kallyr tends to go the other way, since she really is the elected queen of the Kheldon, and feels she isn't doing much of a job of it what with being outlawed and having a few other things taking up her time. So she overdoes the idea of protecting all other members of the tribe out of a vague sense of guilt.
And then she tries to apply the same attitude to the whole of Sartar. Which gets silly. But does end up with Colymar clans who turn to her, not Leika, because she's more likely to help them!
>So if she's the one
> >who got delegated the job of sorting out who's on
> what watch.... Oops.
>
> This is where our shortage of named leaders causes
> us problems.
> I can't see any reason why Kallyr should get that
> job.
Not on a regular basis, no, I agree. Especially since she tends to mess it up! But it'll vary.
> A Starkval initiate is also
> going to have the experience to do it well unlike
> Kallyr.
Agreed. You might think that Rigsdal, organise watches on walls, obvious type-casting. But no. Put her in charge of actually leading the night watch, that's another matter, though usually overkill.
So we need a senior Starkval initiate, probably Volsaxi. Anyone want to tell us about him?
My guess would be that he *isn't* one of these inspirational leader types, if only because we're already over-run with them.
I'd also guess that Kallyr respects him, but that it isn't mutual. He thinks she's irresponsible. In comparative terms, he's right.
> I'm also not sure how much Kallyr is involved in the
> leadership
> of the siege. When we've discussed it before there
> are large chunks of time when she's elsewhere.
Another area for leadership failure - she's needed to make a decision, or explain what's been happening, and she isn't there.
> I think she'll be part
> of the inner circle when she's present but primarily
> as a
> co-ordinator of external raiding rather than the
> siege itself.
Agreed, that's much more her style.
> That doesn't mean she isn't called on for specific
> skills and magic where appropriate.
Oh, yes. And inspiring large groups of people to go and do stuff *is* something she's good at. Deciding what needs doing is of course another matter, though double masteries in guerilla warfare should give her some idea.
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