I think that there are several different questions and asssumptions mixed up here. I will take a couple of steps back before addressing what I think the answer might be, based on several half remembered postings made by Greg in the past and my own extrapolations and imaginings.
A typical Heortling will have membership in at least one "heroband" - their clan. As part of the rituals of a clan joining a tribe, some connection is made between the clan wyter and the tribal wyter, so that a clan can pass on magical support to the tribe and also make calls on the tribe for magical support. Through their clan "heroband", people indirectly get membership in the tribe. My assumption is that very few people are directly members of the tribal "heroband" but there are always some actual members, including past and current members of the tribal ring.
I believe that a clan warband often has a wyter (something like war clans always have a warband wyter, peace clans rarely) and this wyter has a connection to both the clan wyter and also to the tribal warband wyter. I tend to think that a tribal warband always has a wyter and that wyter has a connection to the tribal wyter.
It is these connections that allow clan fyrds to fight together under the tribal banner as a coherent group. Of course, people that have a common direct connection to a wyter will operate better together than people that have indirect connections to a common wyter - they do not have a feel for that wyter and it does not have a feel for them as individuals.
And many, particularly specialists, will have membership of a cult "heroband" or some other form of association (not Association, thats something different!). These people can choose to either go with their clan or, particularly if their speciality is required/involved, they can join up with their other heroband and operate well together because the share a direction connection to the heroband guardian.
> > There is no "Kingdom" fyrd - at
> > least, not at this time. Maybe when
> > Sartar's flame is re-lit...
>
> But until then we have a squabbling
> mess, with Kallyr (when she's there)
> trying to coordinate it and maybe 50%
> succeeding on a good day. Which is
> much more MGF anyway!
True for Sartar, but what about Heortland/Volsaxi/Volsaxar?
Back in Sartar, in the better times before the Lunars, Sartar set up
the cities, each with a connection to several tribes. I suspect
that these formed some kind of pyramid structure as follows:
Clan - Tribe - City - Kingdom.
The Colymar, I think, connected direct to the Kingdom level, as did
the Sartarings clan (the personal clan of the Princes, their
families and their retainers). It is possible that several other
types of groups could connect into various levels of this pyramid.
> > Also, from discussions with Greg,
> > their wyters will "integrate" or
> > at least "work together" with the
> > tribal wyter, though we haven't
> > discussed exactly *how* they do this.
>
> When they're away from home like this,
> I'd guess that much of the clan/tribe
> wyter abilities don't apply anyway?
When the fyrd goes off clan lands to fight, I suspect that they always take at least one piece of the clan regalia with them and usually, the clan chief will be there too, to ensure that some subset of the clan wyter's powers apply.
Perhaps, when people leave their clan for extended periods such as duty in Whitewall, they will join a heroband to share protection. I think that, because of personal and clan preferences, this would usually be based around a subsidiary entity related to the clan rather than the tribe (I vaguely remember some postings by Greg about a clan having several such entities associated with the clan wyter).
regards,
Charles
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