Again, great ideas. Give my thanks to Ian too :-).
> As most outlaws hope that they will be accepted
> back into the tribe over time, burning his bridges
> behind him by attacking his own kin is a stunning
> move. Ian suggested that indeed, Bert was the wronged
> party. He accepts an offer of truce to talk about the
> situation with his sister and brother-in-law. They
> doublecross him, and attack him. His fellow outlaws,
> hiding nearby, come to his aid. The massacre then
> occurs.
I'll completely rip this, and yes, Bert will be the wronged party. He
was framed (let's say... 15 years ago) and he has accepted the offer
of truce. The reunion doesn't go well, the situation heats up, and
everything finishes bad. Her parents won't exactly attack him, they're
"framers", not fighters, but the end result will be the same (on top
of that, 15 years of unjust outlawry can make you a very angry man,
nearly mad).
Now I need to think about the original case, why Bert was outlawed,
and how did Miriel's parents exactly act. I'll show that to her on her
initiation first, before showing the "truce", the discussion, and the
attack. I'm open to ideas, of course.
> So, now we have Miriel making the natural
> assumption that her stead is the innocent victim of a
> pitiless bunch of raiders. She kills all but Uncle
> Bert, not knowing that he'd left the outlaws by the
> time she started killing them all.
Yes, that's the situation.
> Along comes her initiation into Babeester Gor.
> (By the way, age at first menarche was often later in
> early societies.) She's preparing to become part of a
> vengeance cult because her own parents behaved
> treacherously. In Ian's opinion, her parents' shades
> are unlikely to tell the truth at this point. Why
> would they? They've already proven that they're not
> to be trusted. Even if they do urge her to abandon
> her initiation, they can still lie about the massacre.
> So the cycle of violence continues.
Her parents' shades will try to convince her to abandon her initiation, because as treacherous as they were, they loved her. They won't talk about what happened, they'll just show her what she could become if she chooses another path. This will be the first station, before knowing the truth.
> Basically, Ian's version is go for the whole
> Norse/Greek tragedy. Her parents' generation have
> totally screwed up their lives, and now she's set to
> lose hers, too.
Good one. We have a good ole tragedy in our hands.
> An alternative explanation for the raid might be
> that it's Miriel's mother who is at fault (at least as
> far as clan politics is concerned). She married a man
> with whom her clan or tribe were seriously at feud.
> The feud may have started before or after the
> marriage, could be either. She is formally cut off
> from her kin, for not renouncing her husband. Uncle
> Bert is then the agent of the clan's continuing feud,
> and so are the rest of the band. Remember, Miriel has
> made the assumption that the killers were outlaws.
> She may not have proof. Now, she has just ratcheted
> the feud up another step.
As good as this idea is, I'll pass. I've used the feuding clan resource too much in this campaign, I want to do something different. I still haven't shown the players that they can have the "enemy" inside their own clan too.
> Anyway, there's two more ideas to ponder while
> setting the scene for Miriel's next actions.
What I've already decided is this:
First, we'll play her basic initiation to adulthood. She still lives with her parents and is full of dreams. But there will be something different, a physical fight as part of her initiation (I still don't know what kind of fight, maybe an "I Fought We Won" enactment). This is unusual in the female initiation, it's a part of the typical male initiation actually. I've already done this before, with a Vingan, so I know what to do here. Besides, I'll include a "teaching" of the Earth eternal ying and yang (Asrelia-Ty Kora Tek, Ernalda-Maran Gor, Voria-Babeester Gor).
Some time passes, the events described occur, and we then play her initiation to Babeester Gor. The first station will be her parents urging her to abandon that path, showing her what she could become. A family, a happy life. She fails if she doesn't press on, of course. The last station will be the watching of the truth, first the events from 15 years before, what really happened, then the parliament, the discussion, and the attack. And how her uncle became mad, raped her mother, his own sister, and killed everyone. She then sees through her own eyes as she folows the outlaws' trail and kills everyone... except her uncle. She then finds him, and must fight him. If she does and wins, the initiation is complete, her senses will return to the Mundane World, and she'll she the mutilated corpse of a broo, who had been pulled to her quest (and Bert is still alive, bwahahaha).
I don't know if I'll do another station between those too. I suppose she should see Babeester herself in the Other World, fightintg with chaos monsters along with her followers.
Now I need to know what exactly happened between Bert and his sister.
-Sergi
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