I'd just like to add that although the life flame flame poem details nice and interesting, in my opinion they should not make Teshnans inhuman, like reincarnating dragonewts. They should still be recognisable human, still act in most ways like other people and not wholly understand the mystical ramifications of their religion (apart from Zitrs, who should be weird and mystical, because they understand the mechanics).
What I am saying is that your common or garden Teshnan should not be able to calculate the debt due to his former enemy that he murdered in 3 lifetimes past, unless a Zitr works it out for him.
I would think that the many times wife thing, again, should be a lucky occurance if the ages of the couple re-align. This makes it a bit more romantic and magical (IMO) rather than people knowing that they have a reincarnated wife somewhere that they just need to track down because it is inevitable that they are destined to be together.
Keith
>
> Yes, but that still leaves Hal a lot of room on deciding what that process
> is, how people use the process, degrees of access, and so on. Lots of room
> to work out the interesting details of the specifics.
>
> On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 11:25 AM, Peter Metcalfe <
> metcalph_at_...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Todd Gardiner wrote:
> > > That all points to the interesting questions of: By what mechanism do
> > > Teshnans know a reborn individual's past lives?
> >
> > The life-flame.
> >
> >
> > > How is the connection
> > > "proven" (potentially with errors, as with our legal system) between the
> > > reborn and the chain of lives he is connected to?
> >
> > The connection is proven by magically looking at the life-flame and
> > reading the flame-poem "magical inscriptions in their life-flame"
> > Glorantha: Intro p201.
> >
> >
> > > And how are "new" souls,
> > > which are to become peasants, identified?
> >
> > By writing in the flame-poem.
> >
> > --Peter Metcalfe
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>