Interesting. So, that implies that children have no caste (that is, the life-flame itself determines the adult's caste)? And so, the children in a family would be trained in the skills of that caste in the anticipation of receiving an appropriate life-flame, but the match is not automatic (though probably socially enforced because it is to everyone's benefit to get it right).
What happens if a clan is amazingly fertile, such that children reach initiation age without a life-flame being available to house in them? (I would assume that you have first searched for all the missing relatives you can possibly find.) Are there new life-flames? Do random strangers inhabit your kids? Do you make an alliance with some clan that has insufficient children?
> What they could do is pollute the flame so that one will have do penance as a
> Solfite (drink all the time, take opium etc) in order to purge the pollution. And
> if that fails they could quench the flame through the Furalor rites.
Nice. Again, that makes sense of the crazy people that foreigners see. "Why is your grandfather doing that?" "Well, he's my son, not my gradnfather; and two lifetimes ago, he shamed the spirit of the spring.":
> I think the flames can be summoned by one who has a connection, using
> some rites from Furalor).
So long as this involves some difficult task that gives rise to good stories, I like it.
> Of course if a whole clan is wiped out (by say the Seleran Empire),
> nobody would have a connection. In that case, I suspect a Zitr
> might from time to time call forth lost flames to be reincarnated > so that the lost clans might be restored. This would be a good > means of conversion for foreigners and even some inhumans (like say
Presumably, that's a big act of heroism on the Zitr's part, earns the loyalty of the restored life-flames, has political and relationship implications, etc. "The Zitr brought back the life-flames of the Alhambars, our ancient enemies? <spit> We curse them again! We curse him, too!"
Chris Lemens
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