[Glorantha] Vows, geasa, healers and the West

In message <Pine.GSO.4.58.0601092318190.26675@paju.oulu.fi> Mikko Rintasaari writes:

>I've been wondering about the geasa that healers (and others, like
>Humakti) have. What exactly is supposed to happen if and when one does
>break a geas? I recently read a book called "The Magic Engineer" in which
>the main character was a healer (among other things). Holding a sword made
>the characters head swim, and he felt sick and polluted by the violence of
>the blade. He could use a staff, but got really ill if he had to use it.
>He felt all the pain he caused, and when he ended up killing a man, in
>self defense, he got really sick and lost consciousness.
>
>Something like that, or does one just drop dead on the spot? Does one just
>get bad karma?

To understand geasa in a Heortling context you are really looking at Celtic mythology. They are very much an either/or matter - break the wording of the geas and you will die (not immediately but usually horribly) otherwise they have no effect.

So a Humatki who breaks a geas will have his sword shatter in combat. But he won't die there and then he'll be captured and be executed as a traitor or tortured to death.

In RQ2 Chalana Arroy healers who broke their vows suffered from a lack of resistance to disease and a refusal of other healers to treat them so I'd expect something similar ending in death.

-- 
Donald Oddy
http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/