From: David Weihe (weihe@danet.com)
Date: Tue 05 Aug 1997 - 18:15:35 EEST
> From: James Frusetta <gerakkag@wam.umd.edu>
> David Weihe pointed out:
> > TINY, HAH!! You can't kill another troll for eating (barring enlo), but
> > you can kill her/him for looking at you crosseyed, or picking her/his
> > teeth at you, or whatever. <snip: and then eat her/him.>
> Well, um, *that* would be the BIG loophole. ;)
To clarify, trolls can find lots of excuses to kill, frex, a weak
sojourner, and then, since he's already dead, eat him. For instance,
on entering a troll house the male points out all the things that if
touched warrants death -- this would include his familiar. The ally
then decides that you are weak enough to not worry about, and jumps
on you. Result, the troll has promised to kill you, and is within his
rights by his standards. This sort of behavior is probably considered
declasse by civilized trolls, but is a real problem with snow trolls,
as my group decided by playing in our last session. Trolls don't have
any equivalent to the Orlanthi Greeting to moderate this, either, so
visiting requires constantly worrying about how defenseless you seem
to them as well as how hungry they are.
The solution is just to make sure that the trolls know that killing
you (even if they *don't* eat you) will make things unpleasant enough
that it isn't worth the bother. You don't need to make them fear you,
just make sure that they don't take you for an easy mark. Deadman
Switch spells, publicly announced and demonstrated, will do the job
quite well, even if the trolls never heard of you or your kin.
And keep them fed, of course.
Also, as was pointed out to me, Orlanthi behavior would seem to civilized
humans like Uz behavior is to Orlanthi. The women are uppitty, the
men become violent at trivial offences, everyone is a dirty slob, the
peasants (ie, carls or trollkin) almost uncontrolled, etc.
PS: picking your teeth at you is an obvious threat or insult, as she
is either making room for you or removing the remains of your relatives.
See Maori property law, where ownership is apparently decided by whose
ancestors ate whose last.
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