From: simon_hibbs@lycosmail.com
Date: Wed 02 Feb 2000 - 17:39:37 EET
Gian Gero :
>Yes, in a kind of sense: I wonder where the vengeance stops; if my Pcs kill
>someone, his/her/its friends want to kill my Pcs. If my Pcs survive, do the
>attacks continue? What can they do to avoid this?
>Loren Miller suggested heroquesting, but I 'd like a more mundane and daily
>way to resolve the problem. A kind of ritual or of spell, common to many
>cults. A sort of "transfer guilt" spell.
It's difficult to know how to respond to this without knowing the situation.
If the players killed a legitimate member of local society in a public place,
then they can expect retribution from family and friends, or the law.
I don't see cult as being necesserily very important in this regard. I would
have thought that family and frindship relationships would be more important,
although some cults are very tight knit as social groups and higher ranking
cult members are likely to have followers and powerfull friends who will
want vengeance. This will be on temple lines though. You might have
sworn enemies at the Temple of Humakt in Boldhome, but get on fine with
the members of the Humakt temple in Pavis, or Whitewall. It depends whether
the enmity is based on religion or personal rivalry. After all, the Chief
of one sartarite clan (Runelord of Orlanth Rex) might hate the guts of
the Chief of a neighboring clan (also a Runelord of Orlanth Rex) and
welcome his exit from the political scene whether through violence or not.
Similarly, if you kill a Zorak Zorani Death Lord, the high ranking initiates
might be far too busy fighting each other over seniority to worry about
you.
A death cult such as Humakt, Storm Bull or Zorak Zoran pretty much expects
it's members to get killed by someone sooner or later anyway. Being the
actual killer isn't going to win you any popularity contests, but if the
conflict was a personal matter between you and the deceased then they may
well just leave it at that.
I realy hate the idea of a spell to transfer guilt in this sense. After all,
if the killing was witnessed then does it affect the memories of the
witnesses? If not, then in what sense is the guilt transfered?
The nearest comparison I can find is Gunda's spear, which transfers the
sins of those it slays on to the wielder. That is the opposite direction
to what you want. The killer gets more guilty through killing rather than
less.
Simon Hibbs
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