Humakti

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From: Geoff Gunner (eosgg@raesp-farn.mod.uk)
Date: Wed 20 Oct 1993 - 12:35:01 EET


re: Sandy Petersen & Humakt

This thing about severing blood ties is *highly* important. For your average barbarian there is nothing more important than blood. Your sons are your old age investment; they'll feed and protect you. The bigger your family, the more ties you can call upon, then the more clout you'll have with your neighbours. No-one wants to upset Nanny Ogg,'cos her relatives amount to a small legion, and they'll be trampling over your petunias if you do her any harm.

Now look at Humakt. One of most significant god-time acts was severing ties with his kin. That's going to be reflected in cult vows; the humakti is expected to renounce all previous ties, whether blood, honour, whatever. That gets an immediate thumbs-down from most folks - would *you* throw away your pension and medicare ? So 4-6% humakti ? Never.

Look at the implications of that, anyway. I've always considered the humakti to be quite dedicated (partly because of the above). So are you going to find many humakti farmers ? Fishermen ? Midwives, even ? Doubt it. So that's 5% of your population straight off who aren't producers. That's a heavy blow. Consider what fraction of a population comprise specialist fighters. 1% ? For the fighting farmer, Orlanth is a great choice because of ties with Barntar, Ernalda etc. Humakt's got none of that.

Nope, humakti are going to be those who decide to make fighting their *sole* way of life. 1% *if* you're lucky.

(and so what if Humakt *is* an Orlanthi deity ? So's Minlister, but he's hardly got a token following. Or Eurmal ! Deity of major importance, but is he going to get vast amounts of worshippers ? No. Doesn't matter if he's not an enemy, the question is: How many people are reasonably going to follow him?)

IMHO there are lots more uroxi than humakti in Sartar. As blood ties start to become less important (ie. towns) you'll find the percentages become equal, until in cities there are hardly any uroxi at all. And Sartar is probably at the stage where over 90% of it's population is rural. (should be higher, ie 95% but the dangerous countryside will force people to live in large commmunities). And that will mean the behaviour of the groups will differ, uroxi being 'rural' and humakti being 'civilised'. I can just see the Sword of Alda-chur after a hard day's drilling, putting his feet up and settling down with a good Mills and Boon romance ...

Geoff

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