Re: Orlanthi analog; GM; eating people; Yara Aranis

From: David Dunham (ddunham@radiomail.net)
Date: Fri 07 Jan 1994 - 22:12:16 EET



>From: watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk (Colin Watson)
>David Dunham wrote:
>>Orlanthi culture is sort of a cross between Cymric/Celtic and Viking.
>
>I never really saw what was so Celtic about Orlanthi. A Storm God certainly
>doesn't seem very Celtic to me. They're more like Vikings without ships.

I suppose I based this partly on the woad.

>From: JARDINE@RMCS.CRANFIELD.AC.UK
>PS. Nick: Glad to see that there are two of us who own (and have read!)
>Griffin Mountain.

Griffin Mountain is the best roleplaying supplement I've ever seen.

>From: staats@MIT.EDU
>Subject: Eating those poor humans and other rambling thoughts!
> However well intentioned eating sentients is poor form. I cast one
>'yea' vote for calling the Aztecs evil for doing so. The difference between
>casting a Divine spell or not for the Morocanth is the difference between
>eating a sentient and not. I am looking primarily at human motivation here.

That's how I draw the line -- in Griffin Island, the Votanki consider the bluebuck sacred, and won't hunt it. I think it's because this animal (like the dog) can talk (even if only to shamans). You don't eat things that can talk.

Trolls are obviously a different case that kind of breaks this rule, but as you say, they're not human.

A science fiction (though it reads closer to anthropological fantasy) book that shows non-evil cannibalism is _Courtship_Rite_ by Donald Kingsbury. The humans are on a world where the only protein source is humans. (Note that some people think this is almost the same situation facing the Aztecs, who packed a whole lot of people into the Valley of Mexico).

>From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)
>Dave Dunham sez:
>> Last time you said [Yara Aranis] provided Kill Horse
>I misremembered, When someone else in the Daily said that she should
>Frighten horses, my memory returned like a shot and the entirety of
>her anti-horse spell became clear to me.

Why can't YA have both Kill Horse (really annoys the leader of the nomads) and Frighten Horse (to work against the whole horde)?



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