From: Alex Ferguson (alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Sat 04 Jun 1994 - 04:25:09 EEST
Paul Reilly:
> We know the Lunars use crucifixion. Being nailed to a Death Rune has
> got to have some effects.
Smarts a tad?
> Nick, where did the Lunars pick up this charming custom? I would guess that
> it comes in via the Carmanian Empire, as opposed to the Dara Happan.
Duke Yanafal probably instigated the custom personally. Firm, but... well, just firm, really.
I wonder if anywhere prisoners are tortured to death, resurrected, tortured to death again, etc?
> DO people want Harangvat info?
Who they? Anything to do with Harandash, or Haranshold?
> Do Dara Happans burn criminals? Or is fire too holy for that?
I'd think this would be rare, being only for those crimes serious enough to mandate death, but not actually "polluting" the (invariably high caste) offender. Say, the High Seer of Dayzatar fumbling his Predict Conjunction of the Planets roll. (Does Glorantha have eclipses?)
What about burial alive? Let's not forget those rave-faves, castration, and Putting Out of The Eyes, for "lesser" offences (or as a preamble to execution). Defenestration, breaking on the wheel, and poisoning may all be used too.
> It may vary
> from city to city, for example Alkoth may burn heretics and traitors while
> Yuthuppans just ignore them and hope they go away...
Why, in Yuthuppa they are Thrown Overboard. Shame there's no longer a nice soft sea to land in on the other side of the wall/hull. (I heard they tried to keel-haul someone once. Very nasty. To say nothing of time-consuming.) Alkoth, after its martial habit, often uses the method of shooting by Firing Lance, in a rather boring and pragmatic way, I'm (un)reliably informed. The last person who suggested "Lance" was an illogical term for a quarter-file of archers, had the Dara Happan word for "excessively clever" branded on his backside, interestingly enough.
> Westerners probably use execution method according to social class.
Hanging/Beheading/Burning/Starvation to death, bricked up in a tower, perhaps, in "ascending" order.
> Kralorelans: a variety of inventive methods.
Vormainians: a variety of _efficient_ methods.
> All-time champions are probably the Kingdom of Ignorance.
Blood Feast for Breakfast, Blood Feast for Lunch, Blood Feast for Tea?
Others: Merfolk probably use drowning, though drowning a Gnydron would require some inventive techinique to keep them above the surface of the water, or on dry land. Handily, there's a spell to do it, if all else fails.
Aldryami use Composting, of course, or in very rare and extreme cases, chopping up and burning.
Agimori usually allow condemnees to commit suicide, and many banished from the tribe choose this too. (In fact, death/banishment may not even technically be distinct sentences.) Stoning is used for serious breach of cultural taboo.
Coastal Pamaltelans are alleged (mainly by each other) to use various horrible methods, including boiling alive (in a range of substances), drowning (especially where the natives don't sail or swim), Lateral Bifurcation (by assorted devices), garrotting, fatal flagellation, and suffusion with molten metal, usually lead or silver, as budget and inclination allows.
Teleos: becoming a food offering to the dragonewts. Whether tied to a post, or fully motile, I'm not sure.
The Trowjang amazons are known for doing hideous things to male P.O.W.s; another method of disposal is employed on visitors to their island who transgress severely, is confinement overnight in the Temple of Tolat. No one's quite sure what happens after that point, but it's invariably (permanently) fatal.
In Teshnos, the method of tying either leg of the victim to the trunk of a pair of flexed trees and [remainder censored for the squeamish] is known. A variant uses two (or extravagently, four) elephants. Cheapskates have the condemned trampled to death by just the one. There's also being staked out in the sun for the ants. Traditionalists are often heard demanding the reintroduction of the ancient penalty of surgical removal of the brain.
Girding himself against accusations of having undergone this last, Alex.
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