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Crime, intraclan justice and punishment


Robin "RoM" Mitra

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32 minutes ago, Robin "RoM" Mitra said:

I don't think that is likely. First of all it would be a major affront. The household and next of kin would be embarrassed and ashamed, and it would certainly lead to outlawry. Secondly the clan chief usually has the means to execute his decisions. Otherwise he wouldn't be chief for long. Surely there are enough competent warriors who would love to kick the perpetrator off "his" land.

Depends. Those warriors do themselves belong to the clan's varied bloodlines, unless they are retainers from outside the clan (and I'd argue that while this happens, they make up a minority). If someone is very popular/wealthy, well-connected or what have you, you can have the clan enter a crisis.

There's a spectrum of responses and consequences these intraclan interactions can lead to. We should be happy that there is a lot of grey area here, as it creates space for dynamic storytelling based on many different factors. If there was a clear law code that we could just flip through to find every appropriate response, that would imho be incredibly boring.

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2 hours ago, Robin "RoM" Mitra said:

I know that paragraph. It is from the same text. But it doesn't mention kinstrife and from what is written I for one cannot deduce that kinstrife only happens within a bloodline and not a clan. What makes you say it is?

Please do not waste people's time.  If you were aware of the KoS passage then your quotation from Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes and claiming that it doesn't mention Bloodlines was in bad faith.

 

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12 hours ago, metcalph said:

Please do not waste people's time.  If you were aware of the KoS passage then your quotation from Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes and claiming that it doesn't mention Bloodlines was in bad faith.

 

I am sorry if I offended you. It was not my intention to waste anybody's time. If I made a mistake it was an honest one. I meant that I knew the paragraph about bloodlines, but in my understanding it does not mention kinstrife, and the paragraph about kinstrife does not mention bloodlines. I therefore assumed kinstrife can also happen between different bloodlines of the same clan.

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On 11/8/2019 at 7:00 PM, Sir_Godspeed said:

Two of the marriage forms specifically open for non-monogamy (Husband & Underwife and Wife & Esrolian Husband). It would be inaccurate to call polygamous sexual relations adultery of course, since they are still regulated by marriage norms.

King of Sartar p. 205 / Sartar KoH p. 207: "Marriage among the Orlanthi is a mutual bond between participants; it is both exclusive and monogamous." In my Glorantha this includes Underwife- and Esrolian Marriages. The main difference I see there is status and property.

Anyway, thank you all for your help. I am running a campaign where all these questions are relevant at the moment. The player characters are not directly involved (i.e. neither defendant nor plaintiff) but they are neutral clan members who have the duty to investigate and eventually to recommend a solution. I am curious how they will decide.

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On 11/6/2019 at 11:26 PM, Qizilbashwoman said:

RuneQuest Glorantha, page 427:

Marriage is a mutual bond between participants from different clans. Since sexuality is open and unmarried sex not frowned upon, the marriage bond is significant. Since marriage is sanctified by divine oath, adultery is frowned upon and sometimes dangerous. Divorce is common and available to husband or wife. Traditional law oversees the division of shared property in a divorce. The wife always returns home with her dowry, and the groom always recovers the bride price, except in cases of marriage breach.

Seven classes of marriage are recognized.

  1. Husband and Wife: Both participants have equal property, status, and responsibility. The woman moves to her husband’s house, and children belong to his clan.
  2. Husband and Underwife: The husband has more status and property, and consequently more say in what goes on. The woman moves to her husband’s house, and children belong to his clan. The husband may have more than one wife.
  3. Wife and Underhusband: The wife has more status and property, and consequently more say in decision making. The man moves to his wife’s house, but the children belong to his clan.
  4. Esrolian Husband: The wife has more status and property than the husband. The man moves to his wife’s house, but the children belong to her clan. The wife may have more than one husband.
  5. Yearwife or -husband: This is a temporary marriage, renewable after a year, subject to terms listed above.
  6. Bedwife or -husband: No property changes hands save for that publicly granted with witnesses. The children are raised by the individual who is not named in the title. Thus, a bedhusband is not responsible for raising the children.
  7. Love-spouse: No property changes hands, even to the children of the pair. A vow of monogamy for its own sake, or the sake of romantic love. Children go to the father’s clan if there is a question about their fate.

 

3 hours ago, Robin "RoM" Mitra said:

King of Sartar p. 205 / Sartar KoH p. 207: "Marriage among the Orlanthi is a mutual bond between participants; it is both exclusive and monogamous." In my Glorantha this includes Underwife- and Esrolian Marriages. The main difference I see there is status and property.

Anyway, thank you all for your help. I am running a campaign where all these questions are relevant at the moment. The player characters are not directly involved (i.e. neither defendant nor plaintiff) but they are neutral clan members who have the duty to investigate and eventually to recommend a solution. I am curious how they will decide.

I've bolded the relevant passages in @Qizilbashwoman's quote above. This is your Glorantha, so it's your decision, but there is published textual support for polygamy in some forms of marriage, if you ever change your opinion.

I also highlighted "frowned upon" to highlight that, as in the other cases mentioned above, this isn't necessarily a "one and done" kind of deal. Some spouses might, for whatever reason, refrain from seeking divorce. Others might not. It's unlikely that any substantial pressure from the clan will occur, though it's possibly that the bloodline (ie. the extended family) or in-laws would want to have their say, as their honor/face/standing is probably entangled in this as well (as is often the case in real life stateless societies). They might urge a divorce to gain some restitution, but they might also urge the pair to stay married, so as to avoid upheaval, breach of family alliances, and so forth. IMHO it's impossibly to make a generalization here.

Edited by Sir_Godspeed
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6 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

 

I've bolded the relevant passages in @Qizilbashwoman's quote above. This is your Glorantha, so it's your decision, but there is published textual support for polygamy in some forms of marriage, if you ever change your opinion.

Thank you. I didn't realise that the text was changed. Almost identical passages appear in the other two books I mentioned above but without the bits you highlighted. I thought the books were still canon. I will yet have to determine how this is going to affect my Glorantha.

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Quote

adultery is frowned upon and sometimes dangerous


Interestingly, King of Dragon Pass takes a very strong stance here, and has outlawry as pretty much the default response ( https://kingofdragonpass.fandom.com/wiki/Price_of_Adultery ) as well as stating "This is one of the most serious crimes in Orlanthi law" ( https://kingofdragonpass.fandom.com/wiki/Accusation_of_Adultery ).

I'm not sure that this is supported elsewhere.

Edited by Akhôrahil
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There are cultic and mythic precedences that classify extramarital sex as non-adulterous, or as mythically inevitable though regrettable (in other words, the Trickster did it).

Quite a lot of fertility rites require the practice of fertility, whether just by the protagonist of the magic or whether by the majority of the congregation. What happens in the rites has little to no bearings to your marital vows. You become the deity or the vessel for the deity, which makes human concerns a distant second in importance.

The description of the Orlanthi in Thunder Rebels and KoDP was quite puritanic. Ernalda in Thunder Rebels would have been at home in Ancient Greece, except for the Queen aspect.

The mythic precedence provided by Orlanth and Ernalda tells a very different story. Orlanth is polyamory and not that straight, and Ernalda has married just about any ruling or protector deity she encountered (we don't learn much about marriages between Ernalda and other females, though). We don't learn about child-births from these interactions in Thunder Rebels even though we get dozens of names of her daughters. But then, Ernalda herself might be able to influence the amount of paternal inheritance in her children.

Orlanth has a number of myths in which he succumbed to temptation, not the least his wooing of Ernalda.

 

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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On 11/11/2019 at 5:45 PM, Joerg said:

Orlanth has a number of myths in which he succumbed to temptation, not the least his wooing of Ernalda.

Orlanth abducted nymphs, rolled goddesses and so on, until he met Ernalda, then he was enamoured with her. There were occasions where he carried on a-tupping, but they were much rarer.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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32 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Orlanth abducted nymphs, rolled goddesses and so on, until he met Ernalda, then he was enamoured with her. There were occasions where he carried on a-tupping, but they were much rarer.

Perhaps it can even be said that this event is roughly what separates Adventurous from Thunderous?

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9 hours ago, soltakss said:

Orlanth abducted nymphs, rolled goddesses and so on, until he met Ernalda, then he was enamoured with her. There were occasions where he carried on a-tupping, but they were much rarer.

Sure. But Vingkot. And probably lots of others, like Drorgalar (maternal grandfather of Harand). Orlanth has a mythical necessity to leave demigod offspring, and the Storm Brothers. There are cases like the Aroka quest where seducing one of the quest obstacles is necessary, and the offspring of that union plays a role later on.

Of course, Godtime being what it is, there is no "before" or "after" except in our limited linear perception thereof. In Godtime, there is no contradiction between Orlanth being the monogamous husband of likewise monogamous Ernalda, and lots of flings of either in the very Age that is supposed to be the Age of their monogamy.

Which makes all this "the gods activity as a role model as an absolute" pointless.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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