Clan creation and belonging to 2 clans

[jo77yroger]

Hi, I am currently playing a french campaign that is about creating and managing a new clan then probably become a tribe.
 

I just need your opinion on this:

Our group of players are all from the Ernaldori clan of the Colymar tribe. We are now clan leaders of a new clan based on former enslaved Dundealos and a new territory.
My question is: Can we belong in both clans ? Our parents, family are all in the Ernaldori clan. If not, do we have to remove our Ernaldori tattoos ?
Is it possible to have our new clan join Colymar even if the territory is not close to Colymar (Like Alaska belongs to the US 🙂) ?

[French Desperate WindChild]

bonjour, à mon avis ... - juste mon avis -

 

23 hours ago, jo77yroger said:

 Can we belong in both clans ? Our parents, family are all in the Ernaldori clan. If not, do we have to remove our Ernaldori tattoos ?

Is it possible to have our new clan join Colymar even if the territory is not close to Colymar (Like Alaska belongs to the US 🙂) ?

no, you are part of One clan. You may have loyalty or love or... for another one (or more), but you are part of one clan, by birth , adoption, marriage or clan creation

23 hours ago, jo77yroger said:

If not, do we have to remove our Ernaldori tattoos ?

good question, I would say, if you consider you have close ties (or want to), a good idea would be to "transform" your tattoo, people would see the ernaldori one but with some difference, proving you are not Ernaldori but a kind of "derived" one. And of course show your new clan tattoos but I would not "force" to remove the previous one if it is still important for you

23 hours ago, jo77yroger said:

Is it possible to have our new clan join Colymar even if the territory is not close to Colymar

I think yes

 

again just my opinion, not sure, but it is how i would play it

[Kloster]

On 12/20/2022 at 8:15 PM, jo77yroger said:

We are now clan leaders of a new clan based on former enslaved Dundealos and a new territory.

I suppose 'Les enfants de la flamme'.

On 12/20/2022 at 8:15 PM, jo77yroger said:

Can we belong in both clans ?

Normally, no. You can have loyalty to several clans or tribe, but you belong only to 1.

On 12/20/2022 at 8:15 PM, jo77yroger said:

If not, do we have to remove our Ernaldori tattoos ?

No, especially if you keep a loyalty passion to the Ernaldori. If asked, you just answer this is your birth clan but you now belong to another. If just for marriage, changing clan is common.

On 12/20/2022 at 8:15 PM, jo77yroger said:

Is it possible to have our new clan join Colymar even if the territory is not close to Colymar (Like Alaska belongs to the US 🙂) ?

Nothing in the tribes forbids a territorial discontinuity. This is a matter of loyalty, not of contiguous territories. Corsica is not contiguous with metropolitan France, but is a part of it (and Algeria was), and left arm islands are not contiguous with the holy country but part of it, usw. On the contrary, Upland marsh is inside the kingdom of Sartar, but not part of it, like Vatican or San Marino for Italy.

[Leingod]

On 12/20/2022 at 11:15 AM, jo77yroger said:

My question is: Can we belong in both clans ? Our parents, family are all in the Ernaldori clan. If not, do we have to remove our Ernaldori tattoos ?
Is it possible to have our new clan join Colymar even if the territory is not close to Colymar (Like Alaska belongs to the US 🙂) ?

In order:

1. No, you can't be a member of more than one clan. People leave their birth clan and join a new one quite frequently; one of the partners is a marriage will always do so, after all. This is considered a good and necessary thing, as it creates and strengthens ties between clans and brings new blood into clans. Your characters will always have those ties of kinship to the clan of their birth, and their family there will always be family, but the Ernaldori are no longer their clan.

2. You probably don't remove the Ernaldori tattoos. I imagine people who marry or adopt into a new clan tend to keep their old tattoos, perhaps with some added marker to indicate that this is their birth clan, and with the new tattoo of their new clan added on. The point of the tattoos is to tell people who you are and where you're from, after all, and being born in the Ernaldori is an important part of who these characters are.

3. You can certainly do so, but the question is: Can the Colymar actually project power as far as wherever your clan is based? If not, your clan is at the mercy of neighboring tribes, a very precarious position. Not least because those neighbors may well feel snubbed at the decision to swear allegiance to a distant tribe rather than one of their own. Membership in a tribe is transactional; member clans make promises of mutual defense and aid, diplomatic and trade ties, etc. If you're too far from the Colymar Tribe to actually receive any of that, then while your loyalty to the tribe of your birth will be quite touching and worthy of respect in the minds of some, it'll also cause you no shortage of trouble in the short term.

[svensson]

On 12/20/2022 at 11:15 AM, jo77yroger said:

Hi, I am currently playing a french campaign that is about creating and managing a new clan then probably become a tribe.
 

I just need your opinion on this:

Our group of players are all from the Ernaldori clan of the Colymar tribe. We are now clan leaders of a new clan based on former enslaved Dundealos and a new territory.
My question is: Can we belong in both clans ? Our parents, family are all in the Ernaldori clan. If not, do we have to remove our Ernaldori tattoos ?
Is it possible to have our new clan join Colymar even if the territory is not close to Colymar (Like Alaska belongs to the US 🙂) ?

Okay, we have two rules in RQG that really help in instances like this:

- Rule 1: Maximum Game Fun. Whatever makes RuneQuest more fun for you or your players is just fine.

- Rule 2: YGWV. Your Glorantha WILL Vary. No game system or game setting survives contact with players or referees intact. Every game session somebody will do something that isn't in the book. And that is totally fine. My Glorantha is gonna be different than yours and those will be different than anybody else's.

Now, as for your question, if it were at my table I would say no, a PC should not be a member of two clans at once. When a two people from different clans are married in Glorantha, one of them becomes a member of another clan. This depends on the customs of the region and status of the partners. For example, an Esrolian Ernalda priestess is going to have a higher local status than her groom, so he becomes a member of her clan. Since you're specifically asking about Sartar, have the couple choose who moves.

But even when a spouse from 'Clan Red Bull' marries into 'Clan Black Berry', they're still blood-kin the family left behind. They have parents, brothers, and sisters still there. If relations within that family are good, they will think highly of Clan Red Bull and seek to keep ties with them via trade, marriages, fostering children, or other arrangements.

As to the tattoos, that's a YGMV decision. Some referees think the tattoos are simply mundane markings that identify someone. Some think that the tattoos bind a person to the clan wyter and are therefore magical. In the first case [tattoos are mundane] you can rule that there is a marriage tattoo. In the latter [tattoos are magical] you can rule that the tattoos magically change over time to more closely match those of a native.

[jo77yroger]

thanks for the replies guys! yes its the campaign "Les enfants de la Flammes", I am loving it 🙂

[jo77yroger]

Hi guys, need your opinion again 😄

We plan to elect a Yinkin priest as our clan leader. What do you think of it? Is it mandatory to have a Orlanth Rex worshipper as leader ? He can eventually have Orlanth Rex as subcult.

[Kloster]

44 minutes ago, jo77yroger said:

Hi guys, need your opinion again 😄

We plan to elect a Yinkin priest as our clan leader. What do you think of it? Is it mandatory to have a Orlanth Rex worshipper as leader ? He can eventually have Orlanth Rex as subcult.

As far as I have understood, Clan leader automatically becomes member of Orlanth's Rex subcult.

[Martin Dick]

1 hour ago, Kloster said:

We plan to elect a Yinkin priest as our clan leader.

What was that saying about herding cats? I think it would lead to interesting times.

 

[Jeff]

4 hours ago, Kloster said:

As far as I have understood, Clan leader automatically becomes member of Orlanth's Rex subcult.

A candidate for chief in an Orlanthi clan must be an Orlanth initiate. They can be initiated to something else as well, but at a very minimum need to be an Orlanth initiate.

[jo77yroger]

thanks for your replies 😁

[Squaredeal Sten]

On 12/22/2022 at 1:38 AM, svensson said:

......

Now, as for your question, if it were at my table I would say no, a PC should not be a member of two clans at once. When a two people from different clans are married in Glorantha, one of them becomes a member of another clan. This depends on the customs of the region and status of the partners. .....

But even when a spouse from 'Clan Red Bull' marries into 'Clan Black Berry', they're still blood-kin the family left behind....

 

As to the tattoos, that's a YGMV decision. ...

Let's think about how this applies to the various types of marriage.  What do you envision in the case of a Sartarite year marriage?  Both the spouses have the option to end it in 42 weeks.

Does the spouse who moved, now have to be re adopted into their old Clan if they want to go back?  Do they risk being clanless?

Tattoos are pretty permanent.  What do you envision for tattoos fir a year msrriage?

 

[Darius West]

On 12/21/2022 at 6:15 AM, jo77yroger said:

I just need your opinion on this:

Our group of players are all from the Ernaldori clan of the Colymar tribe. We are now clan leaders of a new clan based on former enslaved Dundealos and a new territory.
My question is: Can we belong in both clans ? Our parents, family are all in the Ernaldori clan. If not, do we have to remove our Ernaldori tattoos ?
Is it possible to have our new clan join Colymar even if the territory is not close to Colymar (Like Alaska belongs to the US 🙂) ?

Within Clan law/Lore clans periodically split off from a parent clan.  Sometimes it is amicable and sometimes it isn't (Normally it isn't).  Then there is the issue of leaving the clan through marriage, or outlawry, or choice.  You can't be a member of more than one clan at a time.

I would argue that if your characters have accepted that they are now Chiefs of their new Clan, they are no longer Ernladori, even if their kin are Ernaldori.  They have chosen to leave to lead these Dundealos folk as their Chiefs, and are now no longer Ernaldori, however this will not anger the Ernaldori ancestors.  It may anger the Dundealos ancestors however, and it is likely that the Dundealos ancestors will need to be summoned and have the situation explained to them, so they may adopt the new chiefs and form a new tribe combining the two sets of ancestors.  This may be a good opportunity to jettison thrall taking if either group practice it, as technically either the Ernaldori characters or the Dundealos might be classed as late arrivals like the "Nalda Bin etc", so no more thralls thanks.

In terms of their tattoos, there will likely have to be an accommodation met.  I suspect that first generation tattoos are cursory for a new clan, and only second generation tattoos are taken seriously.  There is likely some rich tradition that governs what happens in terms of tattoos changing, but it isn't covered anywhere.  I would imagine that youngsters getting tattoos for the first time will have a combination of the Dundealos tattoos and the Ernaldori tattoos best known to the tattooists.

Issues to do with the strength of loyalty passions are likely to be telling in the next few years.  

[svensson]

12 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Let's think about how this applies to the various types of marriage.  What do you envision in the case of a Sartarite year marriage?  Both the spouses have the option to end it in 42 weeks.

Does the spouse who moved, now have to be re adopted into their old Clan if they want to go back?  Do they risk being clanless?

Tattoos are pretty permanent.  What do you envision for tattoos fir a year msrriage?

 

Regarding tattooing, as I said, there are several ways to handle it.

1- You can have a 'marriage mark' tattoo that signifies marriage into a clan;

2- You can rule that tattoos have a magical component once applied and will change to reflect loyalties;

3- Some combination of both.

4- Not worry about it [that's a personal favorite] 😁

You're right that there are many different types of marriage in Heortling /Orlanthi culture. A Year Marriage would require no change insofar as tattoos or other symbols go. Everybody who needs to know is aware that the arrangement is temporary. But a permanent arrangement would require introducing the spouse to the clan wyter and 'adopting' them into the family. From a character sheet mechanics standpoint, it would do several things... Love Family applies to BOTH the family the spouse came from and the new family they have in the new clan. Loyalty Clan would have to be opened; any failure to show a minimal loyalty to the new clan could possibly be seen as an oath sworn in bad faith [a Very Bad Thing for Orlanthi cultures]. OTOH, it DOES make a good plot point. History is rife with women [mostly] who marry into a family /clan to destroy it from within. Roll your Illusion Rune, Margaret 😅