Revisiting Hospitality

[Joerg]

In the thread about nobility, I got a little side-tracked by suggesting NPCs exploiting the laws of hospitality. I remarked that providing such a set would make a possible short work for the Jonstown Compendium, so I sat down to create a first example, and to look at what we have in the currently published body of RQG that deals with the subject.

Doing a text search of my RQG and systemless Glorantha pdfs, I found astonishingly few mentions of hospitality. I guess we will have to wait for the Sartar campaign book to see an edited reprint of the Greeting box in HQ2 Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes (p.89).

That box offers a series of questions, first established in King of Sartar (p.51 of the hardcover edition) that are exchanged between the home team challenger and the visitor.

 

Hospitality is one of the greater virtues of Glorantha, across pantheons and species. Even some of the heroes of Chaos like Ralzakark or Gagix Two-barb obey the universal laws of hospitality when approached correctly.

 

The Orlanthi of Dragon Pass (including the Esrolians, Caladralanders, Islanders, Ironhoof’s Beast Folk, the Vendref and their overlords and some of the Praxians) share the ritual challenges that were established when Veskarthan of the Deep visited Umath’s Camp (found in King of Sartar p.51, or in the (sadly out of print) HQ2 Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes p.89 with Orlanth and his half-brother Quivin as the protagonists.

The Greeting starts with a challenge whether the arrival is friend or foe, and then for the name of the visitor. These are not yet part of the hospitality offer, as the guards/home team may demand that the arrival leaves. Such a demand would require a recognized feud or an unreasonable demand made by the arrival, though.

Once the home team decides to offer hospitality, they offer the most basic terms, protection and water, in exchange for the promise of non-aggression: “I will not rob you, nor bare arms” framed by the signature phrases “I accept this, with gratitude:” leading the guest statement, and “and I will speak ever of your generosity.” as the closing phrase.

The recipient of hospitality will be protected from open attacks by the guards of the home team, and while other visitors (under oaths of hospitality) may accuse the arrivals of misdeeds, any aggression against a recognized guest is also an aggression against the host.

The guest will be allowed access to the public area for guests. The gift of water may be a symbolic cup, or it may be the opportunity to wash off dirt, water the steeds and drink their fill depending on the situation.

Whether tax collectors may demand these terms of hospitality when they expect to enforce payment in the case of non-compliance is another question. Neither the Kitori Shadowlords nor the Lunar occupation forces may have been welcome. Offering the minimum hospitality should in theory prevent such arrivals from ransacking storages or searching houses for suspected rebels or withheld taxes.

While under these oaths of hospitality, visitors may find themselves confronted with other guests who are their foes, up to the possibility that these other guests brought captives that the visitors want to free, or that these other guests are people they have vowed to slay.

All of this can result in roleplaying opportunities.

 

Subsequent levels of hospitality that can be obtained from locals are

• A blanket to sleep under, aka shelter from the elements. Access under a communal roof if there is one. (Hospitality laws extend to herders' campfires or similar outdoor presences, too.)
• Meat, or other food? Meat is an invitation to a feast, really, but then not hosting a feast for a visitor might be regarded as a slight. I would have expected an offer of gruel or some other day-to-day food (bread) first.
• Salt
• Duty

These levels of hospitality may vary in everyday application.

Entering a Sartarite city will come with obligations of hospitality, but to whom? The City Rex extends toleration to those who pass the city guards and enter the city, but how much hospitality does access to the city infer?

What are the duties of a guest? Are these duties dependent on the level of hospitality they receive? Are they dependent on the (professed) social status of the guest?

How does the trope of the ruler (or a deity) visiting in disguise, under an alias or otherwise adopted name, affect these customs?

Are there rites to adopt an alias as the honorable and legal representation of identity? Or is this a case of "You may address me as <alias>!" which would become a honorable way of hiding one's identity?

A simple farmer offering hospitality to a king would easily be robbed of a few years of income if he had to provide something approaching royal accommodation, which is why there may be a custom for high status travelers wishing to stay with locals to introduce themselves with one of their less haughty titles or roles. A prince of Sartar might introduce himself as a builder of roads, for instance, establishing the legal fiction that it is ok to give him the treatment of a journeyman guildsman. Establishing one's presence as a pilgrim is another common way to accept a certain category of welcome.

 

The Weapons & Equipment Guide p.55 mentions the expectation that hospitality is always given in Orlanthi society:

Quote

No matter the reason, the outcome always call upon kin or strangers additional courtesies or aid.

only to go on detailing the cases where this is not an option, and the professional services of an inn or a caravanserai need to be searched instead.

Quote

For places without any available kin or a nearby friendly temple, they usually must find an inn.

This is quite a flip towards the phrasing in HW/HQ1 Barbarian Adventures p.10, Inns in Sartar.

Spoiler

The RQG era description of Sartar makes it clear that there is a network of caravanserais in Sartar, with each place marked on the map as "Inn" providing one, as well as other hamlets. Thus, Apple Lane and the hamlet of Farfield in Pegasus Plateau: The Rattling Wind each provide an inn run by the local Issaries cult representative.

Quote

 

Inns in Sartar?
Gloranthan maps are notoriously inaccurate. For example many maps of Sartar circulated outside its borders show a net work of inns dotted at convenient intervals across the territories of the tribes. Colorful and inviting names such as “Yellow Bear Inn,” “Dancing Apple Inn,” and “Wark’s Hotel” suggest that modern, comfortable accommodations await visitors to Sartar. However, the reality is somewhat less encouraging. Strangers are never automatically welcome in any Orlanthi community, no matter what any maps says. Certain families or individuals are especially interested in playing host to travelers. They may be traders angling for opportunities and contacts, sages or magicians hoping for information about the outside world, or simply curious folk looking to ease their boredom. Some visitors to clan lands, after being directed to “the place travelers go,” false ly conclude that they are staying in a backwoods inn. Some of these habitual hosts find this amusing, and even come up with names for their “inns” when prompted to do so. However, the joke stops being funny when travelers assume too much about their rights as “patrons” of the inn, and find out too late that they have offended an entire clan of well-armed people who have an elaborate and violent code for dealing with insults.

This text reflects the situation e.g. in early medieval Norway, where the most well-regarded farmers would host travelers of rank in their homes, possibly distributing multiple parties between different households. While this is a fascinating opportunity for roleplaying, with (spurious?) claims of kinship coming into the contest, the current depiction of Sartar as a country that thrives on the merchant traffic.

Places with available kin may provide "private accommodation" away from the chief's hall, at least for the kinsperson, but what about their companions (and their steeds and pack animals, servants, hired guards, etc.?)

Will a merchant rely on the kin of one of his followers (or caravan guests') kinfolk for accommodation? Would this snub the chief (or other local bigwig)?

 

Book 2 in the Starter Set mentions places that adventurers may be entitled to find hospitality at - the tribal mansions in the city. (pp.46f)

Quote

Tribe members are entitled to hospitality here.

Which begs the question about how long the entitlement to hospitality will last, and what level of hospitality the host will have to extend to the travelers, and perhaps their companions.

And what compensation such guests are expected to provide to their hosts?

When visiting kin (which usually would be people born to one's own clan married into the host's clan), news from home are a valuable commodity. Carrying messages to the community of the host(s) is a form of guest gift, too.

[Joerg]

With the basic questions about hospitality out of the way, here's a first try at describing an obnoxious guest:

Hordi Seven Boasts and his man-servant Odd

Hordi is an elderly clan thane from the impoverished <Varmandi>/<Hillhaven>/<whatever> clan. His five hides of sheep number maybe sixty instead of the required 250, which his equally impoverished tenants make up for by providing extra hay for the tribal herds or the steeds of guests at the clan-associated caravanserai (e.g. Apple Lane) over the worst parts of winter.

Regardless of the occasion, Hordi is sure to give seven toasts to the host, praising a different Orlanthi virtue while praising himself with one of his seven stock boasts.

Even in latter stages of inebriation, Hordi has yet to be caught to utter the same boast twice at a single occasion.

Hordi owns an often stitched tunic of linen with silken fields, with many a rend artistically mended stitching a glyph or a rune across the rend. Hordi’s sworn manservant Odd, an ugly stickpicker from his clan who would have happily receive the lowest available level of hospitality for some cold gruel and a dry place to sleep, has become quite the textile artist and will nowadays receive quite a bit of the high status fare from Hordi’s drinking cup and food bowl. Hordi’s tipsy behavior is mostly acting these days, while Odd will often be seen in a pleasant stupor after enjoying a rich meal and good drink.

Odd will offer his textile repair services to other professional guests and genuine travelers for a small gift. Given a few more years, Odd might be able to afford enough livestock to upgrade his status to a tenant herder, or become a village tailor and embroiderer cottar with his own hut, and maybe even receive a wife to warm him in his old years around the corner.

Hordi’s boasts:

• In his youth, he rode with Kallyr who is known as the Starbrow. (The truth of this claim is that Hordi served as a caravan guard iin the saddle of a spare mule for a merchant who accompanied a teenage Kallyr to receive some of the royal house of Sartar scion in Boldhome).
• He was eye-witness of the demise of the Crimson Bat at the Chaos Ground outside of Runegate. (The truth of this claim is that the Varmandi warriors led by him arrived too late fro the defenve of Runegate, and hid on the flank of Old Top, way too close to the site where the Crimson Bat crashed down.)
• He served under Prince Salinarg. (He was part of the Varmandi complement to aid Salinarg in his road-building at …)
• He faced Chaos at Orgwaha Blue Llama’s memorable Storm Bull holy day service in Boldhome. (He became the target of a Face Chaos spell cast by a companion of Orgwaha, only to be incapacitated by receiving a salvo of Demoralize, Befuddle and Mindblast, at least distracting these spells from those who actively fought in the ensuing hubbub. Hordi has a scar to prove this – unfortunately the piece of gorp gaught him on his buttocks.)
• He was a guest at Prince Temertain’s inthronisation. (None of the other <Varmandi> thanes would stomach sitting at the same feast as Fazzur and his officers below Larnste’s Table. Hordi was dead drunk before the rites had finished.)
• He fought a sakkar sabre-tooth cat on his own. (The Sakkar’s attack pushed him down a cliff, with his fall cushioned by a canopy of hazia bushes he and an enterprising gardener had managed to plant, destroying that one hope to get rich.)
• He was one of the Sartarites at the defence of the Hill of Orlanth Victorious. (Hordi was one of the people tearing down the dam across the rivulet that would split the advancing hoplites. His section of the dam only broke down when the neighboring sections carried it down in the flow.)

 

I wonder whether something like this, extended with a few adventure hooks or maybe a nemesis of Hordi's, might be interesting as a Jonstown offering. Or possibly a list of sample hosts with their quirks?

[mfbrandi]

14 minutes ago, Joerg said:

I wonder whether something like this, extended with a few adventure hooks or maybe a nemesis of Hordi’s, might be interesting as a Jonstown offering.

Yes.

In your example, we have a boastful guest who seems to have little but his boasts — so the host and the host’s other guests should probably tolerate and even indulge the annoying guest. If the PCs are the hosts, it becomes a test for them (and an entertainment for the players). It could be spun as “entertaining angels [gods] unawares” with possible rewards for imaginatively virtuous/compassionate PC hosts — dispensed by Odd, not Hordi? If inspiration strikes, you could have other NPCs to test other aspects of “good hosting.” Too Tricksterish?

Quirky hosts: like the Green Knight? (Also a guest, of course.)

I don’t mean to suggest you haven’t thought of all this already.

[mfbrandi]

43 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Offering the minimum hospitality should in theory prevent such arrivals from ransacking storages or searching houses for suspected rebels or withheld taxes.

Well, I don’t know: what are the rules around accepting hospitality? If x, y, and z, the potential host has to offer it, but when does the potential guest have to accept (on pain of breaching the code)? The powerful don’t necessarily want to be de-fanged by becoming guests.

If the tax collectors turn up with an army or the cops arrive looking for a suspect, what tools does the receiver of the unwelcome attention have to manoeuvre them into a safer — though doubtless not entirely safe — guest–host relationship?

[Techpriest]

19 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Well, I don’t know: what are the rules around accepting hospitality? If x, y, and z, the potential host has to offer it, but when does the potential guest have to accept (on pain of breaching the code)? The powerful don’t necessarily want to be de-fanged by becoming guests.

If the tax collectors turn up with an army or the cops arrive looking for a suspect, what tools does the receiver of the unwelcome attention have to manoeuvre them into a safer — though doubtless not entirely safe — guest–host relationship?

My guess would be there's a point where custom dictates you have to accept that hospitality for at least a short time, likely when being offered food that's already prepared, or a place to sleep. Guest status is important to a lot of honor based cultures as it ensures nobody gets killed. It allows for negotiation in a way that neither side can just attack the other one without coming off as a dishonorable scoundrel. 

So from this perspective, I'd guess that if you come out with a plate of food or fresh bread, and you vocally offer it to them and ask them to become guests, it's very very hard to refuse. This doesn't mean they can't take advantage of your guest period to say, poke around a location, or look over something. It also doesn't mean they can't stay for only a short time (perhaps an hour), or perhaps, one of them comes and accepts your offer of hospitality earlier and take the offered gift and then oh hey his friends don't have anything that you can give in terms of hospitality - so they're not guests, and you'd better listen to them, while your own guest starts negotiations.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

I agree that the actual ritual is hard to find.  Here is a slightly shortened example from our campaign:

http://gloranthagame.pbworks.com/w/page/149524881/Earth Season 1627 Session 2#AStrangeCaravan

At some point, the guests formally accept by saying  ""We will not steal from you, nor bear arms, and tell always of your generosity".  Or similar - I decided that Tarshite speakers had a strong Northumbrian / Scots dialect.

[mfbrandi]

23 hours ago, Joerg said:

the promise of non-aggression: “I will not rob you, nor bare arms”

1 hour ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

We will not steal from you, nor bear arms

Interesting …

Jörg’s “bare arms” made me double-take, too, but it does match the source. If the original wasn’t a typo, presumably the idea is that swords will not be unsheathed — no naked blades — but that doesn’t work so well for other weapons.

Not bearing — carrying — arms is more pacific, but is it ever going to happen? Everyone carries a knife (which can make a horrible mess), even if they park their spear or maul at the door, right? (Come to that, they might even legitimately bare it.)

I don’t presume to know just what guests have to promise not to do with weapons.

Edited November 1 by mfbrandi
font

[radmonger]

A promise to not use any Odaylan rune magic?

[Squaredeal Sten]

On 10/31/2023 at 5:06 PM, Joerg said:

With the basic questions about hospitality out of the way, here's a first try at describing an obnoxious guest:

Hordi Seven Boasts and his man-servant Odd

Hordi is an elderly clan thane from the impoverished <Varmandi>/<Hillhaven>/<whatever> clan. His five hides of sheep number maybe sixty instead of the required 250, which his equally impoverished tenants make up for by providing extra hay for the tribal herds or the steeds of guests at the clan-associated caravanserai (e.g. Apple Lane) over the worst parts of winter.

Regardless of the occasion, Hordi is sure to give seven toasts to the host, praising a different Orlanthi virtue while praising himself with one of his seven stock boasts.

Even in latter stages of inebriation, Hordi has yet to be caught to utter the same boast twice at a single occasion.

Hordi owns an often stitched tunic of linen with silken fields, with many a rend artistically mended stitching a glyph or a rune across the rend. Hordi’s sworn manservant Odd, an ugly stickpicker from his clan who would have happily receive the lowest available level of hospitality for some cold gruel and a dry place to sleep, has become quite the textile artist and will nowadays receive quite a bit of the high status fare from Hordi’s drinking cup and food bowl. Hordi’s tipsy behavior is mostly acting these days, while Odd will often be seen in a pleasant stupor after enjoying a rich meal and good drink.

Odd will offer his textile repair services to other professional guests and genuine travelers for a small gift. Given a few more years, Odd might be able to afford enough livestock to upgrade his status to a tenant herder, or become a village tailor and embroiderer cottar with his own hut, and maybe even receive a wife to warm him in his old years around the corner.

Hordi’s boasts:

• In his youth, he rode with Kallyr who is known as the Starbrow. (The truth of this claim is that Hordi served as a caravan guard iin the saddle of a spare mule for a merchant who accompanied a teenage Kallyr to receive some of the royal house of Sartar scion in Boldhome).
• He was eye-witness of the demise of the Crimson Bat at the Chaos Ground outside of Runegate. (The truth of this claim is that the Varmandi warriors led by him arrived too late fro the defenve of Runegate, and hid on the flank of Old Top, way too close to the site where the Crimson Bat crashed down.)
• He served under Prince Salinarg. (He was part of the Varmandi complement to aid Salinarg in his road-building at …)
• He faced Chaos at Orgwaha Blue Llama’s memorable Storm Bull holy day service in Boldhome. (He became the target of a Face Chaos spell cast by a companion of Orgwaha, only to be incapacitated by receiving a salvo of Demoralize, Befuddle and Mindblast, at least distracting these spells from those who actively fought in the ensuing hubbub. Hordi has a scar to prove this – unfortunately the piece of gorp gaught him on his buttocks.)
• He was a guest at Prince Temertain’s inthronisation. (None of the other <Varmandi> thanes would stomach sitting at the same feast as Fazzur and his officers below Larnste’s Table. Hordi was dead drunk before the rites had finished.)
• He fought a sakkar sabre-tooth cat on his own. (The Sakkar’s attack pushed him down a cliff, with his fall cushioned by a canopy of hazia bushes he and an enterprising gardener had managed to plant, destroying that one hope to get rich.)
• He was one of the Sartarites at the defence of the Hill of Orlanth Victorious. (Hordi was one of the people tearing down the dam across the rivulet that would split the advancing hoplites. His section of the dam only broke down when the neighboring sections carried it down in the flow.)

 

I wonder whether something like this, extended with a few adventure hooks or maybe a nemesis of Hordi's, might be interesting as a Jonstown offering. Or possibly a list of sample hosts with their quirks?

That might indeed be interesting.  I think such a playable piece might be built around a journey during which the traveler party encounters all the levels of hospitality from the cup of water and opportunity to sleep in a grove near the village or stead, to being hosted in a relative's  house, the chief's hall, several houses, an inn, and the tribal manor at Boldhome or another city.  With the reasons why each situation is appropriate. 

What to do with a large group's animals will be an occasion for inventiveness.  I imagine that a caravan or large pilgrim group will have many more animals than can be accommodated in the back of someone's longhouse.  In that case if there is no inn,  the village will have to do... what?

It seems to me that criteria for appropriate hosting would have several dimensions: The guest(s) reputation, social rank, number of guests and their animals, who the host is and their resources, the physical location (ranging from a shepherd' s camp to an  isolated stead, a village, an inn, city gate,  the tribal manor, chief's hall).  

 

 

[Nick Brooke]

7 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Jörg’s “bare arms” made me double-take, too, but it does match the source… I don’t presume to know just what guests have to promise not to do with weapons.

It’s OK to carry them (“bear arms” - these people are barbarians, after all: taking away their weapons is seen as symbolic castration*), but you would break hospitality if you were ever to wield them (“bare arms” - and note that this is short of striking a blow).

(Odaylans, of course, retain the right to arm bears.)

* cf. the Lunar peace terms after Starbrow’s Rebellion, accurately depicted here.

 

[Cassius]

On 10/31/2023 at 10:57 PM, Joerg said:

Doing a text search of my RQG and systemless Glorantha pdfs, I found astonishingly few mentions of hospitality. I guess we will have to wait for the Sartar campaign book to see an edited reprint of the Greeting box in HQ2 Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes (p.89).

That box offers a series of questions, first established in King of Sartar (p.51 of the hardcover edition) that are exchanged between the home team challenger and the visitor.

According to The Book of Heortling Mythology, we owe Umath this rite of hospitality ("The First Hospitality", p. 31). I don't know which source is the oldest.

[Akhôrahil]

One thing I wonder about is how often the formal invocations of hospitality are brought out. Presumably you get more formal the more unfamiliar and fraught the situation is? But at the same time, I have a hard time imagining it happens every time, like the sixth time people from the friendly neighboring clan comes over. 

Hospitality is definitely strong for role-playing, though. My PCs were in a situation where they had to receive an emissary from Ralzakark, and neither wanted to offend nor get too deep into the hospitality. They ended up serving exceptional ale and a lavish fish dish, in order to formally stay away from "meat". As well as trying to counter what they (correctly) felt was excessive gift-giving that would land them in a position of gratitude they didn't want.

Edited November 3 by Akhôrahil