[TSOY] Adding moiety politics to Khale
oliof:
The new edition of "The Shadow of Yesterday" should have "Court of Shadows" in it's title…
chance.thirteen:
Is there a term for when a small group has all the moieties in it? Something that shows that it has all aspects covered? Or would it matter that a hunting expedition, or a diplomatic envoy group have everything covered?
shadowcourt:
chance,
I hadn't intended for there to be full moiety representation in an intentional group like a hunting party or a diplomatic mission, though the idea that if you were sending a diplomat out you'd want him to have some backing from the appropriate moieties isn't a bad one, certainly. Though, for instance, the Lodges themselves represent groups which are perfectly functional even though they're almost entirely composed of a single moiety. A war party should probably just have warriors and the people they need with them to complete their tasks. It's the job of the Hawk moiety to police their actions if others feel they've stepped out of line, whether that's through unnecessary bloodshed, simple laziness, or provoking conflict where there didn't have to be any.
The presence of all eight is more critical for an actual tribe, where it's either an inevitability or it forces marriage outside of the tribe, due to the cyclic generational nature of moiety politics. (Incidentally, I've found the easiest way to figure out how often these things recur, I've found, is just to plot yourself and your own family to the moiety chart. Choose a moiety you like for yourself, to start, and then you'll quickly be able to plot out what your parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, etc. are, which is a factor of their gender and the moiety of others.) Because moiety is something you're born into, you're often a victim of circumstance. I don't necessarily see it as the sort of "super team" phenomena, where if you're going to build a solid group you need a Hawk, a Fox, a Crow, a Red Squirrel, etc etc... and to have all eight moieties represented. But a larger social unit like a tribe pretty much requires them or has to draw on the other tribes.
All that said, if it feels exciting to you to expand on this and push the idea further, feel free to do so. It's a framework for making a game spicier, and as always, that's a season-to-taste type of scenario. Eight members of a group seems like it might be a little unwieldy to me for certain tasks, but all tribes are different. I can see a tribe being traditional and believing that moiety balance for major endeavors is absolutely essential, as a sort of extension on the Tribunal stuff that I talk about. I think the idea that a tribe colors the responsibilities and functionality of moiety by its social pressures is a fundamentally good one. For example, if you're a tribe of Khaleans who deal with an aspect that isn't yet represented under moieties, like "mining", odds are you're going to make it the priority of an existing moiety, as you can't just create a new one without disrupting the parent/child cycle and potentially having kids who can't find spouses. Who deals with mine safety then? Elk? Crow? Some other moiety entirely? That's best decided by what would make your game interesting. If interactions with another species become an important issue for a humano-centric Khalean tribe--say, one at war with crazy monkey-goblins from Qek--then maybe that becomes an issue which is folded into the responsibilities of Red Squirrel or Snake. From a different approach, maybe the Tribunal-like structure is used for a lot of things, such as initiation rites for children, marriage ceremonies, diplomatic missions, or anything else. Minor differences between these tribes can be highlighted in what they do and don't do with moiety responsibilities.
You'll notice I deliberately left Moon Metal out of the moiety responsibilities chart, as it stands. The moon metal remains such an intrusion on to Khalean culture that I didn't want to have it be one moiety's responsibility over another; I like that it's disruptive, and "outside the natural order" both in terms of how it behaves and how the Khaleans deal with it.
Also, because I keep promising to do something like it, here's some rough sketches for how moiety Secrets might work in a game:
Secret of the Lodge
While any Khalean might be loosely affiliated with a lodge of other members of his moiety, yours is particularly accomplished, and members give generously of their time and resources to support the moiety's goals. You can make a Genealogy check to establish Effect Dice pools, which take the form of materials and aid your moiety-mates provide to you. These effects can be spent on Equipment Ratings also, but the function and imbuement of the Equipment, as with the uses of the Effect Dice, are always limited to the narrow focus of your moiety's area of responsibility. You can generate this Effect pool once a day for free, but additional checks beyond that, or maintaining the pool beyond refresh, require pool expenditure. Prerequisite: Being a member in good standing of a Khalean moiety. Additionally, refusal to come to the aid of your moiety-mates may result in other moiety members contesting this Secret's usage.
Secret of Moiety Inclusion
Though you are not born a Khalean, you have been given a "skin name" and you know to which moiety you belong. You are permitted all the rights and responsibilities of a member of that moiety, and can join lodges and sit on tribunals as if you were born among the tribes. Additionally, the expectations on you are slightly more generous than they would be for someone born to the ways of the tribe; you have a bonus die on any check where you try and weasel your way out of the expectations of the rest of your moiety's normal roles. Though you don't have a family line of your own to draw upon, you can still use the Genealogy ability in social chains with other Khaleans, allowing you to establish yourself in relation to them through moiety ties. Prerequisite: Not born a member of a Khalean tribe.
Secret of Sacred Responsibility
You take the responsibility to police your moiety's domain with great seriousness, and have been trained to recognize signs of wrong-doing and laziness. You add a bonus die on any check to tell when something is amiss within the areas of your moiety's responsibility (such as Discern Truth, or an ability which appraises material crafts or the health of a being). Adults or your moiety respect your insight into these matters and your commitment to the cause; you receive a bonus die on Orate checks when trying to convince them that they must take action to police a misdeed. Prerequisite: Being a member in good standing of a Khalean moiety.
I've played around with some others which give edges within a moiety's specific bailiwick, so that a Snake moiety member might have a bonus die on crafts checks for dealing with ropes and a bonus die on identifying poisonous plants, but in the end I think this is probably fine to split between the Secret of Sacred Responsibility and people going for Secrets like Ability Specialty.
If anyone has other ideas, or mechanics they think should be represented, however, I'm all for showing off their work there.
-shadowcourt (aka Josh)
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[*] Previous page