Pavis Crimes

[taxboy]

Hi there - in my current Pavis Campaign, I have a high ranked son of a Dara Happa family who is a murderer and child killer.

My players are giving me grief because the impression Pavis gives is that the city is quite low crime compared to other large cities and how would he get away with it for any great length of time regardless of his connections. With the Zebra clan having access to Divine and Sorcery they reason, it should be easy to catch him or at least hold him under suspicion.

Actually pretty good questions..

Also there seems to be a social custom about killed because of the blood price - any advice gratefully received.

Baz

 

[Loz]

Where did he commit these heinous acts?

If in Dara Happa then you could expect runelords of whatever cult he belongs to be actively hunting him down. Other Dara Happan cults too might also be chasing him, despite the distance from Dara Happa.

Pavis is low crime in terms of murder, and if he committed these crimes in the city then you can certainly expect that the Cult of Pavis, nascent as it is, to be actively hunting him, using the Zebras as their main agents, but also mobilizing others (the Storm Tribe, for certain). This is a city protected by the Man Rune and a child-killer will not be able to hide for long.

 

[taxboy]

Bugger, i think I have stuffed this up, it was in Pavis.

I lifted the storyline from another game i ran and did not figure in the speical nature of Pavis...

 

[soltakss]

Don't forget that Pavis,. like any city, has its share of street urchins, ne'er-do-wells and hidden people. It should be fairly easy to kill those, especially if you dispose of the corpses very, very carefully. Ogres do it all the time, after all.

If you pick people who won't be missed then that reduces the number of people who might come after you. Also, if you can get hold of some specialist magic then it makes it harder to detect you.

After all, Pavis is not omnipotent. He knows what affects the whole city, to a certain extent, but doesn't have time to concentrate on little things. Depending when you are in Pavis, the god might be on the Other Side, in which case he has a herder job of keeping everything in harmony.

Also, I don;t necessarily subscribe to the idea that your Runelords will hunt you down for everything you do. If you are a powerful noble or a member of a powerful family and only commit crimes against unimportant people, they will/could look the other way. Your god doesn't know everything you do, in my opinion, so you'd have to do a lot of killing to gain enough bad karma for the gods to notice.

It all depends on how you view Sin in Glorantha. If committing a sin is objectively bad, then your deity may well find out about it and punish you. But, it should involve a discussion between your GM and the player.

I'd certainly follow older Gloranthan supplements and provide visions, dreams and so on to send people against a sinner, not necessarily against your character but perhaps to the region.

 

[Deleriad]

I wouldn't worry too much. In Glorantha, just as on Earth, power buys you freedom. Lord Pavis has more important things on his plate than a murderer and if the victims' families have no status then they cannot bring any worldly influence to bear.

The interesting thing becomes a question of the noble's pact with his deity. Has he managed to rationalise it as a religious act? If so he may be becoming monstrous and at the same more like an aspect of his god. In my opinion Glorantha's not a place where gods watch their followers through some form of CCTV and police them. Rather, sinful acts warp the worshipper. Although cults maintain sanctions they seem mostly to kick in when gods become aware that worship is going in the wrong place.

So rather than worrying that you can't tell a story because it 'goes against' Glorantha, tell the story and ask yourself, what makes this even more interesting now?

 

[taxboy]

Cheers guys - very useful for me to ponder!