On the Tradition of Marriage in House Two Tower

House Two Tower has a very formal marriage arrangement, which was developed to promote the health of its heirs and secure alliances, while ensuring there are never significant rival claimants to any of its holdings.

Usually, all three Earls of House Two Tower (Lothan, Senton, and Kenton) were cousins of some degree.  Two of these earls would take wives outside the house, while one of them would enter an arranged marriage with one of his cousin's sisters.  For example, Codder, the last Earl of Senton, married Odette, while his first cousin, Walder, likewise married a woman from outside the House.  However, Oswulf, Codder's second cousin, married Ethel, Codder's older sister.

Truth, Justice and all Those Dumb Things

Something I've noticed about Lloegyr... Fundamental Attribution Error is in full swing, and I love it.  As characters get drawn into conflict, the players get into wars of words, and the rhetoric starts to fly.  Most of the time, players get drawn into their own IC justifications, believing what they're saying... and that's awesome.  Really... it's how real people work: we make up rational arguments to justify our feelings.  So if you really want to be king, you argue you would be the best king, and start believing it... because you want to be king.

But...

There's a slight problem with the rhetoric sometimes, and it causes people problems when dealing with NPCs.  It's when the rhetoric appeals to the modern Americans we are, and not the fictional Heorots and Aels and Vincians and Kraki we pretend to be.

There's a lot of people who are preaching "peace" to NPCs, and to think of the country (I stopped counting at ten PCs using this argument in the past week... so I'm not talking about you, I'm talking to everyone).  Telling a Heorot to work for peace is like telling your typical American to work for accurate and straight-forward food packaging... most will agree it's a good cause, but they just don't give a shit.  Telling an Ael to think of their country is like telling U.S. citizen to think about "North America..." no one gives a shit about their continent.  Peace and patriotism are more modern concerns, and your traditional Heorot cares about family and honor more than anything else.

I don't mind players having more modern values... I think it makes the game more tragic.  Just realize that making an argument for peace is like making an argument about calorie labels... even if you're right, the people you're talking to (i.e. the NPCs) might not care.