Goats in Sartar

[Bohemond]

So Sartarites dislike goats. What are the laws on goats? Is it legal to eat goat meat? To herd goats?

The reason I ask is that the PCs in my game are thinking about allowing Piku the 3rd Eye Blue blacksmith to set up shop on their land, and he keeps goats. Their clan ring is going to debate the issue, and the law speaker needs to know what the law on this issue is.

[Roko Joko]

“Goats are considered religiously unclean and are never eaten, and rarely even tolerated.” S:KoH p. 30

[David Scott]

Or more recently – “Goats are considered religiously unclean and are never eaten, and rarely even tolerated.” In the Orlanthi section of the Guide p36

[Charles]

Another data point from S:KoH – P231 The Lunars have taken their livestock and replaced them with goats, which the Balkoth herd despite the hatred Orlanthi have for that unclean animal.

As GM I allowed the players to use Peace resource (trading Piku’s output) or War resource (more weapons) to overcome the Morale resource. And then made them work to recover the negative impact on the clan Morale 😀

[Bohemond]

My players leaned on Piku to give up the goats and exchange them for sheep. They gave him a good exchange rate 1.5 sheep per goat, which infuriated their chief shepherd, but he was shouted down.

But this raises an interesting question. Heortling law is based on injury–a crime lies in injuring someone. Eating goat meat doesn’t injure anyone other than the person who eats it, so no one has standing to bring a suit. So how would it be punished–just social ostracism?

[Clay]

My players invited Piku to live on their lands, along with the goats. The goats caused a bit of a ruckus; the clan ring showed concern but did not interfere in the affairs of a stead. The goats are kept penned near the forge and only used by Piku and his family as food and to feed the Monster. Since Piku is a foreigner, this is acceptable – in fact, it has proven beneficial since Piku and his family didn’t place an additional strain on the stead’s food.

[Harald Smith]

> So how would it be punished–just social ostracism?
.
That could be part of it.
But I’d also the religious/mythic consequences. Goats are unclean because they are the beasts of Ragnaglar and Thed (i.e. have a very, very close association with broos). Their presence will likely attract broos or disease spirits to the clan lands. Their presence, particularly during religious ceremonies, may draw broos or other chaos into those ceremonies unless the characters can find myths to avoid such fate. There may be visions or omens of such events in advance – the Earth priestess may have horrible headaches, the Orlanth priest (if there is one) smells foul winds (and if there isn’t one, perhaps an avatar of Ragnaglar appears instead on a holy day of Orlanth).
There are also associations in Dara Happa of goats with Gerendetho in Kostaddi. So perhaps instead of or before Ragnaglar and Thed, the goats mythically draw the attention of some DH soldiers from Kostaddi. Perhaps they just find and butcher the animals. Perhaps they use them ritually to invoke the fertility of the goats for themselves (and draw forth Ragnaglar in the process). Likely some other ideas on that line.

[Bohemond]

Some very nice ideas, Harald. Thanks!

[Author]

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