: Okay, so I wasn't really satisifed with the explanations
: I got for why the Jmen look like they do, so I made up
: my own: The fur coats: these are robes that the Heron
: Guard wore during their initiation ceremonies. The
: rite takes place up in the mountains where it's cold.
: Maybe part of the initiation involves hunting down a
: bear and taking its skin--I can't decide on that.
The surviving Heron Guard *were* returning from Bagrada--my personal guess would be that they had the fur coats simply to keep warm when they weren't in battle. Upon realizing their disgrace and discarding their armor, the fur coats were the only other clothing they had, and conveniently heavy and stifling and uncomfortable for purposes of penance. I just doubt they'd have a major ritual based somewhere other than Muirthemne.
: The necklace: I had a really hard time with this one. In
: the end I decided that it was a string of bird skulls,
: a holdover from the days before the worship of Wyrd
: when the original Heron Guard were shamans of the old,
: earth-based religion.
Bird skulls? You can see them up close in some Jman pictures and they're definitely not skulls; they're smooth, with no irregularities or holes in them. I'd guess they're mainly stones, with perhaps some carnivore fangs thrown in. I agree that the necklace is probably a vestige of their old religion (though I wouldn't necessarily say that religion no longer exists; the Jmen could recognize Wyrd as the supreme god but nonetheless be personally devoted to the Earth), but wouldn't it make more sense for Earth-worshippers to string sacred stones on a necklace than bird skulls?
: The tiles: well, we all know about the tiles.
: The shovel: When the Guard threw away their swords the
: first thing they did was bury the old emperor (who,
: out of lack of better evidence, I'm assuming is
: Ceiscoran). They needed to defend against ghols who
: wanted the body and they found the shovels worked
: admirably, so they've held on to them.
The shovels *don't* work too well, though. :-) It's emphasized more than once how common and undistinguished the shovels are (unlike the hand-crafted golden-hilted shovels of Damascus steel often seen), and I think this is sufficient reason for the Jmen to use them; they wanted a weapon which was precisely the opposite of their super-elite perfectly-crafted katanas. Also, of course, their primary role was that of a healer, not a combatant, so the usefulness of the shovels in digging for roots would have outweighed their crappiness as combat weapons.
This in no way prevents you from having them pick up the shovels in the first place to bury their emperor; later they might have gone "Hey, these shovels have just the right combination of grunge and functionality! Let's run with this!"
: Okay, that's my take on the whole thing. I needed some
: kind of explanation for the levels I'm writing. I'd
: apreciate it if someone could either knock me down and
: show me why these are utterly wrong or--hoping against
: hope--maybe even acceptable.
I hope I've shown you *something*, even if I can't figure out what it is. :-)
--SiliconDream
