Dragaera

Joining the Dzur

Kenneth Gorelick pulmon at comcast.net
Wed Oct 29 17:05:12 PST 2003

So what happens to the hero who fights his/her way into the House of 
the Dzur? Were the candidate not Houseless, would not the members of 
his/her former house be a tad unhappy? Probably not if the hero were a 
Teckla or a Jhereg since one can enter either of those houses without 
having a defined genome. However, wouldn't the House of the Dragon be 
unhappy if a member were talented enough to enter the Dzur, and did so? 
Can one be a member of more than one House at a time?

How about genetic purity? One can only procreate with members of one's 
own House (at least without incurring certain consequences). Would the 
House of the Dzur truly be honored by adding the genes of a Teckla 
hero?

There seems to be something here that is either incompletely thought 
out or far deeper than I am.

What is the House of a Houseless person? What is his/her genotype? 
"Half-breeds" seem to be lower than outcasts, but allowing them to join 
one of the 17 defined Houses is asking for mongrelization of the entire 
House, a concept inconsistent with Dragaeran eugenics.

In summary, I only see problems with two types of Hero who try to join 
the House of the Dzur: Those with a House and those without one. Among 
those with a House, little trouble would emerge for Teckla or Jhereg, 
but it seems unlikely that a member of one of those Houses would be 
welcomed with open arms into the Dzur.