On 11/10/05, Steve Simmons <scs at di.org> wrote: > IMHO it's worth a deeper look at that sorting by house, not by class. > Dragons and Dzur kill at the drop of a hat. Nearly all we've met of > either group are unmarried or married without children. Given the > death rate we see, it's completely unsupportable. Either there are Ah, but the kill at the drop of a hat on a _Dragaeran_ time scale. Khaavren kills a lot of people over the course of his lifetime, for instance, and in fact kills many people in TPG; but I believe FHYA notes that at that point Khaavren hadn't fought a duel in something like a hundred years. Battles between Jhereg and the Phoenix Guard may perhaps be "common," but that may mean "once every fifty years," which is half a generation. There are problems with this interpretation, particularly with technological progress and the uncanny (relative) rapidity with which things occur around Vlad, but I believe it is the "cool" interpretation, i.e. part of the necessary background for cool stuff to happen in. > The Teckla supposedly have larger families, and we get to see a fair > amount of typical Teckla life in Aythra (er, the one with Savn). If > memory serves, it's still all very small families - especially since > Teckla are often cannon fodder for their lords.. Well, they also use Easterners. > Now mind you, I'm not sitting up nights worrying about this. The > suspension of disbelief isn't hard, and I'm fine with that. I guess I just have to suspend my belief in a different place, i.e. the slow pace of Dragaeran society. Max Wilson -- Be pretty if you are, Be witty if you can, But be cheerful if it kills you.