"Scott Schultz" <scott at cjhunter.com> Sent by: dragaera-bounces at dragaera.info 06/23/06 08:44 AM To "'Dragaera List'" <dragaera at dragaera.info> cc Subject RE: How is House Jhereg governed? >"Who is number one?" "You are number six." > >Sorry, geek siezure is past now. :^) "Who's side are you on?!?!" "That would be telling." >Anyone can be killed. I don't suppose that having a Great Weapon to protect >his soul will be likely to make Vlad any less careful about avoiding death >whenever feasible. The trouble he got into with the Jhereg was a case of >passion and desperation. If going after the head of the Organization is a >sure death sentence under normal circumstances, I doubt that having a Great >Weapon will change those odds significantly enough to warrant taking the job >in cold blood. Well, Vlad seems to be past the murderer-for-hire stage of his life at this point, in any event. I'm just curious if he would be able (or even willing) to take on "number one", given the resources now at his disposal, if it were to become the path that desparation required and opportunity presented. >>I can't really see the Lyorn, Phoenix, Dragons, Hawks, Iorich, Issola, >>Tiassa et al having much use for such services. > >Ah, in this case I was thinking of individuals rather than House >representatives. If you wanted to hire an assassin or contact a loan shark >or arrange for an invitation to an upscale casino, you wouldn't want to be >seen walking around the bad parts of Adrilankha to do it. You'd want >someone you could invite over for an afternoon meal, some hint-laced >conversation, and the problem dealt with in a discreet and plausibly >deniable manner. Or if you are, say, a discredited Tsalmoth noble out for revenge against a certain group of friends responsible for your ouster from favor with the emperor? If it were me, I'd probably get my half-breed daughter, and a group of Orca and Jhereg assassins together in a cabaret in the Underside and plot my revenge under an assumed name. Or if I was avoiding the seamier parts of town, I might wine and dine a young and naieve (and especially non-descript) Jhereg assassin with an Eastern name in an upscale Inn near the Silver market. Excuse me. I've been re-reading "Five Hundred Years After" so these examples are at the front of my mind. I guess my point is that we have some obvious text examples of how a noble goes about recruiting an assassin when the need arises, and it seems to be on a strictly free-lance, individual basis. Majikjon