Northern and Southern Crafts

[Estelle]

Hi! I have a few questions about the Crafts in the North and South.

In the FAQ (North and South) it refers to the Northern Halls allowing female crafters after the plague, while the Southern ones did not, and that even after the Pass began, Northerners were still reluctant to come South due to this issue. It also says that there is a separate Northern and Southern Craftmaster.

I wondered if with some of the Southern crafts, like the Harper Hall, now accepting female crafters, the relationship between those Northern and Southern Halls has become any closer? Would someone from the Northern craft be able to go and study in the South (say, to work with a particular Master or learn a skill discovered in the South)? Would the crafts still remain separate, or would they ever recombine under a single Craftmaster?

Thanks!

[Eimi]

Well, I'm not on the Council, so I can only say my opinion of all this, but I like the question, so...

Even though a craft may accept females, the society as of yet, by and large, does not.  Therefore I don't think that Northern crafters would be welcome to ply their trade in the South unless they gave up their allegiance to the North and went through at least part of their training in the south, and visa versa.  For that reason, I don't see a unified crafthall in the foreseeable future.  A temporary exchange of crafters might be possible, but it would be unlikely that they would put down roots and stay, in my opinion.  The culture from where they come from is still vastly different, and there would be a built in mistrust and stereotyping that they would have to work through.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on it...

[Estelle]

Thanks Eimi! This has been really helpful.

Would it be fair to say that someone might transfer from the North to the South (or the other way) for a temporary assignment but it would be unusual, the person would need a good reason to do it and they'd have to be prepared to put up with some suspicion and prejudice when they arrived? (After all, who wants to make a persona's life easy... ;-) )

On a related note, would it be any different for the Weyrs - could someone transfer from a Weyr to a northern crafthall, given that they both train female crafters - or is there a cultural difference there too?

[Avery]

I know we've had PCs before who were Northern Crafters who came South before to train or serve. I agree with Eimi that even though both continents' Harper and Dolphin Halls allow women, there'd still be a lot of cultural differences to deal with (people thinking the ones trained the other way were wrong or provincial). And the crafts that don't take women are less likely to accept a  crafter from the other continent. If you're looking for a reason for it, I think "studying with a Master who's a renowned expert"  would be a good one.

(This is all assuming that say a  northern Harper is going to the southern Harper Hall or to a southern Hold - I think northern crafters winding up at southern Weyrs  would find them far more familiar in culture, especially if the northern crafter was Weyr-trained, since the southern Weyrs repopulated the closed northern ones before the pass...)