"The Goreans generally, though there are exceptions,

particularly the Caste of Initiates, do not believe in

immortality. Accordingly, to be of a city is, in a sense, to

have been a part of something less perishable than oneself,

something divine in the sense of undying, Of course, as

every Gorean knows, cities too are mortal, for cities can be

destroyed as well as men. And this perhaps makes them love

their cities the more, for they know that their city, like

themselves, is subject to mortal termination.

The love of their city tends to become invested in a stone

which is known as the Home Stone, and which is normally kept

in the highest cylinder in the city. In the Home Stone -

sometimes little more than a crude piece of carved rock,

dating back perhaps several hundred generations to when the

city was only a cluster of huts by the bank of a river,

sometimes a magnificent and impressively wrought, jewel-

encrusted cube of marble or granite - the city finds its

symbol. Yet to speak of a symbol is to fall short of the

mark. It is almost as if the city itself were identified

with the Home Stone, as if it were to the city what life is

to man. The myths of these matters have it that while the

Home Stone survives, so, too, must the city.

But not only is it the case that each city has its Home

Stone. The simplest and humblest village, and even the most

primitive hut in that village, perhaps only a cone of straw,

will contain its own Home Stone, as will the fantastically

appointed chambers of the Administrator of so great a city as

Ar."

Outlaw of Gor