Bonding two men?

[Aulrick Vendour]

I am currently running my updated WoT RPG for 5e game. I have a male channeler and a blademaster in my party, and they joked about bonding.
I am trying to think if that would be possible.
We have seen two women bonding in Elaine and Brigette, so one could assume it is possible.
On the other hand, not everything women can do, men can. If I follow the linking logic, women can link without a man, but men cannot link without a woman.

So I am wondering which would be the correct way to decide this.
Do you think two men could bond? Or would they require a woman to do that?

 

[Cinna Vrammar]

The Ashaman had a version of the bond. Some bonded their wives, not just aes sedai/women who could channel. So as long as one of the men can channel, which you day one can, I don't see why they couldn't bond.

 

[Hilwa Katir]

I think they can bond.

 

[Thaddius al'Guy]

As long as one person can bond, be it man or woman, the bondee doesn't have to be the opposite. We just don't see very many examples of this in the series.

 

[Murdock Mao]

I'd give my right arm to play in a WoT D&D game...

Whilst we don't see men bonding men in the books, I always theory crafted that it might have some of the same effects as two women bonding, like the mirroring of feelings. Jordan loved a cheeky "this is different because gender" approach.

But then the nature of the bond itself was also a bit different at the Black Tower. We never hear about the wives going in to a rage when the men die for example.

I did see on Reddit that someone had some notes from RJ basically saying that the male bond would just suck a bit more with another man but I don't find that very satisfying at all.

Conclusion: I think you can do whatever you like...? But I would have it so something a bit different to a typical bond because that feels more in the spirit of the way the Power works.

Do your players have any weird and wild theories on how it might look?

 

[Aulrick Vendour]

Do your players have any weird and wild theories on how it might look?

Honestly, one of them read the books and the other did not, so the reader laughed about it because he wanted his character to be a warder, but they don't have a female channeler so he joked about bonding the male channeler. Not sure how serious he was, but it was a fun thought exercise for me to decide if that would even be possible.