Sartar under the House of Sartar

[Jeff]

Just now, Jeff said:

At the risk of gross simplification:

An Orlanth Rex needs to be acclaimed by the priests of the tribe, but once acclaimed he has a LOT of power over them. That's Alakoring's magic. You better select the best person for the job, because once he is there, he has the power to compel. Sartar - surprise surprise - was Orlanth Rex, and so are his heirs (including Argrath). You agree to make Tarkalor Prince, and he has the power to give Yelmalio land and let the Yelmalio cultists form their own tribe. 

A non.-Rex king is just the paramount chief. The chiefs agree that Big Chief gets to be king. But Big Chief is just that - a big chief. The priests can oppose him and even bring him down. Same with the chiefs. The chiefs and priests have the real power, not the king. This was the situation in the First and Second Age.

Now poor old Temertain wasn't this. He never performed the final step of his acclamation, to begin with. And the Lunars weren't going to let him be the Orlanth Rex of Sartar - they were much happier with him being the *almost qualifies as Prince* Prince. Sure eventually he'll get around to finishing the ceremony that gives him power. But Estal Donge is so captivating! And look - iron Brithini statuary!

[Joerg]

49 minutes ago, Jeff said:

As an aside, the chieftain can't just go willy-nilly reassigning clan land. He needs to get the sign-off from his Inner Ring, and if anyone complains, he needs the Outer Ring to consent to it as well.

Tribal level is different - a Rex king has a lot more tools to get things done his way. He can reassign a clan's lands (which is what happened to Hahlgrim) and if an assembly is needed, it is easier for the king to get his way. Command Priest, for example, is a great spell to force a chief to back down. A tribal king has more resources, more supporters, etc.

Wait a moment  - a mere tribal king can override a clan's (plowed/built over) land claims with a simple command? So a Rex king of the Colymar could have sent the Varmandi packing, and leaving behind the Thunder Oak which houses their wyter?

I can see such a command work with lands used by the clan - such as summer pasture or hunting grounds - but not with the area under control of the clan wyter.

It is (usually) not like a clan ever received its land from the (current) tribal king. In the Quivini lands, many clans entered on their own, taking a claim to some land, and integrating that land in their clan identity over the centuries. It is possible to sever a clan from a tribe, but not to sever the clan from its land without defeating it beyond recuperation.

(The Helvetii giving up their lands just like that, without a clear idea where they would settle next, always sounded quite suspicious to me. In case of the Germanic migrations, there appears to be archaeological evidence for the soil having been overworked severely.)

[Akhôrahil]

53 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Wait a moment  - a mere tribal king can override a clan's (plowed/built over) land claims with a simple command? So a Rex king of the Colymar could have sent the Varmandi packing, and leaving behind the Thunder Oak which houses their wyter?

Well, I mean he can try? It will probably raise all kinds of alarm bells among the other clans, and the Varmandi in this case would be unlikely to put up with it without a fight. Violence, after all, is always an option. Similarly, tribes bullying those they can seems to be perfectly normal (as anyone who played King of Dragon Pass knows). Someone like Blackmoor doing it to a recalcitrant clan seems completely in character, and I'm sure Bad King Urgrain did it.

Edited September 17, 2019 by Akhôrahil

[Sir_Godspeed]

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

Wait a moment  - a mere tribal king can override a clan's (plowed/built over) land claims with a simple command? So a Rex king of the Colymar could have sent the Varmandi packing, and leaving behind the Thunder Oak which houses their wyter?

I can see such a command work with lands used by the clan - such as summer pasture or hunting grounds - but not with the area under control of the clan wyter.

It is (usually) not like a clan ever received its land from the (current) tribal king. In the Quivini lands, many clans entered on their own, taking a claim to some land, and integrating that land in their clan identity over the centuries. It is possible to sever a clan from a tribe, but not to sever the clan from its land without defeating it beyond recuperation.

(The Helvetii giving up their lands just like that, without a clear idea where they would settle next, always sounded quite suspicious to me. In case of the Germanic migrations, there appears to be archaeological evidence for the soil having been overworked severely.)

Since it's associated with Rex, then this might be an Alakoring-innovation, right? Which means it might originally have been deviced as some kind of emergency-power to deal with draconic-influenced clans or the like, then it just sort of got reproduced after that whole deal ended. Which might mean, by extension, that this is less "traditional" than a non-Rex tribal kingship, or "Paramount Chief", in which case then yes, he'd have no such specific authority over a clan's core settlement territory.

Just throwing ideas out there.

[Sir_Godspeed]

As a real world example of multiple tiers of kingship, I guess maybe Ireland (medieval or antique) might serve as a model. iirc, they had four or five recognized hierarchically ordered levels of kings. (This might of course be a clerical fiction for the purposes of making genealogies, but it's suffices for our use.) Not all of those used the same (modified) word though. Ard might be the most famous term, but the lesser ones used others.

I fully expect some Gaelo-philes to correct me and explain further indepth.

[Bill the barbarian]

1 minute ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

As a real world example of multiple tiers of kingship, I guess maybe Ireland (medieval or antique) might serve as a model. iirc, they had four or five recognized hierarchically ordered levels of kings. (This might of course be a clerical fiction for the purposes of making genealogies, but it's suffices for our use.) Not all of those used the same (modified) word though. Ard might be the most famous term, but the lesser ones used others.

Careful Gustav, that’s awful close to celtic talk... but that is how I have always seen it, myself, One goes to the well one knows.

[Jeff]

11 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

As a real world example of multiple tiers of kingship, I guess maybe Ireland (medieval or antique) might serve as a model. iirc, they had four or five recognized hierarchically ordered levels of kings. (This might of course be a clerical fiction for the purposes of making genealogies, but it's suffices for our use.) Not all of those used the same (modified) word though. Ard might be the most famous term, but the lesser ones used others.

I fully expect some Gaelo-philes to correct me and explain further indepth.

The Irish medieval law loved their fine gradations of everything. 7 grades of kings, 7 grades of sheep herders, 7 grades of poets, etc.

As an aside, I recommend checking out Francis Byrne's book "Irish Kings and High-Kings", and Wolfram's "The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples," but also Trevor Bryce's books on Hittite kingship, Dumezil's "Destiny of a King," Borza's essays on Macedonian kingship, and anything you can find on Vedic India, Leik's Babylonian World, Carol Thomas's paper on the Nature of Mycenaean Kingship, and plenty else. Put it all into a blender until you can't figure out which belongs to which. And then filter that through King of Sartar.

But taking any ONE of those as your source for thinking about Orlanthi kingship is likely to end up with you swapping out Greg's material for a real world culture. I've fallen into that trap - heck, Greg fell into that trap many times. 

[Qizilbashwoman]

34 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I fully expect some Gaelo-philes to correct me and explain further indepth.

oh it's 100% fiction, a chara, but it works for our purposes here, as @Jeff just pointed out.

What (active) relationship do the Pol Joni have to their kin in Sartar? Do they have Rex leadership?

In the interest of always complicating things and being interested in the details, I'd like to remind our viewers that Sartar, and even greater Kerofinelan Orlanthings, are a large and very influential Orlanthi culture but that - as was mentioned earlier in this thread - other places, like Peloria and Ralios, are going to have different and perhaps hostile reactions to these specific kinds of hierarchies.

Sartar was Pelorian-settled but underwent its own evolution; Orlanth Rex in Peloria isn't going to be the same, particularly given the deeply rural and decentralised "Odayla Orlanthings" of the Arirae regions, perhaps even the regions as close as what are now solidly Lunar territories like Holay and Aggar. The Odaylings are Odaylings for a reason; they are the equivalent of Montagnards in much of what is currently the Lunar Empire and previously was a lot of other Solar empires.

Ralios is going to be Sartar-inspired, of course, but still much much more rural and heavily mediated by Western ideas of social order.

Edited September 17, 2019 by Qizilbashwoman

[Sir_Godspeed]

30 minutes ago, Jeff said:

But taking any ONE of those as your source for thinking about Orlanthi kingship is likely to end up with you swapping out Greg's material for a real world culture. I've fallen into that trap - heck, Greg fell into that trap many times. 

Oh, certainly, I was merely mentioning an example where the same title, translated, has been used in an hierarchical manner. I wasn't implying that irish kingship was, or should be considered, a direct parallel to Orlanthi kingship ideals.

And even if we were to nail down a specific mode of kingship(s) in Sartar, this is still just one instance of the concept of kingship among Orlanthi, which has and will continue to evolve both over time and space, as @Qizilbashwoman mentioned.

Theory is neat, real life is messy, and all that.

[Joerg]

43 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Sartar was Pelorian-settled but underwent its own evolution;

Northern Sartar only - the Far Place tribes and the Dinacoli came from the north (with Yelmalio in their array of cults). The Quivini Orlanthi humans all immigrated from the south. (Ducks remained in place, the Telmori came in from the north).

Orlanth Rex came from Ralios, along with Alakoring (and I still don't quite know whether he flew across the Rockwoods, ascended Top of the World and descended on the far side, or went via High Llama Pass). Alakoring rallied the Old Day Traditionalists of southern Peloria against the EWF, proved his mettle in slaying (Isgang)Drang, and spread the Rex cult among the Pelorian tribes.

The Hendriki somehow managed to get into contact with northern Rex converts while the EWF still was active in the years after the Machine Wars, after having subscribed to the EWF/Orlanthland way of Great Living Heroes (like Renvald).

43 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Orlanth Rex in Peloria isn't going to be the same, particularly given the deeply rural and decentralised "Odayla Orlanthings" of the Arirae regions, perhaps even the regions as close as what are now solidly Lunar territories like Holay and Aggar. The Odaylings are Odaylings for a reason; they are the equivalent of Montagnards in much of what is currently the Lunar Empire and previously was a lot of other Solar empires.

I suppose that the Orlanth Rex cult made conversion of the Provinces easier than it might have been with the old Orlanthland priest council in place. While the anti-EWF kingdom of Saird appears to have been Jajalaring-led rather than traditional Orlanthi, the northern Traditionalists would have sided with the new Sairdite dynasty against the EWF after Alakoring's demise at the arrow of Tobosta Greenbow.

43 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Ralios is going to be Sartar-inspired, of course, but still much much more rural and heavily mediated by Western ideas of social order.

Ralios is the homeland of the Orlanth Rex cult. The Enerali had a somewhat urban culture already before direct conflict with the Westerners. The immigrants that came through Dorastor would have been exposed to cities and their economic and cultic importance, too.

[Qizilbashwoman]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Ralios is the homeland of the Orlanth Rex cult. The Enerali had a somewhat urban culture already before direct conflict with the Westerners. The immigrants that came through Dorastor would have been exposed to cities and their economic and cultic importance, too.

I had no idea the idea came through from Ralios, and so early! Fascinating. I had thought it a Pelorian kind of thought, but perhaps it was more sensibly due to the two Ralian states - the two Dans - and their struggle against Seshnegi.

I ... presume innovation is coming from cultural evolution, is that incorrect?

Who knows what the Council of Friends cities were like in terms of layout, but we know they were ruled by the Council, a senatorial equivalent of the Orlanthi ring of elders (equivalent as in "similar to" not as in "derived from").

Given that Dorastor was the capital, its cities would have been multi-ethnic and presumably very large. Shame they had to trample the elephant hsunchen! Rude.

What a very interesting period that must have been.

[Brootse]

10 hours ago, Jeff said:

Now poor old Temertain wasn't this. He never performed the final step of his acclamation, to begin with. And the Lunars weren't going to let him be the Orlanth Rex of Sartar - they were much happier with him being the *almost qualifies as Prince* Prince. Sure eventually he'll get around to finishing the ceremony that gives him power. But Estal Donge is so captivating! And look - iron Brithini statuary!

The Ruler Known As Prince.

[Bill the barbarian]

Just now, Brootse said:

The Ruler Known As Prince.

Since the dragonrise: The Ruler Formerly Known as Prince...

[Christoph Kohring]

On 9/18/2019 at 1:29 AM, Bill the barbarian said:

Since the dragonrise: The Ruler Formerly Known as Prince...

... he was murdered by Humakti assassins in 1624 shortly before the Dragonrise.

[soltakss]

On 9/18/2019 at 12:29 AM, Bill the barbarian said:

Since the dragonrise: The Ruler Formerly Known as Prince...

Belintar was formerly known as Pharaoh.