Human sacrifice and other dark rituals in Orlanthi culture

[Orlanthatemyhamster]

On 5/10/2021 at 11:55 PM, Eff said:

It would take a bit more of an apocalyptic stage to invoke the magic of dancing with yourself. 

 

I have to say that this is in my T5 vids of all time. Bravo sir, Bravo!

[Orlanthatemyhamster]

On 5/10/2021 at 10:25 AM, Darius West said:

🙂 Tell that to the thrall. 

 

 

I think Glorantha has been drifting to the 'nice' for quite a while, with nasty things like slavery and human sacrifice just not happening any more in lovely utopian Orlanthi society. We are meant to believe that the poor are only there through their own actions. Much like how the US and UK see them now. Because one stickpicker became a hero, every other one must have had the same chances. The Luck Rune just doesn't have a lookin nowadays.
How do Thralls and the poor view gods that keep them as such?

Also, I thought that sacrifices in Tarsh were to ensure a good harvest, not to stop random earthquakes being done to their own people by a worshipped god? Very much puts her on a par with Malia.

[Bill the barbarian]

46 minutes ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

One had at least a chance of surviving in a gladiatorial fight. 

Nice thought, but I am sure the house was rigged.

[Orlanthatemyhamster]

7 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Nice thought, but I am sure the house was rigged.

I thought, very much like chariot racing, there were different teams/owners. So it would be possible to rig, but not automatic by any means, no one wants to see a push over.

[Bill the barbarian]

2 minutes ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

I thought, very much like chariot racing, there were different teams/owners. So it would be possible to rig, but not automatic by any means, no one wants to see a push over.

Well, I know of chariot racing being teams did not know the fighters were teams as well, but as you say... this is not a guarantee of malfeasance.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Bill the barbarian

[Qizilbashwoman]

54 minutes ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

I think Glorantha has been drifting to the 'nice' for quite a while, with nasty things like slavery and human sacrifice just not happening any more in lovely utopian Orlanthi society.

Well, the argument is that slavery is against the spirit of the Wind pantheon, which is also why Orlanthis don't know how to build cities except where Earth rules; it's not that they oppose killing and murdering people, but they don't do slavery. It's not because they are nice. The settled peoples of Esrolia, where Earth is on top, do just fine with slavery. They rely on it!

But Orlanthis also don't rape, because it's a primal conduit of Chaos for Wind and also because literally there's like five murder-gods from Earth who will rise up and smash you into oatmeal, then fight over who gets to wear your soul as a maxi-skirt.

Human sacrifice? No. They do it. They do all sorts of things like that. Earth likes a snack. Some Wind and associate Darkness deities also appreciate it.

The comparison is largely that Solar peoples largely approve of slavery. Their pantheon is strongly hierarchical and their worshipers take their cues from their gods. It's the wrong framing to see this snapshot of 1625 Orlanth as "idealised"; it's just a moment in time.

[Leingod]

Historically, Orlanthi have often been fine with slavery and engage in it fairly regularly, but for religious reasons some Orlanthi groups - most often ones with connections to the Hendriki and the Larnstings, it seems - didn't do it personally, but even most of them didn't see it as a problem otherwise (and likely still sold captives into slavery).

If there's a lot of abolitionist sentiment in Sartar nowadays, I'd argue it's largely come about as a direct result of/response to the Lunar Occupation, during which many Orlanthi were made slaves to pay taxes levied against them (as opposed to taking captives through raids and battles, which is of course the "right and proper way" to enslave someone), and entire tribes were coerced into rebellion so they could be summarily crushed and enslaved to serve as the labor force of the Reaching Moon Temple, with their lands given over to foreigners. And then you have the fact that a lot of the groups that collaborated most with the Lunars happened to be groups who making a lot of money off the slave trade.

In other words, insofar as even some of the Orlanthi in Sartar can be labeled as "anti-slavery," it's come about at least partly as more of a general anti-Lunar attitude.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Leingod

[Ali the Helering]

5 hours ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

Personally I always thought that while gladiatorial games were unsavory, it wasn't actually human sacrifice. In that, in a sacrifice, a person was chosen and that person died no matter what. One had at least a chance of surviving in a gladiatorial fight. 

In their Roman origin gladiatorial combat was always fatal for at least one of the participants, since they were a sacrifice to the dead and the chthonic gods who welcomed them.  The transition to entertainment brings in the concept of financial viability and the desire of each lanista to maintain a good 'stable', so battle became less likely to be 'to the death'.

[Ali the Helering]

4 hours ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

Also, I thought that sacrifices in Tarsh were to ensure a good harvest, not to stop random earthquakes being done to their own people by a worshipped god? Very much puts her on a par with Malia.

Earthquakes aren't random.  Even thinking such a thing is disrespecting the Dark Earth.  I think we have found our next sacrifice, gentlewomen....

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

I think Glorantha has been drifting to the 'nice' for quite a while, with nasty things like slavery and human sacrifice just not happening any more in lovely utopian Orlanthi society. 

While it hasn't been spelled out, the underbelly of nastiness hasn't gone away. Just look at Biturian, who wasn't just doing in Prax as the Praxians do when he bought Norayeep and (grudgingly) Morak.

 

4 hours ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

We are meant to believe that the poor are only there through their own actions. Much like how the US and UK see them now.

It has always been easy to make a million if you inherited two...

In Glorantha, you are where you are because of your ancestors' actions.

And in fantasy in general, the pig herder who becomes king does so because he is the carrier of the divine grace of his divine and/or royal ancestors. Like Harmast Barefoot, like Argrath. The fairy tales are about the princesses, and the 0.1 % perpetuate that mind-set.

 

4 hours ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

How do Thralls and the poor view gods that keep them as such?

With fatalism and some fervor, if you look at history and pre-history. They take pride in the ostentatious wealth their priests display. It is similar to people from the slums buying fan articles of soccer stars.

 

4 hours ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

Also, I thought that sacrifices in Tarsh were to ensure a good harvest, not to stop random earthquakes being done to their own people by a worshipped god? Very much puts her on a par with Malia.

People settling the flanks of an active volcano or a place called Shaking Valley are doing so with open eyes. They accept that they intrude into an area of divine wrath, and then undertake rites to avert that wrath.

[Leingod]

Something else to kind in mind with regards to Orlanthi slavery is that we know of a myth wherein Orlanth himself is enslaved and only manages to fight his way to freedom thanks to the love of the slave-driver's daughter ("When Orlanth Was Prisoner," pg. 52-53 of The Book of Heortling Mythology).

Quote

The Great God was not always great. The world was young once, and so was Orlanth. In those times he was always outon adventure or pursing his duty, and he was always at the fore when facing any enemy. He’d had many wounds, and many times he’d been captured. There was the time that he’d been captured by Great Hungry, who had nibbled off his toes and fingers each day. There was the time he’d been captured by the Stone Earth, and kept in a jar. There was the time that his own bad brother took him, tied him up with bonds of ice and contempt and hidden him under a glacier. And there was the time that he’d been taken by the Emperor, who tied a band about his chest so he couldn’t breathe, and it made him so weak that he could make no attempt to escape.

The Emperor was powerful, with huge armies and priests and clowns at his call night and day. He was so rich that he could eat anything that he wanted anytime he wanted. His house was so big that sometimes strangers got lost in it and thought it was another world. He was so rich that he didn’t have to trade for anything—he just said he wanted it. He was powerful that his wife never even knew that he had concubines.

Orlanth often raided the Emperor. Orlanth had very little, and what ought to have been his had been stolen when he was just a boy. So it was right for him to steal it back. If he could.

But he had been caught, and so the Emperor tied him and  left  him  and  made  him  breathless  and  threw  him  into  the   prison   and   made   him   work   in   the   mines,   deep   underground, with a dozen guards who were led by Bistos, who  hated  Orlanth  so  much  that  he  never  slept.  He  hated  Orlanth so much that he whipped him for no reason except that he hated him. He hated Orlanth so much that he made Orlanth hate him back.  So  there  he  was,  the  god  himself,  slaving  away  in  the  mines and doing nothing but hating. He hated his captor, he hated his work, he hated that he could not breathe[...]

Officially, slaves can't worship Orlanth because they have lost their "breath" (i.e. freedom), but I'd be willing to bet that a secret cult of "Orlanth Enslaved" can be found among those who refuse to let another man decide his worth and will fight, overtly or covertly, to be able to breathe again..

And on the other hand, slaves can and do worship Ernalda, who herself is characterized as having been enslaved by the Evil Emperor in some stories and provides what succor and comfort she can to those in bondage.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Leingod

[Bill the barbarian]

1 hour ago, Leingod said:

Officially, slaves can't worship Orlanth because they have lost their "breath" (i.e. freedom), but I'd be willing to bet that a secret cult of "Orlanth Enslaved" can be found among those who refuse to let another man decide his worth and will fight, overtly or covertly, to be able to breathe again..

 

I would play in such a campaign!

Lunar: Which one of you scurrilous slaves is Argrath?

Sartarite One: I am Argrath!

Sartarite Two: I am Argrath!

Sartarite Three: I am Argrath!

Sartarite Four: I'm Argrath, and so’s me wife!

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Leingod said:

Officially, slaves can't worship Orlanth because they have lost their "breath" (i.e. freedom), but I'd be willing to bet that a secret cult of "Orlanth Enslaved" can be found among those who refuse to let another man decide his worth and will fight, overtly or covertly, to be able to breathe again..

At worst, slaves cannot worship as initiates, although any act of rebellion (including sneaking away to a hill-top to worship) would change that magical state to "rebel", which is one of the ground states of Orlanth worship.

 

[Darius West]

10 hours ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

I think Glorantha has been drifting to the 'nice' for quite a while.

The correct term I believe is "Bowdlerized".  

10 hours ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

with nasty things like slavery and human sacrifice just not happening any more in lovely utopian Orlanthi society. We are meant to believe that the poor are only there through their own actions. Much like how the US and UK see them now. Because one stickpicker became a hero, every other one must have had the same chances. The Luck Rune just doesn't have a lookin nowadays.

You must learn to love Big Brother.

10 hours ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

Also, I thought that sacrifices in Tarsh were to ensure a good harvest, not to stop random earthquakes being done to their own people by a worshipped god? Very much puts her on a par with Malia.

The fact is that Maran Gor does both.  She needs blood to ensure a good harvest AND to not earthquake you.  Of course, if you cultivate her priestesses, you may gain the ability to call on her immensely destructive earthquakes during times of war.  Yes, she needs to be feared and placated with human sacrifice, but he is a goddess of immense destructive power.  What's Hon-Eel's excuse?

[Qizilbashwoman]

A stickpicker isn't a slave, though! Orlanthi clan society is hierarchical but it generally (there are explicit exceptions!) doesn't lean on slaves in the heartlands [outside Esrolia], at least not en large.

Where are those exceptions? On the borderlands. Because if you are in Orlanth heartlands, you're gonna be enslaving your neighbors' wives and sons. It's not practical. Borderland Orlanthis can raid xenos and take slaves fine but if you try to raid other Orlanthis there's gonna be a problem. In borderland Orlanth clans, slaves are still not going to be present in the kind of numbers as in other cultures just because Orlanthis don't want to stand around guarding them. Orlanthis don't have jails and guards, they exile or kill people. It's a waste of time.

Also, Orlanthi clan culture doesn't need slaves. It has no need of them. It doesn't need vendref-equivalents like the Riders and the crusader-knight Yelmalions do, because they aren't organised at all the same way with a top-heavy ruling class that doesn't work.

Compare that with earth-Esrolia, which does: royalty in urbanity needs mass agriculture, and therefore field slaves, and personal slaves. Slavery is present in Sartar's weird cities, for sure.

I really don't think slavery is a routine part of Orlanthi society, and it's not because people are nice, it's just not practical or necessary, and there's not enough people to waste managing slaves.

[French Desperate WindChild]

I hope the sartar book will describe the level of slavery. There are many clans described as accepting slavery. But that was described in previous glorantha versions. It may have change, or not.

Maybe slave is not the right term

Is a non free people life in sartar the same than in lunar empire? Is it the same than in antic Rome ? in middle age europe (I consider serf as slavery too), in arabic world, in the different continental african kingdoms, in Asia ? In "new world" colony ? or in the XX century when there were "indigenous" (I don't know if this word has in english the same connotation than in french when it is used as noun )  and "settlers" in european colonies ?

 

There are so many type of slavery in the world and in the time that is difficult to get an agreement in "there is / there isn't slavery in Sartar"

Are there people who are not free to leave the clan, or even an house/farm ?

Are there peope who are not paid for their work ?

Are there people who must obey in anything part of their life to some others ?

Are there people who can be sold by one to another one ?

Are there people who cannot get married / have children /raise children without the agreement of people who are not in their family.

What are the rights of these people ?

etc...

 

 

 

[Ali the Helering]

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Maybe slave is not the right term

What are the rights of these people ?

etc...

The right term is thrall, a Norse term whose definition is quite specific, the mighty Wikipedia Compendium, stating it thusly:  (Pardon the font issues....)

The thrall represents the lowest of the three-tiered social order of the Germanic peoples, noblemen, freemen and slaves, in Old Norse jarl, karl and þræll   The division is of importance in the Germanic law codes, which make special provisions for slaves, who were property and could be bought and sold, but they also enjoyed some degree of protection under the law.^[4]

The death of a freeman was compensated by a weregild, usually calculated at 200 solidi (shillings) for a freeman, whereas the death of a slave was treated as loss of property to his owner and compensated depending on the value of the worker.^[5]

The living conditions of thralls in Scandinavia varied depending on the master. The thrall trade as the prize of plunder was a key part of the Viking economy. While there are some estimates of as many as thirty slaves per household, most families owned only one or two slaves.^[6]Despite the existence of a caste system, thralls could experience a level of social fluidity. They could be freed by their masters at any time, be freed in a will or even buy their own freedom. Once a thrall was freed, he became a "freedman", or leysingi, a member of an intermediary group between slaves and freemen. He still owed allegiance to his former master and had to vote according to his former master's wishes. It took at least two generations for freedmen to lose the allegiance to their former masters and become full freemen.^[8] If a freedman had no descendants, his former master inherited his land and property.^[9]While thralls and freedmen did not have much economic or political power in Scandinavia, they were still given a wergeld, or a man's price: there was a monetary penalty for unlawfully killing a slave.^[10]

[Joerg]

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

The correct term I believe is "Bowdlerized".  

The amount of upper body nudity suggests differently...

The sacrifice scene with a pig about to be slaughtered was met by some people with criticism (equally distributed between depiction of partial nudity and depiction of animal sacrifice), and from a business POV it doesn't help being branded "the RPG with cruelty to animals".

 

55 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

A stickpicker isn't a slave, though! Orlanthi clan society is hierarchical but it generally (there are explicit exceptions!) doesn't lean on slaves in the heartlands [outside Esrolia], at least not en large.

Orlanthi clan society is at large in Sun Dome County, and I wonder how you explain the name "Slavewall" for the easternmost of the Tarshite cities.

The Hendriki concept of abhorring any form of slavery is rather exceptional. And the proportion of Hendriki-descended clans in Sartar may be greater than in Heortland.

 

55 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Where are those exceptions? On the borderlands. Because if you are in Orlanth heartlands, you're gonna be enslaving your neighbors' wives and sons. It's not practical.

The unfree in Sartarite clans usually are integrated into the clan, and their offspring will be normal clan members (presumably bound to become tenant farmers aka cottars, or stickpickers without any assigned land). 

Prisoners of war will usually be ransomed back, as receiving the wergeld usually is more lucrative than selling the prisoners. If they are from neighboring clans, the risk of them running away or being freed in clandestine raiding is fairly high.

People who married into the clan they were taken captive from have a second chance at being ransomed if the clan they married into defaults on them, or if the feud is so bitter that no ransoms are accepted.

Long range raids between clans are rather rare.

What happens if mercenaries fight elsewhere and take captives, though? Imagine Sambari mercenaries in the service of the Alda-chur confederation taking captives from the Alone tribes in 1610.

 

55 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Borderland Orlanthis can raid xenos and take slaves fine but if you try to raid other Orlanthis there's gonna be a problem.

Direct neighbors are a problem. Raiding Vendref or Far Pointers or Tarshites adds so much distance that fleeing becomes quite hazardous.

 

55 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

In borderland Orlanth clans, slaves are still not going to be present in the kind of numbers as in other cultures just because Orlanthis don't want to stand around guarding them. Orlanthis don't have jails and guards, they exile or kill people. It's a waste of time.

Farming is a high-prestige activity, and while a rich farmer may employ field hands from resident cottars rather than have tenant farmers, most of the Heortlings apparently use tenant farmers rather than manage slave-operated farms. The Lunar manors in Colymar lands may have served as an object lesson at least to some of their neighbors, though, even if they were abandoned after the Dragonrise.

Road work has some specialist jobs and a lot of digging and carrying, and those are jobs just as easily done by slaves as by paupers. Plus you have foremen on site anyway. Similar considerations apply to mines, quarries, and logging, maintenance of water works, etc.

 

55 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Also, Orlanthi clan culture doesn't need slaves. It has no need of them. It doesn't need vendref-equivalents like the Riders and the crusader-knight Yelmalions do, because they aren't organised at all the same way with a top-heavy ruling class that doesn't work.

You don't need a big ruling class for a good part of the population working mainly to serve their desires. The Orlanthi have a greater per-capita standing military than the Esrolians, and those warriors need to be supported by tenant farmers or farm hands working under supervision. The Sun Domers are an extreme, but so are any places producing cash crops rather than sustenance.

 

55 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Compare that with earth-Esrolia, which does: royalty in urbanity needs mass agriculture, and therefore field slaves, and personal slaves. Slavery is present in Sartar's weird cities, for sure.

Not noticeably for the three "normal" confederation cities. Boldhome is weird for not having confederate tribes to feed it, but redirecting the fertility of Killard Vale to feed the capital may be one reason why Swenstown is lagging behind the other two cities.

 

55 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

I really don't think slavery is a routine part of Orlanthi society, and it's not because people are nice, it's just not practical or necessary, and there's not enough people to waste managing slaves.

Stickpickers might make great foremen for slaves. Their sudden importance and rank may help making both them and their charges more productive. It's a tactic that was used widely in the confederate states, or by company muscle in the industrial north.

[Ali the Helering]

3 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Where are those exceptions? On the borderlands. Because if you are in Orlanth heartlands, you're gonna be enslaving your neighbors' wives and sons. It's not practical.

I was born in a country where, despite slavery not being legal (ex-British colony etc etc) it was nonetheless practised per se,  not infrequently be the 'indenturing' (in perpetuity!) of a member of one branch of a family to another branch.

Where one is dealing with debt-slavery, the practicality is absolutely implicit.  And utterly non-Bowdlerised!

[Eff]

4 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

I was born in a country where, despite slavery not being legal (ex-British colony etc etc) it was nonetheless practised per se,  not infrequently be the 'indenturing' (in perpetuity!) of a member of one branch of a family to another branch.

Where one is dealing with debt-slavery, the practicality is absolutely implicit.  And utterly non-Bowdlerised!

To be fair, we're dealing with four different systems of forced labor called slavery with enough detail to make guesses. Esrolia seems to draw upon accumulated debt peonage, Heortlanders seem to take war captives, the old Pelorian systems were/are caste systems of some kind, and contemporary Lunar slavery is a mixture of war captives and debt peons (presumably being enslaved for not paying taxes means "paying for your taxes by selling your freedom") and all four of these are going to interact in improbable ways. 

To this we can add Grazelanders and vendref, a relationship I'm still not sure is easy to model. 

[jajagappa]

36 minutes ago, Eff said:

To this we can add Grazelanders and vendref, a relationship I'm still not sure is easy to model.

Perhaps related is the Sun Dome Temple and their ergeshi slaves.  May be derivative of older Pelorian/DH conscript labor model (e.g. corvee).

37 minutes ago, Eff said:

Heortlanders seem to take war captives

Where do we see this?  Source?  Don't think I've seen anything that would indicate difference from typical Sartarite ransom/wergild models.

[Qizilbashwoman]

3 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Perhaps related is the Sun Dome Temple and their ergeshi slaves.

Ergesh is the name of the Solar god of enslavement

[Eff]

59 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Perhaps related is the Sun Dome Temple and their ergeshi slaves.  May be derivative of older Pelorian/DH conscript labor model (e.g. corvee).

Where do we see this?  Source?  Don't think I've seen anything that would indicate difference from typical Sartarite ransom/wergild models.

I'm not sure how else thralls enter the system except via being taken as captives, mainly. Debt peonage seems a bit unlikely. 

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, Eff said:

I'm not sure how else thralls enter the system except via being taken as captives, mainly.

I meant where do we see indications of thralls in Heortland since you noted "Heortlanders".

[Eff]

4 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

I meant where do we see indications of thralls in Heortland since you noted "Heortlanders".

Oh, that's fair! We don't actually know if thrall-taking is a Heortland practice, do we? It's practiced limitedly in Sartar but it could be from several different sources there... So I'll withdraw that for "Sartarites" in lieu of a clear picture there.