Extent of Dorastor in the Second Age

[Akhôrahil]

So I'm looking at the historical maps in the Guide for the Talastar area.

For year 700 (p. 132), it looks like this:

Dorastor here is quite a bit bigger than "traditional" Dorastor, including a large area to the north (that used to be Rist in the next earlier map) and extending further east than we typically picture Dorastor as well. This seems particularly odd to me considering that Dorastor essentially has zero political organisation at this point and barely contains any life to start with, and can only be classified as a geographical area (the one cursed by Arkat), but the cursed area surely doesn't extend this far?) The area outside Dorastor proper would be populated by the Talastari tribes (perhaps still in a bad state post-450)? This Year 700 map also doesn't match the sketched maps in The Fortunate Succession pages 25, 30, 32 and 34 (which have the expected Talastarings and Anadiki). 

Then in the map for the year 900 (p. 134), it looks more the way we expect it, sticking to the standard boundaries (and this is what we get in all the later maps):

What's been going on here? I can't make heads or tails of it. Have I missed something crucial?

Edited December 5, 2021 by Akhôrahil

[soltakss]

My guess is that the Talastari expanded into the edges of Dorastor some time between 700 and 900, similar to how the Renekotling Clan have expanded into the Dorastor Borderlands.

 

[soltakss]

The map shows the Empire of the Wyrms Friends covering that area, so they must have had something to do with it.

 

[soltakss]

The History of the Heortling Peoples p45 says:

Quote

850. More Conquests 
The presence of the EWF in Lakrene (DLoD) is part of a pattern of mopping up the regions that still resisted. Like Dara Happa, these were occupied territories. 

Now, Lakrene is not shown as part of Dorastor, but presumably they take over the lands to the west of Lakrene as part of this expansion.

Quote

925. Iddi Scorchbane 
In the lands of Talastar, Anadiki, and Brolia the hero Iddi leads rebellions of the traditionalist hill tribe against the EWF. At last Scorch, a tremendous dragon, is provoked to attack them and falls to the magic of Iddi, who nonetheless dies in the fight.

Here, Talastar is shown as rebelling against the EWF, so Talastari must have moved in to the Dorastor Borderlands and have been conquered by the EWF.

 

[soltakss]

The Fortunate Succession p35 has a map that shows Talastar Tribes moving southwards from Naveria, under the reign of Elmexdros the Conqueror.

 

 

[Sir_Godspeed]

So is it a case of someone else moving in and basically "reviving" the Dorastor name with a slightly different or expanded territory, but not really having any direct continuity with it? The Tanisoran nobles reviving the name of Seshnela comes to mind, though this is obviously very different.

[Joerg]

8 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

So I'm looking at the historical maps in the Guide for the Talastar area.

For year 700 (p. 132), it looks like this:

Dorastor here is quite a bit bigger than "traditional" Dorastor, including a large area to the north (that used to be Rist in the next earlier map) and extending further east than we typically picture Dorastor as well. This seems particularly odd to me considering that Dorastor essentially has zero political organisation at this point and barely contains any life to start with, and can only be classified as a geographical area (the one cursed by Arkat), but the cursed area surely doesn't extend this far?) The area outside Dorastor proper would be populated by the Talastari tribes (perhaps still in a bad state post-450)? This Year 700 map also doesn't match the sketched maps in The Fortunate Succession pages 25, 30, 32 and 34 (which have the expected Talastarings and Anadiki). 

Then in the map for the year 900 (p. 134), it looks more the way we expect it, sticking to the standard boundaries (and this is what we get in all the later maps):

What's been going on here? I can't make heads or tails of it. Have I missed something crucial?

Possibly the extent of Telmori huntlands. They are the denizens of northern Dorastor that could range into those forests. The Anadikki aren't really populous, and their scattered places may have been dominated by the wolf people. We know that there were Telmori migrations in the 1400s, with Hon-eel and Sartar ending conflicts, so the current Telmori population may be just the remnant of a larger population that lost their dominance when the Anadikki got their things together.

Your second map shows Talastar as part of the EWF, after the Old Day Traditionalists had been subdued by Isgangdrang. The Telmori would not have been problematic for the new overlords.

Another possibility would be an upsurge of elf forest from the Poisonthorn Forest during the Reforestation, but then Rist is marked in forest green.

[Akhôrahil]

Looking at the map immediately preceding the year 700 map might offer some guidance - much of the extended Dorastor is formerly Rist.

Year 400:

So it's possible that the "Dorastor" here just means "wild lands", if there's a non-elf forest or recent forest there (what happened to reduce the size of Rist here? Arkat? Trolls?).

To continue with Joerg's reasoning, it is conceivable that this is Telmori lands because of the wildness and that there were remains of the Empire of Light Telmori here, and that pushback against the Telmori resulted in them having to retreat to Nangtali's Plateau around 850.

Note that we can see how the Poisonthorn elves end up isolated in Dorastor on these maps - they're originally Rist elves who get cut off from "main" Rist post-Arkat. So the Hellwood elves are their distant Rist cousins, which just makes things more tragic. And now I'm curious what happen to Rist under EWF rule.

Edited December 6, 2021 by Akhôrahil