Lokarnos info

[svensson]

Historical note:

Civil War reenactor here. 'Quartermaster' is what is what we now call a 'Supply Chain Manager' in a corporate sense or 'Logistician' in a military sense. Specifically, it deals with every aspect of moving goods from their origin point to the end user.

In a 'horse and wagon' context it also includes not overloading the roads. Remember that all those animals pulling wagons need fodder... fodder the local animals also need... and travel significantly slower than marching troops. Also remember [and I can't emphasize this enough] most roads are only one wagon/wagon team wide. A 'road' is not a 'highway'. It can pass ONE wagon at time along it's width. What's more, after a time the ruts get so deep that it's nearly impossible to turn a wagon around.

As a side note, in those armies that are disciplined enough to march in formation [which the Lunar are, the Orlanthi most assuredly are not, and there are arguments for and against the Sun County falangists], the formation is usually 4 soldiers wide, the approximate width of one wagon.

Last thing: in a society that relies on direct taxation of goods rather than coin, Lokarnos is vitally important to get the taxed produce to the Sun Dome for distribution.

So, as everyone is pointing out, the focus of Lokarnos is about moving the taxed goods from point A to point B and managing the economy rather than the 'adventurer merchant' of Issaries/Etyries.

As a quick observation, isn't it interesting that most Sun Dome counties also have to appease or work with a River cult to some degree? They can't be utterly and completely isolationist or xenophobic or else the economy that Lokarnos is trying to manage nearly grinds to a halt.

Edited April 7, 2023 by svensson

[Joerg]

10 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Yes. Issaries is the god of the markets - only he can create a Neutral Ground. Etyries will administer such where the Lunars rule - her markets definitely favor the Lunar Empire (the Red Emperor gets his cut).

Apparently these native Issaries priests know when to go on a business trip when a Lightbringer might be needed for a ritual...

[David Scott]

14 hours ago, Jeff said:

Lokarnos' cult are the Teamsters of Genertela. Not merchants, not traders, not administrators. 

I'd imagine there's a small number of Issaries initiates who are lay members of Lokarnos or even initiates. The Mith's seem a candidate for this, given their Balazar caravan and the Lokarnos shrine on Jonstown's North market (and that a typical Jonstown Merchant is an initiate of both).

Is the Jonstown temple a minor one?

[mfbrandi]

14 hours ago, Jeff said:

Lokarnos is the god of the wheel, a magical token he created to honor Yelm. Through cleverness, he made carts and wagons and loaded them with goods to help his betters.

Whose perspective is this? It sounds more like Yelm or Yelm’s clergy than Lokarnos himself — the clever are not known for believing they have betters. If the Lokarnos clergy speak like this, are they being sarcastic or slyly self-protective? If not, are they imposed from above by the Yelmites, rather than being recruited from the teamster flock? What would that do for intra-cult relations? (Of course, my father was a bus driver and his brother a lorry driver, so my more patrician readers should feel free to dismiss me as a chippy oik.)

14 hours ago, Jeff said:

when a Lokarnos wagoner wants to sell goods

14 hours ago, Jeff said:

Lokarnos' cult are the Teamsters of Genertela. Not merchants, not traders

They sell goods, but they are not traders; how does that work? I am not saying this cannot be explained away, but it does cry out for amplification, no?

[Manunancy]

6 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

They sell goods, but they are not traders; how does that work? I am not saying this cannot be explained away, but it does cry out for amplification, no?

The same way that a sailors on a merchant ship that carries a bit of personnal cargo to sell when hitting port isn't a trader. Their main job is movign other's people's cargos - trade is a sideline to improve the income and tide things up when thre's not enough demand to fill the carts.

[svensson]

On 4/6/2023 at 10:02 AM, Manunancy said:

The same way that a sailors on a merchant ship that carries a bit of personnal cargo to sell when hitting port isn't a trader. Their main job is movign other's people's cargos - trade is a sideline to improve the income and tide things up when thre's not enough demand to fill the carts.

It's certainly true that Lokarnos cultists move personal goods to sell at a profit, but this is not their focus. Most Lokarnosi are wagon drivers moving taxes-in-kind from one place to another within Sun County. Cult leaders manage the minting of coinage and other tasks to regulate the County's economy. Some few, like Thrandren Clubfoot, have access to 'foreign' markets [he as access to the Garhound and Suntown markets in Prax and Pavis respectively] and are wealthy enough to engage in mercantile trade in luxuries and rarities. But most Lokarni spend their days hauling grain, meat, fruit, and other taxed resources from one end of Sun County to the Sun Dome Temple and from the Temple the end users.

Edited April 7, 2023 by svensson

[hipsterinspace]

7 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Whose perspective is this? It sounds more like Yelm or Yelm’s clergy than Lokarnos himself — the clever are not known for believing they have betters.

That is a very modern perspective, where the entire Solar worldview appears to be based on hierarchies of hierarchies, it reads as Confucian in some ways. Yelm is the emperor of existence, he is everyone’s better, it is natural that Lokarnos would defer to him, just as men are the betters of women, priests are the betters of initiates and laypersons, nobles are the betters of the common folk, and elders are the betters of the young. That is the nature of the Yelmic social order, that is why the Lunar Way is so transgressive, it isn’t that it accepts chaos, it’s that it says everyone is the same, We are all Us. Even so, there is still recourse from within that old social order for mistreated peasants, after all, Lodril gives magic to incite peasant rebellions, but that’s said to be a very rare occurrence.

7 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

They sell goods, but they are not traders; how does that work? I am not saying this cannot be explained away, but it does cry out for amplification, no?

They don’t sell goods, they move goods, that’s why they would seek out an Issaries trader. They facilitate the movement of goods between places by wagon and between people by coinage.

Edited April 6, 2023 by hipsterinspace