bronze Posted October 17, 2023 Share Posted October 17, 2023 It seems they are related with the Westerners in one way or another. Is there any concerte information to be found and studied? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Brooke Posted October 17, 2023 Share Posted October 17, 2023 2 4 Quote Community Ambassador - Jonstown Compendium, Chaosium, Inc. Email: nick.brooke@chaosium.com for community content queries Jonstown Compendium ⧖ Facebook Ф Twitter † old website Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metcalph Posted October 17, 2023 Share Posted October 17, 2023 There's three groups. 1) The Artmal who are descended from the Blue Moon (and are not Westerners). They were active in Pamaltela and later Teshnos. 2) The Oronin who are Blue Waertagi. They were active in Fronela and Western Peloria. 3). The Blue Vadeli. Worked with the other Vadeli. We're active in the Western Ocean. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bronze Posted October 17, 2023 Author Share Posted October 17, 2023 21 minutes ago, metcalph said: There's three groups. 1) The Artmal who are descended from the Blue Moon (and are not Westerners). They were active in Pamaltela and later Teshnos. 2) The Oronin who are Blue Waertagi. They were active in Fronela and Western Peloria. 3). The Blue Vadeli. Worked with the other Vadeli. We're active in the Western Ocean. It is said that Artmali had established colonies across the world and conqured many places beyond confines of Pamaltela. They are definitely a potent candidate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jajagappa Posted October 17, 2023 Share Posted October 17, 2023 27 minutes ago, metcalph said: There's three groups. Possibly the Helerings as well who are noted in the Mythology book under the Early Lesser Darkness. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bronze Posted October 17, 2023 Author Share Posted October 17, 2023 15 minutes ago, jajagappa said: Possibly the Helerings as well who are noted in the Mythology book under the Early Lesser Darkness. Thank you for reminding! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akhôrahil Posted October 17, 2023 Share Posted October 17, 2023 You will want to read this: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/greg-sez/bluepeople/ 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bronze Posted October 17, 2023 Author Share Posted October 17, 2023 10 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said: You will want to read this: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/greg-sez/bluepeople/ Glorious! 😃 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bronze Posted October 19, 2023 Author Share Posted October 19, 2023 Didn't the so-called remaining three people establish their own colonies across the world? Besides of Vadeli and Waertagi, it looks as if only the Kachasti had ever ventured out and established colonies outside of the their homeland. It is ironic that Vadeli once lived in inland areas. As for the Vadeli, how they had become that powerful? Measuring size and extent of territory, they had the greatest godtime empire, with a number of sub-empires. They were the most numerous and widespread people by far, breeding out like vermins. Broos and other fertile monsters can't even start to compete with them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joerg Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 The Vadeli feature as barbarian indigenes of Brithela (and even Brithos) in Greg's early stories. The later story about the Viymorni becoming the Vadeli may be as true. 21 hours ago, bronze said: Didn't the so-called remaining three people establish their own colonies across the world? Besides of Vadeli and Waertagi, it looks as if only the Kachasti had ever ventured out and established colonies outside of the their homeland. It is ironic that Vadeli once lived in inland areas. All of the Malkioni people became coastal with the second advance of the Seas (the Flood Age of the early Lesser Darkness as per the Mythology book). Of the six tribes of Danmalastan, the Tadeniti were the scribes, the Kadeniti the city builders and the Enrovalini the philosophers. None of these inclinations set them wandering, although the Vadeli (and Mostali) conquests sent them fleeing as refugees. The Tadeniti were the first to fall. Probably for a good reason, as they would be the ones who invented the flensing techniques that Zzabur employed to create his Vadeli-skinned books of knowledge and magic. Seeing their kin or ancestors being abused as book bindings, the Vadeli may have had good cause to attack the isolated Tadeniti with Mostali aid. While Tadeniti managed to flee to the Danmalastan mainland, their home island was overrun, and the enslaved or undead bodies of the Tadeniti served as workers for the Mostali as payment for their aid to the Vadeli. 22 hours ago, bronze said: As for the Vadeli, how they had become that powerful? Measuring size and extent of territory, they had the greatest godtime empire, with a number of sub-empires. They were the most numerous and widespread people by far, breeding out like vermins. Broos and other fertile monsters can't even start to compete with them. Emboldened by this success and their endeavors in Pamaltela, the Vadeli started their slave empire, vastly expanding their productivity as opposed to their slow-breeding immortal rivals. While they suffered setbacks like their initial assault on the Kachasti, again with Mostali assistance they staged a coup against the Kachasti domain in Fronela, Ralios and Seshnela, separating their realm by letting the Mostali raise the Nidan range between Tinsnip Mountain and Top of the World while tricking their PoW caretakers into spending all their magic for keeping the captives alive. This left the Danmalastan mainland as their last Logician foe, which then was overrun by the Double Belligerent Assault which killed the Logician leader Talar alongside his heir, leaving an infant successor at the mercy of his advisors as the defender of the realm. Other than the island of Brithos, the Logician lands fell under the Vadeli, who then began a siege on the last bastion of their old foe Zzabur, reckoning that nobody would be evil enough to destroy their own world just for revenge. They were proven wrong. 2 Quote Telling how it is excessive verbis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bronze Posted October 21, 2023 Author Share Posted October 21, 2023 (edited) 5 hours ago, Joerg said: The Vadeli feature as barbarian indigenes of Brithela (and even Brithos) in Greg's early stories. The later story about the Viymorni becoming the Vadeli may be as true. Wondering how kind was fate to the original inhabitants of Danmalastan outside of the six tribes. Are they mostly exterminated or enslaved? 5 hours ago, Joerg said: All of the Malkioni people became coastal with the second advance of the Seas (the Flood Age of the early Lesser Darkness as per the Mythology book). Of the six tribes of Danmalastan, the Tadeniti were the scribes, the Kadeniti the city builders and the Enrovalini the philosophers. None of these inclinations set them wandering, although the Vadeli (and Mostali) conquests sent them fleeing as refugees. The Tadeniti were the first to fall. Probably for a good reason, as they would be the ones who invented the flensing techniques that Zzabur employed to create his Vadeli-skinned books of knowledge and magic. Seeing their kin or ancestors being abused as book bindings, the Vadeli may have had good cause to attack the isolated Tadeniti with Mostali aid. While Tadeniti managed to flee to the Danmalastan mainland, their home island was overrun, and the enslaved or undead bodies of the Tadeniti served as workers for the Mostali as payment for their aid to the Vadeli. Emboldened by this success and their endeavors in Pamaltela, the Vadeli started their slave empire, vastly expanding their productivity as opposed to their slow-breeding immortal rivals. While they suffered setbacks like their initial assault on the Kachasti, again with Mostali assistance they staged a coup against the Kachasti domain in Fronela, Ralios and Seshnela, separating their realm by letting the Mostali raise the Nidan range between Tinsnip Mountain and Top of the World while tricking their PoW caretakers into spending all their magic for keeping the captives alive. This left the Danmalastan mainland as their last Logician foe, which then was overrun by the Double Belligerent Assault which killed the Logician leader Talar alongside his heir, leaving an infant successor at the mercy of his advisors as the defender of the realm. Other than the island of Brithos, the Logician lands fell under the Vadeli, who then began a siege on the last bastion of their old foe Zzabur, reckoning that nobody would be evil enough to destroy their own world just for revenge. They were proven wrong. But sedentary peoples have expanded out from their homeland throughout history. Did the Tadeniti invent flensing technique after the onset of Vadeli war? How immortal are the Vadeli compared to their kins? It seems they partially relinquished their immortality for fertility and propagation. For instance, it is said the Vadeli need to eat their own children to maintain their accused immortality. The overall tone sounds as if you see Vadeli as much victims as perpetrators. Wondering you consider the Vadeli have been demonized by propaganda stories disseminated by their foes. Edited October 21, 2023 by bronze Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joerg Posted October 21, 2023 Share Posted October 21, 2023 19 hours ago, bronze said: Wondering how kind was fate to the original inhabitants of Danmalastan outside of the six tribes. Are they mostly exterminated or enslaved? Many of these original inhabitants were deities, genii locorum, or their mortal offspring. Personally, I think that the claim that the dronar population of Brithela is descended from Malkion the way the three minority castes are is a bit weak. Revealed Mythologies p.25 has a summary of Greg's early world building for the Gloranthan west. It clearly marks the Vadeli (of the three colors brown, red and blue) as the indigenous humans of Brithela, and claims that the Malkioni are the result of Malkion (aka Engr) mating with a series of (local divinity) wives. I am spouting a lot of "In My Glorantha" nonsense below, which does make a certain sense to me. Read at your own risk. These people descended from Malkion would have become the Logicians, the people of the Kingdom of Logic.. Spoiler The Monomyth has a core mythic cycle about humanity in Glorantha, the four tribes of the Mountain People founding the Four Camps in the cardinal directions. There seems to be some universal truth to this mythic cycle, as the Black Camp of Introspection figures greatly with the development of the Gates of Dusk and the path of mortality into the West, and the Camp of Innocence features in the arrival myth of the Veldang in southern Pamaltela. The four directional kingdoms of the Golden Age are based off these camps, too. The Mountain Men would have been the humanist ideal of Man Rune humans without much interference by deities handling mud, fire and other stuff to construct humans, a race of deities doomed by the actions of Grandfather Mortal but some exceptions holding on to the original purity - the Agi or Agitorani of Pamaltela who did not drink, or the Brithini slavishly adhering to a caste system's doctrine without change to maintain agelessness. If so, the Vadeli may have been a form of these original humans, and demigod races like the Luatha or the Altinae too IMO the majority of the indigenes of Brithela other than the Vadeli were the Dromali, dark-skinned children of Kala, given "Founders" by Malkion. They were the people of the soil, farmers, but also builders - a human culture of early agriculturalists and earth (ancestor) worshipers. King Drona, accompanied by Bakan the boar, and aided by Eurmal Friend of Men (and later Eurmal's son Yomat) left Brithela as the Logicians took the reign and spread his form of agriculture into the Hykimi lands of Fronela and Ralios (long before the Nidan range of mountains was raised). Drona may have been a son of Malkion and Kala, if not first-born then highest-born of the Dronari, and thus a king of the farmers when left alone by his half-brothers (Talar, Zzabur, Horal) born to Tilnta. The majority of the Logicians claim descent from Tilnta, the favored wife of Malkion who gave him many sets of male and female twin children, each pair becoming a married couple founding a dynasty. (This seems to be a typical start of a royal dynasty born of human and goddess - other such couples include Ylream and his sister Nebrola whose child became the second Serpent King of Fronela, or the twin children of Arim the Pauper and Sorana Tor founding the Twins dynasty of Tarsh. The founders of the Caladra&Aurelion cult used the same precedence.) They became the core of the Logician culture while being a small minority in terms of population compared to the vast majority of Dronar caste farmers and workers. The mothers of the six tribal founders of Danmalastan are left unclear, except in the case of Waertag, whose mother was a kinswoman of Warera, a Triolina tied to the Wartain tribe from which the Ludoch seem to have descended (even though nowadays the Neliomi waters don't have any Ludoch any more, but instead have a few types of Ouori). The story of Viymorn (who became the ancestor of the Vadeli royalty) is described separately from that of the other Founders, in the Stafford Library book Middle Sea Empire, also telling a history of Godtime Jrustela. In his case, we know that he founded three groups of descendants - demigod births (including Vadel) called The Seekers, Made Humans (the clay etc. method) to populate his lands, Quote worked with all his brothers when they created the race of the Erasko, and the five whose head he made were called the Pelans (all names not mentioned in any other text I have ever seen). and allegorical third set of cardinal directions Quote all of wh6)om were similar but unlike him, and they were called East, North and West (Middle Sea Empire p.6, which would make Vimorn himself South.) But TLDR: IMO there were a couple of chthonic peoples (claiming descent from local land goddesses like Vadela or Kala) in the West when the six tribes of nobility fathered by Malkion developed their philosophical/Logician specialities while upheld by the labor provided by the Chthonic class of Dronars, and apparently against the will of the children of Vadela except for Vimorn whose son Vadel became the founder of the Vadeli with his explpratory journeys outside of Danmalastan. 19 hours ago, bronze said: But sedentary peoples have expanded out from their homeland throughout history. . Yes, but not necessarily in the same way as the Vadeli and Kachasti who happened to inhabit the inner border regions to the northern and southern triangles/continent. Basically, we have the northern expansion of the Kachasti that is known by the euphemism "Speaking Tour". They enter the same Hykimi lands previously colonized by King Frona, and might have gone there with the intention to make these escapees from the Logician oversight return to their fold. For a while, they succeeded, seeding the lands of Fronela, Ralios, and possibly Maniria with their Speakers among the Hykimi, and possibly bringing in Kadeniti city planners to provide the Hykimi with ancestral temple cities in the style of Göbekli Tepe. Their presence may have been similar to that of the Trader Princes in post-God Learner Maniria unt.il they got involved in the Vadeli War. The Kadeniti were the tribe of architects and civic engineers. They created the Perfect City, and then spread out to other Logician lands (and the Kachasti lands) to seed the perfect Logician cities enabling social order and maximized channeling of magical power to the sorcerers (or to the temples to the ancestral entities). So Kadeniti do expand, but only as enablers of the other tribes, not bringing their own domination but providing their infrastructure. And Tadeniti record-keeping pervades all the Logician activities, too, in a similar way. The Enrovalini - Zzabur's folk who own the island of Brithos - are the ones who don't do much of anything (but cogitating), which might be the most Logician activity, but also the least active behavior. Do they spread out? Well, there is Arolanit, the Rational land, and there is Sog City, both on the far side of the Neliomi Sea. Do they do anything there? Not really. Do they spread to God Forgot? No idea. 19 hours ago, bronze said: Did the Tadeniti invent flensing technique after the onset of Vadeli war? IMO the technology was one of the causes of the differences between Vadel and Zzabur becoming a war. Zzabur does similar bad things to the couple Horal and Menena, but gets thwarted there. The emigration of King Drona may fall into this, too. 19 hours ago, bronze said: How immortal are the Vadeli compared to their kins? It seems they partially relinquished their immortality for fertility and propagation. For instance, it is said the Vadeli need to eat their own children to maintain their accused immortality. The Vadeli were vilified and demonized by Zzabur (while providing him with his stationery of living hide), and at some point they embraced that identification, and embraced it for the power it gave them, a power that allowed them to overthrow the Logicians by subverting its virtues. I cannot say anything about the immortality of any Danmalastan natives other than the Enrovalini descendants on Brithos and their Tilnta-born nobility born outside of those tribes. The Brithini immortality derives to a large extent from expelling Malkion as he is on the brink of accepting Mortality in the Fifth Action. That Fifth Aciton might be a thing that might have gone painless and hopeful except that it was sabotaged, not just by Zzabur but possibly by the Vadeli and other forces as well, the latter potentially including the Westfaring Lightbringers. 19 hours ago, bronze said: The overall tone sounds as if you see Vadeli as much victims as perpetrators. Wondering you consider the Vadeli have been demonized by propaganda stories disseminated by their foes. Demonizing and then sabotaging foes is a cheap trick played by Zzabur again and again. There are a few times when it misfires, but otherwise it has served him very well. Vadel was on to Zzabur's duplicity - he was an accomplice in tricking the Mostali out of the Energy Matrix artifact which the Logicians mass-produced in the lesser (bronze) edition from the original (iron) device. Expecting the same from Zzabur, Vadel offered the Mostali to catch Zzabur with his own tricks (while profiteering again), and the Mostali agreed to go after the bigger target, keeping Vadel and his folk as useful if unreliable accomplices. When Zzabur declared some of the actions of Vadel as anathema - including the expeditions to Bamatela which he himself had sponsored - and (as far as I understand the story) flensed Vadel and his brown and red co-noble of the Vadeli for his books, there was little to top the insult against the Vadeli. The Vadeli then went all out to prove the absurdity of Zzabur's interpretation of Malkion's rules by obeying them in the most contrary manner and still benefitting from the caste benefits. The Logicians were a bunch of supremacists. Possibly the worst kind, incorporating all the vile -isms and claiming something along the lines of manifest destination. The Malkioni mortals of the west are those who followed Malkion out of that supremacist trap into milder forms, dissidents against Zzabur, making his magic-gathering engine/society less effective, which led to the successive excision of all dissidents and polluted if doctrinally sound individuals (pushing the latter to Arolanit, it seems). Malkioni societies can be pretty awful towards non-Malkioni, and possibly worse to dissident Malkioni. There are three power groups inside the Malkioni who grab the power - the sorcerers following Zzabur's books of supremacy, the talars with their inherited ability to order the zzabur caste about despite being their servants, and the military with the men-of-all movement by Hrestol undoing all the great taming success the sorcerers had over the soldier caste, making them obedient followers of talars and zzaburi, only to be replaced by the super-caste of the men-of-all who inherited the military power and some sorcerous insight while recruiting a majority of the ruling talars to their way of doing things To some extent I agree with Rokar's criticism of the men-of-all involvement in the ruling of the realm, but the pyramid scheme putting the sorcerers back as the main recipients of society's benefits that is Rokarism strikes me as a pernicious fallacy repeating the God Learner mistakes rather than counteracting them as professed. Sorry about the rambling and referencing of (essentially) unpublished old Western material. This is what has shaped my impression and my deductions. 1 Quote Telling how it is excessive verbis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bronze Posted November 14, 2023 Author Share Posted November 14, 2023 On 10/22/2023 at 4:34 AM, Joerg said: Many of these original inhabitants were deities, genii locorum, or their mortal offspring. Personally, I think that the claim that the dronar population of Brithela is descended from Malkion the way the three minority castes are is a bit weak. Revealed Mythologies p.25 has a summary of Greg's early world building for the Gloranthan west. It clearly marks the Vadeli (of the three colors brown, red and blue) as the indigenous humans of Brithela, and claims that the Malkioni are the result of Malkion (aka Engr) mating with a series of (local divinity) wives. I am spouting a lot of "In My Glorantha" nonsense below, which does make a certain sense to me. Read at your own risk. These people descended from Malkion would have become the Logicians, the people of the Kingdom of Logic.. Reveal hidden contents The Monomyth has a core mythic cycle about humanity in Glorantha, the four tribes of the Mountain People founding the Four Camps in the cardinal directions. There seems to be some universal truth to this mythic cycle, as the Black Camp of Introspection figures greatly with the development of the Gates of Dusk and the path of mortality into the West, and the Camp of Innocence features in the arrival myth of the Veldang in southern Pamaltela. The four directional kingdoms of the Golden Age are based off these camps, too. The Mountain Men would have been the humanist ideal of Man Rune humans without much interference by deities handling mud, fire and other stuff to construct humans, a race of deities doomed by the actions of Grandfather Mortal but some exceptions holding on to the original purity - the Agi or Agitorani of Pamaltela who did not drink, or the Brithini slavishly adhering to a caste system's doctrine without change to maintain agelessness. If so, the Vadeli may have been a form of these original humans, and demigod races like the Luatha or the Altinae too IMO the majority of the indigenes of Brithela other than the Vadeli were the Dromali, dark-skinned children of Kala, given "Founders" by Malkion. They were the people of the soil, farmers, but also builders - a human culture of early agriculturalists and earth (ancestor) worshipers. King Drona, accompanied by Bakan the boar, and aided by Eurmal Friend of Men (and later Eurmal's son Yomat) left Brithela as the Logicians took the reign and spread his form of agriculture into the Hykimi lands of Fronela and Ralios (long before the Nidan range of mountains was raised). Drona may have been a son of Malkion and Kala, if not first-born then highest-born of the Dronari, and thus a king of the farmers when left alone by his half-brothers (Talar, Zzabur, Horal) born to Tilnta. The majority of the Logicians claim descent from Tilnta, the favored wife of Malkion who gave him many sets of male and female twin children, each pair becoming a married couple founding a dynasty. (This seems to be a typical start of a royal dynasty born of human and goddess - other such couples include Ylream and his sister Nebrola whose child became the second Serpent King of Fronela, or the twin children of Arim the Pauper and Sorana Tor founding the Twins dynasty of Tarsh. The founders of the Caladra&Aurelion cult used the same precedence.) They became the core of the Logician culture while being a small minority in terms of population compared to the vast majority of Dronar caste farmers and workers. The mothers of the six tribal founders of Danmalastan are left unclear, except in the case of Waertag, whose mother was a kinswoman of Warera, a Triolina tied to the Wartain tribe from which the Ludoch seem to have descended (even though nowadays the Neliomi waters don't have any Ludoch any more, but instead have a few types of Ouori). The story of Viymorn (who became the ancestor of the Vadeli royalty) is described separately from that of the other Founders, in the Stafford Library book Middle Sea Empire, also telling a history of Godtime Jrustela. In his case, we know that he founded three groups of descendants - demigod births (including Vadel) called The Seekers, Made Humans (the clay etc. method) to populate his lands, (all names not mentioned in any other text I have ever seen). and allegorical third set of cardinal directions (Middle Sea Empire p.6, which would make Vimorn himself South.) But TLDR: IMO there were a couple of chthonic peoples (claiming descent from local land goddesses like Vadela or Kala) in the West when the six tribes of nobility fathered by Malkion developed their philosophical/Logician specialities while upheld by the labor provided by the Chthonic class of Dronars, and apparently against the will of the children of Vadela except for Vimorn whose son Vadel became the founder of the Vadeli with his explpratory journeys outside of Danmalastan. Yes, but not necessarily in the same way as the Vadeli and Kachasti who happened to inhabit the inner border regions to the northern and southern triangles/continent. Basically, we have the northern expansion of the Kachasti that is known by the euphemism "Speaking Tour". They enter the same Hykimi lands previously colonized by King Frona, and might have gone there with the intention to make these escapees from the Logician oversight return to their fold. For a while, they succeeded, seeding the lands of Fronela, Ralios, and possibly Maniria with their Speakers among the Hykimi, and possibly bringing in Kadeniti city planners to provide the Hykimi with ancestral temple cities in the style of Göbekli Tepe. Their presence may have been similar to that of the Trader Princes in post-God Learner Maniria unt.il they got involved in the Vadeli War. The Kadeniti were the tribe of architects and civic engineers. They created the Perfect City, and then spread out to other Logician lands (and the Kachasti lands) to seed the perfect Logician cities enabling social order and maximized channeling of magical power to the sorcerers (or to the temples to the ancestral entities). So Kadeniti do expand, but only as enablers of the other tribes, not bringing their own domination but providing their infrastructure. And Tadeniti record-keeping pervades all the Logician activities, too, in a similar way. The Enrovalini - Zzabur's folk who own the island of Brithos - are the ones who don't do much of anything (but cogitating), which might be the most Logician activity, but also the least active behavior. Do they spread out? Well, there is Arolanit, the Rational land, and there is Sog City, both on the far side of the Neliomi Sea. Do they do anything there? Not really. Do they spread to God Forgot? No idea. IMO the technology was one of the causes of the differences between Vadel and Zzabur becoming a war. Zzabur does similar bad things to the couple Horal and Menena, but gets thwarted there. The emigration of King Drona may fall into this, too. The Vadeli were vilified and demonized by Zzabur (while providing him with his stationery of living hide), and at some point they embraced that identification, and embraced it for the power it gave them, a power that allowed them to overthrow the Logicians by subverting its virtues. I cannot say anything about the immortality of any Danmalastan natives other than the Enrovalini descendants on Brithos and their Tilnta-born nobility born outside of those tribes. The Brithini immortality derives to a large extent from expelling Malkion as he is on the brink of accepting Mortality in the Fifth Action. That Fifth Aciton might be a thing that might have gone painless and hopeful except that it was sabotaged, not just by Zzabur but possibly by the Vadeli and other forces as well, the latter potentially including the Westfaring Lightbringers. Demonizing and then sabotaging foes is a cheap trick played by Zzabur again and again. There are a few times when it misfires, but otherwise it has served him very well. Vadel was on to Zzabur's duplicity - he was an accomplice in tricking the Mostali out of the Energy Matrix artifact which the Logicians mass-produced in the lesser (bronze) edition from the original (iron) device. Expecting the same from Zzabur, Vadel offered the Mostali to catch Zzabur with his own tricks (while profiteering again), and the Mostali agreed to go after the bigger target, keeping Vadel and his folk as useful if unreliable accomplices. When Zzabur declared some of the actions of Vadel as anathema - including the expeditions to Bamatela which he himself had sponsored - and (as far as I understand the story) flensed Vadel and his brown and red co-noble of the Vadeli for his books, there was little to top the insult against the Vadeli. The Vadeli then went all out to prove the absurdity of Zzabur's interpretation of Malkion's rules by obeying them in the most contrary manner and still benefitting from the caste benefits. The Logicians were a bunch of supremacists. Possibly the worst kind, incorporating all the vile -isms and claiming something along the lines of manifest destination. The Malkioni mortals of the west are those who followed Malkion out of that supremacist trap into milder forms, dissidents against Zzabur, making his magic-gathering engine/society less effective, which led to the successive excision of all dissidents and polluted if doctrinally sound individuals (pushing the latter to Arolanit, it seems). Malkioni societies can be pretty awful towards non-Malkioni, and possibly worse to dissident Malkioni. There are three power groups inside the Malkioni who grab the power - the sorcerers following Zzabur's books of supremacy, the talars with their inherited ability to order the zzabur caste about despite being their servants, and the military with the men-of-all movement by Hrestol undoing all the great taming success the sorcerers had over the soldier caste, making them obedient followers of talars and zzaburi, only to be replaced by the super-caste of the men-of-all who inherited the military power and some sorcerous insight while recruiting a majority of the ruling talars to their way of doing things To some extent I agree with Rokar's criticism of the men-of-all involvement in the ruling of the realm, but the pyramid scheme putting the sorcerers back as the main recipients of society's benefits that is Rokarism strikes me as a pernicious fallacy repeating the God Learner mistakes rather than counteracting them as professed. Sorry about the rambling and referencing of (essentially) unpublished old Western material. This is what has shaped my impression and my deductions. I hope to reply on your discussions in due time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davecake Posted November 18, 2023 Share Posted November 18, 2023 On 10/21/2023 at 8:27 AM, bronze said: How immortal are the Vadeli compared to their kins? It seems they partially relinquished their immortality for fertility and propagation. For instance, it is said the Vadeli need to eat their own children to maintain their accused immortality. The Vadeli carefully maintain their caste rules, though they also exploit loopholes in them (mostly relating to naval law). So they are as immortal as the Brithini as long as they do so, for the same reason. Like the Brithini they can choose when to breed, and may often not choose to do. However, while Brithini generally keep their population within the level sustainable with the resources they have, the Vadeli may instead push to expand the resources they have by slavery and conquest. There are many vile rumours about the Vadeli, and not all of them are true. It is not true, for example, that they must consume (physically or magically) their own children to maintain their immortality. That doesn’t mean they don’t consume their own children for other reasons, though! Also, only two of the Vadeli castes, the Brown (Dronar) and Red (Horali) survive. So they have had to learn to survive and adapt their customs to the absence of the others. Brown and Red both use sorcery, though their caste laws still restrict which spells they can caste. And neither is able to act as Talars. So Vadeli government, such as it is, takes advantage of loopholes around commanding ships at sea, and modern Vadeli rulers are always Captains or Admirals. They sometimes accept outsiders as Judges, notably beginning with Hrestol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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