Adding more variation among Orlanthi?

[Ainda]

4 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Already several of the Sartarite tribes and clans keep thralls - the Sambarri are (in)famous for trading humans. The Hendriki as a rule don't, but there may be other clans in Heortland descended from immigrants from e.g. Esrolia.

Esrolian houses often keep slaves, and at a guess so do the Solanthi and Ditali (in their case captives from Kethaela or neighboring clans/tribes kept as thralls if not ransomed).

Tarshites quite likely keep slaves, both those of Wintertop and those who accepted the Lunar Way. At a guess, several Far Point tribes keep slaves, too.

Not sure about the Sairdites and Talastari - some of the Lunarized ones probably do.

Safelstrans keep slaves, and the hill tribes of Ralios will likely do so, too.

Jonating Orlanthi are kept in a state of thraldom, not sure that they would have tiers of this. We have no data on Oranor.

Umathela probably has adopted some forms of slavery, living next to Fonrit. I don't see why the clans ruled by the Woodland Council wouldn't.

I suppose I should have said they're the only culture that, where they're focused on (Dragon Pass,) it's not popular and is even disdained. This, one, doesn't make sense to me, and two, frames the Lunar v. Orlanthi question in a frankly boring way.

Edited December 26, 2015 by Ainda

[Joerg]

17 minutes ago, Ainda said:

I suppose I should have said they're the only culture that, where they're focused on (Dragon Pass,) it's not popular and is even disdained. This, one, doesn't make sense to me, and two, frames the Lunar v. Orlanthi question in a frankly boring way.

There you see the influence of the Larnsti of the Hendriki who were leaders of the early period of Orlanthland in Dragon Pass, Kethaela and Saird. They worshipped the Spirit of Freedom (depicted in the Prince of Sartar comic chained to Belintar) and proselytized their rejection of individual slavery. (They didn't mind putting entire clans and tribes under severe tribute, unless it was themselves, though - see the Foreigner Laws of Aventus in History of the Heortling Peoples.)

Among the Heortlings, it is part of a decision the clan made in the Storm Age when they were asked to accept one of the minority peoples in the Vingkotling area into their tribe - as (near-) equals or as thralls. When a new clan forms, these decisions are sort of fought out between the ancestors the folk of the new clan bring along (actually by their descendants).

The Sambarri show that you can be anti-Lunar and slaveholder. The Colymar used to be anti-slavery, but when Blackmor accepted the Lunar Way they had to accept the slave plantation in their midst, too.

[jajagappa]

Quote

Not sure about the Sairdites and Talastari - some of the Lunarized ones probably do.

I think the Imtherians largely do not.  I'm sure some of the Vanchite clans and confederations do.  I'm sure the lowland Sairdites do.  The Jajalaring dog servants are largely a 'thrall' underclass of long-time subservient clans.  Holayans most likely do.

[M Helsdon]

12 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

Back in the ancient days of RQ3 the culture was described as the 'Barbarian Belt' IIRC, and I think that is a very useful term.  If one looks at RW history, the various Roman authors' struggle to differentiate between the 'Gauls' and the 'Germans' is almost comical. 

Even more intriguing from a modern point of view is that the Classical authors rarely if ever referred to the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland as 'kelts', but there's a widespread modern assumption that they were. Then there's the fact that Tacticus infers that a Germanic language was spoken in the south east/east of Britain in the 1st Century AD, long before the Saxon invasion (which left little genetic footprint on the population compared with, say, the later Danes).

Barbarian Belt is probably more meaningful, those for ease of usage, Orlanthi as a template is here to stay.

[soltakss]

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

Even more intriguing from a modern point of view is that the Classical authors rarely if ever referred to the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland as 'kelts', but there's a widespread modern assumption that they were. Then there's the fact that Tacticus infers that a Germanic language was spoken in the south east/east of Britain in the 1st Century AD, long before the Saxon invasion (which left little genetic footprint on the population compared with, say, the later Danes).

Barbarian Belt is probably more meaningful, those for ease of usage, Orlanthi as a template is here to stay.

As Germania was the heartland of the Celtic people, it makes sense for the Romans to treat Celts as a kind of germanic people. To me, this means that tacitus recognises some sort of language similarity between the people of south east Britain and the people of Germania. Having them both as speakers of Celtic languages seems OK to me.

 

I am not sure how much the Romans analysed languages and whether they split them into our family trees of Celtic and germanic.

 

 

[Ali the Helering]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

As Germania was the heartland of the Celtic people, it makes sense for the Romans to treat Celts as a kind of germanic people. To me, this means that tacitus recognises some sort of language similarity between the people of south east Britain and the people of Germania. Having them both as speakers of Celtic languages seems OK to me.

 

I am not sure how much the Romans analysed languages and whether they split them into our family trees of Celtic and germanic.

 

 

I think the point is that they didn't purely base such a decision upon language.  That would have been comparatively simple.  Rather, they based it upon a mix of language, custom, religion, dress, food and drink, marriage, and an attitude towards war.  They also frequently disagreed with each other as do scholars today e.g. the debate concerning the nature & origin of the Bastarnae of the black Sea Coast.

In similar fashion, the Barbarian Belt can be split up into a multitude of different groupings, varied in many different ways.  Including religion.

[M Helsdon]

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

As Germania was the heartland of the Celtic people, it makes sense for the Romans to treat Celts as a kind of germanic people. To me, this means that tacitus recognises some sort of language similarity between the people of south east Britain and the people of Germania. Having them both as speakers of Celtic languages seems OK to me

Ah, but Germania wasn't a heartland of the Celtic People at the time. And there never was any such thing as the Celtic People; it's a relatively modern construction. The term has very different connotations for different people: for linguists it refers to speakers of particular Indo-European language families; for archaeologists it relates to a distinctive material culture. For geneticists it is even more fraught, as populations you would assume to be homogenous aren't (and some you would expect to be very different are similar). In both former cases the definition is imprecise with the division between Q Celtic and P Celtic languages, and the wide variety of artifacts over a very wide area and a wide spread of time. And people can change their language and their material culture, but they can't change their genes.

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

I am not sure how much the Romans analysed languages and whether they split them into our family trees of Celtic and germanic.

For the Romans there were clear (but fuzzy) differences between the Gauls and the Germans, but then they didn't recognize the Britons and Irish as identical to the Gauls either. For the linguist there are sharp distinctions and there were sharp differences in material culture - but they often weren't quite so sharp on the ground. Caesar certainly recognized and used the differences, using German auxiliaries against their traditional enemies in his conquest of Gaul. However, in some Roman accounts some Germans had Gallic names...

The language difference between Gauls and Germans was pronounced, as was the material culture, and they were rivals for lands in northern and central Europe for centuries.

And this illustrates that whilst it is easy to make broad brush generalizations, they rarely give an accurate account of reality. This is certainly true in Glorantha which makes it one of the rare fantasy worlds where its reality is intentionally messy.

Edited December 26, 2015 by M Helsdon

[Ainda]

I'm sure you all know that any notion of a unified 'Celtic' people is explicitly a construction of 19th century nationalism.

[Joerg]

There used to be a discussion whether the Cheruskans spoke a Germanic or a Celtic language, so Germania may very well have been part of the Celtic world before the migrations began. The Suebes that Caesar encountered in Gallia and in his expedition east of the Rhine were recent immigrants from the Baltic (and possibly part of the decision of the Helvetii to start their migration).

The Belgae of Britain were fairly recent arrivals - a couple of generations prior to Caesar's arrival. As the name says, they may have arrived from the contact zone with the Germanic tribes (Belgia), which had been in a state of migration since a lot earlier - the Cimbri and Teutones arrived in Roman territory around the same time the Belgae established themselves in Britain.

I think it might be more productive to look at the Germans prior to the 19th century to get an idea what "Orlanthi" do have in common and what they don't. The unified German language started with the Luther bible (but retained the high German/low German split until the 19th century), the German national identity was mainly found when there was a huge outside threat (Napoleon really made it stick after over a decade of occupation) although the general idea was around already when Otto the Saxon established the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation, religious unity was created with Christianisation since the 8th century, lost with the Reformation in the 16th century and not regained, territorial identity was extremely difficult, and the presence of minorities (or in the baltic settlement area, majorities of other comparatively recent immigrants) made the definition of the German nation difficult.

[M Helsdon]

12 hours ago, Joerg said:

There used to be a discussion whether the Cheruskans spoke a Germanic or a Celtic language, so Germania may very well have been part of the Celtic world before the migrations began. The Suebes that Caesar encountered in Gallia and in his expedition east of the Rhine were recent immigrants from the Baltic (and possibly part of the decision of the Helvetii to start their migration).

The boundaries between neighboring groups are always fuzzy, but the further away from the borderlands you get, the wider the distinctions become and when you start approaching other cultural borders it starts to be difficult to define what, exactly, are the core attributes of identity.

12 hours ago, Joerg said:

I think it might be more productive to look at the Germans prior to the 19th century to get an idea what "Orlanthi" do have in common and what they don't. The unified German language started with the Luther bible (but retained the high German/low German split until the 19th century), the German national identity was mainly found when there was a huge outside threat (Napoleon really made it stick after over a decade of occupation) although the general idea was around already when Otto the Saxon established the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation, religious unity was created with Christianisation since the 8th century, lost with the Reformation in the 16th century and not regained, territorial identity was extremely difficult, and the presence of minorities (or in the baltic settlement area, majorities of other comparatively recent immigrants) made the definition of the German nation difficult.

Most modern nation states and national identities are far younger than we usually assume. In Europe most borders and nations have been in near constant flux right up to the present; even some of the nations that look to be old aren't as old as most people assume. Consider the identity English, which didn't have any reality until long after Wessex united most of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (which themselves weren't entirely Anglo-Saxon in nature). One of the mildly disappointing (but inevitable) things about the recent BBC The Last Kingdom series were anachronisms such as characters referring to England... For that matter, the meaning of England as a geographic term was relatively late. And The Last Kingdom was a bold try, and it seems to have deservedly won a second series.

At its widest (and perhaps most accurate) meaning Orlanthi means a people who venerate an entity that might be identified as Orlanth, or an important member of his pantheon. As some of the deities in the pantheon weren't members until the Lightbringers' Quest, the identity becomes even more nebulous?

Edited December 27, 2015 by M Helsdon

[Joerg]

11 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

The boundaries between neighboring groups are always fuzzy, but the further away from the borderlands you get, the wider the distinctions become and when you start approaching other cultural borders it starts to be difficult to define what, exactly, are the core attributes of identity.

We are dealing with clans here rather than with smaller units like steads or family groups, though. These clans usually have a clear idea who they don't belong to - unfortunately this includes many of their culturally related neighbors, but foreigners who talk funny definitely aren't part of the "us" (unless they make an effort to join us).

The Middle Ages and early modern era saw a lot of colonisation not unlike the American West in middle and eastern Europe. Settlers from an agriculturally more advanced or at least equal origin would come out of their own accord or attracted by local overlords in order to cultivate previously unused or only extensively used area. This is somewhat different from the Greek and Phoenician (or Irish VIking) placement of colonies as trading posts, or from the Germanic immigration into the decaying western Roman Empire (not all of which happened in the shape of invasions). The Lunars appear to have such a program, as the Redlands, the Risklands or the Grantlands show. The spread of the Esvulari along the Choralinthor Bay may be such a case where their knowledge as builders (and possibly seafront dam builders) made them welcome strangers in coastal Heortland and Esrolia.

11 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

At its widest (and perhaps most accurate) meaning Orlanthi means a people who venerate an entity that might be identified as Orlanth, or an important member of his pantheon. As some of the deities in the pantheon weren't members until the Lightbringers' Quest, the identity becomes even more nebulous?

Chronology of myths is always prone to be contradictory. The Sword Story for instance is an extreme shorthand for the entirety of the Gods War, glossing over things like the Lightbringers' Quest or the destruction of the world by Chaos as mere asides.

Orlanth first met Lhankor Mhy, Issaries and Chalana Arroy on the Lightbringers Quest. Eurmal made earlier contact in the Sword Story. Flesh Man was an Orlanthi tribesman of unknown allegiation (an everyman's grandson from any tribe).

Lhankor Mhy was the scribe of the Nochet compact, I think before Argan Argar bound Vestkarthan (and Kodig's presence may have been "the early incarnation of bad man Kodig" as far as the Esrolian Grandmothers are concerned). Chalana and Issaries were active among the Vingkotlings and Durevings, too, at least in form of some of the subcults. The Making of the Storm Tribe includes the Lightbringer deities, but those presences might be later additions proven true through repetitive performance/questing.

(In fact I wonder whether some of the Vingkotling tribal founders could have been cognates of the Lightbringers, with Goralf Brown a candidate for Issaries.)

[M Helsdon]

13 hours ago, Joerg said:

We are dealing with clans here rather than with smaller units like steads or family groups, though. These clans usually have a clear idea who they don't belong to - unfortunately this includes many of their culturally related neighbors, but foreigners who talk funny definitely aren't part of the "us" (unless they make an effort to join us).

Being clan-based permits very wide mutability into new tribes, confederations, nations, kingdoms and even at times in history, empires. For example, Sartar created a kingdom primarily from Orlanthi tribes (and had a hand in the formation of some of those tribes from clans) but also integrated into it to a greater or lesser extent, ducks and hsunchen. I would argue that whilst we are very focused on the stability of certain Orlanthi social constructs they are far more mobile than immediately apparent. This is why the Red Moon is a threat: not just as a competitor for the Middle Air, but also because it has started to assimilate many Orlanthi societies by their own nature. Whether it is thus acting as a seductive face of Chaos can be debated, but it is also utilizing the inherent change.

13 hours ago, Joerg said:

Orlanth first met Lhankor Mhy, Issaries and Chalana Arroy on the Lightbringers Quest. Eurmal made earlier contact in the Sword Story. Flesh Man was an Orlanthi tribesman of unknown allegiation (an everyman's grandson from any tribe).

Lhankor Mhy was the scribe of the Nochet compact, I think before Argan Argar bound Vestkarthan (and Kodig's presence may have been "the early incarnation of bad man Kodig" as far as the Esrolian Grandmothers are concerned). Chalana and Issaries were active among the Vingkotlings and Durevings, too, at least in form of some of the subcults. The Making of the Storm Tribe includes the Lightbringer deities, but those presences might be later additions proven true through repetitive performance/questing.

All true, but also indicating the extreme mutability (mobility?) of Orlanthi social constructs up to and including their pantheon.

Heler the foreigner replaced Varnaval the Shepherd King; Elmal, himself a foreigner once had his own charioteer, Saren, who has been eclipsed by Mastakos; Issaries and the various artistan gods such as Gustbran and Orstan replaced Oonil the Skilful; Lhankor Mhy seems to be a Western Foreigner and Chalana Arroy perhaps a northerner. If pantheons can radically change then so can the societies that venerate them.

[soltakss]

Don't forget that this is a snapshot in time.

The Orlanthi tribes moved about a lot, formed, broke up, reformed, merged and split many times.

The tribes in Sartar now don't match those in Sartar 600 years ago and these don't match those 1200 years ago.

The conservative Orlanthi clans from Heortland left the Holy Country to form Sartar, the tribes under the Olny Old One probably don't match those under Belintar and the tribes post-Belintar have probably changed as well.

That's just a small area of the Orlanthi lands. Take into account the Lunar Empire and the tribes would have changed a lot over the past few centuries.

So, all the Orlanthi lands are a heaving mass of tribes, constantly in flux, constantly changing, the only thing that keeps them united as Orlanthi is a worship of Orlanth and Ernalda.

[M Helsdon]

14 hours ago, Joerg said:

The Making of the Storm Tribe includes the Lightbringer deities, but those presences might be later additions proven true through repetitive performance/questing.

Additional: I find it intriguing that in King of Sartar, Yara Aranis appears to jump pantheons to join or at least fight on Argrath's side in the Battle of Gardint. The Guide further supports this. Perhaps her allegiance was always to Saird, and the Lunars failed to appreciate this...

Edited December 28, 2015 by M Helsdon

[Joerg]

37 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

Additional: I find it intriguing that in King of Sartar, Yara Aranis appears to jump pantheons to join or at least fight on Argrath's side in the Battle of Gardint. The Guide further supports this. Perhaps her allegiance was always to Saird, and the Lunars failed to appreciate this...

I don't find that so surprising. Yara Aranis was strongly defined by her hatred of Pentan invaders, and Sheng in specific. Given the chance to wrestle with her arch-enemy, of course she would heed the suggestion of Argrath's Lunar followers.

[M Helsdon]

15 hours ago, Joerg said:

I don't find that so surprising. Yara Aranis was strongly defined by her hatred of Pentan invaders, and Sheng in specific. Given the chance to wrestle with her arch-enemy, of course she would heed the suggestion of Argrath's Lunar followers.

But not on the side of the Lunars allied with Sheng in the Battle of Gardint...

[Ali the Helering]

Quoting the Redline History "The Red Emperor used the secret fear of the barbarians to summon their Goddess of Tormented Death... The child of this union was named Yara Aranis". 

This seems to me to indicate that Yara Aranis is the Lunarised form of a Pentan demon.

Therefore I would not expect to find her with any force allied to Sheng Seleris, but can easily see her adapting to fit into Argrath's religio-magical system as a Pentan nemesis.

[Joerg]

24 minutes ago, Ali the Helering said:

Quoting the Redline History "The Red Emperor used the secret fear of the barbarians to summon their Goddess of Tormented Death... The child of this union was named Yara Aranis". 

This seems to me to indicate that Yara Aranis is the Lunarised form of a Pentan demon.

To me this sounds like Yara is the daughter of the emperor and a Pentan demon (who shares lots of traits with Gorgorma, and possibly with one of the deities of the Kingdom of Ignorance). Sheng is the mystical shadow of the Red Emperor, and vice versa, much like Arkat and Nysalor. Note that the empire after Phargentes JarEelsson was slain was the Shadow Moon Empire.

If you look at the Battle of Gardint, it has all the elements of a nomad horde invading a land that was (once) protected by the Reaching Moon (i.e. Yara), so calling her up in defense is why I don't wonder whether it is legit. I wonder whether Argrath's temples of the Reaching Storm actually usurped Yara Aranis' magic and her being, making her available for the defense of Saird (KoS p.129).

[Ali the Helering]

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

To me this sounds like Yara is the daughter of the emperor and a Pentan demon (who shares lots of traits with Gorgorma, and possibly with one of the deities of the Kingdom of Ignorance). Sheng is the mystical shadow of the Red Emperor, and vice versa, much like Arkat and Nysalor. Note that the empire after Phargentes JarEelsson was slain was the Shadow Moon Empire.

I suppose again this is down to me tending to read things in the light (or otherwise) of RW religions rather than taking in-world documents at face value.  From RW texts the parent-child image is sometimes (but by no means always!) used to indicate the incorporation of a spiritual power from another source. Similarly other familial relationships, on occasion.

One question though, do you mean the Kingdom of Ignorance or the Kralorelan Empire?  I ask because I have previously read of a similarity between Gorgorma and Bodkartu, who IIRC is Kralorelan.  If the KoI reference is correct, may I ask which one?  This might help with some work in the near future!  Thanks.

 

[M Helsdon]

5 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

 

One question though, do you mean the Kingdom of Ignorance or the Kralorelan Empire?  I ask because I have previously read of a similarity between Gorgorma and Bodkartu, who IIRC is Kralorelan.  If the KoI reference is correct, may I ask which one?  This might help with some work in the near future!  Thanks.

 

Bodkartu is usually described as the horrible sister of Halisayan, and the equivalent, if not identical, to Gorgorma (see Revealed Mythologies - which is not always totally reliable).

See also:

http://www.glorantha.com/docs/yara-aranis/

Edited December 30, 2015 by M Helsdon

[Ali the Helering]

Indeed, M Helsdon, exactly the reason for my interest.  Is there an extra identification in the KoI?  Is Bodkartu worshipped there as an antidote to Halisayan of the southern oppressors?  My brain hurts....

[Joerg]

I was pointing towards Ignorance since that is where a lot of Kralori bad deities are projected.

You are of course right that more often than not a parent-child relation between deities means that the child is an aspect of the parent. Like Orlanth in the shape of the Thunder Brothers.

But how does this manifest in Yara Aranis? She can be approached as the daughter of the Pentan (enemy) demon, or as granddaughter of the Red Moon. We know her as the guardian of the Glowline, the magical border that projects the surface of the moon magical reality onto the Lunar Empire, Tatius exploited that role for his New Lunar Temple (and it backfired, probably not quite related to Yara).

[M Helsdon]

1 hour ago, Ali the Helering said:

Is there an extra identification in the KoI?  Is Bodkartu worshipped there as an antidote to Halisayan of the southern oppressors?

The Kingdom of Ignorance is more on the periphery of Kralorela than of it: throughout history and before it has been the site of worship of strange and often perverse deities little known beyond its borders. Its major cults rarely interact directly with those of Kralorela. You might like to read the Cryptic Verses of the Yellow Calendar in the Guide where the Blood Sun of the Kingdom of Ignorance, and Can Shu, its ruler impact apparently catastrophically in the future upon Kralorela....

In Kralorela, Bodkartu is not an enemy deity as she protects her sister Halisayan from demons and the bad emperor, and answers the prayers of oppressed mortal women and so has a cult, albeit a small one, in Kralorela.

[M Helsdon]

10 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

This seems to me to indicate that Yara Aranis is the Lunarised form of a Pentan demon.

Her parentage and origins are mentioned in some detail, in The Fortunate Succession, page 57 of the recent versions. Yara Aranis resulted from the Red Emperor mating with a demon in the Pentan Hell. The Sartar Companion names the demon as the Goddess of Tormented Death.

[soltakss]

2 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

Her parentage and origins are mentioned in some detail, in The Fortunate Succession, page 57 of the recent versions. Yara Aranis resulted from the Red Emperor mating with a demon in the Pentan Hell. The Sartar Companion names the demon as the Goddess of Tormented Death.

Someone said on the forums that the mother wasn't Gorgorma, which is a shame