Seshnela

[jajagappa]

Although we never got a group read of Vol 2 underway, the recent thread about Safelster prompted me to just start having a read again in the Guide. And Vol 2 starts in Seshnela. 

Water Buffalo!!! I did not know that the common draft animal of the lower Tanier River basin were water buffalo. An interesting surprise. And that means that the great Noloswal diaspora (some of which arrives at Nochet), may have water buffalo with them.

And I did not remember that Seshnela, in general, was semi-tropical in climate. I guess not surprising given the common south-westerly winds. I'm not quite sure what I pictured for climate, but suggestive of both western India, perhaps the Mekong delta, and maybe something of Louisiana and Florida. The attire of the Rokari castes depicted on p. 406 strongly suggests this climate as well, though hopefully the soldier (horali) has some spells to keep him cool beneath all that armor!

Tea. Originally imported from Jrustela, but now the common drink of at least the nobility of Seshnela. Clearly that too will have come to Nochet, though probably beginning with the voyages of Dormal. Tea shops in some locations in Nochet, though perhaps there is worry about the supply with the Seshnegi conquest. Undoubtedly tea traded to Safelster as well.  I wonder how Seshnelan Tea differs from Kralorelan (or Umathelan) Tea?  Is it a black tea due to associations with the ancient Black Camp of Introspection?  Interesting to note that tea-drinking is also surrounded by much ritual among the noble classes - certain teas for morning, others for a high tea late in the afternoon?

 

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Although we never got a group read of Vol 2 underway, the recent thread about Safelster prompted me to just start having a read again in the Guide. And Vol 2 starts in Seshnela. 

Water Buffalo!!! I did not know that the common draft animal of the lower Tanier River basin were water buffalo. An interesting surprise. And that means that the great Noloswal diaspora (some of which arrives at Nochet), may have water buffalo with them.

Yes, and Seshnela is the only place in the Guide where the water buffaloes are mentioned - not for any of the other rice-growing areas, and neither in (apparently rice-free) Esrolia. I guess this means that water buffalos may have come from Danmalastan/Old Brithela. The four-horned buffalo is present in the Ylream picture. No idea how many horns the modern bovines have - some may have beem crossbred with other bovines, too.

Not that water buffalos are necessarily tied to a more clement climate - on  my way to work I pass a low lying field that has been allowed to flood partially, and it is home to a small herd of buffalo keeping thevegetation low.

 

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

And I did not remember that Seshnela, in general, was semi-tropical in climate.

To nitpick: Old Seshnela is mediterranean at best, as the Neliomi Sea is a current running south from below the Glacier. Tanisor and Nolos are a lot more clement as they receive warmth from the Solkathi current, which inherits from Sshorg's doom current branch.

 

The "Kingdom of Seshnela" really is the Kingdom of Tanisor, with a few surviving east-Seshnelan provinces.

The Quinpolic League may have a better claim to have inherited Seshnela than the Duke of Rindland - Bailifes was basically an acculturated Ralian who claimed the ancient title of the Flamesword kings.

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I guess not surprising given the common south-westerly winds. I'm not quite sure what I pictured for climate, but suggestive of both western India, perhaps the Mekong delta, and maybe something of Louisiana and Florida. The attire of the Rokari castes depicted on p. 406 strongly suggests this climate as well, though hopefully the soldier (horali) has some spells to keep him cool beneath all that armor!

I rather expect the nobility to have calm air spells cast on them, similar to the bare-legged sorcerer who accompanies Meriatan on his meeting with Congern in the Fronela color plate.

Note that even tropical climate on our planet can usually range below 30°C if there is enough of ocean to keep things "temperate".

 

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Tea. Originally imported from Jrustela, but now the common drink of at least the nobility of Seshnela. Clearly that too will have come to Nochet, though probably beginning with the voyages of Dormal.

Where do the Seshnegi grow their teas? They obviously have to do so somewhere in the land, or tea would have gone out of general use during the Closing.

Modern tea growing regions besides India and China include Kenya and Anatolia. But then, rice growing and buffalo herding regions include Italy, so maybe the lower Tanier has a lot in common with the Po basin. (Topless fashion was a Venetian thing in Rimini almost up to the Age of Photography, IIRC.)

 

I'll give the Seshnelan text the usual fine comb. Do we want a separate thread on Arolanit and the Brithini? That (and the historical bits) form something like separate units inside the general Seshnela chapter.

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Tea shops in some locations in Nochet, though perhaps there is worry about the supply with the Seshnegi conquest. Undoubtedly tea traded to Safelster as well.  I wonder how Seshnelan Tea differs from Kralorelan (or Umathelan) Tea?  Is it a black tea due to associations with the ancient Black Camp of Introspection?  Interesting to note that tea-drinking is also surrounded by much ritual among the noble classes - certain teas for morning, others for a high tea late in the afternoon?

I thought that tea was one of the results of contact with Eest and beyond.

Black Tea is black due to prolonged fermentation, a Darkness process.

[scott-martin]

Love it. This chapter probably had the most jeffing to do in order to clear away developmental dead ends. I was fond of it at the time and it holds up well. All the text bears the stigmata of endless scrubbing and failed renovation like any proper old house.

If it were happening today I would argue a little harder to push the ideal Brithini forms back and lead instead with the Rokari forms in order to immerse new readers in that, then peel back to show all the survivals, innovations and alternatives rumbling under that big but pervasive lie. Adventure! Hero Wars! Also it distills what's otherwise some of the most complex and arcane lore back down into What The Priest Told Me, which is good for play right out of the box.

Kudos to the person who found the error in the Genertela Box population total.

Beast Societies here play a useful role in bringing horalite history forward a little and are fun in their own right as reminiscent of Hawkmoon. Only 4% of the population in the Genertela Box were military (fewer than "clerical" roles) so these are actually something of an aristocratic elite in their own right with room for a highly developed warrior ethic, divisional rivalries, etc. Running all the math across this implies maybe 110,000 horalites or spread across a hypothetical eleven beasts, about 10,000 per lineage. The horalites also probably father most of the important children. 

So happy with the art on 409. Miyazaki and C.S. Lewis would both applaud. 411 is also a stunner although subtler. Part of the almost impossible challenge here was negotiating the elaborations of the Mongoose map with the right kind of complexity needed to drive a Third Age decline and fall. To build the right kind of ruins you need to imagine how the cathedrals worked and which way they collapsed. But for a ruin to be interesting it needs to differ from the cathedral, usually through subtractions. And vice versa.

Big stuff now going down in Dangk, and how often do I get to use that sentence.  Also Nolos (New Neleswal) and Pasos become interesting as ancestral centers of one heresy or another; in early texts Xem was from Pasos and it was a "Tamalite" (~trollish) town.

At first I was sad that Seshnela and Teshnos got pushed back here to the Missing Lands volume but now I kind of like it. Both regions are relatively isolated from mainstream Gloranthan play and require a little more learning curve than even the sprawling Lunar Empire. Heavy with history and groaning under their doom.

Good tea craves a higher altitude no matter what the latitude so I might look for plantations on the otherwise mysterious Antilian plateau run out of Pithdaros and Hathwal and fueling the Nolosite burgers' late nights. Or it could theoretically do OK on the upper Tanier but there is a very real possibility that most Western tea is shit and all the posturing only tries to hide that fact.