Basically, the oasis denizens look like crossbreeds of whichever tribes occupied the oases over the last generations plus some other component lingering from their original shape. There is no reason why the Golden Age Praxians (who definitely were not related to the Beast Riders) shouldn't have looked similar to the Theyalan humans - one Orlanthi legend claims that Vingkot married a daughter of Tada.
I'd like to think that the oasis people inherit some distinct trait which identifies them as oasis folk (or descendants of the Praxian Golden Age people), and makes their acceptance into the Beast Rider tribes very difficult.
Simon Phipp:
>Also, harping back to an old question which still burns me, has
>anyone any information on Cragspider, apart from the stuff in Dragon
>Pass and the Trollpak series?
There is - apart from Broken Council - also a recurring mention of Cragspider as an enemy of Ingolf Dragonfriend during the later EWF period. Which is a bit funny, considering that Craggie is a dragonfriend of sorts herself...
David Dunham
> I'm starting an Umathelan campaign, and when I mentioned the
> lascerdans, a player wondered if they were slarges.
> I think they're separate (the lascerdans are extinct), but I'm
> not quite sure what the distinction is. After all, both are
> sentient reptilians. Are slarges more carnivorous and lascerdans
> vegetarians?
The lascerdans seem to have practiced agriculture, so they are at least omnivorous rather than carnivorous. It is hard to believe that a purely carnivorous species would have suffered genocide from the aldryami unless they were savannah hunters trying to lighten the forest cover with fire.
> Is it a desert/river distinction?
Rather desert/forest, with the rivers being logical settlement areas for a productive culture wanting exchange of goods. For omnivores, rivers offer an additional food source from fishing.
David Dunham finds it implausible that the Hyaloring Triarchy descended from mixed Grazer/Vendref origins - partly because lack of time between 1316 (arrival of the Colymar) and 1350 (firm establishment of Runegate fort and lots of binding traditions).
Peter Metcalfe:
> So? The Grazers came into the Valley in 1250 ST and the first Vendref
> entered after 1300 ST. There is no record of the Hyaloring Triachy
> prior to this AFAIK.
There are no published records of _any_ early 3rd Age Orlanthi group prior to this period...
> As for the alleged implausibility of the Vendref/
> Grazer mixing, IMO this is only one tribe of malcontents and not
> representative of grazers in general.
Well, there is a postcedent in the formation of the Pol Joni (about a century later), which seem to have included malcontents of the Grazers resisting the increasingly territorial life-style induced by the lordship over the Vendref. They returned to something resembling their old life-style, though, and not to a totally un-nomadic existence.
> There are references to the
> Wanderers who split off from the Grazers in the time of Josadarin the
> Stallion (which is before the Vendref migrated into Dragon Pass).
Wanderers, not dirt grubbers. Nomads.
>>The Hyaloring Triarchy is, as far as I know, descended from Orlanthi
who
>>very early adopted horse use (perhaps the Berenethtelli).
> The Berenethtelli live up near Saird and were in the middle of the
> first age wars between the Dara Happans and the Heortlings. For the
> Hyaloring Triarchy to be descended from them would mean that their
> ancestors would have to survive the Gbaji wars (difficult for Orlanthi
> sun worshippers),
I'd agree. However, it seems that the Berennethtelli had been on the receiving end in the conflicts with both Lokamayadon and the Dara Happans even before 375, and had practically been forced out of their lands at the time the council broke. They made up a good portion of the new-founded Hendriki tribe, in Heortland.
Given the isolationist marriage arrangements such three-clan groups seem to make (ok, this is inferred from the Tree Triaty), ancestor worship of Kuschile and Hyalor might have survived later pressure, and would explain why the (it seems quite sedentary) triarchy would rather leave Heortland than change and adapt to the Pharaoh's new order and its Heortland incarnation of increasing western influences.
> This is quite an achievement!
Right. Not impossible, though. I'd find the Vendref who manage to convince their Grazer lords to adapt to a fully sedentary life-style at least as difficult to achieve, and more difficult to envision.
Joerg Baumgartner (via Hotmail)
mailto:joe_at_toppoint.de
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