>I have a vague memory of their [oasis people] eye colour being unusual. No
> idea where I got it from, I'm afraid.
In RoC, IIRC is stated that the natives of the Paps have blue eyes. It is not very clear, but it seemed to me that this was a local oddity. It would not happen in other oasis.
Joerg:
> 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.
I look at this more from a cultural POV: the beast riders are nomads that despise the non-riding, fixed and agricultural oasis people. Since the oasis people are weaker, they also explore them.
Sandy:
> The magical origin [of the salt mines in Pavis] is that all life was
> sucked out by the Earth goddesses to give to Storm Bull in his
> fight with the devil. The salt prevents any plant life from existing,
> which adds to the legend.
Good. Maybe it also has a profoud religious significance. It's the difference between the barreness generated by chaos and the lifelessness generated by sacrifice. Also, if there is no life in the salt lake, it still is *full of life* in the sense that creatures need to eat salt to survive.
> My understanding is that the original Golden Age folk of Genert's
> Garden are supposed to have been dark-skinned (not as dark as
> Agimori) with pale hair (blonde?). This might be symbolic, not
> reality.
Like painting the hair with earth?
This leads to an important question: Was this Golden Age folk related in
any way to the Pamaltelan folk? IMO it could be. After all, before the Pike
exploded, Genert's lands and Pamalt's lands confined.
> It's considered bad form to take oasis folk from their oases by
> Praxians themselves.
Maybe because, as I sugested, they value the role of the oasis folk in proctecting the oasis.
> They are also quite inbred, since folk from one oasis rarely or never
> travel to another. Probably their only source of genetic exchange is
> via the occasional nomad rape or seduction.
This is what's more likely to happen. Yet, I developed a different thread
on the oasis people culture loosely based on an african sub-saharian people
I read about once. According to that line of thought, the social
organization of the oasis people would go like this:
- - It's a matriarchy where the women of the oasis share a small number of
strong men in a polygamic arrangement.
- - Each generation the young men (those that just attained adultood) are
expeled from the oasis, never to be received back.
- - For several years they will have to survive alone in the desert. Man will
die; some will be taken as slaves by the nomads or morokanth.
- - Eventually the seasoned band of young men will go to another oasis and
attempt to take it. If they succeed, they expel the adult males of the
oasis and take their place. The women will support the winers.
- - Since the expeled men, are mature and older, they most likely will not
survive going back to the desert.
- - One of the important part of the education of young boys is to tell them
about the surrounding oasis and their population. That way, when they go to
the desert, they can sort out where they have a chance of taking the lead
of an oasis.
- - If the leading men of an oasis are fortunate enough to not be expeled by
younger men camming from the desert, they eventualy will be expeled by
their wifes when they get old. These are the fortunate (and rare) elder men
of the oasis. These will be accepted in the oasis by the young band of new
men when it cames.
According to this description, most oasis are inhabited by women, elders,
children, and a small number of adult men. And that's what outsiders see
when they enter the oasis.
Sergio
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