Arim's relations among the Grazers:
Wyrm's Footnotes p.22
"Some of the immigrants had relations among the Grazers."
After over 200 years of no possible contact with the Pure Horse People in Prax, and little incentive to have before, I doubt that the relations were the horse-riders of the Grazer tribe.
Much more likely did they have relations among the slaves of the Grazer tribe.
The text continues in the same paragraph:
"Arim the Pauper was ..."
Doesn't even explicitely state that Arim himself had relations among the Grazers.
I still haven't seen any proof that the Old Day Traditionalists were a localized Aggar/Talastar phenomenon. Most likely because it doesn't exist.
Scholarly riots in Nochet:
The Lhankor Mhy library in Nochet has been accused of being heavily God Learner-infested. The first Jrusteli explorers who came to Kethaela and gathered information would have gathered it in the library, and since the library worked on a quid-pro-quo basis of information exchange (in addition to an access fee), the Jrusteli would have entered part of their knowledge into the archives of the library.
This means that there are sources of early Jrusteli origin buried deep within the library. If I want to incite scholarly riots, I could just claim that valuable knowledge in these sources is withheld from the customers of the library. Abelard's texts were banned in mediaeval Paris, and this led to fierce student protests. Student protests in mediaeval Paris could be quite serious and bloody affairs, mixing in ethnic conflicts around the different lands of origin of the students.
There is no need to involve Malkioni craftsmen or merchants in scholarly riots at all. Except as victims, in which case the proper term is pogrom, and the best use for the God Learners would be to cry out against this injustice and lead a crusade to liberate their oppressed brethren, and justify an invasion of Esrolia.
The Auld Wyrmish school in Nochet needn't have been a permanent institution. Once the Hunting and Waltzing Bands were around teaching Draconic for free, there was no profit to be made of such a school, and it would cease to exist.
Status of Karse wrt Kingdom of Heortland:
In my campaign's version of the city, based on the same source the Chaosium campaign seems to have used, Karse was rebuilt by dissident refugees from the Hendriki reformations around 1320-1350, and denied vassalage to the Kings of Heortland. Most of the populace was of Pelaskite origin anyway, and possibly included a sizeable faction of Esrolian immigrants as well.
I don't believe that Belintar insisted that every little corner of his lands could be assigned to one of the Sixths, as long as it maintained allegiance to the Pharaoh. Given the somewhat forced allegiance of each of the Sixths, the voluntary submission to Pharaonic rule smaller parts of his realm could and would give may even have been preferable. Magically, parts of the land may have been classed as being part of a Sixth even if the population or the rulers were not exactly part of that Sixth's culture. This goes for Porthomeka (Esrolia or Caladraland?), and for coastal Heortland (Heortland or Islands?).
Am I the only one who wondered why Fazzur's conquest of Karse is not referred to as an invasion into Heortland?
How to create a No-Man's Land between settled country and aggressive raiding country:
Or, to be specific, between the Grazelands and Arkat's Hold.
Up to 1313, the Esrolian North Marches were an ill-defined expanse of land northeast of North Esrolia, in the west rising into the Skyreach mountains, to the north marked off by the eerie Crossline, to the east reaching to the foot of the Shadow Plateau. The inhabitants were Esrolian farmers using traditional Orlanthi methods, like the light Barntar plow perfectly suited for the soil.
The direct neighbourhood of the Crossline was shunned, because monstrous non-human raiders could emerge from beyond and hunt down humans for meat or the fun of it.
Close to Shadow Plateau, the Kitori tribe offered protection from troll raids, for a regularly paid tribute. Where there was good land, the deal was acceptable, after all the Kitori were favourite subjects of the lands' ruler, the Only Old One.
To the east, likewise arrangements had been made by Heortland clans and tribelets seeking to escape population pressure, settling along the Creek-Stream River up a bit more than half the way from Shadow Plateau to the Crossline. These clans had splintered off established clans in Heortland lacking space to accommodate more steads, and rather than work on other peoples' lands those without land settled in the abandoned valleys in the north. The Kitori didn't mind to have tributary clans in the lands controlled by them, and the settlers preferred land they owned with a tribute to be paid over being landless.
In 1313 Belintar the Stranger started his magical and physical conquest of Kethaela. By 1315 (IMO) he had subjected the core lands of Esrolia, and had started to turn his attentions towards the Shadow Plateau. Armies had met and fought in the Lysos Valley between the Skyreach Mountains and the plateau. Some refugees fled south, into Belintar's lands, some east, where the Only Old One's rule still held firm, and some fled the tides and terrors of a magical and physical war north, even across the Crossline, preferring an uncertain fate over certain death by Darkness Demons or exotic magics. The refugees fleeing northward came into a land of rolling, unfarmed hills, but were soon discovered by Grazer hunters and warriors who enslaved them for menial tasks, or slew those who wouldn't submit.
Esrolian refugees and Heortlanders mingled under Kitori rule in the Creek-Stream River valley. Formerly generously settled space became sparse once again, and so one group around Colymar, wielder of the Black Spear, and Hareva the Earth Priestess steeped in wisdom of the Goddess, led a new clan formed by refugees and discontents voluntarily across the Crossline. Both Colymar and his wife had prepared magics to protect them when crossing into forbidden Dragon Pass.
Finally, Belintar the Stranger subjected the east of the Holy Country, and after long and devastating struggles, conquered the Shadow Plateau, ruined by the destruction of the Obsidian Palace. The Haunted Lands north of the plateau were devastated by swamping when the Lead Hills were formed from the bones of a chaos monster slain by Belintar. The surviving Kitori had to leave their fields - now buried under dust from the ruin of the City of Black Glass - and settled in the lands where their tributary clans and tribelets had lived, taking their hillfort of Whitewall as the new tribal centre. The troll component of the tribe could easily cross the Crossline, and took possession of the lands there, east of Beast Valley (in modern Sun Dome County).
Some of the tributary clans had lost their lands under the Lead Hills as well, others had been flooded out by the blocked Creekstream River. By the time Belintar had the New River dug more had decided to brave the Crossline. They too were rounded up by Grazers and enslaved. Or they followed the Kitori further east and sought new land there.
Other clans were more lucky and found their fields above the flooding, but they found themselves also the target of troll raids once the Kitori had left. Some decided to move southward into the protection offered by Belintar, others remained, resigned to keep their lands no matter what hardships.
Around 1325 Belintar's scouts made contact with the Grazers north of the Crossline, and with the beastmen of Beast Valley. Belintar and Ironhoof made their famous contract sealed by the Altar of Stone Cross.
This contract became known in Kethaela, and dissidents to Belintar's sacred kingship saw their chance to escape into the unclaimed lands north of the Crossline. IMO this migration included some of the Kitori subjects, e.g. the Torkani.
When the Grazers learned that their previously hidden presence in Dragon Pass had become known to the lands in the south, they started to cross the Crossline as well, raiding the settlers there for grain, and slaves, dealing harshly with resistance. Under Hendroste Goldheart, some also learned to appreciate the grain produced by the farmers, and allowed their slaves some farming as well. To get them started, they raided south for agricultural implements, seed grain, etc...
Less than a generation later, mastery over farmers had become a valued accomodation among the Grazers, and those who lacked farmer slaves went south and collected some. As a result, the farmer population along the Runnel River was diminished, killed or captured in raids. The Grazers found out that Belintar's counter-raids would stop at the Crossline, and so they avoided to resettle their slaves south of that line. They still would graze their herds there, ready to withdraw should Kethaelan troops approach slowly and clumsily. As a result, the lands between the Skyreach Mountains and the Shadow Plateau were abandoned by farmers, and became a grazing ground for the pony herds of the Grazers.
Joerg Baumgartner (via Hotmail)
mailto:joe_at_toppoint.de
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