Peter Larsen:
> Martin Dick's comments about the unity of Sartar made me wonder -- do you
> suppose Sartar's unity magics, however successful they were, made Sartar
> more receptive to the Lunar "We Are All Us" philosophy? If so, does
> rejecting the Lunars weaken Sartar nationalism?
I played with this theme a bit in my Far Point campaign. IMG, Kallyri vingans started saying things like 'the freedom of Sartar means freedom for us all', or 'The Storm tribe must unite to defeat its most ancient enemy.' This sort of sloganeering went down like a krashkid at an Uroxi temple bash. Appeals to loot, cattle, old feuds and revenge for defeats during the Righteous Wind were more likely to get the warriors active. When the victories started, and the tribes rose in the south, this sort of language became more common - as long as there was still loot and vengeance.
Yet there *is* a stream of trans-clan unity that runs through the heart of Heortling culture. Every adult male (and all vingans) have triumphed in 'I Fought We Won' during their Orlanth (male) initiation. They have experienced the overwhelming power of united lifekind in its defiant, willful, desperate victory against the Unlife, the eternal affirmation of unity and common purpose. Now Heortlings aren't given to philosophising or wordy elaboration, but the memory and raw power of that experience will stay with them for life.
Ernaldans of course, have their own concepts and traditions of unity, a unity achieved through the marriages of the Goddess and the marriages of the clans.
Some Heortlings who have gone over to the Lunar way might draw comparisons with IFWW, but most, if they thought about it at all, would consider it just another false mask of Nysalora.
I believe Kallyr and the Argraths *did* resurrect some of the seeds planted by Sartar, building on this common experience of lifekind defeating The Chaos, and the notions and rituals of the House Royal. There may well have been Other Side quests and rituals to achieve this.
Of course, the larger your 'clan' becomes, the larger and more deadly become the treacheries of kinstrife. 'The old foe, ever at our necks...'
All IMG of course.
John
The heroes filled their drinking cups with wine
Sainted with water, which is best, and sipped;
And what in them was noble, grew;
And truthfulness, with many meanings, spread
Over the slopes and through the leafy spears
As Priam thrust the knife into the white lamb's throat.
- - Christopher Logue, The War Machine.
Powered by hypermail