> Like any Lunar cult he has a connection with IO. Without a decent
> IO sage in a Carmanoi's household he would be bereft of experts on
> Imperial policy and fashion.
IMO this "expert" is likely to be from the Heartlands, not a native-born upper-class Carmanian.
> Like the Empire as a whole, the Carmanians are facing creeping
> lunarisation that grows stronger each Wane.
I agree. But they are probably still less Lunarised than any of the Satrapies, maybe on a par with the Provinces. That is why Carmanians are Citizen Foreigners.
> I don't see the Viziers as being unable to use their weapons any-
> more. The concept of the Carmanians creating a caste that cannot
> pick up a blade seems wrong to me.
Then our concepts are greatly at odds. The Carmanians obsess about ritual purity. No vizier learns weapon skills or is trained in the arts of mundane warfare, IMO.
> I look at it like a medieval knight of one of the more frivolous
> orders - they have ritual costume that is very unwarlike indeed,
> but in battle, its on with the combat leather and heavy plate.
This does not appeal to me.
>> [Magi] are not sorcerers but "priests" of Idovanus.
> They are mystics, following an transcendent being.
Or perhaps "liturgists," unlike the bulk of the Viziers?
> They are of mixed blood too, very, very few Carmanians are without
> Pelandan blood to some degree or another.
I'd say "Pelorian" not "Pelandan". Otherwise you omit Dara Happa, Worian, maybe Spol...
> They integrated and they have built a caste system that _allows_
> them to keep integrating yet remain themselves - the dominant
> culture.
I completely agree.
> It would be tough on them and everyone else if they went outside
> of Carmania and met those worshipping deities that had no sanctioned
> Viziers. I think they must have some mechanism for dealing with that.
Distrust and dislike of foreigners is the obvious one.
> But they _aren't_ really a Malkioni people any more are they?
No, but the idea of caste restrictions is IMO strong in Carmania to this day.
Cheers, Nick
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