Nick:
> Bad luck, old bean. Still, "if it ain't broke..."
Yep, thems the breaks.
> > I'm curious as to how you see the logisitics of a tiny group
> > like the Magi enforcing the Truth as actually working?
> They determine the Truth, by talking to God. They don't need "access
> to cults"; they don't ride around in armour enforcing their dictates
> at lance-point.
Never thought they would. I would have though it would have been much easier if they simply integrated those cults into their philosophy by integrating their priesthoods into the "pure" Vizier caste. Unfortunately, we can't do that now.
> > How can they actually tell if the cult is following the Truth or
> > the Lie?
> By asking God.
That doesn't work in game terms. They have cults that are the Lie and the Truth. Soem are integrated, some are not. Divining another deities area is equivalent to questing on their turf, which is darn hard to do. Some of the deities they have integrated have been very, very different from anything they have known, with far deeper mysteries than a petty god, often to Greater God level, yet they have managed to integrate them. But they have managed to do this without knowledge of the cults rituals, secrets and hidden mythic past? I don't buy it. It would be almost impossible for any cult to do this to some of the powerful deities they _have_ controlled in this way. Can you explain the mechanics of this divination process for me?
> > Secondly they are secluded and pure. They spend much time in
> > meditation and purification rituals so they can reach Idovanus and
> > hear the Truth. How do they do this AND go around the country
> > checking on all these cults?
> They don't. They stay secluded and pure, and ask God whether he's
> happy or not. This obsession with running the Magi as a secret cult
> police in Carmania is blinding you to the way they actually work.
There is nothing secret about their control, nor have I ever said they were. On the contrary. What I have been trying to find is a method with which they have been able to control large and powerful cults. You say divination, I say okay, but _how_?
> > When a player joins a Carmanian cult he has to know the impact
> > the Magi have on his cult and what they actually _do_ to check
> > out that cult on a regular basis.
> You want the College of Magi, the ultimate pinnacle of the Carmanian
> Church, to run mundane audits of known cults, checking them out by
> attending their rituals on a regular basis?
No. Ideally this would have been the function of the Viziers, as the Viziers were the learned caste. They would report to the Magi.
>Not how I have ever seen them working.
Me either.
> > And given their origins, I cannot see a Carmanian caste forbidding
> > weapon use. Period.
> Then your views fundamentally diverge from mine and Peter's. I do not
> see how the origins of the Carmanians (fundamentalist, puritanical
> refugees from God Learner religious innovations which were
> undermining their caste-based Western religion)
They end up completely changing the way they work when they became immersed in a theistic culture! They have undergone RADICAL evolution. I don't see how you can fail to see this. You and Peter seem to be stuck in the concept of them being Westerners when they've changed from what any Westerners would regard as pure in the eyes of Malkion. You seem more interested in the continuity of their past history than the evolutionary effects their hundreds of years in Pelanda have had on them. They don't even aknowledge Malkion except to corrupt his name to Fronalko and consider him a servant of the LIE. Rather they follow some weird mystical god called Idovanus! At best they have a vestigal remnant of their old culture that has been thoroughly integrated with Pelanda in a symbiotic relationship. In addition they have had nearly 400 years of Lunar influence and prior to that the Spolite and DH influence was very strong. We are talking hundreds of years of cultural drift here. Hundreds.
>necessitate their
> Viziers wearing plate armour and riding war-horses into mundane
> conflict. Quite the reverse
I don't think the vast majority of Viziers wear plate armour, or even see any of it, they are the learned caste after all. I think a small number of them might and I would find it deathly dull to have a game where there is another D&D wizard clone caste kicking around where the poor players can't pick up a sword due to alignment, sorry, caste restrictions. YGMV.
>Through Divinations. Greg hardly blinked at how the Rokari
>manage to control what is read in Seshnela (there's a
>Abbot, see, with a library full of Forbidden Books that
>he has read. He can cast a spell that lets him know where
>_other_ copies of any books that he has read are) and so
I like that, on the other hand we are talking about a _book_, not the secrets and practices of a cult, some of which are extremely powerful Greater Deities, like Bisos. In addition, this method uses a copy of the book as a focus for the spell, so it seems to make sense. Just asking your god how the other cults are doing is another story altogether.
>I don't see anything wrong with the Magi doing a Gaumata's
>Vision (q.v.) to see where the Lie waxes and multiplies and
>then sending out the Fatwah to the locals to ship up or be
>damned.
But the Lie is internal and insidious and occurs when a cult follows different paths. Which means that heroquesting can be extremely vulnerable to the Lie because of the possibility of wandering off the path of Idovanus. So how do the Magi actually know when something is of the Lie and of the Truth? At best, from divination, they might have vague warnings.
>The point of the castes in Carmania (Which is NOT in the West and
>hasn't been a Western culture for hundred of years.
>If the Carmanians aren't a western culture then somebody had
>better tell Greg because he has been treating them as such
>and even writing descriptions of Carmanianism in general
>outlines about the development of Malkioni thought while
>dismissing Arkat and Ralios as a backwater.
Okay, I suppose I better talk to him and find out what he thinks on this.
>is that they define their superiority over their serf
>peoples AND defend them from the Lie.
>Mere superiority is not enough. That can easily be done by
>just having Lords and Serfs in which the Lords can do anything
>and the serfs have to serve the Lords. But Carmania is known
>to have distinct castes of Hazar, Vizier and Karmanoi.
Yes, because those were vestigal parts of the cultural baggage they brought with them. But as you have shown in your Glorantha book, and as was shown in the Genertela book, they have suffered cultural drift over time. The most important aspect of their caste system is defining ones place and occupation, protecting themselves from the Lie, and seperating themselves from all the other cultures around them.
>>A caste has strict law, it does not mean that the person in
>>the caste cannot leave the caste.
>But a caste by its very _meaning_ is not something that's
>supposed to be changeable.
Tell that the Hrestoli and all the lesser versions of them on the Janube.
>>And given their origins, I cannot see a Carmanian
>>caste forbidding weapon use. Period.
>Their origins is the West which does have a concept of a
>well-known non-weapons-using Wizard's Caste.
Yes, but that is for practical reasons. Wizards rarely have the time to train with weapons, much as people in the RW don't have time for oodles of hand to hand combat practice, as we have to work to live. On the other hand, there are exceptions to every rule, and I think there are strong exceptions in Carmania. Their people survived amid a sea of enemies for a long time and so I think many barriers to weapons use would have been broken in extremity, or they wouldn't have survived.
> > I do not believe in Viziers wearing combat leather and heavy
> > plate. As sorcerers, they should be relying on magical
> > protection.
>Those Viziers who fight would use armour.
>Why _should_ Viziers fight?
99% wouldn't, or wouldn't even see a battlefield. But why shouldn't there be exceptions to the general rule?
>They are the learned Caste, not fighters.
Mostly I would agree.
>If they want fighting done, they get a Hazar to do it. What is the point of
having >Caste Rules on what can and cannot be done, if caste members can do
anything >they want?
There will be rules on who can fight and who can't, but like any culture, they will have a whole slew of exceptions, based on necessity, experience, past history, mythic events etc. Probably there are a couple of orders of Viziers who fight, but they are allowed to do so, because of a historical precedent.
> > They are heterodox, but they still have a strict caste law.
>Which we don't have published sources on. I suppose we better get
>writing on that.
>Excuse me but we do have published sources on caste. Apply
>yourself to understanding the Western Concept of Caste
>in the Glorantha Book p44-46 because that is the same as the
>Carmanian concept. I put a lot of work in trying to make
>that simple, clear and digestible.
Thats fine, and it is clear, but that section is about the Malkioni, as far as I can tell, which the Carmanians are not, as far as I can tell.
> > But does he worship the same gods as the troops of the Queens?
>I think he is a Spolite Knight-Killer of Humakt.
>Then you still don't understand Castes.
I suppose I will have to remain happy in my ignorance then.
>This is a Noble, not a Soldier.
He is a solider and a noble.
>He doesn't gain glory by worshipping the God of Grunts and PBI!
He gains glory by war and conquest, which are ends in themselves. Humakt is not the god of grunts and the PBI, he is the god of death and killing for Idovanus. He is a protector of the light through the darkness of true death and destruction. All Carmanians are noble, only the Pelandan sergeants qualify as grunts.
> > >Joranthir himself became Carmanoi after being a successful Hazar.
> > For all we know, he may have fought as a Karmanoi or ruled the
> > land as a Shogun (acting on the behalf of weak Karmanoi).
>We wrote up his history based on his career, which seems to start as
>a lowly officer.
>Which is not published yet and based on a grave misunderstanding
>of Caste.
Because I disagree with you on this, it does not mean there is a misunderstanding of caste, rather it means that we have a different view on how it works in Carmania. My approach is to take each culture and follow through its history to find out how it would have changed due to the onset of time and outside influences. Caste is not clad in stone. Clearly there is precedent for this, the Hrestoli are a huge part of the caste based cultures yet they have a very different culture to the Rokari.
>There's still plenty of time to "tweak" it.
We'll work on it, of course, but Greg will be, as always, the final arbiter of the process.
>I don't agree. I don't think its common, but I think it can happen.
>We don't want Rokari on the Poralistor. These guys are much more
>like the Henotheists.
>So? Even the henotheists don't change their caste. Changing
>Caste is a _peculiar_ notion to the Loskalmi Hrestoli and a
>culture with a strict caste law should not IMO have a mechanism
>for changing caste merely because a Hazar has managed to acquire
>some land and wants to retire.
Like the Hrestoli, I think the Carmanians are an exception to this iron-caste (wince) system. Given the size and scope of the Hrestoli exception and the reasons behind it, I am at peace with the idea that the Carmanians are different too. It makes complete sense given their history.
>>I think that the Carmanians see rising in caste as getting closer to
>>the Light of Idovanus and this is a "good thing".
>If they do think so then it would be noteworthy and practiced
>by most Carmanians, not "uncommon" as you said before.
ts probably attempted by most people, much as ambition is the source of change in the RW. However, we can't all be movie stars or tycoons, so most ambition is unfulfilled, I see no reason why this wouldn't be the same for the Carmanians. The reason why I think its uncommon, is the same reason why it was uncommon for class to change in the RW. It is difficult to shift class or caste. Worse, many frown upon it as an invasion of their caste or class and look on the newly risen as interlopers in a world they were not properly born to.
>Furthermore the Magi are the Closest to Idovanus, not the Karmanoi.
Yes true, but they are so unusual, that they are beyond what is possible for virtually everyone. After all, they are chosen at birth. A mature Hazar can best hope to be a great hazar, a enfiefed Carmanoi or, for whatever reason, a Vizier.
>Its certainly a
>good thing for players who are Carmanian as they get to change social
>station as they rise in power.
>Carmanians can increase their social status without changing
>Caste. I've already mentioned the possibility of Aronius
>being a Shogun-Hazar which is perfectly possible in the west
>just as it was in Japan.
Aronious owned lands, and created a house, according to your book, only the Carmanoi caste can have fiefs.
>The caste probably had rules that the Hazars must be ready
>for war and have a panoply ready at all times. Clearly these caste
>laws will have bend under the pressure of the times.
>So they have to have to parade once in a while to demonstrate
>their readiness and own a tent. I don't see why a Hazar can't
>do this.
Because some of them don't. Part of the joys of a people who are at peace is that they cannot maintain a military culture, it simply disappears over time. No matter the caste laws created during a time of dire military need, there is no way and law can halt this kind of change. Its human and inevitable. This is why we have all the evils of substitution rearing their head. This is why we have the likes of Vegetius and Machiavelli lauding the power of a peoples army where all are trained and in readiness, yet these can only last so long in the face of the "peace dividend" and social laziness. The Hazars have largely lost their martial virtue and have become the caste of the common Carmania. At one time they would have all been warriors. Once, the Shah could have summoned a huge force of Knights from every household in Carmania. Not so now. They have changed, their caste has changed and will continue to change.
Martin Laurie
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