> IIR, Karse is originally a Pelaskite settlement and is probably
> significantly different from places like Jansholm or Durengard.
Old Karse, on the opposite side of the river, was. IMG New Karse has conceptional similarities with New Pavis. See my digest post.
> However, I don't know how much of a Pelaskite identity exists there
> anymore, since it has been dominated by Heortlings for a very long
> time. Probably most folk in Karse are Heortlings. I really don't
> think the old Midkemia Carse product is terribly on-point though.
I'm using it more as a historic backdrop - my character experiences in Karse date from 1600ish using some of the NPCs. I'm currently trying to write something a couple of years later than the old Midkemia setting (for periods both before and after the Lunar conquest).
I have the Pelaskites as necessary ritual component in the city make-up, having their own quarter where they are blatantly present, and mostly disappearing among the Heortlings and cosmopolitans elsewhere.
>> That is not necessarily the same thing as a "top down style" - you >> still have clans, clan councils, and traditional Orlanthi life. Of >> the three tribes of the Heortland, three (the Volsaxi, the >> Jondalarings, and the Hurlantings) fall within the range of >> traditional Heortlings.
> Unless there's a typo in there, you just said that all the tribes in
> Heortland fall within the
> range of traditional Heortlings, which doesn't seem right.
Apart from the open question how the Andrinic reforms could have managed not to change the Heortling social system from the core, the Heortlanders had been the only Heortlings following a version of Heort's laws since the Dragonkill (just possibly excepting a few less matriarchal Esrolian border tribes). In Saird, Pelorian Heortlings had mostly adopted Alakoring rites and laws. So, apart from the people who emigrated to Sartar and the Grazelands, these people defined Heortling traditions.
Whatever the result of Andrin's reforms on the clan wyters was, these people remained theists mostly. They accepted over time feudal elements from Malkioni influences. (Early feudalism and organized barbarian tribes are more or less the same...)
>> However, it did create something of >> a "overclass" dependent on royal patronage and not upon the local >> communities that did not traditionally exist in Heortling cultures.
> Ok, but how far down the 4 regions of Heortland does this extend?
Hardly into central Volsaxar, although around Smithstone some of this development might be found. Not far up the foothills of the Storm Mountains, where geographical isolation helps keeping outside influences dampened. More strongly around cities, I suppose, and quite likely strongly where coastal Pelaskites and Heortlings coexist.
>> I suspect that there are some strong similarities between the >> organization of the cities of Sartar and of Heortland.
> I'd buy that, since they come from a similar root.
The main difference would be the presence of several small tribes on the city ring in Sartar, where in Heortland one can expect strong clan leaders to take these positions.
>> The Esvulari are different, of course.
> When and how did they become different? Do they not consider themselvs
> part of Heortland?
They do consider themselves part of Heortland, only a different part. This is similar to Yelmalian Far Walkers and other Far Walkers - thoroughly apart by choice of religion, yet from the very same background, and part of the same regional entity.
> Is it just the religion thing, influenced by the west?
Mainly. I'd still hesitate to call them a western culture, despite common terminology.
> Before it all fell apart post Pharoah, who was king of Heortland
> and where did he rule and what did he believe?
According to "Introduction to the Hero Wars", the King of Heortland was chosen from among the Larnsti Brotherhood. The idealistic view would be that the Larnsti chose the most able among their numbers, the dynastic cynic would expect the ruling king to ensure that his heir(s) became a member of the Larnsti and be chosen.
IMG the royal seat was in Durengard. It lies nicely on the "ley lines" from the City of Wonders, quite central in Heortland, close to the sacred mountain of the region, etc.
> I have no problem with the fractured remains of the kingdom post Pharoah.
> The king dies, there's a civil war, Rikard decides he's not just a
mercenary,
> but a reformer, and turns the kingdom into New Malkonwal.
IMO a well-meaning propaganda stunt with only a few real believers. I'd leave it to your campaign to decide whether Rikard believed or merely acted to look like a bringer of New Malkonwal.
> The north refuses, but then gets pasted by the Lunars
> and pinned in Whitewall. Rikard fights the Lunars and loses when he is
> betrayed. The Lunars stick Bandal Tigerbane in. But does he just rule
> Esvular? Does he rule all of Heortland or has that as a "kingdom" broken
apart?
I regard Bandal as puppet king over Karhend, Gardufar and Esvular. His actual influence may be slightly better than Temertain's. I wonder what kingship rites Bandal performs for Heortland. IMG one of Rikard's failings was to discontinue several of the Heortling kingship rites, thereby weakening (further) what held the kingdom together. Given more time, his Malkioni rites might have replaced these, but in only three years it would have taken extraordinary heroquesters (on par with Hon-eel or Sartar) to establish new ways that solidly.
> I can't untangle this at all, and looking over stuff online just seems to
> result in constant revisions (starting with the names, of course). While
> the politcal struggles of Heortland are NOT the point of my game,
> I really would like some sense of what the hell the situation was
> there and where it is going, since it will be important backdrop and
> at least one of my players is making a character from there.
Up to 1621, the situation in conquered Heortland looks very much like Fazzur Wideread succeeding in carving out a kingdom for himself in alliance with Tarsh. The Provincial politics soar high and appear to reach the high goals Moirades and his Orindori allies have struggled for these last 40 years. Tarsh is about to swallow the Far Point and hopefully the Exiles as well, and then take it on with Sylila over control over the rest of the Provinces, regaining the amount of control wielded by Phargentes. I don't know whether Moirades aims to become a Satrap, or rather a separate status like the Western Reaches, but that's what the Tarshite involvement is about IMO. Fazzur was instrumental in securing the Tarshite influence in Sartar, and the Estal Donge plot to get Temertain into the Tarshite dynasty seems about to take fruition, too.
At the same time, Lunar Heartland influences have risen since Tatius took over the siege of Whitewall. The Lunar command is riddled by factionalism and favouritism. It's Tarshite "convert and include our southern brothers" versus Dara Happan "wipe out the rebels". Even before Tatius starts his temple project near Old Wind, Fazzur scouts Nochet for a Lunar temple there (which would have covered much of his prospective kingdom if he had managed to project a glowline from there, leaving out unimportant places like eastern Sartar or Prax). There might even have come a Lunar pharaoh (or similar), in best Hon-eel tradition.
The Heortlanders themselves have little time for politics on this scale, they have to struggle to keep their own small units together and intact. Former Rokari lords and native cronies of Rikard, dissident Heortling nobles returning from the hills where they had hidden from Rikard, and opportunists seeing the Lunar occupation forces as their allies on their way to greatness all squabble for importance in the new Lunar scheme. Bandal Tigerbane is the Heortland guy whose name we have, and in Volsaxar we have Baron Sanuel. I would be surprised if these two were the only people on Fazzur's payroll. The Dara Happans might have protected Rokari interests.
>> I think this "overclass" (can someone come up with a better, non- >> Marxist description of this - sheriffdom?)
> It is Sheriff's, correct? And there *are* kings and such, no?
[...]
> And so if I understand, clans are as clans are, a group of clans can be
> part of a tribe, and a tribe would have a king. In a strange Heortland
> thing, an earl oversees the tribes of a region (each earl was based in
> a city, I presume?) using the sheriffs. The High King
> rules the earls.
That's one of the unanswered questions about Andrinic Heortland.
> Karse stuff:
Jeff:
>> Some years ago, Joerg and I tried pretty hard to make the Midkemia >> Carse work. I don't think it does - the Heortlings have dominated >> the place for too long.
I agree - I'm taking the Midkemia Carse as a snapshot of the city's past. There is a German language adaptation of this supplement which has a strong portion of "mixed" descent population, and I think that's the logical way for things to evolve. The factions still are there, a good portion of the Pelaskites has managed to keep apart, and with the Opening of the Oceans has returned as a powerful faction - but these struggles lie 40 to 20 years in the past.
>> I think the farmers in the Suchara Vale are Heortlings,
LC
> DP puts them as clans part of Jondalor tribe, but independent due to their
> isolation.
Heortling immigrants after the Creek-Stream River bed fell dry and offered lots of fertile marshland for settlement.
>> as are most of the folk in the city, although the fisher- >> folk probably have their own customs and rites. Being an important >> trade emporia, Karse has lots of foreigners, which will give it a >> non-Heortling feel.
> I'm definitely making it a cosmopolitan city, with a bit of an underside
> where you can get
> anything you need if you are willing to pay for it.
In good keeping with its Imperial Age traditions (as per King of Sartar, the travelogue of Hrestol Arganitis).
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