Could you forward this to the Digest?
Here are a few notes about the world-famous Varmandi clan from my on-going Sartar campaign:
After two generations of leadership by the Hoskulding family, Vastyr Dengarlson was recognized as chieftain of the Varmandi by the clan moot in late 1613.
Vastyr is 37 years old, rather short and burly. He is famed for his considerate, cooperative and thoughtful nature that values the prosperity of
his clan above all other concerns. As chieftain of the Varmandi, Vastyr enjoys the unqualified support of the priestesses of Ernalda and is backed by most of the clan's elders. His wife, Inandra Ortossisdottir, is a holy Ernalda woman originally from the Konthasos clan.
Vastyr's relationship with the clan's thanes and godi are often strained despite the faith the clan's elders have in his prudent and cautious leadership. Once the thane Hend Jaranison, a boon companion of the previous chieftain Rastorlanth Hoskuldson, furiously demanded that Vastyr lead the clan in a vengeance raid against the Orleving clan. Hend blamed the
Orleving for Rastorlanth's death during Starbrow's rebellion. Vastyr asked the holy women of Ernalda for aid and they sent a score of widows to weep at
Hend's doorstep, until Hend backed down.
The year after this incident (1615) the clan's senior godi, Sveirtig
Hoskuldson recruited warriors from the Anmangarn clan to follow Wind Lord
Geir Sveirtigson and the Varmandi thanes in a raid against the Orleving
clan. Outmanouevered by the clan's wily, war-loving Storm Voice, Vastyr
reluctantly agreed to formally lead the clan's fyrd. Nonetheless, after a
battle of champions where the Orleving mercenary Killer-Gest was killed by
Anmangarn warriors, Vastyr agreed to leave the Orleving lands with a
(according to Geir) small payment of tribute.
After the raid, Vastyr generously gifted King Kangarl with a large share of the clan's booty and encouraged the King to gain glory and respect in the Malani lands. The next year, Kangarl and the Colymar huscarls crushed
the flower of the Malani tribe in a battle outside of Red Bird Fort.
Frustrated by what he saw as Vastyr and the clan elders' cowardice, Geir Sveirtigson began leading personal raids against the Orleving and other
Malani clans with his picked warband. Vastyr and the clan elders vigourously
condemned Geir's banditry but Geir dismissed their protests as the complaints of "women and toothless old men."
Finally last Storm Season, Geir and his men killed a tax collector of the Red Emperor as he was "gathering tribute" from some Varmandi farmers. Geir argued that the Lunars' brazen robbery was intolerable as long as he had air in his lungs, but Vastyr and the clan elders were horrified. Shouting down Sveirtig's protests, Vastyr and the elders outlawed Geir from the Varmandi clan, denying him food, shelter or kinship for three years. To Vastyr's surprise, 6 clan huscarls and 5 other Varmandi men followed Killer-Geir into outlawry, announcing that they would keep their swords sharp in the Holy Country.
Varmandi Demographics
As of 1617 there are 560 adult Varmandi living in the clan lands. There
are another 400 - 500 Varmandi children.
Of the adult Varmandi, 45 are clan elders - ie. adults over the age of 60 years. Their wisdom forms the basis for clan policy. Because of the disasterous war 15 years ago, women elders outnumber male elders nearly two to one.
There are 246 adult Varmandi men living within the clan strongholds:
132 carl farmers (8 elders - 122 effectives) another 30 farms are headed by widows and single women
35 herders (2 elders - 33 effectives)
29 hunters (2 elders -27 effectives)
10 professional warriors
15 clan thralls
13 craftsmen (3 elders) with an additional 25 craftswomen
5 clan thanes (including the chieftain)
4 godi and acolytes ( and another 6 priestesses and female acolytes)
2 entertainers (1 skald and 1 fool, or is it the other way around?)
1 full-time grain merchant
There are 314 adult Varmandi women living within the clan strongholds.
In general they duplicate the occupation of their husband (with the
exception of the warriors' wives) with some exceptions already noted. The
nearly 30 elder women have a decisive voice in the clan's internal politics.
The Varmandi are divided into 13 bloodlines or steads. The four leading
families are headed by clan thanes, but that distinction is determined by the clan moot not by any family's hereditary right.
Currently some two dozen adult males are living outside of the clan lands. The most famous of these is the Wind Lord Killer-Geir Sveirtigson and
the twelve men who followed him into outlawry. Others include Ole Swenson, a
travelling devotee of the Talking and Trading God.
The methodology for these figures was KoS (Report on the Orlanthi) and the Barbarian Belt breakdown in G:CotHW.
According to KoS, Sartar attempted to persuade Ortossi, King of the Colymar, into building a city ring. One of Sartar's futile arguements in favor of the city was that "I will create the city council so that you and your kin will be lords of it now, and when it grows over the centuries to come." I am (albeit without a lot of evidence) assuming that each of the four lesser cities that Sartar founded contained the some compromise with the rural chieftains and clans: that they and their decendents would dominate the internal politics of the cities.
In the historical world rural control over the urban population has not
been uncommon, for example Republican Rome was dominated by the rural tribes
not the urban plebs. In the US Senate, rural and underpopulated states like Wyoming have as many Senatorial votes as California.
In the Jonstown of my campaign, the City Ring is composed of clan thanes from each of the Confederated Tribal Kingdoms. Each clan has a right to a Voice on the Ring. The politically impotent city residents have only one official voice - their mayor aka "Speaker for the City-Folk", unless they belong to one of the local clans.
I suspect that the city-folk, many of whom are wealthy (by hill-folk standards) merchants, lenders, and influential sages tend to resent that an Orleving herder has more say on the City Ring than does a non-clan city resident of Jonstown. Most likely the urban residents are more open to "foreign" ideas and customs than are the rural thanes than dominate the city's law and politics. This mild tension between the city-rings and the hill-tribes was usually kept in check by the Sartarite Princes.
IMO this is exactly the opposite urban-rural relationship from what the Pelorian leaders of the Lunar Empire are accustomed to. In Dara Happa, the cultural cradle of the Empire, the cities rule the farmers. The Lunar belief that the fall of Whitewall will mean the destruction of Orlanth is merely a projection of this urban-centered mindset. IMO Lunar fixation on the "five cities of Sartar" led the Imperial military leaders to believe that seizing the city-rings, and most importantly Boldhome, would pacify the
Quivini.
I suspect that Governor-General Euglyptus the Fat and his Yelmic staff
believed that "the cities are the key to Sartar". The Report of the Good Rat
in KoS certainly reinforces the underestimation that the Empire's military leaders had for Sartar's rural population. Most likely Euglyptus continued receiving glowing reports about "pacified Sartar" from his urban praetors even during Starbrow's Rebellion. No doubt Fazzur Wideread's tolerant policy
is based upon his understanding of the hill-tribes' greater importance.
Jeff Richard
j.richard_at_kcmetro.gov
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