Carmania

From: Paul
Date: Thu Mar 20 10:05:20 1997


  Kevin Rose asks:
  < I was wondering if anyone who's done some work on Carmania had some ideas on the place they would be willing to share. Particularly looking for religious stuff among the noble, military and religious groups. >

  I run a Carmanian campaign. However, we tend to play a very low-level game (the PC's are from the Farmer class and not all have achieved initiateship in their chosen cults yet), so I've never really needed to do much work on the clergy, army or nobility. Nick Brooke seems to have loads of ideas on Carmanian politics...

  But, although the following may not be of enormous relevance, you've inspired me to air some thoughts:

  Firstly, the Glorantha boxed set mentions that "Carmania is ruled by 5 great families". Who are they? I'm willing to bet the D'Strinos are one. Yolanela's clan will be another - but it's not named. I've arbitrarily named one as the Argentum family. Anyone know of a more definitive list?

  About Invisible Orlanth: sounds like a neat idea, until you think about it. There is no data on it, though Sandy Petersen once described it as a Mystery Cult which attracts decadent nobles because it sounds naughty. I suspect it is an off-the-cuff idea which was never developed. Consider: everyone who hears about it says "invis ORLANTH? Isn't he an enemy of the Goddess?" If Count Kaufan really did support it, he'd leave himself wide open to accusations of disloyalty to the Empire by Yolanela. I removed it from my campaign - it was not credible.

  CHARG
  This is the largest land still remaining behind the Ban and, whatever's there, the Count of Bindle seems to have evidence that it is a danger. My own theory is that the remnants of the Karmanians retreated there when the Lunars took over in the Blood Kings' Wars (I spell them with a K to distinguish them from modern, Lunarised Carmanians). The Count is afraid that when they emerge, they'll still be hostile.   On a related subject, I have a Rathorelan tribe called the Blackarms (a contraction of Black Karmanian) who are descended from Karmanian nobles who withdrew there to wage guerilla war against the Empire when the other Karmanians surrendered. Now the Ban there has lifted, they are still anti- - -Lunar: their fanaticism has kept them motivated and a coherent tribe for the last century or two. The Count is worried about them... they still worship Karmanos (he was wounded but not killed by YT) and he assumes they are working with the remnants of this underground cult still in Carmania.   I've done some other work on Karmanos / Blackarms if you're interested, but for now, I'll just mention a curious coincidence. It occurred to me that the KoW may well have Karmanos cultists in its ranks, seeing as he seems to be a war god and the Karmanians originally came from that direction. Ie, they imported the King Karmanos cult from further West. (This would make Charg immensely dangerous to the Empire because they might ally with the KoW against the Lunars, after smashing Loskalm.) The other thing to mention is that I had decided the associated animal of Karmanos would be a dove. So, this was rumbling around in my head when Nick Brooke posted details on the Arrolian Lunar church (next door to the KoW): symbol: a dove! Suddenly my mind span off into the delicious irony of a Lunar / Karmanos hybrid in Arrolia...
  Peter Metcalfe posted an article on "What comes out of Charg" which I never saw, but sounds very interesting from others' comments. Any chance of reposting it, Peter?

OOOPS my file's too big...... more in next posting... Carmanian sorcery etc.

Paul Honigmann
Oxfnord,UK


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