Knights, Vormain navy and Ravens

From: Peter Metcalfe <P.Metcalfe_at_student.canterbury.ac.nz>
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 12:24:24 +1300


Nick Brooke:

>King Vikkard of the Tourneys briefly revived the
>spirit of Seshnelan Chivalry in Rokari Tanisor, but the decline in power which
>his fai-neant reign initiated did not endear this concept to the Powers That
>Be.

I think the Rokari phase of Chivalry started somehwat earlier. Ulianus III founded the Tournament State of Kustria, after all. My guess is that Chivalry arose as a philosophy out of Castle Coast as a 'return' to the 'old ways' but really an adaptation to their exile/confinement on the bleak shores of Castle Coast. I don't think the Seshnela of Rokar's time was chivalric. IMO, the models of the Castle Coast Chivalry (Gerlant, Hrestol etc) would disdain the Castle Coasters as pretentious fops were they still alive.

Mike Cule had written:

>> I like the idea of tea-drinking cultures in the East though: elegant Vormain
>> pirates holding tea-ceremonies as they loot ships and make people walk the
>> plank appeal to me...

Nick:

>They scare me, but I'm sure they exist. Of course, as a tea-drinking naval
>nation the Vormaini ought by rights to be dominating the oceans of the world...

When they get a good navy, they will be. Note that Harrek the Beserk in his famous circumnavigation epic steers _well_ clear of Vormain and the East Isles!

Having seen a story by Greg Fried on the East Isles, I can offer a wee bit more information on Vormaini pirates. They use triemes and other galleys and appear to have two components: warriors and rowers. The warriors are your elegant-but-deadly tea-drinking warriors (depending on how rich they are: the poorer ones would be less so) whereas the rowers are normally assumed by the outsdiers to be slaves. However, they are lowly free men of the farmer class working the oars in exchange a minor portion of the loot. Slaves are less than ideal for the oars of any decent navy and I heard some people blame Ottoman Turkey's defeat at the battle of Lepanto on its greater reliance of slaves.

David Cake:


> Just to stick my couple of clacks into the Raven debate, I think I
>side with Metcalfe rather than Michaels.

I don't recall disagreeing with my american alter-ego about the Raven Cult. 'twas Erik the Viking who said that.

End of Glorantha Digest V2 #202


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