Makes a sterling effort but a few comments.
>When the Return to Rightness Crusaders began to persecute and murder
>those of the Hrestoli who still followed Saint Talor and the old
>ways...
Purely as a matter of taste, I would suggest the following emendations:
The Carmanians would not describe the Return to Rightness Crusaders as such, IMO. This gives the impression that the God Learners are _Right_ which is not the way Carmanians see it.
Similarly I don't think the Carmanians would have described themselves as Hrestoli. Malkioni would be the word they would use IMO. Or perhaps Talori after their most recent heroic leader. The eponym of Hrestoli really comes into play in Loskalm after they kicked out the God Learners and sought to return to the pious faith that existed after Hrestol's Martyrdom (of which Siglat's Dream was the most recent and effective).
>General Syranthir Forefront gathered together his people ...
>and led them on the Eastfaring quest, out of the hell that
>Seshnela had become,
Fronela! Fronela! Fronela! Welcome to the club for embaressing flubs made on the digest.
The Saints list is fine but I'm a bit iffy about Talor being viewed as Arkat's lieutenant by the Carmanians. This is akin to saying that Churchill was Stalin's lieutenant during the Second World War IMO.
>Attitude Towards Other Sects
My main gripe is that this is _too_ comprehensive and not comprehensive at the same time. Only now are the Carmanians getting reality checks on what they think they know about the Ralians and the Seshnegi.
>Hrestoli
>Rokari
>Castle Coast Seshnegi
I would groups these churchs under the same banner. They are all descendants of the God Learner Church of the Invisible God (Gack! Spit). The Carmanian views would be mainly based on what they know about the Hrestoli. They would assume that the Seshnegi are the same and think that the Castle Coast is a part of the Kingdom of Seshnela.
>Aeolian Henotheism
>Stygian Henotheism
I would group these under Henothiesm. BTW What happened to the Arrolian Church?
Martin Crim:
>>45 True Mostali is far too many IMO. I only know of about 10 and
>>there could be another 10.
>I'm going to have to call you on this one. Just what published or
>unpublished sources are you using for this bald statement? If it's
>ES, ERB p. 9, take another look. It says that "only a few Mostali
>are known to the outside world" and that "several Lead Mostali are
>known to dwell in Slon." Known by whom? By the outside world,
>i.e., principally humans.
And which part of 'and there could be another 10' did you not understand? My reason for making the True Mostali so few in number is based on the observation that they seemed to be the leaders of Dwarf Society wherever they dwelt. Because of this, the odds are that the existance of True Mostali becomes known to the humans/outsiders. Marteler and Isidilian dominate the conclaves in which they dwell and appear to share power with no other True Mostali, frex.
Tim Torres:
>One comment/question: the color magic system seems too bland if it's
>analogized to a runic system or to a cultic figure system. And we
>obviously don't want to bring in modern optics. Is there another way
>to think of it?
We couldn't think of one and so it was felt that the Color Magic System was only a part of Vorumain's magic. The 'cultic figure system' is by no means set in stone and can vary across the land IMO. For example, I had the idea that a fustrated clan of one of the Houses of Vormain is seeking to conciously transform Viyaja into a more conventional Solar God and identifying him with the Sun Emperor that ruled over the East Isles long ago. This would give them a good reason to conquer the East Isles and an excellent way of ensuring the obediance of their conquests. They are heavily into Color Magic because it would be more piable in creating the type of Cult they want. [This was an attempt to introduce a gloranthan parallel with Hideyoshi who sought to become Emperor of China because his peasant background prevented him from being Shogun of Japan.]
This was the sort of thing I wanted Colour magic to emulate. It's not the most respectable philosophy in Vorumain and some followers of it are downright dubious. It's a Vorumai equivalent of Independant Sorcery (as opposed to Orthodox Malkioni Wizardry).
Steve Lieb:
>>>I remembered a description of a (fictional? I hope!) atrocity I
>>>read some time ago.
>>Bad news: It's not fictional. The account is from Polybius who
>>notes that observing a town that had just been sacked by the
>>Romans that 'They slew everything...even the Farm Animals' IIRC.
>Worse news; it's not even original. Similar accounts (believable?
>not always) exist of the same being done by Mongols, Tatars,
>Teutonic Knights, Berbers, French Legionnaires, Soviets, etc, etc.
Umm, systematically killing farm animals while sacking a town? The Mongols and the others never adopted _that_ as their trademark as far as I know. Blatant butchery of humans, yes, but taking it out on the animals is something else again!
>My guess was the first to
>do it were probably the Assyrians, they were pretty bad-ass dudes.
With respect to the Assyrians, they generally confined their tortures to the leaders of those who had revolted against them. The majority of the revolted populace (namely those who had survived the Assyrian Pacification) were forcibly deported to another area (as happened to the the erstwhile Kingdom of Israel). They made such a noise out of it to _deter_ others from revolting which is why everybody percieves them as being unnaturally brutal. The armies of Republican Rome were more horrible to those who had broken their agreements with the SPQR, one of the examples being the anecdote by Polybius cited above.
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