> Guys:
> I have completely lost the thread of what you're arguing about. How
> about following rule 3, or better yet take it to private e-mail?
Actually, I am almost as puzzled as you for why Peter won't accept that the rural Orlanthi of First Age Kerofinela were more civilized than the 3rd Age cultural revisionists.
I will take Peter's "really big post" to private channel, and just (re-)state my opinion (not in any way altered by Peter's arguments):
The Heortling peoples of the Theyalan Council were a lot less capricious and warlike than those of 3rd Age Wintertop or Sartar.
They were a lot less narrowminded about worshipping different deities than just the cultural big man and his wife, whatever their names, as the acceptance of the Lightbringer deities in Theyalan society clearly shows: Neither Issaries nor Lhankor Mhy, Chalana Arroy or Eurmal were necessarily members of "Orlanth's" (or whatever his name) stead before the LBQ.
Ok, the big guy may have had a fool, a healer, a knowing companion and maybe even a reeve who took care of the spare grain, but the identification of these with the Lightbringer canon can logically only have happened when the LBQ knowledge was spread, i.e. by the First Council.
When the trolls and the dragonewts left the 2nd Council, only the (original) Heortlings of Kerofinela followed suit. The majority of all Orlanthi kept supporting the God Project, and kept providing the armies of the Council, and later of the Bright Empire.
Lokamayadon was the mastermind of Orlanthi religion at that time, and through early attempts at creative heroquesting within his own cult's myths he had managed to interpose himself between all Orlanth worship and the receiving deity. (An Orlanthi-all, that is, since rebels like the Hendriki likely found a way to avoid him, by being refused access to the established holy places. This resulted in very restricted access to the deity's magic, though.)
Anyway, under Lokamayadon's guidance, the Orlanth cult was one of the cults which changed most, and this reached all levels of the cult. The direct initiation rituals changed everywhere, and caused many deaths before people stopped resisting Lokamayadon's easier way of initiation to Orlanth through worship of himself as Chief High Priest of Orlanth, the Council in general, and of course through the Bright God. For those Orlanthi who didn't resent Lokamayadon's intervention, this meant a safe and reliable way to the benefits of Orlanth's magics, with the Chief High Priest intercepting a lot of the most dangerous opponents.
The material life of the Councilic Orlanthi had improved rapidly beyond any previously known wealth. Dwarven technology from Greatway in conjunction with wheels from the Solar culture of the upper Oslir Valley and the heavy Orlanthi oxen teams made a heavier oxen plow possible. This shifted the focus of the Orlanthi agricultural magic enough that the (Esrolite) earth goddess(' hierarchy, likely) felt so neglected that they sent Gouger the God-child into Kerofinela as retribution. (Aram ya Udram dealt with it, as is well known from the Ivory Plinth founding history.) The exchange of technology also influenced architecture, both of simple farming cottages and of elaborate hilltop fortresses controlling the expanding trade routes. The Heortlings built and supported oppidae for their tribal kings - tribes of the magnitude of Third Age Orlanthi nations like Sartar, Tarsh, or Holay, not the tiny post-Alakoring tribelets so popular in Sartar. The vast Hendriki "tribe" in Heortland is, while not contemporary with the Dawn Age tribes, at least following this tradition.
After the Gbaji wars, a lot of Orlanthi fell back to barbarism, though not all. Those closest to the core of the Bright Empire did fall into barbarism, so much that the East Ralians, the Talastari and the Anadiki have remained barbaric well into the 3rd Age.
The majority of the Ralian Orlanthi (=Enerali?) had little problems to adopt the Dark Empire's doctrines, and became Stygians.
Peter posed they were ruled by trolls? Hardly. Arkat had taken human shape again, and descendant dynasty and the majority of his advisors were humans as well.
You could as well say that Heortland (the part in Kethaela) was ruled by trolls until Belintar slew the Only Old One. If so, then being ruled by trolls did indeed produce at least one of the most civilized Orlanthi cultures you can find on Glorantha.
In Saird and northern Kerofinela there was a distinct return to barbaric, pre-Dawn ways, as the Dagori Inkarth overlords practiced a "divide and collect tribute" policy. The reaction of the Orlanthi was to adopt the civilizing ways of the Dara Happan-influenced Sun Dome cultists swarming south, and organizing resistance against the troll overlords. Especially the _rural_ peoples embraced the light gods of the Sun Dome to protect their harvests and freedom from the trolls.
In general, Harmast pushed his version of Lightbringer worship (still with a lot of the real power in the hands of the priests, not the mundane rulers) and replaced all of Lokamayadon's less personal worship of Orlanth with it. He failed (in part) to do so where suitable alternatives were ready, like in the region of Solar liberation from the trolls, in the core regions of Arkat's Dark Empire, (possibly) among the Hendriki who never accepted Lokamayadon's ways, or in the very wild outbacks where Orlanth provided just one of several models of society suitable.
From the less oppressive Shadowlands, the Jrusteli missionary-traders had no problems installing their version of the Issaries and Lhankor Mhy cults right within the Orlanthi culture. From this base they let the dragonspeaking experiment escape, one of their most remarkable successes cum failures which resulted in the EWF.
To quote from the History of Glorantha in the Genertela Box:
"People in the region soon found themselves thinkin draconically without even trying. The subject attracted people of every interest: philosophers as well as hustlers, saints and con men, ordinary housewives and would-be heroes."
With other words: everybody in Kerofinela with a hint of talent became a draconic thinker and speaker.
Another piece from the Glorantha Book:
"As the Great Dragon slowly awakened, the world was to be enlivened by the draconic energies and bring about a Golden Age of perfection for all participants."
The world was to be enlivened... sounds very much like an attempt to replace the lost life force of the earth (the reason for the Bless Crops necessity) by draconic life force. And it seems to have worked for those regions most steeped in draconic wisdom. Quite a change to enliven a whole region instead of a single field, eh? (BTW: this is what the Lunars try to do with their Kalikos expeditions, too.)
Thus, all of Kerofinela was dotted by village shrines to funnel the draconic energies of the worshippers to the land.
Peter wondered about my remarks that entire populaces (including the rural population) left the physical plane. The source is (again) Glorantha Book:
p.22, last paragraph:
"Many of the first-established had already passed out of contact into
the cosmic dragon soul while newcomers in the outlands had not yet even
responded to the Waltzing and Hunting Bands."
p.23
"Another, the Converters, reversed their own increased sanctity to
assist the suffering populace. Some went among their nearest followers,
hastening them out of physical reality while others went among the
ravaged borderlands to perform miracles and to mock martyrdom."
This states clearly that entire communities left the physical plane to join the dragons (before 1043, that is). This seems to have been one of the goals of the EWF. Who knows, maybe by 1043 the Inhuman King of Dragon Pass had decided that his kin had been strengthened enough, and thus ended the experiment.
(The Ingolf Saga from KoS tells us that merely an Orlannthi-"all" leaders were killed and/or lost their dragonic powers...)
Evidently several of the dragons participating in the destructions of the True Golden Horde had sprung from the merged draconic spirits of the humans of Dragon Pass. Sandy's Kralori dragon from Dragon Magazine 206 needn't be the only human turned dragon in that war. The one from Ormsgone Valley definitely belonged to this type, made from the bones of the land and the souls of the peoples (without destroying the latter).
I still stand to my thesis that the tribal people of Sartar, while the most familiar Orlanthi types we know, are also the least typical Orlanthi. The urban Orlanthi of Sartar (including all the farming communities within two hexes of the city on the boardgame map, who have close family ties to the city-dwellers) are the ones whose society is sketched in the player background for RQ2, with guilds, mercenary companies and so on. Since the cities (apart from Boldhome) are located in the most fertile and most densely settled areas, these amount to quite a large portion of the populace.
David Hall's numbers for the tribes and population of Sartar show about 10% of the Sartarite population as city-dwellers. Especially the Wilmskirk federation seems to quite fixated to their city - the tribes (which were active in the Starbrow rebellion) were represented by the mayor of their city in the Sartar High Council, and they acted in fairly unison throughout the rebellion. (Especially when compared to the Jonstown confederation, which almost broke apart when the Malani refused to have part in the uprising. BTW, to call the Torkani part of the Jonstown confederation is a bit like calling the Sun Domers a Sartarite tribe. Neither would agree...)
IMO the Balmyr (who live in the broad valley around and north of Wilmskirk) have contacts with the city on a daily basis. The city's temples are so close that the clans are unlikely to support much more than large shrines.
BTW: The numbers which astonished me most are those for Alone (well known for its criminal network in the guise of Griselda's numerous relatives) and Duck Point.
For the low Alone number (500 aound 1621) I have one good explanation: this is a big caper by the Griselda Family (capital F as in Sicilian Mafia) to avoid tax revenues to the Empire. I think it's quite likely that the actual number of inhabitants is as large as that of Jonstown, made up by criminals and rebels hiding under the blinded eyes of the Lunar provost and his tax collector.
The Duck point numbers seem simply false to me. Given that Duck Point is a well known Lunar stronghold in Old Sartar (enough so to keep the Lismelder neutral in the rebellion scenarios in the Dragon Pass boardgame), and the fact that the riverine trade through the Haunted Lands to Nochet continues even despite constant duck pirate raids on the river barges, makes it more than likely that a Lunar regiment or two have taken up the conveniently empty fortress as their HQ and the place to settle their camp followers.
However, if these people aren't eligible to pay taxes to the Empire, then the omission is understandable in the sources described in the introduction.
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