I mostly agree with Ken about his opinion about Sartar in the time of the lunar occupation especially for the urban population of the cities of Sartar. IMO the lunar occupation where mostly sensed by the people in the cities and not on the countryside. I think the lunar adminstrators don't try to get the farmers and herders under their control. For them the traders or market cities are much more interesting. IMO the lunars are much more subtle to the normal population of one city as to the people of the tribes on the countryside. As Ken pointed out the Romans has done mostly the same in Gaul or Britain. But to do this the Romans have to be very subtle and they have to play a poltical game on the tribes. In such a way Gaius Julius Caesar got his success of the gauls and brit's in his time. He was a perfect politcal man of his time. In the beginning of his career he allied himself to some of the wealthiest people with a lot of politcal influence. As a Questor he established a very high standard of gladitor games in the circus maximus in Rome. This made him very popular to the common folk of rome but through him into very deep debts to his mighty friends. Such was the way he get very famous and his friends must support him more and more to get at least a little bit of the money back they have lend to him. With this kind of sucess he get much more countries for goverment over a longer period of time as some of his predecessors. In Gaul he had played the same politcal game on the tribes. IMO the lunars have made a lot of eperience through the occupation of Tarsh, Aggar and all the other pelorian Orlanthi states to know exactly how subtle they have to be to get the lunar way into the minds of the Orlanthi people of Sartar.
>1. Lunar occupation is relatively efficient and non-obtrusive, with tendency
>to benignity in public works, and a tendency to brutal and dispassionate
>brutality in punishing lawbreakers [including most explicitly sedition and
>secret murder].
I think the Lunars will present the lunar way in the cities of Sartar as a
very benign movement through which everybody will get more personal success.
IMO the lunar way give much more support to an individual as to a whole
group of people. If you are a selfish trader who wants to get sucess in
trading it would be the best to forget all the virtues of Orlanth and get an
etyries trader ( and I think most of the traders are selfish and greedy ).
This is one point were the cults of Etyries can get into favour in front of
Issaries. In my description of the Lhankor Mhy Temple of Jonstown in 'Heroes
of Wisdom' I have described the Irippi Ontor as very subtle agents for the
lunar way. They try to teach everybody for free and tell to the Orlanthi
people that the IO are not such selfish as their opposite in Orlanth
Pantheon, the strange and unwordly Lhankor Mhy. The build much more building
for the public use as any King of a tribe or an eorl of a city could manage
(as well as the Roman had done in Aachen and Trier at the rhine in Germany).
>
>2. The influential members of Orlanthi tribes are constantly intriguing with
>any faction that promises increase in personal, family, or clan wealth and
>influence. The appearance of the Lunar military, civil administration, and
>merchan factions have radically altered the balance of power in tribal
>rivalries, and the desire not to be left out in the acquiring of these
>potentially powerful sources of wealth and influence will drive Orlanthi
>policy makers into the arms of the Lunars.
IMO the sartarian tribes and clans have never been such a unified nation as some of the players would like to see them. If you take a look on the tribes of the jonstown confederation you can get the impression each clan and each tribe is looking only for its own benefit. Therefore the Cinsina have conspired with the lunars to win three clans of the Culbrea with the help of the lunars garrission at Jonstown. The Lunars have given only a free hand to the Cinsina and looked away upon their deeds.
>3. The Lunar cults are represented in Sartar by competent, sincere, and often
>inspirational proselytizers of their faith.
Absolutly IMO. As I would like to make clear with my writing the Lunars undermine the virtues of the Orlanths through such impressing people.
All IMO.
Ingo
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Ingo Tschinke tschinke_at_nordwest.de
RuneQuest-Gesellschaft Schevemoorer Landstr. 33
28325 Bremen
Germany
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