I'll kick off by saying that my respect for you remains undiminished, and I'm enjoying this "argument" as a good chance to deploy yet more propaganda for the Evil Empire.
Yep, I agree that the attitude of RoC and indeed the old Pavis box was that Orlanthi worship per se was persecuted everywhere by the Lunars. But it gets kinda hard to run a game set in Sartar if the Lunars actively persecute every Sartarite they meet -- and it's also incompatible with what we know about Lunar policies in Sartar. We do see the Lunars occupying ancient holy places (Altar of Orlanth Victorious -- triggering Starbrow's Rebellion; Old Wind Temple -- triggering the Dragonrise), but we don't hear anything about routine repression of the Orlanth cult in other ways. And, for me, the clincher is seeing how many openly acknowledged Orlanthi kings and chiefs there are in the kingdom.
So I follow the Tarshite model -- the Lunars are trying to strengthen the King at the expense of the Tribes, and thus prevent Orlanthi worship at the tribal level ("weapontakes" at which thousands of armed subjects are exposed to the oratory of the Rebel-God's most vocal supporters) while ignoring it above or below this. So they try to secure the Holy Places (used only for mass worship), but don't close down the clans' own shrines in every stead and village. Divide and Rule.
> Seriously though, what about the taxation bit? Did my interpretation sound
> reasonable? I think it probably works along lines of manageability.
Yep, I agree. Another thing is that an "unreasonable" tax can be used as an incentive. Consider: if we *threaten* to charge half a cow per man, it gives us a lot of leeway to be "generous" by alleviating this uncollectable tax (compare with those unaffordable wergilds from barbarian lawcodes: a deterrent, not an economic reality). The Lunars could also:
Regards,
Powered by hypermail