Orlanthi in Jonatela
I have just retired an Orlanthi character from our Jonatelan campaign and he left in anger because his hereditary Malkioni Lord (another player) has turned in to a Yelm type evil emperor (greedy, dishonourable, contemptous, etc). Basically acting llike a typical dark age noble stereotype and treating the character like a servant (all from the characters point of view). In case the character comes back to haunt the other PC sometime in the future I was trying to think of the mythic resonances that are occurring and how my character would be perceiving it. Because really the lord figures in Jonatela are the Malkioni lowlanders who are allied to some of the local Orlanthi kings, or on the edges you have Orlanthi villages/clans nominally loyal to a landed knight (as was our original setting).
So we have a conservative Orlanthi backlash to his lord moving onto some lowland river land with only oppressed peasants to rule over and going all posh to fit in at the Counts court. NOW how would the myths about Yelm, etc have been changed to fit the Malkioni ruling lords into Yelms place as sun worshippers have very little relevance to South Jonatela. I'm looking for mythic resonances (e.g. kinstrife to John Hughes Far Pointers) to help guide suggestions for the characters NPC actions. His father and family are still loyal to the knight's old decrepit father on the old traditional lands and so he has had a very bitter fight with both his father and the knights father on leaving for the mountains. The knight character was off "poncing at the Count's court" <to quote Helmutt> and the LBQ myth isn't available as if Helmutt kills the knight his soul will just dissolve and so he can't be rescued from Hell after a suitable softening up period. So Helmutt left rather than risk something he would regret later (plus trying to kill another characters player is pretty anti-social and I would like to try and get a good tragedy out of this schism).
Our campaign is based on a copy of Jonats tale (although my GM says it is not a very good quality manuscript) bought at Con auction. The current kings of Jonatela are quite dependent on the Orlanthi since it was only with their aid that they won a civil war a hundred or so years ago.
Cheers, Andrew
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