Frank Raefelsen responded:
> I have to admit I don't know much about RW nomad inter tribal relations,
> but it seems to me that the reason the smaller tribes were forced to fight
> the Romans was that they were forced to compete with the romans for land.
> Now a displaced Praxian tribe is not going to migrate to a place where
> they have to compete with the lunars for space.
Sorry, my fault: I win the Prize for Bad and/or Obtuse Writing of the Week. :( Er. Um. No! I won it again for Vocal Markup Language. (Though I'd point out that us freedom lovin' trolls don't feel shackled by all this Dara Happanesque emphasis on "grammar." Bah!)
What I meant is that a small nomadic tribe will be "pushed" away by the larger tribe (which takes the grazing land, raids the herds. In the RW it's my understanding that a larger nomadic "nation" will sometimes absorb members of a smaller "nation" -- don't know if you'd see this in Prax, with say a family of rhino-riders being absorbed into a bison-rider tribe). In the late Roman examples (I was thinking Huns) the various nomads were driven out of the steppe -- into Europe, and then into the Roman Empire. (I vaguely recall that the Goths & Co. had also been driven out of Eastern Europe into the Roman Empire -- the conflict for land was driven by this). Or, say, the way the Pure Horse tribe were booted out of Pent (hired by the EWF my fanny).
In Prax, I assume they're pushed into the Wastes, not into conflict with the Lunars. If the Praxian nomads were incredibly powerful, the losers might be pushed into Pent and drive the Pentians into the Lunar Empire -- but not freakin' likely in the current state of affairs.
Might make a good scenario plot. Say, the shifts of the tribes after Moonbroth and the Lunar invasion; a small group might be pushed into an area it's not supposed to go -- say, a settler area. Do the players fight the ravenous nomads? Do they sympathize with their plight? Do they moderate between them? Etc., etc.
Sandy sez:
> Before the Lunars, no one regularly organized magicians into specialty
> units.
Ah, but did anyone "irregularly" organize them? I'm thinking of the uz,
here.
IMO, raiding trolls are pretty weak, magically -- you'll might have some Karrg's Sons, Death Lords, Great Hunters -- maybe a KL Priestesses or two. But the big guns don't come along. They stay at home, protecting the clan holdings and abusing the menfolk. (Gerak Kag's invasion might be an exception to this -- either he was personally one hell of a hero, or he brought along some KL priestesses to colonize Pavis).
But on the defense, trolls have lots n' lots of magic -- and rather than spread it around different units, they concentrate it into one big fat magical artillery battery. Static, but very powerful (incarnating KL, summoning fear wolves, battery-level Attack Souls, etc. etc.). The Lunars might be able to beat this -- the trolls, IMO, concentrate their magic only on a local level, not on a "national" level, and the Lunars might be able to overrun the local tribal and clan defenses one by one. Still be rough going, though, and other invaders are gonna have trouble.
Now I won't claim this is identical or equal to the Lunar method -- but it does share some similarities; Jakaleel was there at the beginning, and the Blue Moon trolls have long been an influence on the Lunar way. So forget not the _Trollish_ influence on Lunar magical practices, by gosh and by golly.
Jamuz Fruzetta
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