Carmanians

From: peter metcalfe <metcalph_at_voyager.co.nz>
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 00:27:36 +1300 (NZDT)


Oliver Bernuetz:

>In modern day Carmania they are very dedicated to the ideal
>of a personal balance between Light and Dark are they not?

Embodiment of the Light and Shunning the Darkness is the traditional interpretation of the Magi. The Great Houses each have their own variant interpretations which they keep their mouth shut about.

>My
>impression on ancient Carmania, taken from reading materials on
>Loren Miller and Nick Brooke's web pages was that the ancient
>Carmanians were not dedicated to this ideal but rather alternated
>between being (as it were) darkness aligned or light aligned. Is this
>perception accurate? Especially in regards to the period just before
>the Dragon Kill war.

As far as I can tell, the Carmanians did alter between Black and White but this was a factional struggle. It wasn't until the reforms of the Prophet Alijiyah that a compromise was worked out over when to be black (to your enemies) and when to be white (to your friends). It thus appears that prior to the compromise the Black Shahs had treated their friends like shit and the White Shahs were soft with their enemies.

The Prophet's compromise persisted until the Carmanians were massacred in the Dragonkill War. Then they were conquered by the Bull Shahs who were neither White nor Black but just plain barbarian thugs. However from the current Carmanian Mythology, (the best fragment is the Unity list in the Fortunate Succession), it seems to me that from close contact with the Dara Happans (around Nadar's time), the Carmanians had gotten the idea that associating too much with GanEstoro, the god of darkness and evil, was a bad thing and so the Prophet's Compromise was slightly changed. So while the Carmanians can still be pretty beastly, they are not as bad as they could be.

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