____ _______Jeff "he may know a lot about Orlanthi, but..." Richard writes:
> Romans and . . . arabians? Trippy.
The Arabian elements in the Lunar Way include (in no particular order):
Sultans and Scimitars and Crescents and Minarets and Muezzins and Prayer-Mats (facing Moonwards) and Harems and Houris and Eunuchs...
And the Lunar Way itself, a radical new faith bursting onto the world stage from a disregarded frontier, sweeping aside the tired remnants of ancient empires, establishing itself as the newly dominant religion across a vast swathe of territories within the lifetimes of its prophetic founders; building itself a capital city in the form of a perfect circle, near but not co-located with the ancient capital of the river-valley civilisation which it co-opted; incorporating (from both choice and necessity) the former ruling structures and noble elites in its innovative system of rule; both destroyed and revitalised by the invasion of horse nomads from the great steppelands, eventually to sink into bloated decadence under corrupt and grasping rulers who can no longer live up to the austere ideals of the earlier Jihad -- meaning that, despite the continuing successes of missionary work among the barbarians of steppeland and mountain, religion in the very heartland itself (including the imperial capital and the Holy City where the cult was founded) turns in on itself in a morass of schisms, heresies, weird cults and purist splinter movements...
And, of course, the "spirit" of the Arabian Nights lives on in the Lunar Empire, where adventurous (or timorous) youths can head out into the weird and wonderful corners of the world, discovering strange marvels from bygone empires, and backward tribes and kingdoms that have never heard the Word of the Red Goddess, and astonishing trading opportunies where an entrepreneur of spirit and inventiveness can make a fortune, only to return afterwards to the Bazaars and Souks of his home city with a tale to astonish the masses...
Yeah, I never have trouble seeing the Arabian aspects of the Lunar Empire.
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Nick
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