Orlanthi in Heortland

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_voyager.co.nz>
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 00:27:50 +1200 (NZST)


Joerg Baumgartner:

>Peter worries about the clan structure coping with living not all in one
>place. I suggested:

I'm not worrying. You postulated a part of one clan living far apart from the rest of the clan and said that was the norm for Heortland. I am questioning this assertion.

>> Why don't the sub-clans just split up and call themselves normal
>> clans?

>Because a larger clan has more access to their joint ancestors magic.

Ancestral magic does not have a great impact in Orlanthi society. It's sole appearnace appears to be in reciting bloodlines and claiming kinship. Which seems to have little impact on the size of a clan, methinks.

>> Most of the Sartarites who are descended from the Hendriki do not
>> follow [the custom of oversized clans] and it is not hinted at in
>> the Report on the Orlanthi.

>How many of the Sartarite immigrants are descended from the Hendriki
>proper, and how many are descended from one of the other "four large
>tribes" which make up the population of Heortland? IMO the Hendriki are
>the dominant, most populous tribe of Heortland (of the size of a tribal
>confederation), with the other three something of a relic.

Given that the land is ruled by Malkioni, why would they not have an roughly equal division of tribes with the Volsaxi in the Marzeel Valley, the Solthoni from Jansholm to Backford and so forth. Trying to make the Hendriki the dominant tribe merely because they were the only tribe in ages gone by misses the point that the other three big tribes had to come from somewhere.

But (back to the point) there IMO should be only minor differences between Orlanthi in Sartar and Heortland or (to a lesser extent) Sartar and Tarsh. Claiming a novelty such as sub-clans seems to be far too drastic for my tastes.

>Generally, Heortland is about as inhomogeneous in its composition as the
>worshippers of Orlanth along the Upper Tanier River - arch-traditional
>family-group clans high up in the mountains, "standard Orlanthi" in the
>foothills of the Storm Mountains, and feudalized and urbanized on the
>flat plateau and along the coast (where there is also a sizeable
>Pelaskite minority), with increasing Malkionisation.

I'm assuming Joerg means a river other than the Tanier in Seshnela but I can't figure out whether he means the Marzeel, the Creek-Stream River or the Oslir.

>> Furthermore Questlines shows the Volsaxi tribes occupying territories
>> roughly the same size as the Sartarites.

>The Volsaxi tribes were formed as full tribal entities only when their
>tributary and suppressed status by the Kitori was lifted.

So why did they not form oversized clans like those you claim for the Hendriki.

>In the early the Third Age, the Kitori were dominating the valleys of
>Creek-Stream River and Lysos River south of the Crossline.

The Lysos River?!? That is on the other side of the Shadow Plateau where an even bigger population of troll resides. Somehow I doubt the Kitori extended that far. I'm willing to concede as far as the Creek-Stream River which before the Pharaoh came flowed on the Kitori side of the Shadow Plateau.

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