David Dunham has suggested something which can be taken further. Sartar is not like the Lunar Satrapies, which are areas of land formed by grant from the divine God-Emperor. Sartar _is_ the Ring of Sartar, formed by those people who are Sartari, and only secondarily their lands.
People can join this Ring, as the Alda-Churi and Alone tribes did; they can make new tribes (the Estanval and Nostali existed in 1535 and have dissolved [KOS: p 222]); they can leave, if they can prevail over the Ring. The 24 tribes, therefore, is true (at best) at one particular time.
IMHO, we have two examples of Ring-breaking in KOS. The Colymar broke the Ring for Umathkar's War of the 1570's against the Malani, but were unable to make this true against King Tarkalor (surprise :-).
The Maboder declared the Ring of Sartar broken, for lack of a true heir, about 1602. If they had gotten enough support in this, they might even have able to make it so; as it was, the rest of the Jonstown tribes broke them from the Ring of Sartar, and from Jon' Peace, which made it possible for the Telmori to destroy them.
Whether the Pol-Joni were part of Sartar's Ring depended on the time and their location. Under Tarkalor they were, I suspect; but if theyhad gotten pushed out of Prax into the Wastes, even he could not have protected them, and the ring would be broken by distance.
This is a great inconvenience for Lunar bureaucrats, now they recognize Sartar, and are trying to run it as though a province. On the other hand, it offers great opportunities for the ambitious: "Since Sartar's house ruled in Grazelands/Sun Dome/Pavis, it must be part of Sartar..."
Paul MacLean Anderson
pmanderson_at_hotmail.com
"I'm making this up, you know!"
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