> Heavy knights, as in those wearing better armour than the Carmanians -
> given that they were distant from the center of such armour developments,
> it seems likely that they were inferior in quality of armour by the time
> they made war upon them.
I'll agree that before Shah Nadar's expedition the Carmanians were out of touch with the Middle Sea Empire and any improvements in armour they may have come up with. I'll agree that they probably came home with some good new kit and neat ideas.
However, Carmanians have always been famous for their heavy iron and brass scale armour. Remember the Third Eye Blue connection, and the story of Surandar:
Surandar was first to make the journey to the Mines of Kitor, and there
he offered up tribute (prised from Spol) to the three-eyed ruler and
his dwarfish slaves. In return, he received the first of the
brass-scaled
coats that would make Carmanian horsemen all but invincible in battle.
Armoured in this gift beyond price, Shah Surandar was many a time to
emerge unscathed from the thickest press of battle. He was only ever
wounded in war when he lifted his mask-visor to command his forces –
visitors to Carmania cannot but notice that all his statues are
disfigured
by facial scars.
ref: http://www.btinternet.com/~Nick_Brooke/Carmania/surandar.htm
Carmanians deployed heavy-armoured horsemen (relative to the rest of Peloria) even before Nadar's expedition. They also had more iron than neighbours, through the Third Eye Blue link.
I mentioned:
>> the obvious impact of "Dark" Stygian/Arkati and "Light" Talorian
influences
>> on the Malkionism of early Second Age Fronela ... where a lot of the
Carmanian
>> Duality is rooted.
Martin wrote:
> Agreed, they have a lot of sources, but the church was only formalised as
> dualistic by Karmanos after he came from the lake and much of his faith
was
> based on the Romanakrin wisdom which defined Idovanus.
Carmanos brought his codified dualistic White and Black laws to the Carmanians, true. But this does not mean that Carmanos stands outside any and all pre-existing religious traditions. Any more than Ezekiel, Jonah, Jesus or Mohammed emerged from a religious vacuum. The Akemites of Syranthir Forefront would have recognised the fundamental religious opposition between White and Black (Light and Darkness), and between Truth and Falsehood. This is evident in view of their history (inc. Nysalor, Arkat, Talor and the God Learners).
To pull a quick Metcalfe, that is the reason that when I invented Carmanian Dualism I wrote it up the way I did. To be told today that the back-story I devised is no longer necessary because Carmanos the Lawgiver, Son of the Lake, the founder of the Carmanian Dualist Church -- by my hand -- had a religion which was "based on the Romanakrin wisdom which defined Idovanus" (and which owed nothing to Fronelan Malkionism) is kinda offensive to my sensibilities, after all the work I put in.
Just so you know where I'm coming from.
> I would agree that there were dualistic edges to their thinking but
> Karmanos was the founder of the faith and the resulting interactions
> with the Pelandans, Spolites, DHs etc were more formative than Syranthir's
> experiences IMO.
If we ignore the history of the Ten Thousand and assume they cast away all their historic, religious and mythical baggage to replace it with something Carmanos invented from whole cloth, maybe this is so. I think it is valuable to look at the back-story to the Ten Thousand, not pretend that "Carmania" sprung fully-formed from the pre-existing conditions in Second Age Pelanda.
> It was only _after_ the arrival of the prophet that the Viziers accepted
> gods into the Idovanic system and clarified the nature of sorcery.
I think this is definitely wrong. Pre-God Learner Malkionism was a rather henotheistic faith, involving worship of many gods. (NB: this is an English sentence, not a HW keyword. If you think I should have called it "a more Stygian form of belief, including veneration of many Powers", then please read it that way).
The God Learners replaced this with a strong monotheism in which other gods were "demons" whose attributes could be exploited by the faithful. (Caveat as above). But the Carmanians did not take these God Learner ideas on board. Syranthir's army included worshippers of many gods. The laws of Carmanos showed the Magi how to determine if a god should receive worship. The need to codify this increased because the Carmanians were now overlords of a land with an unfamiliar mythic landscape. They had to sort out the new cast of characters.
> It was only after Karmanos that ... the vulnerability of sorcery to the
> Lie was revealed
So: what do you think we learned from Gbaji the Deceiver, Arkat the Traitor and the filthy stinking Jrusteli God Learner heretics, if not that even the apparently purest sorcerers can be vulnerable to or consumed by deceit?
Martin, I am writing at this length because you are striving to post-date things which I deliberately included in the Carmanian backstory. I don't understand why you want Carmanian culture to begin as a blank slate, when there is so much useful history, religion and myth to back it up from a Western, Gbaji Wars perspective. The stuff is *there* -- I *put* it there -- and I do not see why it is being overlooked, belittled or discarded.
There is no point trying to pretend that Syranthir Forefront and his Army never existed. They did, and they brought ideas with them.
> Greg's current vision of the realm through which Malkioni heroquest is
> incompatible with Nick's, in that he sees this place as flat, featureless,
> and almost totally devoid of living inhabitants (the odd abstract concept
> may wander past, and its these the Malkioni 'heroquester' tries to
control).
I would be happy to believe that grey and boring Malkioni have grey and boring encounters on a grey and boring hero plane. I doubt, however, that people will spend much time playing or writing about these experiences. I have only ever tried to write descriptions of what colourful chivalrous Malkioni heroquesters might encounter on the kind of interesting heroquests people would actually want to play or read about. I am profoundly sorry if this annoys lobbyists for a more grey and boring Glorantha.
I do not believe Greg's current vision (described above) is compatible with Greg's previous accounts of the experiences of Western heroquesters, such as Arkat and Snodal. I think mine works better. I'll stick with it until something even better comes along.
:::: Email: <mailto:Nick_Brooke_at_btinternet.com>
Nick
:::: Website: <http://www.btinternet.com/~Nick_Brooke/>
End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #516
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