After a week spent travelling through Germany, I find the Digest embroiled in threads more to my liking than usual.
I do have an alternative explanation for the Rathori longbowmen phenomena, which I suppose both main debaters will reject...
Rathori, we assume, are famous for their long bows. But famous among whom? I suppose that will have to be the Janube river people. And we even hear there are mercenaries!
And it is true. But the number of Rathori mercenaries is small, very small, and those mercenaries, even if born rathori, are not cultural rathori any longer.
Many poor lands, even with lower technology than its neighbours, has compensated by sending its surplus to serve as warriors far away. This mercenaries need some gimmick to make them succeed, such as a special weapon (the balearic slingers of classical age), special tactics (pre-renaissance swiss), or pure fighting spirit (Gurkhas).
The Rathori have the gimmick (the long bow), and in some areas I am sure that competition from other rathori clans, uncolings, and settlers, force many young people (mostly male) to wander away. And some wander to civilization, and find their bows the only way to earn their keep.
The rathori bands will be organized along geographic lines, and will train any young recruit they accept in the secrets of civilized warfare. Along the way will come civilized pleasures, religions, and vices, so that few of these mercenaries ever return to the forests, and those that do, are shunned by the "normal" rathori.
Harrek was one of this youngsters, only that he wandered more than most, and became more alienated than any one else (being the toughest also helps).
The Rathori mercenaries are seldom used against their fellows, only against other cities. The bands cultivate a certain "sprit de corps", and still revere their bear ancestors, but they follow also the local war gods, any war god they met before and gave results, and many spirits. Unless obliterated in battle, this units are self-perpetuating. The first thing the recruits miss is the long sleep in winter, and the change from hsunchen to civilized begins there.
Each band will be different. A succesful one may equip its members in armour, and use closer ranks, while another may be yet raiders and skirmishers, using guerrilla tactics. A really succesful band will choose its contracts, and be a factor in local politics.
If several returning veterans came upon a clan under serious military pressure, it could be the moment to make the clan behave as an organized military unit. But in that case, other civilized traits will appear, and the clan will not be rathori for much longer.
In all, maybe less than a thousand rathori work as mercenaries at one time, but in the tense post-Ban Fronela, more are joining than ever since Black Hralf wars...
As a RW reference, the Balearic islanders worked as mercenaries for everybody in the Mediterranean area for five centuries, while their own lifestyle, or tactics in case of invasion/raid, did not change. Only the Pax Romana did change things. Many slinger bands were together for years, changing contractors, becoming a "regular" army unit, trying to survive. Often the winner of a battle hired the surviving mercenaries in the losing side, taking them further from home. And all their gimmick was skill with the sling, which in islands of shepherds, was quite developed.
Finally, I will only enter the raiding the Char-Un debate to say that the elves do have a reason to raid, and the rathori, as elf-friends, have to come along. Even if they do not like it...
Jose
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