> >In my opinion what Alakoring did was to take the giant tribes (modern
> >examples would be the Tarsh tribe under Yanasdros or the Hendriki tribe)
> >and split them into smaller tribes.
This is based upon the old idea that Alakoring introduced the concept of tribes. However since Thunder Rebels shows that tribal kings can rule by Orlanthdar alone and that there's little difference in the magics of Orlanthdar and Orlanth Rex, I don't see why the magics of Orlanth Rex should bring about a massive reduction in tribal size or why a tribal king would think this change desirable! Also problematic is that Lankst, the home of Alakoring, is a large tribe of the sort that Alakoring was supposed to have eliminated.
IMO a better interpretation would be to distinguish between the tribes as groupings of clans on one hand (i.e. Colymar, Torkani and Vantaros) and the tribes as an alternative to kingdoms (Tarsh, Aggar, Heortland, and Lankst). Thus the large Heortling tribes of the Dawn and Imperial Ages are the equivalent of the Kingdom of Sartar. KoS is blind to this second sense because it is written from the viewpoint of a polity (Sartar) that has always been a kingdom and never a tribe.
--Peter Metcalfe
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