Re: Alakoring tribes

From: Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_toppoint.de>
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 20:04:39 +0000


Peter Metcalfe

> Terra (quoting Joerg):

>>>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.

Funny way to put this. For the record: I am firmly convinced that the concept of an Orlanthi tribe predates Alakoring, or, for what that's worth, even Vingkot.

Alakoring brought a different type of tribal organisation from Lankst to Peloria. He weakened the priesthood, and as a side effect the maximum sustainable size of tribes (without accepting foreign influences) grew smaller.

[...]
> there's little difference in the magics of Orlanthdar
> and Orlanth Rex

I checked and didn't find any "command" among the Dar magics. Rex' "Authority" is different enough for me.

> Also problematic
> is that Lankst, the home of Alakoring, is a large tribe
> of the sort that Alakoring was supposed to have eliminated.

Lankst is known as the Confederation of Jofrain. The tribe is a temporary alliance. All of Lankst as an Alakoring tribe doesn't work...

I couldn't agree more with the following statement, though:

> 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).

I have done so all the time, by calling groupings of clans "tribes" and confederations of such tribes "tribal confederations". We know different levels of kings to lead these, that's why I used different terms for these past uses of "tribes".

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