Re: Oasis Folk

From: Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_toppoint.de>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 14:37:00 +0100 (CET)

> Joerg Baumgartner:

>>As far as we know (i.e. from the Nomad Gods boardgame), that concerns the
>>Beast Riders and those spirits useful in tribal warfare. I agree that
>>whatever the other oases might have to offer would be useless for Beast
>>Riders, but I contend that we don't know that the Oasis Folk don't have
>>agricultural/horticultural spirits at other places. They are the
>>secretive Tada-shi, after all.

Peter Metcalfe

> I don't consider River Horse, Frog Woman, Mistress Calm, Rainbow Girl,
> Dew Maid and Ronance to be useful in Tribal Warfare for anybody yet
> they are still present in Nomad Gods.

They do provide logistical (support) or mobility advantages. By this argument, you can eliminate the herds from the game as well.

> Even if the Tada-Shi have secretive practices, the spirits they worship > are still contactable on the plains by anybody.

While I don't mandate an Opili's Fort with its Hidden Green-like garden at each and every oasis, a set of helper spirits with powers like "aid <plant> fertility if sprinkled with <oasis> water" or similar appears to be in order. We haven't seen many spirits for tanning or other hide curing, either.

>>The Golden Age folk of Prax (the Tada-shi) did have agriculture or
>>horticulture, and therefore the need for appropriate spirits.

> They did?

Hence the description of the 48OO as agricultural spirits. While the Golden Age Praxian city folks would have appreciated a horn of plenty per city or oasis (as per "savannah watering place"), I doubt they went and had Ragnaglar break one off for them.

The Golden Age oasis folk were a sedentary people who cultivated some of the land for food production. If one takes the myths about Foundchild and Waha's Covenant literally, then everybody (except the Basmoli) was a vegetarian before Death came.

There have been descriptions of Golden Age Prax as the land where milk and honey flowed without any need for labor. I don't think so: We're talking Golden Age Prax here, not Green Age.

Golden Age Prax was a fertile savannah, patches of rich grasslands alternating with copses or orchard-like shaded meadows. It would be an interesting exercise to catalogue the extinct trees of Golden Age Prax.

Prax was the kingdom (or whatever) of Tada, a demigod or superhero who fathered or adopted the Tada-Shi, aka the Golden Age Folk of Prax. He might or might not be related to the giants revered by the Praxian beast riders, and possibly identical to the giant folk who appear as sometimes peaceful, sometimes offensive encounters in Godtime Kerofinela (Thorgeir, Lant Ulfar etc.).

What we know about the Tada-Shi is that they were

• earth worshippers,
• builders of some sort (producing all the altars and ruins scattered over Prax along Ronance's roads),
• usually quite peaceful and pure (see the Nomad Gods description of the battle against Ragnaglar).

The Oases were tended by them (and still are). One can speculate what function the Oases had in lush, semi-forested Prax, but clean waterholes are valuable everywhere.

IMO the Golden Age people of Prax had a form of agriculture similar to that of the Chagga people on the upper slopes of the Kilimanjaro:

http://www.oneworld.org/patp/vol5_4/eden.html

Wyrm's Footprints mentions peaceful contact between the Tada-Shi and the Vingkotlings, even names Tada as father of Vingkot's (summer) wife.

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