> > Joerg:
> >
> > >We have since learned that the Manirian tribes were not Hsunchen but
> > >boar-totem proto-Orlanthi, possibly Durevings or related folk.
I am told that there was a great mixture of hsunchen and divine beast worshippers in the area during the Storm Age. However, as "Blood over Gold: Trader Princes of Maniria" is more concerned with the contemporary Wenelian scene, it is rather glossed over.
...otherwise, we'd have 20 pages of material in the book that woud be only of marginal use to players. =)
> The Durevings of Bilon and Adoren are neither proto-Orlanthi nor boar-
> totemic people. They are just as Orlanthi as the Vingkotlings and I
> cannot understand why Maniria has to be populated by seven
> indistinguishable tribes of pig-worshippers.
Dunno abou that. Currently the etiphet "Entruli" leveled by more conventional Orlanthi cultural groups (read ones comparable to Esrolian and Heortlings in society) is a catch all phrase for any beast-derived clans or cultures in the region. There are at least a dozen of these peoples, mostly now subsumed into the pastiche of cultures that makes up the "typical" Wenelian.
Note: There is no typical Wenelian, just as no Typical Family has 2.3 children, 1.8 Dogs and 1.3 Mortgages.
> > As for alleged pig focus in Kethaela, again there is little
> > evidence. The sole factoid is that the Harandings who
> > live next to Kethaela are big on pigs. Yet the Esrolians,
> > the supposed origin of the pig culture also herd goats
> > (HQ p42), cows, sheep and geese (HQV p15). Hence
> > the circumstances by which the Harandings acquired
> > pigs is unusual but it is unlikely to be the result of being
> > chased out of Esrolia if the Esrolians themselves are
> > not fixated on pigs despite being a society bent on
> > restoring the most ancient traditions.
The problem is an artifact of what's been discussed thus far. Three of the big cultures in the area are the Harandings, the Mraloti and the Entruli. All of which were big on pigs. However, the Durvenings and Helerings are also very influential in the area though the Durveings were exterminated as a coherrent cultural group in the Darkness according to Greg.
A modern analogy would be the Balkans where renaments of dozens of peoples cling to their ancestral ways in the last remaining valley occupied by their once great people (and they all were great, just ask them). Without a unifying hero like Heort, they never became the Wenelian equivalent of Heorllings and instead are a fractious group of splinters that unite only rarely.
Afganistan or the highlands of Pakistan might also be a good example too.
A few exceptions exist: Graymane has managed to find some sort of kingship magic through a Lion Cult based on Orlanth and the long-dead Pendali a lion-folk who ruled much of the region.
> > Giving that the Helerings are listed numerous times
> > in the list of foes and that the Loper people are unambiguously
> > there when Svagard conquered Slontos, the weight of
> > evidence is there for being a population of Loper people
> > in Slontos.
Sure. But Slontos sank. I suspect the Lopers, should they exist, are now merely Islanders or Wenelians. There remains considerable Helering influence throughout the region which is understandable as Heler's Wind is probably the largest single influence on the local climate.
> > > > [Helerings, Voti, Trolls, Bird-heads] will have left their traces in
> > > Slontos.
> > Nope. The trolls are present in and around Troll Mountain while the
> > Helerings have a significant presence in Maniria even now. Who the
> > Voti and the Bird-Heads are is a good question but it seems pointless
> > to say they did not survive the Great Darkness just so Maniria can be
> > populated by yet another tribe of boring pig-lovers.
The Trolls (the Joleki clans, I believe) have always had a strong presence around the Haunted Fields which lie around Troll and Ice mountains.
I'm not sure who the Voti are but they are probably one ofthe many renemant peoples that form up the Wenelian cultural matrix. Perhaps they are Stag-Folk. It is likely that they are part of Dokal's sacred parade of beasts, and one of the "acceptable" totems found in the various clans (and hence the source of names and Stag-favoring (for example) clans.
> > Heler didn't lose his sea powers until long after the Helerings became
> > Orlanthi and just because Helerela is depicted as land on the Heortling
> > mythic map does not make it so. The Malkioni map for the same era
> > depicts a sea in the region of Helerela and so IMO the Helerings still
> > had a maritime culture then.
It is intersting to note the largest concentration of Helerings is around Bluewater which is a good ways inland. However, he is worshipped frequenty along the New Coast and the Islands as the bringer of too much rain. Helerhara is the name of one of the local farmer cults. There is, I believe, a chieftan cult,Urunda Helersdottir but it lack the applicability of the Orlanthi Tribal and Kingship cults.
> > I was talking about the Wenelians, not the Harandings or the Jaranings.
> > Tradetalk #11 describes the Wenelians as having the totems of Stag,
> > Otter, Lion, Badger, Boar, Fox, Bull, Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Stallion and
> > Hound. Hence to consider them yet another tribe of pig-lover is
> > wrongheaded.
The modern Wenlians have survived the Darkness, the Gbaji Wars and the Godlearners. They are not their ancient forebearers of the Storm Age - no matter how hard they pretend this is so. Too much has happened, too much blood is intermingled for anyone to claim purity of heritage.
> > Simply because neither the Harandings and Aramites were significant
> > at that time? The Aramites didn't even exist until Aram tamed Gouger
> > sometime during the Silver Age.
And the Aramites didn't show up much in Wenelia - though I understand that wandering bands of Tusk Raiders do make themselves known and have made themselves as hated there as they are elsewhere.
> > Why? What possible purpose does that give us? Why if
> > these lands were so unimportant to modern day Orlanthi do
> > they make much of remembering the itsy bitsy different lands
> > that lay to the southwest? Why don't they just collapse
> > the whole kit and kaboodle into one vast realm and forget
> > about it?
That's what everyone else has done. Wenelia is a land of feuding *clans.* Everyone else doesn't care who or what they are fighting but only hope that the Trader Princes keep the lid on while they pass through the area.
Only the Wenelians care and will tell you at excruciating length how everyone is different and wrong except for them. And when everything is an exception... well... Few folks care.
> > And what is wrong with the oceans claiming the lowlands
> > leaving the lands looking like Maniria in the Dawn Age?
None. Though the Mournsea formed and sank Erenplose sometime *before* the Darkness according to Greg. I have no idea why it did but apparently they were doing something the Sea Folk didn't like.
> > >And this too isn't necessary, since we can expect that somewhere in
> > >Slontos Helerings and Entruli populations must have mingled. The early
> > >Waertagi voyages (even in the Gray Age) appear to have found proto-urban
> > >centres in Slontos (similar to Karse?), which seems unlike anything we
> > >know about the Harandings or the Wenelians.
And of course, the Waertag claim that they founded the orginal city centres along that coast. A coast which is now considerably much sumberged. The Vadeli make similar claims but who is going to believe them?
> > But not for the Durevings? Which follows naturally from equating
> > mythical Velun with historical Ramalia rather than saying Velun
> > now lies beneath the Solkanthi.
I was told that the Durevings did not survive the Darkness so the locatin of their holdings is somewhat moot.
> > > > Calling the Harandings Hsunchen in 0 ST is even more inaccurate
> > > > than it is now. At the Dawn, the Hsunchen were only found in
> > > > the Shanshan mountains.
> >
> > >I'd like to see your source for this.
As far as I know, there were extensive Hsunchen peoples who held sway over what is now most of Maniria during the Silver and Dawn Age. They were driven back or converted by the World Council of Friends who also established kingdoms in the region.
The major group of hsunchen in Manira are the Pralori (who get their own homeland writeup in Trader Princes) and numerous others. However, according to Greg, by the modern era all carnivore hsunchen tribes (specifically the Telmori and the Basmoli) have been wiped out in the region.
I will treat them as hsunchen until told otherwise.
Jeff Kyer
Powered by hypermail