Speaking as the source of this article, this was from my RQ3 efforts to produce a version of the Aeolian Church of Heortland. I conferred with a couple of people about Broyan's actions during 1613, without receiving much information.
Effectively, the best source at hand was Gloranthan Military Experience, which had "Home Garrison" for Heortland in 1613.
Now I don't quite judge it in character for someone like Broyan to sit idly by while the Sartarites next door give the bloody Lunars a good whacking. My reasoning went that if Broyan did not involve himself, the most likely cause for that was that he wasn't around during the action.
>I doubt that this is true. Broyan is an ultra traditionalist
>(TR p6) and thus I find it difficult to believe that he would
>serve as a knight.
Broyan surely wouldn't serve as a knight in the western sense. However, as a Heortland noble with considerable power he would have been eligible to be the mercenary commander of that outpost. Borrowing on Viking sagas, I cannot think of a better post if he had suffered some temporary exile for whatever incident there may have occurred.
The Marcher Barons IMG are a wild mix of all kinds of exiles from one period or the other, including some God Forgot people from the conquest of Refuge, Ralian merchant prince people whose fortune had faltered, Aeolians, ultra-orthodox Orlanthi, and whoever else may have found disfavour with the ruling kings but not enough to be persecuted even on the Praxian border. Broyan and a band of companions would have fitted this mix very well.
>Storm Tribe p236 even speaks of Heortlings
>worshipping Gustin the Hammer to resist the rule of the Pharaoh,
>which sounds like Broyan's sort of people.
While I don't regard Broyan as a fervent supporter of the Pharaoh, his conduct in 1622-24 suggests that he does support the concept of a unified Kethaela. To make him an active foe of the Pharaoh would take some explaining.
IMG the Heortlings of Kethaela regard the Pharaoh as one of the facts of life, pretty much like those of Saird have a relation to Hwarin Dalthippa and her dad. There is some fundamental mythical truth to the Holy Country, and the Pharaoh became the living embodiment of this after he replaced the Only Old One.
Back to Broyan's stay in Knight Fort: When I wrote that stuff I was unaware of any plans of Greg for Broyan, and I guess to some extend Greg was, too. It seemed sensible at the time to produce a dramatic connection between the Seshnegi mercenary captain Ri<ch/k>ard with his Rokari sidekicks and traditionalist Broyan during the reign of the last Hendriki king (which, at that time, still was thought of as a Vingkot Rex type rather than an elected Larnsti, although at least in my campaign history it will have happened that the crown princes all fully qualified as Larnsti...).
Much detail of that information has been overhauled indirectly with the publications for Hero Wars, although I still stick to my outlines and the impressions and contributions of others who used this stuff.
Whether Richard had Broyan as precedessor in Knight Fort or not remains up to your campaigns. In mine, Richard's modern Seshnegi knights managed what the previous old-fashioned knights and native heavy cavalry had no chance to succeed in - to meet a bison charge head on.
WRT heavy cavalry: The use of mounted, somewhat heavily armed warriors, uncommon in tribal warfare, had become a mainstay in the Sartarite princely army. The forces which the Sartarite princes brought to aid Palashee Longaxe against the Lunars both at the start and towards the end of his reign were of this type, which was described in the Dragon Pass boardgame battalia as influenced by the Westerners of the Holy Country.
The old sources I have used may be outdated now, although quite a few bits reappear in the new publications.
I'm extremely busy at work these months, otherwise I'd be as busy rewriting my Heortland stuff for Hero Wars, and plunging into these discussions.
Until then...
Joerg
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