Re: The cities of Sartar: income, troops.

From: Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_UqAV09tXpuwdWPKWEfkZWp3KloNnpL3TAs4dBng9IaBDHdGToS0rCUX2PHpdf12OzEFBYuDv>
Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 22:19:58 +0200 (CEST)


Adept:
>> Here's another thing I've been working on.

>> The guild model that RQ-2 sources talk about seems somewhat at odds >> with the rest of Sartar.

Jeff Kyer
> I would suggest that RQ-2, as a nearly thirty year old book, is
> somewhat out of date in how it models Sartar.

While that is true to some extent, I would not apply this to the concept of guilds. Rather to the concept of the role of the cults...

Donald Iddi:
> This has been discussed before. I think on the Glorantha digest
> but it might have been the HQ Yahoo group as well. The conclusion
> was that in the cities the clan/bloodline model has broken down
> somewhat and although a bloodline often dominates a particular
> craft guild it is possible for people from other bloodlines
> and clans to join that guild.

Cities don't fit anything we know about the rural Heortlings. A city has the size of about two clans, but only maybe half of those are not specialists in some way or another.

In my Glorantha gaming, Wilmskirk was the "urban" center I worked with. Oldest of the Sartarite cities, with a known population of immigrants from urban Heortland around 1480 as well as population drawn from the surrounding clans and tribes.

Of the four tribes of the city confederation, the Kultain were the most distant, and the least represented (population-wise). Since Locaem and Kultain had managed to grab land from Sambari and Balmyr, I drew the conclusion that some diminished clans of the losers took refuge in the city and probably dominated some trade. Now both the Balmyr and Sambari tribes are known for controlling certain segments of trade - salt for the Balmyr, slaves for the Sambari. Both these trades require certain equipment - barrels, shackles, etc. Besides there are standard Heortling cottage industries which can be done in the city as well.

In addition there were the Heortlander craftspeople who brought skills like masonry, glass-blowing or lock-making.

The four tribal kings each have a manor inside the city walls - like a chieftain's hall in tribal lands, with retainers of the king taken from several (if not all) the clans of the tribe. In the absence of the king (the usual state of affairs), a reeve (thane-rank) and a basic complement of warriors and cottar work force would keep the "stead" working. I guess a common activity would be preservation of food, storage of tribal produce for use when the king resided in the city manor or for trading, and cottage industry, herding the tribal herd on the city commons (the king's cows, gained from tribute, kept here for payments, sacrifice, and for supporting the resident work force) and gardening. These four tribal representations together may account for maybe half a clan's worth of population. (The tribes have another such manor in Boldhome, working pretty much the same way.)

Clans living in walking distance from the city may well have the equivalent of a stead or two living inside the city walls.

This leaves about half the population of the cities with only distant clan links.

Now we come to the interesting aspects of Heortling society, not the everyday toil of the carls and cottars on the clan tula, but the life circumstances of the specialists serving clan and tribe on more or less permanent missions elsewhere

These people always have conflicting loyalties and duties - to clan, tribe, heroband and whatever other mission they are on. Heroband can be a craft or trading guild, a warband or mercenary force, or a long term expedition.

>>There may well be a bloodline that mostly lives inside the city (along
>>a certain street) and who do 90% of the skilled leather work in the
>>city. In a city, and the surrounding areas it propably makes sense to
>>trade for good shoes and saddles from these professionals, rather than
>>making them yourselves.

I sort of doubt that these activities are restricted to a single bloodline. Anything resembling a strict caste system is fairly alien to the Heortlings, who respect the individual's calling (at least when it is a deity calling, but young people with an aptitude for a certain craft will be encouraged to follow that, too, unless there are other social pressures like being the only remaining eligible "heir" to the bloodline's stead, unlikely though this case may be).

On the other hand, the Sartarite cities aren't large enough to support guilds like those of early medieval London or Paris, which could specialize even down to certain production steps in say textile production or swordsmithing. There will be enough practitioners each of a builders', woodworkers', leatherworkers', metalworkers' and possibly some miscellaneous guild and a merchant consortium, with different specialists tossed together so that hey can send a representant to the (outer) city ring from which the inner city ring positions (besides the tribal positions) were chosen.

It doesn't make sense to form a separate guild when there are only two or three practitioners of a trade.

When the city was founded, there were a lot of foreigners brought together. Sartar was a ringmaker, and I expect him to have helped the new urban population to form rings and sub-rings.

>>In a similar way the cities make possible larger scale production that
>>isn't feasible on the clan, or even tribe, level. Making significant
>>amounts of parchment or candles, for instance.

> And also create the demand for them. Rural Sartar will regard candles
> and parchment as luxuries. For the most part they will rise at dawn
> and go to be at dusk. OK in the winter you sit up drinking after
> dark but the fire provides enough light for that. Most people aren't
> literate so what do you want parchment for? If you want to send
> tell someone something you go to see them or send a verbal message
> with a relative. I can see taking messages to other steads being a
> very common activity for the young adults.

Cities certainly create a demand for civilized products (e.g. parchment for record-keeping). The less specialized services will be farmed out to nearby clans as well, possibly making bloodline "guilds" that act both in the city (with specialized, finishing work) and in the rural clan (doing the basic work, providing the raw material).

>>As I understand it, the cities were an important part of income for
>>the princes of Sartar. As warlords, I doubt their "revenue" directly
>>from the 24 tribes of Sartar was all that significant.

Don't forget the roads. My guess is that the roads generated a major part of the princes' revenues. IMO the tribes sent work force (and food for them) for the roads as part of their tribute. Road tolls then went into the princely coffers.

>>I've also been wondering on what sorts of troops the cities made
>>possible. Were they the source of significan amounts of professional
>>huscarls (parhaps in the form of Humakt temples and the like),
>>cavalry, archers or parhaps all the above?

> The cities are all controlled by tribal confederations. Wilmskirk,
> for example, is run by the Locaem, Kultain, Balmyr and Sambari
> tribes.

I sort of disagree. In 1613 Wilmskirk has a mayor from a purely urban background, without any tribal affiliation, i.e. a member of the guilds. The mayor has a city ring with more than half the positions filled by the tribes, but there also is the outer ring which has delegates from all the major groups of the city, and with considerable influence.

> The city will be the gathering place for the tribes'
> warriors and fyrds but generally won't have any special troops.

Again, I disagree - highly impractical. Tribal forces are gathered at the sites of the tribal moots, usually located in territory under tribal control. There may be an additional muster at the cities at certain festivals (i.e. when the tribal kings meet for the annual rites of the confederation) or when the city confederation as a whole is asked for (prior to the conquest for the muster of the Sartarite forces). There may be maneuvers or competitions while warriors from all four tribes are present at the cities (or rather may have been, prior to the conquest).

> There are a few major Humatki temples in Sartar but not as many
> as one per city.

There are "hiring halls" for caravan guards and mercenary guard companies, though. Probably with the obligation of an automatic contract should the city have to field troops for the prince.

> I get the impression that there are two or
> three Humatki Battalions each with a settled base somewhere in
> Sartar but these may not be in cities.

In fan source tradition, the Lismelder, Malani (Two-Ridge) and Culbrea (Gwandor clan) have strong rural complements of Humakti, for different reasons.

> In addition there's a
> Vingan temple somewhere in the Quivini mountains and several
> Uroxi warbands with no fixed base.

Then there are other mercenary forces present in Sartar. IIRC, the Army of Tomorrow has a company in Sartar (a Malkioni mercenary band described as an example in the Hero Wars era, on glorantha.com), the Sun Domers will have small contingents in a city or two (also as contacts for greater contracts), and plenty herobands will hire as guards to feed hungry mouths between stabs at their destinations. Trade attracts mercenary work.

> The board game Dragon Pass has an order of battle which lists
> all the units available during the Hero Wars. In 1602 few of
> the special units are available and because it works on a
> thousand man infantry unit the smaller warbands are lost in
> more general groups.

Including the tribal contingents - only the Colymar and the Two-Rige fort (Humakti?) have individual counters (in the Free Army). All the rest are "city militia", mounted and foot. There is a foot and a horse militia per Sartarite city, i.e. 1500 warriors and part-timers per tribal federation.

There was some discussion about this in September last year, here's a random link I googled:

http://rpglist.org/pipermail/glorantha/2006-September/022537.html

Daniel Toothmaker:

> Yeah, all that guild stuff, and the medieval weapons like crossbow and
> two-hand sword were put in by Steve Perrin and those guys who were into
> pseudo-middle ages and knew little about ancient or any other era. Greg
> had no input there.

I sort of doubt that - the names of the coins don't sound like Greg was uninvolved. Also, the Dragon Pass units included one troop of "guildsmen" in the Free Army.

> That whole guild thing in RQ2 was there for players to buy
> their new skills, like training 'hide quietly' or whatever.

Same as (and even less so than) the cults...

Adept (replying to Jeff Kyer)

> Indeed. I still seem to remember seeing references to quilds and
> things like that regarding the cities of Sartar.

> Parhaps you could tell I wasn't working based on the RQ-2 material.

There are such sources whenever the Sartarite cities have been mentioned. Which is sort of rare, though.

Prior to Hero Wars, only King of Sartar, Genertela Box' "What my Father Told Me" and the Pavis Box gave us any detail information on Orlanthi life. Hardly any of that (except Pavis) was devoted to city life, and the city of Pavis, while inspired by the Sartarite cities, hardly could be called typical for a Heortling city, with all the old Pavisite influences.

We have the (pre-conquest) description of Boldhome in King of Sartar, a city unlike any other Heortling city, bearing some similarity to Old Pavis in its inclusiveness (Troll Corner, etc.). It does mention craft guilds, even in a degree of specialisation that the lesser cities of Sartar simply cannot afford.

A city of 1500 might support five bakers, and thereby maybe a fledgeling guild. Including the two city's millers, and maybe the two brewers as well, will form a sufficiently large interest group to be on the ring, so that's what I would look out for. Yes, I know that those occupations don't have that much in common except that they all work with grain. That's a market segment worth controlling, though, and two millers alone wouldn't be able to do so. IMO, IMG.

City troops, or what sort of military service to the "city clans" provide:

In military terms, the city population minus the tribal complements (likely the core of the "mounted militia") will be the equivalent of a wealthy clan, and be expected to field about as many warriors and part-timers for expeditions of the princes. For immediate city defense, the city fyrd will be the equivalent of two clans, led by the mayor (and including the tribal complements). Merchant guards and resident mercenaries will provide professional warriors in addition to the tribal weaponthanes.

How good these are coordinated may vary...            

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