Erm, I'm not sure how to answer this. :o)
>From my perspective, I've depicted most Caladralanders as illiterate
in this sense, and without an indigenous social grouping that
preserves, protects and/or promotes such practise. I think that in
terms of graphic communication, Caladralanders favour the creative
form and utility of painted and sculpted art, and simplistic
pictograms, marks and petroglyphs, often derived from and connected
with the power of Runes, over and above more extensive scripts.
Such forms have a variety of teachers and promoters in society. Some tribes, particularly in the west, use curious forms of calculation and depiction that appear crudely dwarfish.
Traditionalists have often associated literacy with 'negative' forces: the Bright Empire, the MSE, the EWF. Afterall, everyone knows that the Bishop of Bath ensorcels and enslaves his unfortunates whilst reading from his books at the lectern.
Caladralanders will have encountered literacy at various points in their history, but the influence of the God Learners and Belintar was probably the most stable and instructive. As to the former, I'd suggest that such practises--retained by an elite--fell into disuse, the scripts that coil the God Learners' columns indecipherable (though perhaps a few bloodlines do preserve the knowledge); as to the latter, and any 'resurrection' of literacy (particularly among the Pharaoh's officers and flunkies), I'm wholly open.
LM via Porthomeka? I honestly don't have any opinions on the matter, and am open to anything.
There are other examples. There is a small solar cult in Caladraland, which has some curious outside influences, not least an ancient script similar to the Dara Happan sacred alphabet.
> We know that Belintar has reimposed the old MSE system of Governor,
> Deputy and Companion over each of the Sixths. Did Caladraland
largely
> preserve this system of organization from the Second Age so that
> Belintar reforms were minor and subtle?
It's not easy to get this across, but it should be highlighted that the old literature on the Volcano Twins appears not to have informed the recent work on the MSE. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but it has to be taken into account when we try and reconcile Chuck's extensive description of GL in Caladraland with more recent writings.
In comparing both, I believe that Caladraland was a special case. The MSE may have termed the Twin Priests as their 'Governors', 'Deputies' &c., but I think that the actual situation was more idiosyncratic.
Simply put, I don't think Caladraland preserved the MSE system of organisation going into the Third Age (there was a regression), and I don't think it necessarily had it in a pure form in the first place.
To turn the question around, what about the influence of Caladraland on the West? Although we've stopped for a bit, my gaming group has been playing Greg's Great Pendragon Campaign. It's influenced me a lot. Given the appearance of 'exotic' Saracen and Greek knights in Arthuriana, how did some of the chivalric cultures of the West depict such as Caladran warriors?
I've had fun with two questing knights from these 'barbaric' cultures, themselves romanticised and idealised depictions of their pagan 'lords' (Lodril/Veskarthan and LM): Sir Lammy, the Grey Knight Without a Heart, and Sir Laddy, the Brass Knight Without a Head, each the antithesis of the other, and locked in an endless quest on the heroplanes that they can't gain without the other's help.
Cheerio,
Stew.
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