Re: Holy Country 1616 - the Evil Year

From: Jeff Richard <richaje_at_oOC0EH0ouC_rUNLi3SH2Sa86UWVUz8VMqlxcuSaP3pIHKmPI6xyHZhV1V9KuB8UjNjWW>
Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:14:28 -0000


> 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.

So I suspect that there is the "foreign cult" of Lhankhor Mhy in Caladraland. There is no problem with that - and literacy is too important in the Holy Country for there not to be scribes in the larger cities.

> 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.

Yeah, but the Good God strongly patronizes the Lhankhor Mhy cult.

> 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.

Given that Belintar is responsible for the creation of the Final Information Library, I suspect he patronizes the LM cult as something useful and necessary. Probably Issaries and Chalana Arroy as well.

> 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.

Then it is likely Caladraland now enjoys a Belintar "administration" while still preserving its traditional system of the Twin Priests. Heck, even the atheists of God Forgot have a Belintar appointed governor.

> 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 would be surprised if there weren't some Caladralander influences in Slontos. Volcano cults, and that sort of thing. I doubt their influence was noticable in Seshnela or Loskalm - just like I doubt the Heortlings have had much of an influence there. It is just too far away!

> 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.

Now this I could imagine making it into the stories of Safelster or some of the Trader Prince cities.

Jeff            

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