Re: Teleos question > Balazar/Elder Wilds > Umathela

From: Stephen Tempest <e-g_at_Tj8kBcrWB9Ls50idGRCvcABxy1hzgtmsZDJqC53AT1YpQW1DzE1L8kSJvoQQVfdCFl93BY05>
Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 12:03:05 +0100

"Sean Foster" <ebaninth_at_SEd2fhJ68kQwPTM2ErQJc1dliJyhigA9VSxS0o4TJmJLJYLnhiXhIZ06NKxF_W3xHkTgdOwGvirr6cNX.yahoo.invalid> writes:

>2)      Is the land so poor (for crops) in Balazar/Eldar Wilds that

> the Lunars/Tarshite’s could not be bothered conquering it - it looks
> easy enough except for maybe a local Giant. Surely it would be
> easier than bothering with those southern freakish cousins.

How do you conquer a bunch of nomadic hunter-gatherer clans? And more to the point, why would you even bother?

Sartar has civilised cities and thriving trade routes. March your troops down the roads, occupy the cities, and you can profit from Sartar's riches yourself. Easy. Notice that the Lunars never really bothered with the wild Sartarite clans up in the hills - they mostly leave them to their own devices, other than demanding tribute and occasionally making an example of some rebels.

In Balazar, though, it's *all* wild clans up in the hills - and the Balazarings don't even have cows to offer in tribute. Sure, they have their nasty squalid little citadels, basically heaps of rock piled on top of each other, but they're not cities as a Dara Happan or Sylilan would recognise them. Nor are they on a strategic route to somewhere else, which at least is the saving grace of Prax.

Trying to rule Balazar would mean importing all the necessities of life yourself, since the locals don't produce them, and then sending constant expeditions out into the wilderness to hunt down the nomadic clans and - then what? Insist they hand over a few deerskins as tribute?

Not worth it.

Stephen