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> > "scratching out a miserable existence" seems to be the norm in the Gray Age and at the Dawn. Beats extinction 100%.
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> Yep! But it also makes it hard to work out the Gods Age past for many of these bands. They lost their gods, their spirits, their ancestors, and remained in contact only with whatever was still there to aid them.
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Two quick thoughts:
- What makes the godforgoti distinct is probably not their state at the dawn, but that they did not succumb to the lure of the Lightbringer missionaries. Either the missionaries did not make it that far, or for some reason they were rejected. (given the proximity to Heortland, that former only seems likely if either there was some specific reason that missionaries did not go there, or they were stopped)
- In RW history it was not uncommon for different `peoples' to live intermixed with each other for long periods of time, while still keeping their cultures and religions at least nominally distinct. The most remarkable record of this might be with Judaism, as another example the Germanic successor states to the roman empire frequently had early law codes that only applied to their own people, while the "romans" that they had conquered remained governed by roman law.
I see no reason that that godforgoti could not have lived intermingled with Aeolians for much of their history—no doubt as a despised minority much of the time, but the varying tides of history could have had them on top at other times