> The obvious reason why to tolerate such a minority group in an important role is that they have a magical claim to that role.
Magical claim, what's that? I do not find the reliance on vague anodyne terms to be rather convincing. Were the rulers appointed by Belintar? What forces do they have to assert their authority? Are the rulers popular, unpopular or do they rule through force along? How do they justify their rule? What was their reaction to Belintar's demise? What are the rulers unpopular for and what happens to people who agitate against them? Answering these questions in colourful detail go a lot more productive than just asserting a magical claim and leaving it at that.
> Whatever the protection offered then, it was not enough to withstand serious Hendriki magic later, but enough to kill the first Hendriki king attempting to break it.
Or the King may have just simply been unlucky. People get killed at sieges all the time.
> P> the evidence for the Hendriki ruling the Esvulari amounts to little more than they exacted tribute from them at some stage or another.
>
> That is the extent to which most Kethaelan overlordship worked, only with certain prohibitions added by e.g. Palangio.
I don't find such generalizations to be helpful. Not only is it wrong (the Adjusted Lands and the Holy Country) but it doesn't yield anything productive. It just dilutes rulership and second class citizens into vague terms that can mean anything except for the particular meaning being discussed.
"The Hendriki ruled Esvular" has a specific meaning. If all that the
Hendriki did was exert protection money from Esvular then the statement
is inaccurate and replaced with a better statement such as "The Hendriki
exacted tribute from Esvular". If the tribute was significant and
regular, then the statement could be "Esvular was a client state of
Hendriki"
But for the Hendriki to rule Esvular would require that the various
Esvulari communities have Hendriki rulers and garrisons just as they had
done in Esrolia.
> The incident of Delelsus the Spellman, the brass horse rider from southernmost Esvular who wanted to be king, takes place in 1190. Our disagreement here is whether this guy is an Aeolian or rather a God Forgotten, not that he ended up gathering the Esvulari (of whichever definition) under his banner.
What disagreement? I haven't mentioned Delelsus at all in the post that you are responding to. Nor was his particular status at all relevant to the general status of Esvular. If you disagree with something that was written on the wikia, the best place to discuss it is there.
> In God Forgot, the reverse would be proven true - the God Learners with their evangelistic zeal chose not to spread the word of Makan to the Leftarm Islanders, but instead channel their ways into inventiveness.
Not so.
The local Ingareens, who had accepted the _Abiding Book_ amidst their Zzaburite neighbors, invited a band of Jrusteli missionaries to their lands on Kostern Island.
Middle Sea Empire p47.
> What's compelling about the [thieves world] material for use in a
> Gloranthan campaign are the character concepts of the main actors, and
> their development as things change in their region.
I didn't find the characters of Thieves World at all impressive being little more than well worn fantasy tropes of thief, crime lord, mysterious magician etc. Given that much of the alleged development is related to events unique to the Thieves World universe, I fear the task of translating the characters will be a case to too much work required, too little to show for it.
--Peter Metcalfe
Powered by hypermail