> Given that the Doraddi have slaves (Missing Lands p106)
Without giving any detail how one becomes a slave, what status the children have, whether the slaves are of the same ethnic group or strictly foreigners only, etc.
Nor does the short paragraph on ownership hint at the ownership concept of slaves in Doraddi society.
> and the Artmali of Kungatu would have also kept slaves
The Artmali surely enslaved others not of their origin. The question remains whether they took their own kind as slaves.
> I'm not sure that the Oabil-slavery connection is necessary. There's also a marked difference between Garangordos's conception of servitude under "Pamalt" as the supreme good and the Vadeli chattel slavery.
So basically you pose that the (original) concept of slavery introduced by Garangordos marks a class distinction similar to castes or Dara Happan numbered tiers of society?
Property customs in a layered slave society bear some investigation, too. Is anything owned by a slave the property of his owner, too?
>> One difference being that Ompalam appears to be a (mostly?) theist and not an animist entity.
> Ompalam is a god and not a spirit. I'm shunning the use of misapplied worship and prefer to view him in a fashion similar to the Sun being worshipped as both a god (Elmal, Yelm) and a spirit (Kargzant, Varama).
Men of the Sea isn't exactly specific about his nature, and older sources call the members of Pamalt's necklace gods, but overall I think that Fonrit is mainly theist.
> So while the Fonritans worship him one way and the Doraddi another,
"him" is different than worshipping several individual embodiments of a principle (as in Yelm, Kargzant, Elmal). Pamalt is the earth king rather by extension of his "god of all trades" ability, a Lugh Lamfada of the veldt, second to all in ability, plus a trickster and ruler.
They rule over different lands, too, IMO. Pamalt of the Doraddi has no influence north of the elf lands, Ompalam none south of it.
> I feel the Aldryami have a third - although this is obscured within their religion - and that Hoolar hints at it. To round things off, I feel the Jelmre and Slarges/Pelmre/Lascerdans have their own knowledge of the land god.
I suppose that the Aldryami have an entity closer to Earth Maker of the Fiwan myths. Pamalt, ally of the southern fires, is an ecological opponent. Ompalam is less of a problem, a parasite to the remaining forests rather than an opponent.
There is no record of conflict of Fonritians with elves.
> IMO the Artmali would have just worked with local deities through their mysterious tidal powers and so the southern Artmali would have followed Pamalt and the northern Artmali Ompalam.
I don't think that the Artmali followed Pamalt after their first innocent landings. By the time of their empire, Pamalt was a rival, not a leader.
> "Ompalam is Bolongo thinking he is Pamalt"
Bolongo is any evil that is not quite as bad as Vovisibor.
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