> Nor does the short paragraph on ownership hint at the ownership concept of slaves in Doraddi society.
Given that the passage s described in Kingdom/tribal organization, it seems to me that Slaves are best handled as Kingdom property which means they belong to the King and get farmed out to members of his lineage.
> The Artmali surely enslaved others not of their origin. The question remains whether they took their own kind as slaves.
If they fought among themselves then they enslaved their own kind. Slavery is a pretty basic concept and doesn't need any great mental leap to invent.
>
> 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?
Garangordos did not invent slavery. He viewed the ideal relationship between mortals and Ompalam as that between a slave and master. I don't view it as a class distinction but rather a social "reformation".
> Property customs in a layered slave society bear some investigation, too. Is anything owned by a slave the property of his owner, too?
My guess is that it varies. When I wrote up Kareeshtu, I decided that
it didn't and thus slaves of slaves had no obligation to obey their
master's master. Generally plotting against somebody in your chain of
ownership is bad form _but_ there is no such disapproval for plotting
against a rival slave in your master's service.
It could easily be different in other places and I don't think Garangordos actually left any guidelines about what was good and what was bad. Rather his successors formulated the rules for slave society as they saw fit.
>
>> 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.
No, Pamalt is the God of the Continent, the Lord of the South. When
worshipped by the Doraddi, he is the earth king etc. When worshipped by
the Fonritans (IMO), he is the Supreme Master. They may appear
different to their worshippers but the divine source is the same (and
that goes for Yelm, Kargzant and Elmal).
> They rule over different lands, too, IMO.
That makes the statement that Pamalt is the embodiment of the continent whose survival makes Pamaltela better to be rather pointless. I think Pamalt is something far more than just a cultural deity.
> Pamalt of the Doraddi has no influence north of the elf lands, Ompalam none south of it.
Pamalt is worshipped in Katele and Tondiji (both in Kareeshtu).
> There is no record of conflict of Fonritians with elves.
The Season Wars, Description as an old enemy of the elves (Elder Races Book p26) and Garangordos's extermination of the Fonritan Aldryami (Revealed Mythologies p48).
> 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.
The Doraddi do not have a privileged interpretation on Pamalt. That the Artmali fought against Tishamto does not prevent them from worshipping Pamalt nor is their Pamalt likely to complain. That the Doraddi and the Kresh both worship Pamalt does not prevent them from fighting.
--Peter Metcalfe
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