Peter Metcalfe:
> There's a difference between making it to Loral and actually controlling Fonrit.
I wasn't talking about controlling Fonrit, but about terrorizing the Fonritian cultures into maintaining a Greater Darkness mindframe not allowing a return to civilization.
> And coastal piracy raiding is only profitable if there is
> something to raid.
Slaves are a favourite...
>>> While you could make an argument that Fozeranto also controlled Kimos, their lack of penetration into the Elf Jungles places a rather large constraint on the size of their grip.
>> Enough to terrorize the various groups hiding from them.
> Except that what was the best place to hide from them? Deep into the Jungles. But the Elves didn't even know humans existed and were relatively untroubled by coastal raiders.
I'm a bit puzzled about this statement that the elves didn't know about the existence of humans. There are pygmy tribes penetrating into the jungle. Do you make a difference between fiwan and humans here?
The jungles or other elf forests are another demon presence, a forbidding place not to be entered.
I don't think that Fonrit was pure yellow elf territory at any time. The ecology of Vralos and Fonrit isn't that different.
>> [...] but I think that the Apdara would have spread terror beyond their immediate area of influence.
> I think you are looking at the inhabitants of Fozeranto the wrong way. Why would they want to spread terror? Think of them as a humanoid race lording it over humans like the Uz of Ignorance or even the Praxians. They raid Vithela because there is plenty of wealth there to be had.
One could view them as a standard pirate culture, but I think that is selling them short. Debaday is not just another Ygg, but a lot more sinister. Think Black Horse County without Ethilrist's iron discipline or human background, ruled by the Hound and the "Horses".
I think that antigods benefit magically by spreading terror.
> The Jungles and Kimos on the other hand are relatively valueless stretches of land (and Fonrit is a big question mark). What would be the point of going there?
Since I remain convinced that the Gorgers are Apdara-related, I would expect that the active geology of Kimos provides another magical benefit which would make a group of Apdara settle there. I have more troubles to explain the presence of the outrigger folk there, except that the hide-outs on the elf coasts that are uninfested by elf forest are few.
>>> Before then they were in Ulrana which is probably in Laskal. >> That's where you put Garangordos, too...
> That's true but Laskal is over five hundred miles wide. Plenty of room for both of them.
We still have to pack embyli and bat folk there, too.
The Thinokans left Ulrana because of what?
>>> I don't think the Pithdarans ever went to Fonrit. They built the boats on the Veldt and used magic to travel to the otherside so they could reach the Bad God from there. This makes their lateness a tad more plausible to me.
>> Why would they build boats?
> Because Boats were the traditional means of entry to the Otherside - "Sometimes the visitors go to [to the Hero Plane] by almost mortal means, such as the fabulous boats which are sailed by Doraddi shamans to the edge of the world" (G:CotHW Book 1 p13). Admittedly it's a single source, a detail which has probably been forgotten repeatedly.
Yeah. I tend to forget about the Nargan Sea, which offered the Doraddi access to the southern edge of the Inner World before the sky spilled down in the south. "By almost mortal means" would imply using mundane waterways, though... all the waterways in Doraddi territory lead into the Nargan.
>> Oabil was northwestern Pamaltela, east of the Mostali lands. That description fits Kareeshtu as well as Vralos.
> Except that west of Oabil was Kovano where the hostile Embyli were. That describes Fonrit because yellow elves were living there until Garangordos slew them all.
Apart from the MRQ Elf Book, all sources describe the sea level elves prior to Yelm's Death as yellow elves, with green elves reserved for higher or colder regions. Those elves that were forced to winter in the Underworld became brown elves only later in the Fourth Action, but would have been reported as embyli before the Ice Age.
The MRQ Elf Book introduces a pre-Darkness type of non-coniferous tree elves which turned into embyli or mreli only after the catastrophes of the lesser Darkness.
>> The point is that the northwestern Pamaltelan coast is closely associated with slavery in the memory of the Agimori (and the southern Artmali).
> I don't think so. Slavery is just one of the Bad Things which Bolongo invented north of the Fense; the others being sorcery, being a plant etc. etc.
We'll disagree, then. The northwestern Fense was known to be penetrable by Bad Things which imprinted themselves as bad examples in Doraddi culture, which may be called Bolongo's inventions as a blanket description, but which also are individually remembered.
That's also why I expect Agimori warriors setting out to fight "Chaos" to march where Vovisibor came from.
>> The Artmali did have flying ships in the Storm Age, which led to interesting encounters with the cloud ships of the Helerings, so I have no problem with an independent disembarkation there. However, at the height of the Artmali Empire, the northern coastal lands were part of that empire, and the northern coast would have seen their non-flying ships as well.
> Again I don't think there was anything like an Artmali Empire that united all the Pamaltelan Artmali under one rule. By my reckoning, there were three Artmali states - Kungatu in Tarien, Tenel in what is now Zamokil and Coboranda in Fonrit. Kungatu is stated to be an Empire founded by Jarkaru, but its description in Revealed Mythologies p49 makes it clear that it was largely based in Tarien. While Kungatu did claim the rule of many distant places (even Sechkaul!), I always see a large amount of hyperbole in the claim considering that Tenel is not shown as being part of the Empire.
Sechkaul surely is as much a hyperbole as the Slontan claim to have ruled the Heortland plateau in the Imperial Age (the result of a single and rather undecisive expeditionary force visiting).
But then, I don't see much evidence for imperial control of Slontos or Umathela in the Middle Sea Empire. This sort of titular overlordship would be plausible for all the lands where Veldang settled or conquered, and with such magical transport available (plus a readily sailable inland sea to connect southeastern and southwestern Pamaltela) I expect at least continuous contact in the south.
For the northwestern land, I can see some difficulties, especially if there still was an intact elf belt from Slon to the Togaro Sea.
>> I don't see the Zaranistangi as Blue Moon related. A similar people of similar celestial origin, but quite distinct from the Artmali, with an ancestral link to Tolat.
> The Zaranistangi are Blue Skinned (RM p38).
No debate there. But so are many other peoples not directly related to Annilla.
> Their king, Zemendarn, received Tolat's Sword, from Emperor Durpos of the Artmali (I assume the Artmali of Coboranda) (RM p47, p51 and p52). IMO they are also the Blue Tribe who sent Aroka against Orlanth.
In this case, I think the "Blue Tribe" is just a kenning for the "Sea Tribe", and Aroka and Sshorg being hard to distinguish. If the bad power is perceived as a dragon, it's Aroka, if it is perceived as watery invasion, it's Sshorg(a).
>> The storm folk invasion of the Veldt first overcame an Artmali empire, then suffered the same fate as did the Six-Legged Empire in the Imperial Age.
> That's not what Revealed Mythologies says. Jarkaru fought Desero's Storm worshipping Horde and defeated them.
Yes. I confused this with the troll invasion of the Artmali Empire, with Bolongo replacing the Emperor who was hidden away in a tea-pot.
> He then becomes the head of the Artmali Army and eventually sets up the Empire of Kungatu. Kungatu then wars against Oabil. It is eventually overthrown by Afati of Tishamto, suffers under Vovisibor and destroyed in the Firefall.
> The history of the northern Artmali is even more confusing.
We don't have much of a settlement myth, to start with. I used to regard Fonrit as the place where survivors from the fall of Kungatu fled.
>> This offers the possibility that Hon Hoolbitku was one of the slaves caught by the Six-Legged Empire and brought to Fonrit. The Agimori of Jolar named their alliance against the Kresh after a Fonritian city? (And who classified the languages of the central veldt as Arbennan?)
> Strictly speaking Arbennan wasn't founded until several centuries later to repel the Kresh. But it is an interesting idea.
Yes, the Arbennan confederation is a reaction against the Kresh. However, it appears to invoke Hon Hoolbiktu as the stalwart defender against undue invasions.
My main problem with this idea is the use of "Arbennan" as the language family of Jolar. I would expect the linguistic scholars of central Pamaltela to date back to the Gold Learner era – somehow I don't see any Umathelan university in the modern age making language studies across the Fense, and the barely 35 years since the Closing was lifted from the Marthino Sea won't have been enough to establish a new body of scholars from Genertela to study comparative linguistics on the Veldt. If the Jrusteli used "Arbennan" to describe the dialects of Jolar, then the city name in Fonrit becomes suspect, unless that city used a dialect closely related to those of Jolar.
It would be interesting to know what part of the Veldt the Pithdarans came from, and how someone like Yomili could have been a participant on the journey of animists yet become one of the three greates sorcerers in late Second Age Seshnela.
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