From: peter metcalfe (metcalph@voyager.co.nz)
Date: Thu 18 Dec 1997 - 13:27:36 EET
Oliver Bernuetz:
>In modern day Carmania they are very dedicated to the ideal
Embodiment of the Light and Shunning the Darkness is the
traditional interpretation of the Magi. The Great Houses
each have their own variant interpretations which they keep
their mouth shut about.
>My
>impression on ancient Carmania, taken from reading materials on
>Loren Miller and Nick Brooke's web pages was that the ancient
>Carmanians were not dedicated to this ideal but rather alternated
>between being (as it were) darkness aligned or light aligned. Is this
>perception accurate? Especially in regards to the period just before
>the Dragon Kill war.
As far as I can tell, the Carmanians did alter between Black and
White but this was a factional struggle. It wasn't until the
reforms of the Prophet Alijiyah that a compromise was worked out
over when to be black (to your enemies) and when to be white (to
your friends). It thus appears that prior to the compromise the
Black Shahs had treated their friends like shit and the White
Shahs were soft with their enemies.
The Prophet's compromise persisted until the Carmanians were
massacred in the Dragonkill War. Then they were conquered by
the Bull Shahs who were neither White nor Black but just plain
barbarian thugs. However from the current Carmanian Mythology,
(the best fragment is the Unity list in the Fortunate Succession),
it seems to me that from close contact with the Dara Happans
(around Nadar's time), the Carmanians had gotten the idea that
associating too much with GanEstoro, the god of darkness and
evil, was a bad thing and so the Prophet's Compromise was
slightly changed. So while the Carmanians can still be pretty
beastly, they are not as bad as they could be.
- --Peter Metcalfe
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