From: Nick Brooke (Nick_Brooke@compuserve.com)
Date: Wed 24 Dec 1997 - 12:09:06 EET
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Jeff "he may know a lot about Orlanthi, but..." Richard writes:
> Romans and . . . arabians? Trippy.
The Arabian elements in the Lunar Way include (in no particular
order):
Sultans and Scimitars and Crescents and Minarets and Muezzins
and Prayer-Mats (facing Moonwards) and Harems and Houris and
Eunuchs...
And the Lunar Way itself, a radical new faith bursting onto
the world stage from a disregarded frontier, sweeping aside the
tired remnants of ancient empires, establishing itself as the
newly dominant religion across a vast swathe of territories
within the lifetimes of its prophetic founders; building itself
a capital city in the form of a perfect circle, near but not
co-located with the ancient capital of the river-valley civili-
sation which it co-opted; incorporating (from both choice and
necessity) the former ruling structures and noble elites in its
innovative system of rule; both destroyed and revitalised by the
invasion of horse nomads from the great steppelands, eventually
to sink into bloated decadence under corrupt and grasping rulers
who can no longer live up to the austere ideals of the earlier
Jihad -- meaning that, despite the continuing successes of
missionary work among the barbarians of steppeland and mountain,
religion in the very heartland itself (including the imperial
capital and the Holy City where the cult was founded) turns in
on itself in a morass of schisms, heresies, weird cults and
purist splinter movements...
And, of course, the "spirit" of the Arabian Nights lives on in
the Lunar Empire, where adventurous (or timorous) youths can
head out into the weird and wonderful corners of the world,
discovering strange marvels from bygone empires, and backward
tribes and kingdoms that have never heard the Word of the Red
Goddess, and astonishing trading opportunies where an entre-
preneur of spirit and inventiveness can make a fortune, only
to return afterwards to the Bazaars and Souks of his home city
with a tale to astonish the masses...
Yeah, I never have trouble seeing the Arabian aspects of the
Lunar Empire.
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Nick
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