From: Svechin@cs.com
Date: Wed 05 Apr 2000 - 02:57:35 EEST
Nick:
>Carmanians deployed heavy-armoured horsemen (relative to the rest of
>Peloria) even before Nadar's expedition. They also had more iron than
>neighbours, through the Third Eye Blue link.
Agreed. My only point re-Nadars expedition was that the Carmanians had no
serious heavy cavalry opposition, whereas the Fronelans did. The opposition
of heavy cavalries in the RW was the cause of armour change and thus it seems
likely that the Carmanians slowed in their evolution for some time due to
lack of comeptition.
Martin wrote:
> Agreed, they have a lot of sources, but the church was only formalised as
> dualistic by Karmanos after he came from the lake and much of his faith
was
> based on the Romanakrin wisdom which defined Idovanus.
>Carmanos brought his codified dualistic White and Black laws to the
>Carmanians, true. But this does not mean that Carmanos stands outside any
>and all pre-existing religious traditions. Any more than Ezekiel, Jonah,
>Jesus or Mohammed emerged from a religious vacuum. The Akemites of Syranthir
>Forefront would have recognised the fundamental religious opposition between
>White and Black (Light and Darkness), and between Truth and Falsehood. This
>is evident in view of their history (inc. Nysalor, Arkat, Talor and the God
>Learners).
Yes, he would have been influenced by the past, especially of his fathers
>To pull a quick Metcalfe, that is the reason that when I invented Carmanian
Gregs piece on sorcery in Enclosure 1 states that Karmanos, the Magi and
views. However, he was also born of Charmain and this was probably the
greatest influence on him in a theistic sense. In effect he created a new
faith out of other faiths, much like Mohammed. I agree that his past was a
large part of it from _all_ ends.
>Dualism I wrote it up the way I did. To be told today that the back-story I
>devised is no longer necessary because Carmanos the Lawgiver, Son of the
>Lake, the founder of the Carmanian Dualist Church -- by my hand -- had a
>religion which was "based on the Romanakrin wisdom which defined Idovanus"
>(and which owed nothing to Fronelan Malkionism)
Viziers defined Fronelan Malkonism as Fronalko, the evil sorcerer. The
Romanakrin wisdom, as stated in Gregs writing, was a definition of Idovanus
and a redefiition of what was not Idovanus and therefore "evil".
>is kinda offensive to my sensibilities, after all the work I put in.
Sorry dude, not intended, I am merely going from the Living Gregelzas work
(which may or may not be based entirely on stuff you've done, I dunno, though
I suspect you worked of his original Carmania concept and he then worked off
your labours). In all cases, when writing anything for SGU, I go from Gregs
work first, though naturally other perspective are incorporated as long as it
doens't contradict Greg. Greg often contradicts Greg, but thats fine, its
part of the process.
The sources we have used for the Carmanian faith has been FS and Gregs notes
on sorcery, linked with the HW rules on sorcerers. Your work is referenced
in the sense that Greg used your work.
>Just so you know where I'm coming from.
I do. I protect my view of things too.
> I would agree that there were dualistic edges to their thinking but
> Karmanos was the founder of the faith and the resulting interactions
> with the Pelandans, Spolites, DHs etc were more formative than Syranthir's
> experiences IMO.
>If we ignore the history of the Ten Thousand and assume they cast away all
>their historic, religious and mythical baggage to replace it with something
>Carmanos invented from whole cloth, maybe this is so.
I don't think they did that, but nor do I think that they didn't cast away
_much_ of what came before, because in their attempt to become rulers of
Pelanda, they had to synergise their beliefs and come up with a creed that
allowed them to survive in a land of theists (and some mystics). Hence
Karmanos was a very valuable son to Syranthir because he allowed a merger of
the two groups that S couldn't have achieved himself.
>I think it is valuable to look at the back-story to the Ten Thousand, not
pretend that >"Carmania" sprung fully-formed from the pre-existing
conditions in Second Age >Pelanda.
I think it was a mix of the two, but the greatest influence was Karmanos and
the interactions with the Pelandans. The clarification of the Idovanic
truth by the Romanakrin wisdom was what Karmanos based his faith upon in
large part, that and his divine/mortal parentage.
> It was only _after_ the arrival of the prophet that the Viziers accepted
> gods into the Idovanic system and clarified the nature of sorcery.
>I think this is definitely wrong.
Its quite clearly stated by Gregs work on sorcery in Enclosure, to which
we've tried to be true. In fact the basis of the Romanakrin wisdom is said
to be Estrekor, not Karmanos. Greg also described the faith created by
Karmanos as "Revolutionary".
I'm just basing what I write on Gregs view, but I suspect you've debated with
him on this one before so it probably doesn't come as a surprise that there
is divergence in the two views.
>Pre-God Learner Malkionism was a rather
>henotheistic faith, involving worship of many gods. (NB: this is an English
>sentence, not a HW keyword. If you think I should have called it "a more
>Stygian form of belief, including veneration of many Powers", then please
>read it that way).
>The God Learners replaced this with a strong monotheism in which other gods
>were "demons" whose attributes could be exploited by the faithful. (Caveat
>as above). But the Carmanians did not take these God Learner ideas on board.
This makes sense, I agree.
>Syranthir's army included worshippers of many gods.
This also makes sense. A large army moving slowly across a continent would
>The laws of Carmanos showed the Magi how to determine if a god should
I agree with this as well. I do not think that Gregs view is incompatible
pick up a fair share of other groups. Partly where Humakt came from.
receive >worship. The need to codify this increased because the Carmanians
were now >overlords of a land with an unfamiliar mythic landscape. They had
to sort out the >new cast of characters.
with yours. Consider the clarification of sorcery. The defining of evil
sorcery as Fronalko was simply the Carmanians way of defining what was bad
about the faiths they'd left behind. The Romanakrin wisdom would then be a
logical step in the thinking of the Carmanians as they struggled with their
beliefs and tried to clarify them. As a result of this Karmanos, being born
of Pelanda and the new arrivals was ideally suited to unify the two. Up till
that point the codification, as you say, of the faith, did not exist, hence
the religion itself did not exist, which is pretty much my point.
> It was only after Karmanos that ... the vulnerability of sorcery to the
> Lie was revealed
>So: what do you think we learned from Gbaji the Deceiver, Arkat the Traitor
>and the filthy stinking Jrusteli God Learner heretics, if not that even the
>apparently purest sorcerers can be vulnerable to or consumed by deceit?
No, but the Magi lumped all of these "evil" sorcerers into the Lie and
defined them as Fronalko, the evil sorcerer. Simple. What is not us, is
bad. What they did in effect, _after_ karmanos, was define what they were
and laid down the rules for that. In other words, they laid down the laws of
the faith. Before that they simply had likes and dislikes, after Karmanos
these became a religion. An evolutionary process.
>Martin, I am writing at this length because you are striving to post-date
>things which I deliberately included in the Carmanian backstory.
No I'm not. I'm simply writing the cults and orders as Greg defined em. I
don't think what you have written or what we have written is incompatible. a
different emphasis perhaps, but thats about it.
>I don't understand why you want Carmanian culture to begin as a blank
slate,
I don't, but Syranthir journey was not the end of it for them. They had to
descover and define themselves. This they did _after_ Karmanos. Without
him, things might have gone very differently, hence he was the most formative
moment in their _current_ faith. Naturaly their past experiences were
important in this but Karmanos was the focus of it all.
>when
>there is so much useful history, religion and myth to back it up from a
>Western, Gbaji Wars perspective. The stuff is *there* -- I *put* it there --
>and I do not see why it is being overlooked, belittled or discarded.
Its not, its simply deeper background that the current Carmanian faith uses.
>There is no point trying to pretend that Syranthir Forefront and his Army
>never existed. They did, and they brought ideas with them.
Not trying to, merely putting them into perspective, as you are doing. Our
perspective differ slightly thats all.
Martin Laurie
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