Creative Exercise: The Sovereign Dominion of Eyros

Rystil Arden said:

...the Sarynthi are a tribe of female humans who have come to believe that masculinity is an infectuous....

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I love it! Meanwhile...

Far to the northwest is a long peninsula called Quonambo (in Eyrosian). Here live a handful of tribes of very tall and muscular savages covered in ritual scars, tattoos, and warpaint. These tribes are descendants of men and Cal'Phazra who escaped from the Sarynthi. (Only a few "breeds" escaped, and each formed its own tribe.) Because those who escaped suffered generations of abuse, indoctrination, and drugs, the tribal society they built can be considered chaotic, if not completely insane, by outsiders. Despite this, some limited trade occurs between the Eyrians of the steppes and the tribes of far Quonambo.

For their part, the Sarynthi desire the complete destruction of the Quonambans, whom they consider animals, so that the secret of the Jarzhun is never revealed. Meanwhile the Quonambans have nurtured a long-standing fear and hatred of their one-time masters, and constant warfare occurs between the two groups of people.

Despite their primite lifestyle and metalworking skills, the Quonambans produce well-made and keenly sharpened blades. They tend to shun any armour heavier than fur.

The personal names of Quonamban savages are really just descriptions (in their own tongue) of their scars and tattoos they wear.

(For rules purposes, feel free to treat the Quonambans as Qullan--from the 1e FF--or come up with other stats as appropriate. I just thought it was a neat way to work in an old 1st ed. creature… hee hee.)

ironregime

ironregime said:

I love it! Meanwhile...

Far to the northwest is a long peninsula called Quonambo (in Eyrosian). Here live a handful of tribes of very tall and muscular savages covered in ritual scars, tattoos, and warpaint. These tribes are descendants of men and Cal'Phazra who escaped from the Sarynthi. (Only a few "breeds" escaped, and each formed its own tribe.) Because those who escaped suffered generations of abuse, indoctrination, and drugs, the tribal society they built can be considered chaotic, if not completely insane, by outsiders. Despite this, some limited trade occurs between the Eyrians of the steppes and the tribes of far Quonambo.

For their part, the Sarynthi desire the complete destruction of the Quonambans, whom they consider animals, so that the secret of the Jarzhun is never revealed. Meanwhile the Quonambans have nurtured a long-standing fear and hatred of their one-time masters, and constant warfare occurs between the two groups of people.

Despite their primite lifestyle and metalworking skills, the Quonambans produce well-made and keenly sharpened blades. They tend to shun any armour heavier than fur.

The personal names of Quonamban savages are really just descriptions (in their own tongue) of their scars and tattoos they wear.

(For rules purposes, feel free to treat the Quonambans as Qullan--from the 1e FF--or come up with other stats as appropriate. I just thought it was a neat way to work in an old 1st ed. creature… hee hee.)

ironregime

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Ah the good old insane Qullan with their sharp +3 damage broadswords...I certainly wasn't thinking of them when I wrote the Sarynthi. Viva 1e FF!

Rystil Arden said:

What about the areas ruled by the human Pillars? Why would they persecute their own race more than, say, the separatist dwarves? After all, dwarves are distrusted to the point where the Dwarven language is illegal...

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Persecution? - its good old fashion feudalism (model on that of Sparta in fact). The Human Pillars are all part of the 'Half-Orc' = ruler mentality which puts an emphasis on Orc-Blood.
Plus every society needs a working class to support the upper echelons of Noble Houses especially when those Nobles are all military, senatorial types so involved with politics that they don't really see the common folk much at all. And as I said - Pillars are judge on how well treated their peasants are

Even in feudalist societies, the working and merchant classes weren't exactly some sort of underclass. That was reserved for the very poor, or otherwise untouchable. They still had rights, and some privileges. Especially since it's been established that, among other things, the common types can, and often DO carry weapons.

domino said:

Even in feudalist societies, the working and merchant classes weren't exactly some sort of underclass. That was reserved for the very poor, or otherwise untouchable. They still had rights, and some privileges. Especially since it's been established that, among other things, the common types can, and often DO carry weapons.

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Yes and we have established that those merchants are attached to the Pillars and/or Orc-blooded (afterall we need to do something with the quarter and eigth-Orcs besides military service)

Hearkening back to their marshal roots, nearly all noble men carry a short sword, about two feet long total. Even those with no need or even aptitude for swordsmanship carry one as a symbol of their status. Wealthy or powerful commoners can also be found carrying one, as a symbol of their power, but also for practical means of self defense.

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Yes Wealthy or Powerful commoners carry a sword - these are not Villeins (and not necessarily human) -like the Kerytos family they may have been adopted into a Pillar, they may be Orcs or Gnomes or Hobs etc

Tonguez said:

Yes and we have established that those merchants are attached to the Pillars and/or Orc-blooded

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We have? I know that the pillars do some trading themselves, because they need money, but I don't recall that we ever said all merchants were.

Tonguez said:

Yes and we have established that those merchants are attached to the Pillars and/or Orc-blooded (afterall we need to do something with the quarter and eigth-Orcs besides military service)



Yes Wealthy or Powerful commoners carry a sword - these are not Villeins (and not necessarily human) -like the Kerytos family they may have been adopted into a Pillar, they may be Orcs or Gnomes or Hobs etc

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Hmmm...if you want to get Greek, then let's do it, I still have my Robin Osborne Greece in the Making textbook next to my bed, and I think that in some sense Sparta is an excellent analogy for Eyros. In this case, comparing your proposal to Sparta, I would place the elves and maybe dwarves in the position of the helots, the elves being analagous to the Messenians conquered by the Lakedaimonians early in their career of invasion after coming in from the North. The human merchants and lower class, up until this point at least, were analogues to the Periokoi, not the helots. You see, in Sparta, the full-ranking Spartiates who made up the core of the army and made political decisions as part of the gerousia (similar to the Eyrian orc-dominated Pillar nobility) , were actually *not allowed* to hold mercantile positions because it was felt that wealth corrupted them. Instead, the Perioikoi, free men who were not full politically powerful citisens but were nonetheless above the slavish helots, were the ones who were mainly farmers and merchants, sometimes making quite the profits for themselves since they had no competition from the Spartiates (often Perioikoi came from conquered areas that the Spartans favoured, so they just payed tribute to Sparta and got protection in return, like the Roman Empire). In Eyros so far, humans have been basically Perioikoi to the Orcs' Spartiates. In fact, every single merchant we have created so far, whether Pillar or non-Pillar, has been human, and the soldiers have been orcs. Your suggestion reduces the humans from Perioikoi to Helots, a position that up til now was held by the elves and maybe the dwarves.

I don't know much, but I do know ancient Greece.

Also, from the perspective of playing in this setting, the decision to disallow weapons among the lower classes is not a considerate one. It means that if I want to play a low-born level 1 fighter in Eyros, I can't. I have to make a noble or "powerful commoner" in order to have a weapon, unlessI want to get arrested .

Tonguez said:

Yes Wealthy or Powerful commoners carry a sword - these are not Villeins (and not necessarily human) -like the Kerytos family they may have been adopted into a Pillar, they may be Orcs or Gnomes or Hobs etc

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There's ONE pillar that does it, rarely. Certainly not often enough to make all the merchants a member of a pillar. Commoners are still commoners, wealthy or powerful or not.

I'm not trying to crap all over your suggestion, I just think that in this case, it's contraditory to much of what has already been established.

domino said:

There's ONE pillar that does it, rarely. Certainly not often enough to make all the merchants a member of a pillar. Commoners are still commoners, wealthy or powerful or not.

I'm not trying to crap all over your suggestion, I just think that in this case, it's contraditory to much of what has already been established.

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Me neither, I'm just trying to make sure we stay consistent. You've had some really cool suggestions in the past, but I just don't think that this one fits.