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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tristissima" data-source="post: 7877086" data-attributes="member: 6162">Evidently, the Kellid ancestors of the Nidalese were tan-skinned and dark-haired.  I’ve been thinking of them as essentially Celtic (though, of course, Golarion and fantasy role-playing generally speaking seems to lack any equivalent of, say, Epona, goddess of horses) but this description, which focuses heavily on their nomadism and mentions so-called shamans (a word I tend to shudder at unless it’s referring to near-Arctic indigenous religions) and warlords as their ruling classes, is bringing a much more Mongolian image to mind that what I’d had previously.    The picture of a horselord on this page doesn’t push me one way or the other.  She’s a thin woman, presumably human but looking rather elfin, with golden, warm skin, dressed for warmth but not, like, super bundled for snow.  Definitely a fur cape, though, and her horse has some nice jewelry (armbands on a horse, though?), including something in its hair that looks like stars against the night sky of its locks.  I don’t know how it matches up to other depictions of the Kellids, but I will now be imagining them as a cross between the Celts and the Mongolians ~ maybe something from about halfway, like the Scythians, would be the best model for them.Despite their spiritual leaders being described as shamans, the ancient Nidalese are described as worshiping both Gozreh and Desna.  I’m kind of curious how the otherworldly/altered-state-of-consciousness/animist religion usually intended by the word “shaman” interacts with the more theistic notions of these two gods.  Certainly, I have friends whose theologies bridge these two worlds, who will do things like going on trance journeys to the grand fields of night to talk to the butterflies there, but I’m curious how the Old Nidalese used to reconcile them.I wonder how the Nidalese who have encountered the Bonuwat think of Shimye-Magalla, the janni-like syncretism of Desna and Gozreh they worship…  It’d be a cute character, perhaps: the half-Bonuwat half-Nidalese cleric, or oracle, or “shaman”.I also find myself wondering about preservation of this older religion into Nidal’s more modern spirituality.  Do they have “shamans” who follow velstracs using traditional methods of altered states of consciousness and otherworldly travel?  Do they use the more institutional, worship-based Kuthite ritual forms to approach the nature and dream spirits of old?  I think one thing that would have made me beyond happy would be to see velstracs or demagogues who had started out as such spirits and then had heard the word of the Nine Truths, forsaking their old realms and ways for the Shadow Plane and the ways of pain.  There’s (of course) real-world precedent for such things; some of the stories of the djinn involve converting them to Islam.Anyway, the Old Nidalese preferred to live on the hoof and were well-known as master horse-breeders (shades of Mercedes Lackey ~ I’ve thought about exporting Nidal into a patchwork setting before; maybe Aldea from Blue Rose would share a border and an ethnicity with it?).That whole life-way ended with Earthfall in –5293 AR, as dust dimmed the sun.  The book makes a point of saying that humans could survive such a disaster, but their beloved horses could not and that the Nidalese sold themselves to the newly-returned Midnight Lord in service to their love and devotion for their equine familymembers. So the previous statement about their maintaining libraries of knowledge from before Earthfall (twice as long before the present day of Golarion as the development of writing is from us) seems almost false.  “Almost” because we are told that straggling survivors of Azlant and Thassilon crowded around the Old Nidalese for safety.  These would have carried with them the ancient knowledge that Nidal now keeps preserved alongside the few scrolls and painted hides that represent their own knowledge of old.The “Last Civilization in Avistan” turned inward and insular and isolationist, pursuing ends described as “increasingly inscrutable and arcane”.  No doubt that they were busy!  Completely overhauling their entire spiritual practice, collating and collecting and making use of the random bits of knowledge just discussed, settling into cities and permanent settlements, and exploring the enlightenments that pain brings ~ there was a lot on their docket.But the account skips nearly 9600 years of history to the expansionist Chelish attack of 4305 AR (414 years ago, equivalent to about 188 years ago to the culture as a whole and just 60 years ago to the elfs), unprevented by Nidal’s fearsome reputation.  It was part of a larger effort that involved also invading Molthune and Varisia.  The war between the two lasted 30 years (equivalent to about 14 years to mixed culture, or 4 years to the elfs), until the Black Triune ordered the Nidalese soldiers to stop fighting.The period known as the Shadowbreak began with the formal acceptance of Chelish conquest in 4338 AR (381 years ago, equivalent to about 173 years ago to the culture as a whole and just 54 years ago to the elfs).  This was a time when the Kuthite faith blunted its sharpest cruelties, Nidalese sages began to participate in the overall Avistani academic conversations, and the House of Lies opened its doors to all of the world’s braggarts.  More on that institution later!</blockquote>

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