Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tristissima" data-source="post: 8004011" data-attributes="member: 6162">The Atteran Ranches are an area of Nidal that has gotten a bit more attention than a lot of the shadow-hugged nation’s other regions.  For one thing, it is set up to very easily produce the sort of good-vs.-evil conflict that appeals to a certain type of gamer, or the freedom-vs.-oppression that does the same for a different type.  For another, its heady mix of cowboys, rural horror, paranoia under totalitarianism, religion, whimsy-vs.-suffering, and familial drama gives it a simply enchanting flavor.  Should I ever get the urge to play a game inspired by Mercedes Lackey or any number of CW shows, the Atteran Ranches are where I would do it.The Ranches still practice many of the ancient ways of the Nidalese Kellids before Earthfall, modifying the ten-millenia-old practices to a more settled life between the Uskwood and Barrowmoor.  And not just the horse-tending ways, either.  We are specifically told that they continue to fight with archaic spear-using styles and practice antique funerary rites.  With my immersionist tendencies, I quite appreciate that we are given the names and descriptions of not one but two breeds of horses the people of the Ranches have been husbanding and tending for all these centuries.  Nidarrmars have dark hides and a reputation as fast, silent horses calm in the face of danger and easily trained, whereas the dappled grey chiardmars are quick and wild like moon shadows on the grass.Much to the edification of the urban gossips of Nidal, the Atteran Ranches do indeed harbor Desnan dissidents.  Both the family which has given its name to the Ranches as a whole since time immemorial and the Blackraven family have heirs who follow the ways of the Starsong.  I really like their names: Daiye and Odarac.  Daiye matches the emotional feel of Nidalese culture nicely, and Odarac really feels like a Frankish name of the sort that makes sense for the Kellid ur-culture of Nidal.Daiye’s father Vaide (another good name!) is trying to cover for them by loudly and clumsily searching for non-existent Desnan agitators elsewhere.  Hired Kuthite fanatics who call themselves “dream hunters” have come into the Ranches on his dime.  The various clans of the region easily mislead these outsiders, taking advantage of their ignorance of the social landscape and ways.But everyone knows that this is a situation that cannot hold.  Sooner or later, the secret will out and on that day, fates will be settled.I’ven’t looked at 2nd edition yet, but I believe I’ve picked up that the timeline advanced by ten years, is that so?  Does anyone know if they’ve said anything yet about the situation of the Atteran Ranches, then?We are pointed to other entries in this book to help flesh out the Ranches:  Barrowmoor, Ravenscry, the Uthori Steppes, and Whitemound.  It seems that a different book, Tombs of Golarion, also has some relevant information, in this case about the Cairn of Attai Horse-Speaker.  I appreciate the linguistics there, as Attai could very conceivably be etymologically related to Atteran.  These locations feel like a mix of British naming practices (the compound names) and Mongolian linguistics.  Mongolian seems like a good mix there, in terms of the ur-culture.  It helps keep Kellid from being too reductively Celtic/Scythian wile still having a strong resonance with the idea of a culture of horse-nomads.Speaking of British-style names, Auginford is a small farming town with a problem.  I have always appreciated how Paizo has leveraged its OGL and SRD to be unashamed of including characters mixing and matching and including information from their supplements, helping those bits of crunch actually feel integrated.  The aristocratic sheriff Joeen Malsten is a hunter (from the Advanced Class guide), and has been talking with other nearby rulers to try t figure out whether Pangolais should be involved.A very sort of Lovecraftian structure was revealed outside of Auginford by a rainstorm last year, all green flecks in black stone and patterns that seem to wriggle when you look at them.  Its appearance presaged an outbreak of creepy, quiet sounds haunting people’s houses at night.  The town’s chickens have been laying leathery-shelled blue eggs filled not with yolks orchicks but stinking slime and the wombs of the livestock have produced strangely-shaped, long-dead offspring.Barrowmoor (mentioned, of course, in the description of the Atteran Ranches) has a quick description as a collection of charcoal cairns and tombs decorated with flint and braided horsehair.  It has a very gothic feel to it, cold winds and a bleak feeling to the description of the land.  I think of Scotland for some reason,or maybe i’m mistaking Robert E. Howard for Scotland in my head.The use of the term “sheriff” in the description of Auginford might give us a little more information about the governmental structure of Nidal.  It comes from the term “shire reeve”, a shire being either a district in general or basically equivalent to a county.  Pre-feudally speaking, a shire was originally under the rule of an earl, and consisted of a group mof what were called hundreds (each ruled by a constable).  A hundred was 10 tithings, and each tithing was a hide,mdefined as an area containing enough arable land to support a single household.  I just learned the term for the office, term, or jurisdiction of a sheriff cuz I looked it up, and I just love the word: “shrievalty”.  It makes me giggle.Reeves were responsible historically for keeping the peace on behalf of the king in England and Wales, whereas in Scotland they were (and are) judges.  As feudalism centered the idea of the manor, they also assisted the bailiffs (court functionaries), serving as the overseers of the peasants and the work they were feudally bound to perform for the lord of the manor.  He also was in charge of selling the produce produced, collecting monies, and paying accounts.Perhaps intriguingly, they were often peasants chosen once a year, sometimes by appointment from the lord but just as often elected by the peasants themselves.  Occasionally, that election was protected from the lord’s veto, even!What does this tell us about the Nidalese system, described by one commentator on this Let’s Read over at the Paizo forums as an all-encompassing church-state bureaucracy with no feudal admixture perhaps analogous to 1st-century Egypt or mid-20th-century Russia?  (and I’ll add as a reminder that it seems to function by means of a military-academic complex.)  I’m not overly sure.  I like the idea of the shire-reeve being elected by the peasants, and imagining the small-story possibilities of the Umbral Court working to influence an election to get someone who suits their plans better than the alternatives into office.  What U.S. citizen doesn’t like a good story of election tampering?</blockquote>

Verification