Ooo! Ooo! The Thought should have some unusual day like Leap Year or a day that does not actually exist on any calendar. A day after then end of one month, but before the first day of the following month.
This is why I have not written a novel yet or created my own campaign setting. I get bogged down in details and never finish the framework.
Ooo! Ooo! The Thought should have some unusual day like Leap Year or a day that does not actually exist on any calendar. A day after then end of one month, but before the first day of the following month.
This is why I have not written a novel yet or created my own campaign setting. I get bogged down in details and never finish the framework.
That's both of us. :) I'm a bit anal about trying to make everything fit together, but not consistent enough to build all the foundations before going on to the pillars and engraved friezes and the like. The real hell of it is that the little details are often so much more evocative than the framework to me too.
I am thinking that there's at least one intercalary day, maybe a full week. It's not a part of any month, as you suggested, and may come irregularly on some kind of procession through the year. So it would come after month 1 one year, then after month 2 the next, or maybe hopping in two month intervals. Possibly quarterly. It's a bit of a complicated bit of flavor, but allows for there to be different superstitions and myths about each configuration: "When it comes after the first month or the third, it's a very good time. But after the sixth or ninth, these are dark days."
Hacking away a bit more at this, just in very rough notes. The calendar is close enough to ours that we need not bend our brains too much to imagine what a year, a month, a week, or a day would mean to a Churchlander.
Days are in the same 24 hour cycle we have, but the Churchlands counts days from dawn to dawn. The night is a part of the day that preceded it, not split between that day and the next. Hours are rarely numbered (and when numbered, it's always "an hour after noon" or "two hours after dawn" not "1:00 PM") and time is determined by estimate from the sun's position.
Months are lunar, going from new moon to new moon. The lunar cycle does not match perfectly to solar days, just like ours, and so some months are 29 days, others 30. I think that the 30 day months are concentrated in the winter. There's still enough slip that every third or fourth year gets an extra month on a cycle that coincides with the arrival of a burning red comet in the sky, always coming in the fall of the year. The comet is always visible for the duration of the extra month and no longer or shorter.
The solar year doesn't match up perfectly with the length of the solar day either, just like our own. There's a leap day every four years, on a different cycle than the extra month is on. Unlike the extra month, it always comes at the end of the same month.
There are special observations of the solstices and equinoxes, and the midpoints in between too most likely. One set of these are high holidays of considerable import and the other are more minor. These dates are relatively fixed but observance varies with local realities. They're not going to stop the harvest or planting because a date on the calendar came up, nor delay it if the weather is right because the day hasn't arrived yet.
Do you have a map of your world?
Do you have a map of your world?
No; I'm worse at drawing than I am at civility. It's all vague shapes in my head that I can never get down into something I think is close enough to what I'm imagining.
This is about the best I've got:
The world is roughly the same size and axial tilt and all that as Earth. The Churchlands are an isolated subcontinent about the size of central and eastern Europe, at a similar but slightly lower latitude. They project out from the northwestern extremity of another continent, the whole of which is tilted at about a thirty degree angle, southeastern corner down. Immediately adjacent to the southeastern corner are a series of small islands, where the Republic has its plantations. There are around a half dozen of significant size with numerous smaller patches of rock.
A week or two south and east of the Churchlands by a halfling ship are the Isles of Sorcery, a tremendous archipelago on the scale of Indonesia and the Philippines smashed together and angled similarly to the Churchlands. At the extreme far southeastern end of the Isles they draw near to an extension of the same continental mass of which the Churchlands is a part, where something of a loosely East Asian analog exists in haughty secrecy and isolation. It's a civilized, centralized, highly-managed empire that controls a huge chunk of territory and has remained relatively stable for centuries, ruled over by kobolds. Their management of the empire is probably connected to some kind of massive work of geomancy which they believe rightly orders the world to their specifications, a little bit like they had back in the golden age in Exalted, right down to engineered weather patterns and the like. The climatic disruptions entailed in the artificial weather systems (extreme storms, earthquakes on occasion, etc) are magically outsourced to areas beyond the borders.
There's also some kind of semi-frozen landmass to the northeast of the Churchlands and I've debated whether or not they've had any contact. Originally it was going to be a very large island, quite mountainous, and inhabited by dwarves slowly losing a centuries-old war against some kind of fey ice kingdom but I don't know if I like that or not. Pretty sure I like the kingdom of ice angle, but the dwarves stick out as not quite right. They'd be doing what dwarves always do in fantasy settings, and be at war with at least a vaguely elf-like enemy, in decline, etc. Seems a bit too on the nose.
Beyond those landmasses, I really don't know.
You might be able to carve something out with HexMapper
Using large hexes, it does not have to have a perfect coastline.
You might be able to carve something out with HexMapper
Using large hexes, it does not have to have a perfect coastline.
I'm nearly as bad at using mapping programs as I am at drawing freehand, but I'll give it a look.
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Oh, I could try my hand at mapping I guess - :D
Time to get around to one of those ground-up posts I was planning to do. There are of course variances from culture to culture and place to place, but the pattern is largely the same.
A Typical Churchlands Village
A village, to a Churchlander, is not a collection of buildings. Rather it is a parcel of land marked off by natural and legal boundaries that includes both the homes of the residents and the fields they share. Knowing the bounds of the village is very important and on certain days of the year the children are taken out to the bounds and taught their path. This often includes things like tossing them into the river or knocking them against old trees, with varying degrees of playfulness and raw force.
The village, which typically includes three fields, some forestland, a stream or other source of water, meadows, and often some parcels of wasteland unsuited for cultivation, is to a large degree the peasant's world. A peasant certainly has ideas of what neighboring villages are like and any of age would know the location of the nearest market town, but those places are outside to the village's inside. When he leaves the village's bounds, he is going abroad.
The fields themselves are divided into individual strips of land to which given peasants hold tenure. The strips are long and generally oriented around single furrows due tot he difficulty of turning the plow. The furrows are given by lot and spread widely to ensure no one gets all of the best or worst land. In exchange for rights to these furrows, the peasants owe many services and fees to their lord. The chief of these is work. A peasant owes work to his lord on the lord's own lands both in specific amounts per week and at particular times of year. A peasant is to use the lord's mill, for which he pays a fee, to use the lord's forge, for which there is another fee, and so forth. In exchange the lord provides protection from monsters and brigandage, courts, justice, and is expected to provide support in the form of food to the peasants when they work his land and other various grants throughout the year.
Though it may seem the lord has all the power in this situation, the peasants have the right to the lord's court. Convened twice yearly, they can bring suit against one another or the lord himself. Cases are decided by a jury of the peasants and thus cannot be expected to always go the lord's way. The supreme authority is not the lord's write, however much he might wish it, but rather the ancient customs of the village.
What we would call the village, the buildings where the farmers and their families live, does not much resemble the typical RPG village. (Which is actually much closer to how people lived in America in the 1800s.) Houses do not necessarily face the streets, which are just worn dirt tracks for the most part. Nor do they orient to one another in any kind of unified plan. Rather each is built how the owner felt like as best can be managed. Facing the street may be an embankment or a wall, and many buildings sit at odd angles. Walls are timber-framed, resting on foundation poles, and filled in with wattle and daub. The house is theoretically weatherproof, but the wind will always find tiny gaps in the wall and the bottoms of walls themselves rot away in foundation trenches and post holes. Burglars can, and do, literally break into the house. The roof is almost universally thatched, with shingled and slate roofs being signs of substantial wealth even in cities. The thatch is highly flammable and host to all manner of insects, spiders, birds, and rot. Most houses must be razed and rebuilt roughly every generation.
Houses may be large, running to forty or fifty feet long and ten or fifteen feet wide, but others are tiny cottages twenty feet long and ten wide. The size, as in our own world, is a marker of status. Most have a yard and garden, the smaller toft facing the street and enclosed by fence or ditch to keep animals within. In the winter, or for lack of space, animals may be kept within the house itself. The croft at the house's other side is a private garden worked by spade rather than animal power.
The village hosts numerous communal facilities and buildings. Mills, forges, ovens, and the like are generally the lord's property, their use being compulsory and carrying with it a fee. Failing to use them and instead doing their work on one's own would result in a fine assessed at the manor court. Wells are generally communal and rarely have a fee attached.
The village lacks anything in the way of facilities for travelers. Outsiders are somewhat suspect and will generally be asked to camp upon a fallow field or in wasteland unless they are known to someone within the village who may offer them a roof. Pilgrims and the indigent may prevail upon the rector, who may permit them in his rectory or even to sleep in the church. But taking in outsiders gives one legal responsibility for their deeds and making restitution for poorly behaved outsiders who departed at dawn is a risk few would take easily.
Brewing is tremendously popular in most villages, being done in the home and generally by women who must have their product sampled by appointed ale tasters or pay a fine. Taverns, however, are as rare as inns. Instead friends are invited into one's home to sample the latest brew and enjoy one another's company.
Most villages have a manor house, sometimes more than one if the village is shared between different manors. The manor house is theoretically the residence of the lord, but most nobles of any significance have multiple widely scattered holdings and rule as absentees. Processions among prominent holdings are frequent, sometimes yearly or twice yearly, but less prosperous holdings might never see their lord at all. The manor house is stone, with a slate roof. It and its associated grainaries, sheepfold (peasant sheep must use the lord's fold n the winter, allowing him to collect their valuable manure), a dairy, barns (for storing tithes paid in kind, usually in grain, and likely the only place in the village with a proper lock), a pound for stray animals (a fee being paid for their return), stables, and dovecotes. The manor precinct is enclosed by a wall and its personnel enjoy the convenience of the village's lone privy. (Everybody else ventures a bit away from the house or from others and makes do, perhaps using a latrine trench if one is nearby.) An orchard might be included as well. A chapel is typical, but it may only be in use when the lord is in residence.
The manor house is a functional building even in the lord's absence. The twice yearly court is held here, though the summer court often meets instead in a suitable open place hallowed by tradition. (Many such places are in the shade of old and large trees or standing stones.) The chief use of this court from the lord's perspective is to collect the numerous fees and fines levied on the peasants by law and custom. The court is also a legislative body, with the whole of the village meeting and setting its bylaws and procedures governing woods, field, meadow, and pasture. It sends men to graze, organizes work in concert among the villagers, and so forth as necessary to manage the village's agricultural collective. Most courts take place in a day, but rarely a second day is required. They are presided over by the lord, rarely, or his appointed reeve, steward, or seneschal. His function is to give the authority of the lord to the judgment of the jury. The concurrence of the assembled villagers is generally assumed, but may be called on explicitly.
The other stone building in the village is of course the church. Having a church is a distinguishing trait of a village. Its absence renders the place no more than a hamlet. The church is not always owned by the Great Church, but rather by whoever paid for the land and had it built. The proprietor is thus also receives its fees and fines, appoints the priest, has the priest ordained, and once paid the priest's salary. Over time the institution has changed, becoming instead a “living” that is given to the rector which he makes through his collection of the church's fines, often with a percentage going back to the proprietor still from these. (The chief fines being regular taxes on each plow, mortuary gifts, and a head tax on all free men. Generally these are not particularly large sums and are paid in kind.) Aside these fines, a church traditionally comes with a glebe. This parcel of land is held by the rector free of obligations for his own profit. The glebe is supposed to be twice the parcel of a typical free man, but in practice varies widely. Many rectors rent it out to a layman. Attached to the church is a rectory or parsonage for the use of the rector or his deputy. It usually stands in quality and size somewhere between a decent peasant home and the manor house.
The rector is always an ordained clergyman, but like the lord he may live elsewhere and appoint instead a vicar and pocket the difference between the vicar's stipend and the revenues collected. Those rectors who serve in person are most often locals, sons of freemen and artisans, but sometimes serfs who paid a fine to get license for education and ordination. An absentee rector may hold several livings simultaneously and profit considerably from them, an arrangement that tends to keep surplus children from causing noble heirs too much trouble.
The parish priest gets his education mostly from another parish priest to whom he applies, wherein he would learn the rites in Old Low Cyrry by rote. The fortunate few, generally from wealthy families and the nobility, would instead go to monastic or cathedral schools, or university. But those so well-trained are rarely to be found in simple parishes. Instead they have better prospects as teachers and ministering to the aristocracy.
The typical church is small, being a single large room into which villagers come to stand, lean upon walls, or sit on the floor during services. They are expected to stand unless infirm or children, but most priests only harangue those who are especially conspicuous. Weekly religious duties are compulsory and failure to appear or to be excused on account of illness warrants a fine, excepting where there is no regular priest. In that case the church, if it exists, often sits idle between visits. The altar is by tradition fashioned of stone and near to it are kept the various ritual implements. For most peasant churches, a painted icon or simple symbol suffices for each of the gods and these adorn the walls around the altar. More prosperous churches may have statues of each god and naturally have more ornamentation and ostentation.
...and I think that hits the high points. :)
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In a nutshell,
1. Forced leave for 2 days from work (bosses on holidays).
2. Went to temple: Fortune forecast for the year, bad for me. Went through blessing ceremony, got some paper charms.
3. For into a car accident 10 hours after the ceremony. Major work being done on car, will costs lotsa money.
4. Yesterday: boyfriend is told he is being transferred out of country, to leave in 2 weeks. Indefinitely period, estimated 3 months.
5. No word from any of my job apps for a over a month. Still stuck with current job which is taxing me terribly.
On the bright side, working out all the frustration at the gym, means that I'm getting fantastic results for getting a leaner, trimmed body. Progress pics available upon request. :p
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Some more stuff about the whys and wherefores of the cosmology.
First off it bears repeating that Churchlanders rarely ever go on planar voyages. On the rare occasions someone is brought back from the dead, they do not retain memories of their time in the afterlife. Actually going to visit what one considers to be one's afterlife is pretty hubristic and blasphemous to the Great Church. Why would you? So you can know you're denied paradise, either now or permanently? To visit the site of your future eternal torment? To know paradise and have to come back to the world? They have a concept of ascending into Heaven which could be taken as a kind of one-way plane shift, but it's only for major saints and Supreme Patriarchs.
So empirical research into other planes doesn't exist, as far as they're concerned. Anything, orthodox or heretical, from the prior post should be read as in-world text and not necessarily consistent with how the cosmology would be depicted in an objective bit of setting writing.
The Great Church teaches that there is this world, which is alone and unique. The sky reaches upward unimaginably far until finally one reaches a sphere, the walls of the world. The sun and moon are independent bodies that move around within the sphere. The stars are lights somehow attached to or part of it. Beyond the sphere are Heaven and Hell, each separated infinitely from the other. Heaven is metaphorically and in a vague spatial sense above, Hell below.
Heaven is a single place, more like Olympus than the typical D&D Upper Planes. It's usually depicted as a great golden city full of wonders, not the least of which is that it's perfectly clean, where the gods themselves live in magnificent temple palaces. Each god has a separate court full of specific attendants that vary from the other gods and serve them most directly, but the gods collectively are served by the hosts of angels. The souls of the righteous live on in perfect, absolute bliss.
Angels, in my usage, would cover your typical dudes with wings but not much else. (So yes to your average solar, seraphim, etc, but something like a hound archon is right out.) Weird semitic wheels of fire with eyes, D&D celestials with significant animal features (aside the wings), and the like are not angels bur rather fall into different categories.
Hell and the Nether Planes are usually considered the same and referred to interchangeably. The Great Church is aware of differences between demons and devils, but only on a fairly abstract level. Both are classes of fallen angel, different only in their goals and society. Hell is a rigid, ordered dictatorship built in mockery and spite of Heaven's perfect orders. The object of the Nameless One and his legions is to seize the world and Heaven and set him up in the place of the gods. The object of demons, rather, is to corrupt and destroy everything because that's just how they are. The live for annihilation.
More careful scholars will separate Hell, the abode of the Nameless One and his devils, from what they variously call the Neverending Pit, the Bottomless Abyss, the Endless Depths, etc. The main thing is that it's a kind of hole that goes on forever. Telling demons and evils apart on sight is a task for trained inquisitors and mystics, not something an ordinary person or ordinary priest would be expected to do. If it's otherworldly and doesn't appear angelic then it's interchangeably a demon or devil to be exorcised. When pressed, even most inquisitors and scholars are going to classify things that appear more bestial as demons and things more humanoid as devils.
The Neverending Pit is as disunited as Hell is united, its potentates not serving a single will but rather warring endlessly amongst themselves. While the Great Church takes it as granted that any of the Hellish nobility would want to take the Nameless One's place, there would still be a single fiend on top. The Pit instead is, worryingly, more like human society where rather than following their oaths and serving rightful lieges, oaths are merely words that might be broken at any moment an advantage is to be had in doing so. To a degree, Hell is faithful. The Pit is faithless. To be King of Hell is to rule and reign. To be Demon Prince is to be one among many.
The world, Heaven, and Hell (and the Pit) are everything. That's the universe to the Great Church, excepting that it's not. The Great Church reluctantly acknowledges numerous other “places” which are a part of neither but still no place for the faithful. These are collectively strange limbos and worlds from the hell-tainted, diseased minds of wizardry. Details on these are scant. Religious texts will have single, enigmatic references. Frequently a text will begin to refer to one and then the narrative simply ends or moves on to another topic as though cut off abruptly. These references are more common in older texts, many of which were written to denounce claims about such places but maintain the same abrupt abandonment of the topic as in mystic texts.
Of the limbos, the one most discussed is Faerie. Faerie is, naturally, the home of the fey. Wild, inhuman, beautiful, wanton creatures, the fey are:
1)Half-fallen, in that they took no side in the war in Heaven and thus fell for disobedience but not quite treason.
2)Half-fallen, in that they rebelled, were traitors, but threw themselves on the mercy of the gods.
3)Half-fallen, in that they rebelled, were traitors, but just were not as evil as the Nameless One's hosts.
4)Thrice-fallen, in that they rebelled against heaven, then rebelled against the Nameless One, then fled in terror from the Pit and carved a place between it and Hell, or somehow embedded themselves in the world.
5)Never-fallen, independent creatures associated with paganism and wizardry, perhaps created by wizards.
6)All, none, or some combination of the above. :)
What is known of Faerie is that it was once of immense concern. Ancient, much decayed chronicles of the time before the arcane purges and the end of the elves, told of Faerie as a place to be found in deep forests, high mountains, in storms, in the night, at crossroads, and so forth. Its folk are sometimes the same as elves, sometimes entirely different from elves, and sometimes a sort of High or Elder elf. One of their nobles, perhaps a king, was titled Elf-King. Other accounts lack the Elf-King, but speak of a king Oberon and queen Titania. Others say that Faerie is two courts, seelie and unseelie, summer and winter, or spring and autumn. In this case there are no kings but queens, sometimes three who are often somehow one and these courts battle one another eternally. Some accounts accept the two-court division but include a third branch of unaffiliated fey.
Regardless of their origins, accounts agree that the fey are hostile to the Great Church and capricious in the extreme. It is in their nature to forever keep their word, but the word they give is not the word a person might hear. Their ways and minds are unlike those of humans. A faerie who takes a liking, in their way, to a mortal may break his legs or twist him into a rock so he is forever with them. The same faerie might kill a favored mortal so the memory is never sullied by faults that might reveal themselves in time. Time itself flows differently in Faerie and among the fey, with years passing in moments or moments stretching into decades. The fey will keep a bargain made with them, but only to the letter and their own way. Iron is the great bane of Faerie and in its place they will use wood, thorns, ice, even leaves made strong by strange arts. When slain the fey rarely leave bodies but instead patches of dead grass, or a poisonous toadstool, a sapling, or some other strange seeming that fades with time.
Other limbos are more obscure:
The World of Mirrors joins every mirror, or even every reflective surface. Through it reflections become roads that can be walked by those who know the secret ways. But things live within the World of Mirrors, and look out from your reflection into you. Soul stealers, they can take your body and ride it if one gazes into their land for too long.
Dream, or the Region of Dreams, is a place of endless possibility, its doors opening into sleeping minds. While most dreams are small bubbles on its surface and safe, those who dream too deeply may cast their souls into Dream itself where they can die and to die in Dream is to die in the waking world. Those who dream the same dream have touched on Dream together, or come to the same place within it. Those who undergo the experience and survive have disjointed accounts of how Dream is like yet unlike our world, full of things that have long been but absent new or transient things. All report it empty of people, save for themselves and those who came with them, but many also claim that it hosts nightmares and to enter it is to know from the moment one comes within that one is watched by infinite, unseen eyes.
Beyond which may be at the heart of Dream or the World of Mirrors, or both, or neither, is a place of utter madness. Beyond sleep there which should not be roused. Mindless, unimaginable horrors pulse and undulate therein. Beyond is little known, save that once some wizards were much concerned with it and several vanished in their studies but, if the accounts are to be believed, found their way not to Hell in the end as they should have. The Great Church considers mere interest in Beyond a sign of heresy and active concern with it to be evidence of wizardry.
And many places known only by their names:
The City Forever
Horizon
The Blasted Lands
The Green Wild
Shadow (or possibly the Shadowlands)
The Realm of Clouds
The Houses of the Night
and more.
Ok, so I got more world-oriented there than I planned. But I wanted to talk a little bit about why I made room for both Satan and Graz'zt & Company.
The first part should be obvious. It would be difficult to draw inspiration from medieval Europe and its religion and then not also include something analogous to that religion's big bad. Furthermore there's a strong aesthetic attraction to Satan figures on my part, and I think for gaming in general. It comes both from being an inheritor of western culture and all its trope passively and also on my part from a certain sympathy with Milton's Satan. I've never had a hard enough bottom to really take on Paradise Lost, but I'm aware enough of its themes to find the character fascinating. Likewise the idea of a fallen angel is evocative, and the paradoxes it implies are a feature I wanted to include in the Great Church's mythology. It's kind of deliberate discontinuity, which you can paper over but also points to things not being quite so neat and tidy as the Inquisition wants everyone to think.
But Satan is a limiting figure too. A single source for all evil, or all supernatural evil, seems awfully sterile to me. When that source is hierarchical and organized, it also implies that everything should ultimately derive from the desk of the CEO of Evil. That makes Satan the big bad, ex officio, of anything involving otherworldly evil. While there's certainly room for that, it can be limiting. Even an absurdly high level campaign would be asking a lot to kill a god, let alone the one and only god of evil. (Or maybe not, but you get the idea.) Hence I decided to keep elements of D&D's distinction between demons and devils so I could have that unified Satanic conspiracy/plot/government/thingie around but also have a more diverse palette of good foes for games.
The distinction I used recalls the law-chaos axis, but I don't mean to read too much into it. Demons are entropic; they're annihilationists. But in a way they're also crazy and suicidal, if often on an abstract level. They can be just blind berserkers, but also sophisticated plotters in their own way and they need not have a single agenda to which all is bent. Some of them want to reign in Heaven as much as the Nameless One does, though they may have radically different ideas as to what that entails.
This also gives me some room for more religious diversity. The infernal hierarchy could be a kind of anti-pantheon. Maybe each member is even in a way a dark parallel of one of the gods of the Great Church. Maybe, ultimately, they aren't separate beings at all but somehow tied up in an ineffable unity that the Great Church denies. (That's a good idea for a new heresy. Must remember it.)
But the infernal hierarchy is fairly clean. It's finite and coherent. In theory one could just add new guys at will but I don't think it should swing that way. It need not be totally ossified, but it's far from protean. The demonic aristocracy, by contrast, is ever-shifting. There could be a wide panoply of powers at different levels of influence and personal might that shift constantly in minute or profound ways. They don't all work together. The Ancient Whatever is sort of parallel to the Nameless One, but fundamentally unlike him. Its position isn't even first among equals. It might not even be the most powerful.
Also I just really like the wild diversity of both gaming lore on the lower planes and their big guys and the real world inspirations for it. It serves a game purpose to keep things diverse, but it's also about the coolness in D&D's version of guys like Dagon or Paizo's demon lords. Thinking up dualities and spines on their areas of concern that could make them into “good” gods in the eyes of worshippers is a part of the fun.
My faeries draw from the Dresden Files, and by proxy wherever he got the ideas from, a smattering of folklore, and some 2e Planescape monster books. I always liked those, even though I never really played Planescape. It seems to me, in retrospect, that a lot of the non-LG celestials were a better fit as kinds of faeries than as sort of co-angels with the LG club. There's some overlap in tropes between them and elves too, so I opted to run with that. A faerie to me could be something like a pre-4e Eladrin (generally elfish) or guardinal (more animal-people). Or both. They don't necessarily, or even frequently, mean well. Faeries are probably one of the original eldritch abominations in Western folklore, long before Lovecraft gave us incomprehensible seafood that drives you nuts. I, of course, wanted to have both available. Faeries are meant to be alien, but something you could in principle interact and bargain with (a little like devils or demons) while still being strange and passionate and beautiful and terrible and awesome.
And since I like my cosmologies big and weird, I stole a bunch of ideas from everywhere and smashed them all together without regard for coherence. My cosmology isn't meant to be the Great Wheel. There are in-world schematics of what's where and how things connect, but they're all bound up in particular worldviews that might or might not be accurate...and which may or may not actually work if one ever went to visit. Everybody's right, nobody's right, and all at the same time. :)
Back down to earth now.
Envisioning the Matriarchy
For a while the last or second to last human culture in the Churchlands has been bugging me. I’ve known that I want it to be matriarchal but not a lot else. It would be easy to make them into a sort of closer to earth, saintly group. The amount of patriarchy in the Churchlands is pretty unpleasant, so the natural reaction is to swing the other way and make the female-dominant culture objectively better.
But that’s cheating. People are people, regardless of the arrangement of their genitals. I don’t want to make a collection of clear good guys and bad guys based on modern politics, but rather establish some kind of diversity. To date I have one rather extremely patriarchal culture: the Cyrry. They’re about as bad as actual medieval Europe. I have one culture that’s somewhat patriarchal but to an undeveloped and I think somewhat lesser extent: the Kative. The Todarese are meant to be fairly egalitarian, though they have plenty of other issues to keep them from being squeaky clean.
If I want to encode a sort of preference for sexual egalitarianism (encoded in the sense that I’m encoding a preference for ambiguity as well) in human cultures, it doesn’t make sense to do it with the matriarchal culture. They are, after all, largely doing the same stuff as the patriarchal people. Only the polarities are flipped. So female gender dominance should not come off as better than male dominance, rather they are different expressions of the same kind of thing.
I’m not quite decided on which way to go, but I’ve been knocking around a few ideas for the role of men in the culture:
Men are manly, manly, manly men. The women prefer them to be big and strong, which makes them useful warriors and the like, but also rather stupid and thus easy to manipulate. Social control comes from a combination of legal superiority and soft power. The stereotypical woman would be a master manipulator of her husband, directing his energies while keeping him content and out of power.
That might sound like a stretch, but dysfunctional relationships are dysfunctional. People learn helplessness, especially if taught from an early age. Men in the culture could get the same kinds of messages in their upbringing that women have gotten and continue to get around the world.
Alternatively, men are precious flowers. They’re too sweet and gentle to be spoiled with things like power politics. In effect, I’m flipping the gender roles of the old courtly love themes where women were so precious, to the point of helplessness, they required male protectors to watch over them at all times. To be a man would be in a kind of perpetual childhood, doted on but never taken too seriously by the womenfolk who are instead the hearty Amazonian war leaders.
The ideal man here would be a sort of childlike piece of jewelry. She keeps him as a kind of adornment. There may be genuine affection, but she’s definitely in charge and he’s supposed to be happy being her helpmeet.
I’m not sure which of the two I prefer. The first is closer to many evil woman stereotypes in folklore, with the feminine wiles preying on helpless men. The second partakes of a different set of stereotypes, where men are feminized and women, to some degree, masculized. Both, in a way, fit with the archetypes of Lady Macbeth’s plea to be unsexed, which is interesting to me in its own right.
Perhaps the two can be reconciled into a kind of Conan in ribbons sort of scenario. Anyway, feedback is always welcome.
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Real quick. I'm certain I have more coherent, robust thoughts on these but having a horror of a time at work past few weeks and other such things.
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On societal leans for gender dominance.
Perhaps on the outset of things, where other cultures will see the women as amazonian dominance and men as previous wall flowers is simply what it is ... an outsiders look inside based on their own dominant cultural leaning.
Precious mean, could be because there are so few males born. Or that for their people, the males are generally born with defect and relegated to subservience (or impotence) but a few men grow both 'perfect' and virile. Protected and sacred.
OR in some scenes, where men dominate the armies but women hold power over the economics, trade and land ownership. Women marry for accumulation of land and power, men mate for male progeny and increase the masses for military purview. Simple, but also complex without a gender power struggle.
You can only imagine how a dominant patriachal culture will see the trade/landholding women of another culture will be derided.
end quick note
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Real quick. I'm certain I have more coherent, robust thoughts on these but having a horror of a time at work past few weeks and other such things.
I hope things improve for you. The past few years haven't been very kind on my family either.
On societal leans for gender dominance.
Perhaps on the outset of things, where other cultures will see the women as amazonian dominance and men as previous wall flowers is simply what it is ... an outsiders look inside based on their own dominant cultural leaning.
Certainly there's a strong duality if we considered the matriarchal view of itself vs. that of outsiders, who must think them very bizarre. I imagine there are lots of unflattering tales about the low quality of their men to be so dominated by women. The women would of course be seen as brazen slatterns, cruel harridans, and the like. Several years ago I was reading something about an older comedian opining on women in his industry and the man had an astonishing degree of disgust at the mere thought of it. Women, he insisted, were not funny in any circumstances and should not be in comedy. I had no idea where this came from, except possibly some kind of visceral loathing for the female of the species.
The women of the matriarchy would certainly be mad, bad, and dangerous to know. Not that the men of other cultures are such angels. There must be a powerful degree of insecurity involved: "If those women can do all this, they must have some secret that our women do not."
Precious mean, could be because there are so few males born. Or that for their people, the males are generally born with defect and relegated to subservience (or impotence) but a few men grow both 'perfect' and virile. Protected and sacred.
My first inclination was to dismiss this as too fantastic, but that's really not fair. Something might be interfering with the Churchlanders' ability to advance in shipping, aside a lack of cause, piracy, and general superstition. The Kative regularly have deformed devil-tainted babies. (Tieflings and maybe some aasimar in addition to simple deformities and birthmarks.) So why not a sex bias in reproduction?
I'm still wary of it, though. If the proportions slid much from 50/50 over more than a few generations, the ratios would skew too far for continued survival as a distinct culture unless they got a lot of outside blood...and I think signing on to be second fiddle to a bunch of presumed horrible women for the rest of your life is a hard sell for most Churchlander men seeing as they're very accustomed to being no less than equals to women and generally much more.
Demographic collapse is always fair game, but I'd rather these human cultures be relatively stable, or at least stable in comparison to one another. I'm debating if there's been some kind of major plague in the past fifty or so years.
OR in some scenes, where men dominate the armies but women hold power over the economics, trade and land ownership. Women marry for accumulation of land and power, men mate for male progeny and increase the masses for military purview. Simple, but also complex without a gender power struggle.You can only imagine how a dominant patriachal culture will see the trade/landholding women of another culture will be derided.
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That's not a bad idea. I was aware of the custom, but it slipped my mind earlier. It makes a lot of sense as a way for the culture to manage itself. There are still sex roles in society, and they're still tilted the other way from the other Churchlands cultures. I'm not sure it places women in clear enough domination of men, though. Reserving the military to the male sphere in effect maintains them as sort of custodians of the family honor and so forth. It would be awfully easy to drift back into a more typical patriarchy.
Hm. This is a tough nut to crack.
I have not had a chance to read through all the new stuff. Still lurking.
I have not had a chance to read through all the new stuff. Still lurking.
I accept your excuse on the grounds that, theoretically, there are more important things than my game world. :)
Also still lurking--I love this thread :)
The problem with designing a matriarchal society is that there aren't any real-world examples to draw from; I've run into this problem before, myself. Historically, the ancient Celts were one relatively socially advanced society (compared to the rest of ancient Europe, anyways), with women able to hold property, file for divorce, join in warfare, and even occasionally rise to positions of power (like Boudicca and the legendary Queen Medb)--but even so, they were still a hugely male-centered society. Most other cultures, however, placed women in a strictly subservient/inferior role to men. Even in matrilineal cultures such as the ancient Pueblo peoples, they reached a sort of equilibrium or split power (men gained power/respect through certain actions, while women gained it through others) rather than a reversal of power roles.
It's been a while since I've studied this, but my loose theory is that the more conflict and warfare a culture experiences, the greater the masculine emphasis is--men are typically bigger and stronger and so better at melee combat, and thus better able to garner the prestige and respect that comes from success in battle; while the fact that women get pregnant leaves them periodically unable to engage in the kinds of strenuous physical activities (such as warfare) that earn that respect--and the fact that they are periodically home-bound by pregnancy also led to their more frequently taking responsibility for raising the litters of children that ancient peoples usually produced, leaving them less time and energy for engaging in political games. Y'know, if they didn't die early from all that birthing.
Anyway, my point here is that in order to flip the power dominance, I would set up an environment where 1) the birth rate is low, so that women are not left taking care of children all the time and can instead engage in politics and such, and 2) their lifestyle is easy enough that they don't have to engage in combat much (if at all)--so they might be relatively isolated from other cultures so that conflicts over resources don't arise, or perhaps resources are just so incredibly bountiful that they don't have to fight over them.
Of course, there are other possibilities out there, but I feel like they would require some heavy-handed acts of God/Game Designer--like the women are bigger for some reason, or some goddess figure (or powerful female sorceress or organization of scary female sorceresses) artificially enforces the matriarchy (like Lloth, but hopefully without the S&M.)
Anyway, just some ideas. I can't wait to see what you come up with next!
Does each Lord maintain standing men at arms? I see a business opportunity for a mercenary group, but I am not sure how you make such a thing profitable.
I know there was at least one Native American tribe where the women held property because you may not know who your father is…you always know who your mother is. Men went to war, but because property was always at risk during war, the women decided when the men went to war. If you drive the concept deep enough that men can not hold property ever, it might work. The concept could be so ingrained as any other possibility seems crazy. If you let a man own something, who does it go to when he dies? Why take the chance of such chaos. Women own and pass on to their daughters. Men fight and mate.
Still pondering the matriarchy.
Does each Lord maintain standing men at arms? I see a business opportunity for a mercenary group, but I am not sure how you make such a thing profitable.
Yes and no. :)
A typical lord's household would include a number of footmen, many of whom probably double as skilled tradesmen or artisans on retainer. Their concern is the lord's personal security. A lord's household likely includes a band of very loyal, very reliable knights as well. They and their families have probably served the dynasty for generations, but they might also be peasant stock that the lord considered promising and took an interest in. The household guard tends to be small because it goes everywhere with the lord and he pays the bill. In addition, such a loyal group of military men is prime for advancement to roles like seneschal or even ennoblement that take them out to live and travel independently.
Most lords who know they're going into a large or lengthy war will be eager to hire up mercenaries, and probably waive feudal duties in exchange for cash to help make that possible. Mercenaries are almost always infinitely better than peasant levies, the lord doesn't suffer as much if they die and they do war for a living. The downside being they can be less reliable. A peasant with a hoe or a knight who owes service are both defending their livelihoods and likely family and personal friends. A mercenary is in it for himself and maybe for his company. While most will not just switch sides in the midst of battle, they might take pay from the other side to attack slowly, reluctantly, or make convenient tactical errors.
Permanent military emplacements are rare except around contested borders. When the lord isn't in residence, most manors and castles run on a skeleton staff who get to live within as part of their compensation. Of course out in the marches where goblin or giant raids are an issue, castles are kept fully-staffed at considerable expense. The Marches have special taxes levied throughout the Churchlands to help keep up those fortifications, but payment is sporadic and many holdings in the Empire are centuries in arrears. In lieu of cash, convicted criminals might be sent.
It's not at all unusual for lords, secular and sacred, to contract bands of knights-errant (knighted individuals who do not have feudal duties or inheritance and so wander as adventurers) and priests-errant. (Many priests-errant are inquisitors.) Most of these behave roughly as well as D&D adventuring parties do, with all the good and bad that entails. The dividing line between outlaw band and questing knights is very thin. They might be tasked to do typical adventuring party things: clear out a goblin nest, go kidnap the heir to the barony of wherever to prevent a war, poison a well to end a siege, etc.
So I guess the best answer is that mercenary bands are employed regularly, but it's rare for them to serve in the same capacity for years and years on end like a standing military might. It's certainly something wealthy lords have thought of, but mercenaries keeping order in peacetime is the kind of thing that makes peasants and vassals pretty uneasy. The mercenaries know that too, and like any other soldiers of the time they make a lot of their income through pillage and have their "fun". It's rarely to their interest to get too tied to a particular lord since it exposes them to more danger from civil authority (Many mercenaries are outlaws operating under different names. Many more are guilty of all kinds of things they could get the rope for on top of that.) and compromises their job prospects in the future. ("You worked for Lord Whoever for ten long years. I don't know that I trust you to forget your old loyalties.")
Aw crap! Every day I find something that I thought was original was ripped off from somewhere else.
Aw crap! Every day I find something that I thought was original was ripped off from somewhere else.
The map reminds me just a little of the old 2e boxed set City By the Silt Sea where the city was, you guessed it, partially submerged.
Hoping to get a new post out in the next few days. I've been busy and interrupted (or distracted by certain other threads) every time I've sat down to write.
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On militant matters and stuff, I will gently watch from the rafters. I don't know much about them to comment. And I know the nobility, lords and knights errants system isn't too hard to grasp but its like ... I keep trying to convert them to the classic Chinese nobility system and its doesn't translate perfectly so occasionally I hit a snag in translation. So I'll reserve commentary on that :p
I'm doing some side reading on Mysticism and socio-political psuedo-future fiction: and let's say for simplicities sake, there are symbolic items of religious significance.
Uhmmm, Staves, Disks, Swords and Cups.
Keeping Masculine/feminine balance in mind, the male folk would be seen having dominion over wands and swords (military and higher craftmanships) and in equal standing women hold sway over the politics of foreign trade and property (cups and disks).
I like Courtfools reference that if men are likened to war and death, property back home at least stays within the family to inherit. If daughters can hold landing then it would be more secure for the sons as well.
Query:
Would naming conventions reflect in your culture here as well? Such as the Women taking the Male familt name? Would that on a small but significant scale influence the society toward a patriarchal or matriarchal leaning?
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On militant matters and stuff, I will gently watch from the rafters. I don't know much about them to comment. And I know the nobility, lords and knights errants system isn't too hard to grasp but its like ... I keep trying to convert them to the classic Chinese nobility system and its doesn't translate perfectly so occasionally I hit a snag in translation. So I'll reserve commentary on that :p
You're probably not too far off from most American D&D players, myself included, in that. European nobility is, well, a mess. There's no neat table of ranks in the real world to tell you who bows to whom or any of that. Most of what we get from pop culture relates to the United Kingdom's system, which is extremely tidy in comparison to the Continent's. One of the posts I have in mind is meant to be a rundown of how things generally work in the Churchlands, but every title is a bit different and the major cultures each have their own quirks.
I like Courtfools reference that if men are likened to war and death, property back home at least stays within the family to inherit. If daughters can hold landing then it would be more secure for the sons as well.
I'm strongly considering taking that idea and running with it, giving enough mythic gloss to have cultural traction.
Would naming conventions reflect in your culture here as well? Such as the Women taking the Male familt name? Would that on a small but significant scale influence the society toward a patriarchal or matriarchal leaning?
I don't think that Churchlanders have family names in the sense that, for example, Americans do. Most people are known by their given name. When distinctions need to be made, they refer to parents' names, resort to nicknames, refer to professions, etc. Nobility have their titles, which aren't family names but might in some cases be used in the same place. (Duke Whoever could become just Whoever when referred to in the third person.) Especially prominent nobility would have some kind of dynastic name in use too, which might be a founder or their original fief.
spoiler stuff
You're probably not too far off from most American D&D players, myself included, in that. European nobility is, well, a mess. There's no neat table of ranks in the real world to tell you who bows to whom or any of that. Most of what we get from pop culture relates to the United Kingdom's system, which is extremely tidy in comparison to the Continent's. One of the posts I have in mind is meant to be a rundown of how things generally work in the Churchlands, but every title is a bit different and the major cultures each have their own quirks.
I believe that calling it a mess understated the extent of the problem. My research here is really kicking my ass. :)
I set out to write one big summary post, but I think the topic is too complicated for that. Over the weekend I'll see about breaking things down into more manageable sections.
The first part of a complex topic.
The Aristocracy of the Churchlands Part One.
In political theory, as espoused by the Great Church and the nobles alike, humans are divided into three estates which each has an important task to carry out in order for society to function properly.
The first of these estates is the Church, those who pray. Their task is just that and they provide vital guidance to the other two estates on right conduct, warning them away from evil, and giving them the means to battle it. Having already spilled a fair bit of ink on the Church, I’ll set it aside for the moment.
The third of these estates is the Commons, those who work. Their job is to provide the labor, incomes, food, and support for the other two estates that in turn protect them from foes spiritual and temporal. I’ve written a little bit about the Commons in the typical village post. More could be written, and probably will be at some point, but I skipped over the second estate to come here and push the Commons aside for now for thematic reasons. It has nothing to do with the fact that- I mean it’s not because I can’t count! :)
The second estate is of course the nobility. Originally this was a self-selected group of military leaders who by dint of their ability and ruthlessness came to command bands of skilled armsmen who in turn gave them the power to hold land and defend the rights they elected to grant to themselves over it. They in turn struggled amongst themselves and slowly hierarchies developed, defined by mutual obligations of protection for those below and duty to those above. Things were considerably more chaotic before the consolidation of the Church and the Demon War, and the present arrangements are considered to be one of the gifts of the Church over the anarchy that once ruled all. Of course it’s the Church that says that and they’re hardly disinterested political theorists.
To understand the aristocracy, it’s helpful to distinguish between some things that we usually lump together into a kind of generic medieval fantasy backdrop. For ease of reference, I am going to break the concept down in four: nobility itself, titles, rank, and fief.
This post will be mostly about nobility itself.
Nobility
Nobility is a special legal status, almost always inherited, which conveys special rights and privileges upon its holders. It is generally indelible to them and cannot be removed once gained, which is one of the reasons that new creations are rare. The exact privileges vary from place to place but generally include exemption from a plethora of feudal obligations typical to a peasant’s life, the right to bear arms, privileged access to people of influence, greatly enhanced ability to attain certain non-hereditary offices and positions of influence, freedom from taxes, and so forth. For the ambitious, the key privilege of being ennobled is the ability to marry into and among other nobles. Other fringe benefits include a prohibition on being tortured burned at the stake, hanged, and so forth. Nobles are extremely protective of these rights.
Nobility passes to one’s legitimate (in the sense that they are the product of a Church-blessed marriage) children, generally in the male line (but the female line in the matriarchy and either line in Todarese lands) and immediate upon birth. A nobleman’s daughters are as noble as his sons but are not generally capable of passing the status on to their issue regardless of legitimacy, again with the notable exceptions of the matriarchy where the roles are reversed and the Todarese who generally recognize descent in male and female line alike.
The law regarding the rules for inheritance of noble status itself is quite straightforward and relatively uniform across the Churchlands, aside the exceptions noted. The aristocracy of the matriarchy does not, as a general rule, intermarry much with that of the rest of the Churchlands so the noble status of their issue rarely arises. Adoption, while known in the Churchlands and sometimes capable of transmitting inheritance, cannot transmit noble status.
One is ennobled, generally for conspicuous merit or conspicuous wealth, by a sovereign. One is in turn then bound in loyalty to the ennobling sovereign.
A topical digression here: A sovereign is a ruler responsible to none but the gods. Outside the Blessed Empire many sovereigns are titled kings, as is one exceptional Elector within the Empire. Therein Emperor is the paramount sovereign but there are numerous and often ambiguous shades of sovereignty. Some of these pseudo-sovereigns, chiefly Electors, have effectively gained the ability to ennoble others. Originally this was by recommendation to the Emperor who then ratified or rejected the nominations but over time the ennoblement has become an effect of the act of nomination itself.
Nobility can be forfeited, but this is extremely rare. The act of high treason against a sovereign in itself is generally insufficient cause, but that combined with heresy, demon worship, diabolism, harboring a wizard, or something to that effect can suffice.
Traditionally the nobility were the landowning warrior elite and their families, but this is no longer the case. Nobles are typically imagined by commoners to have titles, but in reality most nobles are untitled and styled (styles being the correct forms of address) Lord Firstname, perhaps with an additional note to where the family hails from to avoid ambiguities. On occasion untitled nobles will hold proper, traditional fiefs but most major landholders are titled nobility. Untitled nobles skew more towards courtiers and officials.
I had this idea about a week ago and inspiration struck tonight, so here’s some Great Church fun.
The Quidditist Heresy
Orthodoxy defines the Builder of Walls as a god of distinction: what the wall excludes, what it bars, marking the wall as a protective and warding element. Formally the mode of theology is haecceitist. It concerns the traits that distinguish between things, haecceity being those things. The Haecceity of humans is their souls that in turn grant them correct and pleasing forms both to the gods and on a fundamental, universal level. This is why so many things ape the semblance of a person. Even the most depraved of minds, those most lost in evil, comprehend on some level that humanity is the acme of mortal being.
The quidditists understand the Builder of Walls in precisely the opposite way. They see the wall as not excluding, but including. To them building a wall is an act of embrace, bringing order out of chaos in an open way. The wall has gates through which any could pass. It protects those inside, but also admits those from outside to its protection and to the world of its laws. Many quidditists hold that the Wall itself is the Wall of the World, which encloses all and includes all. The radicals might even declare that building walls within is rank hubris.
Councils of the Great Church have condemned the quidditists so often that it’s practically a ritual in itself. The infernal quiddity, the heretical quiddity, the schismatic quiddity, the quiddity of souls, every form conceived has some kind of anathema pronounced upon it. Virtually any sort of heretic, regardless of theology, is accused of being in addition a quidditist.
Extreme though it may be, orthodoxy has something of a point. The theology of quiddity often leads to radical notions at grave variance with orthodoxy on a whole host of issues. Quiddity has led priests to condemn the nobility, to damn the Church itself, to proclaim that the quiddity is in all things: even halflings, even goblins, even giants, even demons, even wizards. Called to account for his teachings, the heresiarch Lukas of Chorune swore boldly on his own soul that quiddity is imperishable and absolute, a gate within all things through which they could walk and please the gods:
“For the imperishable quiddity lives in the heart of even the most damned, the Nameless One and Ancient together could be admitted through the gates of Heaven.”
Those assembled, the Emperor included, sat in stunned silence until an unknown servant screamed in terror and proclaimed he saw the Nameless One himself towering behind Lukas. A rash young knight drew his sword, in violation of the Emperor’s own safe conduct for Lukas and other retainers rose to defend the Emperor’s honor. The ensuing chaos, the Blood Diet, soon turned to a full-fledged riot as Lukas’s supporters, the Emperor’s, and a spontaneous assembly of orthodox partisans waged a three-sided battle which in the end claimed two Patriarchs, an Elector and his guard, and numerous lesser nobles, clergy, and townspeople.
The deaths sundered old alliances and made new feuds that still persist five centuries later, but Lukas himself escaped. His supporters hid him from the Inquisition for many years, until at last St. Pellion the Dragon-Eye gazed upon him through a great relic of the Church: the petrified eye of the Prince of Wrath’s dragon.
Seeing through lies and subterfuge, the eye of Rydian’s Bane at last revealed Lukas’ secret supporters and showed the way to where the heretic himself lurked. Pellion brought him forth in the name of the Red Goddess and the Sublime Thought, breaking Lukas’ body and conveying him alone through troubled lands to the Holy City. There Pellion thrust the heresiarch to his knees before the Supreme Patriarch’s throne and bid him confess his sin and beg absolution before his much-postponed fate came at last.
There, before the assembled Patriarchs, the curia, and in the shadow of the Builder himself, Lukas gazed upon the Voice of the Gods. Aged beyond his years by his trials and the righteous force of his sainted jailer, Lukas the Damned proclaimed the quiddity imperishable, a part of all things great and small, “From the Gods to the Nameless One to Pellion to His Holiness. It passes not with my flesh.” That flesh began to glow with a bright light and a shadow passed over the oculus in the great dome above the Supreme Patriarch’s throne.
St. Pellion discerned sorcery at work and struck Lukas’ head from his body, the two then being paraded through the streets of the Holy City before being hanged and then burned outside the Traitor’s Gate.
Yet before that day ended people claimed that Lukas lived still. Another man died in his place. No, Lukas had never been a man but was an angel who returned to Heaven. No, Lukas died and lived again. No, Lukas burned but the fires did not touch his flesh and when the smoke rose he flew with it. No, his followers rescued him at the last instant. No, he had never been caught. No, Lukas used demonic arts to drink in the flames, become as ash, and lives on still among us.
The Quidditist Heresy
I like.
The Quidditist HeresyI like.
I thought you might. Broad-minded poodles and their strange urges... :)
The Quidditist Heresy
Sorry, I don't quite understand it. Perhaps its a little hard for me to grasp; there's a lot of terms I'm not fully comprehending.
:~)---
The Quidditist Heresy
Sorry, I don't quite understand it. Perhaps its a little hard for me to grasp; there's a lot of terms I'm not fully comprehending.
:~)
I meant to link them, actually. Quiddity and haecceity are technical terms from medieval European philosophy, though the concepts go back to Plato and Aristotle.
Very roughly quiddity is the traits a thing has that make it like other things. Haecceity is the traits of a thing that make it different from other things. I used them instead of commonality and difference because I happened to know them and think they're fun words. :)
I meant to link them, actually. Quiddity and haecceity are technical terms from medieval European philosophy, though the concepts go back to Plato and Aristotle.
Darn farang terms .... :D
Just finished reading "The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi, which (altho' has its problems) is a fantastic read and I guess wonderfully easy read for me since I live in South East Asia (where this dystopian book takes place) and the author is unapologetic about his terms.Its so rare to find good sci-fi books written with South East Asia in mind. There's enough bad fantasy around to make me take a sabbatical from reading now and then.
Oops, I'm digressing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Windup_Girl
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6597651-the-windup-girl
In a future Thailand struggling against gened plagues and rising seas, the most important elements of life are the calories needed to stay alive. But as iron-fisted food corporations, flawed rulers, and an impure army of environmental defenders fight to impose their views on this world, an unlikely girl—who could be the next step in human evolution—fights for the right to simply live as she wants.
Darn farang terms .... :D
Sorry, I know less about Asian philosophy than I know about pleasing women in bed. :)
Just finished reading "The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi, which (altho' has its problems) is a fantastic read and I guess wonderfully easy read for me since I live in South East Asia (where this dystopian book takes place) and the author is unapologetic about his terms.
Its so rare to find good sci-fi books written with South East Asia in mind. There's enough bad fantasy around to make me take a sabbatical from reading now and then.
A friend who spent five or six years of her childhood in Thailand (Her father was in the Air Force during Vietnam.) recommended that to me. I've been meaning to get around to it. Maybe after I finish my current eight hundred pages on US politics from 1964-72.
Sorry, I know less about Asian philosophy than I know about pleasing women in bed. :)
In.
Out.Repeat if necessary.
Minor addendum on the quidditists:
Orthodox believers will detect evil from a quidditist. The converse is not true.
The Aristocracy of the Churchlands Part two.
Part one talked about what it means, broadly speaking to be a noble. Nobles are in general required to honor, serve, and counsel their overlords. Military service is a very common duty, and the original basis for the whole system.
Titles and Ranks of Nobility
A noble title was once conventionally a title in two senses of the word: being a special dignity that one possesses legal ownership of and also in a sense legal ownership of a fief which one held title over in the sovereign’s name. The connection between specific lands and specific titles is ambiguous in the Churchlands as a whole. In Cyrry lands titles routinely attach to lands and rights over lands, but these are not necessarily the same lands as the original holder of the title enjoyed. Among the Todarese, the link between land and title is vague, or even entirely absent.
Originally, titles entailed particular ranks. A specific ordering existed. A person with Title X also held Rank X, the ranks ascending until one reached the sovereign. Which title occupied which space varied from culture to culture and place to place. Certain titles exist only among one culture or another and are difficult to compare. Some examples:
In the Blessed Empire Grand Duke is a substantial title. A slight majority of the imperial Electors are Grand Dukes. But among the Kative, a Grand Duke is a rather unimpressive title, being doled out freely to the sons of kings and often entailing no more than a family sinecure.
Also in the Blessed Empire, a First is in principle a substantial title that implies a significant degree of sovereignty…but only over a rather small piece of land somewhat akin to modern day microstates like Monaco or Liechtenstein. Firsts are unknown outside the Empire, though the title is often equated with Prince.
In Todarese lands Prince is a prestigious title that generally involves significant real power. Among the Cyrry, Prince is simply the title given to the sons of sovereigns and thus, like a Kative Grand Duke, conveys little prestige in itself.
Cross-cultural comparisons are thus fraught with ambiguity and necessitate frequent examinations of the history and present circumstances of the titles in question.
Even within a particular culture, the cachet of particular titles has changed considerably. Different sovereigns had very different ideas of what kind of person deserved what kind of title. Some have practically mass-produced titles, often in times of war when cash was tight. The more common a title is the less prestige it generally holds, with consequent effects to the esteem in which holders who predate its being so debased are held. While these elder nobles might still be clearly superior to the mass-produced sorts, title inflation lessens the value of their dignities too.
Most nobles who receive titles received one in the initial grant but as titles can be inherited and the nobility commonly intermarry, families can acquire a considerable list of titles down the centuries. In ordinary circumstances a noble will go by the most prestigious of his or her titles, except when specifically involved in matters pertaining to that title alone. In any formal circumstance, especially when dealing with other nobles, using anything less than one’s full list of titles is taken as a slight at the least and often a direct challenge to the noble’s rights to the titles in question. This is true no matter how comically long the list of titles may become.
Each title is legally distinct. The Duke of X and the Baron of Y are different titles even if the same person holds them. They can also be inherited separately. Though there are cultural norms in specifying inheritance, in principle the original granter can require any scheme he or she cares to require for the title to pass on. Additionally particular families that hold the titles may have their own informal or formal household laws as to how the titles descend, which may change when the family holding the title changes or might, confusingly, persist despite contrary household law amongst the new family. This untidiness makes for many ambiguities that can be exploited by rivals and creates strong incentives for prestigious nobles to ensure that their inheritances are confirmed by their peers and superiors.
Titles generally pass via primogeniture, the eldest legitimate child receiving the title. Among the Todarese children of either sex are eligible, which among the Cyrry only male children are. Within the Matriarchy, only females can inherit titles. Among the Kative, men are preferred over women but in the absence of legitimate male issue a woman can inherit.
However, a distinction must be made between inheriting the title and being titled. Properly only the heir has the title. There’s only one Grand Duke of Chorune. But if that person has siblings those siblings remain noble and traditionally enjoy their own titles. Among the Cyrry these might include titles given for life by their elders which return to the eldest’s line on their death. In the Empire there would be only one Grand Duke of Chorune, who would be called the Grand Duke <first name, sometimes a regnal name> of Chorune. But there may be any number of Grad Dukes <first name> of Chorune who are his legitimate male siblings. Their children, absent acquiring other dignities, would remain noble but may have no titles at all or possess lesser titles instead.
Tradition is rather diverse here with some titles and families preferring to place all the distinction of the definite article (the Grand Duke vs. Grand Duke) while others give the siblings the next-lesser title (Grand Duke vs. Duke) or defaulting to a different one entirely (Grand Duke vs. Prince, Count, etc).
The Knight
Some nobles are knights, but knight is not a title of nobility in itself. Originally knights were commoner armsmen who served with distinction as professional soldiers, or commanders of peasant levies at the least. Becoming a knight is not hereditary, though the son of a knight can generally expect to be knighted. Knights are honor-bound to particular codes of chivalry and may additionally be members of particular orders of chivalry, but these are not the same thing. A knight is notionally required to act and carry himself in a certain way, though these obligations rarely extend beyond peers and superiors. Raping peasant girls is not unusual. Nor is beating the snot out of their fathers, brothers, boyfriends, etc either before or after. One needs only be gone before the responsible noble or his men get involved. Actually killing peasants is somewhat frowned upon as unbecoming and more dangerous unless the knight can claim self-defense. That peasant pays someone feudal duties, after all.
In times of war, knights can generally get away with doing whatever they want to the enemy peasantry and are a known menace even to friendly local peasants as, like the rest of the army, they tend to supplement their supplies with pillage. Needing to supplement their supplies this way is not quite so common as the frequency of pillage would suggest, but also by no means rare.
Being a member of an order of chivalry is much more prestigious than mere knighthood, as the orders are something of military fraternal organizations. They often have strict limits to the number of knights permitted on the rolls at any time. Orders may grant stipends to their members and generally convey desirable perquisites in addition to simple prestige.
A knight’s job is war. Unlike many other offices and the entire noble class, the knight’s task has changed very little in centuries. The knight is to supply himself, his horse, his arms and armor for military service. He’s a military man who will find his fortune on the battlefield, where he can gain glory, draw the notice of patrons, and collect ransoms from those he captures.
Actually killing a nobleman or even merely a knight on the field of battle is something he, and indeed the nobility also, prefer to avoid at all costs. A warrior’s arms, armor, mount, and the like are forfeit if he yields or is taken prisoner. The captor may seize these goods for his own use or may demand their value be added to the ransom he asks for the safe return of his captive. In times of war knights can become absurdly wealthy by means of ransoms and prizes. Why throw away good money by executing someone?
In times of peace, the knight is in trouble. Unless he possesses some kind of lands to draw income from or a friendly patron, he’s out of work but still needs to maintain his kit, his mount, and often a squire or two. The tournament circuit allows for steady income in lieu of war, but tournaments generally only award prizes from the defeated and occasional accolades or purses for overall victors.
Long periods of peace can cause problems for even the most successful of knights, who in the absence of war tend to wander as knights-errant seeking violent things to do. They may set up at a bridge challenge all who pass to a duel or a toll in lieu of violence, which they can often get away with for some time before a responsible party comes to put a stop to it. By then the knights are often long gone. They may sink into open brigandage and the lines between outlaw leader, bandit, and adventuring party can be extremely thin. Offers of pardon for service in war are quite common and many knights avail themselves of the chance to put a stint as an outlaw behind them once war comes again. Of course they can be just as eager to take outlawry back up once the war is done.
In the Great Church, priests-errant have somewhat analogous roles. Once a priest, one is always a priest and so one ordained can theoretically abandon any assigned position to become a wandering holy man, healer, exorcist, or the like. (Priests can be excommunicated and anathematized, but this does not strip them of their holy orders. It’s easier to hang a priest, generally speaking, than turn one back into a layperson.) Some are itinerant preachers while others are knights-errant in all but name, ministering to outlaw bands. This ministering can include outright joining them in battle.
Being a knight does convey one significant privilege with regard to the nobility: A knight is a suitable match for a member of the lower nobility. By marrying the right noblewoman a knight can considerably advance his career and place himself in a much better position to be ennobled. Competition for noble brides is stiff. Competition for lone female heirs is even worse.
How do the different lands view female knights?
How do the different lands view female knights?
A female knight is rather unusual but not unheard of. There are some all-female military orders that amount to knighthoods. They're a minority everywhere I think, due to cultural pressures mostly, but would be most common among the Todarese. Female knights of Cyrry extraction are as a rule outcasts and their very presence is scandalous. Among the Kative it would very unusual but not necessarily objectionable. The matriarchy doesn't have a particular problem with women in warfare, but it's the special preserve of men so a woman of the matriarchy would need to be a member of some kind of special order to justify it or accept that she's lowered herself to the status of a mere male.
The last post was only 10 days ago and it gets shoved in Archives? I suspect a Paizo conspiracy against competing worlds.
The last post was only 10 days ago and it gets shoved in Archives? I suspect a Paizo conspiracy against competing worlds.
World prejudice! I'm being oppressed! :)
Actually I've just been busy with a few other projects. A friend has been after me for years to let him play a hellknight and I fell in love with Carrion Crown, so he's getting his way.
But I shall return to the Churchlands, hopefully this week. I have a few god ideas knocking around and I really have to get back to the matriarchy too. Plus a description of feudalism, but I expect most readers know a fair bit about that already and I don't know that I'm putting any big spin on it. Oh yes, and the style of devotion in a typical Great Church church.
I haven’t forgotten you, faithful readers. I'm not sure how revelatory this is, but here's the Churchlands version of the broad strokes of feudalism.
The Aristocracy of the Churchlands Part three.
The Fief
The social system of the Churchlands rests upon the fief. From the fief nobles draw the resources they require to maintain their station and meet their duties to their overlords.
The fief, simply put, is a section of land held by a lord in trust from the original grantor of the privilege. Fiefs are not technically owned by the lord, but rather held by him in exchange for his feudal duties. The lords privileges over his fief, or more often fiefs, are numerous and generally lucrative. The lord enjoys many monopolies. He licenses ale-testers, owns the ovens, the mill, collects numerous fees and fines from his serfs and free peasants, and so forth.
Every fief is informally rated in terms of the service owed in order to hold it. This is largely a function of the revenue it’s expected to generate when granted and generally fixed. This value is expressed informally in knights’ fees, with one being the amount of revenue required to support a single mounted, armored knight. This is not to say that a knight is always what is provided. The grant may specify a number of knights, a number of knights and associated footmen, archers, and so forth. These military professionals are at the lord’s disposal when not called upon to carry out their duties to his overlord. They serve under the command of their lord who may serve with them in battle, but this is rare except for the rather martial and the rather poor. Most lords would prefer to entrust direct command to a trusted retainer or a loyal son and instead spend their time in the company of their overlord and the creature comforts his companionship brings.
Some or all of the military obligations may be converted to scutage (cash). There is also no obligation that one holds fiefs only from one overlord. Most Churchlands nobles of significance hold scattered fiefs with a complicated web of often-contradictory sets of feudal obligations. Complicated agreements as to where the noble will go personally and where he will dispatch deputies, and how much of his force should go to any particular party when conflicting obligations arise are common. Honoring them scrupulously is somewhat less so.
The value of a fief, in terms of service owed, is effectively fixed. In theory an overlord can demand more service from an existing fief, but the lower nobility tend to unite strongly against this. If their fiefs generate revenue in excess of that necessary to meet their feudal duties, that revenue goes into their pockets. The ideal fief for a nobleman is thus one that is quite lucrative, but rather under-rated. Making improvements to the fief to increase its revenue is thus a common consideration among most nobles.
Because of the nobles’ resistance to having their obligations increased unilaterally, overlords often resort to granting extant nobles new fiefs that they rate at higher values. Sovereigns have the additional power to levy taxes in addition to regular feudal duties, though this is controversial and most taxes are fixed amounts levied for a fixed term of years and collected by royal agents who compete for the privilege. These tax collectors tour the realm with royal warrant and, universally, armed guard. Each is assigned a quota to meet and sovereigns expect them to extract more to meet their expenses and draw a profit in addition to handing over the amount required of them. Being a tax collector can be extremely lucrative and those who win the warrant generally deputize others to carry out the actual collecting because, however lucrative, it’s an excellent way to get killed.
Most nobles who hold a fief do not maintain control over it all to themselves. Rather they in turn endow portions of it to vassals. A noble who holds a fief of ten knights’ fees can provide all ten himself or he can in turn grant a portion of those to his own subordinates. He may keep five knights’ fees to his own obligation but effectively farm out the other five and thus lessen his administrative burden while realizing a somewhat similar revenue stream and enhancing his prestige simply by the fact that others are beholden to him even as he is beholden to his own overlord. (And they may in turn do the same.) In the higher nobility these grants are often to other nobles and are generally hereditary, but the further one descends in rank the more likely it is that commoners hold fiefs as well. Many of these grants are for life or a term of years, but might become permanent over time.
In Cyrry lands, commoners who hold a fief that is the traditional possession of a noble might, over a course of generations, become ennobled by function of law and payment of certain fees. This means of attaining nobility without it being directly granted by a sovereign is unknown elsewhere.
The Great Church also holds fiefs, which attach not to the person or family but to the office to which they are granted. The fief is held by the bishopric, not the bishop. The Church holds none in general, but always by a specific see or office. These fiefs initially were to meet the expenses of the Church and its various institutions without making them dependant on and thus beholden to the secular nobility for subsidy. In general Church-held fiefs are somewhat larger than those of the lay nobility and their feudal obligations are somewhat less. In some cases the land is held free of any obligation, though this is rare. More often token obligations are extracted. Some, but rarely all, of the difference can be made up in liens and tax levies upon the fief.
None of the previous is to say that the Great Church doesn’t maintain armed forces for its own use, of course. A typical Church fief will have at least a small contingent of armsmen not unlike that of a comparable secular fief and serving many of the same purposes: the personal security of the nobility, security against bandits and monsters, and sometimes keeping order. The disposition of these secular but church-controlled forces is a frequent source of controversy, with many sovereigns claiming they have the right to call upon them in times of war as they are temporal assets rather than spiritual. The Church disagrees, insisting that anything pertaining to it is properly at least part spiritual and thus above earthly concerns. Conflicts over the church’s secular military forces roughly parallel conflicts over the ability of the lay nobility to influence the selection of church dignitaries within their purviews.
Like the Great Church, some orders of chivalry hold fiefs but these are generally encumbered just like those held by the lay nobility.
I am still lurking Sam. In case you missed it, I decided to take a break from the boards. Some places have just become too hostile.
I am still lurking Sam. In case you missed it, I decided to take a break from the boards. Some places have just become too hostile.
I did miss it, but glad to hear you're still interested.
My present reading has more or less sucked the life out of Churchlands development, but the book's almost finished and I plan on reading something more congenial thereafter. Who knew depressing modern history would interfere with entertaining history-inspired fantasy writing?
I probably ought to have expected it, though.
What? You are not inspired to add a Reagan knock off to your Churchlands setting now?
What? You are not inspired to add a Reagan knock off to your Churchlands setting now?
Yes, for obvious reasons. :)
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Hey there:
I've to confess to being less frequent to to the boards and scant in my responses. Works is beginning to consumer more of my time and effort in a job I'm sorely looking to change out of.
But jobs outside this industry (which I tire of) are a little limited and getting into the field I want. well thats difficult because the new field seems to be getting more demanding by the year in terms of entry level.
But still I try.
(( hugs )) - hope to see this thread still running for some time :D Archived or Non :p
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I am sorely disappointed, Sam. Since when do you back off of controversial positions? Who else will rattle the cage? All hope is gone. The terrorist win.
Aikuchi,
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Hey there:
I've to confess to being less frequent to to the boards and scant in my responses. Works is beginning to consumer more of my time and effort in a job I'm sorely looking to change out of.But jobs outside this industry (which I tire of) are a little limited and getting into the field I want. well thats difficult because the new field seems to be getting more demanding by the year in terms of entry level.
But still I try.
(( hugs )) - hope to see this thread still running for some time :D Archived or Non :p
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That stinks. Hugs and best wishes, for what comfort a guy on the other end of a computer an ocean away can provide.
I am sorely disappointed, Sam. Since when do you back off of controversial positions? Who else will rattle the cage? All hope is gone. The terrorist win.
Since I'm sick of dealing with the-
Since I can't sta-
Since I'd like to continue my nice homebrew thread without gratuitous off-topic flamewars.
But in the style of the thread, all of those answers are true. :)