| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Quick little question here: I noticed in at least two instances, old Chelaxian families having noticeably Greek sounding names (Kalepopilis in Crimson Throne, and Narikopolous in Hell's Vengeance, iirc). Is this a pre-Thrune thing, or were those types of names an outlier and not indicative of a typical old Chelaxian name?
The Inner Sea is a pretty clear equivalent of the Mediterranean, and Arodenite cultures (which Cheliax was pre-Thrune) often especially so. I imagine the more Latin-like Chelish names are more modern, while the Greek-ish ones are a little more “old fashioned.”
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The Old Taldan Empire is a pretty clear analogue for the Roman Empire, with Taldor as the relict greek-speaking Byzantines and Cheliax as Latin-speaking Western Rome before its sacking. I would venture that the more greek-style names are a remainder of this, dating back to the Old Empire, with more Latinesque names being more recent, at least since the Even-Tongued Conquests when it split off.
See, that's what I thought too. The big thing is that Iblydos is clearly Ancient Greece But Current and they don't nearly have the historical dominance and wide-spread influence you'd expect from a Greek Analogue in the Mediterranean, so the name origins had to come from somewhere else. I wonder if we'll get some connections in a future book.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Well, Iblydos is more like Ancient Greece than Byzantium, and Ancient Greeks weren't really called something like Kalepopolis or Narikopolous. These are more like modern Greek surnames (although it would be -poulos, not -polous).
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
See, that's what I thought too. The big thing is that Iblydos is clearly Ancient Greece But Current and they don't nearly have the historical dominance and wide-spread influence you'd expect from a Greek Analogue in the Mediterranean, so the name origins had to come from somewhere else. I wonder if we'll get some connections in a future book.
The Eastern Roman heartland was, notably, in Thrace, Macedonia, and Anatolia rather than in Attica, Boeotia, Arcadia, Ionia, or Crete. That is to say, it is perfectly plausible to me to have a more-or-less Eastern Roman Taldor coexisting with a more-or-less classically Hellenic Iblydos without ruling or being ruled by the latter, separated as they are by long stretches of water.
What's funnier about Chelish naming conventions than the mixture of Greek and Romance (there's as much or more Spanish and Italian in there as straightforward Latin) influences they have is that every now and again something aggressively English pops up.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
See, that's what I thought too. The big thing is that Iblydos is clearly Ancient Greece But Current and they don't nearly have the historical dominance and wide-spread influence you'd expect from a Greek Analogue in the Mediterranean, so the name origins had to come from somewhere else. I wonder if we'll get some connections in a future book.
The Med of Golarion is the Inner Sea, while Iblydos isn't even on the core Inner Sea region map. You get some Iblydan influence in the core setting via all the Hellenistic-themed "monsters" who descend from a failed invasion of Absalom thousands of years ago, but Iblydos isn't considered a foundational part of history the way we see Ancient Greece in the modern West today.
Golarion is shaped roughly like Earth, and those parallels are very broadly reliable, but the flow of history and culture is completely different.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What's funnier about Chelish naming conventions than the mixture of Greek and Romance (there's as much or more Spanish and Italian in there as straightforward Latin) influences they have is that every now and again something aggressively English pops up.
I will NEVER forget the Paralictor of the Order of the Rack, since his name is a literal mashup of the first name and last name of the two British officers who led the defense of Rorke's Drift against a Zulu force that massively outnumbered them. From what I understand it was a sneaky reference to the 1964 movie Zulu, a dramatization of the battle starring Stanley Baker and Michael Caine (who incidentally played the two men referenced above).
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Sometimes I remember that guy who insisted that Cheliax was "clearly meant to make Britain look bad," and it makes my day.
I always thought of Cheliax as more Iberian than Greek or Roman. Obviously in the IRL Mediterranean people had boats and settled all over and influenced their neighbors culturally, but Geographically Cheliax is where Spain is.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Sure, Iblydos is based on how we see Classical Greece, or rather how we see how Classical Greece saw Archaic Greece, whereas Taldor is equivalent to the Byzantine Empire. There is a distinction between the real-world inspirations or influences on their fictional counterparts - it's unlikely that Iblydan had a strong influenced on the Taldan language, which AFAIK is directly descended from Azlanti with a lot of Althameri (Keleshite) and Kellid influences, and a smattering of Jistkan, Tekritanin and Ancient Osiriani. Looking at real-life Greek, there's a lot of Turkish influence because it was part of the Ottoman empire, an influence which does not exist and has no easy analogue in southern Avistan. And while Cheliax has been separate from Taldor for a long time now, it still seems to speak the same language (or did in 1e, that might change if Paizo releases a 2e Old Cheliax setting guide - I would split Taldane into at least Modern Taldane and Chellish, descended from Old Taldane). But using the cultures Golarion is modelled on, you can come up with a speculative reason for things, such as that Chellish names differ from Taldan names because of a cultural shift that started with its break from the empire.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I always thought of Cheliax as more Iberian than Greek or Roman. Obviously in the IRL Mediterranean people had boats and settled all over and influenced their neighbors culturally, but Geographically Cheliax is where Spain is.
Absolutely! To be clear, I don’t see the Chelish as British at all - the giggles come from someone seeing a cartoonishly evil nightmare empire and going “no fair, that’s us!”
I wish Cheliax had a little more Iberian flavor to fit their equivalent geography. I suppose the ship has sailed at this point, and I’ll content myself with the little Hell Romans.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I mean, back in 1e I think logic was that taldan were descended from keleshite and azlanti while cheliaxians were descended from azlanti and ulfen.
Though the annoying thing was that everyone forgot anyway that Taldan weren't supposed to be just the "white people" :p
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Between its imperial bureaucracy, slave economy and colonial aspirations, Cheliax has always seemed like an unholy (heh) cross between Western Rome and Imperial Spain, with a subtle dash of Third Reich - kinda the ultimate villain nation for any time period you're looking to emulate. But I have an admitted fondness for pre-Christian Antiquity, and probably see that influence more than the others. Golarion has multiple Romes (Taldor and Cheliax, arguably Molthune, and the flag of Ravounel has an olive wreath suggesting it's harkening back to a more Roman Republic style of Old Cheliax), so I can't say it's not without justification! :P
And if anywhere is close to being a "British" setting, I would have said Taldor - a fading world power still trying to trade off its exaggerated imperial reputation, a decadent aristocracy out of touch with the rest of the world, a major naval power that hasn't fought a war in centuries, and has a tendancy to send armies off to parts of the world where they either plant the flag or get crushed? As a half-englishman that seems close enough for storytelling purposes.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Golarion has multiple Romes (Taldor and Cheliax, arguably Molthune, and the flag of Ravounel has an olive wreath suggesting it's harkening back to a more Roman Republic style of Old Cheliax), so I can't say it's not without justification! :P
To be fair, Earth had multiple Romes too - Rome, Western Rome, Frankish Rome, German Rome, Eastern Rome, Turkish Rome, Russian Rome. . .
If you like, the "Taldan" cultural area (characterized by use of Taldan as a common language, prevalence if not dominance of ethnic Taldan humans, and broadly early-modern western European fashion, armor, weapons, and warfighting and revolutionary-period institutions, politics, and economy) includes the lands of Magnimar and Korvosa in Varisia, Nirmathas and Molthune (and lately Lastwall), Ustalav, Ravounel, Cheliax, Isger, Andoran, Galt, Taldor, Absalom, most of the River Kingdoms, and Rostland in Brevoy. All of these (plus Nidal, minus Magnimar which postdates the Chelish Civil War) were ruled from Oppara or Westcrown at some point, but today Almas is the imperial peer of Oppara and Egorian.
Avistan could be said to have a number of geographic "Britains," that is to say, large populous islands off the northwest coast, facing the ocean, but none of them up until very recently played the geopolitical role of the British Empire. Battlewall is the largest and most populous of these, but is firmly within the Lands of the Linnorm Kings (so I think of the Danelaw and of Yorkshire cultural affectations) and is not expansionist. Hermea was never terribly populous, is isolationist, and has a constructed culture. Peridot Isle is a new addition and Edasseril is expansionist, with a throwback to Thassilonian culture.
Passingly, Molthune has the institutions of Prussia (an army with a state), while having Austria's narrative role in the conflict with Nirmathas (Switzerland, specifically the forest cantons).
At some point someone on the forums estimated the land area of Avistan's regions, and its current borders are big enough to include both the Iberian Peninsula and Italy, and conveniently (though likely unintentionally) its total area at its height is not too far off from that of the Western Roman Empire. So I think of it in a similar way to Morhek. Although, it's worth noting that the creators have said they pulled on multiple inspirations for Cheliax and it's not intended to be a direct equivalent to any one single thing.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ah, sorry, didn't mean to be confusing! I should have said something closer to 'if people in Iblydos have Greek inspired names, but then so does Cheliax in a completely unrelated way, I wonder if there is any kind of background info on why'.
You're right though, Iblydos is not nearly the same as IRL Greece in terms of influence. That's sort of why I was confused as to the Greek names in Cheliax, since as noble family names they are likely at least a few generations old.
The term poleis was developed in archaic Greece, however, and Iblydos likely would refer to their administrative centers using a similar term as was common in Ancient Greece; cities like Dionysiopolis in Phrygia are referenced several times in ancient history, so the naming convention is QUITE old; maybe some Iblydosians migrated north to what would become Taldor, and then ended up over in Cheliax?
Or maybe I'm over thinking it and they were just names the writers used without thinking too deeply into it. This is probably more likely.
Loving all this discussion on the geopolitical history of Golarion and its inspirations; the logistics of fantasy worldbuilding is the best.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The term poleis was developed in archaic Greece, however, and Iblydos likely would refer to their administrative centers using a similar term as was common in Ancient Greece; cities like Dionysiopolis in Phrygia are referenced several times in ancient history, so the naming convention is QUITE old; maybe some Iblydosians migrated north to what would become Taldor, and then ended up over in Cheliax?
In this particular case, Iblydan seems to reverse the order. Rather than appending -polis to a city, they add Pol- at the front to differentiate the city-state from the city. Pol-Liachora was ruled by Liachora, but is now ruled by Aelyosos. But it hasn't been renamed Pol-Aelyosos.
The history of Iblydos is very bare-bones, and will likely remain that way until Paizo releases a proper setting guide for it. But from memory, the humans of Iblydos originally migrated there roughly around when the Cyclopes did, both from Casmaron. It's *possible* there were some diaspora Azlanti or Thassilonian survivors who settled there, adding their influence to the language and culture, but Iblydos was also one of the earliest civilisations to recover after Earthfall in the region so it's also possible that Iblydan traders sailing to the early pre-Taldor principalities influenced Taldan language and culture, in the same way Jistkan, Tekritanin and Osiriani traders did. And to be honest, making yet another region ultimately descended from Azlant is overplayed.
Or maybe I'm over thinking it and they were just names the writers used without thinking too deeply into it. This is probably more likely.
Haha, there's no harm in over-thinking. With fleshing out my version of Osirion, half the work is almost done when I extrapolate what would or could be true based on some things the writers probably didn't expect to stick out. The fact that so much native Osiriani culture seems to have survived in the south of the country long after the supposed Keleshite Interregnum generated an entire hypothetical political history where a.) the Forthbringer version of history where the Keleshites suppressed native Osiriani culture has been overplayed, and b.) that the south was left with a degree of relative autonomy from the Keleshite-ruled north turning what was potentially sensitive ethnic tensions into a more nuances geographic sociocultural division. All of which probably wasn't intended.
Battlewall is the largest and most populous of these, but is firmly within the Lands of the Linnorm Kings (so I think of the Danelaw and of Yorkshire cultural affectations) and is not expansionist.
You've just reminded me that when I read about New Iobaria, I was heavily reminded of Early Saxon Britain with "Germanic" tribes immigrating to take over a remnant of a much larger empire, with a number of different kingdoms vying for control. Which I suppose would make Iobaria's Old Koloran another Rome. :P
Passingly, Molthune has the institutions of Prussia (an army with a state), while having Austria's narrative role in the conflict with Nirmathas (Switzerland, specifically the forest cantons).
My inclusion of Molthune was based on a very basic description of its citizenship system, so it's probably not as Rome-like as I thought.
Virellius, I’d be very eager to hear more about your take on Osirion - perhaps in the Lost Omens: Golden Road thread? It sounds awesome.
Virellius, I’d be very eager to hear more about your take on Osirion - perhaps in the Lost Omens: Golden Road thread? It sounds awesome.
Ack, embarrassing typo - I meant to direct this to Morhek!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Virellius, I’d be very eager to hear more about your take on Osirion - perhaps in the Lost Omens: Golden Road thread? It sounds awesome.Ack, embarrassing typo - I meant to direct this to Morhek!
Haha, sorry, I know I tend to circle back to my hyperfixations even in other topics.