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Commonly used titles in Theyalan

Posted on December 30, 2020

Because people find titles and their meaning interesting, here’s a short summary of the most commonly used titles in Theyalan:

Chief

Theyalan. Literally means “Great One; Most Important; Big Man” and denotes the leader of a kinship group or other community (such as a temple). The most common Theyalan title and sometimes transliterated as “Lord”.

Thane

Theyalan. Literally means “Martial Companion,” this denotes a member of the Orlanthi martial aristocracy. Often transliterated as “Lord”.

King

Theyalan. (1) Literally means “Martial Leader of the Assembly” or “Martial Leader of the Council”. Typically denotes the leader of a tribe or a group of tribes with a combined martial and sacral role. Sometimes denotes the leader of city-state (see also, City Rex and Queen below). (2) Husband or consort of a ruling queen.

Rex

Theyalan. Literally means “(Divinely-sanctioned) Leader.” Denotes the incarnation of Orlanth Rex. Often synonymous with King or Prince, but not always. See also City Rex.

City Rex

Theyalan. Literally means “City (Divinely-sanctioned) Leader.” This title denotes the leader of a city council or assembly, who typically has a variety of martial and executive responsibilities.

Prince

Theyalan. Literally means “First; Foremost.” Denotes the ruler of a confederation of tribes or cities.

Queen

Theyalan. (1) Feminine of the title “king”. (2) Wife or consort of a king. (3) Transliteration of a title that literally mean “Great Mother”. Denotes the head of an Ernalda temple or priestess-ruler of an Esrolian city or group of cities.

God-King

Theyalan. Title for the divine Ruler of the Sixths of the Holy Country.

Is ‘Prince’ unisex? Not unisex. It is a masculine term. Theyalan languages are most likely grammatically gendered like PIE.

So masculine, feminine, and neuter (which might also be used for inanimate things without a gender). I suspect that written Theyalan uses all sorts of classifiers devised by OCD Lhankor Mhy scribes.

Stormtongue might have five or six grammatical genders (masculine, inverted masculine, feminine, inverted feminine, and neuter), but I wouldn’t try to keep track of all that.

Chief is an older title, going back to the Dawn if not before. And it is used in a lot of contexts – it literally just means “Big Man”. “Thane” is a much newer title and comes from the Second Age. It is much more specific as to what it means.

So there might be more thanes than chiefs, but the word “chief” is used for any leader of a community or temple.

While thanes always means a member of the Orlanthi martial aristocracy.

You’d probably call the head of your household “chief” even though they are not a chief. And that person might be a thane, but not a chief, but get called by his family “chief”.That’s how titles actually tend to get used in the Real World. Legal codes (like the Brehon Law) make lots of fine degrees of difference, that then get ignored in practice.

So your Lhankor Mhy character can get plenty frustrated at the Orlanthi Wind Lord that calls himself “chief” because he leads a band of warriors (“you are not a Chief Nisk, you are a Thane!”), but everyone else goes along with “Chief” Nisk.

Jeff Richard

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