There are 157 clans in Sartar (not including the Telmori and Pol-Joni), with an average population of about 900 people per clan. About 600 are adults, and about 300 are children. The average Sartarite clan claims about 55 square kilometers of territory.
About 40 adults belong to the clan aristocracy of priests and thanes (and their immediate family), about 400 are full free members of the clan, about 100 are semi-free tenants and other adult dependents, and about 60 are unfree.
In times of war, the average Sartarite clan can muster about 200 warriors: 20 martial priests and thanes, and 180 militia.
The cult distribution of those 600 adults averages out as follows:
- 200 initiates of Orlanth
- 200 initiates of Ernalda
- 30 initiates of Yelmalio
- 30 initiates of the Seven Mothers
- 18 initiates of Humakt
- 18 initiates of Issaries
- 12 initiates of Chalana Arroy
- 12 initiates of Lhankor Mhy
- 12 initiates of Daka Fal
- 12 initiates of Storm Bull
- 6 initiates of Maran Gor
- 6 initiates of Babeester Gor
- 6 initiates of Eurmal
- 30 initiates of another cult
Of course, these numbers assume that these cults are all spread out evenly among the clans, which is not the case. Yelmalio cultists tend to congregate into a handful of clans that are dominated by the cult. At least half of all Chalana Arroy, Issaries, and Lhankor Mhy cultists are in cities, where they make up a disproportionate percentage of the population.
Here’s Greg Stafford’s earlier (and longer) attempt to do much the same. His observations about “specialist clans” are worth another look:
Yes, we refined those numbers since then (and now have big pretty spreadsheets of this data) but it is still comes out to the same basic answer.
I toyed around with following Greg’s format but it ended creating so much work (which Greg got around by saying each minor cult has about 1% – which although easy is unfortunately wrong for cults like Yelmalio, Seven Mothers, or any of the other major Lightbringers). So much easier to just give an average and remind people that nothing is actually average.
So if we imagine one of the Yelmalio clans, they likely have something like:
- 200 initiates of Yelmalio
- 200 initiates of Ernalda
- 30 initiates of Orlanth Thunderous
- 30 initiates of the Seven Mothers
- 12 initiates of Humakt
- 18 initiates of Issaries
- 12 initiates of Chalana Arroy
- 12 initiates of Lhankor Mhy
- 32 initiates of Daka Fal
- 54 initiates of another cult
Or something along those lines.
So our median clan might have a more than a third for Orlanth, and have few if any Yelmalio cultists. But we get a handful of clans where there are 200 Yelmalio cultists and almost no Orlanth cultists. Such clans are largely concentrated around the Sun Dome Temple or Alda-Chur, but not all – there is one among the Colymar.
There are cult demographics for each homeland in the Mythology Book. Available soon!
As an aside the 55 km2 claimed by the average clan is the same area as a hex with an apothem of 4km (or 8km diameter), which just happens to be the size of a hex in the old Dragon Pass map.
Remember, the Orlanth cult is divided into three major aspects:
- Adventurous – that’s the heroic aspect of Orlanth that runs around raiding, fighting, and having all sorts of adventures.
- Thunderous -that’s the elemental aspect of Orlanth that brings storms, wind, and fertilising rain.
- Rex – that’s the tribal aspect of Orlanth that rules the other gods.
There’s also a Vinga overlap, and bunch of subcults like Four Magic Weapons, Sartar, Voriof, Thunderbird, and the Thunder Brothers.
People join the Seven Mothers for all sorts of reasons – they see the Lunar Empire as the future, they are rebelling against Air and Earth, they are at odds with the clan or tribe, they find the message of the Seven Mothers appealing, they seek the advantages the empire can bring them, and so on.
The presence of Sun County and Alda-Chur explain most of the Yelmalio cultists. The Seven Mothers are easy to explain – Sartar was occupied by the Lunar Empire for a generation. Some locals joined the Lunar state religion, other cult members married locals, or remained here after Sartar was liberated.
There are about 6000 Yelmalio cultists in Sartar. Of those 2700 are at the Sun Dome Temple, and 1400 are around Alda-Chur. The next largest group is around Runegate, with maybe 250 cultists.
If you remove these locations, the Yelmalio cult ends up having less of a presence in the average clan than Chalana Arroy or Storm Bull, with about 10 per clan.