Western religion?

[Jeff Richard]

Scott – it happened very early indeed. The Theyalans were in contact with Hrelar Amali more than a generation before the Silver Empire. It is also possible that the Seshnegi knew of Garzeen from the Gods Age or that a Theyalan hero visited early Dawn Age Seshnela.

[Joerg Baumgartner]

Basically, the Cults of Prax myth mentions Fenela, the sister of Hrestol, as the bride Garzeen wanted to marry. This is one of the earliest published facts about the West.

Given Froalar’s marriage to the land goddess, there is nothing to indicate that a marriage to a godling in a profession adequate to talars would have raised much excitement.

[Scott Martin]

Love Fenela. And there’s the timing right there! The text there is very interesting:

Garzeen “once hoped to attract Fenela, a daughter of King Froalar in the west. She scorned such materialism, and even more distrusted the advances of a god, fearing infidelity after a time. She made him swear to fulfill a vow before she’d marry him, and then told him he must reassemble the body of the chaos-slain god Genert.”

As far as I am aware, he has yet to succeed and so never quite married into the family, or if we dare read between the mythic lines, the ambitious merchant priests from the dawn countries had trouble assimilating into the talar system.

But who tells this story? The people who seem to have the most to gain from reminding people of this terrible binding geas happen to be the Desert Trackers “of the Trader Princes,” who get plenty of hyena pelts for their own purposes. They were identified with Goldentongue back then. Maybe he’s the concocted character who ended up successfully marrying into the West after all.

[Peter Metcalfe]

So how does it work in Seshnela? Does the local Talar still broker and facilitate services between the castes in the same way the Brithini Talars do?

No, they do not. The profit motive runs supreme in Tanisor\, the Quinpolic League and the Castle Coast (from the view of Arolanit). Yes, there are cases in which trade deals require the formal assent of someone from the noble caste, but for the most part trade is carried out by base commoners.

Also do they send traders out to the other countries, or do they wait for foreign traders to come to them at Noloswal?

The Quinpolic League sends out merchants to Loskalm, Esrolia, Jrustela and Umathela/Fonrit. These are plays where it is not unusual for their merchants to be found. The merchants could be found further afield such as Kralorela, Teshnos, Haragala and Flanch but their appearance there would be noteworthy.

[Mankcam]

Yes that would have been my view, that the Quinpolic League served both military and merchantile purposes for the Seshnegi; and I suspected that the Talars do not play a direct role here, although they obiviously benefit from the profits.

So what caste would the merchants of the Quinpolic League be from, and do they revere a patron of trade? I’m assuming that non-henotheists would not revere Issaries, so I’m wondering if they have their own patron, or just view their role as part of caste duties for Rokari?

I intend to go back to my Blood Over Gold campaign next year, and want to homebrew that book with what I currently know about Maniria from the G2G. The campaign is likely to wander far from the plot points in that book, so I am very intersted in portraying the neighbouring Malkioni regions as close as possible to the current views on The West. If possible I will be taking the campaign to Handra, and possibly up to Safelster. Its very likely that I will also have Seshnegi come into it at some stage, so I’m fascinated by The Malkioni at present, and trying to soak up as much as I can on The West.

[Edan Jones]

I think the merchants of the Quinpolic League would still be nobility, while they do not agree with the Kingdom of Seshnela, they are still Malkioni.

Of course, while the nobility do the actual trading, they are going to need a host of workers to perform much of the every day running of trade. Each Merchant Lord will have a veritable palace filled with scribes, craftsmen, minters, porters and other workers performing those tasks beneath the dignity and rank of their Lord.

As for magic, at least IMG I have many Merchant Lords learning some spells from the grimoire of an Ascended Master who became famous through trade. While they respect him greatly, they see him more as the father of early economic theory. His grimoire is like the Arthashastra, a treatise on how trade should be performed, and of the duty of the nobles to make their lands and people prosper.

The fact that spells can be found within it is in some ways, just proof of the sound logical basis behind its ideas, according to the nobles who follow his example.

[Peter Metcalfe]

So what caste would the merchants of the Quinpolic League be from, and do they revere a patron of trade? I’m assuming that non-henotheists would not revere Issaries, so I’m wondering if they have their own patron, or just view their role as part of caste duties for Rokari?

Merchants generally would be from the Workers caste but Merchant-Princes are from the Noble Caste. Case in point: there is a subcaste of the Workers known as the Perfume Traders (GtG p49). Any deal involving money can be handled by the workers but stuff like trade negotiations and agreements require the involvement of a noble to become legally valid.

As for the patron of trade, it’s evolved IMO. The God Learners apparently relied on Issaries which would be taboo to modern Malkioni. Trade in its classical Malkioni sense (as defined and policed by the wizards) would be nobles making deals between their communities. In that sense, the patron of Trade is Talar. I do not think the Malkioni have an accepted patron of commercial trade (that is, an issaries analogue). Rather it would be a sign of a corrupt universe that cannot be done without and commercial traders (as opposed to Workers selling their wares) would be akin to Vadeli. Perhaps the first traders were Vadeli? Who knows.

[Jeff Richard]

The merchant princes of the Quinpolic League are indeed members of the talar caste. They own the triremes and merchant ships that ply the Solkathi Sea and members of that caste captain them (although the helmsman and the rest of the deck crew are usually of the dronar caste) and handle negotiations with such outsiders as the Goldentongue* Trader Princes of Maniria and the Holy Country.

*Note that although the Manirian Trader Princes are often described as Malkioni, their patron deity is Issaries Goldentongue. Manirian henotheism worships the Invisible God alongside the Orlanthi gods (GtG p. 350). Every city along the Manirian Road has its temple-market to Issaries.

[Scott Martin]

members of that caste captain them

I like the aristocratic subtleties forming around the term merchant “prince” throughout this discussion. Highlighting the “master and commander” aspect in the League is great because it reveals all the layers of their history, from Dormal’s dangerous revelation in my grandfather’s day back through local professional traditions fostered in the Middle Sea era, Tanien’s Victory, earliest times when the open sea was a Waertagi monopoly.

There is no safe caste for “sailor” unless you were born with gills, and I like that. Wayfarers all. And no wonder they hate them up in Leplain, where they smile as the king mints silver under the eye of the Invisible God.

[Scott Martin]

. . . and how could I forget the Pithdarian Armada? However they evaded the long blockade, they grew up in the north close to the sea. How they must have thrilled to see it opened again.

[Ufnal]

This might be a bit off-topic for the current discussion in this thread [as it drifted into trade-related stuff], but it’s on the topic of wizardly religion.

We all know that there are small gods and godlings as well as minor, local spirits that can be worshipped locally for magic. But as far as I know, in times of HQ1 there were also smaller essences that could grant spells for worship. Does this still exist now, when worshipping wizardly beings such as saints no longer gives spells? And if not – isn’t it a strange “imbalance” between how the Otherworlds and their entities are treated?

[Jeff Richard]

Malkioni sorcerers use the power of the Runes (i.e. the gods) to do their bidding. Their magic comes from exploiting the Runic system, without needing to worship anything. Some Malkioni worship heroes or gods, but the more their magic comes from worshiping such entities, the less they can truly be called Malkioni (or even sorcerers).

[Ufnal]

“Malkioni sorcerers use the power of the Runes (i.e. the gods) to do their bidding”

Wait, am I so far behind that I didn’t even notice the Essence Plane/Spell Plane/Nodes getting retconned? O.o Or are you not talking about gods as in beings of Theist Otherworld, just about the fact that gods are the owners of the Runes?

[Peter Metcalfe]

The relevant information is in the guide. If anything, there’s been an un-retcon, going back to the general understanding before Hero Wars was published. A rune is a god viewed sorcerously.

[Roko Joko]

“Wait, am I so far behind that I didn’t even notice the Essence Plane/Spell Plane/Nodes getting retconned?”

Yes. It’s a little more subtle than just saying those things don’t exist, though. I’m hoping that Gods of Glorantha will flesh out and clarify the current cosmology.

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