Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

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ghype
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by ghype »

Kwandulin wrote: April 16th, 2020, 1:58 pm Also we could have giant duneworms tunneling underneath the deserts. They could pose as a great danger and food source, which makes it essentials for some tribes that don't have other food sources to roam the deserts on the search for the worms. Those tribes could be in need for salt to pickle the worm flesh, which would open up some interactions for general trade.
I support that idea. Given that you have already one in OaA. But that one is really large, he could be like a legendary one. A smaller sprite would be needed if we want those Dune worms to appear more frequently.

Kwandulin wrote: April 16th, 2020, 1:58 pm I like celticminstrels idea about the choosing of the paragons. That would allow us to have a city as a military oriented one, where the paragon is chosen by battle or to have a more trade oriented one.
I too would leave it at that. It's quiet compelling.
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

Kwandulin wrote: April 16th, 2020, 1:58 pm Also we could have giant duneworms tunneling underneath the deserts. They could pose as a great danger and food source, which makes it essentials for some tribes that don't have other food sources to roam the deserts on the search for the worms. Those tribes could be in need for salt to pickle the worm flesh, which would open up some interactions for general trade.
I agree, the worms can also draw from the lore of the Mongolian Death Worm (olghoi-khorkhoi) for additional inspiration. Maybe we should already add them as a unit? I dunno… they'd probably have some sort of sand-related hide or teleport skill. I think the worms should be mainly just in the Sandy Wastes to the north, which will explain why there are no cities up there. (There could be some villages, though, most likely on a small oasis or perhaps nestled away in a slightly mountainous area.)

I don't think the worms should be a major food source (especially if drawing on the olghoi-khorkhoi, which is said to be poisonous). Instead, I think it should be an important source of medicinal ingredients. Perhaps the poison can be removed somehow though, so as food it could be a rare delicacy.
Kwandulin wrote: April 16th, 2020, 1:58 pm some tribes that don't have other food sources
I'm just kinda wondering how a tribe could exist that has no possible source of food other than the worms? Even if they live in the depth of the desert amidst the worms (an unlikely proposition in the first place), if there are worms there, then there's also food – they'd be competing with the worms for food, rather than preying on each other.
Hejnewar wrote: April 16th, 2020, 2:45 pm Well I was talking about nomadic and only nomadic dunefolk.
Okay, fair enough. I'll keep that in mind for my subsequent responses.
Hejnewar wrote: April 16th, 2020, 2:45 pm I don't exactly know how much of fruit would they eat. I just know that that wouldn't be big part of their diet.
Nomads travel, which means almost certainly they spend some time in an oasis. So fruit would definitely be part of their diet. They might go without it for parts of the year, sure… or they might just dry it when it's readily available so that it lasts, so they can have fruit even when travelling.
Hejnewar wrote: April 16th, 2020, 2:45 pm I'm against grains because they will lead to degradation of soil, and serious at that as proven by modern day egypt (few years is enough really). Not only you need to water them with something that shouldn't be wasted (even if you have oasis of 1ha size) it will also lead to extreme soil salinity and because of desert conditions you pretty much can't do anything about it. With river and constant irrigation it just isn't as bad - I mean you just have way more water to deal with that. Fictional plant that absorbs a lot of salt form ground can not only deal with that but would also fetch nice price as spice.
Well, the soil degradation issue is easily solved – just don't grow the grain always in one place. If you also want to add some fictional plant to crop rotate with, sure, whatever. Of course, this is less relevant to nomads. They would probably eat some grain, but it would require trading with cities or other tribes, so it might not be a major part of their diet.
Hejnewar wrote: April 16th, 2020, 2:45 pm Afaik, on deserts on earth there is only one oasis with fish in it - Fish springs in USA and it's big, about 7 times bigger than average oasis. I'm doubtful about this giant ancient flood in the middle of desert. It's much more likely that they came thru underground connection or humans just introduced them.
If you're talking about ancient events, there's no limits. It might not have been a desert in the past. Maybe the lake in the oasis is simply the last bastion against desertification. I'm not going to say there will be fish in any of the oases, but I would consider it a possibility. Of course, for fish, the river and bay are definitely the most plentiful source, but that has little to do with nomads. Maybe some nomads could go their entire lives without ever seeing a fish…
Hejnewar wrote: April 16th, 2020, 2:45 pm Sure, trade exists, in fact nomadic dunefolk will probably eat things similar to non-nomadic dunefolk just in different proportions. They might even have more diversified diet than city dunefolk.
Yeah, indeed.
Hejnewar wrote: April 16th, 2020, 2:45 pm Reminds me about "Dune". That could be fun something for campaign.
I suspect it's probably in the public domain by now in some countries, but… almost certainly not in the United States. So it's probably a bad idea to draw more than slight inspiration from it, hence my suggestion of a slightly-similar real-world legend to draw on instead..
ghype wrote: April 16th, 2020, 6:16 pm
Kwandulin wrote: April 16th, 2020, 1:58 pm I like celticminstrels idea about the choosing of the paragons. That would allow us to have a city as a military oriented one, where the paragon is chosen by battle or to have a more trade oriented one.
I too would leave it at that. It's quiet compelling.
Well, thank you! :o
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by lhybrideur »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote: April 16th, 2020, 1:30 pm
ghype wrote: April 16th, 2020, 9:39 am A question now arises, does it even make sense that to mark tribes on the world map? I would mark the localised on the map which would be either located on the cloud bay (as alchemists could have enough capacities to purify water of the salt for a small tribe) and around bigger cities or rivers. Wandering tribes would either remain unmarked or marked but unnamed. If we leave them unmarked then they could be good for "random encoutners" in campaign it would be a thing. If we do not mark them, then we might loose perspective on how big the dunefolks actually are.
Whether to mark a "tribe" on the map would depend on the map, I'd say. If it's a world map, intended for general use by navigation, then itinerant peoples would have no marking on the map, but seasonal nomads that migrate between fixed locations could be marked, and in fact would be marked in multiple places. On the other hand, on a campaign map, you might want to mark an encampment of itinerants if they are important to the story, keeping in mind that the marking may move as the campaign progresses (so it wouldn't be on the base map but would instead be an overlay).

Generally speaking, I would say any permanent settlement should be marked. Some nomads may have permanent settlements that are abandoned for part of the year, so those would be marked. Other nomads may live their entire lives in tents that can be easily taken down for travel, so they wouldn't be marked on the map.
Maybe the usual travel route of wandering tribes could be marked on the world map as dashes ?
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

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Celtic_Minstrel wrote: April 16th, 2020, 1:30 pm The leader of each city is chosen in some manner depending on the city. They might be elected, they might be the leader of an elected council, or they might inherit the position. Whatever the case, these leaders form a council that I'll call the Ruling Council. It is up to the Ruling Council to choose the Paragon, who is also a member of the Ruling Council. However, the candidates for the Paragon are nominated by an entirely separate council of luminaries, and in particular, the candidates for Paragon are not drawn from the Ruling Council. In other words, the Paragon is not the leader of one of the cities. The luminary council selects candidates (the Kalai of the description), probably via examinations (ie, they have to take a test), and then the Ruling Council (minus the Paragon obviously) votes on the candidates. The chosen candidate then joins the Ruling Council as the Paragon.
So upon attempting to update the main post, I re-read and I noticed something that I after all don't seem to be getting.
How Dunefolk Politics Work

OK So basically, we have two councils "The Ruling Council" and "The Luminary Council" and the third party would be the Kalai.

The Ruling Council's members are the leader of each City. Depending on how many we create this number could rank between 10 and 20 members. The leader of each city is chosen in some manner depending on the city. They might be elected, they might be the leader of an elected political party, or they might inherit the position.

The Luminary Council's members are either all Luminaries from every city (if we assume that there are not many). In order to become a Luminary, you have to have contributed in one way or another to the Sciences of the Dunes (might that be medicine, alchemy, philosophy, astrology?, geography ?, mathematics?). The contribution has to be witnessed in front of the Luminary Council so it con have an entrance in the universal compendium of wisdom.

The Khalai are few, specially trained youths that develop brilliant combat and military expertise over the course of several years training program. Potentially talented youth are scouted by recruiters that were trusted by the former Paragon and the Luminary Council and brought to the City where they will spent their time preparing to become a Khal together with the other ones. Once they are considered to ready for the final test, a duels take place between them which are held publicly in arenas. This battles are held every year and are structured almost like a tournament. The emerging survivors of the battles are then granted the title Khal, collectively Khalai, which raises them into nobility. Among the Dunefolk, while great leaders are required to have mastered the blade, the ruling caste must know far more than mere swordplay. Gruelling drilling is usually followed by either several years of roving through the deserts or dedication of the mind to the sciences. The purpose of this is to find a self-motivated path toward enlightenment.

Once the remaining Khalai return and demonstrate their knowledge to "The Luminary Council" and they choose who are worthy candidates to become the next Paragon. It's possible that years pass till one if found to be worthy. Every 10 years, a new Paragon has to be elected. The candidates pool during that time has grown to a certain number of Khalai chosen by the "The Luminary Council" which then are presented to "The Ruling Council". Only then, the "Ruling Council" votes the next Paragon for the 10 years. The old Paragon then returns into nobility and enjoys a wealthy life.

The current Paragon becomes part of "The Ruling Council" and together with the other leaders of the cities, they decide about emerging problems and situations, based on what we know as democracy. The only difference is that, when it comes to deciding about something, the Paragon's vote has a lot more merit the the ones from remaining council members. That means as long as not all (or most leaders aside of the Paragon) disagree with Paragon opinion, there is no way he can be overruled. This way it is ensured that neither the Paragon can seek total dominance nor individual members or allied party cannot push personal (or selfish) interests. If the Council has equally split opinions about a matter, delegates of "The Luminary Council" advise together the Paragon what would be the best to decide.

... Have I got it right?


Kwandulin wrote: April 16th, 2020, 1:58 pm Also we could have giant duneworms tunneling underneath the deserts.
I added a tab under "Food and Animals" for the Dune Worm
Did you have had any Lore written for the Dune Worms or dialogue mentioning them in OoA which I can add here?
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by Kwandulin »

Dune Worm
Gah! Worms! Dune Worms! Some of us call them Earth Eaters, because of the way they live. They create huge systems of tunnels in the sands underneath our feet. Some dwarvish merchants from the north are known to use those routes to trade with the people of the southern deserts. Sometimes, dwarvish merchants disappear, which is a huge loss to our community. Once, my cousin marched through the tunnels underneath, when he approached a strange looking tunnel, that had not been there before. He went inside. Unfortunately, that tunnel was the mouth opening of a giant duneworm! My cousin went right into the stomach of the worm, where he got slowly dissolved in the acid! Well . . . fortunately he left behind some really valuable artifacts. Too bad . . . for him.
And some dwarvish hags sometimes cook the meat of those worms. It doesn't taste well, but those self-proclaimed cooks do not care too much about it.
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by ghype »

I just reused most of what you posted, if any one feels anything to something, please mention.




Dune Worms, also called Earth Eaters by some tribes, move underground and create huge systems of tunnels in the sands. For that reason they are mostly sighted in the depths of the deserts, if sighted at all. Not all but some can grow very big which leave tunnels some tribes use to travel. They pray on anything that moves over ground and grow as older they get. Since there is not a lot moving in the deserts, the bigger they grow and older they become, they try to conserve as much energy as possibly and rest in places. With the minerals underground they can survive quiet some without moving. Their scales on the forehead makes them beasts that are hard to defeat, but once defeated, soft flesh provides enough food to feed an entire caravan for weeks. Some tribes implement the scales of the worms forehead into their armour and shields.


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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

ghype wrote: April 18th, 2020, 11:43 am So upon attempting to update the main post, I re-read and I noticed something that I after all don't seem to be getting.
From that it's not clear to me which part you don't get?
ghype wrote: April 18th, 2020, 11:43 am The Luminary Council's members are either all Luminaries from every city (if we assume that there are not many). In order to become a Luminary, you have to have contributed in one way or another to the Sciences of the Dunes (might that be medicine, alchemy, philosophy, astrology?, geography ?, mathematics?). The contribution has to be witnessed in front of the Luminary Council so it con have an entrance in the universal compendium of wisdom.
This is a possibility; there are most likely a myriad of ways to become a Luminary.
ghype wrote: April 18th, 2020, 11:43 amThe emerging survivors of the battles are then granted the title Khal, collectively Khalai, which raises them into nobility.
Rather than survivors, I'd say more like the finalists. I don't think it's a good idea to choose leaders via death matches, and while it is a method that can work (if badly), it doesn't really suit a civilization with a scientific mindset.

Also… the Kalai become nobles? That's an interesting take… however, I think it would probably be a non-hereditary noble title, similar to medieval knighthood.
ghype wrote: April 18th, 2020, 11:43 amThe old Paragon then returns into nobility and enjoys a wealthy life.
Returning into nobility is a given only if the Kalai become nobles in the first place, but enjoying a wealthy life is certainly not a given. Just because you're a noble doesn't mean you have lots of money, especially if you're a noble without land and peerage (if they even have peerage among the dunefolk).
ghype wrote: April 18th, 2020, 11:43 amThe only difference is that, when it comes to deciding about something, the Paragon's vote has a lot more merit the the ones from remaining council members. That means as long as not all (or most leaders aside of the Paragon) disagree with Paragon opinion, there is no way he can be overruled.
There definitely does need to be a way for the Paragon to have a bit more power than the other members of the council, but it needs to be balanced. At minimum they get the ability to break ties, at most some sort of weak almost-veto power. I'm not sure how to make it weak though. Could also go with what you mentioned where the Paragon's vote counts as 3 or 5 votes.
ghype wrote: April 18th, 2020, 11:43 am ... Have I got it right?
I didn't see anything obviously wrong in your summary.
Kwandulin wrote: April 18th, 2020, 11:55 am
Gah! Worms! Dune Worms! Some of us call them Earth Eaters, because of the way they live. They create huge systems of tunnels in the sands underneath our feet. Some dwarvish merchants from the north are known to use those routes to trade with the people of the southern deserts. Sometimes, dwarvish merchants disappear, which is a huge loss to our community. Once, my cousin marched through the tunnels underneath, when he approached a strange looking tunnel, that had not been there before. He went inside. Unfortunately, that tunnel was the mouth opening of a giant duneworm! My cousin went right into the stomach of the worm, where he got slowly dissolved in the acid! Well . . . fortunately he left behind some really valuable artifacts. Too bad . . . for him.
And some dwarvish hags sometimes cook the meat of those worms. It doesn't taste well, but those self-proclaimed cooks do not care too much about it.
Creating tunnels beneath the sands is far from a given even for a worm that digs. They could create tunnels, but do they have a reason to? I think it's more likely that the tunnels they dig fill in behind them. Don't forget also that this is sand, which flows a little, so tunnels probably wouldn't be very stable unless the dune worm excretes something that hardens the walls. On top of that, if they dig by essentially ingesting the sand, then that sand has to go somewhere, and the obvious somewhere for it to go is out the other end, filling in the tunnel along the way.

This also seems to imply that the meat is not a delicacy or even a staple food.
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

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Celtic_Minstrel wrote: April 17th, 2020, 12:52 am ]Well, the soil degradation issue is easily solved – just don't grow the grain always in one place. If you also want to add some fictional plant to crop rotate with, sure, whatever. Of course, this is less relevant to nomads. They would probably eat some grain, but it would require trading with cities or other tribes, so it might not be a major part of their diet.
Soil degradation is vast topic, you can't just say that leaving it for few years will do, in this case (as well as many others) it won't (It will do in cases when for example you need more organic matter in your soil). Salts won't magically disappear in desert conditions, you need a) special plants, b) sink that is higher than evaporation (and that is very hard to achieve on hot deserts). At the same time arid/desert climate in very good for keeping grains so I can agree that it could be part of their diet (or just safety measure against starvation).
If you're talking about ancient events, there's no limits. It might not have been a desert in the past. Maybe the lake in the oasis is simply the last bastion against desertification. I'm not going to say there will be fish in any of the oases, but I would consider it a possibility. Of course, for fish, the river and bay are definitely the most plentiful source, but that has little to do with nomads. Maybe some nomads could go their entire lives without ever seeing a fish…
Ok, there is oasis close to great river, many years ago there was gigant flood that reached that oasis, I can see that.

If I didn't respond to something, that means I agree.
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

Hejnewar wrote: April 18th, 2020, 3:40 pm Soil degradation is vast topic, you can't just say that leaving it for few years will do, in this case (as well as many others) it won't (It will do in cases when for example you need more organic matter in your soil). Salts won't magically disappear in desert conditions, you need a) special plants, b) sink that is higher than evaporation (and that is very hard to achieve on hot deserts). At the same time arid/desert climate in very good for keeping grains so I can agree that it could be part of their diet (or just safety measure against starvation).
Leaving a field fallow is a possible solution in some cases, but more generally, the way to avoid soil degradation is to rotate crops. Leaving a field fallow is just one way of doing this where you don't control what the alternate crop is, so it's probably less effective. Anyway, if soil degradation from grain is a problem, then the dunefolk just need to practice some form of crop rotation and/or use some kind of fertilizer. The exact identity of the crops to rotate probably depends on the place and conditions, sure, but the form of the solution doesn't really change as far as I know. If salt in particular is a problem, perhaps there is a salt-tolerant crop (cabbages? I'm sorry, that's the only one I could think of off the top of my head) that will also remove some of that salt from the soil.
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by Hejnewar »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote: April 18th, 2020, 4:28 pm Leaving a field fallow is a possible solution in some cases, but more generally, the way to avoid soil degradation is to rotate crops. Leaving a field fallow is just one way of doing this where you don't control what the alternate crop is, so it's probably less effective. Anyway, if soil degradation from grain is a problem, then the dunefolk just need to practice some form of crop rotation and/or use some kind of fertilizer. The exact identity of the crops to rotate probably depends on the place and conditions, sure, but the form of the solution doesn't really change as far as I know. If salt in particular is a problem, perhaps there is a salt-tolerant crop (cabbages? I'm sorry, that's the only one I could think of off the top of my head) that will also remove some of that salt from the soil.
For dunefolk that live near that great river of theirs, this will be unnecessary because river will take care of both salts and fertilizing for them. (Mud is great for plants.) (Mudcrawlers could be lured onto fields and killed there. :lol:) (I said all of this just to make mudcrawlers look semi useful as fertilizer.)

For nomadic dunefolk if they have to grow grains then crop rotation is most likely best, currently I think best plant for that is GMO rice from China that was created to do exactly that (even in arid conditions) and is supposed hope of quite large part of our world (modern day earth actually struggles with salts in soil quite a lot, much more than with soil pH). It's hard to find plants that absorb a lot of salt, usually they just protect themselves from it, that's why I suggested some fictional plant. Otherwise I would just recommend plants that don't need much water / that can be watered directly, then this problem would be largely nullified.
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

I wouldn't expect nomadic dunefolk to be growing crops in general, honestly. There could be exceptions, but I think nomads would mostly obtain grain only by trading. It would be grown along the river, and maybe near some larger oases.
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by ghype »

So I updated the political system on the main pages.

I also updated the foods of the desert dwellers. It now says that the desert dwellers hunt smaller animals such as frogs, lizards, fishes but also bigger animals such as taurochs and dustboks aside goiant scroprions. It now as well says that the dryer grasslands offer a variety of fruits and the soil there is more suitable to grow grains.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: April 18th, 2020, 2:51 pm Creating tunnels beneath the sands is far from a given even for a worm that digs. They could create tunnels, but do they have a reason to? I think it's more likely that the tunnels they dig fill in behind them. Don't forget also that this is sand, which flows a little, so tunnels probably wouldn't be very stable unless the dune worm excretes something that hardens the walls. On top of that, if they dig by essentially ingesting the sand, then that sand has to go somewhere, and the obvious somewhere for it to go is out the other end, filling in the tunnel along the way.

This also seems to imply that the meat is not a delicacy or even a staple food.
I was thinking hard about that when I drafted a the comment on dune worms. I will wait to see if Kwandulin or anyone else has something do add to that and will revise my comment to about the Dune Worms
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by skeptical_troll »

Just adding my bits of dunefolk head-canon, even though I haven't followed the recent developments and some of this may be outdated.

As a preliminary consideration, what I'd really wouldn't like to see is that dunefolk become a 'biome civilization' too much flattened to and characterized as desert-dwellers. I'm not saying this is happening but I had this concern when the name 'dunefolk' was chosen and I think it's better to keep the risk in mind. Great civilization thrives in presence of resources, water and fertile terrain, and dunefolk lands should make no exception. It makes sense for the desert to be the environment they need to cross between these lands or to trade, with perhaps a few outposts for specific military/economical activity like trading and mining or the control of strategic locations.

That said, I'd go on adding to the points listed in the OP, for those I feel I have something to say.
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by ghype »

skeptical_troll wrote: April 19th, 2020, 11:57 pm The only thing I'd notices is that in mainline campaigns almost no world building is done about lands out of Wesnoth borders or folks not directly involved in the plot. If the relationship between the dunefolk and the north was mainly commercial, it's no suprise that they aren't mentioned. And as it is said they may have had no need to interfere in other ways.
yes, that is something we too spent a lot of thinking about and I think it should be at least noted somewhere in the wiki similar to how you described it.
skeptical_troll wrote: April 19th, 2020, 11:57 pm I prefer the word 'mistrust' rather than 'hate'. Magic is just a tool and it wouldn't make sense for them to ban it altogether just because somebody did something evil against them with it. However they may have understood the risk of unwanted consequences in the use of magic, and decided to go for the empirical and rational way of thinking, as currently stated in the race description.
I agree, I see no reason what not change "hate" to "mistrust".
skeptical_troll wrote: April 19th, 2020, 11:57 pm In my head canon, they may even actively try to prevent Wesnoth to rise the second (and then the third) sun, since they suspect something really bad may happen and the power of the ruby of fire (I assume it is used somehow to rise the suns) is not really understood.
There was a similar Idea proposed from Yumi for the new lore rework from this thread:
"The Fall of Wesnoth would be a Dunefolk campaign using the underground Luminary (or Eminent) secret society, who are actually cultists. The main character would be an antihero who is drawn into their secret lore and becomes enamored with it, eventually working to spur the fall of Wesnoth after using his demon allies to manipulate the rise of the third sun into failing. A major part of this would potentially be infiltrating Weldyn and gaining access to the Sceptre of Fire, with which the main character uses to contact said demons."

I've read through all the thread and the devs all seem to really like in that thread. But if think in terms of Campaign Arcs, than this plot would porbably be the last campaign in the Dunefolk Arc. We still need to introduce them firstly.

skeptical_troll wrote: April 19th, 2020, 11:57 pm Everything I've read in this thread sounds interesting to me. In particular I find the idea of the Luminary council pretty neat. in RftA, for the lack of better names or to keep the options open, I call their political entity the 'Dunefolk Federation', in which each city is ruled by an emir (or at least the city mentioned in the campaing is, not all cities shall have the same form of government). There is a supreme leader simply referred at as 'Sultan', which I imagine as a mostly honorific title except when the whole nation is threatened by an external enemy, or perhaps as a last arbiter to settle internal disputes of some kind.
This seems to be pretty much in terms with what we got so far.
skeptical_troll wrote: April 19th, 2020, 11:57 pm Given the importance that trade has for these people, I'd expect that merchants too have their own guild/council which is extremely influential on the political life of the cities and most likely of the whole federation.
I added a note regarding this in the Economy tab

skeptical_troll wrote: April 19th, 2020, 11:57 pm The duality cities/tribes is to me the most fascinating thing of the current characterization. It may be a great driver of conflicts in stories and really give some depth to the lore. I think it would be good to decide which level of integration they have with the city dwellers.

The current version in the OP suggests a pretty friendly and cooperative relation, based on free choice and with people from the city even living as nomads for a while. While this is definitely a possibility, I think I'd find more interesting a more conflicted situation with tension between the two parts and mutual disdain, but cooperation forced by necessity. In this case belonging to one or the other part would be in most cases not a matter of choice but of heritage. Of course, at the end what matters is what works best for planned campaigns.
Most of this will be explored in campaigns. I think we will see both types of tribes in the campaigns. If it wasn't clear, I will add some of your aspects to make sure that tribes can be in different relations with different cities.

skeptical_troll wrote: April 19th, 2020, 11:57 pm From the OP it is not clear if the army is one or each city has its own. At this stage it sounds more natural to me that armies are local and in case of war each city is asked to provide men according to some agreement. This is an ideal world for mercenaries, since many smaller cities won't be able to efficiently train and deploy soldiers. This role sounds quite fitting for the tribesmen.
I will update it accordingly.

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Celtic_Minstrel
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

I will note that it's probably not good to have the merchants calling the shots. They would have some influence, certainly, but they're hopefully not the ruling class.
Author of The Black Cross of Aleron campaign and Default++ era.
Former maintainer of Steelhive.
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