Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 22 Oct 2004 to 23 Oct 2004 (#2004-228) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 24/10/2004, 18:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 13 messages totalling 635 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Rakastas, Makai and M-Malaysian 2. Ochalea & Ethengar (3) 3. Ochalea & MChina 4. Investigating (Inventing) Ochalean History (6) 5. Rakastas, Ochalea & Myoshima (...and Makai!) 6. RES: [MYSTARA] Ochalea ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.mystaranet.jamm.com/vaults/default.aspx To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 09:43:32 +0200 From: la Volpe Subject: Rakastas, Makai and M-Malaysian Like Giampaolo pointed out before, the only reason why we chose the Rakastas as M-Malaysian, M-Indonesian etc. is that some Rakastan subraces (on Mystara proper), towns and nations (on Myoshima) have Indonesian and Malayisian names. Moreover, trying to fill in the blanks and incongruencies of the setting, we devised the idea of a Rakastan influence on the Makai. Why this? Like I explained before: using one among the ethnographic and linguistic theories that are more widely respected/accepted in the scientific community, I am trying to write an ethnography and lingustic history of Mystara. The populations of south-eastern Asia and Oceania(Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodge, Myanmar, Polinesia), from an ethnic and linguistic perspective, are all related, while they are different from the other Asians. The only Mystaran populations to speak their equivalent type of language (a common linguistic supergroup called "Austric") are these Rakasta (if we assume that the names of their nations, cities and cultures has some relation to their language - a thing that is widely accepted, I think, otherwise Ochalea wouldn't be M-China and the Belcadiz wouldn't be M-Spanish and so on) and the Makai. However, the Makai are Neathar - and the Neathar by no means are equivalent to Polinesian - especially if we want to have things on Mystara to have sense from a perspective of equivalence to Real World. So, if we assume that one of the two original breeds of Rakastas are the equivalent of the Real World's "Austrics", given the fact that Rakastas are found all over Mystara, it's far from impossible to assume that a group of Rakasta, bringing with them their Austric language, arrived in the areas of nowadays Ierendi. In some way, they imposed their language on the Makai. This could have happened a lot of time ago, probably BEFORE the original Makai were transplanted to the Hollow World. During the course of centuries, Rakastas left Ierendi, and the Makai developed a M-Polinesian language. I'd also like to point out (again) that one of the possible theories on the origin of japanese language, says that japanese comes from a mix of an Uralo-altaic and an Austric language, heavily influenced by the near Chinese. As the Myoshimans are M-Japanese, we can assume that the ancestors of the Myoshiman Rakastas (of Austric language) somehow interacted with humans of Uralo-altaic origin (like in the Yazak/Savage Coast area), generating the ancestor language of japanese. The Chinese influence would be brought later by Rakastas coming from Ochalea, and thus we have Myoshima and the japanese Rakastas. Giulio ___________________________________ Nuovo Yahoo! Messenger: E' molto più divertente: Audibles, Avatar, Webcam, Giochi, Rubrica… Scaricalo ora! http://it.messenger.yahoo.it ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 09:55:49 +0200 From: la Volpe Subject: Re: Ochalea & Ethengar . > > Are the Oltecs necessarily the ancestors of Asian > peoples? Sorry, but > my anthropology background doesn't go back that far. > In Mystara, it is clearly stated in several products that ALL Humans are descendants of THREE ethnic groups: Neathar, Oltecs and Tanagoro. Tanagoro are, obviously, the ancestors of "black" African populations. Neathar are the ancestors of caucasoid/"white" populations. Oltecs are the ancestors of "yellow" populations. This includes those in Asia and those in America. If we create a human M-Chinese population, it surely must have some roots in the Oltec race. Moreover, there are three "alien" ethnic groups, the Laterrans (coming from a parallel Earth, like the people of Averoigne and Klantyre in Glantri, that are french and scots respectively), the Alphatians, and a small group on the southern continent, called Emerondians. > 5) After the Great Rain of Fire, the M-Chinese move > toward the Known > World, they are the ancestors of the Ethengarians. > M-Chinese settle in > Ethengar. The Ogre Magi may either remain with the > Humanoid Hordes, or > leave with the M-Chinese (or a little of both). > > Are the M-Chinese limited in location for 15,000 > years to the > Borea-Wendar region? Not exactly. Probably we can do what we want with them, but remember that also the RW ancient migrations were very slow, in ancient times, because there were so little people and so big space...the area from Borea to Wendar is not little by any means. And if some went east, some could have gone north or west. Moreover: you must not think of the main population as that of hundred of thousands living in that area. And last but not least, what should we say about the Native Americans? They too remained confined in America for 20'000 years!!! Or the Native Australians, for that matter! Probably over 40'000 years! There may be other options, and the situation is different (being in the center of Brun means they are not isolated like if they lived in Australia), but at least it's not impossible that they stayed there for so long (I think, but I'm not sure, the same happened for the Real World Chinese population, more or less). Giulio ___________________________________ Nuovo Yahoo! Messenger: E' molto più divertente: Audibles, Avatar, Webcam, Giochi, Rubrica… Scaricalo ora! http://it.messenger.yahoo.it ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 01:56:05 -0700 From: Herve Musseau Subject: Ochalea & MChina Alright, if you like my idea about MChina, which is called Chung-Eun in the MOrient project and was mentioned in the last almanac btw, how about I take it a bit further, and see how we can complexify the histories of our beloved empires a bit and try to explain Ochalea in the process (we like intricate histories with layers of truths, don't we?). Blackmoor was the dominant empire of the world, but on its fringes existed several proto-MAsian cultures, like the Peshwas. When Blackmoor blew itself up, the remnants of these cultures migrated away from Blackmoor. Some went west and became the Jennites and the Ethengar (I'm being generic on purpose, a lot of ideas can be inserted it to detail it). Some who lived north of Blackmoor were already on Brun, due to the new continental disposition, and moved toward the new south, and became the Oltecs and Azcans. Some who lived southeast of Thonia went south and founded the nations of MOrient, including Chung-Eun. During its history Chung-Eun was invaded many times by barbarians, so that it eventually built the Great Wall, a magical wall that kept barbarious humans and orcs away from the empire. The empire closed its borders. Landwise it worked rather well with the Great Wall, with only limited contact with other MOrient nations, and more ranging contact through sea-travel, notably with the demi-ogres of Gombar (who couldn't spread the knowledge of the existence of Chung-Eun much farther, due to the difficulty of trading past the Arm of the Immortals that the Gombarians are to this day still trying to overcome) and the Tangor. Then the Alphatians made Landfall, and in their initial desire to explore this new planet, they went far (first Bellissaria and others, but also Brun (Norwold, Ylaruam and Thyatis, etc) and also reached Chung-Eun. The lungs and the celestial bureaucracy of Chung-Eun saw the danger to their policy of isolationism, and devised a way to keep the Alphatians away. They somehow convinced the Alphatians that the legend that Alphatia would be destroyed when the nations of Brun would make contact with Chung-Eun. Thus, the Alphatians Empire started to eradicate knowledge of Chung-Eun, and kept all Brun civilizations at bay, enforcing Chung-Eun's isolation policy for them. No mention of Chung-Eun is ever made and its existence is kept secret, known only to the Emperor/Empress and the Council of Wizards; instead, the lie is spread that there are only barbarious lands east of the Tangor Empire (of which little is said either, as a precaution). Minaea was allowed to grow to power by the Alphatians, in order to create a buffer country that has been presented to the rest of the world as a pirate nation, thus explaining why trade goes no further than Bellissaria and why Alphatian navy patrols those seas and why Surshield is fortified (it is in fact to keep nosy Thyatians and Minrothaddans and others from exploring east). Ochalea was created wholecloth as part of the deal between Alphatia and Chung-Eun. Here, how exactly can be taken from other ideas I've seen, for example I like the idea that one faction composed mainly of commoners now, that was allied with the followers of air, decided to settle there. Some people from Chung-Eun would also be sent there, we can decide whether it is only rakasta and ogre-magi, or also humans. In any case, they were crucial in establishing the culture of Ochalea. Now, of course Ochalea also had a role of making sure that the Alphatian Empire was indeed keeping Chung-Eun safe. So there's a secret faction in Ochalea whose role it is. When Thyatis rose to prominence, this faction thought that it would be able to better keep Brun away from Chung-Eun by infiltrating and gaining influence in the growing empire (they were confident by then that Alphatia had done its job and would keep doing it, and that they could keep making sure it was the case without being actually part of the Alphatian Empire). So they had the king support the Thyatian rebellion against Alphatia, and helped Thyatis (or were content that it happened) annex Ochalea. Following WotI, Alphatia was destroyed and as a consequence the remnants of the empire may not protect Chung-Eun's existence anymore. Thus, the Ochaleans may have helped the Alphatians to regroup, and they manipulated the Ochalean king to have him rejoin the Thyatian Empire, and tried to stop Thyatis from exploring east. They were too late though (they didn't foresee the destruction of Alphatia any more than anyone else, and its consequences!), and Thyatis is now following a stratedy of exploration, and has an expedition toward Skothar that has already reached Esterhold and Thonia, and is now sailing south toward Minaea, Tangor, and ultimately (though they don't know it) Chung-Eun, and the Ochaleans are trying to slow them down and revert the current Thyatian policy. It is difficult because the new Thyatian Emperor has different ideas, and Nayce is still too weak and lets the Thyatians pass through (it may have lost knowledge of the covenant with Chung-Eun, or those who know about it may think it is useless to enforce it anymore since the destruction of Alphatia came to pass already). ===== ___________________________________________________________ Herve Musseau http://www.geocities.com/hmusseau/ _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 11:27:43 +0200 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Ochalea & Ethengar Steven Carter ha scritto: > > What was the extent of the ogre-magi, lupin and rakasta civilization > on the island of Ochalea at: 3000BC and 500 year increments toward the > present day. (I.e. 2500, 2000 etc). For the Lupins, I've collected here the canon sources and my own hypoteses: http://www.mystaranet.jamm.com/vaults/html/lupnhist.html For the Rakasta, the only fixed dates are those in Savage Coast. By 1700 BC, there are M-Japanese Rakasta in the Yazak Steppes. These are descendants of the Skotharian Rakasta, so you may add some centuries between Ochalea and Yazak. More if you go by the Plaktur hypothesis (i.e., there was an urban Rakasta civilization in the Yazak Steppes at 1700 BC, which was destroyed by the goblinoids, see C. Constantin's maps of the area for the location of Plaktur). The other interesting item is from the Rakasta article on DM. The Rakasta are created from a tribe of human followers of Ka. Followers of Ka are, AFAWK, Oltecs. Since they're rather primitive, you may assume that the Rakasta were created while the Oltecs were at the Stone Age level. There's no other info that I know of: the Ogre-Magi only appear in the Lupin article on Dragon Magazine. GP ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 17:22:08 +0200 From: Francesco Defferrari Subject: Re: Investigating (Inventing) Ochalean History Giampaolo Agosta wrote: > There's a problem with setting all of these in Skothar. > We already have part of M-Indocina, in Patera (Kompor-Thap is > probably Vietnam, Selimpore is likely Singapore, Malacayog are the > Philippines, and Surabayang may be Borneo) > Moreover, M-Tibet exists in Skothar, but it's a Rakastan land. Same > for Indonesia (Sherkasta and Cloud Pardasta). > This may lead to a duplication of cultures. > There are a few missing cultures (the more Chinese-like Indocinese > areas, basically) but these create additional problems (they would be > Rakasta + M-Chinese), so M-Chinese must be tackled first. Sorry for the delay but If we had M-vietnam, m-singapore, m-philippines and m-borneo on Patera and m-burma, m-cambodia m-thailand and maybe m-corea, m-china, m-mongolia, m-indonesia and m-malaysia on Mystara there isn't a duplication of cultures. The problem that remains is just the link between Pateran rakastan cultures and Mystaran humans and rakastan culture. For me, this link should be in Skothar, but I suppose this could be a matter of individual choices and tastes. > We might say that either the ``Alphatian'' colonists of Ochalea were > not really Alphatians, but came from Skothar as slaves of the > Alphatians, or that for some reason there is an Alphatian nation that > is M-Chinese. This could be, or alphatians and slaves and natives, and in centuries the later two prevailed (with a bit of integration obviously, I never told that ochalean culture should not have any alphatian or cypric cultural element)... Then, they might have moved > some of these M-Chinese in one of their colonization attempts to > Ethengar. If these M-Chinese were Alphatians, then we may assume that they > simply moved to Ethengar, Ochalea, and Skothar (where they influenced > the Tagh). This could work for Ochalea, but not for Ethengar: I think is clear in canon that ethangarians came to brun around 2000 BC, one thousand years before the alphatians came to Mystara. But yours is a good idea anyway. bye Francesco ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 17:50:13 +0200 From: Francesco Defferrari Subject: Re: Ochalea & Ethengar la Volpe wrote: > Note that when I say M-Chinese or not, referring to > the Ochaleans, I only refer to LANGUAGE and CULTURE, > not to ethnicity. Clearly, Ochaleans are of Alphatian > ethnicity, not in any way M-Asian. You have devised many interesting and consistent solutions, even if I prefer to have ochalean of double ethnicity, alphatian cypric and oriental natives. Clearly you're right that any of your solutions would be enough to explain their chinese cultural elements, but I really want to link them somehow to ethengarians, and to link all the oriental cultures of Mystara with an unique "human explanation", the oriental oltec/neathar culture. About Ochalea and Ethengar I see an unquestionable likeness between the two cultures, as there is one between mongolians and chinese: I know there are many differences too, but clearly mongolians are more alike to chinese than they are to europeans, and so there should be in mystara too a link between ethengarians and ochaleans. A very important and ancient link, despite the clear fact that ethengarians have many links with many neathar populations of Brun, too (like Huleans and uncanon zuyevan and so on). Anyway I think to ochaleans more like southern chinese, so I agree that they should be quite differents in complexion, language and culture to ethengarians. bye Francesco ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 17:59:41 +0200 From: Francesco Defferrari Subject: Re: Investigating (Inventing) Ochalean History > IMO there is no reason why some of the Chinese elements for Ethengar > and Ochalea cannot go back to the Blackmoor era when GAZ12 "The Golden > Khan of Ethengar" clearly states on page 3 paragraph 4 that the > spirits drawn into the world by the Blackmoor Catastrophe found a > yellow skinned people that lived on the edge or fringe of the > Blackmoor civilization. Exactly my idea. I don't like to use humanoids or rakasta to explain human cultures, even if a common influence between humans and not-human is probably rooted in all the mystaran history. The idea of a mother oriental culture in Skothar seems to me implicit both in the ethengarian gazeteer and in the master set map, and consort to the uncanon oriental cultures of Skothar. > We can say the Cypro-Ochaleans allied with the Air camp but were not > believers. I would like to say that this group were more > integrationists but found the Air camp less distasteful than Fire. > When they made planetfall on Mystara they decided to go their separate > way. However they still amounted to 99% commoners and a few nobles. I wrote an Old Alphatia history that is in the Vault, and the idea of a chinese-like culture in Old Alphatia would fit well in some Gaian or Pelagian culture. BTW, the "alphatian chinese" could be gone to live in ancient Ochalea in 500 BC before they found there a similar native culture, being it of humans from Skothar or of rakastan from somewhere else. > Okay, I'd like to have it that the Cypro-Ochaleans are > M-Chinese-esque, having similar elements to their culture thus making > integration with the M-Chinese Ochalean natives more facile. Ok, exactly as you wrote in the following post :-) bye Francesco ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 18:08:26 +0200 From: Francesco Defferrari Subject: Re: Investigating (Inventing) Ochalean History Giampaolo Agosta wrote: > I'm interested in this point --because it could point to further > Rakastan influence there. Could you elaborate? Beitung is clearly an indonesian name: go check an indonesian map to believe. And the illustration of Ochalean buildings in DotE seems to remember indonesian architecture. When I read DotE the first time I thought of Ochalea as Mystaran indonesia, because I didn't immediatly saw the chinese names on the map. Maybe the "indonesian culture" of Ochalea could be the more cypric or thyatian influenced (nearest to the capital and the centre of power) while the chinese culture the native one... > Yasuko could be Malesian? I though of them as Japanese. Anyway, they > could be an offshot of Ochalea. They lived in the jungle, they remembered me my favourite Sandokan books :-) (For not-italian speaking, I don't know if the XIX century italian writer Emilio Salgari is known to you, anyway he wrote a serie of books about an indian prince turned pirate, Sandokan, that fought the English colonial power in the malesian sea) bye Francesco ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 21:30:35 +0200 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Rakastas, Ochalea & Myoshima (...and Makai!) Francesco Defferrari ha scritto: > > Well, then according to my skotharian oriental culture theory :-) the Makai > would be a mix between Neathar (canon) probably ancestors of the taymorans, > and original ochalean-like people who came from the Sea of Dawn. Uhm... that would assume that the ochaleans developed the M-Austronesian and M-Sino-Tibetan linguistic groups. Isn't this a bit too much for a comparatively small ethnic group? > The whole problem about lupins and > rakastas, IMO, is that even if they are quite a good idea and very peculiar > of Mystara, they were created much later than the original setting and were > the creation of one person only, and so they don't always fit well in > Mystara. Well, they've been there since the beginning, actually. Rakasta appear in Castle Amber as followers of Sire Richard and Sire Andre-David, and in the Isle of Dread as nomadic tribes. The Lupins appear in Castle Amber as followers of Sire Claude and Sire Andre-David. So at least they existed in Glantri *before* the Gazetteer. Too bad Bruce did not use them at the time, and only reintroduced the Lupins in the later DM article. They were both created by Tom Moldvay, and later reused by Bruce Heard (and later Tim Beach) in the Savage Coast material, and finally revised in Bruce's article. As for fitting well in Mystara, that's a matter of tastes, IMO. Of course, I do like them more than most people do, so I'm more in favor of having them as major races (IMC there are more Lupins and Rakasta than Elves or Dwarves in Mystara). > For the sake of the coherence of the cultures and languages of > Mystara, rakastans and lupins should be used the less possible, IMHO. Uhm, if your problem is that Lupins and Rakasta do not appear until later and therefore should not be used in Known World, I can understand this -- even though I would do otherwise. OTOH, I don't see how they infringe on the coherence of language and culture -- actually, not considering them makes their culture and languages incoherent with the rest of the world. Consider that using them in the explanation of past events does not even modify the knowledge that PC may have -- who knows the origin of the Makai language anyway? GP ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 19:25:03 +0200 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Investigating (Inventing) Ochalean History Francesco Defferrari ha scritto: > > The problem that remains is just the link between > Pateran rakastan cultures and Mystaran humans and rakastan culture. For me, > this link should be in Skothar, but I suppose this could be a matter of > individual choices and tastes. Of course, but it is likely to be the Skotharian Rakasta, who are IMO clearly M-indonesian -- though there's also a proved link between Myoshima and Bellayne. > This could work for Ochalea, but not for Ethengar: I think is clear in canon > that ethangarians came to brun around 2000 BC, one thousand years before the > alphatians came to Mystara. But yours is a good idea anyway. Of course, my idea is not that the Ethengar themselves were Alphatians, but that they were later influenced by some Alphatians -- in the end, even though modern Ethengar is like 1300 Mongolia, then 1700 BC Ethengar might not have any M-Chinese influence at all. GP ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 19:35:05 +0200 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Investigating (Inventing) Ochalean History Francesco Defferrari ha scritto: > > Beitung is clearly an indonesian name: go check an indonesian map to > believe. I trust you, of course, but Bruce Heard seems to intend Beitung simply as a variant of Peking/Beijing, as he calls the Ochalean Houndling a ``beitungese'' (and the related dog is of course a pekingese). Still, the possibility of an M-Indonesian influence on Ochalea is interesting, and might be used in a Rakasta-heavy version of Ochalea. >> Yasuko could be Malesian? I though of them as Japanese. Anyway, they >> could be an offshot of Ochalea. > > They lived in the jungle, they remembered me my favourite Sandokan books :-) The Dayak, then? :) I had some thoughts on Sandokan -- the ``Tiger of Malaysia'' nickname would be appropriate to a Sherkasta pirate-prince :oD GP ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 18:53:56 -0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Andr=E9_Martins?= Subject: RES: [MYSTARA] Ochalea =20 > We have two opportunities: either there is an M-Chinese Alphatian=20 > nation, or the Alphatians found a group of M-Chinese somewhere in=20 > Alphatia or Bellissaria.>> Because it made me make the following=20 > mental connection: > I remember that seomone, I think Marco, devised a legend surrounding=20 > MChina (of the MOrient project) that would explain why there is so=20 > little contact: there is a legend from MChina that when contact would=20 > be made with the west, Alphatia would be destroyed. For some reason=20 > the Alphatians took it seriously, and the prediction came to pass when = > Alphatia sank during WotI. What if this has something to do with the=20 > Ochaleans, or anyway that Alphatia did know about MChina and that led=20 > somehow to the creation of Ochalea and the interdiction (by imperial > Alphatia) of contact between MChina and the nations of Brun? Comments, = > especially by those more knowledgeable than me about MOrient, and=20 > particularly by the author of that half-remembered myth that stuck in=20 > my memory, would be much welcome. You have a very good memory (that was seven years ago), Herve, but not a perfect one. I was the one who made the suggestion of the legend when we were working on how a nation as strong as the plans for Chung-Eun were = could not be known in the Known World. Btw, I still have many of those old = emails of the MOrient list in a zip file here, if anyone would want to see = those, just tell me. Lots of discussions, with people still trying to make up = their minds about what should be where, but now that I was taking a look at = it, we did manage to get quite a few things started and there are tons of ideas there. The thing I don't have there is the MOrient map, drawn at the = time, depicting the location of many nations that were being proposed, but you = can find that in Thibault's site, of course. Andr=E9 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 18:05:01 -0400 From: Dan Eustace Subject: Re: Investigating (Inventing) Ochalean History > > BTW, in Dragon 247 I don't see anything very malesian or indonesian, so why > > rakasta should be M-malesian and indonesian? > > The names (endoethnics, to be precise)! ``Harimau'', for example, is the > indonesian word for ``tiger'', but also the name of the Rakasta of > southern Skothar. Also, the Pateran nations (Selimpore, Kompor Thap) Is all of this Rakasta as "M-Austric" material found in this Dragon article, or are there other sources? What source details civilizations on Patera? I know the Rakasta of Bellayne and Myoshima, to a lesser extent, but I've not heard of these others until these recent posts. ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 22 Oct 2004 to 23 Oct 2004 (#2004-228) ****************************************************************