Here's my idea.
We know the SK has his scholar slaves studying texts found in ancient ruins about the city. So something thereabouts predates Gallard's arrival. So I was thinking that somewhere along the line Gallard parks his cleansing war army near these ancient ruins, where he begins to start excavating and studying, and out of his camped army grew the city we know today. As for the name "Nibenay," I would say that the name comes from the ruins themselves. That there was an "ancient nibenay" that fell into ruin for whatever reason. That Gallard discovered at least this name, adopted it for himself, and when it became his encamped army-turned-archaeology dig was becoming a city, christened it thus as well. Alternately, the current city is actually IN the ancient ruins, or a sizeable chunk that has been already combed with a finetooth brush. Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that Gallard found the ruins and some interesting stuff inside and started digging and studying. After the rebellion he adopted the name of this ancient city as his own. And over time his army/dig turned into the city-state of today.
Point being that there would be an "ancient nibenese" language that the scholar-slaves are studying.
This all came from me wondering what the name of the common language of the region was, and what the predominant cities were.
I mean gulg is not a dominant culture. It's more or less a glorified tribe. Draj is not a dominant culture either, being a fabrication of Tectuktitlay. Same with Urik (in that both city-states were created more or less by their SMs). Nibenay also seems an odd one out, especially if its "culture" is based on Gallard's archaeological findings of the ancient nibenese, which could possibly have been an ancient culture that predated the more "recent" ancient culture. Tyr and Balic are likely representatives of the most recent dominant culture that was there right about when the Wars began. Tyr, Balic, Ebe, Waverly, Bodach, Saragar, Celik . . . I think the greco-roman-hellenistic cities and cultures were likely the last great dominant culture of the region. Urik is the result of Hamanu uniting two nearby settlements under his banner and letting his micro-management tendencies take hold. Nibenay is the result of a huge archaeological dig and the findings of said dig influencing the new residents. Gulg is the result of an egotistic SQ who liked frolicking naked in the grassy forest moving in and taking control and turning it into a power (albeit a comparatively weak one). Raam is an ancient culture, as is Balic and Tyr (though Tyr has been through a lot of rough times and collapsing structures and stuff). One way to think of Raam would be Alexander having conquered Persia, and it being part of the greater Hellenistic culture of the greater region, but still distinct with its caste systems and everything.
So assuming the hellenistic cities are the heirs to the last great nationalistic culture, what would you call the common tongue? As opposed to simply "common." I would assume that this tongue would be the trade tongue, like latin or greek. Y'know, for game flavor. In Green Age times, what would you say the name of the region was? The Tyr region? I thought of that, but the Wanderer said that it isn't the proper name, just what he came up with because he was from Tyr himself and thought of it as the primary city as a result of his own bias.
I would say that Tyr, Balic and Saragar at least would share a language. I'd hazard that Celik, Waverly, Ebe, Bodach, Yaramuke and Raam would all have shared a common tongue (though Yaramuke and Raam might have a shared but distinct language from the rest). Urik I couldn't say. Draj would be completely distinct, being a creation of Tec's (maybe he encountered some plane-stranded aztecs from earth or something, and adopted their culture cuz he liked it). Nibenay would be an ancient ruin during most of the hellenistic green age period until resurrected by Gallard.
What if the tribesmen of Gulg were actually the descendents of ancient nibenay? That something happened that destroyed their culture and they "went back to nature," becoming the tribal group they are today? I'm just basing this on the fact that the two cities share the same forest.
This is really all just a lot of musing about the cultural traditions and heritage of athas for my own game, but I was wondering what people thought. Like I know someone had that Balic and Tyr were the result of this place called "Remaan" colonizing the region, but what are other peoples' opinions regarding all of this?
Sorry it's kinda long and rambly, too.
nic
In Green Age times, what would you say the name of the region was? The Tyr region? I thought of that, but the Wanderer said that it isn't the proper name, just what he came up with because he was from Tyr himself and thought of it as the primary city as a result of his own bias.
Since you read and adopted the historical explanation for Urik's existance found in RaFoaDK, then I propose you use the term Hamanu himself used in his youth, and still uses today: the heartlands. All the lands that have traces of high-level Green Age civilization in it would be a part of this heartland, probably a semi-circle around the Sea of Silt, if we look at the largest map TSR published.
This is really all just a lot of musing about the cultural traditions and heritage of athas for my own game, but I was wondering what people thought. Like I know someone had that Balic and Tyr were the result of this place called "Remaan" colonizing the region, but what are other peoples' opinions regarding all of this?
Lawkeeper Efkennu had written this great fiction story, and part of a Net-Project on Bodach. Said that the city was founded by dissidents from Giustenal. The project was a wonderful window into Green Age history, how the territories came to be, who did what and why, etc...
I think that over the thousand years that The Cleansing Wars occurred the idea behind a standing army for that long is a bit preposterous. Even though the world was turned from a verdant planet to a barren dust-ball, there wouldn't have been the agriculture to keep 1000 years of hundreds of thousands of soldiers constantly marching and hunting down the the reminants of a near-extinct race.
I think the Champions were demi-god manipulators whose every step was to further the destruction of the race that Rajaat chose for them. If they needed to be a general, fine, but if they could get the demi-human races to fight each other, even better.
I don't think that Gallard was the general that Hamanu or Tectuctitlay was, and I think that his approach would have been more subtle, but just as lethal. Maybe he worked on racial prejudice and mass curses. Maybe he created cilops originally so they survived only on gnome flesh then made millions of them. Then after gnomes were taking towards illusion spells to mask their presence to hide from the unfortunate series of exterminations from humans to elves to beasts, Gallard then took to elimination of their homelands to root them out. Then once his gnome detection meter started to wane completely, he personally wiped out the last of them. So when he did all that without the use of an army, I think your idea about him taking over an archaeological dig is right on!
Maybe he created cilops originally so they survived only on gnome flesh then made millions of them. Then after gnomes were taking towards illusion spells to mask their presence to hide from the unfortunate series of exterminations from humans to elves to beasts, Gallard then took to elimination of their homelands to root them out.
Hmmm... I like that...
