Talk:Tamerlane

FWIW, I'm really sorry about any stress, frustration, etc. that this has caused. =( I didn't think this would have such an impact.

I'm going to rework it a bit today based on the comments below but if I could get a more specific list of stuff to change, I will. Otherwise, am going to cut a large portion of this page out and add it back in as/if I get approval from Matt. Once again, really sorry. =(

--HelenAngel 13:21, 9 May 2011 (EDT)

Ha, the only stress was in trying to reign you in without hurting your feelings or dampening the creative impulse. :) -gm

Updated it. Didn't have to cut as much out as I thought according to the suggestions below. Feel free to tweak, etc. or tell me what to do. =) And no worries about that- I felt bad primarily for making more work for you & Mattie. --HelenAngel 16:11, 9 May 2011 (EDT)

I don't know if its too late for this, but I could also see this in its original, unedited form ported over to a local Fresian noble family. Matt, what were your thoughts on this? Helen/Mattie, do you really want this group to be set in the Ulan? Just thinking out loud here...

Are you fucking with me? absalom 20:10, 9 May 2011 (EDT)

LOL! Well it probably wont surprise you to know that I don't always know what I'm talking about when I mouth off. I see now that this is basically what was done. Good point. --146.127.253.45

I could imagine this border being politically unstable--as much a moving set of alliance than a border. With some constant changing over time due to war, marriage, alliance, etc, that could even rationalize this as fairly recent history, with possibly no change to the timeline. If there was a reasonable land claim associated with it, I could see the Fresian "princes" rationalizing noble titles and political credibility for particualry organized barbarian tribes. --146.127.253.14

Sure, as with any frontier, the Ulan/Mainland border is understandably fuzzy. -gm

Reworking Tamerlane

Excerpts from intertwined discussion below:

On the plus side, there is no stopping Fresian/Ulani barbarians from having accepted a more mainland Alexandrianism and becoming one of the many tribal princes that make up fresia today. Can we just cut and paste this into the story of the Tetalar family that rulse southeastern Fresia, or some more minor Fresian clan? Might have to shift the timeline back a bit, but it seems like a totally valid history for that area. Also, might put in a hook for some sort of vaguely Zuppanistic Alexandrian sect--if any country has it, Fresia seems like the best fit. --Msallen

I don't disagree - there are plenty of valid ways to integrate stories into the main narrative. [-detarame]

Back to the topic, though - I was, In fact, thinking along these same lines when I was considering this last night as I was trying to go to sleep, there's a great chance that a LOT of the people of Fresia are descendants of tribes that migrated out of the Ulan after Alexandria's Crusade to exploit the major population declines caused by the same. [-detarame]

Helen and I, after discussing this a bit last night, were also thinking along the lines of trying to work this into southern or southeastern Fresia. I was also talking to Matt that it could even have evolved into a small duchy in the area, with their own history keeping the area tight-nit. Helen did do a lot of cross-referencing and research to try to make this viable-- she didn't realize that the Ulan is still savage and shamanistic (as far as anyone knows). She was thinking "Barbarian" in the D&D sense was just a form of fighting-style. I'll let her clarify, but I think she saw it more like how we call Greek groups "tribes" (e.g. Mycenaean, Dorians, Spartans, etc). Low-tech but organized and upwardly moving peoples, whereas the Ulan tribes (as I see it) are typically disorganized aboriginal and primitive peoples often eaten by werebears.

Heh, i can see that. FWiW, in the context of their own times the Greeks were the most advanced people of their age, it's worth pointing out. The Spartans were brave, yada yada, but the reason Marathon and Thermopylae were overwhelming Greek victories is because the Greeks were armed and armored with bronze and iron, while the Persians were armored with wicker shields and wooden lamellar armor. I also think, FWiW, barbarian in the D&D sense is even *more* savage and uncultured. After all, illiteracy is a part of the Barbarian package. I mean, they're a lot more of the Noble Savage than they were in older editions, but being unrefined is still the heart of both the class and the concept.

That being said, these guys would be awesome as sort of "civilized semi-barbarian." After all, the historical stereotype is that Barbarians are conquered by those they subjugate. IE: they generally take over some civilized area, but over the long term assimilate large parts of the culture they supposedly conquered. See also: China under the Mongols, India under Every Conqueror Ever, etc. And, as I said, in the aftermath of Alexandria's crusade, you have a pretty substantial Dark Age period - where the "civilized" population has been badly weakened, while the Ulan population is just as good as it ever was, since they took no part in the conflict.

In the wake of the Crusades, the rebuilding of society happened kind of outward in - beginning in the coastal areas and slowly working its way inward over a century or two of heavy missionary activity and active consolidation. Having the far south, especially in the Fresia region, being the last ones to "civilize" makes a lot of sense. In fact, it makes a lot of sense that - during the crusades - a bunch of Ulan tribals might have migrated into the relatively lush and empty Fresia and, over a few generations, become yet another Fresian clan. Since the Fresians are already associated with barbarian roots, this fits like a snug peg. It also lets these guys have some pretty unique and oddball cultural relics of their own that make them unique and also give them good reason to have some loose but persistent ties - culturally and through intermarriage - with some tribes deeper in the Ulan. -gm

Anyway, my proposal to get this story into canon:

• Move it to southern/southeastern Fresia
• Make it a small duchy or half of another duchy
• Refactor the Religion section
• Refactor the Education section
• Inject a little more influence from Fresian civilization and government as some of the catalyst for uplifting them as governable (or tolerated) subgroup
• Adjust some timelines backwards to try to keep the story pre-1000 and more sensitive to the Fresian timeline (it was able to dodge some of that by being Ulan before)

Yeah, I like all of this and, in fact, moving it to fresia makes a lot of the changes not as important. It's absolutely fitting that a small but established dutchy or province would have a well developed system of laws and education. In fact, it can cut both ways - the assimilation of large Barbarian exiles into the Fresian culture might very well have changed and influenced the development of Fresia moving forward. I could see that encouraging a more decentralized, clan based government as such currently exists. These guys probably would have adopted Alexandrianism, although "Alexandrianism" can look different in different places depending on the culture that's practicing it, so it's not necessarily a rigid form and could be slid in with only minor tweaking.

The big thing to remember when dealing with Pre-Alexandrian times is that there is very little information the further back one goes. Looking at the Ages of History, each of these epoch shifts occur after a great, cataclysmic whowhatzit. Usually it's a war. In fact, I think it's *always* been war. An each of those events leads to tremendous social upheaval, migrations, and loss of knowledge. So, almost nothing beyond myth and legend remain from the Primal Age, Time of the Eight, & First War while some fragmentary and dubiously trustworthy histories exist chronicling the Age of the Demigods - histories that become more detailed and accurate the closer they get to the next Epoch Marker -the Crusade. Post crusade, after the establishment of the church in the first few centuries of the Alexandrian Age, the records become much more complete and detailed.

Hmmm.. I wonder what the next Epoch Marker will bring. -gm

What else would you see as needing rework? Anything else not fit so well or need to be added to help make it work? -Mattie

As I said, there's nothing really that prevents the Tamerlane from existing as part of the Mainland almost unchanged, but there's a lot that prevents them from being part of the Ulan tribes as they exist "today." The Tamerlane as a subculture is pretty great. -gm

Discussion and Guidelines for Major Content

At this point, I can't possibly clean this up to my satisfaction. I love the energy and the zeal and the detail, and I really hate to say anything because of the obvious work you've put in, but what you have created here is a city and it belongs in Fresia. I've held off and kind of tweaked here and there, especially because I don't know if these guys are critical to his plot or just a vanity project. But, I think that you let your heart and imagination run wild - which is awesome, btw - but I think you're thinking in the context of whatever you personally think is novel and interesting and not thinking about these guys in the context of a large, interconnected, and unified world, because it doesn't seem like you're giving a fiddler's whit to thoughts of setting or context. Having a barbarian tribe with a complex written constitution, five centuries of hereditary rule, a codified education system, a fully literate populace, and all the trappings of civilization flies in the very face of what it means to be a barbarian, and basically ignores the very role barbarian tribes are supposed to play. I think this whole article is very well written and organized, but there's no reason this wouldn't fit as a town somewhere, and every reason it doesn't fit as a barbarian tribe. And, it's not that I don't think these guys couldn't be revised into a state of suitable barbarism, but let's face it - and I'm not saying all barbarians need to be savages - there isn't the least bit barbarian about these guys. I mean, it's great content, but a lot of it is wildly incongruous with what the Ulan is supposed to represent. absalom 20:49, 5 May 2011 (EDT)

On the plus side, there is no stopping Fresian/Ulani barbarians from having accepted a more mainland Alexandrianism and becoming one of the many tribal princes that make up fresia today. Can we just cut and paste this into the story of the Tetalar family that rulse southeastern Fresia, or some more minor Fresian clan? Might have to shift the timeline back a bit, but it seems like a totally valid history for that area. Also, might put in a hook for some sort of vaguely Zuppanistic Alexandrian sect--if any country has it, Fresia seems like the best fit. --Msallen

I don't disagree - there are plenty of valid ways to integrate stories into the main narrative. The best way to do that moving forward with future content? Actually consult and collaborate with the World Master in the future before creating an ancient and sophisticated civilization with 5,000 years of significant and detailed history. Even *you* do me that favor, Matt, and you are (by orders of magnitude) the most dickheaded player we have (because I'm not officially a player until Mattie's game launches. Then we can quibble "biggest Most"!). I mean, how many hours of discussion and how many pages of emails were passed back and forth between us before you created even minor content?

Back to the topic, though - I was, In fact, thinking along these same lines when I was considering this last night as I was trying to go to sleep, there's a great chance that a LOT of the people of Fresia are descendants of tribes that migrated out of the Ulan after Alexandria's Crusade to exploit the major population declines caused by the same.

But, the fact remains, it's much easier to discuss things up front and collaborate then have to go back and do hours of clean up and revision work, and it doesn't cause me near the anxiety worrying about hurting feelings or tearing apart someone else's hard work.

I mean, it's only recently that players have been willing enough - and comfortable enough with the setting - to generate their own content. Since this is the goal I always wanted to reach, I'm happy for that, and at the end of the day I'll readily take the blame for not having stricter and more formalized creation guidelines in place for the eventuality. But, suffice it to say, any *significant* content creation needs to be discussed with me in advance, which I thought went without saying. Not only so I can keep continuity creep from destroying the fabric of the world (see also: Dragonlace), but also so I can find a natural and organic place for whimsy strikes the player. Another, even more relevant, reason is because I have a broad and deep knowledge of the entire world that nobody else yet comes close to sharing. Not just from the PoV of spoilers and stuff - although there is that - but also simply keeping track of and remembering the hundreds of content-related side discussions, chats, and emails that could help illuminate and integrate and flesh out ideas players would like to see introduced into the world. absalom 09:55, 6 May 2011 (EDT)

There is a discussion of the politics of managing and encouraging volunteers to be had, but I'll give you a call and we'll have it off line. On the subject of dicks, however, I'm afraid it is a foregone conclusion: you always win by a marigin that is both wide and long ;) --Msallen

Oh, absolutely! I'll readily admit that, when it comes to project management, my toolbox doesn't even have fisher price gear in it. I think I do better with the other team (Slitherrr, et al) because when we talk about game content, there's not two decades of interpersonal history there and it can be all business. Also, from a personal mentality point of view, going back and revising tons of work I've never seen is stressful and anxiety inducing in a way that discussing in advance is not, because I don't like feeling like I'm cutting apart someone's hard work. I'd much rather guide and influence their work from the get go rather than go back and slice and dice hours of their hard work. -gm

Besides, its not how BIG of a dick you are, but how effective you are. So, I might have tons of natural talent, but you've really refined what little prickishness you were blessed with into masterwork status.

I overcompensate well! I'm sure it doesn't help that I've gone and got you accoustomed to being badgered and berratted over these issues, but I'm unrepentent of the suffering I cause you or others. But yeah, its best to talk shit out rather than have to change it after its written. --Msallen

FWiW, since I'm working under the assumption most the people on the early list are made up, why have gaps in the lineage? Oral history isn't reliable or authentic, and we can safely assume for an oral history stretching back 5,000 years (longer than all of REAL recorded history, it's worth pointing out), everything before the advent of writing is essentially fairy stories and why wouldn't later storytellers just elongate the reigns of already made up figures, or just invent new figures to add in with the already invented ones? -gm

Why would they have a motto? They can't even read. The whole POINT of being a barbarian is that you get to not worry about all that sissy heraldric bull-pucky those effeminate northmen concern themselves with. ;)

Heh, these guys are like only semi-barbarians at this point, threw in some flavor in the introduction to highlight how I suspect the more "traditional" barbarian tribes would view these guys. -gm

Also: the barbarians of the Ulan have a universal, symbolic written language created by Mikos Lygit, FWIW, even if only priests and higher-up mucky-mucks know it. -gm

Yup, I'm getting to that (the symbolic Mikos language). And they have a verbal history which is where the motto comes from. - Helen

Excellent. It's a pretty obscurely referenced tidbit, so I didn't know if you noticed it or not. absalom 15:55, 5 May 2011 (EDT)

Redacted History

These are the parts taken out from the history after 1000 FI:

As of 1401 FI, the current Chief of the Tamerlane is Bullstrode the Uniting.

The current Reis, Bullstrode the Uniting, assumed the Chiefdom in 1382 FI from his parents, Sumer the Stalwart and Odenia the Mindful, who are now both retired and elders. Bullstrode has recently become engaged to Dimendia Si'Lathe, the daughter of a blacksmith in Arabelle (and 15 years his junior).

The Old Code received major revisions in 772, and minor revisions in 1051 and in 1349 by Sumer the Stalwart.

The last chief and father of the current chief, Sumer the Stalwart, had his wife rule alongside him as Ekiz Reis or co-Chief.

Old Code Revisions:

• (1349 revision) A Reis or the advisers of the Reis may also appoint an Ekiz Reis to assume the roles of the Reis equally.

• (1349 revision) If there is an Ekiz Reis, the Ekiz Reis must approve entirely of the changes before the changes are presented to the Council of Elders.

• (1349 revision) and Ekiz Reis equally if one is appointed.

Members of the Council are bound to serve and protect the Reis (1349 revision) and Ekiz Reis if one is present (1051 revision) as well as uphold the culture, people, and traditions of the Tamerlane.

Lineage:

Dre the Solemn (992 FI - 1061 FI)

Connal the Completing (1011 FI - 1058 FI)

Sumer the Stalwart (1330 FI) & Odenia the Mindful (1336 FI) Bullstrode the Uniting (1362 FI)

I modified the revisions to the Old Code and the like so I could keep some of the history while staying within the timeline. --HelenAngel 16:21, 5 May 2011 (EDT)