| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Icelander |
Posted - 27 Feb 2012 : 06:02:47
In The Horde setting, there are several events listed which have profound impact on Kara-Tur and that region of Faerun known as the Old Empires. Some of them, while presented in chronological order there, have not been dated in canon, as far as I can find.
I thought I'd see how near we could get to a canon date for them.
Li dynasty of [Shou Lung]* conquers Khazari: Between -900 DR and -670 DR (the rule of the Li). Including Khazari at this time among the 'western provinces of Shou Lung' would give us a date of -868 DR, at which time these were united under the Li emperor. Seems fairly plausible, with Li military might then shifting to a southern strategy, moving their borders ever further south over the next centuries.
Rise of the Kalmyks: According to the Horde setting, this was during the Li dynasty. The first battles between the Shou and the Kalmyks must then have been before -670 DR. It is, however, far from necessary that the Kalmyks be anything resembling a unified people at that time. They were probably a term for a diverse people under hundreds of rulers. And it is clear that at this time, at least, they did not cross the Dragonwall. I favour having them appear on the scene during the reign of the last emperor of the Li dynasty, which explains the lack of vigorous Shou Lung response to their raids over the next centuries. So, tentatively around -700 DR.
Khazari revolt: With the weakening of Shou Lung power in the west, Khazari declared independence. Natural defences shielded them fairly well from the Kalmyk and the need to garrison all the Dragonwall as well as probable religious strife at home occupied the whole attention of the new Ho dynasty of Shou Lung. This has to have happened at some point after the rise of the Kalmyk, but before the Copper Demon of Tros. So, between -700 DR and -248 DR.
I favour -669 DR, with the declaration of the Organisation of Thought serving to effectively exile a great deal of people aside from the followers of the Way, including, I imagine, followers of religions that had sprung from the Anok-Imaskar era**. These would then have influenced Khazari and induced them to rebel.
The founding of Guge: I date this to the Organisation of Thought in -669 DR, with religious dissidents from Shou Lung establishing their theocratic state on the ruins of Anok-Imaskar's province of Katakoro.
Establishment of a Kalmyk Empire: Clearly a much later development than the emergence of these peoples and their initial war with the Li dynasty (and probably, the rest of the inhabitants of the steppes). I imagine that this empire was gradually established, most probably in a similar manner as Yamun Khahan established his among the Taangan later. One warlord defeated rival tribes one by one and added their defeated peoples to his horde. In light of the existence of the Iron Bow and Hammer of Gesen, which predate the Suren, it seems almost inevitable to conclude, at least provisionally, that this Kalmyk cultural hero was Gesen Khan.
Before being able to turn his horde against the civilised lands, I imagine that Gesen Khan 'rode to the West' or died. His successors would have battled for prominence, establishing the earliest seeds of the Suren/North Kalmyk divide, but eventually come to some sort of arrangment, with one or more of them wielding at least theoretical power over the rest as Khahan***. This would have been Hun-kho, the great war chief of the 'Kalmyr', I imagine, whose tomb lies somewhere on the steppes.
Of course, the name 'Kalmyk' would, like the Tuigan, have properly refered to a single tribe, in this case the one who arose in the Hagga Shan. Gesen Khan would have united a lot of the Taangan under the banner of the Kalmyk, but by the time of his successor, some of the Taangan clearly refered to the horde as a whole or some part of it as 'Kalmyr'.
Their empire clearly stretched over all the steppes, more or less from whatever area in the west not claimed by Raumathar, bounded in the south by the Mountains of Copper, Khopet Dag and Teyla Shan. Whether it stretched into Khazari and/or Ra-Khati at some point is unknown. By the same token, the Dragonwall ought to have prevented them from conquering within modern Shou Lung, but when the Copper Tyrant/Demon of Tros took their eastern provinces, he terrorised the western provinces of Shou Lung, as far east as Min Low/Minlow, deep inside Mai Yuan. This implies that either the Kalmyks held most of Main Yuan or that the Copper Demon conquered it independently. Given that the Dragonwall was not breached (that would have been noted), I favour having the Kalmyks having conquered Khazari at some point, moving through it to raid and conquer areas in Mai Yuan.
What about timing, here? Well, I'd say that Gesen Khan arose well after the Kalmyks spread over the steppes. Long enough so that they felt that they had always been the most powerful group there, at least, with the other Taangan being less well armed and less organised. Gesen Khan might have lived between ca -400 and ca -300 DR.
The Taangan/Kalmyk/proto-Suren would not have conquered Khazari until after his day, I think. I suppose that his successors conquered Khazari and parts of the Mai Yuan, with them fracturing into rival bands of warriors and warlords and raiding Shou Lung during the Black Cycle of Years. Hence, I suspect that Khazari was conquered shortly before that time, maybe in -280 DR. If and when the Kalmyks took Khazari, Semphar becomes extremely difficult to hold against a cavalry army, with only stout fortifications well supplied having a chance.
I get the feeling that since coming to his throne, the new God-King Horus-Re was extremely focused on 'Mulhorand proper' and that is why the First Empire is said to have ended with this event. I imagine that raiding bands of surviving orcs were a great problem for hundreds for years, with all military energy going into hunting them. Then, with the rise of Narfell and Raumathar, fortifying against a potential attack from the north would have been the rule.
Semphar was probably more or less on its own, under a Viceroy with some forces, but little ability to be resupplied. Murghom would have been an armed camp to the north-west, a mining frontier to the north and more or less ignored in the south.
So I imagine that Semphar fell to those who would become the Suren. I don't know about Solon (hard to do sieges as a nomadic horse warrior), but assuredly a lot of its lands became Suren. I would place the conquest of Semphar at -278 DR or so, with one faction of proto-Suren settling its rich lands then and remaining until the terrible time of the Copper Tyrant, who would rule much of modern Semphar, the uplands (and possibly the city and its southern lands) of Solon, Khazari and far into Mai Yuan of Shou Lung. The chances of the Copper Tyrant being controlled/influenced/manipulated by Joon Tsao Choo/Tan Chin/Ambuchar Devayam rise.
The Kingdom of Guge existed in this era, but it was probably not conquered by the Copper Tyrant. Whether Ra-Khati was is unknown, but not unlikely.
Submission of the Northern Kalmyk: These become the more 'civilised' tribes of the Plains of Horses and probably also swell the numbers of the Mai Yuan and Chukei peoples in Shou Lung. This took place not long after the establishment of the Kao dynasty, most likely during the reign of Wo Mai, but likely not until the more pressing threats are dealt with. I would place this ca -220 DR.
Occupation of Khazari, Ra-Khati, Solon and Semphar by the Shou Lung under the Kao dynasty: Despite the end of the threat of the Copper Tyrant, this prodigious feat of arms in forbidden terrain cannot have been undertaken lightly. I imagine that the territories formerly ruled by the Copper Tyrants, at least those in relatively open terrain, quickly became Suren again. At this time, there would most likely have been several leaders of the Suren, with one being the lord of Semphar, one the lord of the Solon lands, one the lord of Khazari and several lords of the steppes between the Dragonwall, the Teyla Shan/Shalhoond/Khopat Dag and the Kora Shan.
I would place the start of this invasion in the next campaigning season after having made peace with the northern Kalmyks. Khazari might have fallen in the first invasion, but Ra-Khati, Solon and Semphar most assuredly did not. In addition, the Kingdom of Guge was at that time still powerful.
I imagine that, deservedly wary of the Suren in open terrain and concerned over leaving a dangerous enemy with access to their supply routes through Khazari, the Kao spent several years subduing fierce mountain tribes in Khazari and Ra-Khati and then invaded the Kingdom of Guge. Final victory over all of the above and total control of the Katakoro Shan, enough to use the roads there as the southern supply route to supplement the central through Khazari and the northern one through the Bitter Well caravan route, would have come in ca -215 DR.
Investing Solon and the Jorhat citadel (neither of which is likely to have been easy to take, no matter who held them) to neutralise their threat to the supply routes, the Kao would have focused all the rest of their armies on Semphar, taking it in a single year, two at the most. In ca -213 DR, Kao armies would have slowly reduced any Suren settlements on the steppes south of the Kora Shan, simply by the expedient of moving heavily fortified camps over the steppes a couple of miles per day, denying the nomads the opportunity of an open field battle and making it impossible for them to truly rule anything there permanently.
Having no stomach for this kind of warfare, the Suren would have turned toward the Raumathari dominions. Even with their powerful magic and veteran armies, the Raumathari still offered battle when challenged and their shock cavalry armies, while formidable, could be defeated by the more maneuverable nomads.
By ca -200 DR, the Suren would have raided into the Great Amber Steppes, eventually reaching all the way to the Sunrise Mountains, and later also raided into the area around the Bay of Raumar, but taking care to give Winterkeep a wide berth. They'd avoid the larger, more powerful and magically potent Raumathari armies, but not hesitate to raid smaller groups of Raumathari or any independent Raumviri encountered. This would persist until the final collapse of the Raumathari and Narfell empires (-150 DR), at which point the Suren would swarm north and west all over the lands that had belonged to them, raiding, stealing, killing and looting.
Western limit of the Suren: Something stopped the Suren before they overran the rest of Narfell or fell on other areas of Faerun and convinced them to seek easier prey in the east again. The most plausible scenario is that it was Eltab, ruling the Lakelands of Shem. Fearing a repeat of the horros of the Copper Tyrant, the Suren deliberately withdrew east of the Icerim Mountains and the Sunrise Mountains. This would have been around -148 DR.
Second Suren Empire: For a 'few decades', things were quiet. I imagine that as before, a local warlord started to consolidate his power among the various tribes that together made up the Suren. The leader who was in power at the start of the next war is known to us only as Yeke-Noyan (Great Chief), , which implies that there was a taboo surrounding his actual name after his death. This is common for greatly revered people as well as greatly feared ones, so which, if not both, he was, is unclear. I imagine that as the Horde says things were peaceful, he was a greatly beloved leader whose consolidation of power proceeding through more diplomacy and force of personality than actual massacres.
I'm inclined to think that 'a few decades' actually lasted quite some time. Assuming that the first few decades after abandoning their western conquests and coming to rule the Great Amber Steppes and the Endless Wastes were anything but peaceful, but were a time of constant warfare between survivors of the great empires, Eltab's realm, rampaging hordes of demons and elementals and the Suren themselves.
I think that these few decades of peace don't start counting until around the time of the Standing Stone. At that time, the great hero known as the Yeke-Noyan today might have come to manhood and over the next ca 50-60 years of his life, he would have made the steppes safe for his people, defeated countless demons and other horrors and united the tribes in preparation for seizing former Suren lands.
Of course, there could have been two rulers, the one who consolidated power and then a sucessor who led the next war. In light of the aformentioned name taboo, I am inclined to believe that the man who consolidated power and who then led the tribes against the Kao was the same, however.
Suren-Kao War: The great war of the Suren and the Kao clearly corresponds to the Shou Lung event of the invasion of the horse barbarians. The Suren are routed in 80 DR by the Shou Lung under the Kao, but that is after a period of initial Suren conquests and enough time for their empire to have fragmented again.
The Suren took Khazari and Ra-Khati, but proved unable to take lands further to the south, suggesting that someone powerful held Solon and/or Semphar. Semphar, at that time, declared independence, either under a local ruler or a rebellious Kao governor. I imagine that this takes place after a period of free-wheeling warfare on the steppes to the north drives the field armies of the Kao behind the Dragonwall, but not too long after it, because an astute commander would not want the Kao to have time to fortify Khazari.
After winning a series of battles in ca 60 DR on the steppes, the Suren Yeke-Noyan would have left a number of independent noyans/khans/something else along the whole length of the Dragonwall, in order to harry the Kao and force them to garrison it all. He'd have placed a third of his remaining forces under his most loyal and capable ally, to forestall attack from the Plains of Horses, whose tribesmen were now more likely to be allied with the Kao than them.
Taking the rest against Khazari himself, he must have taken it by storm, because otherwise he wouldn't have taken it at all (it can be resupplied from Kao heartlands). He'd also have stormed the what of the Katakoro was flat. Leaving levies of infantry and irregulars to subdue Ra-Khati, it is fairly plausible that the Yeke-Noyan was forced to turn away from his proposed conquest of Semphar and his desired invasion of Kao lands by something. This might have been a daring sortie by a large Kao army joined by their own loyal horse-nomads or it might have been something else. It took place, however, immediately after his victory in Khazari.
Of course, the venerable Yeke-Noyan might have died in the great battle for Khazari or even when taking Ra-Khati or the Katakoro tundra (while not glamorous, such guerilla fighting is very dangerous to leaders, especially with so much supernatural stuff going on there). This is exceedingly plausible, with the odds being that something supernatural slew him, perhaps a Gugan remnant, perhaps one from the Copper Tyrant, perhaps even an Anok-Imaskari or Imaskari thing.
At any rate, the commander of the northern army of the Suren probably declared himself Khahan or Yeke-Noyan or some equivalent, but the generals who had fought with the Yeke-Noyan himself did not accept him. The commanders of the smaller tribes, left to raid the Dragonwall, would have taken sides or even simply quietly ignored the dispute, moving to secure nice grazing lands for their own people.
Some of the generals who had won the victories in Khazari and Ra-Khati would have invaded Kao lands, winning victory after victory, but been unable to turn their battlefield success into rule of the lands, because of the internal disputes with the other Suren nobility. In the end, someone must have secured command over the Suren positioned in Khazari, but very many of them must have ridden away under their own tribal leaders and settled some area of the steppe rather than fight an imperial power under a divided high command.
Even so, the Suren, once they had settled the succession**** for the ones who still formed a single army, penetrated deeply into Kao lands. In the north and the Mai Yuan, they no doubt raided at will and it is telling that the battle where they are routed appears to have taken place on the banks of the Huengtse River. I imagine that settling the succession sufficiently would have taken a long time, judging from the Horde text, with the eventual winner perhaps being a son of the Yeke-Noyan who at the time of the first struggle was considered too young to lead (but who escaped being murdered and enjoyed some prestige for his personal prowess).
Perhaps this son earned his reputation with raids against the Kao over the time from 70 DR to 78 DR and had become acknowledged leader of a Suren horde at that time, leading them in earnest against the Kao heartlands. The Kao victory in the Battle of the Silver Grasslands would have been a triumph of their combined arms approach against purely cavalry and I expect that the heir of the Yeke-Noyan (and likely the First Khahan) perished there.
Kao reconquest of Khazari and Ra-Khati: The victory over the Suren field army must have been close, with the Kao not pushing their advantage immediately. It seems that Khazari and Ra-Khati were written off and the Suren, by now divided into a number of tribal people, many of whom would become ancestors to modern Taangan tribes, were allowed to retain them for some time.
When an emperor who favoured war emerged, I imagine that Khazari and Ra-Khati were retaken with consummate patience and organisation. I could easily see it taking a long time. I don't know when the two countries were reconquered, but I'd lean toward at least a generation passing, in order so that the depleted armies of Kao might be recovered and the population stop seething over the costs of wars.
So, maybe they weren't reconquered until 100 DR or even a 150 DR. The explanation for why they stopped could be found in a resurgent Mulhorand, of course, which would put the reconquest nearer 200 DR. Any thoughts?
*Actually ruled, at times, only a part of the modern lands that are called Shou Lung, but extended their rule further to the west. They were based on the Chukei Plateu and ruled 'from the mountais of Koryaz to the Rusj River and the mountains of Khazari'. While the eastern borders are clear enough and the inclusion of Khazari as well, the location of this river is unknown to me. Does it represent an older name of some of the rivers inside modern Shou Lung and therefore mark the southern terminus of the Li dynasty? Or does it represent their western borders and is it therefore probably an older steppe name for the Arundi River? I find the latter persuasive, as the nomads of the steppes are unlikely to care how far south the Li extended, only how far they penetrated into the steppes. Also, this fits geographically with controlling Khazari.
**The origin, I imagine, of the 'heretical' versions of the Way of Enlightenment in Ra-Khati, Khazari, Tabot, etc. Local religions encountered by the Anok-Imaskari that were then syncretisised with the Way of Enlightenment once Shou Lung influence reached that far.
***Or some equivalent title. Khahan means 'Khan of Khans', but the word 'Khan' is not attested in any Imaskari sources I have and in our world, probably has an origin near north-west China, meaning among those steppe peoples least affected by Imaskari ways and language. The source is likely to be among proto-Chigidi tribesmen (being derived from the same source as their 'qaghan'), who not doubt shared ethnic origins with the Taangan, but the emergence of Imaskar will have caused divergent linguistic evolution Whether the Kalmyks were a population of these people caught within the Imaskari sphere of rule or whether they were more related to the peoples who eventually formed the Nar (and possibly the Eraka) or even the Raumviri, will determine what titles they used. Their use of Khan is suggestive of the first origin mentioned, but it is interesting to contemplate the fact that both 'khan' and 'ataman' are attested in Djen culture around the time of Imaskar and that 'ataman' survived in the lands where Imaskar used to be. The Suren seem to have favoured 'Yeke-Noyan', meaning 'Great Chief' or 'Great Lord' and suggesting an origin in the central steppes, not being specifically of Imaskari root, but whether 'Khan' was a traditional Kalmyk word or a title adopted by Gesen from his conquests in the east, we don't know. Personally, given the real-world meaning of 'Kalmyk', I very much prefer them having been proto-Taangan people never conquered by the Imaskari. Their emergence over the steppes would then be connected to their adoption of the horse as a weapon of war, in their case (though not for less isolate people), more or less simultaneous to their adoption of iron weapons, composite bows, war saddles and, perhaps most importantly, stirrups. A lethal combination which led to their rapid propagation over the whole steppes.
****A loyalist must have won, taking some title distinct from 'Yeke-Noyan', making the very name of the great hero taboo and ensuring that the whole steppe would know 'The Yeke-Noyan'. I imagine that this is the time where the title 'Khahan' came into common use, being simply an adaptation of the already known 'Khan', signifying Khan of Khans. |
| 10 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Icelander |
Posted - 22 Jul 2020 : 12:50:40
I think it's obvious that Shou as a second language would be fairly common as the trade routes got closer to Shou Lung, but if the oases, souks and trade cities are independent or united as the realm of Tsharoon, as opposed to being under the cultural hegemony of Shou Lung,this need not mean that the native language was abandoned or even substantially altered, linguistically speaking.
Again, for real world examples, see the Uyghurs or Sarts who on Earth settled similar places on the Silk Road. For centuries, they kept their own language and the Sarts were variously Arabised or Turkicised, not Sinocised. Both on Earth and in the Realms, the Chinese/Shou are not the ones who do the travelling along the Silk Road (and other similar trade routes).
'Ansryn Tehvyae', the one linguistic clue we have beyond the country name, is certainly not a Shou name. Nor does it sound like it comes from any Taangan language, Murghom, Semphar or Mulan languages. If it is Durpari, it is from a Durpari language far removed from the modern one (given how difderent 'Durpari' characters have appeared in sources and how disparate the linguistic influences evident, I consider 'Durpari' a cultural designator that originally included a lot of ethnic groups and many languages).
Personally, I'd have Tsharoon in 237 DR be populted by many different ethnic groups, much like the original Sarts. The first settlers in the area would be survivors of the fall of Imaskar, probably including both Indo-Iranian and Turkic peoples, in real world terms. After all, 'Imaskari languages' is broader than any language group in real life (rightly so, considering the length of time), and includes not only all Altaic languages, but apparently some Indo-European, Indo-Iranian and Indo-Aryan ones too.
Various Raumviri peoples who did not join Raumathar would have settled beyond its reach, including in what would later become Tsharoon. And later on, refugees from fallen Raumathar would have swelled all settlements on the trade routes which survived, especially ones so far east and thus probably not affected by the Great Conflagration.
On Earth, the ethnic composition of the great Eurasian steppes was variable. Waves of mounted conquerors made themselves masters of the steppes, with other cultures and ethnicities either joining their mobile empires or at least being marginalized. Indo-Europeans, then Indo-Iranians in several waves, the Huns (whoever they were), Indo-Iranians again, Turkic peoples, Finno-Ugric peoples (aside from the Magyars, noted in their own right, likely part of many former waves) and only very late in steppe history do we see the Mongols.
It's plausible enough that the Raumathari and the barbarians who swept them from the steppes after the Great Conflagration were not of the same ethnicity as the later Tuigan. Indeed, it is certain in the case of the Raumathari, very plausible in the case of their conquerors. The Tuigan were much more marginal at this time, living far northeast, and possibly not yet in possession of horses large enough for cavalry (these would have spread from Imaskari survivor states and their mercenaries, allied and tributary states).
So, I'm leaning toward the language of Tsharoon being derived either from an older branch that later evolved into Raumviran/Raumathari languages or being a very old 'Durpari' language. In either case, the Earth-equivalent would be either Tocharian or an Indo-Iranian language, but in both cases, extensively influenced by Raumathari. Taangan languages, Durpari, Mujhein, Shou and Khazari would all be common languages in thr bazaars of Tsharoon, however, as befits a realm built from trade route stops. |
| Icelander |
Posted - 21 Jul 2020 : 21:14:03
Remember that the steppes of modern Earthare not analogous to the steppes of historical Earth in terms of population distribution. Mongols weren't widespread before the conquests of Ghenghis Khan. The Toril analogue of that hadn't happened by 237 DR.
The people living in trading cities on the Silk Road on historical Earth in the location corresponding to this were Tocharian-speakers and then later Turkic speakers. |
| Lord Karsus |
Posted - 21 Jul 2020 : 21:08:09
-Reason being Shou Lung's influence on the area, with Ansi, Kwachow, the Bitter Well Oasis, and the Horseshoe Temple Oasis all having connections to the Shou. We don't know any dates, of course, and and 237 DR is long enough ago for major cultural shifts, so their footprint there could be more contemporary or it could be something going back centuries and centuries. Who knows.
-But given Chukei's location basically adjacent to the Quoya Desert, it's ancient connection to both other Imaskari survivor states/groups and Shou Lung, I would guess that culturally the people there are a possible approximation, at least in the past anyway.
-Getting meta, if the Quoya Desert is analogous to the Taklamakan or the Gobi, the area would be Inner Mongolia, making them Mongolian speakers, which would be analogous to the Tuigan (and other Hordeland horsemen tribes) languages, connecting to Southern Imaskari language group again. |
| Icelander |
Posted - 21 Jul 2020 : 20:34:13
Well, we have only one piece of evidence, the name Ansryn Tehvyae, which certainly doesn't suggest Shou influence.
It could be Raumviri, however, especially if it's from the same language group as Raumathari, but from a language which diverged over a thousand years before. |
| Lord Karsus |
Posted - 21 Jul 2020 : 20:28:15
-Ed Greenwood is credited with that Dragon article, so you could always ask him for a definitive answer.
-I would guess it would be somewhere in the Eastern/Southern Imaskari language family, maybe with more Shou influence. Maybe most closely related to Chukei Kao? |
| Icelander |
Posted - 21 Jul 2020 : 13:54:50
What language do scribes imgine was spoken in the Tsharoon of 237 DR? |
| Icelander |
Posted - 18 Jul 2020 : 21:39:02
There's also Tsharoon, which is established before 237 DR in some part of what is now the Quoya Desert (which is likely to have bern smaller back then, but probably not non-existent).
I like to imagine that Tsharoon grew out of trading settlements between Kara-Tur and Raumathar as well as the Imaskari successor lands like Bakar, Murghom, Semphar and Solon. The people would have been ethnically mixed, but probably included both Raumviri and various Taangan peoples, not necessarily closely related to any of the ones who hold power in the modern Hordelands.
So, an Earth analogy for them would be the Sarts of the Silk Road. |
| Icelander |
Posted - 04 Mar 2012 : 20:28:55
Snippet from Horselords:
I found a tiny bit of lore on the Kalmyk and Suren in Horselords. That is, I am assuming that the Kalmyr and Susen are alternate names for these tribes used in Khazari and perhaps elsewhere. It's a dream/vision sequence had by Koja of Khazari, from which I extract only the relevant snippets:
"...
Looking around, Koja could see that it was still night, somewhere on a grassy plain—or what remained of it. The ground was a jumble of cracks and upheaved earth. Bodies of warriors and horses lay half-buried, half-crushed under the churned ground. Some were Tuigan bodies, clearly identified by the war banners flapping spectrally in the wind. Mingled among the troopers were the bodies of other warriors, dressed in antique armors. Koja could recognize only a few. A man here wore the garb of a Kalmyr chieftain, like one the priest had seen on an ancient scroll. Another wore the outlandish armor of a Susen warrior, easily identified by the flaring earpieces on the battered helm. The bodies encased by the armors were dried husks, their mummified skin stretched tight over the bone.
...
As he drew closer, Koja saw a line of men, futilely battering the wall's foundation with mauls. Like the dead of the broken land behind Koja, these men were dressed in a weird assortment of ancient clothes. There were soldiers from Kalmyr, Susen, Pazruki, and men from lands he could not identify from their garb.
...
Fascinated, Koja walked down the line, invisible to the toilers. He passed by a Kalmyri, then stopped to study the man. It was Hun-kho, the great war chief of Kalmyr. Centuries ago, Hun-kho had driven the Shou out of the wasteland, back behind the Dragonwall, only to be stopped by the Shou construction. Koja recognized him from the history texts in the temple.
The dead warlord continued his monotonous task. Koja resumed his walk. Farther on was the infamous T'oyghla of the Susen, a conqueror in his own right. He, too, never faltered from his work on the wall."
Looks like I was right to propose Hun-Kho as the war chief who commanded the initial Kalmyk victories against the Shou. I can find nothing on T'oyghla, but he was most probably the one who won victories preceding the defeat of the Suren against the Shou in 80 DR. Whether he is the same as the Yeke-Noyan or whether he is the one who won the succession war unclear. |
| Icelander |
Posted - 04 Mar 2012 : 01:53:33
My mental picture of the steppes immediately post-Imaskar
The fall of the Imaskari Empire in -2,488 DR probably led to an initial era of warring bands and tribes, where the ones with the most Imaskari technology and magic displaced the ones with less. For the first years and decades, it must have been a horrible slaughter, with some combatants being heavily armoured professional cavalry with sorceror-crafted steel weapons and most of the others being bands of nomadic sheep herders who sometimes tamed wild steppe ponies to help with herding, but were at a more or less Neolithic, pre-metal tech level.
Probably 'Proto-Indo-European-esque' people like the forerunners of Sossrim, Raumviri and Raumathari ended up with most of the northwest steppes. I imagine that the central steppes and even extending at times far into the Plain of Horses to the Arundi River were dominated by a mixed bag of former Imaskari cavalry of all sorts, speakers of languages derived from theirs just like the modern steppe nomads, but possibly ethnically more 'European' in appearance.
A much larger Solon to the north and whatever was in the former Imaskari heartlands between -2488 DR and ca -1500 DR would have made up a region where the nomads dared not go and for the beginning of the period Anok-Imaskar ruled the Katakoro and down south into the Larang valleys, extending some distance to the east into what would become Shou Lung, but not all the way to coast. After its time, most if that area became survivor states of various kinds.
By the time of the fall, Imaskar had actual cavalry, so it follows that some breeds of horses were by then large enough to support a full-sized man, saddle and war gear. On the other hand, it is by no means certain that the survivors of the fall would have managed to bring a lot of those horses with them. The breeding stock was probably confined to Imaskari keepers, with the Taangan cavalry riding mares or geldings. So after the first successes against those tribes of the Taangan who had not provided the Imaskari with cavalry, the sons of the men who rode huge black geldings to war might have had to harness tamed wild ponies to chariots to do the same.
I like to think that the first centuries after the fall saw mostly chariot warfare on the Taangan, before the tribes learned to breed the few larger mares brought with them from Imaskar with the wild steppe pony to eventually produce a marginally bigger steppe horse, large enough for cavalry.
Of course, this would have been a painfully slow process, since they had no large stallions and unless the Imaskari were absurdly trusting masters, they would have been learning to breed horses from scratch, as such knowledge would have been a military secret. That big horses have bigger foals is basic, but there is a science to animal husbandry and they'd have had to invent all that again. This is one of the primary reasons why surviving Imaskari client tribes did not conquer large areas of Faerun in the first few centuries after the fall. It took them hundreds of years until the breed of local horse was anything near big enough for every warrior to be mounted on something that could carry him to war as a cavalryman rather than just a man on a pony.
The pace of raiding and consequent migrations would thus have been slow at first, but then gradually speeded up until steppe warfare had acquired the very mobile character that it would forever retain. So if one tribe was unable to defeat a constantly raiding neighbour, they'd move away over the years. Slow, at first, but faster later.
The 'Tuiganic' peoples, most likely not as favoured under the Imaskari as other groups closer to the ruling wizards in blood and appearance, would have been at a disadvantage in tribal conflicts in the centuries after the fall, lacking the wealth of metal and magic that more trusted peoples were equipped with in their military service for the Empire. This would have caused their retreat over time, generally to the east from whence they originally came. Of course, this is a broad generalisation. A lot of genetically Tuiganic peoples instead joined with the 'Turkic-esque' Taangan tribes, starting (or continuing) the ethnic admixtures that today characterises the steppes.
The Kalmyk would have been tribes who regarded themselves as primarily 'Tuiganic', but who remained on the steppes to the west of the Arundi River, protected in part by the Hagga Shan (which would moderate the weather there, making it more survivable than that of the oppen steppes leading up to it). The rise of the Kalmyks would then be the reason for the modern domination of 'Tuiganic' peoples on the steppes. For all that, I think that even in the modern Realms, a lot of the tribes whom the people of Faerun ignorantly all call Tuigan are identifiably more 'Turkic-esque'* than 'Tuiganic'. They all have more or less the same culture and related languages, so it doesn't matter to them what the precise genetic admixture is.
*I really need to find a nice Realmsian word to call that ethnic group. I wonder if it would bother anyone if I were to declare the Khassidi and Commani the most powerful tribes of this ethnotype (lighter-skinned, less likely to show epicanthic folds) on the modern steppes and accordingly call them 'Khassidic' or 'Commanic'? Possibly 'Commani-Khassidic'? |
| Icelander |
Posted - 28 Feb 2012 : 08:15:56
There are other events, scattered references to which I have found, which need dating, or at the very least, an approximate time period assigned to them.
The life and times of Fedor the Horselord
The creator of the lance and shields which bear his name, Fedor is still revered as a hero among the Taangan. His name suggests a Raumviri, Raumathari or Rashemmmi* origin, which in itself is no problem.
Unless the Taangan are very different from real-world steppe nomads, it is likely that from the start there were tribes among them which arose from very different ethnic stock and spoke languages with little or no relation to each other. This is because before the large-scale domestication of the horse, the peoples would have developed in relative isolation, but as the idea spread through cultural diffusion, mobility would have been enhanced immesurably and the steppefolk could be said to be united by a common way of life.
This, finding among them equivalents to our world's Indo-Europeans and Uralic people is no surprise. And the horde of Yamun Khahan is likely to have included as many or more 'Turkic' tribesmen as it included his own Tuigan and their ethnic kin, evidently more 'Mongolic'. Nor is language and ethnic origin fixed or even guaranteed to go together. In our world, Turkic and Mongolic languages appear to have been adopted to some greater or lesser degree even by tribesmen whose original ethnic identity we would recognise as Indo-European. The reverse, however, only happened later and then only after the tribesmen had abandoned their nomadic ways.
This real world digression was merely my long-winded way of saying that Fedor's name might have been only a piece of cultural 'contamination' in the form of linguistic influences from Raumviri around the Lake of Mists, it might have signified that he was of mixed Raumviri/(proto-)Khassidi-Commani stock and it might have identified him and his tribe as Raumviri who adopted the ways of the Taangan. I like the last the most, if only because it illustrates the nature of the Taangan as a broad cultural group united mostly by their way of life and incorporating many language-groups and people of all sorts of 'ethnic' roots.
Unlike Gesen Khan, Hun-kho or the Yeke-Noyan of the Suren, Fedor is identified as a great hero of his tribe and an exemplar of Taangan virtues, not necessarily as a conqueror or unifier of the steppes. There is, therefore, no necessity to postulate him as being responsible for the kind of widespread disruption of neighbouring lands that tends to make it into the written histories.
All the same, we ought to include him in the steppe histories. Was he contemporary to any of the other steppe heroes? Did he exist before or after the Great Conflagration?
I'm inclined to place him after it, if only because he clearly wielded some significant magic, forging weapons and shields fairly easily by himself and making more than his personal needs called for (no one needs multiple identical magic shields if they aren't destroyed).
So, tentatively, one of the Raumathari or independent groups of Raumviri during that empire who wasn't driven from the steppes because he had become culturally Taangan?
*Depending upon the era of his birth. |
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