Lands of Red and Gold, Act II
- Thread starter Jared
- Start date
Whatever works best for you! Every thing you touch is gold anyway
What mojojojo said.
Thanks for the encouragement, everyone!
The first AH book I'm likely to finish is DoD related rather than LoRaG related - partly because most of it's already written, and partly because I suspect that the target market will be larger. But in the longer term, there are possibilities for something sent in the LoRaG-verse.
Battle sequences, and narrative interludes in general, won't disappear entirely. They will just became rarer. The spice rather than the meat, if you will.
There are at least two eras where I'll probably show some battle sequences: the great crusades (related to the Hunter who's been mentioned in one of the framing device sections) and the Aururian front(s) in the Nine Years' War (approximately the 1740s/1750s) to conclude Act II. There may be others involved with some of the smaller wars, but I'm not yet sure.
Oh yes, so much could be done.
As I think I mentioned before, there's enough potential for Totney in Daluming to write a mini-TL around just that. I don't have the time to write it, sadly, but it's an intriguing setting.
The first AH book I'm likely to finish is DoD related rather than LoRaG related - partly because most of it's already written, and partly because I suspect that the target market will be larger. But in the longer term, there are possibilities for something sent in the LoRaG-verse.
Battle sequences, and narrative interludes in general, won't disappear entirely. They will just became rarer. The spice rather than the meat, if you will.
There are at least two eras where I'll probably show some battle sequences: the great crusades (related to the Hunter who's been mentioned in one of the framing device sections) and the Aururian front(s) in the Nine Years' War (approximately the 1740s/1750s) to conclude Act II. There may be others involved with some of the smaller wars, but I'm not yet sure.
Oh yes, so much could be done.
As I think I mentioned before, there's enough potential for Totney in Daluming to write a mini-TL around just that. I don't have the time to write it, sadly, but it's an intriguing setting.
Sadly, I think it would be hard to get enough full-blooded aboriginal actors to play the roles in a LORAG series. But maybe I'm wrong, given I know next to nothing about Australian cinema.
twovultures
Donor
Well, given that ITTL a lot of the southern Aborigines are much lighter skinned due to their ancestor's change of diet, you could justify having mixed-race actors. And while I don't know about professional actors, Aborigine amateurs have done a pretty good job in movies like 10 Canoes. I think it could work.
Jared, I'm sure you'll manage. I understand your annoyance of forgetting yourself and focusing too much on details - that kind of thing had bogged down several of my works too. So, feel free to write at whatever brisker pace suits you from now on. We've seen a lot of the 17th century developments so far, and caught a few glimpses into the future. I guess it really is time to move on and plunge into the decades and centuries ahead.
If anything, you could always write some additional chapters and midquels set in the contact era once you finish the basic skeleton of the timeline.
So, feel free to write at whatever brisker pace suits you from now on. We've seen a lot of the 17th century developments so far, and caught a few glimpses into the future. I guess it really is time to move on and plunge into the decades and centuries ahead. If anything, you could always write some additional chapters and midquels set in the contact era once you finish the basic skeleton of the timeline.
Lands of Red and Gold #82: One God, One Prophet, One Pyramid
Lands of Red and Gold #82: One God, One Prophet, One Pyramid
Reminder: Lycaon pictus has been kind enough to make a map of the Daluming kingdom here, which will make it much easier to keep track of the geography described in this post.
* * *
“Mankind dwelt on this world for a hundred millennia, and knew his identity in his heart. He roamed where he wished, and where he resided did not change who he was. For scarce two millennia, states have adopted borders, and claimed that where a man lives determines who he is. Yet a truth which has endured for a thousand centuries cannot be unmade by a fewscore decades of wishful thinking.”
- Lincoln Derwent and Solidarity Jenkins, “The Nationalist Manifesto”
* * *
Daluming: kingdom of glass and skulls. Where proud warriors and wondering priests command a coastal realm, the sword-carriers raiding into upraised highlands and distant lowlands, to carry back trophy skulls for the pious to polish. Where fish and emu give the meat, but a hundred spices give the flavour. Where the ten-stepped pyramid stands as the triumph of the glassmaker’s art. Where faith warned of the world’s imminent end, of the transformation of all that had been before into an unforeseeable future.
Thomas Totney: man of supreme faith, receiver of visions, proclaimer of a truth few others could truly comprehend, worker of gold metal and spinner of golden words, and occasional guest in the halls of sanity. Whose career as a goldsmith survived the irruption of the Aururian plagues, only to be abandoned after he received the revelation of Jehovah, and anointed himself God’s witness to the world. Who joined the multitudes with spiritual reawakenings and apocalyptic visions of a plague-struck world, the dispossessed and disaffected ones who sought for new meaning and new faith in troubled times. Who read the account of William Baffin of the heathen denizens of the Land of Gold, who joined the Company’s voyage to punish the pagan Mexicans, and who had the Company commander struck down and took command of the English mission to the Third World.
To Daluming came the Prophet, the self-appointed Captain-General of Jehovah. Perhaps no single moment better epitomised the collision between the two worlds than the arrival of this zealous missionary in the most alien of Aururian cultures.
For Daluming, the Inglundirr invasion marked the culmination of what seemed an endless series of crises, some externally driven, others the result of internal religious convulsions. The priests who built the Mound of Memory had long foretold that the filling of the last vacant skull-niche would mark the Closure, the end of the world as it was known. Yet those turbulent priests delayed the arrival of that event by becoming ever stricter in the standards applied before a skull would be awarded Memory; a practice which caused ever-growing frustration amongst the royalty and warriors who expected their rightful place of eternal rest. The dissatisfaction led to King Otella exiling the most senior priest, Father Ngungara Barringya, to the western highlands, a humiliation second only to being executed. A wave of new plagues had struck the kingdom one after another, culminating in light-fever [typhus] that claimed the life of both King Otella and the replacement Father.
In this already volatile atmosphere, the most senior surviving priest Ilangi proclaimed himself the new Father, with the support of Weenggina, captain of the king’s guard and most renowned warrior in the kingdom. But Daluming religious tradition had always required the Father to anoint the king and the king to anoint the Father. Ilangi’s lack of proper sanction, and animosity from some rivals among the priests, meant that some of the other priests and lesser royalty fled the capital Yuragir [Coffs Harbour] rather than admit to his legitimacy. Ilangi had control of the Windja [Secluded] Palace, but his control of the kingdom was more ambiguous.
Ilangi had scarcely been in his new role for a week when the Inglundirr ships appeared off the coast of Yuragir and delivered an unheralded, unprovoked desecration of the most honoured cemetery in the kingdom: the Mound of Memory. The horror of the sacrilegious vandalism was only compounded by the means of delivery: chained thunder used to deliver metal balls of destruction. The Inglundirr followed this violation by sending an army to land on Daluming’s soil, where unsanctified feet trod on the sacred, battered stones of the Mound of Memory.
Despite the provocations of the Inglundirr, Ilangi chose parley rather than headlong attack. His own rule was insecure, to say nothing of his wonderment about how this fit into the Closure. Ilangi heard Totney’s proclamations of being the Messenger of the One God – or so he understood it via two interpreters – and agreed to allow Totney to spread his message peacefully within Yuragir, with restrictions. The Father remained uncertain whether Totney was prophet, liar or lunatic. He judged it safest to keep him under watch rather than risk allowing a rival to control him.
Once in Yuragir, the people treated Totney with a mixture of bemusement, derision, and fervour. The creed Totney preached was so alien that the Bungudjimay often had trouble grasping his intended meaning, which created much confusion and misinterpretation, including when his would-be acolytes fought among themselves.
If not for the fervent anticipation that the Closure would bring a great change to the world, perhaps none would have heeded Totney. As it was, despite much perplexement, he found some disciples. More treated him as a joke, initially. One grand glassmaker, possessed of a wealthy sense of humour, created a glass skull mask and presented it as a gift to the Messenger. Thus the Prophet was now always looking at Daluming through the very device which he preached against.
In time, the number of listeners who followed Totney could no longer be described as few. Growing uncertainty over the absence of a new monarch, combined with an ever-increasing death toll from light-fever, meant that more Bungudjimay were prepared to heed the words of the Captain-General of Jehovah.
Strangely, while the common folk of Yuragir grew more sympathetic to the Prophet over time, Ilangi grew less. The dilemma which awaited him was that either endorsing or rejecting Totney would lead to a similar outcome: rivals claiming his decision as excuse to rebel against him.
Ilangi never came to a decision on his own: it was forced on him. While he had been examining unpalatable options – waiting for a kangaroo to lay an egg, as the Bungudjimay would say – Totney has been assessing the strength of his heathen disciples. Aid came from the main Daluming interpreter, Keajura, the son of a vassal chieftain from the western highlands, who had come to Yuragir when young as a hostage for his father’s continued good behaviour. Keajura judged that better fortune lay with supporting the Prophet than opposing him, and so had given the Prophet astute advice about how best to act to gain followers.
The hammer fell when Totney judged he had found enough adherents in the Daluming capital. He ordered his Inglundirr soldiers to cross the river at night, where a few carefully-chosen Bungudjimay disciples let them into the city and guided them to assemble in a few chosen locations. The dawn brought the challenge of guns and steel to a city already afflicted by germs, as the Raw Men army stormed the Windja Palace. While some deserted, most of the palace guards, led by their captain Weenggina, fought the invaders. Surprise, shot and steel made for troublesome adversaries, and the defenders died or fled. Ilangi and Weenggina were among the escapees, the latter bringing three Inglundirr heads with him to honour those whom he had killed, and Yuragir belonged to the Messenger.
Totney proclaimed the foundation of the Kingdom of God on Earth, with Yuragir the new capital at the end of the age. The Bungudjimay who would not make accommodation with the new regime fled over the next few nights. The Messenger began his campaign to transform the City of Skulls into the City of God. A few of the local converts were recruited to preach the new faith beyond the walls, while within Yuragir he recruited auxiliaries to supplement his Inglundirr forces.
The transformation of Yuragir extended to many more matters than the recruitment of soldiers. The Messenger announced new religious practices, including new Christian burials, the beginning of a translation of the Gospel into the Bungudjimay language, and the regular reading of translated versions of his own missives from Jehovah. He likewise set new standards for public morality, banning the duels which the warrior caste had enjoyed, laid down punishments for drunkenness for those excessively fond of ganyu [yam wine], and declared prohibition of fornication and public indecency. These proclamations caused some discontent among the people of Yuragir, but a few converts embraced them with fervour.
Beyond the walls of Yuragir, the kingdom fractured. The loss of central authority marked a watershed moment. Whatever his rivals said of Ilangi as an illegitimate Father, he represented continuity with the previous regime. The majority of the people were prepared to wait and see what happened rather than take up arms. With the expulsion of Ilangi, that constraint vanished, and divisions emerged throughout the kingdom.
Ilangi himself fled west at first, to Gwinganna [Coramba] and then on into the highland region of Pepperhome [Dorrigo]. This position was conveniently far from any possible Inglundirr invasions by sea if their ships returned, and gave him time to determine where he would most likely find support. He had two advantages he intended to make maximum use of; he was accompanied by Weenggina, the most renowned warrior in Daluming, and he had with him Wandana, the second and most charismatic son of the departed king.
Daluming had never had any tradition of primogeniture, allowing for any prince deemed capable to claim the blue and white staff (i.e. throne). Wandana’s claim was as good as any other prince. It would have been even better if Ilangi had managed to secure the staff-head, the golden skull with eyes inset with a blue sapphire and a white pearl. That staff-head had been passed down from one monarch to the next, attached to each new wooden staff of office. To Ilangi’s regret, however, the Inglundirr raid had not left time to collect it, and it was believed to still be stored somewhere in the palace.
While Ilangi established himself in Pepperhome, rivals emerged elsewhere. The main group of Bungudjimay rivals gathered in Bee Rup [Kempsey]: Prince Aray’marra, eldest son of the late king, together with several senior priests who had fled Ilangi’s seizure of Yuragir. They were joined by Ngungara Barringya, the former Father, who absconded from his highland exile to join the rebels. A smaller group of rebels emerged along the northern frontier at Ngutti [Yamba], using the third and youngest surviving son of the last king as their figurehead, but with the true power lying in the hands of two other exiled priests.
With the disunity amongst the Bungudjimay, their control of the western highlands dissolved into an unwelcome sea of anarchy. The highlands had long been divided into shifting confederations of chiefdoms. In recent memory there had been three highland confederations of note: the Loo Gwanna in the north around Mulumun [Glen Innes], the Bogolara in the west around Toodella [Inverell], and the Nyenna Murra in the south around Anaiwal [Armidale].
In 1592 Daluming had conquered the Nyenna Murra, reducing its chiefs to vassalage, except for a small chiefdom in the southern fringes of the highlands, around Kuttan [Walcha], which reasserted its status as an independent chiefdom and rallying point for those chiefs and warriors fleeing Daluming rule. Daluming never managed to suppress Kuttan, but it had maintained its rule over the Anaiwal region ever since, despite various revolts, and the highland chiefs there remained vassals.
With the Closure seizing Yuragir, and Totney’s proclamation of the kingdom as the new Captaincy of Jehovah, Daluming authority over the highlands disintegrated. Most of the chiefs around Anaiwal declared their independence. Shortly thereafter, their ancient rival confederacies both announced war, an announcement that came as mere punctuation after raids which preceded the declarations. The highlands, too, became part of the spreading anarchy that faced Daluming.
Ilangi faced the independence with growing horror; nearly half a century of rule of the highlands now faced annihilation from the Closure. Worse for his own position, he knew that the former Father had fled his exile, but for far too long he could not find out where his rivals were gathering. Again he faced the paralysis of indecision, and his only good fortune was that his enemies were also all reluctant to move, his rivals because of uncertain strength and the Inglundirr because maintaining control even over Yuragir and its immediate environs was proving difficult.
In time Ilangi’s agents brought him word that Ngungara Barringya, together with the elder prince and his supporters, had established themselves in Myarra [Bellbrook]; a small town on the upper reaches of the River Daluming [Macleay River], that controlled one of the routes to Anaiwal. It seemed that they, too, were wary of the Inglundirr arriving by sea, and also sought to block any highlander raids into the fertile farmlands along the River.
Deviousness bred in priestly intrigues gave Ilangi inspiration, and he arranged for word to be discreetly leaked to the Inglundirr that the eldest prince had rallied supporters at Myarra. Myriad interpreter-guided sessions with the Messenger had granted some insight into Inglundirr thinking, teaching that the raw men believed that the eldest prince had the best claim to the throne. While Ilangi did not fully grasp the logic behind such a strange notion of passing over a more accomplished prince through a mere accident of birth order, he was prepared to take advantage of that belief, seeking to use the Messenger to eliminate or weaken his chief rivals.
An accident of geography undid Ilangi’s carefully-laid plan. In the old days when Daluming had been divided into two kingdoms, there had been two cities named Myarra. An inland river town and waystation [Bellbrook] in the southern kingdom, and a minor port north of Yuragir [Woolgoolga] in the northern kingdom. When the two kingdoms became one, the two names remained. On hearing that Prince Aray’marra was gathering in Myarra, Totney rallied his soldiers and local converts to eliminate this threat, only to find that the sleepy northern port town held no sign of princes or other rebels.
Ilangi and his allies had prepared to strike at Yuragir while the Inglundirr army left the city. No such opportunity arose. Totney’s forces did not stray too far from the capital. Worse, with the three-way war growing more intense in the highlands, Pepperhome itself had to defend against raids. Weenggina proved himself an adept warrior once more, fending off the initial assaults. Yet valour could not defy logistics; Pepperhome was untenable as a base, being too insecure. Ilangi persuaded his allies to move elsewhere, and they moved north to establish themselves in Ngampug [Grafton], a major inland town in the centre of another river valley of prime farmland, and a better source of supplies than mountainous Pepperhome. As Ilangi was heard to remark, “Man cannot live on sweet peppers alone.”
While Ilangi the Indecisive and Weenggina Many-Slayer led the migration to the north, other parties pursued their own affairs. The Inglundirr Company had not abandoned hope of salvaging some profit from their expensive expedition, and despatched the galleon Lady Harrington once more to Daluming. Here the Inglundirr traders sought to bargain with the Messenger’s new regime in Yuragir, believing that the dearth of supplies of European-made weapons and goods would prove attractive, and so offering iron and steel in exchange for spices.
For Totney, sadly, faith trumped logistics. Spices he knew, or believed he did: salt, pepper, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Flavoursome, delectable, but no challenging fire on the palate. Pepper provided the greatest culinary heat he knew, and he deemed even too much pepper excessive. The Messenger’s first experience of Aururian sweet peppers was unfortunate: he instructed his Bungudjimay guide, wielder of the pepper-mill, to crack an equivalent amount of sweet pepper berries onto his fish as he would have if using black pepper. The native guide complied willingly, since by local standards that was an acceptable heat for a meal.
Alas for Totney, he realised not that sweet peppers possess ten times the potency of black peppers. The pungent fires in his mouth exceeded those divine fires he had experienced in his visions. The Bungudjimay guide was fortunate enough not to understand the Inglundirr speech, and so did not grasp the full import of Totney’s comprehensive demonstration of the Anglo-Saxon vernacular that he used to express his views about sweet peppers.
After quenching the peppery fires with the nearest goblet of ganyu – forgetting for the moment his own prohibitions – the Messenger asked if the numbness on his tongue would pass, and was assured that it would, in time. That time did not arrive quick enough to suit the Messenger, who used the waiting to compose a thundering denunciation of the devil-inspired peppers of this land, and for good measure condemned all other heathen spices too. The spices could not be tolerated by the faithful; abstinence was the only proper course.
Thus when Lady Harrington to Yuragir came, Totney flatly refused any trade in spices, and bade the Inglundirr begone. Spurned by their countryman, the Inglundirr turned to the natives instead. Southward they sailed to the River Daluming, and with care navigated their way upriver to Bee Rup. Here the supporters of Prince Aray’marra decided that they loved the Inglundirr not, but they hated the Messenger more. So they agreed to supply as many sweet peppers and verbenas [lemon and cinnamon myrtles] as they had available, and took Inglundirr goods in exchange. Few muskets were included in this trade, since the Inglundirr had supplied most of those to their greater war amongst the Yadji, but they still provided a decent quantity of iron and steel goods, including some weapons and armour.
The exodus from Pepperhome to Ngampug proceeded without facing any local opposition. Ilangi and Weenggina – guided by Prince Wandana, naturally – set about consolidating their position along the river valley which the Daluming called the Highwater [Clarence River]. It had acquired this name because the river, while usually only small, was prone to massive floods that inundated large areas. Ilangi desired control of as much of the river valley as possible; Daluming had never controlled the upper reaches of the river basin, save for headhunting raids, but it ruled the lower portions. Weenggina had explained to him how vital it was to use the Highwater valley both to recruit troops and to provide supplies for any war to remove the Messenger.
Control of the Highwater faced one significant obstacle: a rival prince. The port city of Ngutti, at the mouth of the Highwater, marked the northernmost Daluming city of any size. Here, third-born Prince Nyiragal was the figurehead of another faction of rebel priests. While they controlled little more than the city and its immediate agricultural hinterland, they had brought a decent number of warriors with them. This weakened the utility of the Highwater valley as a supply base for a campaign at Yuragir. Worse still, reports were quickly received that Nyiragal’s supporters had a few muskets of their own.
Ilangi for once belied his nickname, and swiftly arranged a parley between Prince Wandana and Prince Nyiragal. The parley could scarcely be called a meeting of minds; Wandana possessed charisma but lacked wit, while Nyiragal was bereft of either quality. The parley was more accurately labelled a meeting of minders, as the priests and leading warriors on each side discussed terms. Nyiragal’s supporters refused to disclose the source of their muskets, but Weenggina saw them at close enough range to report that these muskets were not of the same make as Inglundirr muskets.
Alert to the potential threat, and preferring to fight only one enemy at a time, Ilangi encouraged his prince to conclude a truce with the rebels. A pact was duly negotiated: the two factions agreed on a border along the lower Highwater that neither side would violate until the Messenger had been driven from the kingdom. Ngutti and its strange weapons was a problem which would have to wait for another time. Sufficient warriors would need to be kept in Ngampug to deter Nyiragal’s advisors from breaking the truce, but Weenggina and Ilangi judged that the agreement was secure enough to let them marshal the bulk of their forces against Yuragir and the Messenger.
Concord with Ngutti secured one flank, while internecine warfare secured the other; Weenggina and Ilangi decided to leave the highland confederacies fighting each other, while they marched on Yuragir. As their host drew near to the royal city, their scouts reported discovery of other forces to the south. Prince Aray’marra had marshalled his own forces and led them to the capital.
Convergence of desire if not accord; the firstborn and secondborn sons of the departed king both wished the Messenger gone more than they hated each other. Nevertheless, each faction also desired that the other be mauled more in driving out the Inglundirr, to better secure their own position in the civil war which they knew would follow.
The military position was difficult to judge. Weenggina commanded more forces – in the name of Prince Wandana, that is – and controlled the northern road to Yuragir, which was the easier approach. Aray’marra’s forces were smaller, but included an elite group armed with iron weapons. Neither side trusted the other overly much, but they agreed to a certain measure of cooperation in besieging the capital, and that each would attack the Inglundirr forces if they sortied from the city to attack the other prince’s forces. Weenggina’s troops deployed on the northern side of the city, while Aray’marra’s forces gathered to the west, with a smaller group across the river to the south [Coffs Harbour Creek] to prevent any resupply or raids.
As fate and the Messenger’s visions would have it, the Inglundirr never sortied from Yuragir’s walls. Totney vacillated about whether to conduct raids, but ultimately followed his visions of divine guidance that so long as his followers kept stout hearts and defended the walls, the two besieging armies of heathens would succumb to their mutual hatred and turn on each other.
To Totney’s misfortune, while his visions may even have been born of truth, their fulfillment was betrayed. The siege of Yuragir was brief, not lengthy. The Messenger proclaimed his defiance of the besiegers, and the valour of his Inglundirr followers, in endless speeches. For all of his rhetoric, though, few of the people of Yuragir shared his determination. A few sought escape into the night and found it, despite the watches on the gates. Except for some of his more devoted converts, the remainder of the inhabitants sought a means to end the siege, and thereby the reign of the Messenger.
Weenggina, ever alert to the mood of his own people, recognised the opportunity. He slipped two chosen warriors into Yuragir under cover of nightfall, and made arrangements for them to join with some local malcontents, and open a gate two nights later. His own troops were deployed in readiness, without warning Aray’marra’s army. Weenggina chose to make a night attack himself, believing this the best time to negate the advantage of the Inglundirr guns and steel. Not to mention as reprisal for the night infiltration which the Messenger’s armies had conducted when taking Yuragir.
Careful planning provided its own reward; Weenggina’s forces entered Yuragir in considerable numbers, raiding where they could, particularly securing all of the other gates. The Windja Palace was, naturally, the prime target once the walls had been secured, and Weenggina’s forces converged on the palace as best they could in the darkness and when fighting against enemies who were still deadlier in individual combat of steel against bronze. Battle raged through the night, almost impossible for any commander to control, save for the broad push to occupy the palace. The Inglundirr fought back throughout the night, holding key positions within the palace.
When dawn emerged over the Windja Palace, Weenggina’s forces controlled all of the city gates, except for the easternmost gate closest to the palace, and controlled most of the city itself. The Inglundirr held much of the palace, barricading themselves in, and readying muskets now that they had light available. Forcing them out would be bloody, now that they were alert and ready.
Weenggina chose not to press too hard at the palace; driving out the Inglundirr would be worthless if it left his army too bloodied to defeat Aray’marra. Instead he sought to push the Messenger’s followers and converts out of the rest of the city, while simply keeping the palace surrounded. His army accomplished most of this task, but the defenders of the eastern gate, also wielding muskets and iron shields, proved impossible to force out without risking more casualties than he would accept.
As evening approached, Weenggina prepared orders for another night raid, believing that under cover of darkness the casualties would be tolerable. Despite his best plans, he would never manage that endeavour. For the Messenger had a new vision of his own, whether through divine inspiration or own realisation, that he would not survive another night in the Windja Palace.
So began the last great march of the Prophet, as Totney ordered his troops to withdraw from their defensive positions in the palace and push east out of the palace, seeking the eastern gate and potential escape. The push, with muskets and steel swords leading the way, was ambitious, bloody, and of questionable success. The streets of Yuragir were not easy to force through, even with muskets, and the toll grew with every street corner. A core of twenty or so Inglundirr reached the gate, joining the handful of others who had been defending the way out.
There on the eastern shore, on the harbour, were a few fishing boats in seaworthy condition, if the Prophet desired it. The besiegers had not risked attacking those boasts because the eastern walls of Yuragir were too close to the shore, within bowshot and musket range, and so Weenggina’s forces had simply watched for any effort to use the fishing boats to obtain further food.
The Prophet fled to the boats, his surviving followers around him. The Daluming soldiers pursued them to the shore, but four of the more fanatical disciples sacrificed themselves by charging the enemy lines, holding off the pursuers long enough to prevent them from reaching the boats before they were pushed off the piers. That did not guarantee freedom for the Prophet’s last soldiers, however, for some of the Daluming soldiers were archers. A few of them fired arrows at the fleeing ships, while the more inventive ones used their torches to create fire arrows. Some of those burning arrows, too, struck the fleeing boats.
The final fate of the Prophet would be described in a host of tales, oral and written. Perhaps the most famed of them all would be that written by Duarte Tomás in his novel The Man in the Glass Mask. This author would win renown for his depictions of the early European would-be conquistadors in Aururia; his other famous work was The Tenth Classic, which described Pieter Nuyts’ failed attempt to conquer the Yadji.
In concluding The Man in the Glass Mask, Tomás wrote:
“A blizzard of arrows descended on the Prophet and his fleeing boats. Some arrows burned with flame, all burned with hate. The growing dark prevented full vision of the arrows’ accomplishments, but not the fires which sprung up on sail and timber in the escaping vessels. The flames kept burning as the boats fled out to sea, lost in the distance as the night swallowed them in the east, while in the west the sun disappeared behind the highlands that had brought the Prophet’s doom.
So passed Thomas Totney, the Prophet, the Captain-General of Jehovah, out of the sight and knowledge of the people of Aururia. Never would he be seen again, his fate unknown to them and to the world. His words and faith would live on after him, borne by converts and those few of his disciples who survived the wrath of Wing Jonah the Slayer and the civil war that followed. When further calamity struck the divided kingdom, many would look for their Messenger’s return, to no avail. The last resting place of the Prophet was lost in burning mystery.”
* * *
Thoughts?
Reminder: Lycaon pictus has been kind enough to make a map of the Daluming kingdom here, which will make it much easier to keep track of the geography described in this post.
* * *
“Mankind dwelt on this world for a hundred millennia, and knew his identity in his heart. He roamed where he wished, and where he resided did not change who he was. For scarce two millennia, states have adopted borders, and claimed that where a man lives determines who he is. Yet a truth which has endured for a thousand centuries cannot be unmade by a fewscore decades of wishful thinking.”
- Lincoln Derwent and Solidarity Jenkins, “The Nationalist Manifesto”
* * *
Daluming: kingdom of glass and skulls. Where proud warriors and wondering priests command a coastal realm, the sword-carriers raiding into upraised highlands and distant lowlands, to carry back trophy skulls for the pious to polish. Where fish and emu give the meat, but a hundred spices give the flavour. Where the ten-stepped pyramid stands as the triumph of the glassmaker’s art. Where faith warned of the world’s imminent end, of the transformation of all that had been before into an unforeseeable future.
Thomas Totney: man of supreme faith, receiver of visions, proclaimer of a truth few others could truly comprehend, worker of gold metal and spinner of golden words, and occasional guest in the halls of sanity. Whose career as a goldsmith survived the irruption of the Aururian plagues, only to be abandoned after he received the revelation of Jehovah, and anointed himself God’s witness to the world. Who joined the multitudes with spiritual reawakenings and apocalyptic visions of a plague-struck world, the dispossessed and disaffected ones who sought for new meaning and new faith in troubled times. Who read the account of William Baffin of the heathen denizens of the Land of Gold, who joined the Company’s voyage to punish the pagan Mexicans, and who had the Company commander struck down and took command of the English mission to the Third World.
To Daluming came the Prophet, the self-appointed Captain-General of Jehovah. Perhaps no single moment better epitomised the collision between the two worlds than the arrival of this zealous missionary in the most alien of Aururian cultures.
For Daluming, the Inglundirr invasion marked the culmination of what seemed an endless series of crises, some externally driven, others the result of internal religious convulsions. The priests who built the Mound of Memory had long foretold that the filling of the last vacant skull-niche would mark the Closure, the end of the world as it was known. Yet those turbulent priests delayed the arrival of that event by becoming ever stricter in the standards applied before a skull would be awarded Memory; a practice which caused ever-growing frustration amongst the royalty and warriors who expected their rightful place of eternal rest. The dissatisfaction led to King Otella exiling the most senior priest, Father Ngungara Barringya, to the western highlands, a humiliation second only to being executed. A wave of new plagues had struck the kingdom one after another, culminating in light-fever [typhus] that claimed the life of both King Otella and the replacement Father.
In this already volatile atmosphere, the most senior surviving priest Ilangi proclaimed himself the new Father, with the support of Weenggina, captain of the king’s guard and most renowned warrior in the kingdom. But Daluming religious tradition had always required the Father to anoint the king and the king to anoint the Father. Ilangi’s lack of proper sanction, and animosity from some rivals among the priests, meant that some of the other priests and lesser royalty fled the capital Yuragir [Coffs Harbour] rather than admit to his legitimacy. Ilangi had control of the Windja [Secluded] Palace, but his control of the kingdom was more ambiguous.
Ilangi had scarcely been in his new role for a week when the Inglundirr ships appeared off the coast of Yuragir and delivered an unheralded, unprovoked desecration of the most honoured cemetery in the kingdom: the Mound of Memory. The horror of the sacrilegious vandalism was only compounded by the means of delivery: chained thunder used to deliver metal balls of destruction. The Inglundirr followed this violation by sending an army to land on Daluming’s soil, where unsanctified feet trod on the sacred, battered stones of the Mound of Memory.
Despite the provocations of the Inglundirr, Ilangi chose parley rather than headlong attack. His own rule was insecure, to say nothing of his wonderment about how this fit into the Closure. Ilangi heard Totney’s proclamations of being the Messenger of the One God – or so he understood it via two interpreters – and agreed to allow Totney to spread his message peacefully within Yuragir, with restrictions. The Father remained uncertain whether Totney was prophet, liar or lunatic. He judged it safest to keep him under watch rather than risk allowing a rival to control him.
Once in Yuragir, the people treated Totney with a mixture of bemusement, derision, and fervour. The creed Totney preached was so alien that the Bungudjimay often had trouble grasping his intended meaning, which created much confusion and misinterpretation, including when his would-be acolytes fought among themselves.
If not for the fervent anticipation that the Closure would bring a great change to the world, perhaps none would have heeded Totney. As it was, despite much perplexement, he found some disciples. More treated him as a joke, initially. One grand glassmaker, possessed of a wealthy sense of humour, created a glass skull mask and presented it as a gift to the Messenger. Thus the Prophet was now always looking at Daluming through the very device which he preached against.
In time, the number of listeners who followed Totney could no longer be described as few. Growing uncertainty over the absence of a new monarch, combined with an ever-increasing death toll from light-fever, meant that more Bungudjimay were prepared to heed the words of the Captain-General of Jehovah.
Strangely, while the common folk of Yuragir grew more sympathetic to the Prophet over time, Ilangi grew less. The dilemma which awaited him was that either endorsing or rejecting Totney would lead to a similar outcome: rivals claiming his decision as excuse to rebel against him.
Ilangi never came to a decision on his own: it was forced on him. While he had been examining unpalatable options – waiting for a kangaroo to lay an egg, as the Bungudjimay would say – Totney has been assessing the strength of his heathen disciples. Aid came from the main Daluming interpreter, Keajura, the son of a vassal chieftain from the western highlands, who had come to Yuragir when young as a hostage for his father’s continued good behaviour. Keajura judged that better fortune lay with supporting the Prophet than opposing him, and so had given the Prophet astute advice about how best to act to gain followers.
The hammer fell when Totney judged he had found enough adherents in the Daluming capital. He ordered his Inglundirr soldiers to cross the river at night, where a few carefully-chosen Bungudjimay disciples let them into the city and guided them to assemble in a few chosen locations. The dawn brought the challenge of guns and steel to a city already afflicted by germs, as the Raw Men army stormed the Windja Palace. While some deserted, most of the palace guards, led by their captain Weenggina, fought the invaders. Surprise, shot and steel made for troublesome adversaries, and the defenders died or fled. Ilangi and Weenggina were among the escapees, the latter bringing three Inglundirr heads with him to honour those whom he had killed, and Yuragir belonged to the Messenger.
Totney proclaimed the foundation of the Kingdom of God on Earth, with Yuragir the new capital at the end of the age. The Bungudjimay who would not make accommodation with the new regime fled over the next few nights. The Messenger began his campaign to transform the City of Skulls into the City of God. A few of the local converts were recruited to preach the new faith beyond the walls, while within Yuragir he recruited auxiliaries to supplement his Inglundirr forces.
The transformation of Yuragir extended to many more matters than the recruitment of soldiers. The Messenger announced new religious practices, including new Christian burials, the beginning of a translation of the Gospel into the Bungudjimay language, and the regular reading of translated versions of his own missives from Jehovah. He likewise set new standards for public morality, banning the duels which the warrior caste had enjoyed, laid down punishments for drunkenness for those excessively fond of ganyu [yam wine], and declared prohibition of fornication and public indecency. These proclamations caused some discontent among the people of Yuragir, but a few converts embraced them with fervour.
Beyond the walls of Yuragir, the kingdom fractured. The loss of central authority marked a watershed moment. Whatever his rivals said of Ilangi as an illegitimate Father, he represented continuity with the previous regime. The majority of the people were prepared to wait and see what happened rather than take up arms. With the expulsion of Ilangi, that constraint vanished, and divisions emerged throughout the kingdom.
Ilangi himself fled west at first, to Gwinganna [Coramba] and then on into the highland region of Pepperhome [Dorrigo]. This position was conveniently far from any possible Inglundirr invasions by sea if their ships returned, and gave him time to determine where he would most likely find support. He had two advantages he intended to make maximum use of; he was accompanied by Weenggina, the most renowned warrior in Daluming, and he had with him Wandana, the second and most charismatic son of the departed king.
Daluming had never had any tradition of primogeniture, allowing for any prince deemed capable to claim the blue and white staff (i.e. throne). Wandana’s claim was as good as any other prince. It would have been even better if Ilangi had managed to secure the staff-head, the golden skull with eyes inset with a blue sapphire and a white pearl. That staff-head had been passed down from one monarch to the next, attached to each new wooden staff of office. To Ilangi’s regret, however, the Inglundirr raid had not left time to collect it, and it was believed to still be stored somewhere in the palace.
While Ilangi established himself in Pepperhome, rivals emerged elsewhere. The main group of Bungudjimay rivals gathered in Bee Rup [Kempsey]: Prince Aray’marra, eldest son of the late king, together with several senior priests who had fled Ilangi’s seizure of Yuragir. They were joined by Ngungara Barringya, the former Father, who absconded from his highland exile to join the rebels. A smaller group of rebels emerged along the northern frontier at Ngutti [Yamba], using the third and youngest surviving son of the last king as their figurehead, but with the true power lying in the hands of two other exiled priests.
With the disunity amongst the Bungudjimay, their control of the western highlands dissolved into an unwelcome sea of anarchy. The highlands had long been divided into shifting confederations of chiefdoms. In recent memory there had been three highland confederations of note: the Loo Gwanna in the north around Mulumun [Glen Innes], the Bogolara in the west around Toodella [Inverell], and the Nyenna Murra in the south around Anaiwal [Armidale].
In 1592 Daluming had conquered the Nyenna Murra, reducing its chiefs to vassalage, except for a small chiefdom in the southern fringes of the highlands, around Kuttan [Walcha], which reasserted its status as an independent chiefdom and rallying point for those chiefs and warriors fleeing Daluming rule. Daluming never managed to suppress Kuttan, but it had maintained its rule over the Anaiwal region ever since, despite various revolts, and the highland chiefs there remained vassals.
With the Closure seizing Yuragir, and Totney’s proclamation of the kingdom as the new Captaincy of Jehovah, Daluming authority over the highlands disintegrated. Most of the chiefs around Anaiwal declared their independence. Shortly thereafter, their ancient rival confederacies both announced war, an announcement that came as mere punctuation after raids which preceded the declarations. The highlands, too, became part of the spreading anarchy that faced Daluming.
Ilangi faced the independence with growing horror; nearly half a century of rule of the highlands now faced annihilation from the Closure. Worse for his own position, he knew that the former Father had fled his exile, but for far too long he could not find out where his rivals were gathering. Again he faced the paralysis of indecision, and his only good fortune was that his enemies were also all reluctant to move, his rivals because of uncertain strength and the Inglundirr because maintaining control even over Yuragir and its immediate environs was proving difficult.
In time Ilangi’s agents brought him word that Ngungara Barringya, together with the elder prince and his supporters, had established themselves in Myarra [Bellbrook]; a small town on the upper reaches of the River Daluming [Macleay River], that controlled one of the routes to Anaiwal. It seemed that they, too, were wary of the Inglundirr arriving by sea, and also sought to block any highlander raids into the fertile farmlands along the River.
Deviousness bred in priestly intrigues gave Ilangi inspiration, and he arranged for word to be discreetly leaked to the Inglundirr that the eldest prince had rallied supporters at Myarra. Myriad interpreter-guided sessions with the Messenger had granted some insight into Inglundirr thinking, teaching that the raw men believed that the eldest prince had the best claim to the throne. While Ilangi did not fully grasp the logic behind such a strange notion of passing over a more accomplished prince through a mere accident of birth order, he was prepared to take advantage of that belief, seeking to use the Messenger to eliminate or weaken his chief rivals.
An accident of geography undid Ilangi’s carefully-laid plan. In the old days when Daluming had been divided into two kingdoms, there had been two cities named Myarra. An inland river town and waystation [Bellbrook] in the southern kingdom, and a minor port north of Yuragir [Woolgoolga] in the northern kingdom. When the two kingdoms became one, the two names remained. On hearing that Prince Aray’marra was gathering in Myarra, Totney rallied his soldiers and local converts to eliminate this threat, only to find that the sleepy northern port town held no sign of princes or other rebels.
Ilangi and his allies had prepared to strike at Yuragir while the Inglundirr army left the city. No such opportunity arose. Totney’s forces did not stray too far from the capital. Worse, with the three-way war growing more intense in the highlands, Pepperhome itself had to defend against raids. Weenggina proved himself an adept warrior once more, fending off the initial assaults. Yet valour could not defy logistics; Pepperhome was untenable as a base, being too insecure. Ilangi persuaded his allies to move elsewhere, and they moved north to establish themselves in Ngampug [Grafton], a major inland town in the centre of another river valley of prime farmland, and a better source of supplies than mountainous Pepperhome. As Ilangi was heard to remark, “Man cannot live on sweet peppers alone.”
While Ilangi the Indecisive and Weenggina Many-Slayer led the migration to the north, other parties pursued their own affairs. The Inglundirr Company had not abandoned hope of salvaging some profit from their expensive expedition, and despatched the galleon Lady Harrington once more to Daluming. Here the Inglundirr traders sought to bargain with the Messenger’s new regime in Yuragir, believing that the dearth of supplies of European-made weapons and goods would prove attractive, and so offering iron and steel in exchange for spices.
For Totney, sadly, faith trumped logistics. Spices he knew, or believed he did: salt, pepper, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Flavoursome, delectable, but no challenging fire on the palate. Pepper provided the greatest culinary heat he knew, and he deemed even too much pepper excessive. The Messenger’s first experience of Aururian sweet peppers was unfortunate: he instructed his Bungudjimay guide, wielder of the pepper-mill, to crack an equivalent amount of sweet pepper berries onto his fish as he would have if using black pepper. The native guide complied willingly, since by local standards that was an acceptable heat for a meal.
Alas for Totney, he realised not that sweet peppers possess ten times the potency of black peppers. The pungent fires in his mouth exceeded those divine fires he had experienced in his visions. The Bungudjimay guide was fortunate enough not to understand the Inglundirr speech, and so did not grasp the full import of Totney’s comprehensive demonstration of the Anglo-Saxon vernacular that he used to express his views about sweet peppers.
After quenching the peppery fires with the nearest goblet of ganyu – forgetting for the moment his own prohibitions – the Messenger asked if the numbness on his tongue would pass, and was assured that it would, in time. That time did not arrive quick enough to suit the Messenger, who used the waiting to compose a thundering denunciation of the devil-inspired peppers of this land, and for good measure condemned all other heathen spices too. The spices could not be tolerated by the faithful; abstinence was the only proper course.
Thus when Lady Harrington to Yuragir came, Totney flatly refused any trade in spices, and bade the Inglundirr begone. Spurned by their countryman, the Inglundirr turned to the natives instead. Southward they sailed to the River Daluming, and with care navigated their way upriver to Bee Rup. Here the supporters of Prince Aray’marra decided that they loved the Inglundirr not, but they hated the Messenger more. So they agreed to supply as many sweet peppers and verbenas [lemon and cinnamon myrtles] as they had available, and took Inglundirr goods in exchange. Few muskets were included in this trade, since the Inglundirr had supplied most of those to their greater war amongst the Yadji, but they still provided a decent quantity of iron and steel goods, including some weapons and armour.
The exodus from Pepperhome to Ngampug proceeded without facing any local opposition. Ilangi and Weenggina – guided by Prince Wandana, naturally – set about consolidating their position along the river valley which the Daluming called the Highwater [Clarence River]. It had acquired this name because the river, while usually only small, was prone to massive floods that inundated large areas. Ilangi desired control of as much of the river valley as possible; Daluming had never controlled the upper reaches of the river basin, save for headhunting raids, but it ruled the lower portions. Weenggina had explained to him how vital it was to use the Highwater valley both to recruit troops and to provide supplies for any war to remove the Messenger.
Control of the Highwater faced one significant obstacle: a rival prince. The port city of Ngutti, at the mouth of the Highwater, marked the northernmost Daluming city of any size. Here, third-born Prince Nyiragal was the figurehead of another faction of rebel priests. While they controlled little more than the city and its immediate agricultural hinterland, they had brought a decent number of warriors with them. This weakened the utility of the Highwater valley as a supply base for a campaign at Yuragir. Worse still, reports were quickly received that Nyiragal’s supporters had a few muskets of their own.
Ilangi for once belied his nickname, and swiftly arranged a parley between Prince Wandana and Prince Nyiragal. The parley could scarcely be called a meeting of minds; Wandana possessed charisma but lacked wit, while Nyiragal was bereft of either quality. The parley was more accurately labelled a meeting of minders, as the priests and leading warriors on each side discussed terms. Nyiragal’s supporters refused to disclose the source of their muskets, but Weenggina saw them at close enough range to report that these muskets were not of the same make as Inglundirr muskets.
Alert to the potential threat, and preferring to fight only one enemy at a time, Ilangi encouraged his prince to conclude a truce with the rebels. A pact was duly negotiated: the two factions agreed on a border along the lower Highwater that neither side would violate until the Messenger had been driven from the kingdom. Ngutti and its strange weapons was a problem which would have to wait for another time. Sufficient warriors would need to be kept in Ngampug to deter Nyiragal’s advisors from breaking the truce, but Weenggina and Ilangi judged that the agreement was secure enough to let them marshal the bulk of their forces against Yuragir and the Messenger.
Concord with Ngutti secured one flank, while internecine warfare secured the other; Weenggina and Ilangi decided to leave the highland confederacies fighting each other, while they marched on Yuragir. As their host drew near to the royal city, their scouts reported discovery of other forces to the south. Prince Aray’marra had marshalled his own forces and led them to the capital.
Convergence of desire if not accord; the firstborn and secondborn sons of the departed king both wished the Messenger gone more than they hated each other. Nevertheless, each faction also desired that the other be mauled more in driving out the Inglundirr, to better secure their own position in the civil war which they knew would follow.
The military position was difficult to judge. Weenggina commanded more forces – in the name of Prince Wandana, that is – and controlled the northern road to Yuragir, which was the easier approach. Aray’marra’s forces were smaller, but included an elite group armed with iron weapons. Neither side trusted the other overly much, but they agreed to a certain measure of cooperation in besieging the capital, and that each would attack the Inglundirr forces if they sortied from the city to attack the other prince’s forces. Weenggina’s troops deployed on the northern side of the city, while Aray’marra’s forces gathered to the west, with a smaller group across the river to the south [Coffs Harbour Creek] to prevent any resupply or raids.
As fate and the Messenger’s visions would have it, the Inglundirr never sortied from Yuragir’s walls. Totney vacillated about whether to conduct raids, but ultimately followed his visions of divine guidance that so long as his followers kept stout hearts and defended the walls, the two besieging armies of heathens would succumb to their mutual hatred and turn on each other.
To Totney’s misfortune, while his visions may even have been born of truth, their fulfillment was betrayed. The siege of Yuragir was brief, not lengthy. The Messenger proclaimed his defiance of the besiegers, and the valour of his Inglundirr followers, in endless speeches. For all of his rhetoric, though, few of the people of Yuragir shared his determination. A few sought escape into the night and found it, despite the watches on the gates. Except for some of his more devoted converts, the remainder of the inhabitants sought a means to end the siege, and thereby the reign of the Messenger.
Weenggina, ever alert to the mood of his own people, recognised the opportunity. He slipped two chosen warriors into Yuragir under cover of nightfall, and made arrangements for them to join with some local malcontents, and open a gate two nights later. His own troops were deployed in readiness, without warning Aray’marra’s army. Weenggina chose to make a night attack himself, believing this the best time to negate the advantage of the Inglundirr guns and steel. Not to mention as reprisal for the night infiltration which the Messenger’s armies had conducted when taking Yuragir.
Careful planning provided its own reward; Weenggina’s forces entered Yuragir in considerable numbers, raiding where they could, particularly securing all of the other gates. The Windja Palace was, naturally, the prime target once the walls had been secured, and Weenggina’s forces converged on the palace as best they could in the darkness and when fighting against enemies who were still deadlier in individual combat of steel against bronze. Battle raged through the night, almost impossible for any commander to control, save for the broad push to occupy the palace. The Inglundirr fought back throughout the night, holding key positions within the palace.
When dawn emerged over the Windja Palace, Weenggina’s forces controlled all of the city gates, except for the easternmost gate closest to the palace, and controlled most of the city itself. The Inglundirr held much of the palace, barricading themselves in, and readying muskets now that they had light available. Forcing them out would be bloody, now that they were alert and ready.
Weenggina chose not to press too hard at the palace; driving out the Inglundirr would be worthless if it left his army too bloodied to defeat Aray’marra. Instead he sought to push the Messenger’s followers and converts out of the rest of the city, while simply keeping the palace surrounded. His army accomplished most of this task, but the defenders of the eastern gate, also wielding muskets and iron shields, proved impossible to force out without risking more casualties than he would accept.
As evening approached, Weenggina prepared orders for another night raid, believing that under cover of darkness the casualties would be tolerable. Despite his best plans, he would never manage that endeavour. For the Messenger had a new vision of his own, whether through divine inspiration or own realisation, that he would not survive another night in the Windja Palace.
So began the last great march of the Prophet, as Totney ordered his troops to withdraw from their defensive positions in the palace and push east out of the palace, seeking the eastern gate and potential escape. The push, with muskets and steel swords leading the way, was ambitious, bloody, and of questionable success. The streets of Yuragir were not easy to force through, even with muskets, and the toll grew with every street corner. A core of twenty or so Inglundirr reached the gate, joining the handful of others who had been defending the way out.
There on the eastern shore, on the harbour, were a few fishing boats in seaworthy condition, if the Prophet desired it. The besiegers had not risked attacking those boasts because the eastern walls of Yuragir were too close to the shore, within bowshot and musket range, and so Weenggina’s forces had simply watched for any effort to use the fishing boats to obtain further food.
The Prophet fled to the boats, his surviving followers around him. The Daluming soldiers pursued them to the shore, but four of the more fanatical disciples sacrificed themselves by charging the enemy lines, holding off the pursuers long enough to prevent them from reaching the boats before they were pushed off the piers. That did not guarantee freedom for the Prophet’s last soldiers, however, for some of the Daluming soldiers were archers. A few of them fired arrows at the fleeing ships, while the more inventive ones used their torches to create fire arrows. Some of those burning arrows, too, struck the fleeing boats.
The final fate of the Prophet would be described in a host of tales, oral and written. Perhaps the most famed of them all would be that written by Duarte Tomás in his novel The Man in the Glass Mask. This author would win renown for his depictions of the early European would-be conquistadors in Aururia; his other famous work was The Tenth Classic, which described Pieter Nuyts’ failed attempt to conquer the Yadji.
In concluding The Man in the Glass Mask, Tomás wrote:
“A blizzard of arrows descended on the Prophet and his fleeing boats. Some arrows burned with flame, all burned with hate. The growing dark prevented full vision of the arrows’ accomplishments, but not the fires which sprung up on sail and timber in the escaping vessels. The flames kept burning as the boats fled out to sea, lost in the distance as the night swallowed them in the east, while in the west the sun disappeared behind the highlands that had brought the Prophet’s doom.
So passed Thomas Totney, the Prophet, the Captain-General of Jehovah, out of the sight and knowledge of the people of Aururia. Never would he be seen again, his fate unknown to them and to the world. His words and faith would live on after him, borne by converts and those few of his disciples who survived the wrath of Wing Jonah the Slayer and the civil war that followed. When further calamity struck the divided kingdom, many would look for their Messenger’s return, to no avail. The last resting place of the Prophet was lost in burning mystery.”
* * *
Thoughts?
I managed to miss some of these earliest posts at the time, but better late than never.
I'm not sure about professional actors, but yes, there would be enough amateurs around to fill most roles. I'm not holding my breath that LoRaG will be optioned, but hey, if HBO comes knocking at my door, I won't kick them out.
This is a possibility. And for some regions of the world, it may also be worthwhile subcontracting their development, too. Though there are limits to that.
This is, pretty much, the wrap-up for Daluming. As I've mentioned, I'm trying to pick up the pace a bit from here on in. The remaining unanswered questions about Daluming - well, those questions I think are significant - will be answered as part of the next post, which gives an overview of the whole Proxy Wars and moves things forward to 1660.
I'm not sure about professional actors, but yes, there would be enough amateurs around to fill most roles. I'm not holding my breath that LoRaG will be optioned, but hey, if HBO comes knocking at my door, I won't kick them out.
If anything, you could always write some additional chapters and midquels set in the contact era once you finish the basic skeleton of the timeline.
This is a possibility. And for some regions of the world, it may also be worthwhile subcontracting their development, too. Though there are limits to that.
Yay, we're revisiting Daluming !
This is, pretty much, the wrap-up for Daluming. As I've mentioned, I'm trying to pick up the pace a bit from here on in. The remaining unanswered questions about Daluming - well, those questions I think are significant - will be answered as part of the next post, which gives an overview of the whole Proxy Wars and moves things forward to 1660.
Interesting as always... but is it really plausible for a charismatic preacher to win converts among people who can't understand what he's saying?
In most circumstances I'd say no, but in these particular circumstances I think it's reasonable that he gets some converts.
Naturally, Totney is not converting people through personal charisma. But he is coming at a time when the people of Daluming were expecting a major change, and have been struck by enough troubles (diseases, death of the monarch, etc) that they are more receptive to a new faith than normal. So some of them latch onto it.
The conversions are often not very deep, of course. Many of them were those who found it prudent to appear to convert after Totney's forces already occupied the city. And many of those abandoned the idea again once some serious armies appeared outside the walls of the capital.
A tragic ending for Totney.
Will there be hidden followers of Totney, in a way similar to OTL Catholic Kirishitan?
Alas yes. Of course, pretty much from when he landed in Daluming, his fate was sealed. Due to language barrier and his optional approach to sanity, he was unlikely to endure there, barring a much larger dose of luck than the already good amount he had had so far.
Depending on how things play out, there may even be open followers. Daluming is still in the midst of a three-way civil war, even discounting the highland chiefs who've re-asserted their independence. This is, naturally, perfect territory for other powers to use the competing factions as proxies. Given that this is in an era called the Proxy Wars, that may well happen.
In fact, in part it already has happened. The English have had some trade contact with one faction, and another faction is getting non-English muskets sold to them by someone.
You'd have to ask the ATL author.
Seriously, though, this was one of those things that drew on a variety of inspirations. The Aururian legend of the Undying Prophet was just one big part of the mythos.
Are these people from somewhere that is noted for windmills and flatness?
Oddly enough, no. The Windmill People have been slow off the mark to get involved in the eastern seaboard of Aururia, due to a combination of early exploration failures, giving too much heed to the other Aururian peoples who viewed the place as a backwater, and focus on places which were known to give excellent profits.
The Flat Land is now changing its views of the eastern coast of the Land of Gold, but in the case of *Yamba, someone else has beaten them to the punch.