Zardnaar
Deity
Fallout, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect
Ironically, I think you've thought of the socio-political angle way more than Charadon ever did (or could have, given he's only ever grown up in an illiterate tribe of Ice Age cavemen). He always seemed to me as the living personification of the philosophy of every edgy leather-trench-coat teen who buys swords at the mall. Just if that persona was given form at the thawing of a new age and leadership over a tribe.There are some references to it, mostly implied. It's my own personal opinion on how their future plays out, but I can tell whomever wrote them was at least moderately familiar with how hunter-gatherer societies tend to be dominated or exterminated by states.
Since they're not farmers, have extremely informal hierarchies, no writing, they're not going to generate a surplus of food sufficient to resist territorial encroachment on their land, long-term. Their culture will be forcibly assimilated, at the least. True of the Doviello and pretty much every HG tribe on Earth IRL.
At the start of a FFH campaign, immediately after the thaw, the Doviello's enemies are at the lowest point of their population growth curve, which makes it the only real time they could plausibly interrupt the process that leads to their doom. You can kinda see this in Mahala's entry, in which Charadon argues:
“Hah! All you want to do is weaken us and then hand us over to our enemies, to be put in pens like sheep and cows! Better to die as warriors than live as thralls!”
in retort to a claim his wars are provocative and counter productive.
He is likely correct, though. He's a moralist, though often not recognized as such, disdainful of softness, something which is enforced by a state upon its people whether they like it or not(can't be killing the labor force, psycho). The states will force what he considers thralldom on he and his people for the sake of prosperity and security.
He resists this with a great deal of violence. It's not in line with contemporary ethics, but it does have a logic from his perspective: the only option with any chance of success is just to wipe everybody else out and destroy states, returning to the stateless societies of the Age of Ice.
This same critique can, and was, made of Dutch van der Linde in RDR2. Both were great characters. Freedom in spirit, fascist in function.When it comes to thralls, wouldn't being a Doviello yesman who agrees with everything the chief says be akin to being a simpler thrall akin to how Charadon sees acquiescence of the individual to the state? It isn't like he stamps out dissent in any different way, just on a smaller, more amateurish scale. He also doesn't take "no" for an answer in anything.
This I do disagree with, though. He's seen enough of civilized living to know his culture is facing different challenges from different entities. His first life did not contain many states, being a desolate ice age and all, his second did, and I'm sure the main themes were sensed, as is evidenced by continued advocacy of extreme violence against their rivals despite questionable hopes of success.Ironically, I think you've thought of the socio-political angle way more than Charadon ever did (or could have, given he's only ever grown up in an illiterate tribe of Ice Age cavemen)
How could he have experienced, let alone debated the faults and merits of civilized living when he's already the head of an insular tribal people by the end of the Age of Ice? It isn't like there are people trying to have longform debate with Charadon, and even if they somehow did, it seems like he'd entertain words for all of thirty seconds before the axes come out and he proves his point by hacking the civilization evangelist to pieces.This I do disagree with, though. He's seen enough of civilized living to know his culture is facing different challenges from different entities. His first life did not contain many states, being a desolate ice age and all, his second did, and I'm sure the main themes were sensed, as is evidenced by continued advocacy of extreme violence against their rivals despite questionable hopes of success.
I don't think it's direct experience in living that way, it's experience with his culture's more recent interaction with states, vs his experience dealing(fighting) other uncivilized stateless entities in what was a wasteland.How could he have experienced, let alone debated the faults and merits of civilized living when he's already the head of an insular tribal people by the end of the Age of Ice?
I mean, it's worth noting that he routinely debated Mahala and she self-exiled.That's kind of what always made Charadon so "evil" to me insofar as his alignment assignment. Everything he does is an emotional outburst of disproportionate aggression rooted in a deep-seated (very human) fear, and what he cannot overcome with that, he immediately fetishizes (interactions with Mahala are a good example of this, too). It's a desperate, tragic evil born out of desperate willingness to throw away everything that makes him "human" in an attempt to cover up or hide from his innermost fears buried in his childhood mind.