Lore on the Amurites

[Neonanocyborgasm]

I am tossing around the idea of writing a short story that revolves mostly about the Amurites. My character is going to be an Amurite that is effectively cast out of society and must live as an exile. There seems to be minimal information regarding them in the Civilopedia. I could just make things up as I go along, under prosaic license, but I thought I'd ask more about its nature, if there is anything like a canon.

It seems to me that the Amurites have an aristocracy of mages, with other classes below them. There also seems to be twin sets of leadership, with unclear deliniations. One is the Caswallawn (Dain) and his council of mages, deliberating on most matters of state, the other is the Martial (Valledia) who runs the military. From the few glimpses of the readings available, it's not clear to me whether the military always takes its orders from the mages, or whether there is some independence, or perhaps checks and balances. What is definitely clear is that the numerous magical schools of the Amurites have what amounts to independent fiefdoms, which they guard jealously. How much control these schools can exert over the state as a whole is not clear. What is also clear to me is how stratified Amurite society is. Unless you have some magical ability, you're worth nothing, and one's degree of magical aptitude has a direct bearing on one's lot in life. Even so, because positions of power seem so fixed, it is difficult even for the talented mage to rise to a truely meritorious position. That all seems to be my impression of things.

Another thing I'd appreciate is some idea of the position of the Amurite kingdom in relation to others. I intend my character to travel about, being in exile, and it would help to know where travel is possible, and what might happen as a result.

Thanks.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Although magical talent is more common among the Amurites than in other nations, it is still only found in a small minority of the populace. At the beginning of the Age of Rebirth I doubt more than a fraction of one percent of this most magical people knew any magic. Govannan eventually changed this, but most commoners who studied under him and his followers still only know one or two very minor spells.


The Amurite nation is technically a Republic, and bears significant similarity to Plato's Republic. Power is divided between a monarch, aristocrats, and an assembly elected by the commoners. The monarch is also an elected position. I'm not quite sure whether the monarch is elected for life, or if Queen Valledia the Even is just so shrewd a politician that no one dares run against her. Although it is highly illegal to do so, Valledia has been keeping very careful records of all the magical bloodlines. She keeps track of a lot of other information too, enough to blackmail anyone of any importance. Valledia was born to a peasant family and was rejected by all the mage guilds as having no magical talent, but her political cunning has made her the most powerful member of their society. She is the head of state and head of government, a civilian, not military, leader. She is however responsible for foreign policy, and is more willing to send troops into combat than their veteran commander in chief Dain the Caswallawn.


The Mage Guilds are the Aristocracy of Amurite society. There are many seperate guilds which are all expected to be self regulating. In theory they keep their knowledge hidden to all but a select few because it is dangerous to the unprepared. In practice they just don't want to share their power, and do more hazing than safety training. I presume most of these guilds tend to specialize in different schools of magic, but teach at least a little of other spheres too. I get the sense that most mages study one sphere as a major and one as a minor, and some take double majors.

The Mage Guilds want to see Govannon destroyed, but Valledia has made it clear that this renegade teacher is under her protection. She mostly protects him because she wants him to train the army, but also because he makes her very popular among the commoners, who wield more votes than the mage guilds. The leaders of the guilds don't fight her her much on this, in part because she is blackmailing all of them and in part because he is a stronger mage than any of them.

In most nations Mage Guilds take only students old enough to request instruction, but Amurite Mage Guilds rarely accept any student that old. They operate sort of like the Old Jedi Order. All children born in Amurite lands are tested for magical potential, and if they score highly enough they are taken way to be raised by a guild. Familial connections are considered a highly undesirable detraction. Most families consider it a great honor to have a child taken away to serve the nation as a mage and so are glad to see them go. It is not clear what happens in the rare cases where the parents might resist.

The children adopted by the guilds usually take on the rank of adept when they are between 6 and 10 years of age. Most of these never make it any further. High ranking mages and archmages tend to be lazy cowards, who prefer to give the most dangerous assignment to those on whom the guild has not wasted too much time or money giving extensive training. The mortality rate for adepts is quite high.



The Caswallawn is the highest ranking archmage. His authority extends over all of the Mage Guilds, and because magic is so important to the Amurite military also serves as the commander in chief of the army. However, his primary duty is breeding. The Caswallawn is required to mate frequently with magically talented members of the opposite sex. He does not get to choose his partners and does not do so for pleasure, but because it is considered essential to the nation that he pass on his genes to ensure that the next generation of Amurites has better magical talent. The position is open to women, but it is considered better for the Caswallawn to be male so he can impregnate multiple women every day rather than bearing one child a year. Also, the Caswallawn must always be ready to defend his or her position in a magical duel, as is legally required to accept all challenges. (A female Caswallawn once had to fight a duel during labor.)


Dain the Caswallawn started off as a siege mage, a human siege weapon focused largely on using fireballs to break down enemy defenses. He came to be especially interested in the history of Patria, especially in how their mages were trained. He was the first to rediscover The Trials, and to find the one still operational Cave of the Ancestors in Balseraph lands. He passed the trials and and returned home to build a new Cave of the Ancestors there and revive the ancient customs of their ancestors. The new ways are not quite so brutal though. For example, the the often lethal Cave Trials are now fully optional. Dain never actually won his title in a duel, but is still bound to defended against challengers.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

Thanks, MC. This will give me much to work with. Still, do you have any sense of the position of the nation vs. the other factions of Erebus? I'm assuming that it's near the icy regions of the Ilians and Doviello, but outside of that I have little conception.

The Amurite nation is technically a Republic, and bears significant similarity to Plato's Republic. Power is divided between a monarch, aristocrats, and an assembly elected by the commoners.

Sounds more like the Roman Republic, where there were collegial offices and representation by election, with votes distributed according to social class, rather than equal. Plato's Republic is a misnomer. It was never enacted, but would've been far from any republic, and more like a totalitarian state. But that's for another conversation.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Kael tends to be purposefully vague when it comes to the geography of Erebus, so that things won't conflict so much with games played on random maps.

I believe that the only confirmed neighbor that the Amurites have is the Infernals, as references in Valledia's pedia entry where the order is given to move the Firebows from the coastal borders to the land borders shared with the Infernals. The Infernals presumably also shared borders with the Bannor, Lanun, and Elohim, all of which where much stronger than the Amurites at the time.

Rhoanna's pedia entry also implies that the Amurite city of Nimarail is near Hippus territory, built on grassy hills that the wizards conquered from the horse lords.



Under Valledia the Amurite Nation basically is a totalitarian state, but there is enough of a democratic veneer that most of its subjects don't realize this. Kael often presents Valledia as a devious and brutal tyrant with a genuine interest in doing what she believes is best for her society and without hubris or any the usual vices that tend to lead to the demise of despots. She would make a rather good Philosopher King.

 

[A Moon]

(A female Caswallawn once had to fight a duel during labor.)

Does history recall who won this fight?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

My memory is a bit fuzzy on that right now. I want to say that the defending Caswallawn won the duel but lost her child in the process.

 

[KamikazeFTW]

My memory is a bit fuzzy on that right now. I want to say that the defending Caswallawn won the duel but lost her child in the process.

Kinda sad that her kid died but...

hahahaha, seriously? She must have been insanely tough to fight a duel and go through labor, whoever thought of that was a genius

 

[A_Hamster]

So what happened to the knowledge and power that the Amurites gained from Kylorin during the Age of Ice? It would seem that had they retained it, they would have dominated the other survivors in the early years of the Age of Rebirth. Yet what color text is in the game implies they are only moderately powerful, with the Elohim being both more militarily powerful and larger in territory. Did all the Children of Kylorin drop dead the moment Mulcarn was destroyed? A powerful electromagnet was accidentally placed next to the HD of their spell archive? Some more appropriate disaster that would explain the loss of knowledge and the teachers who could have passed it on?

 

[Elder Methyl]

My memory is a bit fuzzy on that right now. I want to say that the defending Caswallawn won the duel but lost her child in the process.

I perfer that both mother and child survived, but the challenger got the pain and stress of the labor and figthing magically transferred to him or her, thus losing the battle.