Which EVIL civ would you live under?

I go for the Calabim.

I imagine the Calabim to be like France in the high middle ages.
The aristocracy has absolute power and is "bloodsucking" the common people for tax.

Still though the country is unified and pacified. The legal system works, unless you wanna sue a noble. Taxes are high (can even cost you your life) but you know what to expect and you can plan accordingly and avoid the worst.
More importantly there are striving cities where you can get a career and life without being too much bothered by the nobles, who normally terrorize the countryside.

Now compare this to the random madness of Perpentach's terror or savage tribalism of Orcs and Doviello or the icy hell of the Illians or the walking dead and demons on Sheaim streets or the man-abusing matriarchism of the Svartalfar and under Hyborem you simply don't "live".

Sorry, but Calabim is by far the most decent of all the of the evil civs.

 

I wouldn't call the Illians an 'icy hell' - not if you're used to cold weather. At least there's no risk of having a Calabim nobleman get hungry and decide you're lunch.

 

Of course, Calabrim. Indeed, it's ruled by vampires, but the worst they can do to you is killing you rather painlessly. It's still better than being tortured by confessors in goody Bannor Empire, or being rallied to another religious crusade... Besides, they don't always kill when they feed, and offer very good social mobility with a gift that is worth all the risks on top. The rulers are one of the sanest among all, and the society is quite open.

 

Svartalfar, evil with glamour.

Hmm. How exactly anti-male are the Svartalfar? It seems that we don't really know it. Females have a certain privilege, true, but among all the stories of abuse and discrimination in Civilopedia there're no sad stories of abused Svartalfar men.

 

You raise an excellent question, as the FfH-lore is indeed not revealing much details about the life of Svartalfar commoners.
Still though, Western literature has always painted female-ruled societies to be man-abusing, starting with the Ancient stories about the Amazons and ending with the current fantasy literature on Drow-society. If everybody says so, there must be some truth to it - where there is smoke there is fire, as the old proverb says.

Actually all the known works on the evil-nature of female-ruled societies were written by men. Naturally this pure coincidence.

In fact I once read an essay describing how the Ancient literature, art and religion supported the power shift from matriarchial societies (tribes, first villages) into patriarchial societies (first city states). The essay even pointed out that female rule was painted evil on purpose so that people would be more willing to accept the removal of their women village councils and female goddesses. Naturally this is BS. It is unimaginable that honorable men would do such a thing as telling bad stories about women-ruled societies just in order to discredit them

Please also note that Western Christianity (and Judaism) is stating that there is only one male god, who has only one male child, and who replaced an entire pantheon of Ancient male and female deities. Naturally this has nothing to do with what we talked about earlier. God simply IS a man, as easy as that.

So , in conclusion, it is as clear as a bright morning in the first spring sun that the Svartalfar are a man-abusing matriarchial kingdom of evil! Every man should be called to arms to save the world from them! I rather will be eaten by a man than to be petted by a woman! At least this is something I can comprehend : You are hungry, you must eat ...

 

I fixed that for you. Keep in mind that souls are a rather useful thing to have, considering that without one you have no way to enter any afterlife, due to having no "you" at all.

 

You are mistaken about the Vampires of Erebus. Many vampires do enjoy the taste of human blood, but drinking this is not what defines or sustains them. They my have led many even within Erebus to believe that myth, but the truth is much darker. Their feeding always kills, and not only the physical body. The vampiric ritual involves devouring their victim's very souls, robbing them not only of this life but also the next. Victims do not die painlessly, but are typically tortured for quite some time. The ritual involves the use of arcane runes (very much like those which Valledia the Even ordered Samael to use on Einion Logos's wife when she was trying to frame the Infernals for the crime and trick the Elohim into breaking their peace treaty with the demons before Hyborem could focus his troops on destroying the Amurites). These runes trap the soul within the body, allowing the victim to remain alive and fully conscious of torments far beyond what would normally be fatal. Only after the soul has become truly desperate does the vampire destroy a certain rune to allow the soul to escape into his own body and be consumed. Gifting vampirism in Erebus is not a matter of a victim biting the vampire back and drinking blood, but rather of a vampire master instructing a pupil in how to properly perform such a ritual murder.


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I really don't think that there is much in the canon of Erebus about male dark elves being subservient to females. The Svartalfar's hero Alazkan is male, as is their greatest mage (Wode, the student of Kylorin who led the school of Shadow Magic in the Age of Magic, who I like to imagine is still active in the Winter Court as elves have great longevity and there is no mention of him dying). I believe they are fairly egalitarian as far as gender goes, although they do consider themselves racially to be superior to all others. Dark Elves of both gender live in terror of Queen Faeryl Viconia. Few would dare to oppose her, although Rivanna is considering a coup.


I don't think there is much evidence that female dominated (human) societies have ever really suppressed their men. What the Greeks wrote of the Amazons was certainly hyperbole. There are several tribes that they could have formed the basis for the myth, but they were more gender egalitarian than matriarchal.



The God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is not male. In Hebrew every noun must be either masculine or feminine, but that has little to do with physical gender. As a spirit, God has no physical gender, only grammatical gender. Jews have been explicit about this since long before the time of Christ. It may be worth noting that in Hebrew the word "spirit" is feminine, whereas in Greek it is neuter and Latin it is masculine. The Hebrew for wisdom (which was translated into Greek as the masculine word Logos and equated with Christ) is also feminine, as is the term for his glory or manifest presence. Several names for God have very strong feminine connotations. For example, he is likened to a mother hen and what we often translate as "God Almighty" might be better rendered as "God, My Teat" (implying that he nourishes us like nursing mother). The Koran makes a point to alternate pronouns so that we don't get in the habit of associating God with any particular gender.

 

Well, it seems to me this might actually make it more attractive, as there's a good chance afterlife will be far worse than nothing. Obviously it is so if you were to go into the Hells. Arawn's vault (which I think is the only one that has ever been described canonically, but I may be wrong here) doesn't exactly seem like a brilliant place to spend an eternity in either. The other gods' vaults may be really great (I don't think Kael has ever described them...) for all we know, but with all that's going on in Erebus, there's a good chance you'll be forced back into the world to fight again, or that the vault will be destroyed along with everything else by Armageddon, or some other horrid things. I think if it wasn't for the incredibly long torture beforehand, having your soul devoured would probably be one of the best ways to die in Erebus; and even with the torment beforehand, at least there is an end to it. If your soul would have gone to Hell, that's an improvement.

 

Well, the only thing that fixes Eberus lore in any way - Civilipedia - seems to disagree with that. There are two cases of vampire feeding - Alexis and Flarous, the latter being not lethal nor painful in any way, nor requiring arcane runes. Also, as far as I understand, soul in FFH is a matter that can't just disappear, otherwise, Os-Gabella wouldn't have that much headache, so it's either fused into vampire's or simply leaves Eberus. As a bottomline, of course, anyone can have his ideas about Eberus lore, that do not clearly contradict the stated facts.

 

This sounds like a fantasy of a certain annoying brand of feminism. Academia generally agrees that there isn't much evidence for that universal shift from matriarchy to patriarchy.

As for female goddesses - there had been quite strong female goddesses in patriarchal societies (Ishtar, Athena etc). They certainly were not "removed"!

This, true. I can imagine a cultured, refined Calabim noble making that argument. I can see a destitute Calabim noble offering soul-destroying services to people who are afraid that they may end in Hell. Fanfic, anyone?

 

Evil Lanun. Or Balseraphs.

 

Have we just invented Dignitas for Erebus?

 

"Just" being relative.

 

I'd go with the Svalties.

And then immediately make a mad dash straight out the door for the Dural. Sure, I might stay for a few days, maybe a week if I'm delayed, but nobody said I had to live until I died under them.