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DerynifanK

March 17, 2024, 03:48:44 PM
Happy St Patrick's Day. Enjoy the one day of the year when the whole world is Irish.

The rest of the world

Started by whitelaughter, January 23, 2016, 10:55:31 PM

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Evie

Quote from: tenworld on November 19, 2017, 02:24:54 PM

I always associated R'Kassan horses with Arabians which would put AU Saudi Arabia somewhere here but
that doesn't fit well with map overlays being discussed.

It needn't be Saudi Arabia, just anywhere in the Arab world. Morocco/North Africa is just across a very narrow channel of water from Spain, and for that matter there was a lot of Moorish (Islamic) influence in Southern Spain during the Middle Ages, so R'kassi could be analogous to either of those, although I tend to think of Andalon as being more the Spanish counterpart, so maybe R'kassi is more similar to North Africa?
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

DesertRose

Quote from: Evie on November 19, 2017, 07:27:21 PM
Quote from: tenworld on November 19, 2017, 02:24:54 PM

I always associated R'Kassan horses with Arabians which would put AU Saudi Arabia somewhere here but
that doesn't fit well with map overlays being discussed.

It needn't be Saudi Arabia, just anywhere in the Arab world. Morocco/North Africa is just across a very narrow channel of water from Spain, and for that matter there was a lot of Moorish (Islamic) influence in Southern Spain during the Middle Ages, so R'kassi could be analogous to either of those, although I tend to think of Andalon as being more the Spanish counterpart, so maybe R'kassi is more similar to North Africa?

Andelon does bear an orthographic resemblance to Andalusia.  ;)

And the Moors held the southern part of the Iberian peninsula (modern-day Spain and Portugal) for several centuries.  There are a number of loanwords from Arabic in modern Spanish (and I'd guess also in Portuguese but I've never studied that language).

I always thought of the Forcinn States as being a sort of cultural/ethnic crossroads.  All those principalities seem to be in good locations for trade, which tends to bring people of various cultures together.
"If having a soul means being able to feel love, loyalty, and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans."

James Herriot (James Alfred "Alfie" Wight), when a human client asked him if animals have souls.  (I don't remember in which book the story originally appeared.)

whitelaughter

Question inspired by the map posted by DesertRose:

The Anvil of the Lord is (presumably) desert a la the real world Empty Quarter in Arabia, but what about going north? Is the climate north of Gwynedd more like northumberland or spitzbergen?

thanks again!

revanne

Quote from: whitelaughter on December 31, 2017, 10:51:27 PM
Question inspired by the map posted by DesertRose:

The Anvil of the Lord is (presumably) desert a la the real world Empty Quarter in Arabia, but what about going north? Is the climate north of Gwynedd more like northumberland or spitzbergen?

thanks again!

I've assumed that immediately north of Gwynedd is equivalent to the north of Scotland/ southern Scandanavia i.e. cold but not arctic.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
(Psalm 46 v1)

DoctorM

I do love thinking about what's off the basic Eleven Kingdoms map, especially what's east and south. I do keep telling myself that trying to put an overlay of Europe and North Africa onto the Eleven Kingdoms is a problem, and that I shouldn't be going "Aha! Autun = SW France and NW Spain" or whatever. Hard not to think of Torenth as Muscovy, though.   

Laurna

I believe it was MerchantDeryni  who wrote a fun story about Deryni traders using portals to bring in trade goods from the East. He had fun with the eastern markets. In Evie's modern time story, there was the New World and even an Australian like Island Country. It is a bigger word than just the Eleven Kingdoms. It just needs exploring.  If you so chose, become our explorer.
May your horses have wings and fly!

DoctorM

Hmmm... I just may!

And I did like Evie's "Balance of Power" a lot.

drakensis

There seems to be a scandinavia equivalent in the mountainous country north-east of Tolan and Torenth. There's mention in the codex of a considerable war fought in the early 11th century by Torenth.

The map in the Codex indicates that the Northern Sea to the east of Kheldour is fairly enclosed, with a substantial mountain range at the eastern edge of it. The lands north and east of these mountains are marked as Norselands and more specifically as Eistenmarcke, with a city named Eistenfala marked.

Eistenmarcke has no reference in the codex but Eistenfala is listed, as the capital of Eistenmark, presumably the same place, "inhabited by the barbarian tribes who still follow a god called the All-Father". (The swordsmith Ferris who we see in one of the short stories is from this region). Apparently Eistenmarcke elects their kings at an assembly called the Thinge.

This suggests that the Northern Sea is more or less analagous to the North Sea, with Kheldour as more or less Scotland on the western edge and Eistenmark as more or less Sweden/Denmark on the east and north.

Laurna

I believe the Original Deryni came an island named Caeriesse which sank into the sea around the year 525.  The location of Caeriesse is unknown, but colonies of Deryni first inhabited the coast lines of Kheldour and the coastlines of Torenthaly as early as a full millennia before Kelson's time. If the Caeriessian's were such early sea faring folk I have no doubt that they would have moved also into the Norselands in those early centuries.
We have had a few fan fic authors writing stories about Deryni Families on several different islands off the North sea and around the Norselands.
May your horses have wings and fly!

DoctorM

I'll have to take a look at some of those. I think I'm especially attracted to the east and south--- to cultures where Deryni are part of societies that aren't medieval western Europe... And I always love borderlands, places where cultures meet.

DoctorM

Just a thought re something I noted above--- wouldn't there be something of the Low Countries/the Rhineland in the Orsal country?

I suppose I'd always thought of Bremagne as like NW and N Central France but thought of the Forcinn states, Fianna, and Fallon as a kind of displaced set of Mediterranean states or princedoms.

I agree that the Eleven Kingdoms can't be simply mapped onto Europe as much as Gwynedd has similarities to Britain. I guess I've always seen them as an alternate world with its own rules. 

drakensis

It has peoples somewhat similar to the celts, germans and so forth, but the lands are clearly different, shaping their history quite differently.

DoctorM

I always love going back over this thread since I'm a major cartography devotee--- maps are always things I pore over.

DoctorM

Quote from: revanne on January 24, 2016, 07:51:03 AM
Quote from: drakensis on January 24, 2016, 03:06:24 AM
Gwynedd has more in common with a super-sized France or the Angevin Empire than it does with England or even Britain.

Although the weather as described is a better fit for Britain :(

Quote from: drakensis on January 24, 2016, 03:06:24 AM

With medieval technology it would be hard to run realms this side but both Gwynedd and Torenth are largely built around immense river basins which would ease communications easily. The Eiran and its tributaries are easily as large as the Rhine and we know it's navigable for much of its length. The Beldour River is even larger.

This would also explain why Deryni were in positions of power as they would not be bound by some at least of these limitations. It is not surprising that the rulers of many of the countries have at least some Deryni potential although it may be down-played as in the case of the Hort of Orsal or repressed entirely as with the Bremagni royal family in Jehana's time. It is hard to see how a country the size of Torenth could be ruled as a coherent unit for so long without Deryni power, and even at the height of the persecutions the rulers of Gwynedd still needed the aid of the Haldane potential.

I wonder if the Moorish religion in the 11 Kingdoms is Islam as we know it or something closer to the way the Byzantines seem to have thought of Islam when they first heard of it-- as a kind of Judaism. I also wonder whether R'Kassi is Christian or not.

DoctorM

Quote from: Evie on November 19, 2017, 07:27:21 PM
Quote from: tenworld on November 19, 2017, 02:24:54 PM

I always associated R'Kassan horses with Arabians which would put AU Saudi Arabia somewhere here but
that doesn't fit well with map overlays being discussed.

It needn't be Saudi Arabia, just anywhere in the Arab world. Morocco/North Africa is just across a very narrow channel of water from Spain, and for that matter there was a lot of Moorish (Islamic) influence in Southern Spain during the Middle Ages, so R'kassi could be analogous to either of those, although I tend to think of Andalon as being more the Spanish counterpart, so maybe R'kassi is more similar to North Africa?


I always got the impression that R'Kassi was close to Visigothic Spain-- that the R'Kassans were vaguely Germanic or Gothic, transplanted to a desert-like region (maybe like the Spanish grasslands?)...but didn't the Codex hint that they shared the Moors' religion?