Twelve Tribes & Twelve Duchies

[Thelandrin]

There appears to be an inconsistency between the Twelve Tribes and the Twelve Duchies (and the current countries).

We know that Tuornen broke off from Alamie, that Roesone et al split from Diemed and that the actual Cariele family fled to Coeranys (which is why Coeranys claims to be a Duchy and Cariele is currently termed as a County).

My question, though, is what happened to Brosengae and where did Osoerde spring from? Why has Brosengae lost its place in the Twelve Duchies and why is Osoerde apparently in its place?


TRIBES COUNTRY DUCHIES
Anwe Roele/Avan Avanil
Boru Boeruine Boeruine
Mhora Mhoried Mhoried
Elaime Alamie Alamie
Deretha Diemed Diemed
Aeren Aerenwe Aerenwe
Bheallach Bhalaene (Ghoere)
Elin Elinie Elinie
Brosen Brosengae Osoerde ??
Gehaiste Ghieste (Ghoere)
Duireina Taeghas Taeghas
Carel Cariele Cariele

[kgauck]

Brosengae is a duchy, and her ruler is a duchess. That she only has three little provinces and that her neighbor, a mere county with 8 provinces suggests that at some time in the past, Brosengae lost four or five provinces to Taeghas, either through a series of failed wars, or through rebellions and defections (the dynasty of Brosengae has always had a cool relationship with her people).

[Vallariel]

According to the maps in the Iron Throne, Brosengae is listed as a border nation and not one of the twelve duchies.

[Brin]

The list of 12 duchies (the one including Osoerde) is one that Rich Baker detailed quite a while ago as the original 12 duchies. I'd be inclined to go with that.

This, of course, doesn't mean that Brosengae couldn't have subsequently been made a duchy by an emperor (and maybe gaining and losing provinces over time). Or perhaps Avan "granted" them that title when they swore vassalage (which would probably create some legitimacy issues in the eyes of many other members of the higher nobility elsewhere in the empire).

[vota dc]

According to the maps in the Iron Throne, Brosengae is listed as a border nation and not one of the twelve duchies.

Brosengae is not a duchy.The duchy is Taeghas,the old Taeghas was formed by Taeghas+the actual Brosengae.So Brosengae is a part of a duchy but is ruled by the lawful duchess.It is different Cariele:the rightful duchess is in a land far from the duchy.
But Elinie should be considered a duchy?In my opinion it should be considered as Ghieste and Bhalaene,an ex duchy because it is true that its land is survived,but the regent has nothing to do with Anuire and there is not any regent in exile.

[kgauck]

Brosengae is not a duchy.The duchy is Taeghas,the old Taeghas was formed by Taeghas+the actual Brosengae.So Brosengae is a part of a duchy but is ruled by the lawful duchess.It is different Cariele:the rightful duchess is in a land far from the duchy.


Can you explain this in greater detail? I don't follow.

[Thelandrin]

Well, Brosengae was founded by one of the Twelve Tribes, as was Taeghas and all the rest (except, apparently, Osoerde). That's my confusion - what happened to Brosengae that their title remained but their status and line were lost and where did Osoerde spring from into such great prominence?

[vota dc]

Can you explain this in greater detail? I don't follow.

Brosengae situation is different because while Cariele's rightful duchess is the regent of a far march (Coeranys),the rightful duchess of Taeghas still control a part of Taeghas duchy:Brosengae.
http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0501b&L=birthright-l&D=1&P=22759
So Taeghas is the duchy and Brosen is the regent's family.

Osoerde of course is one of the original duchies.

[kgauck]

That's a fine history, but what is its provenance?

[Thelandrin]

Brosengae situation is different because while Cariele's rightful duchess is the regent of a far march (Coeranys),the rightful duchess of Taeghas still control a part of Taeghas duchy:Brosengae.
http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0501b&L=birthright-l&D=1&P=22759
So Taeghas is the duchy and Brosen is the regent's family.

Osoerde of course is one of the original duchies.
That of course doesn't explain why both the Brosen and Taeghas lines are members of the Twelve Tribes or where Osoerde sprang from without being founded by one of the Twelve Tribes.

[vota dc]

I found the entire discussion
http://www.birthright.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-2556.html

If Duireina = Osoerde the problem is solved,but I am not sure about that.

[Thelandrin]

Well, if Dureina is actually Osoerde and Brosen is Brosengae/Taeghas, then yes, the problem is solved, except for Taeghas being listed as one of the Twelve Duchies (and Brosengae not) when the Ninth Tribe was actually called Brosen.

[Beruin]

How about this:
IIRC, the Andu landed in Cerilia somewhere near to where the Imperial City stands today and spread out from there.
Brosengae is nearer to this site than Taeghas and was therefore settled first, by the Brosen tribe which also lent its name to the country. From there, Taeghas was settled.
When the duchies were formed several hundred years later, Taeghas and Brosengae were already two entities and Taeghas had become more important, maybe simply through its size or by closer relations to the Emperor. Thus, it was Taeghas that became a duchy.

[Thelandrin]

Except that somewhere along the line Brosengae became a duchy and Taeghas became a county without either of their statuses changing.

[Beruin]

Damn, sloppy research again. I didn't have my rule books handy, and didn't bother to check out the existing titles for Taeghas and Brosengae.
Well anyway, for my campaign I'd make either Taeghas or Brosengae a duchy and change either the current titles or the list of the original duchies accordingly.
Problem solved:D

[kgauck]

States rise and fall, and titles generally don't fall along with them. States may or may not gain recognition of improved titles. For Taeghas to gain a better title, say to be recognized as a barony, they would need to get Boeruine and Avanil (or Diemed and Ghoere) on board, acknowledging these titles. Avanil might be inclined to do this as a sop to its ally as a reward for support above and beyond, but getting Boeruine to agree would require that this be included in some treaty agreement.

Perhaps its been in negotiations before, but being dropped to achieve more important goals (territorial, monetary, or just to secure any peace agreement). Maybe previous counts were never in a position or, Like Harald, had interests elsewhere and didn't really care.

There are references to land claims that Brosengae has against Taeghas (and Harald's refusal to consider these), so it certainly seems that at one point Brosengae had more territory. Since one of the ways that Eriene Mierelen could end up the reluctant ally of Darien Avan, is for Brosengae have lost a war (or a series of wars) to Avanil at some point in its history. Its probably recent (within a few generations) that the territory was lost, and probabaly within the current reigns of Darien and Harald that Eriene bolted again and had to be reminded of her obligations by force.

This explains the relationship, her resentment, and the smallish size of the Duchy of Brosengae.

Putting the reduction of Brosengae to far back begins to beg more and more questions that require explanation. Keeping things recent seems the best explanation.

[Thelandrin]

Nice. I knew the friendly chaps here at BR.net could work it all out :)

[kgauck]

What if tribes don't correspond nicely to duchies, but rather correspond to rivers? Tribes may have settled in river valleys, taken the best soils, the best hunting grounds, formed cities, more complex states, and then finally formed the territorial duchies.

http://home.mchsi.com/~kgauck/Andu2.jpg

Suppose:
Boru settle on the Black River and some adjacent sea coast (Seaport, Tariene, Seasedge), develope a power base on the Black River and the identified coast, and push south into warmer lands. Ultimatly Talinie becomes lightly settled by the Boru, but only loosely tied to its political leadership.
Duireina settle on the Elfwash river and adjacent costs (Bacaele, Portage)
Brosen settle the coasts of the bay around Ilsien to Binder

That's the West Coast, the South coast saw the Deretha along the Spiderfell River and the good coast of Almier. The Aeren settled on the Berendor River.

The heart of Anuire is the Maesil River, and seven of the tribes seem to have settled on it. At the mouth settled the Anwe. The Elaime settled on the Tuor River. The stretch of the Maesil between the Tuor and the Stonebyrn was settled by the Gehaiste. Further up the Maesil settled the Bheallach, and The uppermost Maesil was settled by the Elin. The lower Stonebyrn was settled by the Mhora, and the upper Stonebyrn was settled by the Carel.

Thoughts?

[ryancaveney]

What if tribes don't correspond nicely to duchies, but rather correspond to rivers? Tribes may have settled in river valleys, taken the best soils, the best hunting grounds, formed cities, more complex states, and then finally formed the territorial duchies.

Very nice! To reduce crowding on the Maesil, I will point out that there's a river between Osoerde and Coeranys which is currently unoccupied on your map; a bit swampy, but no worse than the Osoerde-Aerenwe river. The Diemed coast near Aerele is also a good spot; the shape of the land there makes me think it was the upstream end of a significant river valley back before the land bridge was broken at Deismaar.

[kgauck]

The descriptions on the Andu page of the wiki guided my locations. The tribes spread out by occupying non-alluvial land nearby.

Another thing to consider with this map, is that its a snapshot. I imagine people arrive, move along one of the rivers, its gets crowded, some move off river, and a few (the Carel) move further.

I didn't go with a tribe on the river between Coeranys and Osoerde for several reasons. One was its swampy. I think swampier than the Berendor, which is mostly swampy on the Osoerde side, and not so bad on the Aerenwe side. Second, there is no duchy there, and you'd imagine that the homeland of a tribe would have a duchy. The only duchy nearby is Elinie, and if the Elin started on the east coast, why would the place named after them be the last place they occupied rather than the first? Finally, there are a lot of high population on the Maesil, so its still more crowded now than the East Coast.

So there was a method to my madness.

[Thelandrin]

I love that map, Kenneth :) I presume you coloured the Gehaiste oval red to indicate that its been lost to history?

Of course, unless twelve council seats for twelve tribes is a coincidence, that doesn't explain why the Taeghan and Brosen seats merged into one or why the Osoerdan seat was created.

[Rowan]

Which tie do you think is stronger? The Brosen tribe with Brosengae's land, or with its title as a duchy? Likewise, are the Duireina tied closer to their land or their title? I'm not sure what the sources were, so I'll take your word for it. What I'm thinking, though, is that if we keep Brosengae tied to its land, we can do some interesting backcasting into history to explain the change in titles and all that. Again, I don't know all the sources as well as many of you seem to, so stop me if I've broken line.

Let's say all the tribes settled according to Kgauck's assumption. That puts Brosengae with primarily the bay as its resource, and very defensible access to the lands of the Anwe through the mountains--allowing support between the two if they are allied, but discouraging hostilities since its so hard for the two to fight each other through the mountains. That leaves Brosengae cornered with only Taeghas against which to expand. So quarrel, they did, and at some point before the establishment of the duchies, drove the Duireina out of Taeghas.

The Duireina migrated far East to found Osoerde in less settled lands to lick their wounds--much as the Carel were driven out of Cariele at a later point in history and followed the Duireina's precedent to settle in Coeranys.

The Duireina, then, founded Osoerde, but longed for revenge. They rebuilt their power, were incorporated into the Empire as a Duchy under Roele, and quarreled over the seas with Brosengae. The Isles of Baerghos, Albiele, and Caelcorwynn were much disputed over this period of naval warfare, but the Roele's put an end to that by declaring all the isles Imperial lands not to be controlled or quarreled over by any one house.

Boeruine eventually allied with and aided the Duireina to weaken Brosengae, which had long either allied directly with Avanil (due to the pass) or at least controlled those land routes to the East and extorted Boeruine because of it. This alliance allowed the Duireina to reclaim much of Taeghas, and left Osoerde under the rule of the Moergan family, designating them as heirs should they fall again.

Fall they did, to the conflicts between Avanil and Boeruine. The Duireina died out amidst all this fighting, leaving their line invested with the more robust Moergans in Osoerde (much as Mierelen received the Brosen inheritance). Thus Osoerde is a duchy, and Taeghas not anymore.

Avanil kept Taeghas more sizeable with a puppet ruler to keep Brosengae in line, preventing them from being powerful enough to cut off Avanil's access to the Western Coast to make war with Boeruine.

What do you think? There's probably some simple little canon thing I've missed to destroy my elaborate theory, isn't there?

[irdeggman]

Kenneth I like the tie you are making here.

It also is reflective of how normal settlers work, (e.g. when they collonized North America).

Groups looked for specific landmarks that worked as non-disputed boundaries and rivers were one of the major ones used.

[AndrewTall]

I have to admit that I think that the borders of most realms would remain remarkably constant over the centuries (barring blips for a generation or two) because they are divided by natural borders (less so in the south near Ghoere). Even if conquered when the lands were later split between heirs / vassals formed the river/mountains would always be the natural border to chose - and if the land formerly was an ancient duchy then the title would likely be resurrected when the realm was reformed. Similarly if Ghoere had a major civil war I can see the old duchy's of Bhaelene and Ghieste being recognised again.

I also take the view that the Anuireans see 12 as a lucky or holy number - that way 'inconsistencies' in numbers of tribes, duchy's etc can be explained as lesser tribes/duchy's being overlooked to keep numbers down to 12, or equally lesser tribes/duchy's being included to make up the numbers. The fun in this interpretation is that different power blocks could easily disagree over which minor tribes/duchies should be included or excluded. So Boeruine might not consider Brosengae a duchy - at least as long as they follow Avan...