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    Site Moderator Sorontar's Avatar
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    Hjalstone massacre

    Discussion thread for Hjalstone massacre. If you would like to add a comment, click the Post Reply button.

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    Site Moderator Sorontar's Avatar
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    How much of the BRwiki details about the Hjalstone Massacre are fan-fiction and how much is lore?

    Is it gospel that the conservative druidic church, the Emerald Spire of Erik, was founded by an ex-Haelyn priest, Moerel, the aide to Garth Andu and probably an Anuirean one at that? And that the more liberal Oaken Grove of Erik was founded before the Spire?

    This just doesn't sit right with me but I have no idea what is in the published Player's Secrets.

    Sorontar
    ps. Moerel is also a place and the name of 4 other NPCs!

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    From all the official material I have read, it was my understanding that the Emerald Spire was the original druid faith in Rjurik and there was a split because of different belief between the old ways and more modern ways. Thus the Oaken Grove were born from this split and from that day have watched over the settled Rjurik and the Emerald Spire have watched over the tribal and more wild Rjurik.

    Rest of what you have written sounds great though. Keep up the good work.

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    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    I recall reading somewhere about them occupying opposite positions. But without some explanation, there is no other points on which to pivot, and so its hard to justify. Plus its unnecessary. Its supposed to give a sense of change over time, but without some explanation, its just a burden.

    I'm all for the official line being that the ES has always been traditional, and the OG has always been more open.

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    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    I also read the Spire as being the newcomer church although I can't remember where - which is why I wrote the massacre in the first place. I wanted to come up with an explanation to explain the apparent anomaly and a convert who 'went more native than the native' seemed the way to do it - if the Grove gained prominence over the druids of the Taelshore because it oversaw the integration into the empire (which would instinctively look for a unified hierarchical church since that is what they knew from Anuire) then the Spire would be comprised of the die-hard refusniks with independents (probably originally the vast majority of the druids) then slowly withering or being assimilated into the grove.

    The main problem I found was the rapid size and longevity of the empire - to have the sort of passion to organise two diametrically opposed hierarchy-based churches from the druids would require a traumatic event for the Rjurik, but that simply didn't fit with the growth model of the Anuirean empire which required the empire core to work through existing systems and power structures without seeking to alter core cultural features.

    Of course the line (wherever it is) may simply have been mis-remembered, or wrong in the first place - it wouldn't be the first time for either to occur. I wonder however about the longevity of the empire without an event to force the Anuireans away from a conversion based expansion model to an assimilation based model. The Massacre would 'prove' to even the most paternalistic (civilise the barbarians and reap their gratitude) Anuireans that trying to replace the gods (and thus most of the core beliefs) of the Rjurik had been a terrible mistake.

    One downside is that it does not agree to the timeline - I needed the massacre to be at the start of the Anuirean empire as given that the Anuireans have superior numbers, technology, magic and, probably, strategic and military skill a late 'change of heart' would occur after the Rjurik were ground into powder without some social imperative to stop the legions. The timeline indicates that Hjalstone become Dhoesone centuries after Deismaar - although that could simply be the name changing to reflect a long ago change in the realm, or a formal reallocation of Dhoesone from 'the northern provinces' to 'Anuire' by some long-gone imperial bureaucrat.

    So, do we post a FanFic banner? Is the interpretation controversial enough? I could always post 'counter arguments' or tweak it into a sage quote written by an imperial archivist to soften it.

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    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    For the two wings of Erik's faith to switch places on the life-ways question, they need some other great issue to pivot on. Such that the life-ways question becomes secondary long enough that a realignment can take place. But what is that issue? It can't be Anuire, because the Anuireans represent towns and trade, so have to go with the towns and trade faction of Erik too.

    I think it makes more sense, if one wants to highlight the Grove as the older temple, is that like the rest of Rjurik society it accommodated itself to Anuire and Anuirean occupation. And that the Emerald Spire was the reactionary refusal to accept the Anuireans and the things they represent (settlement, towns, trade, not to mention some values). This explains the timeline, the values, and doesn't require any realignments.

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