Quote:
Originally Posted by Astromancer
I may be late, but weren't gods of the moon linked to the themes of Fertility, Water, Shadows/Darkness, Spirits/Otherworld, Healing, and Time?
|
All of which, for some gods, certainly. I've established Su'en as being linked to themes of shadows/darkness in that as the 'Lightbringer', he is who humanity invokves against the dark and anything which lurks in the dark. My version of him is also a fairly straightforward guardian of humanity against the nasty parts of Spirits/Otherworld.
Healing is at least a minor sphere of interest, given that Su'en responded to a prayer to save Rasul Khamsin Mubtasim (PC), when the divine light started to flay infernal gifts from his body, by granting Abadas (PC) the power to heal him at the cost of his own health. And then Abadas himself was miraculously healed from the edge of death, as a reward for his readiness to embrace selfless sacrifice.*
Fertility, Water and Time haven't come up, in the same way.
Shussel, the last city where Su'en was worshipped, is a port city and during its height, trade was the most important industry there. Even now, in the much reduced city, many of the inhabitants are ship-builders, longshoremen, bargemen and fishermen.
Those who work around water still call on the names
Enki and
Nanshe for calm weather and good catches,
Marduk for protection from Tiamat and her spawn and
Sirsir for skill and wisdom in their boathandling. It's been a good long while since any of those responded, however.
There is certainly room for a mate and/or some servitor deities under the auspices of Su'en to fill some of the vacant divine roles among the local pantheon. If not, interloper gods from neighbouring lands will move in and the Untheri pantheon will become just an ancient fable.
The hilly ground, played-out mines and generally poor state of the irrigation systems around the city means that the environment is pretty far from that which gave rise to
Ningal as the consort of Su'en. Ningal is a southern goddess and the rebirth of Su'en is happening in the northern part of Unther, in a climate closer to the mountainous parts of Iran than to the delta in Mesopotamia.
Whatever being comes to be worshipped as 'Ningal' (lit. 'Great Lady'), the consort to Su'en, might lack associations with reeds and cow-herding in the marshes and instead have completely different aspects. She might take on the feminine aspects of the moon, connections to female sexuality and fertility and possibly prophecy and oracles. She might also be linked with Time.
On the subject of Time, nine out of ten of the inhabitants of Shussel were taken by a mysterious fog some three years ago. The PCs met them on another plane of existence, formed into a crusading force by the name 'The Legion of Nanna-Sin'. I'm wondering if these three years should have passed at the same rate for the abductees as the people left behind.**
*The reward also extends to the Healing power now being granted Abadas on a more permanent basis.
**The main reason for deciding that it didn't being that it's difficult to justify effective archers if they have only three years to practice. Let alone mounted archers on flying beasts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Astromancer
Given the Lunar crescent, wouldn't you arm them with bows and scimitars?
|
I thought immediately of axes with crescent heads. Sickles, saparas (Mesopotamian sickle-swords) and scimitars all fit the theme as well.
Bull-headed helmets with horns are also associated with Su'en. One unit of cavalry, at least, will wear horned helmets and wield axes.
Archers are both appropriate and useful, but unfortunately, archers good enough to be worth anything on a battlefield are raised from a child, not trained.
The Legion have had more than three years of intensive training under divine servitors. By the grace of their god, the abductees' Will and Charisma is about one standard deviation better than normal human levels and only very few of them escaped buying into some version of Code of Honour and Sense of Duty, so motivation and unit cohesion would be excellent.
But their physical attributes are normal human levels, before training, with the average person having ST 10; DX 10 and HT 10.* Male and female muscle is equally strong, but women are smaller on the average and have less of their weight devoted to muscle compared to healthy males, so their ST averages 8 (upper body) / 9 (lower body).
Those who had experience with bows for years before this, such as those who were archers in the militia, nobles with an interest in bow-hunting or sailors who carried bows for defence against corsairs, might benefit enough from a three year intensive training in archery to become valuable on the battlefield. As for those who had never held a bow before, I doubt that three years would be enough to make them into archers.
Probably be a more efficient use of time if they focused on becoming spearmen or javelin-throwing skirmishers. You can teach the basic skills for that in months, leaving plenty of extra time to make them extraordinarily disciplined, well-drilled and proficient compared to other such units.
*Being taken to what is for all intents and purposes Heaven and infused with divine energy did not grant super-strength or speed. It did, however, cure all diseases, nutritional deficiencies and degenerative damage to the bodies of the abductees, making them all extremely healthy and well-fed examples of their sex and age. Only the oldest people have less than 10 in physical Attributes.