From: Paul Looby
Subject: Re: Cities and Universities
>I like cathedral school models for Delleb and Rao, but prefer an Athenian grove of trees for Lydia.
Temple schools do fit the more Oeridian/northern/eastern picture better. Delleb certainly and Rao - in canon after the faith had been "civilised" probably by the Oerids and Aerdi (though in the Mighty Fallen heresy - Loriaelor had great schools and colleges dedicated to the Master of Reason when the Oerids still lived in yurts in the west (of which the Crescent College of Rel Mord is perhaps now the only extant survivor - the Fall of Loriaelor saw Alexandria many times over)).
>Boccob's temples could be based on these cathedral schools.
I see these as being more arcane and esoteric. If you want historical parallels (which it is possible to go overboard with if care is not taken) - then alchemists and the like might be closer to to mark than cathedral schools.
>Just because the Observatory of Celestian outside the Free City is affiliated with Grey College, I don't think that in general the priesthood teaches based on a cathedral-school model.
Agreed - an exception rather than a rule.
>Any ideas on Zagyg, Zan Yae, or Zuoken (Xagaeg, Xan Yae, and Xuoken)? ;)
Zagyg - nothing - to wild and unpredictible
My knowlegde of the others is to scant to suggest anything beyond - monestaries or solitary hermit masters for the mental disciplines (or perhaps the Bakluni equivalent of Dojos in the West (?).
>Was Incabulous noted as furthering the Age of Great Sorrow in a published source?
Not by name - but I'm fairly sure I recall a line in the 83 set about the Age of Great Sorrow being connected with a plague or plagues. I don't have the books to hand, so I could be mistaken.
>I like the image of blindered Veluna, Furyondy, and Nyrond. Veluna suffering from intellectual hubris,
Intellectual and moral to an extent. There'd be a slight religious dimension to tit - though nothing on the scale of Pholtine intolerance - more a sense of moral superiority: "Are we not a rational people, devoted as we are to reason? How much more blessed we are than those who strive for power and wealth, yet do not know themselves or the world!"
>Note that the published century or so remark gives Furyondy a good 150 years after its independence to establish its powerful mages and sages, but that after winning the Small War, it seems to have sat on its laurels.
>This also connects with Belvor II's not having quashed Iuz when he had the chance. Thus Belvor IV is truly a great king.
My knowledge of Furyondian history (as with so much of the west) is patchy (I've only skimmed that half of Marklands). Internal turmoil may have paralysed the country somewhat. When Ferrond broke away it held vast territories - Voll, perhaps parts of Perrenland (some of the lowlands - though tenouously at best), the current lands of Iuz and the Horned Lands and like most of the Shield and Bandit lands (which I group under the banner of Lorrond - the old Aerdi name for the province). Over the years Furyondy has been pared back to its current borders - losing even its former captial.
This has not so much been by conquest (until relatively recent times) as disintegration - probably due to the diffculty of the king to establish effective control over his feudal magnates - something which still plagues the kingdom to this day. This baronial feuding may have hindered intellectual development - scholars generally preferring the peace of the closters of Veluna, or the vibrant young city of Greyhawk or Dyvers after its independance, or the great libraries of the Imperial (or formerly so) east.
>Burning famous Aerdian lore probably occurred just after the revolutions when fervor was still high.
Yep - 250's and 350's respectively. And just before.
Paul
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