Tribals and opinions on well-known tribes

[M]

What would tribal-background PCs that aren't part of a coded tribe think of members of the coded tribes like Al'Seik, Arabet and Tan Muark?

I've always assumed that as a tribal not from one of the major tribes, your virtual tribe was smaller and less well known than the coded ones. If one of those sorts of tribals ran into an Arabeti or Seik, say, in Luir's, would they respect them? Defer to them? Want to impress them? Or just not treat them differently than any other tribal?

Obviously I know this is up to interpretation and there's no hard-and-fast rule, but I'm interested to hear what other players might think!

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

Personally, I see no reason to defer to 'larger tribes' as a tribal unless you actively had conflict with them over the course of your PC's life, as using them in your background is kind of looked down upon, so you can't work in any conflict or partnership. You might have an admiration for, say, their ways of thought or wisdom or their crafts though, but... Deferring to them seems very political and, dare I say it, Allanaki.

They're just another group of dunetongues, much like you are. They have cool stuff, that's neat! But they're not /superior/.

[whitt]

What would tribal-background PCs that aren't part of a coded tribe think of members of the coded tribes like Al'Seik, Arabet and Tan Muark?

One of the best things about playing around and with the "canon" tribes is that you get to decide this for your own virtual tribe. When you visualize your PCs virtual tribe, be sure to answer those questions, especially if your tribe is from somewhere you would interact with them regularly.

How does my tribe feel about...
... the Arabet
... the Seik
... the Tan Muark
... the Blackwing Elves
... the SLK
... the Sun Runners
... Tuluk (the White Pit)
... Allanak (the Black Pit)
... Luirs (the Dun Pit)
... Kadius
... Salarr
... Kurac
... Magickers
... Dwarves
... Muls

The answers to "How the [tribe] feel about others" makes a great Bio entry that can help inform your own roleplay as well as help staff understand your PC better.

[Strongheart]

...

[Strongheart]

TRIBALS RULE!!

[Veselka]

[ShaLeah]

What would tribal-background PCs that aren't part of a coded tribe think of members of the coded tribes like Al'Seik, Arabet and Tan Muark?

One of the best things about playing around and with the "canon" tribes is that you get to decide this for your own virtual tribe. When you visualize your PCs virtual tribe, be sure to answer those questions, especially if your tribe is from somewhere you would interact with them regularly.

How does my tribe feel about...
... the Arabet
... the Seik
... the Tan Muark
... the Blackwing Elves
... the SLK
... the Sun Runners
... Tuluk (the White Pit)
... Allanak (the Black Pit)
... Luirs (the Dun Pit)
... Kadius
... Salarr
... Kurac
... Magickers
... Dwarves
... Muls

The answers to "How the [tribe] feel about others" makes a great Bio entry that can help inform your own roleplay as well as help staff understand your PC better.

Brilliant.  I never thought of these.

[Cind]

I always felt like a small-time tribal would consider the 'big' tribes to be a much larger fish than themselves in a pond with not much food in it, and have anywhere from a slightly negative to an openly hostile view towards them. Since isolation is a self-imposed circumstance for any tribe that isn't the coded ones in this game, the potential for hostility between tribes would be dampened somewhat. (Sociology major.) Of course, if you, say, have components in your tribal culture that impose a consistent isolation from other tribes (bad luck to have a mate outside the tribe, or to talk to outsiders, or to receive food under any circumstance including trade from outsiders) then your own culture is more likely to be hostile towards them.

Common sense would dictate that a small tribe would try to avoid open hostility towards a large tribe, but most of us don't have experience living with a tribe, cult or small, tight-knit religious community like the Mennonites and usually their views of hostility and peace are different from ours. We call ourselves more 'reasonable' and are almost always more educated (know more about the world) than these groups but what -they- need to do to survive is different from our own tactics. For us, open trade, less war, attempting to broker peace is almost always a better deal than creating discord. We depend on foreign markets, open communication and open borders at every level of society down to the grassroots.

Zalanthas is a hard world with few resources, but the exact science of surviving as a tribe in the world will never be concrete. Would a small tribe require trade between itself and cities, or other tribes, or the big tribes? Having the one guy who knows sirihish go into Storm to buy sandcloth once a month, the only thing they need from anyone they didn't see being born, probably isn't going to change their views of other societies too much.

I could blab on and on, and I feel like I didn't contribute much that a regular person wouldn't know, but its food for thought.

I never thought that 'the friendly tribals' were immersion-breaking, as we are familiar with societies within our own societies that literally believe the same thing (Amish, Quakers, Quakers were big peace freaks and the Amish are forbidden from using violence to solve problems.) If you don't like being a friendly tribal but don't want to be a middle-ground or violent one, you could do the Tuluk thing and be friendly on the outside but not believe that people outside your tribe are even people on the inside. You could be friendly in the city and violent in the sands, or a problem in the city and nice outside.

One view you could take, if you know enough about a big tribe's lore, is to consider them strange. A more game-applicable view may be to consider people from the cities or a certain city or village strange. To simply not understand the stories they tell, and view a city-person's events and stories in a completely different light that warps their story into something completely different when you tell it to someone else.

For example, a tribal from the Sadoyo tribe may have a complicated relationship with death. Perhaps to a Sadoyo, not taking care to dispose of a dead loved one properly has grave implications for your own fate, bringing death that much closer that much sooner. As a result, hearing your Bynner friend talk about being forced to leave a dead comrade behind without proper dispoal will make your tribal view their bynner friend in a completely new way. Now, you take a lot of pains to perform certain rites for your bynner friend, to attempt to slow down the approach of their death, and you greet them a certain way now, in order to do the same thing, or to make Death no longer recognize them and pass them over when their time comes. Maybe you give them a new name in order to do that, and -insist- they have everyone call them by that new name. Maybe your insistence goes in a direction and to a certain intensity that bring trouble from the city.

If you're wanting a tribal and having trouble making viewpoints, you can always look up a random tribe, or a cult for a stricter tribe-persona.

[M]

Thanks Cind and whitt for the great responses! Very thought provoking.

You might have an admiration for, say, their ways of thought or wisdom or their crafts though, but... Deferring to them seems very political and, dare I say it, Allanaki.

This is a good point too. I meant defer more in terms of "try to emulate or not piss off" instead of "bow to", but I imagine every tribal people would probably think of their own tribe as the top of the heap and there would be no notion of any sort of hierarchy.

[Patuk]

Are our coded tribes even bigger than virtual ones? Are they really? I'm not rightly sure that they are. In either case, you really get to decide for yourself, you do you, etc.

[Hauwke]

For all the Known knows, there is a massive fuck-you tribe of half-giants juuuuuust over that teeny hill there (read: mountain range) that consists of just -thousands- of morons. And we would be none the wiser.

[James de Monet]

I've always wondered why Allanak is called the black pit/city.  Its walls are red.  Luirs, meanwhile, has massive, scary, spiked black walls.  And buildings.

[LucildaHunta]

I've always wondered why Allanak is called the black pit/city.  Its walls are red.  Luirs, meanwhile, has massive, scary, spiked black walls.  And buildings.

Probably due to the amount of obsidian mined there?

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

I've always wondered why Allanak is called the black pit/city.  Its walls are red.  Luirs, meanwhile, has massive, scary, spiked black walls.  And buildings.

Probably due to the amount of obsidian mined there?

I'd imagine this, probably. The name likely stuck due to some harsh opinions. On the other end, is White Pit being because of isilt and such?

[sleepyhead]

I think it's due to the symbolic associations. Tektolnes is associated with shadow, and his dragon form is depicted as black. Muk Utep, on the other hand, is associated with radiance and light.

[LucildaHunta]

Wasn't there a white pyramid in Tuluk?

[Bushranger]

[Cind]

Are our coded tribes even bigger than virtual ones? Are they really? I'm not rightly sure that they are. In either case, you really get to decide for yourself, you do you, etc.

They're powerful enough to hold land in the Tablelands so I assume they're all 70+.

Although, the big elf tribes are supposed to be more powerful than the human ones. You know, elves that can travel on foot. I'm wondering, is that a population thing? A better way of dealing with witches being born into them? I doubt the creators of the tribe cultures thought about it that way. Once I had a tribal whose tribe was friendly towards witches that were born in and was destroyed by one of them. If your tribal is going to be nice to its witches, there needs to be a careful balance.

In one or more of the Pacific Northwest native American tribes, whenever a man cultivated more wealth that he needed, he often saved it up to a point where he could throw a potluck. It had its own indian name and everything. Big potluck, not a run of the mill barbeque. I'm not sure but I think neighboring friendly tribes would be invited. The 'big man' as he was called, would then lose all that wealth, gain respect from the others, and become 'like the rest of them.' This was to diminish pride and make sure that no one man became more powerful than the others.

Loosely related I guess, I suppose it would be a good hiccup in a city-bound tribal's background. Could you imagine someone who thought like that trying to live in 'nak? Maybe the House doesn't find out about that particular mindset of their new hire until the kryl armor and half the food in their larder is gone.

One time, an elven tribal was in the city at the same time as my elven gemmed. Me and him were talking, and a templar and a couple of soldiers walk up to us and make us follow them.

We enter an empty house and they start interrogating the elven tribal, with me as their intermediary as he can't speak sirihish. Seemed that the tribal had been bothering an ex-aide to a noble -constantly.- He'd follow her and keep talking to her. He told me to tell them that stories were very important to his people, and were a sign of respect, as he felt like he owed her in some way that I don't remember. Either that or he owed her a story for some reason, and I suppose her frilly stockings had been scared that this elf was following her around speaking elven. Anyway, five sids if you can guess what happened to the elf.

[nauta]

Are our coded tribes even bigger than virtual ones? Are they really? I'm not rightly sure that they are. In either case, you really get to decide for yourself, you do you, etc.

IIRC, the Arabeti are considered one of the largest tribes in the Known.

One time, an elven tribal was in the city at the same time as my elven gemmed. Me and him were talking, and a templar and a couple of soldiers walk up to us and make us follow them.

We enter an empty house and they start interrogating the elven tribal, with me as their intermediary as he can't speak sirihish. Seemed that the tribal had been bothering an ex-aide to a noble -constantly.- He'd follow her and keep talking to her. He told me to tell them that stories were very important to his people, and were a sign of respect, as he felt like he owed her in some way that I don't remember. Either that or he owed her a story for some reason, and I suppose her frilly stockings had been scared that this elf was following her around speaking elven. Anyway, five sids if you can guess what happened to the elf.

It was a she, and the stories were important. 

[roughneck]

Are our coded tribes even bigger than virtual ones? Are they really? I'm not rightly sure that they are. In either case, you really get to decide for yourself, you do you, etc.

IIRC, the Arabeti are considered one of the largest tribes in the Known.

If your virtual tribe is too big, it becomes very awkward for your PC explaining why nobody has heard of them, why your PC has such limited resources, etc.

One of the cool things about the Arabeti is that there's a great deal of freedom to identify yourself as a being from a particular tent-family with unique traits and traditions, if you want to play as part of a large and influential tribe, yet still have room to be creative.

[James de Monet]

Anyway, five sids if you can guess what happened to the elf.

They threw him a potluck?

[Cind]

I was once able to get away with 150 tribemates, but not 200. Not really sure why I wanted a tribe that big, and I dunno if that'd still fly.

[Molten Heart]

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