Okay, so bear with me. Orlanthi are a very large group, and cover a very large area in Genertela, as well as Umathela. And yet, they seem to have certain common cultural and religious signifiers. They *tend* to combine the worship of a storm king with an earth queen, they tend to organize in extended clans with relatively unstable higher levels of organizations, ie. tribes, kingdoms, etc., and they tend to have numerous cults and subcults that people enter into based on individual or familial preference or tradition.
So basically, even if there is a good deal of variation, there are also a fairly decent amount of commonalities between them. Part of this might be because their culture, such as it is, is fairly young, many large populations being post-Dawn converts rather than ancient "natively" Orlanthi from the Storm Age.
When we move to the Pelorians, however, we find a "culture" (always an iffy term, but that is how it's used in the Guide) that covers a smaller area, and has a smaller total population - and seems wildly disparate in practices. If Esrolia represents a significant departure from mainstream Orlanthi practices, then pretty much every other Pelorian subculture seems to be a significant deviation. Pelanda, Darjiin, the Stork river people along Oslira, Alkoth, Rinliddi, Darsen, etc. etc.
Frankly, the only "cultural" commonality I can see is that they mostly seem to acknowledge some version of the Sun as a supreme ruler, but not even that is prevalent everywhere. There doesn't seem to be any really unifiying "theme" the way the Orlanthi, or Malkioni, or Kralorelans or Fonritans have, and it's kind of frustrating at times.
We're *told* that Lodril and Oria is widely worshipped everywhere in the Pelorian bowl, but I can't think of all that many examples that actually *show* it, aside from some small examples from commoner life within the Dara Happan Tripolis itself. The unifying factor, to me at least, seems far more of a political one, in that many of the Pelorian nations at various points were under the Dara Happan Empire or one of its successors. I can also imagine that it's the age - Pelorian cultures have antecedents that seems significantly older that the Orlanthi as we know them today (though not necessarily Storm People as a whole), and so may have diverged over a much longer time period. You can also argue that they lacked any equivalent of the Lightbringer missionaries unifying them with common rites and beliefs in the Dawn (unless you count specifically acknowledging a Dara Happan emperor). Lastly, I'm wondering if this is also due to a textual bias: writers on Peloria have tended to focus on the region's diversity rather than emphasizing or showcasing its commonalities for flavor reasons. In other words, yeah, sure, there are the Heron Goddess of and Racoon God and all that, but those are mainly regional patrons, and most people widely worship Lodril and Oria as well, and acknowledge Yelm as the supreme sun, we just don't mention it because it's kind of a given. Problem is, as a reader, that's not really the impression I'm getting, and it makes the idea of a Pelorian "culture group" sound kind of hollow and contrived.
There is a sub-question to this about what it means, thematically from a worldbuilding perspective, that Alkoth is one of three cities that makes up the Dara Happan tripolis, yet its culture and practices seem so utterly deviant from the other two cities, that any treatise on "Dara Happan culture" feels like it only really applies to Raibanth and Yuthuppa. Is this, once again, a result of writers exaggerating Alkoth's eccentricities in order for it to feel more interesting? Are Alkothi commoners pretty much like those in Rai+Yu, but largely ignored in favor of a more elite-centric perspective?
This is more or less some thoughts I've had in my mind for a while, and some frustrations I have as a reader and consumer. If someone introduced a new group to me and says "They're Doraddi" or "They're Orlanthi" I feel like I kind of know what I'm in for. But when someone says "They're Pelorians", it feels like it tells me jack all, maybe aside from geographical location.
Any thoughts on this? Just as a bit of disclaimer: I am aware that these other cultures also do have an enormous amount of variety, and that to a considerable extent, their "thematic" unity is a result of simplifying things. I am more wondering why not I get the same impression of Pelorians. Additionally, I am of course also fully aware that realistically, there's going to be a lot of cultural variety going around. This isn't a question of reallism.
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Why are Pelorians so (comparatively) culturally diverse?
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