The Hendriki

(From the Taming of Dragon Pass campaign)

by Jeff Richard

In the 1300s Hendrikiland and Heortland are not synonymous. The Hendriki are a large, pre-Alakoring tribe founded in the wake of Arkat's liberation of Kethaela. Although "Heortlings" (as opposed to Esrolvuli, Harandings, or Talastari) in the broad cultural sense, they are culturally different from the clans and tribes in the high valleys of the Storm Mountains.

First, the Hendriki are less egalitarian than their Heortlending neighbors. The Hendriki horse-thanes (known as "cnihts") are the province of certain bloodlines and clans that are supported by other bloodlines or entire clans. In other words, the Hendriki have a well-established "aristocracy" that is supported by the free-farmers. Think Scandanavia in the 12th - 13th centuries, no serfs, but a definite nobility.

Second, the Hendriki royal clan has supported in the late 13th and 14th centuries a sub-cult of Orlanth known as the Aeolian Church. The "wise-men" of this tribal cult believe, amongst other things, that Orlanth re-established the laws of the world through his Lightbringers' Quest and that the study of these "laws" can lead to mastery over the world. In other words -- they are sorcerers!

The old Heortlenders, on the other hand, are dominated by the old clans of the Ogorvaltes tribe and other Dragon Pass tribes that were destroyed during the Dragon Kill. They are the Orlanthi that developed into the folk recorded in the Report on the Orlanthi in KoS. 

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