How do you envision Alend and Cadwal?

[danlo]

Not that I have a whole lot of time to write right now and not that we're given a ton of info on either country. Let your imagination run wild, what, if any, parallels do you see between them and our world? Here's one quick example:

Alend reminds of Scotland; historically, rugged, mountainous with crazy "fiefdoms" that contend for the throne. Kind of a "Braveheart" era feel-possibly because I tend to draw parallels between Margonal and Robert the Bruce's dad (as a History major I should know his name, and can't think of it right now, so kick me! ). His dad was a leper, I believe, and was always hiding in the shadows or up in the castle's catwalks while giving him advice. This reminds me of blind Margonal hiding in darkness and never letting others gaze a him.

Cadwal may have a more exotic, debauched feel. Seaport, trading center, riches...perhaps a Bhraitian (sp-2nd Chorns) feel. Your impressions? (sorry got to run need to find the books and tidy up the post--but I think you know what I mean... )

[Myste]

Hmm. I think politically I agree with you on Alend--very fractious, loose association of tribes. But the description of Prince Kragen--all his gilded armor, and long waxed mustaches--makes me think more of a deserty sort of place. Like the United Arab Emirates or something.

Cadwal--I used to think of Cadwal sort of similarly. Harems, hookahs, and so on...Carmag=Morocco or Algiers. But I wonder if it isn't maybe a sort of Rome-at-the-end-of-the-Empire or something. Utter debauchery and ennui, riches taken for granted. Ruby-encrusted golden chamberpots, that kind of thing, with Festten as a Nero-meets-Caligula despotic type. His wives decorate their fingernails with gold leaf and use saffron and cinnamon as makeup.

D'oh! The idea of exotic spices just made me slap my forehead--Eremis always smelled of cloves. In medieval Europe, cloves were so rare they were worth more than gold. If anyone in Mordant had a sense of smell, they would have been suspicious of Eremis from the start--how could an Imager (however wealthy, for an Imager, he was) afford to run around smelling like cloves all the time? And where would he get them? Obviously, he was in the pay of Cadwal, who could supply him with that luxury!

[duchess of malfi]

I've also always had an image of Cadwal being a very decadent place with harems, debauchery, opium dens, all of that sort of thing. A place filled with slaves, with a corrupt absolute dictator, where life is held as being very cheap...

For whatever reason, I have never really had a mental picture of Alend.