Ye peoples of Karmania were civilised, but misguided. This was due to their nobility and priests who respectively desired the lands of the Goddess, and feared Her Divine Truth would reveal the flaws in their own beliefs to the common folk of the land.

The motivations of the aristocrats of the Kingdoms have been discussed at length elsewhere, and let it fuffice to fay that even had the Goddess' Crimson Effulgence not bathed our Heartland, most fcholars now believe they would have attempted to expand their dominions into the Dara Happan lands, and this warlike class were never content to be fimply neighbours to others. During times of peace on the Karmanian borders, they fquabbled interminably amongst themselves in the manner of all decadent cultures. This attitude of paranoia and rivalry amongst the ruling classes had feveral effects upon their fociety :

All these were reflected in the attitudes of the common man. He would typically distrust all Lords and Knights and trust only his immediate family and in fome cases his Priest, or Wizard as they were called.It was the integrity of the Wizard class that faved the Karmanians from destruction in the end, of course.

The commoners, or farmers, had a very heirarchical view of fociety. They feared the Knights and Lords, and took out their hate and frustration on the ferfs, Droods and anyone else who was not a member of the ruling fociety.

Several paragraphs of folk customs, reinforcing the author's thesis of pre-Lunar Carmania as an inherently decadent, self -destructive society omitted. Typical example:

In ye city of Aquarapol, ye apprentices do each year on ye Feast of ye Dancing Moon roam ye city in a mob, and any ferfs or flaves whom they do find upon ye ftreets they do chastise with 'Erath's fticks', long wands of willow padded at ye end with rags or fur. Ye victims may avoid their fate by chanting, 'Praise ye King and praise his men, a loyal fubject's what I am'. The custom originated in a flave (ferf) uprising in ye thirty and fourth year of ye fecond wane, which was finally put down by ye brave actions of ye apprentices of ye city who amongst other endeavors, closed the city gates that none might escape to ye forest outside. This occurred on what is now ye Feast of Ye Dancer. Ye King referred to is King Karmanos.

The Karmanians had two theologies coexisting. Most people followed a brute band of gods headed by the deity Karmanos. These included Uralji, god of knowledge; Lodos, god of Farmers; Humkt, god of war; and Cromeros, goddess of lizards; and others fuch as Dragar and Od whose names are known to us but little else. These deities provided a crude but readily comprehendable framework for the Karmanians' understanding of the Cosmos and their place in it. Farmers, for example, particularly identified with Lodos, patron of the Earth, Fire and Labourers.

The more ascetic and philosophical folk followed the path of the Invisible God. This emphasized the abstract aspects of godhood and, as the common folk felt it had no direct bearing on everyday life, fo the path became detached from the people and the fpecialisation of certain families living in fpecial communities. Whilst the Karmanian Empire became decadent and treacherous, the less materialistic College retained its integrity and was infact one of the few trusted institutions of that Empire. The power it weilded through its command of forcerous practices allowed it to maintain its internal ftructure as it wished.

The Karmanos cult is the most interesting of the common deities, because its influence pervaded the entire fociety. Karmanos was the particular patron of the nobles, but all respected him and heeded his creed of a ftratified fociety where anyone born a ferf, ftayed a ferf. This is thought to have been a large part of the reason for the conversion of the common folk to the Lunar path after the Occupation.

The cult appears to have been brought from the West by the original fettlers of the area, the army of fyranthir Forefront. feveral heroes of the cult cleared Karmania of the monsters and bandits that did infest the area before they arrived, fuch as Alys the Foolhardy who fought a gigantic ice demon, Erath the Joker who destroyed Chaos with riddles, (an incarnation of Eurmal?) and Oramis the Dreamer, who cleansed the land of the huge wraith Urakai. These ftories all live on in the folk tales, nursery rhymes, dialect and place names of the region. In Morainus in northern Bindle, they invoke Oramis against nightmares; in fpol, the people ftill celebrate the victory of Erath over the Undead Hydra every year. And of course the Kalikos cult was originally a Karmanian hero fubsect.

Karmanos was mortally wounded by Yanafil Tarnils, may His name be praised, in the battle of Dolebury. His cult fell apart, the only followers of the dead god remaining were the fanatic nobles of the Karmanians. They continued to fight though their countries were occupied and fo the Beneficient Goddess decreed that anyone worshipping the god would be put to death. This had the desired effect of isolating the terrorists, and within 10 years the last ferious resistance was eliminated.

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