Mercenaries and Outlaws in the Tahari

Yesterday I received a group message form Rear the commander of the “Black Dagger Mercenaries”. What is  that, you might well think, and so did I. Especially when the content of such message implied several confusing things:

• It suggested that mercenaries and outlaws are the same thing or at least almost.
• It suggested that they are a powerful organization that controls the trade routes
• It suggested that they capture whatever woman is on sight to enslave her

First of all the question does arise: are mercenaries and outlaws a BTB role in the Tahari? The answer is a definite yes. They are just potrayed wrong in Second Life Gorean role play.

Outlaws and Mercenaries are not the same, not even similar. In Fact they are each others opponents or enemies. To understand this,  lets look at how mercenaries in the book are portrayed.

The first time we read about some kind mercenaries, is in Tor. Merchants that organize caravans to the various oases hired “riders” or paid guards, to protect the caravan from attacks. These guards however are NOT part of an mercenaries organization but individuals chosen randomly.  Their boss is not a mercenaries captain, but the merchants that runs the caravan. They are hired to protect the caravan from raiders – outlaws.

Are those “mercenaries” outlaws?  No, not at all . They are honorable people within the law doing a job they get paid for. Nothing dark or bad about that. In the books they get paid when the caravan reaches its destination safely and are said to spend most of their wage in the cafes for drinks and kajirae.

The second time we read about mercenaries is  about the warriors of the Salt Ubar. The Salt Ubar had a little army, in fact paid mercenaries. He had them for a specific reason and he also had them structured in military ranks. This is more a mercenaries organization then the riders I mentioned before, yet again individuals hired by a merchant for a specific purpose.

Resumed, mercenaries are BTB, however mercenary organizations are not. They actually make no sense in an environment like the Tahari, simply because there is nobody who would hire their services.

The tribesmen are too proud to leave the security of their people in the hands of hired warriors. Merchants prefer to maintain control over their riders. Also as we can see in the book , it’s easy to contract riders in Tor, why taken the risks involved of hiring a mercenaries “firm”?

Last but certainly not least: In tribesmen such organizations do not exist. The only organisation who comes somewhat close to it , is the Salt Ubars warriors. He lived in a massive luxury Kasbah in the desert and controled the salt mines (hence the name).

His business was not offering mercenaries services but the salt trade. He had hired mercenaries and placed  a female captain (see my article about Tarna). His biggest enemy was Hassan the bandit who interfered in his plans to make the two big tribes to go to war with each other.

Now lets look at “outlaws”.

Here we encounter a totally different scenario. Outlaw gangs, called “raiders”, are the norm in the Tahari. Norman chooses to to call them raiders instead of outlaws . The reason for that is, that the Tahari desert is a relatively law-less environment anyway and the line between an outlaw and a non outlaw is rather undefined.

So outside of which law would the outlaw stand? The laws of Turia? Turia claims sovereignty over the Tahari. So from a Turian point of view all the tribes in the Tahari could be considered outlaws as non of them warships the Home Stone of Turia. Despite , Turia has a merchant keep at the border of the Tahari and maintains trade with the oases.

Are those “raiders” outlaws from the Taharian Pashas point of view? Yes, but they are tolerated by the people in the oases. Pashas and their people are descendent themselves from raiders , a long time ago.

In fact raiders in tribesmen do enter freely the oases to trade and use freely facilities such as the Inn, the water reserves, the cafes. In some oases they enter only at night, in others at full daylight.

Nobody stops them, no questions asks.

Tarl was actually riding with a raiders group most of the time, as they pursued similar objectives. Tarl and Hassan the bandit became even good friends.

These raiders groups, where however not powerful organizations that “controlled” the trade routes of the Tahari. The control over the trade routes are shared (depending which ones) by the Pashas of the Kavar and the Aretei (North and Center), by the Salt Ubar (South and East) and by the Turian authorities (West).

Raiders are small groups of men raiding smaller caravans, or people insane enough to travel the tahari without appropriate security measures. They steal from those people whatever they can get, including their women which they trade in the oases for coin.

There are women in those raider groups with different functions (not fighting of course, we know that such thing does not exist on Gor). Using female spies seems to be a common method for those raiders to obtain information about routes certain caravans are taking.

Those raiders do dress like any other man or women in the Tahari. If you would enter a cafe in an oasis you could not tell the difference between a tribe warrior and a raider, other then by the color of the stripes of the warriors kayeff, which indicates his tribe.

Raiders ride kaiilas, they use the scimitar, they have lances and they live in movable tents. I would sooo love to see an authentic raiders group in the Sand Sleen Oasis. The House of Sirnah would welcome them at night, to buy their captives

Sheraka

Scribe of Gor

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