Social Classes in Nurn:

Social Classes in Nurn:

As I stated in my previous essay, the term class is used here in a very.broad sense. More, in a multiracial area like nurn, class considerations include a many news perspectives to think about. One of these items, Troll wrokforce, will be a key in the explantion of many things.

The main object of this writing is to provide an answer to two questions:

1) Why did Sauron took Mordor as the main base for his army?

2) What happens when sauronic influence fades out from nurn?

To answer the first question, an obvious item to take into account is that orodruin was in mordor, and Sauron needed it to forge magical items of great power, for example the One ring. But that is not enough; He did not only take that place, but all of Mordor, and made that a base for his many huge armies through the years.

Gorgoroth, just mention, has the big advantage of strategy: it dominates the anduin lower vale, is naturally fortified form attacks by the mountains, is very hard to lay siege to (no food here to sack by siegers! And a hellish weather doesnt make things easier for weak people). And also, it is isolated, so he could keep a secure place to work and scheme without worrying about nuisances like people.

But, when it comes to Nurn, things get a lot harder why will he take that place, only inhabited by a few primitive people (Nurniags) instead of expanding his kingdom on the daen lands or even in khand or harad?

The main explantion comes from Saurons origins: he was a Aule servant, and he knew may secrets of the earth. While it may seem that nurn was a wasteland like gorgoroth, and their inhabitants only got meager harvest of onions, quinces and turnips from the salty floodplains near the rivers and the nurn sea, and struggled to keep some cattle alive with the bushes and hard nstive grass, Sauron know something better.

The black, volcanic, mineraly rich land of Nurn, while it was very hard to break and tough unarable to the Nurniags, was rich and surprisingly fertile. the lands near the rivers or the sea were the worst, because of the excess of minerals the soil had.

Nurniags lived in these places, able only to plow the humid shoreline. But Sauron had things Nurniags had not: Very heavy workforce and very good metal tools.

A little time after ocupying Gorgoroth and subduing by terror the orcs and trolls of the mountains, he quickly conquered the weak nurniags, who already suffered from orcish raids. Then, he mobilized the orc masses to massively create plows, scythes and other tools for agriculture (at the same time they were forging the weapons of the first sauronic army), and teached them how to refine and improve the metal used.

At the same time he started breeding trolls (in a long process who would finish in the creation of Olog hai) in a big number. These were brutes of good use as soldiers. But as beasts of work, they were even better, smartest than horses and strongest than any human.

He used the trolls to plow and break the unharmed lands of nurn and irrigate the land building terraces, channels and leveling the terrain, and used the subdued nurniags to coordinate the process and build mills.

After a few years, the harvest became very productive, and crops of cereal were stored in big granaries in nurn, and then distributed to the population of humans, like native nurniags or allies like the Variag and Nuriags, or to the orcs. Fallow lands were used to raise the cattle, and the tributes of cows and goats from the khand steppes came to complete the feeding of the sauron empire.

Nights were full of sound, of the Troll plowers working the land under the command of Sauron lieutenants, in a variety bred to be more docile and sun resisting than normal trolls through the years of experiments by the fallen Maia.

During the day, human slaves and even snaga orcs sometimes, worked the most easy lands, and Trolls were put under the roof of the mills to grind the grains.

Aside, mines of iron and other metals were dug in nurn and in gorgoroth, and there, both swords and plows were made by the orcish artisans.

But at the end of the third age, the necessities of war made the field be abandoned, and the workers became warriors once again. And then the war ended. Sauron disappeared as his empire didOnly the weakest and the children were still alive in nurn, scratching as many food as they could. Gondorians sent there only saw desolation, being the lands abandoned a decade ago. Still, the mountain orcs were a small but dangerous preence. And the natives were present on the Southeastern quadrant, far from gorgoroth, so gondor saw no point in conquering those lands.

Free from the sauronic influence, but very poor, the Nurniags were no match for the resurging Variags. At year 1640, when the Nazgul arrive again, Nurn is starting his rebuilding, but silently, with only humans to rebuild the lands, and under the rule of Variags overlords always faithful to the dark powers. Centuries after, the old system, improved with the weakest of the olog as workers, will feed the vast army of haradrim, easterlings and orcs from the cropfields of nurn, planning to conquer middle earth. And will fail once again.

Nurn in 1640: The Silent Dark rule

In 1640, the nurn area is beginning his rebuild. The society is mostly a herdkeeper people, composed of two ethnical groups: Nurniags and Variags. As any ethnic group, it has nothing to do with race or biology, and these are social constructs created for specific purporse. In this case, anyone confroming the ruling elitem, who monopolizes cattle and warfare and extracts agricole surplus from the nurniag opressed, will be named a Variag, beside the fact his familiy was Nurniag and, on the same way, any peasant will be named nurniag after some time, even if he is an improverished or destitute Variag. This adjusts tend to take time to fit into the social model, so a diqualified Variag will be somehow in the middle of the social scale, and only his sons will be named Nurniags in the next generation.

Differentiation cames from adopting certain patterns of activity, culture and beliefs: the Variag model is a nomadic model of war riders, and the Nurniag pattern is a typical peasant ideology, centered around survival and community ties. Of course, both groups know the other group ways, and thus everyone tends to adapt their behaviour to the expected pattern for his ethnic group/ social class.

Beside this dynamics, other people has no place in this society. Everyone else, maybe with the exception of nuriags, who are seen as a bad imitation of variags but accepted as human, is considered a potential slave or a dangerous person, depending on how much power does he or she have.

Orcs fit this model surprisingly well, and many variag rulers keep a small group of orcish slaves as cannon fodder or amusement. And powerful orcs are seen with awe, and many times, payed tribute to avoid their raids. Conflicts between mountain orcs and humans tend to be common, and goods exchange in the terms of tribute circulate from one to another, and between the ruling Variags themselves.

Variags tend to express everything in the terms of kinship, beside the fact that this kinship has nothing to do with blood, and is mostly an expression of alliances. Women play an important role in these society, and tend to control the domestic affairs with iron fist. Raiding and warfare, paying or collecting tributes, and interaction with other groups are managed by the men of the clan, who spend their time try to enhance their prestige and the clan riches raiding on whoever they can.

Many points in common with these Variags have the sedentary nurniags, including the same view on kinship, and the division of labour: men work in the fields or keep the Variag cattle or horses, and women cook, rise the children and the like. Craftmanship is made by every nurniag regardless of sex, and are the main providers of items to the Variags, who see themselves over that kind of work, and also for themselves. Most nurniags have no external relations, and keep to themselves and their clans, and seeing non nurniags and non variags as monsters. They rely on their overlords for those relations, like them or not.

Because of the very fluctuating frontiers of ethncity and kinship, social mobility is high: many poor but smart nurniag fieldworkers rise in riches and adopt the ways of variag society, at the same time that strifes, injury or bad luck degrade Variags, who tend to accept their new situation sooner or later: both these people are very darwinist and think that might makes right, and if someone is in a place, he deserves it.

But in 1640, the coming of the Nazgul meant a new (or very old, in some way) pattern on the structure of Nurn; pacting or forcing with the Variag elite, the nazgul made trolls go down for the mountains, led and equipped by orcish masters, to tend the abandoned inner fields of land. This caused tension to the structure, because the cattle and horses of the variags fed on those lands. Nazgul quickly resolved the tensions were they erupted, killing or subding the rebel Variag (and Nurniag clients), but also granted some land for the main interest of Variags: Horse pasture.

Many Variags, formerly horseman, started to work in the emergent sauronic fields as commanders for the nurniags, converted into workers of the troll plowed lands. Others kept their old ways, becoming true soldiers and horsebreeders, using the lands respected by the nazgul masters.

Orcs came in big numbers to build granaries, roads and outposts, and were mainlt fed with the surviving cattle taken by force to the variags or by fishing in the sea or rivers, till the crops started to give enoguh quantity to feed both humans and orcs. They never integrated in the variag-nurniag society, and kept separated, and usually came back to the mountains when their work finished.

Trolls also came an werent integrated. Most of them were fed with corpses or weak horses, and kept working all night under the eye of usually orcish masters and their armed groups. These orcs settled more permanently as their job never finifhed, and many shared some time with humans, specially those on direct service of the dark masters, but that is far from an integration. No orcish women or children came from the mountains and these isolated orcs kept mostly to themselves. Trolls selected were the most passive and calm of them, and the smartest ones were marginally integrated in the community of their orcish masters. Some of them even made friends with some of the orcs, if that thing is possible.

Controlling the product of the troll fieldwork and tribute from the nurniag-variag peoples, a small group is forming. Composed by unmounted (literally) variags and even smart nurniags, and some haradrim, nuriag, asdriah}g or cheyan dark subdites, control the granaries and try to build the frame for the sauronic empire without casuing much notice, and following the orders of the nazgul. This is a group of quite smart and adaptable people, selected by his wits and ability to follow orders, and, if new, one of the most active groups in bringing change to this place. Many of their descendants will, one day, be the main administers in the Sauronic Empire chain of command in Mordor, and will see the end of the third age with pain and frustration, or more commonly, death in the hands of the free peoples.

Adventure ideas

A strife between rival clans of Variags, each one trying to hold the same nuriag villages.The ascension of a nuriag party into Variag culture, making some dangerous deed (like killing their Variag masters).

A Nazgul appears, and commands the local people to let the orcs and trolls work the land. Some Variags rebel, some join the nazgul force, all are expropiated their cattle.

Orcish raids smash the area. Locals try to find protection on the Sauronic state or confront the orc themselves.