Leadership in Saumalt
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A discussion between a Sume (a man of Saumault) and a Dren (a man of Drenmærn) regarding Sumii lordship
This public article was written by [Deactivated User] on 6 Mar 2015, 18:49.
[comments] smi Ask a Sume why his people do not unify beneath a single banner, and you’re like to get a range of answers. I would wager, though, that the most common reason is simply one of pride. No Sume would break his knees before a man he did not himself choose. Furthermore, it is about survival, and survival is about power. Honor cannot keep your fire warm when the cold clamors down from the mountains. Wealth cannot bar your door when the hill clans descend upon your home. Faith cannot hunt the game that keeps you alive when the long nights of winter set in on your land. No, power keeps you alive. Sumes value power.
But I suppose, if you break it down, I have not answered the question at hand. It is far easier to, far more efficient, to feed a village than it is to feed a country. It is far easier to defend a single harbor than it is to defend an entire coastline. Can it not be said, then, that a man ruling a city has an easier time than a man ruling a country? Besides, what use would there be to uniting Saumalt? By its very nature, it is a land divided, by both geography and language. The spine of the entire island chain runs its length, like that of a man. There are no roads running through the mountains, no paths to connect the south to the north. No man can rule all of Saumalt. If the snows don’t kill him as he tries, the mountain tribes certainly will.
And so I ask you, a Dren, what is it that makes you kneel before a king you hardly know, for a country you’ve hardly seen? Who was it that gave you the right to bind your life, and the lives of your family, to the word of a single man, some three hundred miles away? What man of Arcken knows the life of a man of the Dorfers? Who was it that gave a Bennat of Eastwynd the right to sit the seat of the Stohnards, on an island not his own? This is why Saumalt remains separate, split, divided among the cities and the towns and the crags and the trees.
No man of Vurra knows the survival of a man of the Virmīi coast, nor does a man of Šufala know the survival of a man of Taas. So what business has a man of Vurra in dictating a man of the Virmīi coast? For what does a man of Taas want a man of Šufala ruling him? No, they want none of it. Only a man of Vurra has the right to rule to men and women of Vurra, and the same goes for a man of Taas, or of Šufala. The mountain tribes take no rulers – they follow the man of their ranks who exhibits the most prowess in battle. They follow the man with power, the man who survives. So too do the other men of Saumalt.
You asked me why it is that Saumalt holds no king. I have given you my answer. You Drens have your ways, and they involve breaking your knees on the cobbles of your lords’ castles. We, we Sumes, we have our ways, and you have yours.
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