? about val pecentages

Vals, almost by necessity, make up a very small portion of the human population. That said, also recall that val are functionally the “Noble Race” in the setting. As such, they are over represented in ‘heroic’ roles such as priest, knight, general, etc. As such, val’Mordane may make up less than 1% of the population, but maybe 20% of the Deathbringers. Similarly, val’Mordane may make up less than 1% of the population, but none of them are farmers or blacksmiths which skews the demographics somewhat.

That is what I thought. I assumed they are 80% of the leadership of the Deathbringers. But if they are only 20% of the total of the Deathbringers, than I am wondering about terming them as the predominant race, since it would seem that human is really the predominant race. Or maybe it just meant they are the predominant form of val in the organization. Not sure, which is why I thought I would ask. It made it sound like more than 50% of the organization was val’Mordane, which would surprise me.

Similarly, val’Mordane may make up less than 1% of the population, but none of them are farmers or blacksmiths which skews the demographics somewhat.

Where did you come up with this? Could you please cite a source or is this just opinion?

Similarly, val’Mordane may make up less than 1% of the population, but none of them are farmers or blacksmiths which skews the demographics somewhat.

You didn’t answer the question, why aren’t there any val’Mordane blacksmiths or farmers? You stated it very definitively.

I think you are using false equivalency here. Just because one nation has things one way, and Canceri is an extreme example, does not equate out to the rest of the world.

While val are 1% of the population, they are not automatically noble. There are poor val, disgraced val, bastard/by-blow val, contrarian val, rebel val, and many other val that are stuck in bad positions that would make them take working class jobs. There could also be val’Mordane blacksmiths that are experts at making weapons, in the same way that Elebac is. To say that NONE are blacksmiths or farmers does not take into account the variety of people in a vibrant world. That is like saying that all halflings are thieves, all dark-kin are evil, and all Milandisian Kinghts are morons (ok that last one might be true based on the mods that I have played).

I see your point, Lucas, though on my part I claim hyperbole.

The big problem with Arcanis is that the whole ‘vals can be anything’ is both true and false. They are the literal divine children of the gods, so it would be exceedingly rare to find truly ‘down and out’ vals since their very bloodlines would give them opportunities. We get a good example of this in the Codex Arcanis where it states that human patricians will marry a ‘commoner’ val to make their family Patrician Imperialis. On the other side, I know a person who played a val’Borda Street Urchin, which is possible that a val’Borda child may be abandoned, but the very fact that they ARE a val would suggest to me that this is an exceedingly rare occurrence.

Arcanis gets really complicated versus other fantasy universes because the concept of the “bastard” can’t really exist with a val. If a val goes off an sires an illegitimate child and it is a human, they can pass it off like Gendry (the bastard of Robert Baratheon) in Game of Thrones was, which means that that scion of the noble house CAN (and often is) a farmer or a blacksmith, etc. However, if the illegitimate child is born a val, they are in a bit of a pickle. They cannot reasonably deny their parentage, or even if they can they cannot reasonably deny kinship with the child (even if they deny that THEY as an individual did the deed). While some val families would very well deny kinship to the illegitimate val child, I would think it is more likely that they would foster this child out to relatives to raise. For example, if a minor patrician group of val’Ossans in Salantis had an illegitimate val’Ossan child, they may send it to cousins in Savona to raise to remove the ‘tainted’ child from their household without officially abandoning their kinsman.

From here, the illegitimate child would be trained likely according to the specific family traits. A val’Tensen would likely be trained in combat skills (horsemanship, fencing, etc), statecraft, psionic discipline, etc. A val’Dellenov would be trained in agriculture and animal husbandry, as well as the same statecraft, etc. A val’Virdan would probably be sent off to whatever army appropriate to the nation and treated as much like “any other soldier” to ‘toghen them up’. Like other noble families in history, when it came down to ‘finding a job’ these nobles would have more options, so from here one may choose to become a swordsmith or a blacksmith, to continue to farm a family plot, or become an assassin. The eldest and most ‘properly born’ children in the household would be maneuvered into the succession, younger legitimate children into things like magistracies or the priesthood (like in medieval Europe), and many would likely serve in the army at various ranks.

Because of this (which is an assumption I make based on my understandings of noble groups, both in fantasy and in reality), I would assume it would be exceedingly rare for vals to have to learn a ‘commoner’ trait. As such, while a val may be trained in agriculture or agronomy, they would learn it as a skill and not a trade (with the exception of Saluweans, of course). Similarly, you wouldn’t see a val’Mordane making nails and horseshoes, but it wouldn’t be unknown for a val’Mordane to be an ‘artisan’ making beautiful swords or metalwork, but even this is probably a minority. The majority of vals would be what we would term “middle class” or of the noble class in their respective nations because they were literally born to be nobles within human societies of Onara. This is why you get groups such as the Brotherhood of Man who seeks to overthrow what they consider the hegemony of the vals so normal humans can rule. This is why the rulers of almost literally EVERY nation in the Known World is a val, and even those without official val rules have vals in major positions of power (Llyllifel, Censure, Altheria, etc).

Ultimately, we can’t make too many equivalencies within Arcanis because we have no numbers of any repute to base these off of. We have never SEEN a val’Mordane making horseshoes, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. We have never SEEN a val’Tensen priest of Nier, nor have we ever seen Elandre’ val’Assante’ ever cast a spell. I myself wrote a mod (Purity, Fraternity, Justice) where two of the main characters were ‘commoner’ vals (one was a drover, the other was a former legionnaire) so I am well aware of what CAN happen, but even in that mod I commented on how even ‘commoner’ vals get special treatment by society for their actions like a minor patrician in Rome would get better legal treatment than a slave or a plebeian. We can only base our opinions on our personal experiences and knowledge of the universe and similar situations.

It is from this that I make my comment about the val’Mordane would make up a disproportionate number of the Deathbringers because it is viewed as a profession “worthy” of a val’Mordane. While they may make up 0.1 or 5 or 10% of the population (whatever, the number is ultimately meaningless), they may make up 50% of the order because their family would maneuver them into the Holy Orders because it is a ‘proper’ job for a noble scion of Neroth and because their inborn abilities give them greater tools to succeed in that job. Similarly, you would see fewer val’Mordane proportionally in the ‘common’ trades compared to normal humans (so if they make up 1% of the population, they may make up 0.2% of the farmers), and even then they would most likely have positions of authority even in those fields based on their birth. They wouldn’t be the ones making nails in the blacksmith shop, they’d be the skilled artisans making weapons and armor. They wouldn’t be the people out in the mud of the field, they’d be the landholder or a supervisor. They wouldn’t be the cooper making the barrel, they’d be on the guild council. So on and so forth.