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Foreign Relations In Runescape

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White Eyes32

White Eyes32

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Is the Gnome Empire a sovereign nation apart from Kandarin, or are they a protectorate of it?

Also, is Khazard acting independently of the Kandarin military? Wouldn't that make him and his army an insurgency if he were slaughtering gnomes? I'm pretty sure Port Khazard falls within Kandarin's borders, so why doesn't the Kandarin military stop them from attacking gnomes?

And why are none of the major kingdoms in Runescape actively at war with each other? I'm sure there's alliances and all, but come on. All of these kingdoms are not only completely at peace with each other, but also, for the most part, have open borders, speak the same languages, and openly trade with one another?

I've played the game for 10 years now, why am I only now noticing this? And why do I care?

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03-Nov-2017 07:03:14

Ancient Drew

Ancient Drew

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Kandarin is the youngest kingdom of Gielinor, being founded less than a century ago. Before then there had been smaller settlements by humans from the east who first went by the River Dougne, which flows from Baxtorian Falls through Castle Wars to the sea in the south west. This was in the First Age, and then Guthix invited Seren and her elves to settle there along with them and the gnomes, who seem to be an entirely different entity to the human kingdom of Kandarin.

The states such as the Gnome Stronghold and Village, as well as Khazard, are geographically part of Kandarin but seem to be for the most part independent. Gnomes had been building great cities since the Second Age, and have been known to be great diplomats, making alliances with the elves and the humans. They went underground during the God Wars like the dwarves did, but returned to the surface in the Fourth and founded their new great city, the Tree Gnome Stronghold, by planting the Grand Tree, and other settlements. This also includes Arposandra, which Glouphrie and his followers had founded after he was banished for covering up the death of the Spirit Tree Argento. It's still yet to be discovered, but is believed to be under the Poison Waste.

As for Khazard, he was Hazeel's student before, and they both decided to try and take Kandarin for their own and for some time ruled with an iron fist. This was until the Carnilleans came and put Hazeel to sleep, and Khazard's been raising his army since. And Bolrie, who was the king of the Tree Gnome Village, attacked Khazard unknowingly on Glouphrie's advice. Prepare for hell on RuneScape in Naval Cataclysm!

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03-Nov-2017 09:28:49

MystLunaris

MystLunaris

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As for the other places, Falador, Varrock and Lumbridge are all mostly Saradominist and have pretty good relationships which each other and so no real reason to attack each other, Duke Horacio is even King Roald's vassal.
The White Knights actually help supply defences to Taverly and Burthorpe against the Trolls, so obviously they have a fairly good relationship.
Until we came along the Fremennik were mostly focused on fighting each other, although in previous ages they did lead many attacks against other places.
Now that we've stopped most of the in-fighting between them though, they're still probably unlikely to ever go and attack anyone else, since they've learned to respect us as an outsider and would likely have more respect for other outsiders.
Vampyres, zombies, werewolves, etc can't cross the River Salve, partly thanks to us so they're not going to be attacking anyone any time soon.
The Kinshra (Black Knights) are at constant war with the White Knights, we just don't see it as openly as the Gnomes vs Kazard's forces, except when things happen in world events (BoL, IoF)
Edgeville, Seer's Village, Draynor village etc are all too small to fight anyone.
I can't really figure out why the Ogres around Gu'Tanoth aren't attacking anywhere though.
Al Kharid used to be at war with Menaphos, which probably lead to alliances and peace deals with Lumbridge and Varrock, in order to get better trade for supplies such as food, armour and weapons.
And because of those deals they probably have little to no reasons to go to war with Lumbridge or Varrock and risk losing all access to those resources.
Ardougne likely had alliances with many other places and even if anyone knew what King Lathas was involved in getting any armies there would be extremely difficult and would give them plenty of time to prepare for an attack.
And Port Sarim was actually fairly recently attack by the Skull Pirates. 99-120 Skill content , Skilling boss ideas , Talents , God Emissary D&D/Minigame , Vampyric and Elven tech trees

03-Nov-2017 13:23:58

AesirWarrior
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AesirWarrior

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The Gnome Empire is most likely seperate from Kandarin, but I'm not sure about Khazard. It seems a bit odd that he's been able to reign unhindered for over a century.

As for the human kingdoms, they haven't existed very long. With the exception of Misthalin they were all established in the 5th age. It is a bit odd that there hasn't been more conflict between them, but I guess they could have been too busy fending off other races. That being said, there's at least one Fremennik invasion spanning 20 years. Kandarin's also relatively cut off from the other Kingdoms, so I doubt they interact with Misthalin and Asgarnia much.

There's a bunch of internal conflict though. You've got a Civil War in Asgarnia, with several Sieges on Falador, the (not so) "Great Battle" outside Ardougne, bunch of (non-Fremennik) anti-Magic fanatics in Misthalins, Wizard Tower burning down, Lathas being an asshole...

Still, it's definitely an area of lore that needs fleshing out.


MystLunaris said :
Edgeville, Seer's Village, Draynor village etc are all too small to fight anyone.

I'm not sure if that matters. Draynor, Lumbridge and Edgeville are all part of Misthalin. If Roald declares war they're obliged to join him. Seer's Village could be independent though. I'll give you that. -
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03-Nov-2017 17:01:11

Marine Doge

Marine Doge

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Kandarin's relatively isolated because of White Wolf Mountain serving as a very hard-to-cross border, but regardless, they're all Saradominist kingdoms with no reason to fight. And now that Saradomin is back and sitting on the throne in Falador, I don't think anyone's stupid enough to risk war with Asgarnia. If anything, I could see some future storylines revolving around Saradomin expanding Asgarnia's borders in an attempt to unify the humans and their kingdoms under a more centralized leadership. After all, it's not like he set up different kingdoms on the other planets he colonized - it would have been one planet ruled by one government, albeit with multiple leaders most likely. Mods pls notice me

03-Nov-2017 19:34:11

Raleirosen

Raleirosen

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good thread

never really got the feeling that Kandarin had anything to do with the Khazard/gnome conflict; could be that the kingdom is super decentralized Patrolling Lore FC almost makes you wish for a Great Revision.

09-Nov-2017 05:53:03 - Last edited on 09-Nov-2017 05:54:44 by Raleirosen

Deltaslug

Deltaslug

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The Gnomes are a separate group. They clearly have their own laws, activities, and such.
Remember, that following the God Wars, the Gnomes (much like the Dwarves ... and the Cave Goblins), they retreated from the rest of the world. Only coming out in recent decades.

The case with Khazard, the Mahjarrat has always been active. However, the political climate in Kandarin was perfect for him to gain a major foothold.
King Ulthas dies, splitting the city between Tyras and Lathas.
Tyras bails to go explore the Elven territory and gets bogged down in a war there. He leaves a drunk to run the half of the city.
Lathas, between his dealings with the Elves (mourners) and keeping Iban contained, his focus is diverted away from other issues.
Khazard is simply able to gather a large following and take over large stretches of land.

The leaders of Kandarin are no longer in a position to militarily oust Khazard's Army (at least not without taking massive casualties on their own). Especially when Lathas felt the need to "protect" the city from whatever lies in the Underground Pass.
Their relations with the Gnomes was probably weak. Officially, Lathas probably was against Khazard, but we have no proof he was against him either.

It's possible that Lathas figured the Gnomes would win the protracted war thus solving 2 problems at once (remove Khazard, and weaken the gnomes enough so they wouldn't be a military threat).
By doing nothing, he didn't provoke Khazard into preemptively attacking the city, creating a situation where Ardougne might lose the fight or lost too many troops to defend against threats of the Underground Pass.

Keep in mind that their hopes were partially answered when the player char technically ousted Khazard, some of his troops and leadership (Gnome Quests, Fight Arena)
It's just no one could have predicted that Khazard would come back because of what he really was.

09-Nov-2017 23:59:21

Deltaslug

Deltaslug

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In some respects, you can look to areas IRL where governments lose some control over parts of their countries to warlords.
They make deals or appeasements with them not to go rampant or cause more problems than they already are. Or let groups terrorize minorities because it serves the government's interests in the long run (at least before the warlords' rampages go on too long, and they become more powerful than the governments ... )

10-Nov-2017 00:00:40

Deltaslug

Deltaslug

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Another issue is we haven't been given a reason why the war started.

- South of Ardy used to be under the control of Hazeel and the Zamorakians. It's possible he just want to reclaim it.
- Khazard may have seen Kandarin as too "ordered" and did the Zamorakian thing by instigating some chaos.
- Khazard might have a long standing feud with the Gnomes dating back to the God Wars
- The Iowerth Clan, though they had Lathas under their thumb, might have had concerns about the gnomes catching wind of their activities, but didn't want to break ancient treaties. So they got Lathas to use proxies to recruit Khazard. Now the gnomes are too deeply involved in a war to focus on their actions.
- The Aprosondran Gnomes had a long standing feud with the rest of the Gnomes and they could have recruited Khazard.
- The ZMI control the Ourania Altar. It's possible they convinced Khazard to cover their flank and cause a huge distraction so no one would notice/bother them (an RC altar would be valuable to the Zamorakians)
- Khazard might have been recruited to whip the Kandarin forces in shape ... and things sorta snowballed out of control
- Khazard might have been hired as a mercenary force to deal with Goblins, Ogres, etc. Then he figured he'd just do whatever he pleased.
- There might be something of value under the Tree Gnome Village that we haven't learned about or some ancient Zamorakian secret/thing.

10-Nov-2017 00:21:19

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