The grawl & the Sons of Svanir

[TheLadyOfTheRings.9148]

Hi everyone!

I'm curious about the relationship between the grawl and the Sons of Svanir. When I say grawl, I mean the grawl tribes that worship Jormag or the Claws of Jormag (e.g. the ones in Frostgorge Sound). My main question would be: supposing the Sons of Svanir are defeated/leave Frostgorge Sound (or any other region), how would the grawl feel about that? Would that be a bad thing for them since they would lose "allies"? Would that be a good thing since they no longer had "competition"?

Thank you for your inputs :)

[ugrakarma.9416]

Grawl are similar to skritt, theres no much "rational" "geopolitics". i guess they simply dont bother about "whos owns anything" as long as new "status quo" dont threat them. In the rank of "dumber races", the grawls has probably the lowest rank,

in the rank of whos more smart in matter of geopolitics i guess is something like that.1-the various "frogs" like tribes 2-quaggans, 3-skritts, 4-grawls. 5-pure individualistic beings, like "elementals", "djinns", 6-wildlife animals.

Their "geopolitics", is just something close to a wildlife perception of "territory", i.e. they "defend" some area that they use to hunt or gather food. Meanwhile theyre able to "close a deal", like we see in the bitterfrost frontier. I put skritt above them because skritt have notion of "kingdom", and are prone to insert themselfs in some organized hierarchy(like we seem in the ring of fire), skritt are without doubt very smarter than grawl, also skritt are very quick to mimic other races features/organizations(like they have a "king" is probably something borrowed).

[Aaron Ansari.1604]

Hm... I imagine it wouldn't make much difference to the grawl in Frostgorge. If memory serves, besides for a possible push converting them to worship the Claw in the first place, the Sons ignored the tribe. They were just a nuisance to keep the Vigil from getting to comfortable in their camp. If anything, it'd probably lessen their chances of being forcibly converted into icebrood, but I doubt the grawl were aware of that particular peril.

The death of the Claw might be more important- after all, that was what they worship, they didn't seem to have any notion of a greater dragon behind it- but that would hinge on two unknowns. First, the grawl learning of the death in the first place- the battle was fought fairly far from their hunting grounds, and they were separated from the place by a troll- and imp-infested labyrinth; if all they know is that it disappeared, they may very well just keep on worshiping as they wait for it to return. Second, whether Jormag sends another Claw to replace it; the grawl might never suspect the difference, or they might take it to mean the Claw is immortal, if they had learned of the battle. But if those two fall just the right way, if they do believe their god was slain, and nothing happens to restore their faith, they'll likely drift to worshipping something else, none the worse for wear.

Perhaps there would be a third factor. If the Sons were decisively driven out, the Vigil would likely go with them, sending their troops where they'd do more good... but if, for some reason, the Vigil decided they needed to keep supply lines to Yak's Bend open, then without the Sons to hold their attention, they wouldn't have much trouble turning on the grawl and driving them off to stop their raiding. I don't see much chance of that, unless the Vigil is really worried about the Sons returning, but that would be the worst-case scenario for the grawl. (Unless the tribe got it into their head to uproot themselves and go looking for their god, in which case they'd have a good chance of all ending up dead or corrupted...)

I imagine similar dynamics would be in play with other tribes that worship icebrood. As far as I am aware, we never see any instances of the Sons actually working with the grawl, or acting as allies in any way, but the vacuum they leave behind might be a problem if the Sons' enemies turn on the grawl next, and any direct contact with the icebrood would ultimately be disastrous for a tribe. So long as neither of those things happen, the absence wouldn't likely change things for them one way or another.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@"Aaron Ansari.1604" said:I imagine similar dynamics would be in play with other tribes that worship icebrood. As far as I am aware, we never see any instances of the Sons actually working with the grawl, or acting as allies in any way

That's the exact situation of the Frozen Maw meta and Gara's personal storyline, actually. 2 of 3 known cases of Grawl worshiping Icebrood was spurred on by the Sons of Svanir. One's already lost interest thanks to the Pact, though; the other two are... unclear.

But I largely agree with the rest of what you said: if the grawl saw their "god" killed, they'd likely find something else to worship. If the Sons of Svanir disappear, they'd likely find a new "high priest" to communicate with the icebrood "god" (which would result similarly as Gara's before the Orders helped out - slow wiping out of the tribe until one survives to show the icebrood is no god, or said god is killed by Order/Pact forces).

[Fenom.9457]

They’re very simple and easily manipulated. Basically they wouldn’t care either way about anyone, unless they were in their territory, messing with their stuff, or provided an opportunity for the grawl to attack someone. The only reason there are any following jormag is because they worship anything they don’t understand, and why wouldn’t the Dragon take that? More ranks to an endless army