Letter Bee — Roleplayer Guild

@Letter Bee I think that@Lucius Cypher has a pretty solid lore for the orc population.  One that I would strongly go with for this story. Why don't you coordinate your ideas with them and have that see on whether or not orcs could've been in Giray.@IcePezz

I PMed this to Lucius Cypher, but he's in school right now. Not trying to go around him, I just want to see others' comments on my newly-developed lore, because it affects other Races as well:

The Millet System of Giray (With Special Notes on the Orcs)

A Millet, in Girayid terms, is a semi-autonomous community that is permitted to administer itself by its own laws and its own system, provided that they pay the required taxes set by the Slave-Bureaucrats, and accept the 'protection' of the Mamluks. Rooted in the practices of the Old Sultans of Giray, the Millet System achieved full maturity when said Sultans were overthrown and replaced with the Slave Oligarchy, which required both popular support and money, and got both by affirming the rights of the separate communities of the Empire, whether Humans of different ethnicity, Elves, Dwarves, and most revolutionary, the Orcs, who had been brought into the land millenia ago. Not merely that, but the major religions of Giray also got their own Millets around that time.

The initial number of Millets was eleven Racial Millets (which also divided humans of different ethnicities), and eight Religious Millets. These were later reduced to eight and five, respectively, as the importance of certain groups in the Empire waxed and waned. Not merely that, but the inevitable intermarriages between members of the millet were accomodated by an easy solution: the children can get to choose which Millet they belong to once they are adult.

Special interest was given to the Orcish Millet; which in some respects, is the only community of Orcs that is treated as equal to Elves and Humans. They have full freedom of movement and passage, full freedom of intermarriage, full freedom to develop crafts and trade, and even full freedom to fight among each other as long as they do not 'disturb the peace'. Not merely that, but they are permitted to join various 'Commoner Regiments' made up of a mix of different Millets (because having battalions composed of members of just one Millet is seen as a bad thing) so as to satisfy their craving for foriegn combat. Even relations with the Elven Millet are good, to the point where Elf-Orc hybrids are not unheard of.

However, there are downsides, as every Millet is expected to show deference towards the Mamluks and Slave-Bureaucrats; equality with the Elves loses its sweetness when both are inferior to the Mamluk Caste which no member of a Millet can join. Not merely that, but the Commoner Regiments are tasked with providing their own arms, armor, and training, meaning that they are kept inferior to the professional Mamluks...for now.

At present, however, the Commoner Regiments' quality is increasing thanks to Giray's growing wealth, not enough to turn them into an existential threat, but enough so that rumbles of overthrowing the Mamluks are already brewing, among the Orcs and Half-Orcs first, of course. No matter how well they are treated compared to other nations, no matter how other Orcs and Half-Orcs are treated badly in lands outside Giray, being second-class citizens who are denied their own warrior heritage chafes.
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