Cosmopolitan-Homelander

In response to the question, "How can a helot be cosmopolitan?" the author responded:

If “cosmopolitan” means a sophisticated connoisseur of many cultures, then your character is at best a budding cosmopolitan, whether you’re noble or helot. Even as a noble, you’ve never left your backwater home. Foreigners almost never travel to/through the Rim, and there’s no opportunity to learn any languages but Shayardene and common and high Karagond. So the noble advantage in books and leisure time won’t mean as much as it would under other circumstances. But as either helot or noble, you’ve heard enough tales from traveling jonglers to know whether foreign ways fascinate you, repel you, or leave you neutral.

At this stage “cosmopolitan” is an orientation. As you’ll be well aware, the word literally means “citizen of the world” (and came out of the Greek cultural matrix that is my model for Karagon).

So does your character identify as first and foremost a native of Shayard – perhaps even the western, more “Anglo-Saxon” bit of Shayard at that, as opposed to the more “French” south and coast? (A distinction that should become clearer as the story develops). Or do you feel an instinctive affinity with people not from your nation, and believe that your community consists of anyone who shares the values of your rebellion?

The actions you take on this will affect how people respond to you, particularly Shayardene “nationalists” (I’m aware that’s a bit of an anachronism). If you take your nationalism in a bigoted direction (which will be a choice, not a default!) that will strengthen some Shayardenes’ loyalty while repelling a wide swathe of outsiders.

I’ve picked this as one of the key orientation stats for two linked reasons. National identity is one of the obvious things for a rebellion to coalesce around, and was in our world even before the early modern era. Cosmopolitanism, on the other hand, is a virtue for philosophers and non-isolationist empires – like the Hellenistic empire in our world, or the Persian administrative class that persisted through centuries of Turkic empires across Asia. If you want to try to keep some kind of Empire going on the ruins of the Thaumatarchy, you’ll want to have a good cadre of cosmopolitans around you.

"Cosmopolitans" in this context aren't coffeeshop-haunting intellectuals, but the Koine-speaking, Karagon-assimilated administrative class across the continent, mainly comprising low-level priests and nobility. They like cosmopolitan values and would dread the Hegemony’s disintegration into nation-blocs which lose their common language and high culture. Having them on board with your rebellion will be very helpful in keeping the Hegemony together more or less within its current borders.