[mainline] Changing the Dunefolk's(Khalifate's) race name

[Celtic_Minstrel]

I haven't played Northern Rebirth, so my info is patchy and perhaps this is easily disproven, but... I'd argue that whether someone is "wesnothian" is not solely determined by the crown. From what I understood, the human element of the Knalgan Alliance was composed mainly of outlaws from Wesnoth who turned against the crown – more like rebels than outlaws, in a way. However, unlike Konrad's rebellion, they weren't powerful enough to overturn the crown, so they just left instead. That doesn't mean that they don't still, to some degree, think of themselves as people of Wesnoth. Being forced into exile doesn't undermine your sense of nationality, unless you had no attachment to your homeland in the first place; that's unlikely to be the case here since these are mainly the commoners who actually live on the land.

In summary: I think there's good reason to consider the outlaws and loyalists to be of essentially the same nationality.

In the end though, it really boils down to how the outlaws think of themselves. Living outside the Kingdom of Wesnoth does not necessarily make them not Wesnothians. Refusing to follow the law of Wesnoth does not necessarily make them not Wesnothians. But... that doesn't mean they are Wesnothians, either.

As for your argument on the name "wesfolk", I suppose you kinda have a point in comparing it to my argument about "wesnothian". I think the case of "wesfolk" might be a bit different, but I can't think of the words to explain it at the moment. That said, "islefolk" remains entirely inappropriate. Sure, they did live on an island, but that was a) a long time ago, and b) for a fairly limited period of time. For them to be called islefolk during TRoW could make sense, but to continue calling that when they haven't lived on an island for probably centuries? That doesn't make any sense.

[name]

I haven't played Northern Rebirth, so my info is patchy and perhaps this is easily disproven, but... I'd argue that whether someone is "wesnothian" is not solely determined by the crown. From what I understood, the human element of the Knalgan Alliance was composed mainly of outlaws from Wesnoth who turned against the crown – more like rebels than outlaws, in a way.

No they were just traders and "barbarian men" living in and around the surface city of dwarven doors that was a hub of trade between the dwarves living beyond the doors underground and surrounding surface races. The city of dwarven doors was north of the great river and not part of the kingdom of wesnoth. It was conquered by orcs and had to liberate itself with the help of dwarven allies and no help from wesnoth.

There was never any rebellion or war between the north men and wesnoth as there was between elensfar and wesnoth. Only mutually indifference.

In the end though, it really boils down to how the outlaws think of themselves. Living outside the Kingdom of Wesnoth does not necessarily make them not Wesnothians. Refusing to follow the law of Wesnoth does not necessarily make them not Wesnothians. But... that doesn't mean they are Wesnothians, either.

The people of the villages dallben and delwyn might have seen themselves as wesnothians before they were destroyed.

It is doubtful the humans of dwarven doors who formed the knalgan alliance with the dwarves see themselves as such though.

As for your argument on the name "wesfolk", I suppose you kinda have a point in comparing it to my argument about "wesnothian". I think the case of "wesfolk" might be a bit different, but I can't think of the words to explain it at the moment.

Another issue with "wesnothian" is it does not compare well with "dunefolk". It is like saying: "These people are from the United Kingdom and those people are from a beach." One is a nation, the other is part of a biome. It is proper noun versus common noun.

Although "wesfolk" is not much better for a similar reason.

[Xalzar]

Islefolk and Wesfolk are out of the question, and I'll explain why.
As stated by the events in TRoW, Islefolk were those humans who first migrated from the Green Isle. Then arrived the Wesfolk and their Lich Lords after losing a was in the west.
So, even if they're both humans, they clearly have quite a different history until that point.
War broke between them, with the victorious Islefolk conquering almost all the island, and the losing Wesfolk and Lich Lord plotting from their marginal lands.
When the Islefolk decided to put a definitive end to the Wesfolk, the Lich Lords opened a gate to the orcish homeland. The Wesfolk people fled their lands ravaged by the Orcs and sought help from the Islefolk. Together they embarked to the Great Continent and at the end the two populations effectively merged and united in the newborn Kingdom of Wesnoth. The same first King and Queen were indeed from both the Islefolk and the Wesfolk respectively.

This digression is to contextualize; what I want to highlight is that both terms are unusuable since they're outdated: they refer to populations now merged in one.

I want to add another thing: "Humans" is the term all non-human races use to refer to the Islefolk-Wesfolk race and is exactly what those Humans call themselves.
Now, what if the Dunefolk Humans have another term which they use to call themselves? What if this term translates roughly to "Dunefolk" into the Wesnothian language and then was used by all other races to refer to them?
After all, different cultures in our world have diverse ways to refer to themselves, so it's possible that the Dunefolk simply call themselves with a fancy exotic word which means "People of the Desert Hills" or something...

[Celtic_Minstrel]

ColdSteel: Hmm, okay. That reasoning makes sense.

the Lich Lords opened a gate to the orcish homeland.

...wait what? The orcs arrived by teleporter?

I want to add another thing: "Humans" is the term all non-human races use to refer to the Islefolk-Wesfolk race and is exactly what those Humans call themselves.
Now, what if the Dunefolk Humans have another term which they use to call themselves? What if this term translates roughly to "Dunefolk" into the Wesnothian language and then was used by all other races to refer to them?
After all, different cultures in our world have diverse ways to refer to themselves, so it's possible that the Dunefolk simply call themselves with a fancy exotic word which means "People of the Desert Hills" or something...

This sounds almost like suggesting the Dunefolk aren't human, which I don't like. If the dunefolk call themselves with a word meaning something like "people of the dunes", then that's just their translation of the word "dunefolk".

[ForestDragon]

...wait what? The orcs arrived by teleporter?

yep,, that's actually canon, shockingly enough.

[Deciton_Reven]

Also race name should probably be looked at from a multiplayer, not campaign, perspective. Are the Wesnoth Loyalists and Knalgan Outlaws functionally the same "type" of human? Similar culture, diet, environmental factors, etc. And for the most part yes they are, other than what time of day they sleep, as so far I can tell. Mechanically they even share move types, smallfoot or elusivefoot, showing that they are used to the same type of area. Can you call them 'Wesnonian' when the other humans are 'Dunefolk', well yes, because different suffixs identifying different groups of men is really common, but should you, I don't know. It's not like there is a better canon name for the Humans of Wesnoth than Wesnoth Humans because it's literally what they are.

[name]

Also race name should probably be looked at from a multiplayer, not campaign, perspective.
...
It's not like there is a better canon name for the Humans of Wesnoth than Wesnoth Humans because it's literally what they are.

This is self-contradictory.

From a purely multiplayer perspective, loyalist humans are wesnoth, while the "barbarian" humans and dwarves are the knalgan allliance and the necromancers types are undead (likely literally undead in the end). Mages seem to have no particular allegiance or native land. Only loyalists are "literally" wesnoth humans.

[Kasdel]

Humans (Dunefolk) or Dunefolk Humans seems the best choice. Dunefolk ignores the fact that they are humans, Humans ignores the fact that they are Dunefolk (from a separate place and with a separate culture).

It also makes sense to have them just be "Humans". The closest example in mainline are the Quenoth and Desert Elves in UtBS, whose race is just "Elves". They have different movetypes, though ("desert-elf"/"quenoth-foot"/"quenoth-beast" instead of "woodland-elf").

[Deciton_Reven]

Also race name should probably be looked at from a multiplayer, not campaign, perspective.
...
It's not like there is a better canon name for the Humans of Wesnoth than Wesnoth Humans because it's literally what they are.

This is self-contradictory.

From a purely multiplayer perspective, loyalist humans are wesnoth, while the "barbarian" humans and dwarves are the knalgan allliance and the necromancers types are undead (likely literally undead in the end). Mages seem to have no particular allegiance or native land. Only loyalists are "literally" wesnoth humans.

Those 'Barbarians' are not feral humans that sprang from the mud, with some bloodlust instead of a sense of self or something. They came from somewhere, and historically 'Barbarians' where often quite civilized, just different, and that was just a word to make it okay to think of them as less than humans so you could slaughter them like they were animals and it was okay. For a race as old as Dwarves I'm not surprised they'd use that word to describe humans.

Until you provide a better term for what kind of humans the humans that are descended from Green Islanders and Wesfolk, the only term for that heritage, both cultural and physical, is Wesnoth/Wesnonian.

[Xalzar]

Humans (Dunefolk) or Dunefolk Humans seems the best choice. Dunefolk ignores the fact that they are humans, Humans ignores the fact that they are Dunefolk (from a separate place and with a separate culture).

It also makes sense to have them just be "Humans". The closest example in mainline are the Quenoth and Desert Elves in UtBS, whose race is just "Elves". They have different movetypes, though ("desert-elf"/"quenoth-foot"/"quenoth-beast" instead of "woodland-elf").

Yeah I was adding motivations to the "Dunefolk" option, since IMO it was the most elegant.
But I can wholly accept "Dunefolk Human" (without brackets). Indeed, I've just looked up what was the Khalifate race name: it was "Khalifate Human". Don't know how I've forgotten it was that way, and it surely didn't bother me so much if it didn't occur to me until this moment.

So yes, I'm sold on "Dunefolk Human".

"Human" cannot be: the units have a different namelist from other Human units, and they'll have a decription separated from them.
That is unless we name the race id "dunefolk_human" or something, and then keep the translatable names "Human", but I think it's a poor and possibly confusing solution. Uhmmm...

[Kasdel]

've just looked up what was the Khalifate race name: it was "Khalifate Human". Don't know how I've forgotten it was that way, and it surely didn't bother me so much if it didn't occur to me until this moment.

So yes, I'm sold on "Dunefolk Human".

"Human" cannot be: the units have a different namelist from other Human units, and they'll have a decription separated from them.
That is unless we name the race id "dunefolk_human" or something, and then keep the translatable names "Human", but I think it's a poor and possibly confusing solution. Uhmmm...

Hm, I see. It makes sense. A different description would definitely be needed. Unless the description for Humans could encompass the Dunefolk as well (adding the Dunefolk as another topic besides Subjects of the Crown and The Clansmen, wiki page for reference). But it could get a bit too crowded.

About the "Khalifate Humans", I didn't know that either! With all the talk about precedence in manline for the use of "Something (Human)", I guess the most obvious place to look slipped out of my mind. Still not sure if the solution is better with or without the brackets, but I think this is the way to go.

[name]

Until you provide a better term for what kind of humans the humans that are descended from Green Islanders and Wesfolk, the only term for that heritage, both cultural and physical, is Wesnoth/Wesnonian.

The term is and has always been "human" and that is the default term for them. The running poll is about deciding the dunefolk race name, not rename(s) of everyone else. So if you want to change the name of another race too then it is on you to provide a fitting term, which for all the myriad canon and logical reasons listed above is not "wesnothian".

(Plus there is no country called "wesnothia" so the name sounds rather forced.)

[Pentarctagon]

Speaking of which... the poll ended earlier today actually, so it looks like "Human (Dunefolk)" will be the new racename.

[Celtic_Minstrel]

...where the heck did "Wesnonian" come from? Surely you mean "Wesnothian"?

Speaking of which... the poll ended earlier today actually, so it looks like "Human (Dunefolk)" will be the new racename.

So that was the final vote? I mean, we're not doing one more between the two front-runners?

[Deciton_Reven]

You know what, couldn't tell you why I use Wesnonian, grammatically speaking. I guess because it has a nicer sound than Wesnothian to me? How I end up spelling it doesn't really invalidate it as being a better culture term for use of Human ([culture]), if that ended up changing to be consistent with Human (Dunefolk), than Human (Human) would be.

I wasn't really going to answer since that's not actually what the topic was about, so this is only because someone besides Cold Steel asked.