True Amarr demographics and background

Not super new to Eve but new to Amarr and their lore.

I rolled this character and read through the archetype/heritage descriptions before picking Liberal Holder, but to clarify the terms and concepts, I started clicking through random links on the fiction portal. They are said to be exemplified by the current Empress and the Royal House Tash-Murkon, so I thought that would be a good affiliation to make. Also since the Empress is Udorian, I thought this would be an interesting choice, making my character True Amarr and yet not. Further I read about Udorians and found about St. Tal-Romon and the cathedral, and thought it would be cool to play a descendent of this person. I changed my character name as a result, but there are so many prenoms that I think I have possibly messed that up (related to place maybe?). I read that holders must have a holding somewhere and thought that Eclipticum would be a fitting place given the history, but that is part of House Kor-Azor. Given the relocation of the cathedral I thought maybe this might be a source of conflict or perhaps there is a troubled family history, but maybe picking a location in Tash-Murkon space is more appropriate.

So there are a bunch of questions which I don’t really expect answered, and I will probably think of more… but, if I’m mistaken it would be good to know early so I can start over without wasting too much time.

  • Do Udorians have to be part of Tash-Murkon if they are holders?
  • Can Udorians other than Tash-Murkon even be holders?
  • Could they have a holding on a planet in the space of another House?
  • Speaking of holders, are they allowed to be pilots and keep titles?
  • Do the saints have descendents or are they chaste?
  • What are the meaning of prenoms Tal, Cas, Ves, Kor, Dam, etc?

No. They exist throughout the Empire. According to Demographics of the Amarr Empire, “Estimates range as widely as between 25% to 75% of the True Amarr population as having at least one Udorian ancestor, though no officially sanctioned study has been done to prove any numbers.”

The main difference with House Tash-Murkon is that they largely admit to having Udorian ancestry, and that there is enough evidence of this for it to serve as an effective political attack against them by more conservative houses. Chances are, though, they’re not even the only heir house with Udorian heritage, but no one wants to be admitting to it.

As Hagrid would say, “Pff. Pure blood. There isn’t a [True Amarr] alive today that’s not half blood or less.”

Yes. There isn’t even actually a separate Udorian ethnicity anymore. Udorians are essentially True Amarr whose ancestry has a little bit of Udorian somewhere up the line. So, of the very many True Amarr noble households throughout the Empire, chances are more than a handful of them have Udorian ancestry (and so could be called ‘Udorian’).

Now, of course, no one wants to admit to this, so virtually every True Amarr household will claim it is pure and has no Udorian heritage.

Yes.

I personally recommend people play non-titled nobility and leave the Holder position to a background character (as, in the vein of RL history, it makes more sense for the children who aren’t inheriting to be the ones who go off to war and the priesthood and adventuring and so on). But there’s nothing stopping a Holder from becoming a pilot and keeping their titles. Hell, Jamyl’s generation of heirs were all capsuleers.

The main issue is Sacred Flesh (Amarr royalty are not permitted to clone), but that policy applies only to the royalty, not every noble house. While some nobles might choose to voluntarily follow that principle anyway even though they aren’t royalty, that sentiment is likely to be pretty uncommon in liberal territories (Tash-Murkon, Kor-Azor, etc).

In short: Yes, they’re allowed. There are many players who play Holder characters.

There is no evidence of saints not being allowed to procreate in existing Amarr lore.

Unknown for most.

Dam, however, can be inferred.


Let me know if you have other questions. In the meanwhile, if you’re interested in more Amarr lore I’d recommend going through the following resources if you haven’t:

The Scriptures
Holders
Slavery in the Amarr Empire
Government of the Amarr Empire
History of the Amarr Empire
Demographics of the Amarr Empire
Economy of the Amarr Empire
Politics of the Amarr Empire

Other Amarr lore articles can be found with this compilation. Additionally, I would recommend checking out this post for general lore regarding becoming a capsuleer.

I hope that helps!

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Ah, so there isn’t such a distinction in modern times. It’s just accepted that many people have a bit of Udorian ancestry, some more than others.

Here is an opportunity to make her small holding different, maybe. A district of a city on Eclipticum, who resisted the relocation of St. Tal-Romon’s Cathedral along with Tash-Murkon, thus complicating their relationship with the larger Royal Houses and local citizenry.

I think your suggestion makes more sense: this character will be a child of the title Holder and sibling to the actual heir.

I suppose this saint may have also had siblings of their own, so direct descent is not even necessary. I wonder if there is a certain clamoring among these smaller houses to distinguish themselves through their pious relations.

Thank you for all this information, it is super helpful. :pray:

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Definitely so. Not just with relations to saints but relations with any highly regarded figure or superior house. Marriage alliances and in-depth family trees and the like.

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