Eric Hughes wrote:
<snip>He blames "The Man" for his troubles. Altherian society and by extension Altheres are "The Man." So he worships Anshar's aspects of the far traveler and down trodden.
Beyond that, it is hard to come up with a detailed motivation without knowing what "The Man" is like to those that are not scholars or skilled artisans. Thus prompting my original question.
As Eric G. pointed out, the vast majority are still likely rural farmers. Doing a quick searches references the term "the man" dating back to 1918, possibly earlier (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man), but I expect the concept as it came about had more to do with the industrial revolution.
Resentment of authority figures has certainly been around for millenia, though more focused early on pharohs, kings and nobles, slave masters and the like.
One possible interesting twist if you like would be to have the character having been a former slave in the Coryani Empire, bought by an Altherian and set free to grow up with all the freedoms of Altheria. He could resent the open society that fails to be structured enough for people to know their place. A character with a low logic could have real difficulty trying to figure out what his lot in life is supposed to be and maybe considers the freedoms of Altheria to be a burden. He doesn't want to go back to being a slave, but he wants to find his place.
The Altherians in their efforts to be helpful and encourage his freedom cause the very troubles they were trying to prevent and as such he fails as a farmer, resents his "countrymen" and they in turn consider him an ungrateful outsider. Maybe he tried to be a member of the Shining Patrol, but he got kicked out.
So, he's making his way, wandering the world, looking for where he fits in. He got signed on by a caravan as a guard or some such leading to his first mod. Where he goes from there is anyone's guess.
Just a thought.
With a sweep of his hat,
Paul