Hii, I have a two questions so about the Rak'Shir if you don't mind <3
1. What's a primary/non-primary combatant?
2. You said a Highlord can stop a duel if it goes for too long. How exactly do they do that? Does the Highlord just choose who won and kill the other one? Makes the fighters continue another day? Makes the fighters shake hands and play nice from now on?
I am always available for Rak'Shir (discussion only not the challenge)
1. What's a primary/non-primary combatant?
Primary combatants refers to two people: the lower-ranked Challenger and the higher-ranked Challenged. Their names go on the official form of the match, and are the two fighting to push each other into a Pit. Rak'Shir is always issued/initiated by the Challenger and not the Challenged. Both fight to obviously not die and eliminate a rival, but also:
Rise and usurp the position of their superior (Challenger)
Maintain their position on the Chain of Ascension (Challenged)
Typically the most common Rak'Shirs are initiated between Ascendants (basically if we go similar to Kyrian hierarchy to explain this simply, we got wingless Aspirants = Supplicants, Acolytes = Voltaries, the Ascended = Ascendants, Hands = top 5 Ascendants, Paragon (we have only 1 here) = Highlord, Archon = Amon).
Primaries in Rak'Shir typically 1v1, they attack each other using any method, magic and weapons included. However they can only attack each other and no one else. This is often the 'main event' of a Rak'Shir. However, there are often two battles happening simultaneously.
Non-primary combatants (I'll abbreviate as NPCs) -also known as supplicants/supplicant armies- are the people who support the two Primaries. Lore-wise 'Supplicant' is also a rank in Tal'darim hierarchy, so I refer to the supporting groups as NPCs/Supplicant Armies.
NPCs support their Primary by providing them with their psionic power, to push the other Primary into a Pit. Basically they can be seen as cheerleaders, and because the two NPC groups have different opinions they try to kill the other cheer squad. There is no limitation on who can be an NPC; the Highlord can join, Amon's Hybrids can join, outside parties/factions can also join.
This makes it so it's literally a battle of "hey who has the loudest and most murderous cheer squad". And dw, nothing happens to the defeated's NPCs, though the politics are now filled with tension.
The best case scenario for an Ascendant is that their supplicant army > their opponent's, however the power level of each Ascendant has to be taken into account as well (insert complex theorycrafting of "am I stronger than XXX to solo them"), I kinda wanna analyse the Nuroka vs Ma'lash math a little.....
2. You said a Highlord can stop a duel if it goes for too long. How exactly do they do that? Does the Highlord just choose who won and kill the other one? Makes the fighters continue another day? Makes the fighters shake hands and play nice from now on?
Ma'lash: Oh I wish they'd make peace but no, everybody believes in our 'great and glorious' god and wants to kill each other and me.
So this is purely headcanon, I set this up for purely logical sense as otherwise it would be incredibly stupid imo if a duel got carried on for too long. Like I know the Canon law is that we can't stop until a Primary is dead, and most Highlords go sure!! Time to chill and grab my popcorn :)))
Ma'lash in a very bad mood: Amon fucking Truthbringer everybody piss off and go back to work
I write the rule was set by Amon but no Highlord actually acted on it as it was more of an entertainment for them + a break from their work. Ma'lash just sees it as a waste of time bc he wants to work and not be reminded of how this is all a sacrifice to Amon, so he pulls this rule out a lot. Most people forget as well that the "Highlord must spectate all matches" is custom, not law.
Ma'lash also just does not want a lot of the population just watching the Rak'Shir, because then they are not working or focusing on their duties. Rak'Shir can be seen as a holiday for the Tal'darim which is why Ma'lash hates it. He knows he doesn't have to attend but he 'has to', in order to keep up the illusion he's still faithful to Amon.
What happens is that the duel is just rescheduled to a free timeslot. The dead NPCs are recorded and the Primaries are allowed to get medical care. All NPCs that participated are recorded and they may not switch sides to support the other Primary. Basically a game-pause and resume on a future day as Ma'lash forces everyone to go back to work please.
Canonically we only have one example of a duel considered long, and that's Nuroka vs Ma'lash in Ascension; the match started at dawn and ended at sunset.
I headcanon Rak'Shirs are similar to professional tennis matches (routine one-sided two-set victory = 1.5-2.5 hrs, fast matches are ~1hr, longer ones we can reference mens' Grand Slam 2.5-5hrs for BO5). In Ascension we have an estimate of ~30 minutes when Nuroka pushes Ma'lash step by step from roughly the middle of the arena to the edge of one Pit. Because Alarak was supporting Nuroka as an NPC, it's inferred that Ma'lash would have gotten pushed the whole way and didn't stop.
Genuinely I had to do a bit of maths and pull up mapping software to draw circles. Based on human walking distance, I initially thought this meant going straight from the middle of the arena to a Pit is 2km in human length. Adding the other half, in total 4km in straight distance from one Pit to another, so an hour's walk, and time could be shortened if we sprint. However taking into account actual warships that would be used, I'd say 10km is the distance from one Pit to another MINIMUM.
So 2 hours of walking from one side to another if people are fast, maybe longer- I'll put 1 hour minimum for people.
Hence if we go overtime like Nuroka vs Ma'lash, literally it wastes everyone's time. And yes while spectators can leave at anytime, most of them won't because if there's a high ranking match e.g. Second vs Third or somewhere in the top 20 etc, they all want to watch and nobody works this whole day (I've talked about idol culture before in the Tal'darim, they idolise the top Ascendants).
Therefore for example, if Ma'lash was spectating a match between Ascendant #4132 and #4131 that took over 6 hours, he'd want to go down there and finish the match himself.
