Some help with the arbalest lore please

What does it mean in this when the Drifter calls the person I assume is Shaxx a warlord, the same as Saladin and Felwinter? Is he meaning an Iron lord? Or what is a warlord? I did not play Destiny 1, so I don’t know much about the Iron lords, could someone who has or who knows more than me please explain this.

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no Felwinter used to be an warlord, apparently Shaxx and Saladbar too

Ah ok. Thank you for the help.

So Warlords were Risen before the term “Guardian” existed.
At this time there were a lot of tyrannical oppressive lightbearers.
Felwinter Saladin and Shaxx rejected this idea and were some of the first organized lightbearers that stood against the forces of darkness.

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Ah okay. Thank you for the clarification.

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To further clarify, “Risen” is the blanket term used for Lightbearers back in the Dark Age. If you had a Ghost and could use the Light, you were a Risen. “Warlord” was a term used for Risen who used their power to carve out small fiefdoms. They were like chiefs or petty kings. They took land, waged war, collected taxes, (like grain, since money didn’t exist) and were basically tyrannical oppressors of the people. The Iron Lords were an order of Risen who rose up against the Warlords to establish peace. Kinda like a knightly order.

The term “Guardian” appeared and became common sometime during the City Age. It is now the catch-all term for Lightbearers since almost every Lightbearer protects the City.

Funny how are freedom of choice was taken away by the vanguard. Now we are slaves to our ghosts instead of the way it once was.

could you expound upon that

We were warlords, now we do what we’ve been told to do.

Not all of the Risen were Warlords. We also volunteer to do what the Vanguard asks. The entirety of Forsaken was all about us not doing what Zavala wanted. Furthermore, I disagree that we are slaves to our ghosts. Regardless of my opinion that our relationship with our ghost is like two best friends or fungus and algae, there are many examples of Risen consistently not doing things their ghosts wanted them to. Just look at the Drifter.

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Our characters were never Warlords, the Warlords were some of the first to get the light and they chose to use it to establish diminion over others in what where basically fiefdoms from the Middle Ages. The powerful person, the Warlords, made everyone else do whatever they said and if you didn’t you were not going to be around for very much longer. The steps that were taken to become what we see in game took a long time and are probably for the better that they happened. Instead of going around killing people who slightly annoy us, we are protecting people. Just because they had power doesn’t mean they were right(look no farther then WWII Germany for that). As for the doing what we are told, like it’s meantioned above Forsaken was literally us ingnoring one of the Vanguard and avenging someone we lost. Quite frankly we choose to follow what the Vangaurd says because they make pretty good choices most of the time and we could just leave and start over but we aren’t because we are making a difference doing what we are now. Or at least thats what I see in all of this.

“Most of the time”
Yeah, fat lot of good the Great Disaster was XD

The Great Disaster probably goes some way to explain why Zavala is so against excursions that are not directly related to the defense of the city (eg. the mission to avenge Cayde-6).