Generally just cool atmospheric music possibly reminiscent of antiquity...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts3YWVFUnvU

Not sure if this thread already exists, I've glanced around but didn't find one, but I have seen scattershot posts on the subject.

Basically this is just for what analogues or cognates do you find between Bakker's Earwa, Herbert's DUNE, Tolkien's Middle-Earth, and real world History? 

I will list some.

Bakker and Tolkien

Nonmen of Viri - Sindarin Elves
Nonmen of Siol - Noldorin Elves
{I know the Nonmen are not as defined / divergent as Noldor and Sindar, just illustrating the relative supremacy of one to the other, the Siol Cunuroi seem to be the Highest among the Nonmen}.
Nonman Tutelage - First and Second Ages where Edain and Eldar had friendship in the Northwest
Inniur-Shigogli - The Plateau of Gorgoroth
Golgotterath - Barad-Dur
Dunyain - Dunedain (of the Lost Realm of Arnor)
Oirinas and Oirunas (Twin Sons of Siol) - Amrod and Amras (Twin Sons of Feanor)
Kuniuri - Either Numenor or Arnor

Half-Elven
Dior (Beren and Luthien)
Earendil (Tuor and Idril)
Elwing (Dior and Nimloth)
Elrond and Elros (Earendil and Elwing)

Cunuroi-Halaroi Hybrids
Cimoira - Mentioned in Isuphiryas.  Daughter of Sirwitta the Emwama and the wife of an Ishroi.  Accepted as Cunuroi.
Anasurimbor Sanna-Jephera "Twoheart" (Anasurimbor Omindalea and Nonman Siqu, Jiricet).  Sanna-Neorje (Father) adopts Sanna-Jephera as heir to the Anasurimbor Dynasty of Umerau.  Possibly point at which Nonman ancestry enters Anasurimbor line.
Anasurimbor Nanor-Ukkerja I, High King of Kuniuri, lived to be 178, the reputed result of Nonman blood.  Anasurimbors Moenghus and Kellhus are descendants.

Sranc and Bashrag - Orcs and Trolls
The No-God - Melkor
Mekeretrig - Sauron

Cu'Jara Cinmoi's Pursuit of Nin'Janjin's offer of Immortality - Ar-Pharazon the Golden's Pursuit Immortality via Sauron's urge to go against the Ban of the Valar.
Both rulers brought about the ruin of their Kingdoms/Peoples in pursuit of Immortality.

Bakker and Herbert
Haven't read every DUNE book so a lot less familiar on this front...

Dunyain - Bene Gesserit
Consult - Honored Matres
Anasurimbor Kellhus - Paul Atreides
Aspect-Emperor Kellhus - God Emperor Leto
The Straight Path / The Thousandfold Thought - The Golden Path
Skin-Spies - Face Dancers

Bakker and Real World
Ajencis - Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?  Unsure...
Stajanas II (Ruminations) - Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
Emwama - Ancient Earwan Men, possibly similar to Erectus or Neanderthals 

Five Tribes of Men
Norsirai - Germanic, Norse, Finnish, Celtic
Zeum - Nilotic or African
Ketyai - Mediterranean, Indo-Iranian, Mesopotamian, Semitic, Afro-Asiatic
Xiuhianni - Mongolian, Sino-Tibetan
Scylvendi - Scythians, Sarmatians, Cimmerians
Should be noted that heritability of genes and traits seems to work differently in the Bakkerverse as opposed to the real world, though.

Inri Sejenus, Inrithism - Jesus Christ, Catholicism
Fan'oukarji I, Fanimry - Mohammed, Islam
Kiunnat Traditionalists of Nilnamesh - Hinduism and related Dharmic practices

Kyraneas, Ceneian Empire, Nansurium - Mycenean Greek / Etruscan, Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire
Kidruhil - Cataphracts or Klibinarii
Shiradi Empire, Cengemis, Conriya, High Ainon - Unsure on these...  Conriyan Knights seem reminiscent of Cataphracts or 12-Cent. Frankish Knights. 
The Ancient North: Umeri Empire, Kuniuri, Meori Empire, Aorsi - Essentially the Ancient Near Middle East, transplanted to the North.  Sumerian, Assyrian, Akkadians, Kassite Babylonians, Elamites, Hittites, and Mitanni with Norse or Germanic elements.
The Middle North: Galeoth, Thunyerus, Ce'Tydonn - Goths, Thurungians, Norse and Saxons.
Nron - Cyprus
Nilnamesh - India
Girgash - Persians, Medes, Aryans
Kian - The Arabic Caliphate
Nenciphon - Baghdad
Eumarna, Enathpanea, Xerash, Gedea - The Levant, Syria, Judea
Shimeh - Jerusalem
Shigek / Chemerat - Ancient Egypt, Ancient Mesopotamia
Zeum - Mali, Ghana, Songhay, Nubia??  A relatively isolated and remote people.

Excluding the Sorcerous Schools, the technology and aesthetic of Earwa in the 4th Millennium seems very similar to 11th, 12th, and 13th century Eurasia...
Lots of hauberks, mail, and I'm assuming some gambesons (padded jackets), scale armor, klivanions (or lamellar armor) is what is being worn by the majority of the Ketyai and Norsirai in these stories. 
As opposed to heavy Romantic and Gothic tourney plate amor of 15h and 16th century Europe and Game of Thrones...

The Nonmen - Ancient Greeks and Romans at the peak of their classicism and beauty, with copious doses of LSD, DMT, opium and cocaine. 

Please offer suggestions or criticisms.  I am sure I am missing or misinterpreting a lot here.

Really love the spirit of Mimara's sword... 
I would love to read a Grimdark Redwall... Squirrels versus the NoSquirrels and the like... haha. 
Also, that is a really cool concept of the Carapace, Som.
Here is a quick sketch of Cu'Jara Cinmoi I did today.
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2015/026/e/8/cu_jara_cinmoi_by_countconkula-d8fjd2o.png

Yep.  And I do as well I am glad to see the series finally gaining more artistic traction. 
Maybe an HBO series or feature length film isn't too far off {perhaps a decade or so}, I think there being art around would facilitate the desire for a producer to pick it up as a project...
http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2015/016/c/d/drusas_achamian_by_countconkula-d8e5fq0.png
Here is another one I recently did of Drusas Achamian {during the events of White-Luck Warrior}.

The name I just made up, although I realize now it is close to "Insha'Allah", meaning God Willing in Arabic.
Final element "bel" could be taken as "Abel", which descends from Hebraic "hevel" or "havel" signifying "breath."
So perhaps God's Willing Breath, although I hadn't considered any of that when I came up with it.

But since we eventually came into occlusion with Genesis-type fantasy-myth, it again occurred to me how common the theme of Nonmen generally are, if you think about it, across widely divergent civilizations.

In the Popol Vuh of the K'iche people of Central America, it is said that the Gods first attempted to create subjects, which included animals, men made of mud, and men made of wood, but these prior creations they eventually scrapped or abandoned due to their lack of intellect, speech, or soul... to pave the way for Men.

Similarly {yet dichotomously} in Greek Mythology there are the ages of the Gold Men, the Silver Men, and the Bronze Men which predate the age of the Iron Men {our epoch}, with each move away from Gold signifying a sort of devolution or generational removal from divinity for mankind.

Perhaps Nonmen are similar in this respect, beings Created, and then rejected by the Gods, in order to "pave the way" for Mankind?  {Somewhat similar to Noldorin Elves in Tolkienian mythos}.
Or perhaps Nonmen themselves are simply the "Silver Men" to an even more Ancient Race of "Gold Men", who would be as far from Nonmen as Men are to them...
The Nonmen originally stumble onto the scene of an even more archaic and profound species of "Men" {who are mighty and yet somehow at odds with the gods or vagaries of circumstance}, yet eventually genocide them in their waning years, and in the process of doing this they become the Nonmen...
Awaiting the inevitable influx of the "lesser" Men, or Bronze Men {the Five Tribes of Eanna} who could be considered to be well on their way to becoming the arcane and archaic race for a still younger influx of "Iron Men" {who are, during the time of the Kellian Empire and the Great Ordeal, a species of Men in their savage infancy in the unknown regions of Eanna}.

[EDIT Madness: Title]

posted this here due to tangentiality of it

Assuming that the reality we live in is "random" is a large assumption based on no evidence whatsoever.

If you're looking to debate scientific semantics, check out the Science subforums, theres a lot of good stuff there (and potentially a few other persons who might engage you there). Though, it might be good form to cite some evidence yourself if you're calling out someone else for not doing so .

!!!ATTENTION ALL MODS!!!  I realized how unnecessarily long and dumb this post was and how it probably leads this thread down a whatchamacallit.  Tangent. 
Also I realize I come off as a douchebag here, I don't actually take what I am saying too seriously or think I am actually right.  I am just really tired, it is really late, and somehow I found a keyboard in front of me, which are all circumstances which set my asperger's on fire.
PLEASE delete from this thread and move somewhere else if necessary.

But, for the sake of hubris and vanity I'm going to argue that you actually can prove that assuming the reality we live in is "random" is an assumption based on no evidence...  and that you can actually prove this without citing any evidence.

in an evolutionary setting, everything hinges on coincidences

But what is Coincidence?
Random versus Non-Random {or Neither}.  Coincidence versus Intentional {or Neither}.
It is difficult to discern.
Although perhaps Science or Reality somehow does not care whether or not we consider it Random or not, Intentional or not.
These are subjective ideas, and aren't based on any kind of mathematical rule or logical razor.
{How would one measure Random or Coincidence versus Intent, and if one could Find something Random or Intentional, how could they be certain that they were not overlooking a prior condition that rendered this finding incorrect?}
Coincidence v Intent are just personal assessments of a situation, given a fairly minimal amount of information. 
To say that Reality is Random is an assessment based on no evidence, although to say that Reality is Not Random is similarly a large assumption. 
You can point this out without having any evidence of your own.
Why?
Because every individual has their own approximation of what constitutes "coincidence" or "randomness".  And if anyone claimed to have evidence, that evidence would only be arbitrarily utilized to reinforce their claim of randomness.  The evidence itself is merely "evidence".
It doesn't argue for or against randomness or the nature of reality without a human lens. 
So we don't really need evidence to point out that someone else's position lacks evidence if that position is just an assumption based on feeling.

Fast forward to the set of circumstances that created our planet.

But in order to "fast forward" you must admit that these circumstances were framed by a set of circumstances that preceded it.
Ex. The circumstances that created our planet were framed by the circumstances that created our sun, and etc., ab initio {or at least until you reach a set of circumstances in which all subsequent sets are embedded, which is close enough to initio for most}. 

If it is only after that we understand what has come before, then we understand nothing.  Thus we shall define the soul as follows: that which precedes everything.

Is this world coincidental or intentional? 
Can any human make a concrete claim in one direction or the other?
Or is all appraisal of such values ultimately a subjective sliding scale of human emotional gradient?

Every intervening moment in spacetime that creates the environment we inhabit today was preceded by one that set the stage for its development, until there was at some point a set of circumstances that framed all following circumstances.
The firmament that sets the stage for the stage for the stage for the stage for the stage.

Otherwise the "Set of Circumstances" which illustrate coincidence is just arbitrarily partitioned off from surrounding Circumstances for the sake of being able to call events Random or Not-Random. 

This is like you looking at yourself as a baby and saying, "Fast forward to set of circumstances that created this baby.  Just the right number of this, and the right number of that to allow this baby's existence.  It is a random phenomenon, a complete and utter coincidence that this baby exists."  You do not, however, look at what set of circumstances immediately preceded the baby, i.e., its period of fetal incubation, its zygote-form, it's embryo.
You just arbitrarily looked at a small slice of spacetime and assumed that the conditions that generated a phenomena were random, which was just your personal assessment, when really the decision to label something as random or non-random isn't based on evidence because what is Real is Real... regardless of whether it was Coincidental or not.

Right distance from sun, right number of comets depositing water on the surface after it cooled, Jupiter to shield us from most asteroids.

Again, with everything being JUST the right amount of this or that, {generated by a preceding series of circumstances of incredibly precise material minutiae} it could be just as easy to say that it could not have possibly been a coincidence that things turned out the way they did.
What is so coincidental about a system of objects, compounds, molecules moving through space and time to generate structures like the Solar System we inhabit? 
The fact that conditions were so perfect still sounds almost Biblical in nature, even if you don't necessarily have an anthropocentric Creator Deity. 

Then life,  primordial soup with enough organic material to spontaneously form amino acids, single cells forming, single-cells evolving into everything.

Again, there's not really any clear indication that this combination of hydrogen/carbon/nitrogen/oxygen {prime elements of amino acids} is either terribly coincidental or terribly intentional. 
Neither is there any indication that there being "enough" of these materials is even the most remarkable or coincidental feature of the formation of amino acids {and life}.
The amount of objects, materials and mass in our universe doesn't seem either scarce or superfluous, it just is.

The presence of organic compounds was framed by a long chain of events that preceded them and set the stage for their development.
The mass and characteristics of the atoms hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen were framed before their development by the mass and characteristics of protons, neutrons, and electrons.  {And on down to quarks, bosons and leptons, etc...}

The characteristics of tiny protons results in their development of hydrogen, which generates mass, causing more hydrogen to condense,, which in turn generates massive structures like the Sun {nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium, based solely on the weight and nuclear force of particles that are smaller than individual ATCG codons in our DNA}.
Does not seem very coincidental.  Although does it necessarily need to be coincidental or intentional?  Random or non-random?
 
In fact its kind of remarkable {IMO} that organisms are "programmed" into existence via a process of acute molecular representation and material re-appropriation that somewhat resembles binary {on/off 100011010100 versus gene on/gene off ACCTGACCTG}.
http://www.genome.gov/glossary/index.cfm?id=78 - link for whomever interested.

The Universe is Irregular, or "Misshapen" {i.e. mass distributed unevenly, non-uniformly} in such a particular way that everything that currently exists exists.
All of the great gulfs between stars and galaxies, massive interstitial darknesses of vacuum and void, are positioned perfectly for our existence.
And for this conversation.
Whether it was intentional or random is a whole different question entirely... albeit not one that ever really changes the reality of what we inhabit.

I'm sure that if you look at it all as a whole, its a giant chaotic system, which to me is the scientific equivalent of coincidence.

A giant chaotic system that generates smaller systems with the molecular precision to appreciate the giant chaotic system in such a fashion... 
doesn't seem very chaotic...  Although this is just my opinion.
Although I don't think chaotic or chaos is a good way to describe the system...
IMO like the entire concept of a System is antithetical to the adverb Chaotic. 
If this were all just giant chaos why would a system be developed out of it in the first place? 
How could chaos generate a System to begin with instead of just remaining continually chaotic?

And as for all of this science-like stuff, I make a point of it mainly because I think... maybe... just maybe there might be something in it that is actually related to all of this epic fantasy... 
I remember in an interview Bakker saying he likes to subvert genre conventions while simultaneously appealing to those audiences...
he said that instead of thrillers he writes anti-thrillers, instead of fantasy: anti-fantasy.
Considering that the author has said something like this we may have to be a little bit more skeptical in our approach to his books as fantasies that are entirely removed from our own reality.  We may have to attempt to look at them as something that is somehow not actually a fantasy... aggh I am getting ahead of myself here though.

Assuming reality is random?  I say y'don't have the evidence for it! 
My evidence?  I don't need any, naturally. 
YOU exist and your assumption exists. 
Are YOU random?  Are YOU non-random?
OR are YOU just YOU?
BOOM!  oh yeah.  wham.  just blew your mind.
haha okay ridiculous I know whatever I am going to sleep now.

A quote from the books, while Kellhus is making his way from Ishual to Sobel {my emphasis}.

     On the afternoon of the seventeenth day, a twig lodged itself between his sandal and foot.  He held it against storm-piled clouds and studied it, became lost in its shape, in the path it travelled through the open air - the thin, muscular branchings that seized so much emptiness from the sky.  Had it simply fallen into this shape, or had it been cast, a mould drained of its wax?

I think this has purposefully hidden from us. Too many answers, I think, if a dunyain such as Kellhus looked into the faces/souls of Nonmen and told us what he say. The idea of the Darkness that Comes Before affecting all things is very central, and the nonman preceded the men of Eanna more completely than anything else.

The Nonmen preceding the Eannean Men does not necessarily mean that they themselves would not be just as susceptible to the Principles of Causality and the vagaries of history and evolution, though {even though they claim they can decide to leave at any time}.  Anyone as adept as Kellhus at peering into the Darkness would likely be able to peer into the Darkness that precedes the Nonmen, it would just be a slightly more strenuous effort perhaps {lacking a Nonman equivalent to the Unmasking Room in the Ishual and other things}.  But this doesn't mean such Sight would be impossible.
The "What Came Before" segments in the books always mention Nonmen having reached a pinnacle of civilization while men roamed the wilds wielding stone tools and dressing in furs.  But any cultural zenith implies a gradual / historical development from preceding eras.  The institutions / relationships of Kings and Ishroi and Quya mages must have their roots somewhere before the apogee of Nonman Civilization, just as much as the caste-system and jnan must have roots before the height of Three Seas Civilization...
Even though the Nonmen could have witnessed the evolution of Men from Beasts throughout the ages, this doesn't mean that they are any less subject to the Principle of Before and After... i.e., the "modern Nonmen" of the Cuno-Inchoroi Wars must have been built upon preceding generations of Nonmen back into the depths of history...
It does not make sense for Nonmen to simply incarnate, or appear, at the summit of their civilizational development.  Unless they did not, in fact, ever evolve and are artificial in some sense.
In short: Nonmen and Nonmen Society must be derived from something that Came Before, due to the Causality Principle.  If not, this has wide reaching implications for the Causality Principle and Earwa as a whole.  Although it seems that the Nonmen are as oblivious to their ultimate origin as humans are to theirs.

Not sure I understand where these questions are coming from. How would you answer these?
I'd say it wouldn't be too terribly unlikely that two unrelated species evolved similarly. Fish and dolphins, for example. Personally, I hope there is some kind of not too distant link between them (go back far enough and everything has a common ancestor. I'd prefer a somewhat more recent ancestor )

The questions, they come from the darkness... 
But yeah, there may be indications in the text that we've overlooked that Nonmen could be evolved from a more bestial ancestor...  This ancestor could be a close relative to the ancestor of Men or something else entirely {in which case their superficial similarities to Men would be incidental, as opposed to ancestral}. 
Think of it this way... could be a species of proto-ape from which Nonmen and Men both branched off and evolved from.  Or Men could be derived from an ape-ancestral with Nonmen somehow being evolved from a hairless, subterranean creature.  I know that's probably a stretch but it does throw the difference between the species in a new light.
But if neither is the case, then it would seem to indicate that the Nonmen had somehow been engineered or designed instead of evolved...
Which would, of course, really change the scope of the setting and the relationships between the races / gods.

I prefer my aliens to be alien.  I'd be extremely surprised if the humaniod form was dominant on other planets, in the Earwaverse or IRL.

The Humanoid form appears to have cropped up at least twice in two separate examples on Earwa, Men and Nonmen...

"Seem to". I think this notion comes from the fact that our view of Nonmen comes from the men who came in after they where already defeated. I think the young nonmen of eons past worshiped Gods i a manner similar to men.

Good point.

Its mentioned in the books that Nonmen cannot see paintings, which is why they only do carvings. Take from that what you will.

I feel like their colors are largely muted or near-grayscale, with perhaps some exceptions with bronze or copper {the Copper Tree of Siol, etc.}.  Color has significant implications for language and communication though, at least for Men.  So for Nonmen their muted world's characteristics would have to be read in entirely alien ways.... i.e.. a mineral would not reveal itself to be copper or bronze just by noting its color, they would have to deduce its mineral properties in some other fashion.

I'd have to look up this part and read it again to answer this. Or you could provide a quote and/or reference so I can be as lazy as possible

Upraised palms braced his every step.  Blank eyes studied his every angle.  The Nonmen who had authored this place possessed more than a fascination with the living form; it had been their obsession.  Everywhere, they had cut their image into the dead stone about them, transforming the suffocating weights that hemmed them in into extensions of themselves.  And Kellhus realized: the mansion itself had been their devotional work--their Temple.  Unlike Men, these Nonmen had not rationed their worship.  They did not distinguish between prayer and speech, idol and statue ...
Which spoke to their terror.
{TTT, p. 316-317, RSB}

Bakker's emphasis in italics, mine in bold.
The Nonmen do not sequester religion / worship into a certain societal niche, all of their activities are religious / worshipful in nature.  They are obsessed with the living form, beyond mere fascination, and this indicates their terror....  But terror of what?  Terror of being flesh and blood?  Or terror of the living form's connection with the Outside, and the potential of Damnation?