Destroyed Lunar colony in southern Zola Fel valley circa 1625?

[Nick Brooke]

5 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Then again, the entire area gets washed away with the Flood eventually, so this might be too optimistic.

Prove to me that they can’t get renegade Lunar sorcerers to modify Glowline tech and create a force-field dome over the Port o’Corflu, helping it survive the Flood. I’ll wait.

[Nick Brooke]

The wonderful opportunity presented by the modern Grantlands, Corflu, etc. is that it looks like we’ll have a pretty free hand to develop them. Jeff and Argrath don’t much mind what we get up to, as long as the main outlines of their precious Hero Wars unfold on schedule, and they all drop off the pages of history in 1625 or thereabouts. So set your Seven Samurai in the Grantlands, run Corflu as Casablanca, and even build a longer-term future for deviant Lunar faiths in a greatly expanded Red Navy Corflu: these are all fertile ground for fan exploration.

Just state your assumptions / points of variation, and work to maximise fun opportunities for gaming (i.e. don’t just say “there was a genocide, those people are all dead, don’t even bother going there”). I have a fairly minimalist take on Corflu 1627 in my next scenario, mostly Scary Wolf Pirates, but it’d be easy to merge that with any or all of the above. Life finds a way.

[Qizilbashwoman]

It also shouldn't be missed that New Pavis isn't lost until 1624; until then, we have unbroken Lunar holdings from Pavis to Corflu, which is certainly sufficient. The river is certainly big enough, since a Giant's Cradle is born in 1621

[Minlister]

Corflu is an Imperial outpost cut from the Empire's core.

Corflu is a city built in a lagoon for protection against marauding enemies

In short, Corflu is... Early Medieval Venice (or at least the first settlement which came to be known as Venice later on) 

Quickstart imagination about its potential development and campaign opportunities, isn't it? 

And as far as the timber problem is concerned, could not we imagine big coracle like ships with enchanted leather hulls on a timber frame? I can even hear the snarling Wolf-pirates calling these ships, cattle-ships or Corflu sheeps.

It would entail to develop a partnership with the nomads to get the hides, like Venice developed trade with Slavs to fetch timber.

Trade, war, negociations and sea-going endeavours on magic coracles.

 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Minlister

[Sir_Godspeed]

When does the reforestation of Prax occur, if there is any specific time given?

[Ian Absentia]

1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

When does the reforestation of Prax occur, if there is any specific time given?

Planning on placing an advance order for timber with the elves?  I understand they're very accommodating in that regard.

!i!

[Minlister]

Yes, Aldryami slavers selling walking timber to the shipyards!! Solve the transportation problem!

[Ian Absentia]

As I've alluded to previously, I've been noodling with mashing up Corflu and Sanctuary for some time.  This conversation inspired me to take my colored pencils out and liven up one of my working drafts from a while back.  Behold my highly non-canonical campaign map of Corflu c.1624.

The premise is that there are several rocky outcroppings near the edge of open water (outlined in heavy black), the most prominent of which became home to Old Corflu (as seen in the original RQ2 Pavis and HQG's Pavis:GtA).  Mostly through a series of ambitious dredge-and-fill operations (which are surprisingly low-tech), the Lunars filled shallows, drained higher and more solid ground via a network of ditches and canals, linking several other rocky outcrops.  With development comes commerce, with commerce comes the River Folk and even other Praxians looking for stability and prosperity.  Note: No dedicated "shipyards" as such, though there's room for it.

Some of you will (hopefully!) recognise familiar outlines, many of which will only be specifically relevant to the lucky few who own a copy of the Thieves' World boxed set.*

!i!

[Edit: *Or, duh-doi, a copy of any of the Thieves' World anthologies!]

Edited August 13, 2020 by Ian Absentia

[Minlister]

That's very beautiful, even if a little big grandiose, for a decade-long development.

I would go for a more modest identification with Comacchio for example, but it could also be a  secondary settlement, an outpost of your very Imperial Corflu!

Edited August 13, 2020 by Minlister

[Ian Absentia]

59 minutes ago, Minlister said:

That's very beautiful, even if a little big grandiose, for a decade-long development.

Thanks!  And I'm willing to go to bat over the time frame.  For an organically occurring community, yes, it's unlikely over roughly 10 years.  But for construction of a dedicated military/industrial outpost, not without precedent (though my New Corflu is an amalgamation of several precedents).  Venice definitely took it's time getting to (and surpassing) this level of development -- and New Corflu has none of the elan of Venice.  Think of early San Francisco tacked onto a military base.

Your panoramic view of Comacchio is very much how I envision New Corflu. 

!i!

[Edit: Really, I blame Gunda and the Wolf Pirates for turning up in 1613 -- they pretty much place a cap on the timeline.  Had I my druthers, I'd have started the boom-bust development at least a decade earlier, but then there would've been no reason for Gunda to turn her nose in scorn without sacking the place.]

Edited August 13, 2020 by Ian Absentia

[ffilz]

58 minutes ago, Ian Absentia said:

As I've alluded to previously, I've been noodling with mashing up Corflu and Sanctuary for some time.  This conversation inspired me to take my colored pencils out and liven up one of my working drafts from a while back.  Behold my highly non-canonical campaign map of Corflu c.1624.

...

The premise is that there are several rocky outcroppings near the edge of open water (outlined in heavy black), the most prominent of which became home to Old Corflu (as seen in the original RQ2 Pavis and HQG's Pavis:GtA).  Mostly through a series of ambitious dredge-and-fill operations (which are surprisingly low-tech), the Lunars filled shallows, drained higher and more solid ground via a network of ditches and canals, linking several other rocky outcrops.  With development comes commerce, with commerce comes the River Folk and even other Praxians looking for stability and prosperity.  Note: No dedicated "shipyards" as such, though there's room for it.

Some of you will (hopefully!) recognise familiar outlines, many of which will only be specifically relevant to the lucky few who own a copy of the Thieves' World boxed set.

!i!

Nice, the only hitch is that Sanctuary was play tested as Refuge...

But that is an interesting way to get the Thieves World boxed set into Glorantha in a way that might be a bit easier to get PCs into...

Says one aforementioned lucky Thieves World boxed set owner...

Frank

[Ian Absentia]

Just now, ffilz said:

Nice, the only hitch is that Sanctuary was play tested as Refuge...

And for that, you get a star!  ⭐

I mentioned up-thread that Refuge has been adopted into canon as a different city unto its own, free from copyright entanglements (as has Carse/Karse).  There've been a couple of threads over the years about the how and why, but the names live on while the identities adapt.  So, Sanctuary needs a home somewhere.

6 minutes ago, ffilz said:

But that is an interesting way to get the Thieves World boxed set into Glorantha in a way that might be a bit easier to get PCs into...

Definitely my thought.  Truth be told, Pavis and Sanctuary are a little redundant, and putting them both on either end of the same river moreso, but I'm feeling more of a role for Thieves' World on the ass-end of the Zola Fel in 1625.

!i!

[jajagappa]

23 minutes ago, ffilz said:

the only hitch is that Sanctuary was play tested as Refuge...

Was, but that IP has passed on.  Refuge is its own place now, and will need a new design.

24 minutes ago, ffilz said:

one aforementioned lucky Thieves World boxed set owner...

Says another. 🙂

[Sir_Godspeed]

Aw, dang. Can't see the pics. 😕

EDIT: Now I can!

Edited August 13, 2020 by Sir_Godspeed

[Minlister]

Sorry, it is not exactly the right thread, but there are other drawings from the same archaeological team that are very good support for playing in the Big Rubble, so I put them here in case it could be of use for someone. I may have more but I need to search for them.

[Ian Absentia]

17 minutes ago, Minlister said:

Sorry, it is not exactly the right thread, but there are other drawings from the same archaeological team that are very good support for playing in the Big Rubble, so I put them here in case it could be of use for someone.

This is good stuff, even right here.  In Argrath's wake following 1624, with the official Lunar military presence expelled, there's going to be a certain amount of depopulation and someone's going to have to do something with that Lunar compound.

By the way, the second image down, with the farmers moving into the grand architecture -- reminds me of what the citadels in Balazar must look like.

!i!

[Minlister]

It is the forum of Nerva, if I remember correctly

Another one

[Leingod]

3 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

Think of early San Francisco tacked onto a military base.

So kind of like post-colonial San Diego minus the shipbuilding capacity (hides and tallow would be good choices for exports from Prax, come to think of it), particularly San Diego after New Town was built but before the railway.

[Oracle]

@Minlister Can you reveal the source of the pictures?

[seasparrow]

1 minute ago, Oracle said:

@Minlister Can you reveal the source of the pictures?

I was about to ask the same question. Those pictures are good enough, and evocative enough for my proposed Glorantha campaign, that I would buy a book that contained them, not only as play aids, but also to support the authors.

[Ian Absentia]

12 minutes ago, Leingod said:

...particularly San Diego after New Town was built but before the railway.

My next research project.  Can you tell I was born in the Bay Area?  Southern California, you say?

!i!

[Leingod]

52 minutes ago, Ian Absentia said:

My next research project.  Can you tell I was born in the Bay Area?  Southern California, you say?

!i!

Basically, sort of like like Corflu, San Diego was built in an area that was primed to become a major port of trade but was overlooked and under-utilized, with no one who was both willing and able to actually put the necessary resources and work into developing it (or else having very bad ideas about how to develop it that didn't pan out) until real estate developer Alonzo Horton saw it in 1867 and declared he'd never seen a site more perfectly suited to a city. He built New Town, which is now Downtown San Diego (Old Town, as the original settlement is now known, was built around a Spanish fort built atop a hill, and was miles away from navigable water). That, plus a lot of promotion and glad-handing, saw a huge boom in the city's population and prosperity such that by 1878 it was believed it could potentially grow to rival San Francisco in commerce, and as a result Charles Crocker, manager of Central Pacific Railroad, consciously chose not to extend the railroad to San Diego in fear that it would take too much trade away from San Francisco (San Diego got its railroad in 1885).

Anyway, perhaps if 1613 is the turning point for Corflu, you could say that funds raised from selling off the Grantlands from 1615 to 1621 were at least partly used towards renovating and developing Corflu (in much the way Mexican San Diego funded its first fledgling boom by breaking up the lands of the Spanish mission and selling it off to establish ranchos, who also provided the town with its only major exports at the time, hides and tallow). You might even have at least one of the domains get into ranching cattle and/or herd beasts, which IMO makes the resemblance between the Lunar government's policies in Prax and their ultimate goals (i.e. disenfranchising the Praxians and destroying their traditional way of life) and what the American government pursued even more obvious. But that's maybe getting away from the stuff you're talking about and more getting into how *I* see the Lunars in Prax.

Edited August 13, 2020 by Leingod

[Minlister]

@Oracle and @seasparrow

they are pictures of the Roman forum and Largo Argentina area in the Early Middle ages. IIRC, I first saw them in the Crypta Balbi Museum in Rome.

The artist's name should be Alessandro Rabatti, studio INKLING, they work mainly for Italian museums.

The simplest way to find them is online. Just put "fori romani nell'altomediovo", "Comacchio altomedievale",  "Alessandro Rabatti INKLING" and they will pop up.

As he mainly works with archaeologists, quite oftent you can find the same place in the Roman Empire heyday and its early medieval counterpart. I

t can be very useful to play some kind of Heroquest in Pavis; the PC starting in the medieval version of the place and suddenly appearing in the Roma era equivalent as they enter Pavis' own time. 

For instance, same place, different times

 

@Ian Absentia if you are interested in SouthernCalifornia history, do you know Kenneth Starr's books? The one of the development of Los Angeles is very good as far as I remember.

[Sir_Godspeed]

15 hours ago, Leingod said:

You might even have at least one of the domains get into ranching cattle and/or herd beasts, which IMO makes the resemblance between the Lunar government's policies in Prax and their ultimate goals (i.e. disenfranchising the Praxians and destroying their traditional way of life) and what the American government pursued even more obvious. But that's maybe getting away from the stuff you're talking about and more getting into how *I* see the Lunars in Prax.

I wasn't aware that the Lunars had much interest in the Praxians beyond simply negating them as a thread. The sojourn into Prax always seemed like a plan-B to get to Kethaela to me. But there are hundreds of pages published on this that I haven't read, so I'm really just wondering out loud.

[scott-martin]

18 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I wasn't aware that the Lunars had much interest in the Praxians beyond simply negating them as a thread. The sojourn into Prax always seemed like a plan-B to get to Kethaela to me. But there are hundreds of pages published on this that I haven't read, so I'm really just wondering out loud.

Love it. While we've mostly encountered pragmatic lunar perspectives on the Wastes, the early and uh seminal Red Moon in Prax hints at a more visionary and even apocalyptic response to the region's unique challenges and strategic resources. This probably becomes a more dominant chord with the pragmatists eaten or otherwise out of power. There's some spooky Old Moon stuff out there calling to people.