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Backford Aeolian Campaign


Erol of Backford

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My apologies I don't see why its actually named eponymously?

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Pegasus Plateau

I didn't see this discussed before... again just curious if there is a source were they there a long time ago and if so when did they leave and why? Who alive in Glorantha would know about this? Where could these be found in Glorantha if they exist still? Lets say if someone was a Hero Quest Super Bowl ring wearer and they exist? Could you use a mirror of time travel or some sort of recreate spell to see the past by a scholarly cult?

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The Hippogriffs are the Pegasus that the Plateau is named after, because Horse used to be King Hippogriff. 
The Book of Heortling Mythology p.100 says 

Quote

But Elmal, who had been with the Fire Tribe, recognized King Hippogriff with his wings torn off, his claws cut off and his fangs ripped from his mouth. Elmal approached the beast and whispered in his ear. “I will make the thanes consider you the noblest among beasts, ban those on the tula from eating your flesh or using you as a beast of burden, protect you and your kin against those who might seek to harm you, and feed you in the winter if you will bear me on your back when I ride on patrol around the tula, and pull my chariot to war.” The beast agreed to the bargain and Elmal healed him, built him a stable, and gave him his new name Horse. Ever after Elmal was known as Horsefriend.  

 

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I was actually reviewing the possible impact of a wind vortex on lamp posts today and came across "Aeolian Vibration". This made me laugh just a little. 

Do the Aeolians use any sort of hydro power for irrigation? What about grist mills and the like? These were not used for water but interesting nevertheless.

In the small village of Nashtifan, Iran, some of the oldest windmills in the world, with what may be the earliest windmill design in the world, still spin. From National Geographic: Made of natural clay, straw, and wood, the windmills have been milling grain for flour for an estimated 1,000 years.

(Why didn't they just call it Hippogriff Heights instead?)

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Given their name, the Esvulari seem to stem from the Vulari peninsula, an arm of rather low-lying land between two stretches of (apparently tidal) marshland.

Rather than irrigation (which is sort of redundant in places with regular rains), I would expect them to have waterworks that keep the water away from their f1ields and pasture, much like the Frisians did already in Roman times.

There is no separate survival site for the Esvulari in the maps in History of the Heortling People (which is the draft version) or the Guide (which is the technicolor version, although with a few weird artifacts). The assumption is that the Aeolians are a branch or splinter group of the Ingareens, choosing to trust in the Storm Gods of their Heortling neighbors when they spread onto the southern plateau of what is now Malkonwal, meeting and interacting with the theist Orlanthi who started to populate all the easily arable lands by the time of the Bright Empire.

Word of Jeff is that the Aeolians have three endogamous castes, much like the Jesidic Kurds, which may or may not have allowed for adoption of outsiders but leaves little potentia for caste mobility. Thus, in theory there still is an option for political marriages, provided that the marriage partner gets adopted into the talar caste.

There is the failure or dissolution of the Garanvuli tribe (apparently even before the Sunstop) and the formation of the Hendriki as a tribe rather than just a bandit group, but the Foreigner Laws of Aventus seem to apply to a patchwork of Heortlings, Pelaskites and Esvulari populating much of the Heortland plateau.

There is little in the way of localizing the inhabitants of the Heortland plateau before the travelogue in the Durengard scrolls which gives a Slontan perspective to both the actual travel experience and the history of Slontan invasions and occupation of the region. History of the Heortling Peoples provides a list of kings' names and some notable deeds, and notable opponents, but most of that in a theatre of the mind style rather than by maps.

The historical maps exist, in steps of half a century, but those don't show settlement patterns on the plateau or the coastal area. Jeff has shared a few on Facebook, now archived on the Well of Daliath.

We know that there are no rural Esvulari outside of southern Malkonwal, but that there are several cities with Aeolians outside of their territory. It isn't clear whether these were transplanted or possibly upscaled as servants and bureaucrats of Belintar, if not by Belintar then by the Esvulari governors installed by the Godking.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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9 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Do the Aeolians use any sort of hydro power for irrigation? What about grist mills and the like?

Likely not.  As the rivers cut significant gorges through the plateau, and the land is well above the riverways, you'd have a lot of pumping to do to get the water back up to the plateau.

Certain villages along the rivers might have some sort of water-powered mill though.  (But Heortland is much more pastureland than arable farmland, so it might not be significant.)

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7 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Likely not.  As the rivers cut significant gorges through the plateau, and the land is well above the riverways, you'd have a lot of pumping to do to get the water back up to the plateau.

My vision of Jansholm had boat mills under the lesser bridge arches - paddle wheels turned by the current, powering a quern possibly by lifting the grinding stone up a slope and letting it roll down again. A simple belt contraption could achieve that without much in the way of force translation.

These mills probably are operated by Esvulari or Ingareens.

 

7 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Certain villages along the rivers might have some sort of water-powered mill though. 

If your village happens to have a brook or creek with some height difference, a top-loading water wheel might be possible. Force translation remains the problem there.

 

7 hours ago, jajagappa said:

(But Heortland is much more pastureland than arable farmland, so it might not be significant.)

I doubt that. The population density in Malkonwal and parts of Volsaxiland is higher than average Sartar. Remember: Jeff's rediscovered maps show Tarsh and Sartar in one map each, and both Esrolia and Heortland fit into one of those maps, too, with about the same amount of area given over to other places in all of those maps.

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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I would expect, specially with all the wool Dragon Pass exports, that fulling mills would be important, and those are important for sedentarian pastoralists with plenty of water. I would expect horizontal wheel set ups as they are simpler and require less maintenance than vertical wheels. The use in forging is not critical in Glorantha as that was quite iron specific, but other ancient use for watermills was wooden and stone sawmills. Probably too complex for native hendrikei, but I envision Nochet commercial interests installing and maintaining such mills wherever they get their stone and construction wood from. To be transported through rivers or sea as much as possible. Another typical use of water mills in Spain was for water powered olive presses, though in that case you need gears, and band power transfer. 

In Sartar I would expect fulling mills to be under royal charter, as they are so critical for the local economy, and probably more frequent than grain mills.Technology would be more advanced that in Hendrikiland.

As a crossroads of cultures, the Holy Country should be also a meeting point of technologies, so a good place to go overboard with wondrous machines.

 

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If you have ore processing or "traditional" mining with shafts and tunnels, waterworks for crushing rocks, panning, and pumpiing have been the norm, apparently already in Imperial Roman times, although well documented by Georg Agricola.

A drop hammer for crushing ore-containing rock requires just a single block and might be operated by muscle power and gravity, no worse than Quasimodo operating the Notre Dame bells.

I need yet to be convinced that the alchemy of smelting is widespread in Glorantha. The Mostali have it, the Third Eye Blue have it, but it is possible that most metal using cultures make use of metallic rather than ore deposits that are panned, whether from fluvial erosion (like you pan for gold), or from crushing rock in a motherlode with nuggets of the known rune metals.

The Mostali of Gemborg and the Dwarf of Dwarf Run have been using human assistance for long, and those assistants may have leaked secrets to the cult of Gustbran beyond welding or melting down the nuggets and metal sands.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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When I think of all the river valleys cutting through the Heortling plateau, all the exposed rock stratification, if there are minerals worth mining they are surely more accessible than digging a shaft. Mills for grinding would be set where these stream and or falls run down from the plateau top. Additionally all the water falling on the upper levels of the plateau will run down into the river valleys, during storm season, must be like waterfalls over even result in flash floods and washouts potentially. I assume some smallish damns would have been set to store water for some use, animals and some irrigation. I always think of the Heortland civilization as being a bit more sophisticated than the average Gloranthian. MGWV for sure.

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Tunneling is riskier and takes up a lot more lumber to keep the tunnels from caving in. Even harvesting motherlodes on the surface of cliffs needs such bracing.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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9 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

When I think of all the river valleys cutting through the Heortling plateau, all the exposed rock stratification, if there are minerals worth mining they are surely more accessible than digging a shaft.

Aside from the Storm Mountains, though, the Heortland plateau is mostly sedimentary rock so you're not likely to find much in the way of ore.  You need to go up into the mountains for that to find deposits of copper or native bronze.  (There are some scattered tin deposits in the Auroch Hills.)  

There will be some washout of course.  These are the "Storm" Mountains, so heavier rain as the clouds rise up to fight, and the rivers continue to cut the deep gorges.  Expect there will be some debris washed out (but also just lots of sand and silt).  The valley flood plains will be fertile, but also regularly inundated (and likely the river gods do not like being dammed up).

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3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Aside from the Storm Mountains, though, the Heortland plateau is mostly sedimentary rock so you're not likely to find much in the way of ore. 

That's assuming a plutonic/Lodrilic origin of the metals. This is Glorantha, though, where the sediments were formed as a side effect of the Gods War, allowing gods' bones to be deposited with the sediments, or driven into them as part of the struggle. Ores form when corrosion takes its toll of the native metal. Most Gloranthan ore deposits resemble archaeological finds of metal artifacts, as that is what they are.

Lodril did carry that conflict into the deeper layers of upper Earth when Aether and Gata got things going and the divine phallus did his work.

 

3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

You need to go up into the mountains for that to find deposits of copper or native bronze.  (There are some scattered tin deposits in the Auroch Hills.)  

The mountains are indeed where you find deposits of copper or brass (Lodril's Burtae mountain god kids, with their often molten skeletons).

The Auroch Hills (and any Star Captain landing site) are places of meteoric deposits, of sky entities falling down. Tin is probable due to the Shargash connection, otherwise small finds of silver (for star entities) are a possibility.

(Did the Star Captains come down as individuals, or did they bring small squads of companions?)

 

3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

There will be some washout of course. 

The rivers will actively have dug into the earth to extract magic-rich remains of other deities, possibly ignoring much of the metal which usually is harder to float inside them, creating similar sediment traps in fast-flowing water like the black gold sands, or the tin ore wash-outs that must have helped start the Bronze Age while they lasted. (Typically less than a generation of intensive panning, I suppose.) That kind of activity leaves hardly any archaeological evidence, since holes in or near running water are likely to be claimed and carried away by said waters.

 

3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

These are the "Storm" Mountains, so heavier rain as the clouds rise up to fight, and the rivers continue to cut the deep gorges. 

That's only since Lorion/Engizi reversed the direction of the rivers. Which in itself is a problematic assumption, as the rivers used to be tendril-like organisms with internal counterflow to carry off energies and stuff they wanted to keep. Jelly-fish like serpents/dragons, so to say.

 

3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Expect there will be some debris washed out (but also just lots of sand and silt). 

Much of the plateau is karst, deposited by the seas before the earth broke the ocean surface, and more by initial floodings in the Storm Age that were beaten back by the Storm Tribe. That means that quite a bit of the erosion doesn't leave solid material but gets dissolved and carried off instead. Returned to the seas that originally deposited these, really.

 

3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

The valley flood plains will be fertile, but also regularly inundated (and likely the river gods do not like being dammed up).

There are beavers, there are tree trunks carried down causing the occasional blockage, and IMG the river gods don't mind leaving their passive river beds every now and then to reclaim a little more of their formerly bigger beds. In Gloratha as well in the real world, water will eventually find its way. Only Heler is exempt from that truism, as he has lost the ability to return.

 

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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I love the discussion!

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

In Glorantha as well in the real world, water will eventually find its way.

Regards to water one of my old professors always said W3 - Water Will Win

Where would you Gentlemen place the torn head of the god Storm Bull ripped off if it had to be on the west side of the Stormwalk Mountains somewhere in the Syphon Valley possibly halfway between Backford and Stonewood?

It makes sense to me for it to be there. Any reason not to have it landing in the valley near Backford?

Stormwalk Mountain: The largest peak of the Storm Mountains, Stormwalk is one of the Great Sacred Mountains of the Orlanthi. Urox the Storm Bull took a mountain god and twisted its head off, and the mountain is the body.

So the head goes flying and lands... (see the red arrow, I love red arrows in the clip below) who what where when why how...

I know I can turn this into a very interesting adventure. The head/skull of this god is made of a rare metal (maybe not just bronze) and is buried but small to large minable splinters of it were found... Say some dwarves began to excavate and or mine one or two of the large splinters but were driven off initially by krarshts and there were ensuing tunnel/mine battles. Some collapsed and now they are abandoned and possibly haunted by who knows what.

The attempts at mining not for "the head" but small parts of it, along the sides of the Syphon were initially made due to some metal being washed out and resulted in some minor finds but in all, not an overly profitable endeavor. A distant relative of one of the PC's dies and leaves the deed for this property on which said abandoned mine resides.

This mine and the old dwarven/krarsht tunnels that are under/near it are discovered and while the old mine is being investigated. A small collapse drops the PC's into one of these unknown dwarven/krarsht tunnels. The head/skull of the god is near this location but is yet to be found, the mother lode...

Who was the god killed by Stormbull? When did t happen? Were there any huge floods in the Syphon Valley since then and if so when and where?

What metals could the head/parts of the head be made of? Blood and brains, teeth, etc. could all be interesting items. Maybe the dead god had an adamantium tooth?

The head could be a kilometer or more across? Likely its all splintered below ground in several or many large pieces?

This whole mess is writing itself but I'd love for others' input/ideas. Thanks in advance all!

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23 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Where would you Gentlemen place the torn head of the god Storm Bull ripped off if it had to be on the west side of the Stormwalk Mountains

Might have become the ambling hill of Mt Passant.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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On 8/5/2022 at 6:56 PM, Erol of Backford said:

So the head goes flying and lands... (see the red arrow, I love red arrows in the clip below) who what where when why how...

I've placed the main piece of it on a turn along the Martof River within the Uncertain Woods and sitting above a falls of that river.  I felt that deep in the wilderness was more plausible for its landing point - otherwise it would likely have been turned into a quarry.  

However, I do have a site/village called Rockface not far from your arrow.  It's not a kilometer across - that would be a significant hill, but a modest boulder (i.e. not worth breaking apart/quarrying) with what appears to be a carved face and the villagers do claim it is from one of the mountain gods defeated by the storm gods (not Stormwalk though).

On 8/5/2022 at 6:56 PM, Erol of Backford said:

Who was the god killed by Stormbull? When did t happen? Were there any huge floods in the Syphon Valley since then and if so when and where?

The mountain god?  He was named Rock Lord.  It happened in the Godtime when Storm Bull twisted Stormwalk into its corkscrew shape.

Generally, I think of these as all igneous mountains and their heads as the same.  

If you find any metal in them, it should be primarily be copper as the rock lords are earth gods.

Remember though that all these sites have been in place since the Storm Age in the Godtime - so ~10k years.  And if anyone was likely to exploit it (e.g. God Learners, EWF, Belintar) they will likely have done so.

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If I were the equivalent to the Burchard of Worms in Heortland in 1600 who would I be, how old would I be, where would I live and in what library would I study in or would it be a temple and what similar style of earthlike architecture would it roughly emulate? How many researchers would be there and how large would the town/city be? Is it walled? How large would the stacks be/how many levels and how many volumes/scrolls/tablets/vellums/etc would be therein? Also if I were holding the Heortland equivalent of the Book of Worms what would I be made of, when was I written, what would be found on its pages, would there be a spirit bound to it? Where would it be found if not in the same place as the Burchard? Was it lost, hidden, stolen or possibly alive as a sorcerer's familiar?

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17 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

who would I be, how old would I be, where would I live and in what library would I study in or would it be a temple

The two great libraries of Heortland are Derensev north of Whitewall (known for its oratory and rhetoric - hence an outdoor amphitheater) and Jelenkev west of Mount Passant.  Both are typical LM temples.

For the Aeolians in Mount Passant, there is a temple of the Invisible God/Aeol that sits high up Mount Passant itself.  It's a great domed temple that reflects the dome of Heaven.  At least partially open to the winds.  Downslope from that is the Talar's Hall where the Talar dwells.  It likely contains a library specifically for the Talar.  Further downslope is the Zzaburi Hall where the wizard-priests prepare for temple services (they dwell in the Wizard's Quarter though) and that likely has a library for the wizard-priests to consult including the words of Aeol.

Not sure if that's what you are thinking of, but likely what's around.  YGMV.

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16 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

Possibly defensive 'limes' built by the Middle Sea Empire? Probably now slumped and eroded.

Defending in which direction, though? What makes that part of the plateau different from the rest? It has no cities, just villages too small to show up in the AAA, and it isn't the core region of the Esvulari either.

One might think of the peninsula as a fortified farmland, but in practice such border walls tend to be time-consuming obstacles rather than uncrossable borders as nobody has the manpower to keep them crewed along their full length.

The main threat from the sea during the Second Age would have been the Slontan Marines, but their main targets seem to have been the cities, like Durengard.

I happen to work near the Danewerk, a similar "defensive" wall across the dry part of the Cimbrian peninsula. It was constructed from layered sods of grass, fixing the soil in a way that keeps 60° slopes intact after 1200 years. While it would have had palisades on top in earlier times, the dyke-like obstacle still was part of military planning in the Danish-German conflicts of the 19th century, though not a match for the numbers and equipment fielded by the Austrian forces.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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4 hours ago, Joerg said:

Defending in which direction, though? What makes that part of the plateau different from the rest?

In the Second Age, the Middle Sea Empire burned off much of the forest and claimed the eastern portions of the peninsulas, more or less in line with the great military bridge at Durengard. It is my suspicion that the earthworks define the border between the territory claimed by the empire and the native zone.

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