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Backford Aeolian Campaign


Erol of Backford

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2 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

What is this? A living entity or a spirit like a gnome bound to a very large boulder?

It's the mount itself which moved to the site (and has not moved since). My interpretation of it is somewhat suggestive of one of the ancient giants where the mount has two extended flanks (which one might interpret as arms/legs as when someone sits down) and the city is built into the space between (and rising up the mount such that the central road leads to the lower temples of the Lower Emanations, then the upper temples to the Greater Emanations, and finally the temple to the Invisible God.

2 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Have any of these tidal waves been used in recent Glorantha history?

Not since the destruction at the end of the 2nd Age (or not known to have).

2 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Curious how many of the 50 original dragon ships are left. It seems there are wrecks at Nochet and Sog IIRC but where are other ships and or additional wrecks?

There's no wreck at Nochet - and even the ancient docks were pulled up and refashioned into the Embankment of the Sarli district.

There's definitely a dock at Sog City. 

When I briefly ran a Maslo/sailors campaign, I put a wrecked dragonship along the outer Maslo coast.

All the dragon ships were swept from the seas by the Closing. So they are all currently gone. The speculation is that some of them have been sailing the seas of Hell (or perhaps Sramak's River) and are now poised to return.

 

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8 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

What is this? A living entity or a spirit like a gnome bound to a very large boulder?

Yes? We know that this Mount changed its position within History and served as replacement site for the former Esvulari capital.

  

8 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Have any of these tidal waves been used in recent Glorantha history?

Terthinus, Voice of the Deep, used tidal waves to cow (and destroy) cities on the Umathelan coast.

In the Waertagi assault on the Quinpolic League, I suggest that lesser tidal waves would have been used to bring the vessels with the Waertagi marines ashore, but that's in 1623 or 1624.

 

8 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

How much does the tide raise the water level in the Bay and how quickly does it transition. Are there set times during the day the tide comes in and out?

Tidal is quite misleading in the name. Note that the tidal cycles in Glorantha are measured in days rather than hours.

Basically, it is an animate body of sea water moving under the control of Sea sorcerers. No idea whether it breaks upon contact with the shore line or whether it forms a standing wave similar to those that bracketed the lands of the Vingkotlings in the Flood Age (which had quite a bit of water breaking on shores during their establishment, but then gave over their active energies to Worcha the Raging Wave).

  

8 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Curious how many of the 50 original dragon ships are left. It seems there are wrecks at Nochet and Sog IIRC but where are other ships and or additional wrecks?

The only wrecked dragonship in canonical Glorantha seems to be the one on the Edrenlin archipelago, which seems to have been consumed by the survivors for material. The Aftal story suggests that the Sea Dragons serve as material for just about everything used by the Waertagi.

Speaking of the Aftal story, that starts on an "artificial floating island" formed by lashing a bunch of dragon city ships together so that they don't register as seagoing traffic and therefore sidestep the Curse of the Closing. The trapped inhabitants were able to paddle out for fishing as long as they stayed within sight of the structure.

 

8 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Sorry for the tardy response questions to your post but am now looking to post a pirate enclave on either one of the islands you detailed or along the swampy coast where from smuggling is taking place. If you have any suggestions or placed something like that a name or a few characters would help out?

As of 1600, I don't think that piracy plays much of a role, yet, whether against ships or against coastal populations. But wherever profits are taxed, people will seek ways to avoid taxation, which means smuggling will have been a thing during the time of Belintar's reign even before the Wolf Pirates established themselves on Threestep.

IMG, there is a newtling colony on the western shore of the Marzeel estuary, hidden away in a swampland, and after the Starbrow Rebellion a community of durulz refugees has established small facilities usable as port for smaller vessels near their hidden village that serves as an exchange for smugglers. There is some likelihood that a place there or nearby may have been used by smugglers earlier on, possibly using the ruins of Lylket.

I would say go for Lylket, have an Argan Argar merchant run the land-based part of the operation.

Or maybe the Al-Hazred clan - in my interpretation of the City of Carse an Etyries family from Kostaddi using Sable antelopes as their beasts of burden rather than the camels shown in the illustration in the Chaosium edition. (I don't recall whether the original edition by Midkemia Press has such an illustration, still in the process of recovering my older data on a new computer. While the new CIty of Karse as depicted in Jeff's offerings doesn't follow the layout of Caernarfon any more, quite a few of the character concepts and topology of their locations can be carried over to the new layout as long as you don't use them with serial numbers still on on the Jonstown Compendium. Waste not, want not.)

  

 

 

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2 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

We know there is at least Baskelos but are there some of his cousins in the mountains... a couple dozen or maybe none?

Baskelos is rather unusual though as a son of Storm Bull - giant-sized but not a true giant. Generally, I'd say none as I think the Storm gods and the giants typically fight, and the Storm gods clearly won these mountains as their own, even twisting the head off the most prominent.

However, the mountains seem to have some connection to old Earth giants. You might find that certain hills are actually dormant/sleeping giants (e.g. Mount Passant). I'd guess less than 5 that you might still be able to rouse.

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8 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Baskelos is rather unusual though as a son of Storm Bull - giant-sized but not a true giant.

Definitely not an Elder Giant (kin of Gonn Orta and the other Cradle-builders).

Many of the mountain giants (including twisted-neck Stormwalk) were children of Veskarthen, just like Quivin further north. We know about lesser giants (the 12m kind) in the Quivin region, e.g. at Red Cow. We don't know anything about their ancestry - they could be diminished offspring of Elder Giants, they could be a different race like Boshbisil is (whose kin seems to live south of Aggar), they could be lesser offspring of Veskarthan's mountain children.

Larnste had a foot in pushing up the Storm Mountain range, too, not just Veskarthen's spawn.

8 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Generally, I'd say none as I think the Storm gods and the giants typically fight, and the Storm gods clearly won these mountains as their own, even twisting the head off the most prominent.

The Storm gods rarely were able to agree upon who was their tolerable neighbor and who was their foe. Storm Bull would not have cared much whether some mountains were indirect kin to Orlanth via Quivin (or more direct via Larnste), while Orlanth and his get might have left those in peace but not exactly collect weregeld for them getting slain.

Other than pushing back against the Flood from here, the Storm Mountains also are where the offspring of Orlanth and of Storm Bull staked their territorial claims.

8 hours ago, jajagappa said:

However, the mountains seem to have some connection to old Earth giants. You might find that certain hills are actually dormant/sleeping giants (e.g. Mount Passant). I'd guess less than 5 that you might still be able to rouse.

Any mountain that can be assigned an active form will register as a giant.

In case of Mt. Passant, it might just as well be giant husbandry if those giant descendants of Veskarthen had any. We know about aurochs- and cattle-herding giants in the Quivins, e.g. Thorgeir and the Red Cow village. Baskelos herding sky bulls might not count.

As an aside, when and how is the gender of a mountain decided? The small female giant at Gonn Orta's Fort had female ancestors in the Elder Giants of that region.

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10 hours ago, Joerg said:

We know about lesser giants (the 12m kind) in the Quivin region, e.g. at Red Cow.

For my next campaign Mr. Willandring might be more sized closer to a "very large" great troll. The PC's will befriend him and make him their Trollball goalie! YGWV. 

19 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I'd guess less than 5 that you might still be able to rouse.

I'll run with that.

10 hours ago, Joerg said:

Any mountain that can be assigned an active form will register as a giant.

As there are dream dragons I am thinking to add dream giants. YGWV but I'll need to think on this a good bit.If giants are as large as mountains and they are still "alive" they would also dream, possibly not as strongly or magically as true dragons but maybe in a spirit form or something... it's a good scenario lead regardless.

10 hours ago, Joerg said:

Thorgeir

I'll look them up.

Thanks again to you both.

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