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Notes on Boldhome


jajagappa

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Jeff shared some insights on Boldhome on FB - cross-posting for those not on it.  The map is wonderful!

Boldhome is the largest settlement in Sartar, comparable in size to all of the other cities of Sartar put together. It is the religious, political, commercial, and cultural center of the kingdom - the center of the Orlanth Rex cult, and so much more.

It is also physically BIG. Check out how big it is by seeing how much space it occupies in the Quivin Mountains. And imagine it surrounded by high snow-capped peaks.

But there is also so much right around Boldhome. The strange dragonewt city of High Wyrm. The terror birds of Bird Site. The gorge of Enothea's Cut. The mountain refuge of the Broadview Inn. Not to mention the amazing stone road that cuts right through the Quivin Mountains, with the stone Geo's Ridge Inn as a refuge and hospice.

One might even think that it would make a perfect home base for a Sartar campaign!

May be an image of map and text that says 'HILLS LEBERRY CHERRY RIDGE ELKENVALE LBREA MOUNTAINS SHOULDE 2130 AREVA PEAK FOUR WINDS. KORG RADUS PEAK THORGEIR' COW NINE MOSS QUIVIN PEAK BOLDHOME KILLARD SACRED TOP TERNVEKA MT. QUIVIN MOUNTAINS AREA AROUND BOLDHOME Miles LOOKOUT'

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More of Jeff's notes (and the map is by Chaosium's Matt Ryan):

Now what should be obvious is that most Sartarites have at least some familiarity with Boldhome. They've been there for religious ceremonies, or for trade, or on tribal business. And it is amazing. And even the rural tribes folk can't help but be influenced by it.

It is about a day's journey from Boldhome to Jonstown, or from Boldhome to Swenstown. Wilmskirk is a bit farther - it takes about two days to go from Boldhome to there. But if you lived in any of those cities, regularly traveling to Boldhome would not be out of the question, and of course if you are on tribal or clan business, you can always guest at your tribal manor.
Clearwine is about four days away, which is a bit of a discouragement for ordinary travel.
 
Which really helps to illustrate the Colymar and Lismelder as the most backcountry of the Old Sartarite tribes. The Colymar might be numerous and powerful, but they are also hillbillies.
 
Bird Site: this is a Demi-bird breeding and nesting place. The Demi-birds are terror birds and the mounts of the dragonewts. I imagine there are hundreds, perhaps even more than a thousand demibirds there. No doubt the dragonewts provide them well fed with meat, but still I imagine bands of Demi-birds range around the Quivin Mountains hunting for meat.
 
Ice Wall is also pretty cool - it is a small hanging glacier along the side of the narrow valley!
 
 
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And some notes by Jeff on the Pockets of Boldhome:

Of all the unique architectural elements of Boldhome, the Pockets are to me the most fascinating. Dwarf-made and carved deep into the mountain cliffs, they are an impossible combination of the facades of Petra and Markarth (in Skyrim, which I suspect were inspired by Boldhome). They are accessed by stone roads that wind up the cliffs. Temples to Orlanth and to the tribes of Sartar mark the way.

(A good source of visual inspiration for the Pockets are the tombs and treasuries of Petra... Another good source of inspiration are the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde.)

May be an image of map

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42 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

What' the story with Broadview Inn? It seems a bit distant from the road, and a steep climb up from it. Is it due to religious or defensive reasons, maybe?

Given the name, it suggests a good view of the pass to the south for defensive purposes.  Perhaps it make a good retreat for merchants with their goods if they can't reach Boldhome before sunset?

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On 6/12/2021 at 10:36 PM, jajagappa said:

Bird Site: this is a Demi-bird breeding and nesting place. The Demi-birds are terror birds and the mounts of the dragonewts. I imagine there are hundreds, perhaps even more than a thousand demibirds there. No doubt the dragonewts provide them well fed with meat, but still I imagine bands of Demi-birds range around the Quivin Mountains hunting for meat.

It would be enormously hard for high pastures to support that number of large predators, and the dragonewts would not be able to provide enough meat for them, unless demi-birds have surprisingly low appetites. In service of keeping the demi-birds there, and so nobody has to re-do the gorgeous map, I propose that the dragonewts first introduced a species of mountain hare to the area, which breeds prolifically, hibernates in Dark Season, and can survive on a diet of grass and flowers, and the occasional tuber, and only introduced the demi-birds after the hares were in plague proportions.  This means that the dragonewts only need to hunt foxes and other predators, who might compete with the birds for hares. 

As a suggestion, there is also a trickster shrine there that provides a spell that provides the spell Become Hare, but turns you into a hare when you learn it, meaning that you now have to survive for 15min as the prey of Demi-birds in the area, because that is how Tricksters roll.

Edited by Darius West
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2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

And some notes by Jeff on the Pockets of Boldhome:

Of all the unique architectural elements of Boldhome, the Pockets are to me the most fascinating. Dwarf-made and carved deep into the mountain cliffs, they are an impossible combination of the facades of Petra and Markarth (in Skyrim, which I suspect were inspired by Boldhome). They are accessed by stone roads that wind up the cliffs. Temples to Orlanth and to the tribes of Sartar mark the way.

(A good source of visual inspiration for the Pockets are the tombs and treasuries of Petra... Another good source of inspiration are the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde.)

This is a great feature🙂

The idea of a Mostali settlement cut into the living rock adds living dimension to the city.  Is there much lore about Sartar the Founder dealing with the local dwarves?

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43 minutes ago, Darius West said:

As a suggestion, there is also a trickster shrine there that provides a spell that provides the spell Become Hare, but turns you into a hare when you learn it, meaning that you now have to survive for 15min as the prey of Demi-birds in the area, because that is how Tricksters roll.

Love it. Welcome to the bunnymen, Eoin. Hope you survive the experience.

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singer sing me a given

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35 minutes ago, Nevermet said:

Jeff is gonna bankrupt me with how gorgeous these books are

Easy solution: Write Jonstown Compendium supplements and use them to pay for other RQ supplements.

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Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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2 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Easy solution: Write Jonstown Compendium supplements and use them to pay for other RQ supplements.

Write Jonstown Compendium supplements people are willing to buy and use them to pay for other RQ Supplements.

Between actually finishing a thing and finishing a thing others want, I fear I am dead twice over. 😉 

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16 hours ago, Nevermet said:

Write Jonstown Compendium supplements people are willing to buy and use them to pay for other RQ Supplements.

I buy all the Jonstown Compendium supplements, so you are guaranteed at least one sale.

Seriously, you won't know what people are prepared to buy until you produce something.

16 hours ago, Nevermet said:

Between actually finishing a thing and finishing a thing others want, I fear I am dead twice over. 😉 

I would go with finishing a thing, although that is easier said than done. I have 3 supplements that I am working on and two more than I am sketching out, so I am the last person to comment on finishing things.

Don't bother too much thinking about what people will want to buy.

If you don't think it will sell many copies, be careful with how much you spend making it. Cut down on artwork costs, use stock art, think about whether you need an editor, think about whether you need a fancy front cover. That reduces the reliance on whether people will want to buy it.

What people want to buy:

  • Background
  • Scenarios
  • NPC Writeups

Maps have that special little place that people like maps but don't often buy them for some reason. I have bought all the Jonstown Compendium maps and have found them useful.

 

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Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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Demi-bird thought: the South American terror birds have living relatives in the serienmas, smaller territorial birds that associate with livestock and are believed to use livestock to disturb the insects that make up a substantial component of their diet. Augners are too big to do the same thing, but the thought of them following herds around looking to pick off sickly animals and also being an apex predator and feeding on other predators is a bit of an attractive one.

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Though a Lunar through and through, she is also a human being.

"I just read an article in The Economist by a guy who was riding around with the Sartar rebels, I mean Taliban," -Greg Stafford, January 7th, 2010

Eight Arms and the Mask

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7 hours ago, soltakss said:

I would go with finishing a thing, although that is easier said than done. I have 3 supplements that I am working on and two more than I am sketching out, so I am the last person to comment on finishing things.

Don't bother too much thinking about what people will want to buy.

If you don't think it will sell many copies, be careful with how much you spend making it. Cut down on artwork costs, use stock art, think about whether you need an editor, think about whether you need a fancy front cover. That reduces the reliance on whether people will want to buy it.

What people want to buy:

  • Background
  • Scenarios
  • NPC Writeups

Maps have that special little place that people like maps but don't often buy them for some reason. I have bought all the Jonstown Compendium maps and have found them useful.

Other than the ideas, the easiest thing is writing it up.  it's the other stuff like artwork and layout and everything that makes my brain bluescreen.

Also, when it comes to Glorantha, I think in terms of HQG rules which... lets just say I need to expand that lol

But this is probably not the right thread for me to ask more questions and have a panic attack

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So do the Quivini demibirds thrive on a diet of marmots?

Pecking large chunks of muscle meat or intestines out of megafauna running away from them doesn't seem that plausible. The eligible megafauna includes dinosaurs, and that doesn't seem to be quite right. Juvenile dinos might be fair prey, though.

Calves and sheep are about the right size as prey, too, as are human children.

Would these birds be hunting as a pack?

 

The habitat of demibirds appears to be wherever Genertelan dragonewts are (not sure about Kralorela or Teleos). As such, the specimen at Bird Site might be a semi-domesticated or feral population, similar to the mustang herds of the North American West. They don't show any signs of being sufficiently good climbers to be able to catch ibexes or chamois, although I could see them successfully hunting impala or gazellets in their natural habitat.

The South American terror birds did not have that much choice from native megafauna (bison-sized upwards) to prey on prior to the Mesoamerican land bridge, or did they? 

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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Latest notes by Jeff on FB regarding Boldhome:

As Matt Ryan and I continue to work on the Boldhome foldout map for the Sartar boxed set, we've made a few tweaks based on Greg's notes. Greg really insisted that the East Pocket extended east beyond (and above) the city wall, with views of the Killard Vale, and he sketched that out a number of times.
I think we finally captured that - and the strangeness that are the Pockets, in this version of the map.
Both Matt and I are now really desperate to go to Boldhome. Claudia not so much as she fears the heights and cliffs would get to her!
...And so although I have already mentioned Petra and Mesa Verde as sources of inspiration, other good visual inspirations are Machu Picchu (for the heights) and some of the Etruscan cliffside tombs.
 
 
May be an image of map
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  • 2 years later...

Both Clearwine (in the GM Screen Pack) and Jonstown (in the Starter Set) have more or less defined quarters. Could you please help me make out any obvious quarters on the Boldhome maps?

There are two markets, and the Issaries temple and the Guild hall are close to the North Market.

There's Artisan Row.

Are there more nobles than peasants living in any part of Boldhome?

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