Assorted notes on the City of Wonders and Holy Country

[jajagappa]

Found another post Jeff made on the Tournament with a couple maps:

During the Hero Wars, the Tournament for the Masters of Luck and Death was called "our school for exploratory heroquesting." Rumored participants include Sartar, Tarkalor, Dormal, and Broyan, but likely many others.

As I mentioned before, some think the pathways the contestants follow are somehow connected with the claims of the Arkat Cult concerning the Secret Pathways through the Hero Plane.

 

One of the account of the Tournament described it as a series of "races" across the lands of the Holy Country:

In the first race, the importance is not so much winning as it is to view the lands your cross. You may wish to do as the locals do, and run practice runs alone on the warm spring days, just for practice. Look around you, view the orchards, admire the crude roads for their dust. Barter a boat for a while, take a few minutes out to sightsee. Get to know the land, sea, and air.

Later races add the chance to gain tools and allies, and encounter gods and guardians.

 

When deities were encountered during the Tournament, it was possible to placate it (if you knew its name) or challenge it (to give it a name, to get a secret from it, to gain a power, etc.). But if challenged, the deity would always issue a counter-challenge against the quester.

 

 

[metcalph]

6 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I interpret this to mean that the God-king's body died ~1601 and the MoLaD Tournament occurred in 1602 since that's when Boldhome was taken.

Given Lunar assassins were active in the Holy Country at this time, I wonder if one had the bright idea to off the God-King. 

[jajagappa]

1 minute ago, metcalph said:

Given Lunar assassins were active in the Holy Country at this time, I wonder if one had the bright idea to off the God-King. 

Always possible.  Kill off the God-king, trigger a MoLaD tournament, and while everyone's off participating, invade Sartar. 

Whatever triggered it, they got a pretty strong and creative Belintar after that - one able to anticipate the Lunars and create the Building Wall. 

[metcalph]

21 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Whatever triggered it, they got a pretty strong and creative Belintar after that - one able to anticipate the Lunars and create the Building Wall. 

Possible lunatic theory: The 1601 assassin got drawn into the Tournament and ended up becoming the God-King.  That's how Belintar had the special knowledge for the Building Wall battle. 

[jajagappa]

24 minutes ago, metcalph said:

Possible lunatic theory: The 1601 assassin got drawn into the Tournament and ended up becoming the God-King.  That's how Belintar had the special knowledge for the Building Wall battle.

Why not!  We really don't know much about the figures who became Belintar other than they included men, women, and trolls.  The first was Sethtalar, Belintar's Right Hand Speaker (noted in the Esrolia book) - and presumably based on the name he is a talar from God Forgot.  The second I'm aware of was Queen Imarjarin's brother in 1550 - noted by Jeff in his background on Esrolian Queens (and gt-gt-uncle of Samastina).  Based on the Prince of Sartar comic, I believe Valira, Dormal's mother, was the last in 1614.

[Joerg]

12 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I interpret this to mean that the God-king's body died ~1601 and the MoLaD Tournament occurred in 1602 since that's when Boldhome was taken.

Salinarg was sort of a left-over candidate as prince. With his Telmori (bodyguard?) wife, and from Eonistaran's side branch of the family rather than the main branch descended from Saronil, it is quite likely that Salinarg never even considered himself as prince material.

The killings of members of the House of Sartar predate 1600-1602 by quite a bit. Terasarin's daughters (married to their Helkos Brothers cousins and bodyguards) and Saraskos' kids were assassinated during Terasarin's reign.

The lists of offspring of the House of Sartar in King of Sartar and the Sourcebook is quite likely incomplete - it looks like neither Kallyr's father nor that son of Terasarin marrying into the Far Point tribes are included in the children of the rulers.

 

[Joerg]

Most recent Holy Country stuff by Jeff on Facebook: Notes on Durengard.

Quote

Population: 10k
90 hectares (giving 20 hectares to the governor's palace)
Temples to Orlanth, Ernalda, Belintar, Issaries, Lhankor Mhy (and other Lightbringers), Invisible God and Uleria.
Massive-fortress palace in the Nochet style built for the governor of Heortland
Main port for Heortland. Located on right bank of the Bullflood River. The port is right on the river. Ships either beach themselves downriver of the city, or tie up on the riverside quay.
Elevation of Lower City is about 50 meters with hills that quickly rise to 300+ meters on either side of the river valley. Durengard gets snow in winter, but it quickly melts. I imagine it as being something like Bilbao in Spain or Serres in Greece. Nearly a quarter of the city is taken up by the governor's palace complex.
Durengard dates back to around 1350. Was occupied by Malkioni from 1616-1620, from Lunars 1620 to 1624.

Map Details:
A. Temple Area. This is a spur from the plateau, rising maybe about 100+ meters above the Bullflood. There are temples to Orlanth, Ernalda, Belintar, Lhankor Mhy, and the Invisible God. The Orlanth temple is the largest temple but was likely damaged or shut down during the Lunar period.
1. This is the Belintar temple, which is also where the Magical Bridge to the City of Wonders once appeared from. I personally imagine that this looks like something out of a Jack Kirby illustration, with the rainbow bridge coming out of the mouth of a huge head. But that's just me.
B. Governor's Palace. This is the palace of the Sixth of Heortland, later the King of Malkonwal, later the Lunar Governor of the South. It is built in the Esrolian style, open and airy, and likely very nice.
C. Lower City. This is where most of the people live. The city tilts upward towards the Temple Hill.
(Harald Smith has run with my sketches and notes and done wonders.)

 

[Joerg]

I guess that this new city replaces the older market town that bore the same name in the Second Age, or it supersedes History of the Heortling Peoples completely.

For comparison, the travelogue bearing the name Durengard Scroll describes the place as follows (p.62):

Quote

Durengard  is  a  settlement  at  the  end  of  the  Uxeler  inlet, built just below where the fast moving Uxeler River tumbles into  the  sea.  It  is  thus  the  last  place  a  sea-going  ship  can dock. There, a tribe of barbarians subject to the Hendriking king  has  established  a  market  place.  All  public  events  – trade, law, and even animal sacrifices to pagan gods – take place  in  the  central  courtyard  of  the  settlement,  which  is surrounded  by  the  ill  crafted  wooden  buildings  of  the residents. A low wall of stone surrounds the town. Despite these  crude  fortifications,  the  settlement  has  been  burnt down  many  times  –  most  recently  when  the  fire-spouting Zistorite Bronze Turtle Galleys rowed up the Uxeler twelve years ago. 
Like  the  Hendriki,  the  folk  of  Durengard  are  a disorderly  people,  constantly  arguing  and  quarreling.  They are  poorly  ruled,  for  they  appoint  judges  to  rule  them, instead of being ruled by folk who have trained their entire life to rule. They all gather on court days as though it is a fair, as their disputes are of great interest and entertainment. They  tolerate  a  small  congregation  of  Aeolians  within  the walls  and  permit  them  a  judge,  although  an  odious  tax  is levied for this dubious privilege.  

The Uxeler River

[,,,] A stone bridge crosses the Uxeler at Durengard – the bridge is controlled by a band of  brigands  who  charge  a  hefty  toll  to  cross  the  raging waters.  

There are 400 years between this description and the construction of the modern walls of Durengard. From the description of the bridge, it would have been upriver of the modern city, possibly across the rapids. If it survived the Machine Wars, the likelihood is quite high that it or at least some of its pillars still exist. The bridge may have succumbed to floodings of the Bullflood, or may have been destroyed in the 1317 war against King Andrin.

I wonder what the author expects from a city or town that was burned to the ground with semi-magical fire just 12 years earlier. Temporary buildings and maybe some efforts at more lasting stone buildings are well within expectations, I would suggest.

The description of the city ring from a Malkioni perspective as a body of elected judges is a bit amusing, too. If the Aeolians have a permanent ring member, then that is quite a privilege.

If the authors of the Durengard Scroll have reason to complain about the bridge toll, the old settlement may have been on the southern shore.

[jajagappa]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

I guess that this new city replaces the older market town that bore the same name in the Second Age, or it supersedes History of the Heortling Peoples completely.

Yes, it was built new by Belintar.

Was there ever a 2nd Age city or village there?  Possible, but no current evidence (yet) - maybe there are hints at the Jelenkev temple.  If it existed, then most likely destroyed in tsunami/floods that surged up the Heortland river valleys from the Devastation of the Vent. 

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

From the description of the bridge, it would have been upriver of the modern city, possibly across the rapids. If it survived the Machine Wars, the likelihood is quite high that it or at least some of its pillars still exist. The bridge may have succumbed to floodings of the Bullflood,

There is a bridge, however, that was of Jrusteli making.  It spans the valley from plateau to temple hill to plateau.  It was originally a military bridge and it is high above the lower part of the city.  The Bullflood was largely the northern extent of Jrusteli occupation.

 

 

[Joerg]

6 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Yes, it was built new by Belintar.

Was there ever a 2nd Age city or village there?

The Guide pretty much says so:

Quote

Durengard  (large  city):  This  was  once the  tribal  center  of   the  Hurlant  tribe,  and later the capital of  the Sixth of  Heortland. Located on the Bullflood River, Durengard is  the  main  port  for  Heortland  and  is  its political center. The massive fortress-palace was built in the Nochet style by Belintar for the rulers of  the Sixth of  Heortland after the Volsaxi rebellion. 

WIll there be any evidence in the city plan? Not necessarily. Compare Furthest, where the old Tashite city had to make way for the planned Lunar (i.e. Pelorian) city.

Would anybody have left that convenient lesser ridgetop unused? Only if it didn't offer any flat surface.

From the Jrusteli assault with turtle galleys I would assume that the Second Age city was within fire-thrower range from the river.  That would mean that the ridge would not have been part of the city.

 

6 hours ago, jajagappa said:

  Possible, but no current evidence (yet) - maybe there are hints at the Jelenkev temple.  If it existed, then most likely destroyed in tsunami/floods that surged up the Heortland river valleys from the Devastation of the Vent. 

Or a similar magic called up by Belintar to thwart King Andrin. The subsequent destruction of Akez Loradak shows that the Swimmer wasn't a patient man when it came to sieges.

There is another possible cataclysmic consequence of the Devastation of the Vent - significant portions of the cliffs could have collapsed, burying whatever was too close to the overhanging rock.

A less dramatic but in the end as destructive scenario would be a shift in the river bed, with the river carving away the area of the former settlement over a longer time, or with the river shifting away from the previous site, silting up the previously navigable channel.

There is the possible fate of the city slowly gliding into the sea as the silt of the estuary drifts out, see for instance Alexandria, or Rungholt (the port on the Treene estuary famously flooded away in the first Grote Mandrenke or Saint Marcellus flood, but hit so hard because of this gliding silt effect which had lowered the entire site of the city over the centuries).

Another way to swallow a coastal settlement would be a dune crawling over the place. Also a possible magical attack in Belintar's arsenal.

 

 

6 hours ago, jajagappa said:

There is a bridge, however, that was of Jrusteli making.  It spans the valley from plateau to temple hill to plateau.  It was originally a military bridge and it is high above the lower part of the city.  The Bullflood was largely the northern extent of Jrusteli occupation.

Leskos (described as an Esvulari settlementl, within the territory inhabited by the Choralinthor coastal fisherfolk) is clearly documented as occupied by a Slontan warlord, and that coastal city lies (more or less unharmed) further out on the Bullflood estuary where it widens enough that the floodplain .can accommodate a lagoon or at least a wide bay on the flank of the river. That lagoon may have softened the strength of the wave if the river side was protected by a dune similar to those along the North Sea and Biscay coasts (aöthough the dunes would likely have been mostly washed away by such an event). If the river mouth is wider there, a tsunami would be lower, too.

Leskos is a lot less convenient as a trade port than Durengard, which has access to the plateau. It may offer a trans-shipping point for ships of greater draft, and it probably is the best port for the small coastal guard flotilla the governor of Heortland may have kept.

 

Beaching a ship in tidal waters is an exercise of rinse and repeat as the tide keeps creeping upward over the course of several days, and then you need to stop adjusting before the waters rush out as the Blue Streak plummets down Magasta's Pool. That's why I think that piers or slipping sites with winches or rolls would be a common featue in Gloranthan ports - including Nochet, btw. The overlay of the Blue Streak movement with the seven day breathing cycle of the sea doesn't help estimating the high water line of the current tide, either.

The farther you go up a river, or the stronger a river's influence gets over the tide, the less problematic tidal movement will become. The Lyksos with the added impact of the Creek-Stream River possibly negates any tidal influence upriver from Orlanth's Hill, but then getting across that extra rush there will be quite a feat unless aided by towlng crews on the shore or counter-currents (like the ones used by the Argo rebuild to sail through the Bosporus). The problem with river ports is that they often sand up when the river shifts its bed - many a river port fell into decline when that happened, like e.g. Pi-Ramesse in the Nile Delta or the Roman-founded Chester in Britain.

The estuaries of Heortland don't usually have a tidal wave rushing up these funnels. There are such waves, allied to the Waertagi, the greatest of these being Sog. They might be a western seas effect, although Sshorg's invasions were of a similar nature.

If you want to beach a vessel for the night, at comparatively low tide, you will have to allow for the water rising for the next eight to sixteen hours (depending on the season, the length of night varies greatly). Anytime near high tide, the sailors will want to be ready either to adjust their beaching position or to make use of the water rushing out.

The alternative is to make beachfall at the highest tide, and to sit out the entire tidal cycle, hoping the next tide will hit as high again. (But then, smaller tidal pushes last only two or three days, and are easier to sit out.) This makes tidal sailing in Glorantha a rather slow and tedious undertaking.

 

Durengard was at best a regional capital under the Hendriki kings, though. Whitewall was the traditional royal seat, the great temple to Orlanth there home to a Dragonbreaker shrine since about 950, and accordingly also a center of the Ralian Orlanth Rex cult away from southern Peloria. That Rex cult and an unprecedented increase in man-power as famine hit Dragon Pass in 1042 along with the Pelorian raid, and thousands of refugees washed into the Hendriki kingdom. That, and personal ambition, led into the Adjustment Wars in Esrolia, making the Hendriki kings the military hegemony in Kethaela. The advancing Invincible Golden Horde sent another wave of refugees south seventy years later. Belintar made it his administrative center only after he had raised the City of Wonders and extended one of the rainbow bridges here, following the power lines of the land.

The temple hill must have been of some magical importance if it pre-existed - there is a chance that it broke off the cliffside in a big tumble and ended up leaving a 200 m gap to the new extent of the cliffside as the result of the Devastation of the Vent. Or that Belintar summoned the power of Vestkarthen to achieve that. But then, there would be no Jrusteli-built bridge between the hill and the plateau. Survival of such a viaduct pretty much precludes any major tectonic event.

The Hurlant - a non-Hendriki tribe of Heortland, previously subject to the Foreigner Laws of Aventus - may have left it without much in terms of permanent buildings, though, in the usual Orlanth hilltop site manner.

Making the hill the recipient of the rainbow bridge will have created  major architecture summoned by Belintar, probably similar to the Pedastal south of Nochet. This could have altered the shape of the hill. Given the location of the governors palace on the far end, I would expect the hill ridge to dip in the middle, as an Orlanth hillside temple usually is situated at the highest local elevation. Possibly over-towered by the remains of the Rainbow Bridge architecture, though, or pushed to the side by it. The conquest of the Hendriki kingdom was a difficult one, and Belintar would have left clear architectural messages to manifest his sovereignty and that of his governors.