Fish Road borders and markings

[Joerg]

Fish Roads and their termini on dry land are areas with magically altered rules. There are Gloranthan precedents for such places to have a hazy border region, sometimes tinted (lkie the Glowline), sometimes just a discontinuity in light as with the Issaries Market spell or its cousin Warding.

Other than their existence being announced in the Guide to Glorantha (a map, and mentioned for the dry land termini of Backford, City of Wonders, Nochet, and Seapolis), I know of no canonical information on these.

Which means I get to make stuff up.

I am currently investigating how these magical roads might work, and have arrived at an unofficial concept of the roads being marked by underwater buoys turning these roads into something like an alley, perhaps with a canopy of additional buoys overhead suspended between the buoys on the side.

How gradual would be the rim effect of the Fish Roads? And how do visiting sea creatures visiting Nochet, Seapolis or the City of Wonders (before 1616) know how far they can swim before falling out of thin air? And what about additional termini? Watch this space.

Edited January 4, 2022 by Scotty
cleared odd formatting

[jajagappa]

Here's what I have written to this point on the Fish Roads:

"The Fish Roads can only be easily entered at the shrines to Belintar located at Backford, Deeper, Nochet, Seapolis, and the Deep, as well as the City of Wonders.  From without, they appear as either fast-moving currents within the water (or in a few places, the air), or spinning, gyring "tubes" that mix water and air together.  Sea creatures such as ludoch or fish find it easiest to simply swim along the currents.  Air-breathers usually prefer to ride in boats, or in wagons pulled by giant sea-horses  Although it is possibly to simply walk the Fish Road, most humans find that prospect oppressing and claustrophobic when deep underwater.

The Fish Roads particularly served the trading needs of the merfolk.  However, nearly 10 years on from Belintar's demise, the Fish Roads are slowly disintegrating, and parts have "collapsed"."

 

[jajagappa]

Remembered I also had some notes in my Nochet Index:

"Temple of Sea and Air.  This temple marks the terminus of the Fish Road in Nochet.  At high tide the effects of the Fish Road fully encompass the temple.  On rare extremely high tides, the effects may engulf parts of Vadel’s Angle, Fishside, and Bluetown."

"Temple of Golod.  Fishers and merfolk come here to propitiate the father of fish and gain his blessing before taking his children from the sea.  The Fish Road rises up from the water and passes through the temple, though at the lowest tides the effects of the Fish Road barely reach beyond it."

"Fish Market.  Most small boaters and fishers come here to trade their wares, not the Great Market.  As it also marks the end of the Fish Road, merfolk with their shells and other unusual ware from the sea can be regularly found here as well."

"The Fish Road.  Belintar used his great magic and his command of the elements to construct a network of magical roads, commonly called the Fish Roads. These roads connected Nochet with the City of Wonders, the Syphon River, Seapolis, Deeper, and The Deep. Where the roads operated, underwater beings could travel onto the land and air-breathers could travel underwater as long as the travelers remained on the Fish Roads.  Few dare take the Fish Roads now, although the road is still operational and merfolk still use it to reach the Fish Market of Nochet.  The effects of the Fish Road are seen as a drizzle-like sea-green mist that hangs in the air over much of the Fish Market or sits in the waters around the roadway.  From a distance, the Fish Market seems to have a haziness over it that comes in or goes out with the tide.  Figures can be seen though are blurred in form and outline.  Up close, figures are clearly visible but appear distorted for both humans and merfolk as if they are looking through water or some odd lens."

 

[Alex]

11 hours ago, Joerg said:

Fish Roads and their termini on dry land are areas with magically altered rules. There are Gloranthan precedents for such places to have a hazy border region, sometimes tinted (lkie the Glowline), sometimes just a discontinuity in light as with the Issaries Market spell or its cousin Warding.

"So raise your hand if you think that was a Belintaran water tentacle!"

I picture them looking less like swimmable air, and more like breathable water.  (After all, for swimmable air we have an entire Sea of Fog -- at least if you're a Zabdamar, or someone in on the magical secret.)  So on land, you'd get a shimmering or gurgling more-or-less vertical wall that looks like the surface of a river or a pool, such as you may be familiar with via various c.1990 SF movie SFX.  Under the water, you'd see a similar-looking boundary, much as say underwater brine pools have a discernible "surface".  Whether there's dramatic sequence where our hero Virgil the Carter, Son of Jaq, has to anxiously take in a lungful of this stuff, and then fall to his knees at the other end to cough it back up again, I think is a staging deal left to personal taste!

[Joerg]

Asking Google, I note that Harald and I had a very similar exchange already a bit over six years ago on the Glorantha forums that made it to the Well of Daliath.

(And while that project led at least to a German language publication, I still need to prepare it for the English language audience...) I dropped the Fish Road option from that pilgrimage scenario in part because of lack of information.

@Hyperlexic's  "Lore of Glorantha" page on tumblr sums the available information beautifully.

 

 

14 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Here's what I have written to this point on the Fish Roads:

"The Fish Roads can only be easily entered at the shrines to Belintar located at Backford, Deeper, Nochet, Seapolis, and the Deep, as well as the City of Wonders.  From without, they appear as either fast-moving currents within the water (or in a few places, the air), or spinning, gyring "tubes" that mix water and air together.  Sea creatures such as ludoch or fish find it easiest to simply swim along the currents.  Air-breathers usually prefer to ride in boats, or in wagons pulled by giant sea-horses  Although it is possibly to simply walk the Fish Road, most humans find that prospect oppressing and claustrophobic when deep underwater.

The Fish Roads particularly served the trading needs of the merfolk.  However, nearly 10 years on from Belintar's demise, the Fish Roads are slowly disintegrating, and parts have "collapsed"."

Based on the (much more detailed) descriptions of the dry place termini of the Fish Roads in Nochet, Seapolis and the City of Wonders, I see no evidence of such physical intrusion of the Seas onto the shared dry land places, and I guess as above, so below.

For a water breather, entering the Fish Roads is similar to a land dweller entering an Issaries/Etyries market - while there is a threshold, it doesn't offer any physical resistance, only a transition from one set of magical rules to another.

(And maybe there are more things in common to the Fish Roads, or at least there may have been such when Belintar was still alive/reincarnating, like certain crimes against rules that lead to magical consequences, e.g. hurting a Ludoch swimming through the air at Seapolis or Nochet.)

The "As Above So Below" principle might also be applied to the dry land / air volume made available to the merfolk by this magic. While the Wonder Transfer at the City of Wonders (beneath it, which indicates that the Choralinthor Bay extends under Loon Island) and the termini at Nochet and Seapolis allow merfolk to enter the air  it would be a far greater gift to them if they could swim into the Fish Roads to breathe without leaving the water. If that is the case, the Fish Roads would be full of resting Ludoch and other air-dependent merfolk (like Ysabbau, the merfolk closest to them after the Ludoch, and imagine what that would mean).

But then, Ludoch or other air-dependent merfolk don't appear to need to surface while swimming through the air, even though they are magically surrounded by water.

I would like to think that the entire airspace above Loon Island is accessible to Sea Entities without experiencing adverse effects. If only to have giant sea monsters flying around the towers of that city while it stil was visibly there. And if the Transfer was far enough below, the Fish Roads passing through Loon Island might not have been blocked by the disappearance of the City of Wonders, although any dry land approach might now be useless. Air access might still work.

I note that in order to make the transfer, a sea dweller has to swim into a Fish Road volume and then approach the transfer from within the fish road. Theoretically, a land dweller strong enough in the Water rune could do that, too, and then swim through the air, but he might have to hold his breath or have magic to breathe water.

 

But let's suppose that there are rites that allow entities to enter or leave at other places than the main ones mentioned in the Guide. E.g. in Deeper where the Fish Roads connect to the Diendimos grottos.

 

I doubt that open boats can work in fish roads, unless used upside down and pulled below without going through a transfer. The difference between the air inside and the water outside disappears, so why should the water push up the intruding element if that is replaced by its own element?

Buoys pulled down that way should work, and might replace wagons, or at least the need for wheels. Fish Road dirigibles pulled by domesticated beasts or by people of either element.

 

 

Land-based beasts of burden or domestic beasts, e.g. on the way to the markets of the City of Wonders, should be (or have been) able to enter the roads through the transfers. Getting them to stay calm during transfer may have required a similar amount of skill as leading beast onto a clear patch of ice on a deep body of water.

[Joerg]

9 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Remembered I also had some notes in my Nochet Index:

"Temple of Sea and Air.  This temple marks the terminus of the Fish Road in Nochet.  At high tide the effects of the Fish Road fully encompass the temple.  On rare extremely high tides, the effects may engulf parts of Vadel’s Angle, Fishside, and Bluetown."

I am curious about that - do you mean the watery side (or the ability to cross over), or do you refer to the terminus effect for sea dwellers, and the border of said effect? Making it swell and ebb with the tides would be possible, but adds new cans of worms (or puddles of sea dwellers surprised by the Blue Streak plummeting down).

 

9 hours ago, jajagappa said:

"Temple of Golod.  Fishers and merfolk come here to propitiate the father of fish and gain his blessing before taking his children from the sea.  The Fish Road rises up from the water and passes through the temple, though at the lowest tides the effects of the Fish Road barely reach beyond it."

Again, this can be problematic, at least if the Blue Moon tides are reflected in this. The weekly tides (as per the description in Moonbroth Oasis) are a lot less of a problem.

But then yes, the Seas and all related magics might be subject to the tides, though a lot less drastically so than the Lunar cyclical magic is tied to the Lunar phase. But beware of possible consequences.

 

9 hours ago, jajagappa said:

"Fish Market.  Most small boaters and fishers come here to trade their wares, not the Great Market.  As it also marks the end of the Fish Road, merfolk with their shells and other unusual ware from the sea can be regularly found here as well."

I find it quite a pity that the Fish Road doesn't extend further into Nochet - e.g. into an audience chamber with the Queen, or possibly to the Antones Estates. Or at least when active magic is used to extend it that far.

 

9 hours ago, jajagappa said:

"The Fish Road.  Belintar used his great magic and his command of the elements to construct a network of magical roads, commonly called the Fish Roads. These roads connected Nochet with the City of Wonders, the Syphon River, Seapolis, Deeper, and The Deep. Where the roads operated, underwater beings could travel onto the land and air-breathers could travel underwater as long as the travelers remained on the Fish Roads.  Few dare take the Fish Roads now, although the road is still operational and merfolk still use it to reach the Fish Market of Nochet.  The effects of the Fish Road are seen as a drizzle-like sea-green mist that hangs in the air over much of the Fish Market or sits in the waters around the roadway.  From a distance, the Fish Market seems to have a haziness over it that comes in or goes out with the tide.  Figures can be seen though are blurred in form and outline.  Up close, figures are clearly visible but appear distorted for both humans and merfolk as if they are looking through water or some odd lens."

I like this, as a whole. In fact one of my pedestrian efforts to put my visual vibe onto the screen used a blue-green drizzle like that to depict the border effect from inside the Fish Road.

 

Right now that attempt at visualisation looks an awful lot like a road with street lanterns on both sides, and a halo of different environment forming a stasis-rune shaped dome along the length of the road. What looks like street lanterns are buoys, purpose made amphorae held in place by chains anchored in hexagonal columns of basalt dug into the sea floor. The chains have been overgrown by sea weed, mussles etc., and the buoys may be overgrown with barnacles and more sea weed.

Maybe I'll switch to a single central line of buoys creating overlapping spheres of effect, or to staggering the two rows in a zigzag pattern.

I suppose the buoys might hold up some enchanted crystal or other mineral to support the effect. The buoys are set up in a somewhat redundant way, so that it takes more than a single buoy brought down to let the fish road collapse in that area.

Having such a material infrastructure that can be maintained or repaired will of course offer scenario hooks. And that type of maintenance may be easier to do than keeping Temples of the Reaching Moon online.

The entire fish road set-up may be a warding similar to that of an Issaries Great Market, although possibly with fewer trigger conditions or alarms.