Sun Dome Forestry

[Erol of Backford]

Reading through Black Spear and seeing how green the map on p.70 looked I recalled Prax in general not being lush and green...

Prax has limited timber. The Harpoon gun had only three bolts or something like that? The Zola Fel could provide irrigation for a tree farm and citrus crop (much more so than simple Sun County fertility field stones) if the correct fertility rituals are guided and the plantings are tended by the Aldryami and not interfered with by the trolls of the Rubble or nomads...

Let's say it's 1600 and we find a small group of elves from the Garden that get along well with the Sun Domers in Pavis. They have an advocate in Sun County, a trader (maybe Clubfoot but not sure how old he would be, maybe his dad?) who has convinced Count Varthanis II that a well managed tree farm irrigated by Zola Fel and tended by Aldryami would thrive if left unmolested... if not citrius then enhanced, figs, dates, olives and grapes even? Those elves can make anything grow.

Not only would the timber and produce be a nice augmentation to the Sun Dome economy (I found MOB's post on wheels being hole punched while looking for Clubfoot) but would also give a few elven archers (initiates of Yelmalio) to assist with training some much needed range support to the templars and militia units. 

There was a good bit about fertility and seeds in Six Seasons and so maybe along those lines a hero quest to bestow blessings on an area of Sun Dome lands for an elven grove/woods with surrounding vineyards maybe.

Is there a Glorantian equivalent to taxus baccata for creating non elvish long bows that the elves could help growth and harvesting for? Where could the seeds/saplings for these be found?

Was Flamal a tall tree which may have been the "botanical cognate" of the Spike with leaves and bark?

Would creating a new grove be similar but opposite to blackthorn trees being planted near the Marsh? Where would they get the seed(s) to create the Sun Domer Division of Forestry and Archery? Assuming the Aldryami would go into the arrangement knowing a certain percentage of the tree crop would be harvested but the woods would be permitted to slowly expand.

Where would the idea spot, spots be for said groves? Obviously flat land where irrigatable farming could be done would be less suitable and so I am thinking the eroded slopes leading up to the 1000' bluffs would be good local for trees/groves/woods...

Any thoughts and thank you.

 

Edited May 21, 2023 by Erol of Backford

[scott-martin]

21 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

Was Flamal a tall tree which may have been the "botanical cognate" of the Spike with leaves and bark?

Oh of course! The mystery of Flamal as "world tree," of course, is whether he is represented as evergreen or subject to cyclicality.

From the most ancient of rule sets we know that the agricultural base of Sun Dome communities revolves around Sunripen, so I would start there. You would need a priest to participate. As the seedlings sprout you will get aldryami . . . IMG there is a secret (secret commonwealth, as it were) here connected to the Sunripen rites and how all those babies get classified, but relations tend to be ad hoc.

I think the challenge in the Zola Fel is that while seedlings only need a few years to become economically significant, raising a giant that can recharge the Harpoon requires decades if not centuries of careful investment and relatively good luck when Oakfed is always somewhere on the horizon. They can do it! But unless your elves are highly motivated (heretical) it takes time.

[mfbrandi]

Quote

A multi-billion-dollar tree-planting campaign also discounts the lessons of Niger’s success. More trees are indeed what the Sahel needs. But planting them is expensive and unlikely to succeed long term. Instead, farmers across the Sahel—and elsewhere in Africa—could be encouraged to let trees grow back naturally. The pre-colonial woodlands are still there, their deep roots buried in the ground, waiting to regenerate on their own. So far, these regenerated trees are thriving even as the weather shifts. — National Geographic

But won’t there be “traditionalist” Oakfed shamans who won’t be happy? (Or maybe they will: one day all this will be ours!)

And if the Aldryami think it is good for the “flesh” men, won’t they be in two minds?

Still, worth a try, eh?

Edited May 21, 2023 by mfbrandi

[scott-martin]

47 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Still, worth a try, eh?

For me here in the backyard as we work past significant beetle threats the goal is to keep shorter-term biomass circulating (even though we know just about everything back there is effectively limited to the lifespan of a household mammal at this point, it will die) because in the background we're bringing new canopy to ultimately take over. Whatever ash we plant back there is only a sacrificial victim killing time until the chestnuts and oaks are ready to come back. So these sahel projects are great: allocate the billions and ship the biomass, sooner or later it's going to take. You've got the billions. You've got the biomass. Reach for that place in the sun. It's like life.

Orthodox elf ambitions in Prax probably revolve around similar calculations. Now that we're talking the caravan tracks are incredibly important as capture sites for foreign compost. Lure the mobiles with promises of rare plant matter like myrrh or coco berries or whatever. Every step they take there and back takes you toward where you want to go. Move the tracks as your needs change. Maybe this is how the Miths scored their remarkable trade route and why they found the elves so willing to negotiate. Or why on the far end of things the Manirian road must stay open.

Edited May 21, 2023 by scott-martin
not a great sentence so why not expand a bit

[Erol of Backford]

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

Still, worth a try, eh?

For sure!

38 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Maybe this is how the Miths scored their remarkable trade route and why they found the elves so willing to negotiate. Or why on the far end of things the Manirian road must stay open.

Besides Griffin Mountain where is there more on the Mith's root, It's possible that a more prosperous/enhanced trade link will be established between New Pavis, The Pavis Garden and Sun Dome. Likely the location would be the steeps east of Helmbold but if the area between the rivers (red arrow) isn't being used extensively, hard to say where the farming is concentrated along the rivers?

Again the only reason Count Varthanis II is interested is the promise of more tax revenue, increased food production and a bit of long range missile fire enhancement.

Anyone ideas on the Gloranthian equivalent of to taxus baccata for creating non-elvish long bows?

We'll see where it goes, could like it to Treetop Mountains, back to Eston at the Dawn maybe and get a seed for the new tree? Maybe southern Sun County near Helmbold would be good with water on two sides? The river trade would flourish more as well between Helmbold, 

From Elf Bow Hero Quest thread:

Maybe the Treetop Mountains (possibly the red arrow in clip below) are only visible from the top of Griffin Mountain far to the south somehow? The Eston Forest Great Tree is visible as well but (if its not really there in say 1605) its a specter, visible when looking from the top of Griffin Mountain?

Will look for any info on Shanassee as well. Not sure where Vivamort’s Castle is but I like the ideas!

Hero Quest for the pollen up a trail given by the elves of the Eston Forest which may be found and then utilized to fertilize the growth/rebirth of the elf bow... The journey up beyond the tree line and into the mist on the Treetop Mountains (maybe a trail up the mountain where the red arrow is) takes one to the other side and is where the pollen is found? The Bilini River runs through the High Woods which would have been Eston Forest? Does it pass the Eston Great Tree?

Eston: This forest was part of the Council of All Races of the Elder Wilds. 

  

[Ormi Phengaria]

2 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Was Flamal a tall tree which may have been the "botanical cognate" of the Spike with leaves and bark?

Perhaps!

[Squaredeal Sten]

Just speaking as an elf that is a sap-curdling idea.  Planting an irrigated forest with the intention that it will become timber  is an atrocity.  It is essentially enslaving trees to be domesticated instead of a free wild forest, and to be slaughtered in the same manner as the Praxians slaughter their herd beasts.  What a terrible fate for what might otherwise be a noble forest!

 

 

Edited May 21, 2023 by Squaredeal Sten
irrigated

[MOB]

8 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Prax has limited timber. The Harpoon gun had only three bolts or something like that?

As discussed in another thread:

Given the Cradle Valley runs through a desert, where did the Sun Domers get such mighty lumber from?

The answer lies in the River of Cradles' headwaters in the Rockwood Mountains. While tree trunks sometimes come down in the winter floods, people from Pavis and Sun County can head upriver to get supplies of timber when needed, although it is a difficult and dangerous enterprise.

The Sun Domers' great arrows are fashioned by specially trained artisans at the hamlet of High Water, several km down river from Harpoon. The redwood tree trunks used for this come from the great forest around Leaping Place Lake at the headwaters of the Zola Fel.

Floating the logs downstream is only possible at certain times of the year, and is an adventure in itself, going through the troll-infested Desolation Hills, Pavis County and the Big Rubble, to the Lands of the Sun. Ensuring a supply of this timber is one of the main responsibilities of the XIIIth Square ("the Unlucky Thirteenth"), who are based at Harpoon. Their leader, Ouric Goldflinger, has led three such expeditions in the past decade.

Most of the missiles for regular use are only 10-15 meters long; although there are still much taller trees at the Leaping Place, manoeuvring logs bigger than this downstream would be considered extremely challenging, if not impossible.

The three great bolts launched at the Cradle date from the harpoon's original setting at the Sun Dome, though few people remember that*. Old stories say they would be powerful enough to pierce the hide of a dragon and kill it, should one ever threaten the land.

*The history of the Harpoon is all but forgotten by the people of Sun County. Only Hector the Wise, the temple librarian, knows the whole tale. As one might suspect, its original purpose had nothing to do with skewering pirate ships or sea monsters swimming up the Zola Fel. The harpoon actually dates from the period just after the Dragonkill War (1100 ST), when the people of the Sun Dome tore down their old temple, purged themselves of any vestiges of EWF-inspired solar draconism and returned to the unsullied, pure light of Yelmalio. Fearing the vengeance of the Sun Dragon, to protect their land the Sun Domers built a series of watch towers throughout the County. And with the expertise of a dwarven refugee from EWF persecution the Great Ballista was built at their newly constructed Sun Dome Temple, to protect it from draconic retribution.

[Joerg]

9 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Oh of course! The mystery of Flamal as "world tree," of course, is whether he is represented as evergreen or subject to cyclicality.

It would have been Flamal who caused the cycles, but that was before the aldryami (trees) were forced to make such a decision whether to go to the long sleep or take sleep in the short cycles and stand guarrd through the long night. Flamal is so primal that it probably has features that could turn into either form and function.

 

7 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

We'll see where it goes, could like it to Treetop Mountains, back to Eston at the Dawn maybe and get a seed for the new tree?

Eston is presumably the forest destroyed across High Wyrm Pass mentioned in the Guide p.191, sending the Elder Wilds aldryami into a diaspora.

I doubt an unprotected Great Tree could have survived that ire.

[mfbrandi]

11 hours ago, scott-martin said:

So these sahel projects are great: allocate the billions and ship the biomass, sooner or later it's going to take.

Although I was — lazily, I admit — pointing to the Niger alternative of nurturing what’s still in the ground — neglected stumps and roots; seeds, too? — as a possible better bet than the brute force approach. Sun Domers split between patriarchal and elf-friend factions? Even the elves might have a split between blitzkrieg replanting and aiding natural recovery — they are both growing, right? (Even if one smacks of Mostal or Godlearnerism at its most crass.)

[David Scott]

13 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Was Flamal a tall tree which may have been the "botanical cognate" of the Spike with leaves and bark?

You can see him here: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/notes-on-mee-vorala/

 

[mfbrandi]

13 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Was Flamal a tall tree which may have been the "botanical cognate" of the Spike with leaves and bark?

To me, that is light runes held aloft — a little like these, perhaps:

Spoiler

After the death of the OG sun, even — especially! — gardening requires Maker intervention. Don’t think of it as the plant rune, but as the grow light rune. We all have the crazed eyes of Bruce Dern, now.

[Erol of Backford]

On 5/21/2023 at 6:28 PM, Squaredeal Sten said:

Planting an irrigated forest with the intention that it will become timber  is an atrocity. 

But they end up with wooded land where there is none with the promise of expansion. Its a beautiful agreement, Food Song and all that.

On 5/21/2023 at 10:35 PM, MOB said:

Floating the logs downstream is only possible at certain times of the year, and is an adventure in itself, going through the troll-infested Desolation Hills, Pavis County and the Big Rubble, to the Lands of the Sun.

They whole point of making the trees allows the Sun Dome County to not be dependant on floods and ridiculous cockamamie ventures to the headwaters in the Rockwood Mountains!

Progress is where it's at in Sun County in 1600.

On 5/21/2023 at 11:45 PM, Joerg said:

I doubt an unprotected Great Tree could have survived that ire.

That's why it's a Hero Quest...

On 5/22/2023 at 2:41 AM, mfbrandi said:

Sun Domers split between patriarchal and elf-friend factions?

Later when Vega is count and there is an anti-count the elves will need to take sides for sure and so I tend to think the elves would side with the lady as she doesn't breathe fire nor does she have a pet dragon following her around... just sayin.

Edited May 23, 2023 by Erol of Backford

[soltakss]

On 5/21/2023 at 7:39 PM, Erol of Backford said:

Would creating a new grove be similar but opposite to blackthorn trees being planted near the Marsh? Where would they get the seed(s) to create the Sun Domer Division of Forestry and Archery? Assuming the Aldryami would go into the arrangement knowing a certain percentage of the tree crop would be harvested but the woods would be permitted to slowly expand.

A Yelmalian orchard would be tended by Aldryami, I think, as Aldrya is an Associate Cult of Yelmalio. I can't see Yelmalians planting orchards without Aldrya's help and blessing.

However, Prax is a post-apocalyptical wasteland, where all the trees were fed to Oakfed and the fertility was blasted, so it might be tricky getting orchards to grow properly.

[Erol of Backford]

On 5/29/2023 at 6:11 AM, soltakss said:

However, Prax is a post-apocalyptical wasteland, where all the trees were fed to Oakfed and the fertility was blasted, so it might be tricky getting orchards to grow properly.

Exactly why they get assistance from the elves of the Garden... 

[mfbrandi]

[JRE]

Thinking on this, I find it interesting that the spell Aldrya gives to Yelmalions is Heal Body, while to Ernaldans (the other half of the County) is Accelerate Growth. So rather than making agreements with the Count and his boys, maybe the Elves are doing deals with the Green women.

Anything useable in the Harpoon is to big to conceal, and I do not see Ernalda interested in getting more projectiles for the Count's oversized toy. So I would support more figs, dates and pinenuts, and less giant redwoods that will never grow to size anyway.

[Erol of Backford]

5 hours ago, JRE said:

So I would support more figs, dates and pinenuts, and less giant redwoods that will never grow to size anyway.

I like the idea that the Ernaldans are dealing with the elves and once the profits start rolling in the Count reconsiders and then even doubles down. Thanks!

[Joerg]

Idle thought for the day: Will Accelerate Growth increase water consumption? How sustainable would that be in semi-arid or arid conditions?

[JRE]

From the description, not during growth, but the grown plant surely will require more water than before application. Unless you have access to hundreds of points it still does not help the Harpoon projectile situation.

[Erol of Backford]

On 6/1/2023 at 12:58 AM, Joerg said:

How sustainable would that be in semi-arid or arid conditions?

Irrigation canals. Zola Fel loves to extend her influence into the Sun Dome lands... nurture if you will.

What are known examples of dikes, aquifers and dams that are known in Glorantha?

[mfbrandi]

16 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Irrigation canals.

Invented by Lodril, if I recall correctly. So — I guess — there are/were agricultural water distribution systems in Dara Happa. Do the Sun Domers get on OK with their “uncle”? Probably best for them if they didn’t spurn his inventions.

[Erol of Backford]

11 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Invented by Lodril

I'd like to read more, only know a little about him, the Agimori and what's in the old Gloranthan Classics 3 - Cult Compendium...

[jajagappa]

9 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

I'd like to read more, only know a little about him

You want to get Glorious ReAscent of Yelm then as it provides many of the core DH myths including Lodril and his 10 Sons being called upon to tame the Oslir.

[Erol of Backford]

37 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Glorious ReAscent of Yelm

I have it but have been reading the Six Seasons and the others for the past 2 weeks, enjoying...

will get to back on track with bad uncle Lodril after I finish. Never would have guessed Lodri was a womanizer (LOL) and seducer of the river babes... sounds weird but did the river cool his loins?

  They are the same. Mr. 101°.

46 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Lodril and his 10 Sons being called upon to tame the Oslir

Sounds like a bad B movie...