Dead Place Ferry

[Darius West]

I was just perusing the Red Book of Magic and on page 40 I discovered the spell "Dead Place Ferry".  Does anyone know which deity/cult grants this spell?

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

I was just perusing the Red Book of Magic and on page 40 I discovered the spell "Dead Place Ferry".  Does anyone know which deity/cult grants this spell?

The Father of Independents. You can find him in Nomad Gods. My guess is that he, and a number of other small Spirit Cults, will appear eventually in the Horned Man/Hsunchen/Spirit Cult book in the Cults series.

Edited December 16, 2023 by jajagappa

[Darius West]

15 hours ago, jajagappa said:

The Father of Independents. You can find him in Nomad Gods. My guess is that he, and a number of other small Spirit Cults, will appear eventually in the Horned Man/Hsunchen/Spirit Cult book in the Cults series.

Thanks for the reply, I don't presently own Nomad Gods.  Was the Father of Independents filling the role of Divine Ferryman previous to Jeset the Ferryman perhaps?  I wonder if we will get a proper cult write-up for him in a Prax book?

[David Scott]

19 hours ago, Darius West said:

I was just perusing the Red Book of Magic and on page 40 I discovered the spell "Dead Place Ferry".  Does anyone know which deity/cult grants this spell?

Father of Independents:

The current main reference is in Tales of the Reaching Moon #15, until the spirit cults are published in the Cults of RuneQuest Series.

There's also: Prosospaedia 38, and Earth Goddesses 79

 

Edited December 17, 2023 by David Scott

[Darius West]

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

Father of Independents:

The current main reference is in Tales of the Reaching Moon #15, until the spirit cults are published in the Cults of RuneQuest Series.

There's also: Prosospaedia 38, and Earth Goddesses 79

 

Yes, I have read that TORM many times, and I just never remember reading the Father of Independents.  It isn't a particularly good or memorable name to be fair.  

[Malin]

Dead Place? The one with no magic? I thought it was Dead Bottom for a moment...

[jajagappa]

4 hours ago, Malin said:

Dead Place? The one with no magic?

Yes, the one in the middle of Prax.

[jajagappa]

7 hours ago, Darius West said:

It isn't a particularly good or memorable name to be fair. 

When your purpose is solely to carry folks and things across the Dead Place, who'd stop and bother to remember your name? Or maybe it's one of the things that you forget while crossing.

[Malin]

I never realized the dead place was filled with water! 🤡

 

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Malin said:

I never realized the dead place was filled with water! 🤡

 

Fossilized water, aka salt, some of that toxic ash from Oakfed's wildfire that eradicated even the Redwoods of the original Praxian savannah, carried in by seasonal "serpents" and then evaporating.

The place is not a salt plain like in Utah, but the soil is permeated with the potash and brine. And that happened after the Storm Bull received all of the life that had been in the soil before.

IMG there is a small trade in salt from the Dead Place for embalming corpses - the lifeless soil will even stop Darkness from rotting corpses.

[Malin]

12 hours ago, Joerg said:

Fossilized water, aka salt

Cool! So the ferry is a mystical thing since there is no water there? I love this place now, only ever thought about it as "this place where magic doesn't work" but never really thought about how it would look or feel.

[jajagappa]

6 hours ago, Malin said:

So the ferry is a mystical thing since there is no water there?

I've always interpreted it as an Old Ferryman who will literally carry you on his back across the place so that you don't have to touch the ground and be drained of all your magic. But he might well have a spirit boat or raft that can transport you across.

[Malin]

I now need to drag my players here.... this place is cool!

 

[davecake]

Let me heartily recommend the Lifethief by Beer With Teeth on the Jonstown Compendium. No link to them, just a satisfied customer. This has lots of information about the unpleasantness of the Dead Place, and a scenario against a very nasty danger, too. 

in fact, the only thing I wish they had added to it is information about the Father of Independents. My players got a serious butt kicking from the Lifethief, and now only want to take it on with allies - but no allies want to enter the Dead Place, so they might end up trying to convince their friendly shamans (who definitely aren’t currently going into the Dead Place) to create a spirit cult of the Father of Independents. It seems one fairly natural way to resolve the scenario. 

[davecake]

On 12/19/2023 at 2:23 AM, Joerg said:

Fossilized water, aka salt, some of that toxic ash from Oakfed's wildfire that eradicated even the Redwoods of the original Praxian savannah, carried in by seasonal "serpents" and then evaporating.

That does make sense. Though I’ve been making it more alkali flats than salt flats, this is mostly because I am familiar with that landscape, and because I have a running joke about the annual festival at the Winter Ruins featuring a big burning wooden man. 

[Darius West]

While we are on the topic, has anyone ever run a scenario in Winter Ruins?  Is there any "official documentation" about it ?  I think I heard vampires hang out there from somewhere?  I find that difficult to imagine given how cruel it would be to their already taxed magic points.

[Malin]

4 hours ago, davecake said:

Let me heartily recommend the Lifethief by Beer With Teeth

I bought it (and other stuff of theirs) during the sale! Just haven't had time to catch up on my readings yet!

[davecake]

5 hours ago, davecake said:

Though I’ve been making it more alkali flats than salt flats, this is mostly because I am familiar with that landscape, and because I have a running joke

No, turns out Pavis: GTA says alkali. Must have got the joke from that, not the other way round. 

[davecake]

43 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Winter Ruins?  Is there any "official documentation" about it ?  I think I heard vampires hang out there from somewhere?

The Winter Ruins were a prison for the forces of winter during the Gods War (apparently Genert imprisoned them to please ‘the Sun Gods daughter’), until the Dark Eater destroyed it, freeing the forces of Winter. Some say Thunder Bird was involved in freeing them. Most of the winter gods are jerks, who then aided their kinsman Ragnaglar in his fight with Storm Bull.

Note the White Princess, Inora, is the only friendly spirit of Winter, and generally much loved - by bringing snow and cooling things down, she makes the dry plains much more liveable. While she left the Winyer Ruins long ago, perhaps one of the minor snow goddesses that serve her is stuck there for some reason, or she has been made to return there somehow. I must admit, Inora just makes me want to have a beautiful snow and ice wielding princess singing about how she should “let it snow, let it snowwww…”

Now there are scattered blocks of translucent whit stone that remain ice cold, and probably some angry darkness/cold spirits, though even for the heart of winter Prax seems a bit warm for hollri. Frost spirits (variant darkness elementals, Bestiary pg 180) seem likely though.

The Winter Ruins themselves are not part of the Magic draining Dead Place, just surrounded by it. Allegedly the ruins kept Storm Bulls shoulder from touching the ground there, so it was not drained. 

I’ve never heard of any vampires, but the Winter Ruins are supposed to be largely deserted so anyone could set up shop there, I guess. 

And in my Glorantha they have a festival there, in summer, they travel through the inhospitable Dead Place and then stay there for a week dancing and singing in praise of Inora, and build a giant wooden effigy and then burn it and dance around it to commemorate when Oakfed defeated winter by burning all the redwoods. Of course, this is mostly shamanic types, so there is lots of weirdness and drugs. 

[soltakss]

On 12/20/2023 at 2:25 PM, Darius West said:

While we are on the topic, has anyone ever run a scenario in Winter Ruins?  Is there any "official documentation" about it ?  I think I heard vampires hang out there from somewhere?  I find that difficult to imagine given how cruel it would be to their already taxed magic points.

In our River Voice/Arganauts Campaign the Adventurers went to the Dead Place in search of a lost piece of Genert. All was going well until their copper limbs stopped working. As many of them had two copper arms, or two copper legs, they had to drag themselves out, or move without use of their arms. The Adventurer who had become a Copper Warrior, made completely of copper, effectively became a statue for their stay there. He was most irritated but accepted that it was perfectly fair, especially as the decision to go there was theirs alone. They did find a piece of Genert there, so the trip was not wasted.