The Pavis Grand Plan

[Ian A. Thomson]

Hi Folks

I've had a few inquiries recently from people interested in the specific details of the Pavis Grand Plan I am presenting in the P&BRC:DC campaign.

However, I figure that I will have one chance, and one chance only, to run a build-up to that becoming known, so I'm going to reveal the Plan in pieces through the books in the same way as Adventurers will discover it in gameplay

Hints have been in Vols. 1-3 this time, but Vol. 04 was the first to include some of the core Plan elements.

(The biggest gap in the original series was the Blind King's Hill material that was fundamental, and never written up previously since Greg asked me to keep some of the more esoteric elements secret. This will ideally fit into Vol. 06, but there's so much old material that it might be in Vol. 07 - which will hopefully be the Grand Finale, but again that depends on space as I want to try to keep the books to about 250 pages each.)

Anyway, one day (likely later this year), all the books will be out, and anyone who wants to know will know. Until then I'll stay with the slow reveal

Vol. 05 is the final modern day background book - covering Prax and the River of Cradles. The idea is to include - hopefully there will be space - an Old Pavis chapter too, which will have a few more foundational hints and clues. But it won't be until Vol. 06 that finally the Adventurers begin to learn some really clear knowledge

[The Rough Guide to Pavis City is also still to be re-released in an expanded version, and that will be the actual final background book]

Greg and I discussed options and themes, and one major stream of those I wrote (and we played out) in my second campaign. IE: some major key parts of the Grand Plan are solid and won't change.

However, now I have a unique chance to revise and expand all the plan details, history etc. This already means that some parts that were only mentioned in passing in the campaign as we played it, can now become more front and center. Some of those I wanted to reveal more about at the time in the first series, and am already working on doing so this time round. That's quite exciting in fact, as several pieces I really really wanted to put in the fanzines, but agreed not to due to discussing an official release.

There are also other elements I am still extrapolating from my old notes and memories, and as I begin writing the Blind King's Hill pieces I am finally starting to put it all together. So as I start to organise all those notes in coherent form, it seemed that now could be the perfect moment also to consult the ideas, expectations and understandings of interested experienced Gloranthaphiles. Basically now seems a good time to write this all up fully. Now that we start to enter deeper territory in the new series, it will help with scattering clues and hints in all of the books from Vol. 05 on to have the Grand Plan version in this Campaign as clarified as possible sooner rather than later.

So I'm wondering? What are your suspicions about what the Grand Plan is? What are you hoping/expecting to read as it is revealed in the books? What could it include? What were its goals in the past, and how (if at all) have they changed in modern times? (This was one thing Greg and I discussed - that certain elements of the original plan may no longer be relevant or feasible, and that the Pavis Priests would focus on revitalizing what would be the most valuable elements in current times.)

Spoiler

(Although the Pavis Cult Priests are of course not the main driving force behind the plan's unfolding progress over the centuries!) 

If nobody contributes at all here, fear not. I have a tonne of notes and ideas from the old discussions and my campaign notes, and the Grand Plan is well fleshed out. However, I am also more than delighted to entertain new (or expanded) ideas and perspectives from the fountain of fan wisdom. I just ask that anyone who comments riffs those off a decent knowledge of canon and speculative Pavis ideas already in existence. (Rather than basing ideas just on a more general question about what some random ancient city old plan might have been.)

I am already including one major idea that did not stem from Greg or I, but from someone else's speculation over 20 years ago. (Possibly Simon Phipp, but I really can't remember. Once it's out, if Simon wants to throw me a 'Yes, that was my idea', I am happy to credit it in the first revision of whatever book it appears in.) An amazing idea that I am struggling to write in without it giving too much away. But it's just too good not to. (A clue to this one actually might be in Vol. 05.)

Anyway, I'm interested in any and all informed speculations on the topic. :)

Everyone's larger Pavis Campaigns may well have very different Grand Plans in them of course, and my goal is NOT to match everyone's expectations (some of which are likely contradictory so that would be impossible). My goal is simply to create the most interesting version that I can for this particular campaign, while staying close to the themes and objectives I discussed with Greg back in the day.

I likely won't respond to specific ideas in great detail, as my enthusiastic interest in any elements could give away too much. But I will read them ALL, and I may take some ideas into secret discussion of course, but in the meantime I am intrigued to see what others might imagine.

Cheers

Edited January 16 by Ian A. Thomson

[littlewitchmaus]

i haven't the knowledge to contribute anything, here, but i just wanted to say that i love this project, so far, and an dearly looking forward to seeing where it goes!

Edited January 17 by littlewitchmaus

[Baron]

I am probably not typical of the majority of RQ gamers today. If I buy a published setting, it becomes mine. I may use most of the setting, but the "future" is what happens at my table. Lunars occupy Pavis. No matter what various NPCs want, that may not change for a hundred years, or three hundred years. My players will have adventures in the setting as it exists. I doubt any of them will become demigods who remake the world.

I will use your books as I use Pavis. I hope your adventures will be exciting and fun without requiring adherence to someone's particular imaginary timeline -- because that's MY job.

Thanks for sharing your work. I only saw a fraction of it back in the day.

[Ian A. Thomson]

38 minutes ago, Baron said:

I doubt any of them will become demigods who remake the world.

At the end of my first campaign, all the PCs became Heroes of Old Pavis, but could have continued on as high-level independents on a world-spanning campaign if UNI hadn't finished. In the second, two of them also became pivotal socio-political figures in the arisen Old City's new expression of itself. Hmm, I may offer other options this time around as well.

Either way though, the end of the longer campaign (5yrs rather than 3yrs) elevated them to such an extent that they were no longer playable in the old style, Just too powerful. Not demi-gods - though the two of them could have been heading that way!

[Revilo Divad Of Dyoll]

I'm afraid that my Pavis has always been just a dusty border town with no Grand Plan.

However, if there were a Grand Plan, it would have something to do with the dragonewts.  After all, the Dragonewts Dream was a continent-wide event, but the only tangible effect that I know of is that Pavis was re-opened.  Maybe they're planning to restart their war with the giants? 

[Runeblogger]

I once looked for ideas for the Grand Plan and found a long chronicle of a Pavis campaign on the Internet. In that campaign, Pavis Grand Plan was...

Spoiler

to turn his city into a perfect jewel of the Green Age, thus recreating that Eden-like age for all its inhabitants, 100% Harmony and all that.

But perhaps I'm misremembering things mixing in bits from Mongoose's Pavis Rises book. 🥴

[Darius West]

I have things to contribute, but I think I should PM them for "clearance" first. 😬

[Akhôrahil]

I think it makes sense to tie this into projects to restore the Praxian Green Age (which despite the name is in the Golden Age), by bringing back Genert or (more easily) Tada.

Full harmony requires bringing everyone (non-Chaotic) into the tent, including trolls, Praxians, and remaining Lunars. This is probably harder than just beating them up. Pavis himself failed to integrate the trolls/Darkness, which might have set the whole thing up for failure. But the Hero Wars are here, and all things are possible...

[Geoff R Evil]

Hi Ian

We have been in discussion, so you have some of my ideas already. But for the sake of stimulating discussion I will put a few here. A bit like Akhorahil, bringing back the green age maybe part of it. But not in the short term of one heroic generation I suspect.
In my campaign I started with a Pol Joni clan, and unlike your campaign, I started at the date set by Chaosiums RQG. So I have been using your campaign material to set a background and history. But I have found I can take elements of your material and fit it into my own “grand plan”.

The Pavis cult resisted lunar marriage to the pantheon, so the plan excludes them. But let’s remember Lunars have their own grand plan….so one has to ask….what value is Pavis to the lunars? In short, it’s ancient magics. Lunars have yet to tap properly into draconic magics. As a location, Pavis is mostly a trading spot, but it comes with a lot of baggage in terms of contested history. Its position on the zola fel is a primary asset for trade to the sea. But it’s not critical to the lunar yet. In short it’s not a critical strategic location for them. 
So in my campaign, step one was strongly aligning my heroes with the river….it’s the river, not the city, that’s is the most important aspect of Prax…plus maybe the block.

But once aligned with the river, connection to the city makes sense, especially to a storm pantheon worshipping tribe, an aspect of which just liberated Pavis. The key issue here, is Argrath did not stay long enough to settle things down, that falls to the Pavisites, and they are faced with serious issues, Praxian tribes people given access again, to New Pavis too as they helped take the city. But they don’t want it, but they do want it’s wealth….all sorts of politics to play with there.

The really big issue for New Pavis is …feeding itself! Its population has swollen even though many of Agraths army have buggered off to Sartar. Pavis County is awash with praxian raiding the farmers, taking farmland for grazing, it’s a fertile area. So before one tribe can settle there, in my campaign, the Pavisites encourage our pol Joni heroes, that as dorasorian heirs, they should bring their tribe to Pavis county, and live in harmony with the farmers…in effect act as thanes in an area where the farmers need protection and will pay a tithe for protective services, as long as enough is left to feed themselves and New Pavis.

There is that harmony theme again…central to any Pavic grand plan. It’s also reconnects back to the Dorasorian histories. As it happens it also brings together the pure horse history of the Zebra tribe with the Pol Joni history.  Because during the troll time many zebra tribes aligned with the Pol Joni and their heirs helped Dorasor. 
 

Now Pavis has always been friendly with Zola Fel, but never tightly knitted in with the Pavic cult. So while the storm worshipper is strengthened harmoniously with Pavis, because my heroes are also Zola Fel heroes, they are a future conduit to another improvement of harmonious connection to Pavis….maybe.

So where does the grand plan go? Well Pavis is a strong earth cult. We have air being merged in. I see a closer harmony with water in the future too. So that leaves darkness and sun…can they be brought into harmony? Would seem impossible, but I can see mythic ways for that to happen. Through elemental harmony you can see a way forward towards harmony between the races.

So why exclude moon? For the simple reason of its connection to chaos. Maybe the Wakboth connection should be part of a lunar grand plan? It’s already part of Ian’s storyline with some major chaos element under old Pavis. But imho even lunates know enough not to let any really powerful chaos establish that they cannot absolutely control, like the bat. But an Earth chaos creature to partner the bat…scary!

what about Praxian tribe harmony? Well the zebra tribe has already addressed that issue…if the pol Joni embrace zebras in some way, we see a strong storm pantheon tribe, with some yelmic pure horse history too…so maybe a route to praxian tribal harmony too building on Joraz’s  legacy? I..e zebra tribe establishes in Pavis county as their primary grazing, /caked and supported by the farmers.

So for me…I follow the harmony theme.

The elephant in the room….the dragon newts. What’s their role? I see elemental related dragons coming together in some form of union, perhaps to birth a new type of unified elemental dragon to fulfill some ancient prophecy? Bottom line, they are the wild card, useable to force a change or support one.

 

[JonathanQuaife]

Ian, you did share some of this with me. I thought it was great, and it's interesting also to see some of the comments on this thread (I hope there are more!)

One comment I would make would be not to dispose the campaign too much towards an "anti Lunar" outcome. Much more fun if your players can go either way. The Sun County info I shared with you had some suggestions around multi-faceted Lunar factions and culture. Something like this would allow for different approaches towards the city cult (and towards other non-Lunar factions) so that plot dynamics can remain sympathetic towards one faction's motivations or another, even for Lunar-sympathisers.

Edited January 19 by JonathanQuaife

[JonathanQuaife]

25 minutes ago, Geoff R Evil said:

The Pavis cult resisted lunar marriage to the pantheon, so the plan excludes them. But let’s remember Lunars have their own grand plan….so one has to ask….what value is Pavis to the lunars? In short, it’s ancient magics...

Ancient magics have indeed been posited as a Lunar motivation for the conquest of Prax. Another suggested motivation was access to the sea to facilitate trade to Kralorela and the East. 

Access to the sea in Prax failed, and arguably it did in Kethaela too: the Lunar occupation of Karse coinciding with the arrival of Harrek and the Wolf Pirates. (Not to mention reticence on the part of the Eastern peoples to welcome ships from the West.)

So, even after the invasion of Prax, trade from the Empire with Kralorela remained dependent on the Etyries Caravan from Oraya, which was controlled by the MolariSor Clan.

One of the key Clans in the context of Dragon Pass and Prax is of course the EelAriash. One might speculate, therefore, that Pavis offers the EelAriash the opportunity to outdo the MolariSor by operating a bigger and better trade caravan to the East from Pavis... led, perhaps, by Kost the Tracker.

I do have beef with the accelerated hero wars timelines that we have these days. In Greg's earlier plans, Argrath's arrival was in the 1640's, and the events of King of Sartar played out over 100 or so years. A longer Lunar occupation in Pavis gives much more leeway to develop more interesting story arcs... A huge endeavour such as a massive trade caravan would be years in the making... and very interesting as a game theme, since it would make everybody rich!

[Geoff R Evil]

The lunars can make a come back at anytime you like, Argrath did bugger all to secure Pavis or Prax, arguably he even weakened it

Edited January 19 by Geoff R Evil

[Akhôrahil]

33 minutes ago, Geoff R Evil said:

The lunars can make a come back at anytime you like, Argrath did bugger all to secure Pavis or Prax, arguably he even weakened it

I very much believe the people who care about Pavis were glad to see him come and glad to see him leave.

[Ian A. Thomson]

10 hours ago, Darius West said:

I have things to contribute, but I think I should PM them for "clearance" first. 😬

PMing is also a valid option :)

[Ian A. Thomson]

3 hours ago, JonathanQuaife said:

One comment I would make would be not to dispose the campaign too much towards an "anti Lunar" outcome. Much more fun if your players can go either way. The Sun County info I shared with you had some suggestions around multi-faceted Lunar factions and culture. Something like this would allow for different approaches towards the city cult (and towards other non-Lunar factions) so that plot dynamics can remain sympathetic towards one faction's motivations or another, even for Lunar-sympathisers.

I agree with this in principle, but (as mentioned to someone else a while back) the problem is that it is already written as anti-Lunar, and this is in-built to the core of the story. So to alter it would (a) remove or undermine that huge and intrinsic frame of classic dramatic tension, and (b) take an enormous amount of time in rewriting to add in new options and balance out the removal of the anti-Lunar, and that time is the one thing I don't have :(

Edited January 20 by Ian A. Thomson

[Baron]

"I HATE the Romans! A LOT!"

[John Biles]

40 minutes ago, Baron said:

"I HATE the Romans! A LOT!"

Now imagining a young Argath painting anti-Lunar slogans on the walls of Pavis and a Lunar minor officer comes and corrects his writing.

 

[Baron]

I think I'll have to do that now. 😛

[Ian A. Thomson]

57 minutes ago, John Biles said:

Now imagining a young Argath painting anti-Lunar slogans on the walls of Pavis and a Lunar minor officer comes and corrects his writing.

Its written in to the campaign somewhere. I would guess Vol. 01 since its easier to add silliness there before the more epic nature of things begins to unfold :)

Not Argrath, but a PC

[MOB]

5 hours ago, Geoff R Evil said:

The lunars can make a come back at anytime you like, Argrath did bugger all to secure Pavis or Prax, arguably he even weakened it

Argrath made an alliance with Sun County down river. That protects Pavis (or at least is in the way), should a Lunar invasion come via the sea. I'm sure he's mindful that the Sun Domers adroitly switched sides at Moonbroth II though, betraying their Lunar allies, and could do so again (they have survived here in Prax for 800 years using the strategy of "winning by not losing"). But Argrath hosts a pretender count in Pavis that he could unleash on them with nomad support if he ever so chose, and that helps keep the current regime at the Sun Dome in line. 

[Nick Brooke]

6 hours ago, Ian A. Thomson said:

I agree with this in principle, but (as mentioned to someone else a while back) the problem is that it is already written as anti-Lunar, and this is in-built to the core of the story. So to alter it would (a) remove or undermine that huge and intrinsic frame of classic dramatic tension, and (b) take an enormous amount of time in rewriting to add in new options and balance out the removal of the anti-Lunar, and that time is the one thing I don't have 😞

If anyone seriously wants to adapt Ian's massive multi-volume campaign to include more pro-Lunar options (and I strongly suspect they won't), then their original creative works will always be welcome on the Jonstown Compendium. You are encouraged to reference any Gloranthan sources published by Chaosium in community content, and all Jonstown Compendium books are published by Chaosium, including the original Pavis & Big Rubble books and all of Ian's companion volumes. You can't quote great bleeding chunks of Ian's text, of course, unless he gives you permission: exactly the same deal applies to quoting Chaosium's own books.

And yes, this means you can set scenarios in @jajagappa Harald Smith's Nochet or @blackyinkin Simon Bray's Furthest without a moment's hesitation, you certainly don't have to roll your own version of well-described settings (although you can if you like, because -- all together now -- Your Glorantha Will Vary). Just ask the authors if you'd rather reuse some of their descriptions than write your own: you might be delighted with the answers you get. #WeAreAllUs

[Geoff R Evil]

Yes, in my campaign the pretender count has recruited many Yelmalios and they garrison Paris now, split with the Humakti that were ex Orlanthi, it’s a small force, but something. It creates some interesting tensions as Paris has to rely a lot on these external cults. But harmony is the way…

[Ian A. Thomson]

1 hour ago, Nick Brooke said:

If anyone seriously wants to adapt Ian's massive multi-volume campaign to include more pro-Lunar options (and I strongly suspect they won't), then their original creative works will always be welcome on the Jonstown Compendium. 

I have various ideas about how it could be adapted, and may include them in the last book, but would also be happy to discuss them with anyone who wanted to take on a larger task of creating a bigger piece

The reason why it would be the last book is because of the sheer amount of work still ahead of me. Once that is done I'll consider writing an extra appendix of those ideas

[Akhôrahil]

3 hours ago, Ian A. Thomson said:

I have various ideas about how it could be adapted, and may include them in the last book, but would also be happy to discuss them with anyone who wanted to take on a larger task of creating a bigger piece

The reason why it would be the last book is because of the sheer amount of work still ahead of me. Once that is done I'll consider writing an extra appendix of those ideas

I think you could quite easily make something interesting about being pro-Lunar but anti-Lunar Empire, like wanting the local Lunars to get integrated into the Pavis Plan. It's hardly a stretch to decide that the Lunar Empire is an enemy of the Lunar Way, after all (as the White Moonies demonstrate).

[Darius West]

12 hours ago, Ian A. Thomson said:

PMing is also a valid option 🙂

Is it cleared for release?