Jaldon's Wrong River

[David Scott]

Can anyone ( @Joerg, @metcalph, @M Helsdon to name but a few) point me towards a source for the name of this river. I'm working on Jaldon's history at the moment and am looking as to why this is so named. For those unfamiliar with it, the references are:

Gazetteer of Dragon Pass (extended PDF) Map on page 28

Sartar Rising tell us that

Quote

Eventually, the heroes arrive in a secluded valley along the Broken River, a stretch of Jaldon's Wrong River that descends through dozens of cascades to Long lake before it continues to the Oslir.

The Broken River is in A2 of the map.

[Joerg]

The first appearance of the name was on the Dragon Pass board.

I have nothing beyond the information Peter collected on Glorantha wikia:

http://glorantha.wikia.com/wiki/Jaldon's_Wrong_River

Since we have no evidence of Jaldon raiding the Grazers (his epic great raid went straight through Quiviniland into Tarsh, I think, making Yanasdros more willing to sponsor Derik's revenge campaign), I would place this event in the time before the Inhuman Occupation - possibly during the Dragonkill (although in that case, who would have remembered the event and the associated place?).

Edited June 9, 2016 by Joerg

[metcalph]

I made a joke in the glorantha: intro about Jaldon using this river to leave Dragon Pass during the Dragonkill and ended up getting eaten by a passing red dragon.  He would have thought it was the Creakstream River which at that time flowed into the sea near Karse.  But this is quite a geographical blunder to make and I doubt one that is plausible (especially in light of Joerg's remark how anybody would remember it).  

There is in 1609 a Praxian raid of Dorastor (WF #15 p53) which has gone otherwise unremarked (the Praxians go via Aggar).  Another possibility might be that in an effort to get rid of Jaldon Toothmaker, Lunar Magicians wove a complicated plot to encourage his spirit to raid Dorastor in a hope to get himself dead for good.  Since Jaldon is stuck on a mental map of Dragon Pass that has the Creakstream River following near Karse, the Oslir is the only river that remotely looks like how the Creekstream River is supposed to be.  So Jaldon goes northwards from Dragon Pass in an attempt to find Prax.  Hence the name.

 

 

[M Helsdon]

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

Can anyone ( @Joerg, @metcalph, @M Helsdon to name but a few) point me towards a source for the name of this river. I'm working on Jaldon's history at the moment and am looking as to why this is so named. For those unfamiliar with it, the references are:

Gazetteer of Dragon Pass (extended PDF) Map on page 28

Sartar Rising tell us that

The Broken River is in A2 of the map.

Possibly named in the campaign mentioned in the Guide (and Kos) when in the early 15th century: 'Derik [Poljoni] needed no prompting to exact his vengeance upon the Praxian nomads after they treacherously invaded the Dundealos lands and pushed onward into Tarsh. Derik faced their leader, Jaldon Goldentooth, in battle and struck the mighty Hero down, but was wounded himself and lay unconscious for a month afterwards.'

See also Yarandros, KoS, page 98, who hires Animal Nomads, apparently including Jaldon, and fights 'the enemy Riding People [the Grazers?]' before raiding across the southern empire.

The only other historical time Jaldon might have been in that part of the world was as part of the Invincible Golden Horde.

Edited June 9, 2016 by M Helsdon

[M Helsdon]

What's really annoying me is I'm certain I read about Jaldon's Wrong River somewhere many years ago - before I owned anything other than Chaosium RQ books & boxed sets. Can I find the reference now? Nope.

[jajagappa]

On 6/9/2016 at 2:40 PM, M Helsdon said:

What's really annoying me is I'm certain I read about Jaldon's Wrong River somewhere many years ago - before I owned anything other than Chaosium RQ books & boxed sets. Can I find the reference now? Nope.

Maybe it'll turn up when the pdf's for the early RQ books are finished.

[metcalph]

On 10/06/2016 at 6:40 AM, M Helsdon said:

What's really annoying me is I'm certain I read about Jaldon's Wrong River somewhere many years ago - before I owned anything other than Chaosium RQ books & boxed sets. Can I find the reference now? Nope.

It appears in RQ2 (p124 of the classic PDF).  

[M Helsdon]

2 hours ago, metcalph said:

It appears in RQ2 (p124 of the classic PDF).  

On the map, yes, but I have a (false?) memory of an explanation of why it was the wrong river. I'm coming to the conclusion my memory is faulty. 8-(

Edited June 11, 2016 by M Helsdon

[David Scott]

Thanks for all the pointers. We know less of Jaldon than we think - there are massive gaps in his history (not including the ones where he doesn't do anything as he's dead.)

I'm looking at where he first dies and the curse that prevents him returning to Prax.

Quote

Jaldon Timeline

890 Born Bison Tribe

922 Age 32. First raids on Pavis and Zol Fel valley

924 Age 34. First attack on Pavis - defeated by King Yanas

925 Age 35. Becomes Bison Khan

926 Age 36. Jaldon undertakes his Great Wandering (Waha and the Wastes)

927 Age 37 Pavis attacked, Yanas killed and the Zebra’s routed. Pavis siege started to 940

940 Age 50 Chews through Pavis Wall with aid of the Eating Statues

950 Age 60 Paps Khan (time of training the tribes per Nomad Gods scenario)

955 Age 65 Raiding EWF in Dragon Pass

He's getting old here, maybe 25 years max before he's first killed.

I think Jaldon's Wrong River is where he's first killed and cursed. There's a well know dislike of between rivers and Waha due to the treatment of the Founders river. There are two versions of the myth - a pro-water version for Water rune khans (mainly high llamas) and anti-water version for the others. Jaldon was bison tribe, and I suspect the EWF magician drew him into a version of Waha versus Water heroquest and killed him. Hence Jaldon's wrong river.

Edited June 11, 2016 by David Scott

[David Scott]

58 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

On the map, yes, but I have a (false?) memory of an explanation of why it was the wrong river. 

@Jeff also has the same idea and we can't find it.

[g33k]

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

@Jeff also has the same idea and we can't find it.

I'm going to suggest that if MULTIPLE subject-matter-experts all have the same strong-but-vague recollection, there is probably an actual basis in fact...  Let me poke around in your memories, a bit:

Have you considered that it may have been info from a seminar or panel, e.g. at an early 'Con?

Or something in early "AP" of the game,?  Presented in one GM's game, and then perhaps repeated by those players as they in turn GM'ed in Glorantha?

Could it be in a "letter to the editor" or similar -- rather than a "core content" article -- in an early 'zine?

Some early e-mailing-list / BBS / forum / etc, whose content never transitioned to Google?

What about some of that "never-before-published" content that the recent "RQClassic" Kickstarter unlocked?  Any chance all the vaguely-recollective eyeballs all got a shot at any of those documents, BackInTheDay?

I'm sure other possibilities exist...

[M Helsdon]

2 hours ago, g33k said:

I'm going to suggest that if MULTIPLE subject-matter-experts all have the same strong-but-vague recollection, there is probably an actual basis in fact...  Let me poke around in your memories, a bit:

I'm not an expert, have never been to a RuneQuest Convention, and until a few years ago my Glorantha library was small...

So far, worked through Dragon Pass (boardgame), Cults of Prax, Cults of Terror, Cult Compendium, Plunder, Apple Lane, Snake Pipe Hollow, RuneQuest Companion, RuneMasters, Wyrms Footnotes11, 12, 13, 14, Worms Footprints, Borderlands, Pavis, Big Rubble, Griffin Mountain, King of Sartar, Dorastor, Foes. A few more to go through. May have been in a magazine? A Different Worlds?

 

[Pentallion]

Let me be another who, the moment I saw Jaldon's wrong river, had some faint recollecton of having read something about it a long, long time ago.  maybe in a Reaching Moon?  I'm sure it was just a blurb.  One sentence at most.  Probably why nobody can pluck the memory out of its hole.

[David Scott]

Not in a tales, nor Different Worlds. The only places I've not looked is WF11 & 13, I pretty much have access to searchable text versions of all published products and Greg's notes. As for Cons, may have come up at a lore auction, but I don't recall.

Edited June 12, 2016 by David Scott

[jajagappa]

There was a question raised on it in the old Glorantha Digest here: http://glorantha.temppeli.org/digest/gd2/1995.07/0086.html but there is no official answer.

And similar question 4 years later here: http://glorantha.temppeli.org/digest/gd7/1999.10/0816.html 

Peter Metcalfe suggested at the time: "I suppose Jaldon's Golden Horde having sacked all of Dragon Pass were looking for the way back to Prax. Having burnt all the signposts, they mistook the Upper Oslir for the Creekstream River and headed off in the wrong direction whereupon they were promptly devoured by a passing Red Dragon."

[KeithN]

I feel like I'd seen it too, but cannot find a reference. I thought it was in that article on the Dragonkill but nothing. In my game Jaldon was the way that Waha! gets around the curse that prevents him leaving Prax - Waha changes his name to Jaldon and sends his secret identity avatar to raid. Jaldon cannot return to Prax. His Wrong River is either part of that curse (which explains why the name persists) or part of the way around the curse (it is a river that Jaldon deliberately misidentifies to somehow trick dragons

)