1652 Great Flood

[David Scott]

Carrying over from the Belintar thread and some posts I've made over on G+ regarding the future of the Wastelands:

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/6934-what-was-belintar-up-to/?tab=comments#comment-98334

https://plus.google.com/113966393032570282645/posts/7HKJT338B4U

I thought I'd look at the effects of the Great Flood of 1652 using maps and what little information we have from King of Sartar:

2ed page 133

Quote

Because of the floods, there were many years of panic and desperation, Londario forced a peace among the many peoples of the area. When he was king the last of the cities drowned, and for a year the water came up the rivers as far as Kero Fin Mountain.

Other sources date this event to 1652.

The background info's comes from one of Greg's unpublished works, but many have heard him speak about this event and those leading up to it at conventions:

• Trolls separate a huge chunk of Valind's glacier around 1630
• It eventually drift down and blocks Magasta's Pool around 1651
• The sea level rises and a crude map shows flooding in many areas of Genertela including Dragon Pass, Loskalm, Kralorela, Seshnela and Ralios around 1652.

So for Stage One I've got a map of Genertela and crudely blued out anything below the first 1000' contour line. The flood appears to be gradual with the waters rising due to the blockage. Perhaps it took place over one or two seasons. Obviously Heroes may change some of this, but it affects a large area:

Stage Two coming soon as the flood hasn't reached Kero Fin yet...

Edited November 7, 2017 by David Scott

[Psullie]

never mind the Wastelands, the destruction to the Holy Country and I'm guessing Frontal is phenomenal. if this is gradual then we'd see a tide of refugees heading north up through Dragon Pass and other breaks in the mountains, why are the trolls doing this?

 

 

[Richard S.]

Just now, Psullie said:

never mind the Wastelands, the destruction to the Holy Country and I'm guessing Frontal is phenomenal. if this is gradual then we'd see a tide of refugees heading north up through Dragon Pass and other breaks in the mountains, why are the trolls doing this?

 

 

Both they and the Triolini they're allies with want more food.

[Psullie]

1 minute ago, Richard S. said:

Both they and the Triolini they're allies with want more food.

seems like the trolls got the rotten end of that bargain as they'd drown along with their 'food'

[Jeff]

3 hours ago, David Scott said:

Carrying over from the Belintar thread and some posts I've made over on G+ regarding the future of the Wastelands:

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/6934-what-was-belintar-up-to/?tab=comments#comment-98334

https://plus.google.com/113966393032570282645/posts/7HKJT338B4U

I thought I'd look at the effects of the Great Flood of 1652 using maps and what little information we have from King of Sartar:

2ed page 133

The background info's comes from one of Greg's unpublished works, but many have heard him speak about this event and those leading up to it at conventions:

• Trolls separate a huge chunk of Valind's glacier around 1630
• It eventually drift down and blocks Magasta's Pool around 1651
• The sea level rises and a crude map shows flooding in many areas of Genertela including Dragon Pass, Loskalm, Kralorela, Seshnela and Ralios around 1652.

So for Stage One I've got a map of Genertela and crudely blued out anything below the first 1000' contour line. The flood appears to be gradual with the waters rising due to the blockage. Perhaps it took place over one or two seasons. Obviously Heroes may change some of this, but it affects a large area:

Stage Two coming soon as the flood hasn't reached Kero Fin yet...

Keep in mind that this flood may be directed and we may have weird phenomenon like the Great Bore - a five-mile wide wall of water that traveled up the Engizi banks and jumped across the Trader's Valley to the Oslir.

[Joerg]

Much as I find David's map illustrating a flooding by passive waters helpful, I don't think that that model is really sustainable. A huge and long lasting tidal wave could creep onto selected coasts and drown anything in its path, while still climbing upwards some slopes, and leaving low lying areas to the left and right empty.

This isn't powerless rainwater filling a puddle. This is water connected to the heart of the seas.

 

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

Keep in mind that this flood may be directed and we may have weird phenomenon like the Great Bore - a five-mile wide wall of water that traveled up the Engizi banks and jumped across the Trader's Valley to the Oslir.

I don't think that it is possible to plug the Maelstrom with a single sheet of ice. It is possible to inhibit the flow, however, like hairballs in the shower outflow.

The maelstrom is fed first and foremost by the three (or maybe four) Doom Currents that rage in from Sramak's River through the bottomless chasms between the fragments of the Lozenge. The turbulence encountered by ships crossing them on the surface is just a byplay of the huge currents churning in the deeps, all the way down to the bottom of the Lozenge (is it really a cube, or just a flat square tile?).

So why call in all the rivers from the Surface World? Not for the water they are carrying, but for the energy (or food) they collected from the Dry World, to aid keeping the Chaotic Void replacing the sub-basement of the Spike sealed out of the Universe.

This isn't the first case of such energy transfer, compare for example Worcha's Raging Sea.

So, what effect could that sheet of ice have on the Maelstrom? Hardly any on the activity in the rifts of the seas. Only the surface currents would be affected (and they, too can simply dive below this sheet).

But in a way, this ice sheet is Food, or energy, to the seas. Not only will the trapped water be released, it will also carry the energies of the northern dry lands, and this excess energy could e.g. allow the rivers to reverse their flow while the ice is being consumed, or another directed standing wave creep over selected lands (and possibly mountains) regardless of elevation.

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

this ice sheet is Food, or energy, to the seas

Love this. If I recall correctly, the glacier only exists because Valind immobilized the flood. Releasing that trapped water restores the blue age to its natural level without permanently interfering with sacred Magasta -- capturing the food that water accumulated (not to mention doomed uzhim patsies "allies") is really a bonus. We're just calling lost waters home to rejoin the cycle at last and if that's woe to the dry people, they knew what they were doing when they decided to live there in the first place. And when all the waters are in communication again you can get wonderful leaping waves and other demonstrations of triumph.

Edited November 7, 2017 by scott-martin
eating the eaters

[Revilo Divad Of Dyoll]

4 hours ago, Psullie said:

never mind the Wastelands, the destruction to the Holy Country and I'm guessing Frontal is phenomenal. if this is gradual then we'd see a tide of refugees heading north up through Dragon Pass and other breaks in the mountains, why are the trolls doing this?

 

 

FWIW, I think that the trolls are saving the world (as usual).  The firebergs are returning someday, and a nice big glacier would be the ideal way to stop them.  The flooding is just collateral damage.

[David Scott]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

I don't think that it is possible to plug the Maelstrom with a single sheet of ice. It is possible to inhibit the flow, however, like hairballs in the shower outflow.

This is one of the events of the Hero Wars that takes place over 20 years - from the break off of the ice to it going into Magastas Pool. There is a centuries long lead up to the break off as well. I did the map to look at the outcome. There were clearly a lot of attempts to head this off, but it looks like it does happen and only lasts a year. It could be an apocalyptic event as you suggest see 2012 et al, but I think it’s a “slowish” rising. One day the tide doesn’t go out, it just keeps coming in. Then a year later waters start falling.

[Joerg]

46 minutes ago, David Scott said:

This is one of the events of the Hero Wars that takes place over 20 years - from the break off of the ice to it going into Magastas Pool. There is a centuries long lead up to the break off as well. I did the map to look at the outcome. There were clearly a lot of attempts to head this off, but it looks like it does happen and only lasts a year. It could be an apocalyptic event as you suggest see 2012 et al, but I think it’s a “slowish” rising. One day the tide doesn’t go out, it just keeps coming in. Then a year later waters start falling.

I don't think that such a flood should rise in significantly less than six weeks, either. Just having the tides pile up (only two a week, at average) might take too long to get the flood up into Dragon Pass.

It doesn't have to be Jeff's five mile wide wave riding up the rivers, but just getting the waters leave their beds and crawl inland like a huge gorp might be a different kind of flood than the storm-driven waves we experience on our coasts.

In fact, when a storm drives the waves, it usually drives them away from dry land in Glorantha. Storm floods are a bit of an oxymoron when you look at Orlanth's history/myths with the seas. On the other hand, torrential rains are entirely in character for Orlanth, but I don't really see Storm involved in any uphill floods, only downhill ones.

[David Scott]

7 hours ago, Psullie said:

seems like the trolls got the rotten end of that bargain as they'd drown along with their 'food'

They get to eat when the waters recede.

[David Scott]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

3 hours ago, David Scott said:

One day the tide doesn’t go out, it just keeps coming in. Then a year later waters start falling.

Just having the tides pile up (only two a week, at average) might take too long to get the flood up into Dragon Pass.

Not piling up - One day the tide doesn’t go out, it just keeps coming in and in and in and in. Using the AAA page 39, I think the deepest ingress on the map is from the Gorphing river of about 100 miles (or more). I think the most violent ingress is likely the shining river into Low Temple as I imagine the narrow canyon causing issues.

[David Scott]

8 hours ago, Psullie said:

if this is gradual then we'd see a tide of refugees heading north up through Dragon Pass

This is the interesting part for me - what do people do. Do they head away from from the flood, north or just move to higher ground. Many will drown I'm sure as they won't leave for  a list of reasons. Most will think they are safe as they have no idea of the scale of this.

[David Scott]

Stage Two. Still not at Kero Fin...

[Yelm's Light]

So long Sun County and Pavis, welcome to the Big Muddle...

I suppose I'll stick with a 1625-ish game, then.

[Joerg]

5 hours ago, David Scott said:

Not piling up - One day the tide doesn’t go out, it just keeps coming in and in and in and in.

Two problems here. The tide follows the rise and fall of the Blue Moon. To resist the fall of the Blue Moon would take as much energy as to rush in with increased amounts of water.

Then there is the scope. The tide goes out twice, rarely thrice per week. What is peak tidal change in Glorantha? 2, 3 meters? That means you would need 100 tides to reach the 1000 foot line, more than two years of slowly rising water. If you make the rise a meter a day ignoring tidal modulations, it still takes an entire year to reach that line.

I think you want to convey something like the events of the first Mandrenke, where the storm prevented the flood from retreating, only to pile up the next tide on top of the already too high flood. Only without the storm, but still with powerful waves crashing in on the land. Probably no active support of rains either.

 

The initial days would be horrible enough with just the speed of normal tides piling up. The second day after the waters exceeding normal high water marks would already flood a third of fertile Esrolia, almost all of the Rightarm isles, and swallow at least half of coastal cities like Nochet or Karse.

 

To reach the foot of Kero Fin would probably start to flood the Shadow Plateau, and drown most peaks of the Caladran chain. The gap at Too Far will be penetrated and cause a torrent to flow into the Pelorian side unless the flood has risen there, too.

In Prax, only Tada's Tumulus, the Block, the ridge and the horn mountains would remain above the water, between a few islands of the Storm Mountains and Vulture Country.

But then I don't think that elevation maps are that relevant to describe Gloranthan flood zones. Areas regularly flooded after the snow melt will be prone to be flooded by this event regarless of elevation, because of affinity.

The water will spread like a couverture (chocolate icing) with a front not unlike the videos of the seasonal floodings we saw in the thread on Praxian serpents, or alternatively like the pictures of the recent decades' big tsunamis in Thailand and Japan. Deceptively low, but full of energy, and unlike those events in our world to remain for several seasons. Places like Whitewall would not be flooded because of ancient resistance to the advancing waves, getting a front of breakers running up the slopes but retreating again.

Esrolia will look a lot like lowland Pakistan in the recent years monsoon floods, only without the water retreating.

Riding this out in boats, rafts or even arks might be one approach. As long as you don't try to get anywhere and don't run out of supplies, sailing shouldn't be a problem (assuming that we still are post-Closing). Supplies will be a problem, though, unless you have magically full baskets and pots, or have a well-prepared ark.

Another approach might see ancient Earthshakers awakened below cities, wading through the foaming floods towards higher (and dryer) ground, or dragons below awakened for the same purpose.

 

The Syphon is likely to swell to a huge tendril or bulge of water ending in a new vortex where the waters proceed into the Foulblood Void, possibly defeating it for good. (At least until someone awakens Chaos there again.)

 

[MOB]

4 hours ago, Yelm's Light said:

So long Sun County and Pavis, welcome to the Big Muddle...

I suppose I'll stick with a 1625-ish game, then.

As I said over on the other thread, something like Belintar's Building Wall could also be effective at keeping out the rising waters. Maybe the secrets of doing its magic again are hidden in the City of Wonders?

(This would put an alternative interpretation of one of the prophecies of the Enervi Sybils in the Cave of Serpents at Sacred Ezel, that one day "the dykes of Esrolia will save the Holy Country".)

[jongjom]

The tide is not the cause of the rising sea level. It is the Doom Currents bringing in water and the lack draining through Magasta's Pool. Maybe the rising of the water will fluctuate with the tide, but it is the blocked sink that will cause the water level to rise due to the greater volume of water on top of the cube. How quickly the water level increases will be down to how quickly the water from the Doom Currents comes in and causes the flooding to take place (all mythological effects being equal). 

 

Also, the GtG says, “the surface of the Gloranthan world-ocean slants downward at the center, at the edges like a dish”. So, it looks like the dish would get levelled out, and then possibly even temporarily bow upward as the Doom Currents continue to rush in. Possibly, as the dome of water collapses it might create a truly massive continental-sized wave / water surge. The Troll and Sea Pantheon are cunning and have had a very long time (centuries) time to plan this. So why not hold back the water for a little bit longer and to gather all the Water forces together (after all Magasta will still be calling--very loudly now--to all the world's seas and rivers to the center) and only then to release them all in an one-time surge. At that point the iceberg drops through the centre of the Pool and off on its next part of its journey (albeit a tad smaller in size). 

 

Local Building Wall sized barriers will not work here. 

Edited November 8, 2017 by jongjom
Typo

[Joerg]

15 minutes ago, MOB said:

As I said over on the other thread, something like Belintar's Building Wall could also be effective at keeping out the rising waters. Maybe the secrets of doing its magic again are hidden in the City of Wonders?

 

The City of Wonders probably is a good place to start the heroquest for that magic.

I wonder how these dykes work in controlling the waters - do they simply have to have enough elevation to keep the waters at bay (pun not intended), or do they form a defensive bulwark from which the Storm Powers which kept the Vingkotling lands free of the Flood in the Gods War can be invoked, regardless how high the wall of water before them? With champions of the besieged dry spots regularly challenging champions of the encroaching waters, re-enacting powerful deeds of the Thrinbarris or Trembling Shore?

The Building Wall Battle certainly helped to stop the Red Tide.

@jajagappa has interesting ideas about the dam-building along the Lyksos River in Nochet during the Closing after the Devastation of the Vent, reclaiming the northeastern quarter of the city from the swamplands, with rites that required significant numbers of men participating as the dyke's defence line, being interred in the bulwark in the progress.

If water can loom several meters above the dry ground, why shouldn't a dry bulwark keep water much higher than the crown of the dyke in check if backed by suitable magic and sacrifices?

 

But this approach will work only if the invading water is spreading like some goo over the land, measuring its advance not in meters of elevation but in miles of dry land swallowed by the wave front. Water more like an invasive species than like liquid levels rising.

 

Keeping that huge floe of ice afloat on its way into the Homeward ocean could be a major effort to the Sea Tribe. The southwestern seas are way too shallow, and with the Somelz land raising underway on behalf of the Mostali probably would mean that this ice would be beached there.

Meltoff could be significant, and still leave an ice sheet a quarter mile high (most if it below the water).  The Denestlazam Doom Current will be the perfect carrier for this ice sheet, but it will first have to be maneuvered out of the Neliomi current to avoid it hitting Brithos or the New or Red Vadeli Islands. (While that collection might knock a few of those islands off the map, it would slow the ice to a halt, and require extra effort to get afloat again. Which might explain the 20 year delay between calfing and arriving at Magasta's Pool.

When the ice floe reaches the Pool it might stretch as a wedge from Teleos all the way to the north of the Jrusteli Islands, and from Kumanku and Loral to about halfway the distance between the Iron City and the Threestep Isles.

 

Just now, jongjom said:

The tide is not the cause of the rising sea level. It is the Doom Currents bringing in water and the lack draining through Magasta's Pool.

The Doom Currents happen mostly deep inside the Earth Cube - they are bottomless chasms, all the way through the Earth Cube to the Underworld Sea below. This necessarily means that there are huge vertical slits entering into the Maelstrom, providing huge jets of water for hundreds of miles downward feeding the Maelstrom from Sramak's River. Even if the ice floe is a mile deep in the water, its effect on this flow is minimal. Not negligible, but minimal.

Just now, jongjom said:

Maybe the rising of the water will fluctuate with the tide, but it is the blocked sink that will cause the water level to rise due to the greater volume of water on top of the cube.

The sink cannot be completely blocked - like a shower sink with clotted hair and similar debris, the downward current may be slowed a bit. There is no way to maneuver a big enough ice floe intact to top off the pool while carrying it across the shallower entrance to the Homeward Ocean.

Just now, jongjom said:

How quickly the water level increases will be down to how quickly the water from the Doom Currents comes in and causes the flooding to take place (all mythological effects being equal).

 

The amounts of water churned through on a single day should be immense. Have you ever seen the Saltstraumen in Norway at maximum speed? Seeing a rusty freighter rush through at better than 50 mile per hour is quite impressive.

The Doom Currents should have similar speed, but much greater diameter. Saltstraumen manages 0.4 cubic kilometers in six hours through two openings each about 150 m wide and maybe 100 m deep, with hardly any flow for the first and last of these hours. For a continuous throughput at high speed, 0.1 cubic kilometers an hour for that 0.015 square kilometer slit should be about right.

Now let's guesstimate the "slits" of the three (or four) doom currents raging through the breaks in the earth cube. Let's say these are at least 10 miles wide and go all the way from the surface down to the underbelly of the earth, but let's only use the top half of those currents. That's 10*3000 square miles throughput area for each slit, or 16*4800 square kilometers. That's about 1,200 cubic kilometers per Doom Current and hour, or 90,000 cubic kilometers a day for three doom currents feeding the Maelstrom.

A mile deep ice floe will hinder only a small fraction of that water. Let's say 1 mile depth * 10 mile width of the Doom Current *3 for the three surface Doom Currents, or a factor of 1000 less than the total. Still, this is 90 cubic kilometers a day.

For a quick guesstimate, let's assume that the Homeward Ocean and adjacent shores cover an area of 3000*3000 square kilometers, a convenient 9 million square kilometers. 90 km³ / 9,000,000 km² results in 1/10,000 km a day, or 10 cm a day blockage. Maybe allow for a factor of 10 to include other surface currents, or ten times broader channels of the Doom Currents on the surface, then we get a rise of a meter a day once the floe blocks all three surface currents. One year in position would cause a 1000 foot rise in water level, David's first map. However, as soon as the warm waters of the other two Doom Currents are added, the ice floe will start melting rapidly. Maybe over the course of two years, giving a maximum static sea rise of David's second map.

Ok - a hydrostatic plug/inhibitor might cause such a flood.

It doesn't offer as good countermeasure efforts as the plug-less approach, though. Less MGF.

 

Just now, jongjom said:

Also, the GtG says, “the surface of the Gloranthan world-ocean slants downward at the center, at the edges like a dish”. So, it looks like the dish would get levelled out, and then possibly even temporarily bow upward as the Doom Currents continue to rush in. Possibly, as the dome of water collapses it might create a truly massive continental-sized wave / water surge. Because the Troll and Sea Pantheon and cunning and have had a very long time (centuries) time to plan this. So why not hold back the water for a little bit longer and to gather all the Water forces together (after all Magasta will still be calling--very loudly now--to all the world's seas and rivers to the center) and only then to release them all in an one-time surge. At that point the iceberg drops through the centre of the Pool and off on its next part of its journey (a tad smaller in size). 

 

Local Building Wall sized barriers will not work here. 

Agreed. Unless these barriers also create a bubble of air above, Erenplose-style.

Maybe it would be easier to create a Fish Road nexus where both surface dwellers and water breathers can coexist. Also one of Belintar's lost magics.

[jongjom]

Thanks for the insightful reply Joerg.

I wonder though, as the Waters are acting as part of a planned event that they will not do things as expected / normal. Why should they be out to help humans? 

The GtG says about the Doom Currents, "[t]hese usually flow far beneath the surface, but at times these currents rise from the deep and rage, swollen and angry, across the surface of the ocean like a mountain of water or the back of a giant serpent". Hence, part of their plan could be to surge water to the top and along the surface. This is an attack, so they will do things in a way that gives them the advantage. The Troll and Water Tribes have had time to plan here. 

Also, maybe even before getting to the Doom Currents the Water Tribe will seek to assist the Iceberg across the Hudaro Sea. It may well need some help as it is "hundred of miles wide" and it's depth maybe "500 to 2,000 feet" (approx. 150m to 610m high) the same as Valind's Glacier is "along the northern edge of Fronela". However, "[a]s a Gloranthan average, the depth [of High Seas, e.g. Banthe Sea] is between 300 and 600 feet [91m to 182m]." So some lift and carry from Sea below may be needed here. Cue a surge and rise from the Water beneath. 

Magasta's Pool is about 125 miles wide (on average), giving it an area of about 12, 300m2. So, say a 210 mile long by 130 mile wide (27, 300m2) sized iceberg could do the trick of filling Magasta's Pool and some of the surround Ocean, and to allow it to be a bit of a wavy Water-Rune shape, of course.

To put this into some kind of perspective the largest recorded Iceberg on Earth was the B-15 which was 183 miles long and 23 miles wide (about 4,200 m2). 

So it's a whopper. 

Edited November 8, 2017 by jongjom
Typo

[jongjom]

The other effect Water can do is to back off a bit just before the Iceberg arrives. Water does what it knows: how to flow (or not), how dam up and how to produce a wave.

So a milder Doom Current just before the Iceberg break hits the Denestlazam Ocean would allow the forces of Water to gather in Sramak's River. This would increase the depth of the bowl in the center as water continues to drain through Magasta's Pool. Then the surge / Doom Current wave along the top of the Banthe Ocean and onto the Denestlazam Ocean would carry the Iceberg along the Denestlazam Ocean to Magasta's Pool. This massive water volume (and requisite oversized plug) creates a massive dome of water in the middle. 

Of course the unfathomable depths are not truly blocked (the glacier just isn't deep enough) so the dome of water collapses and partly sinks into the not-truly-blocked Magasta's Pool (and he has mythic responsibilities to keep up, after all), but also a truly gigantic wave is created that radiates outwards and creates the flood. 

[Yelm's Light]

3 hours ago, MOB said:

As I said over on the other thread, something like Belintar's Building Wall could also be effective at keeping out the rising waters. Maybe the secrets of doing its magic again are hidden in the City of Wonders?

(This would put an alternative interpretation of one of the prophecies of the Enervi Sybils in the Cave of Serpents at Sacred Ezel, that one day "the dykes of Esrolia will save the Holy Country".)

Prax, however, isn't the Holy Country.  The Zola Fel valley would have to be near the top of the list of flood areas, although the relative flatness of the plains above the level of the valley might mitigate the depth of flooding beyond that.  I still don't see any way that the Sun Dome Temple or the Big Rubble wouldn't be swamped, or access severely limited for non-aquatic races.

Edited November 8, 2017 by Yelm's Light

[Joerg]

37 minutes ago, jongjom said:

I wonder though, as the Waters are acting as part of a planned event that they will not do things as expected / normal. Why should they be out to help humans? 

Neither the trolls nor the merfolk are out to help humans, or aldryami.

The Borklak trolls have plans for a giant vegetable and mushroom dinner - Winterwood just below the Glacier is an enormous lot of spruce wood that will be seasoned in the rising seas, and then lie defenseless as the waters retreat. Whatever the Seas are after for food is different from what the trolls want. That forest without defenders basically is a huge all you can eat buffet.

 

3 minutes ago, jongjom said:

The other effect Water can do is to back off a bit just before the Iceberg arrives. Water does what it knows: how to flow (or not), how dam up and how to produce a wave.

I am still not much of a fan of this "limp water flooding". A decent flooding caused by the Seas should have active waters, able to form steep borders, or to cover slopes in a layer of water without running off downhill.

 

What remains a bit unclear is whether the Borklak trolls were certain that the plug would work as expected - apparently they started the gnawing project long before the mermen joined from below. Did they intend the ice as a raft to invade other lands over sea?

 

3 minutes ago, jongjom said:

So a milder Doom Current just before the Iceberg break hits the Denestlazam Ocean would allow the forces of Water to gather in Sramak's River. This would increase the depth of the bowl in the center as water continues to drain through Magasta's Pool. Then the surge / Doom Current wave along the top of the Banthe Ocean and onto the Denestlazam Ocean would carry the Iceberg along the Denestlazam Ocean to Magasta's Pool. This massive water volume (and requisite oversized plug) creates a massive dome of water in the middle. 

IMO there isn't much room for playing around with water management to keep the Chaos Void plugged. That is an active task and requires better than 99% of the Inner World currents contributing, mainly through the three Doom Currents. It is possible that establishing the Vortex required even more energy, which was sacrificed/transferred to Magasta by nearly all surface (and celestial) waters.

 

3 minutes ago, jongjom said:

Of course the unfathomable depths are not truly blocked (the glacier just isn't deep enough) so the dome of water collapses and partly sinks into the not-truly-blocked Magasta's Pool (and he has mythic responsibilities to keep up, after all), but also a truly gigantic wave is created that radiates outwards and creates the flood. 

I favor this model, of the Seas building up momentum, and then using this momentum to enter far across the dry lands, not as a limp puddle but as one extremely long (and slow) wave berg running across the dry lands, harvesting all the good stuff maliciously withheld from the seas, then retreating to share it with the All Waters.

 

[jajagappa]

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

The City of Wonders probably is a good place to start the heroquest for that magic.

Certainly if you want magic similar to the Building Wall effect that might shift about against the raging seas.

But I picture a number of groups enacting distinct rituals to try to contain or prevent the flood - and perhaps are even responsible for channeling a narrow route northward.  The temples of Veskarthan will look to invoke their god to raise Caladraland higher, or perhaps extend into the Right Arm.  The Earth temples will seek deep, ancient, forgotten gods who slumber within the earth to rise up - earth giants who can raise the entire land.  And then there are places like Storm Hill which is part of Nochet, but not, which never succumbed to the Godtime Flood and will likely be places of refuge.  And don't forget the rites of the Earth Queens to marry the Sea Gods and send them elsewhere.  

I have a feeling that if the Sea Gods and Engizi truly want to reach Oslir, they are going to come ashore at Karse, plow through the Blackwind Marsh, and around the Blackwell (might even have the Styx waters come up to join them there!), and unite with the Creek-Stream River somewhere in Beast Valley before cleansing and purifying the Upland Marsh.  The only question then is which way to reach the Oslir?  I have a feeling they may cut/bite through the Dragonspine below Kero Fin.

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

That is an active task and requires better than 99% of the Inner World currents contributing, mainly through the three Doom Currents.

If Magasta stops churning downward and allows Sramak's River through from underneath (along with the Styx), then the Glacial iceberg becomes an afterthought - no hole to plug and the Doom Currents can go where directed.

[JonL]

The waters in Dragon pass have stopped short of the Upland Marsh, eh?

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(Courtesy of @Quackatoa)

Lord Edbert undertook "Orlanth and Aroka," but instead of slaying Aroka, mastered it with the secrets of his Left Hand Power. Rather than releasing Heler, Elbert bade the great Blue Dragon to devour Daga as well. Rather than return victorious from the Other Side, Edbert  then rode Aroka (with Heler still within) across the strange and turning tale paths until they reached the battle of the Vingkotlings against the Worcha Rage.  Without Heler's power bolstering the Water Tribe's host and deprived of Aroka's blood filling the Rozgali Sea, great Worcha was utterly routed by the Storm Tribe.

Upon Edbert's return, the inundation halted, and when he and Ponsonby (who had brought warning from the South of the coming peril)  led their followers Southward, the waters receded before them.

So it was that Edbert Muddyplucker turned back the Great Flood of 1652. 

Edited November 9, 2017 by JonL