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What does Dragonewt plinths look like?


Tobbe-A

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11 minutes ago, Tobbe-A said:

but I've not been able to find a description of them and much less any (canonical) images.

The old Dragon Pass Gazeteer noted: "The physical manifestations of the Dragonewt Roads are the Dragonewt Plinths, large, square, rune-carved stones placed about 20 miles apart in straight lines between the cities."

This illustration from SKoH (p.243) has a piece of one.  Sartar Companion notes the one atop the Upper Starfire Ridge (one of the four on Colymar land): The plinth is a tall and peculiar standing stone made of an unknown type of rock. Crudely carved with draconic images and symbols, it is often visited by dragonewts and avoided by the locals.

These suggest tall and an irregular forms, perhaps rising from a square base.  Also that they have the Dragonewt rune plus other arcane symbols.

image.png.9112a97ba1cbfd961fb986b101fd83ab.png

 

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The Guide To Glorantha also says this:

The roads are marked by peculiar standing stones which appear mostly to be crude and stylized representations of dragons, wyrms, and an otherwise unknown thing vulgarly called a “frogosaurus” in Dragon Pass and Peloria, a “ken majee” in Kralorela and Teleos, and a “hurler” in Ralios.

 

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In RuneQuest, you can replenish Magic points by putting your hands on a dragonewt plinth, but dragonewts aren't very keen in the idea.

There is also an adamant spike beneath the Dragonewt Plinth in the Rainbow Mounds, whether that is the case for every dragonewt plinth, I am not sure, but I'd guess so. I really am surprised that more adventurers don't dig beneath dragonewt plinths to find out.

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Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

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  • 2 years later...

A bit of thread necromancy (don't tell Delecti), but I'm surprised there aren't drawings of one or more plinths. Especially given how interesting, weird, colorful, and integral to the Dragon Pass boardgame the dragonewt roads are.

Someone did create miniatures of a plinth and a gateway. Do really appreciate the mini you have to look at both the side and the top down view.

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I just noticed the illustration in the section labeled Dragonewt Band on page 40* of my Runequest: Gamemaster Adventures book. Part of the drawing is obscured as it runs under a hit location table, but the lower left corner of the page shows what looks one of a pair of "peculiar standing stones which appear mostly to be crude and stylized representations of dragons, wyrms, and an otherwise unknown thing vulgarly called a “frogosaurus”.

 

* Edit: The illustration is actually on page 38. No idea why I wrote page 40.

Edited by Bren
Correcting page number
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A typical Dragonewt Plinth consists of a 6m diameter dark black stone plinth jutting out a meter from the soil. All Dwarves or any Lhankor Mhy sages specializing in minerals would know that it is composed of volcanic basalt.

Casting a Detect Magic spell on the area will reveal that a Warding 12 spell extends 15 meters outward from the plinth. The warding “stakes” are four basalt stones buried one meter below the ground on the perimeter. A dragonewt symbol (A triangle with a horizontal line through it) will appear on the surface of the earth directly above each of them. 

On closer inspection (within 2 meters of the plinth) a series of Auld Wyrmish symbols can be seen round the base of the main plinth. The script reads, o-ou-our-ouro-ourob-ourobo-ouroborouroboro- ouroboros. (Scholars may know that is a prayer relating to the dragonewt creation myth). Capping the plinth is a 2m circular image of a dragon devouring its own tail. (Ouroboros, an ancient and powerful dragonewt symbol). Each time anyone casts an Analyse Magic spell on the plinth area they will receive a vision. 

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Hope that Helps,
Rick Meints - Chaosium, Inc.

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Thanks for this really helpful description! But I have an additional question:

4 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

Casting a Detect Magic spell on the area will reveal that a Warding 12 spell extends 15 meters outward from the plinth. The warding “stakes” are four basalt stones buried one meter below the ground on the perimeter. A dragonewt symbol (A triangle with a horizontal line through it) will appear on the surface of the earth directly above each of them. 

What does 'will appear' mean? Is it just the top of the "stake" jutting out of the earth? Or more like a magical glowing appearing out of nowhere? Anything else?

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For those wondering where Rick pulled this description from, it can be found in the Gloranthan Classics version of Griffin Mountain, p193 (it's a two pages chapter on dragonewt plynths).

There's a very partial drawing of a dragonewt plynth (with a dragonewt dancing in front of it) in S:KoH p243.

12 hours ago, Bren said:

I just noticed the illustration in the section labeled Dragonewt Band on page 40 of my Runequest: Gamemaster Adventures book. Part of the drawing is obscured as it runs under a hit location table, but the lower left corner of the page shows what looks one of a pair of "peculiar standing stones which appear mostly to be crude and stylized representations of dragons, wyrms, and an otherwise unknown thing vulgarly called a “frogosaurus”.

It's not obscured by the location table on my PDF.... what are you reading this on? Or is that the physical book?

Also, if you flip back a few pages to p38, bottom left, there's a big drawing of that same plynth.

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Ludovic aka Lordabdul -- read and listen to  The God Learners , the Gloranthan podcast, newsletter, & blog !

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19 hours ago, lordabdul said:

For those wondering where Rick pulled this description from, it can be found in the Gloranthan Classics version of Griffin Mountain, p193 (it's a two pages chapter on dragonewt plynths).

Thanks for the pointer.

19 hours ago, lordabdul said:

 

On 11/17/2020 at 6:05 AM, Bren said:

I just noticed the illustration in the section labeled Dragonewt Band on page 40 of my Runequest: Gamemaster Adventures book. Part of the drawing is obscured as it runs under a hit location table, but the lower left corner of the page shows what looks one of a pair of "peculiar standing stones which appear mostly to be crude and stylized representations of dragons, wyrms, and an otherwise unknown thing vulgarly called a “frogosaurus”.

It's not obscured by the location table on my PDF.... what are you reading this on? Or is that the physical book?

It's also not obscured in my print version of the Gamemaster Adventures book. So I can assume only, that @Bren refers to an older version of the PDF ...

Edited by Oracle
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On 11/17/2020 at 12:50 PM, lordabdul said:

For those wondering where Rick pulled this description from, it can be found in the Gloranthan Classics version of Griffin Mountain, p193 (it's a two pages chapter on dragonewt plynths).

Interesting. The original RQ2 version of Griffin Mountain didn't include that section or any dragonewt plynths.

 

On 11/17/2020 at 12:50 PM, lordabdul said:

It's not obscured by the location table on my PDF.... what are you reading this on? Or is that the physical book?

Also, if you flip back a few pages to p38, bottom left, there's a big drawing of that same plynth.

Doh. You are correct, it's on page 38 in my physical book. The obscured object can be seen to the right of the dragon carved plynth that is on the far left. The second object looks like it is a stone of some kind, but it is mostly covered by the table.

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On 11/17/2020 at 5:55 PM, Oracle said:

It's also not obscured in my print version of the Gamemaster Adventures book. So I can assume only, that @Bren refers to an older version of the PDF ...

No Bren just messed up the number. I can't even imagine how, but page 38 is the correct page. The object to which I refer is in the gap between the table of Sarra Ya'Qual Hit Locations and the table of its list of weapons on the lower right portion of page 38.

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Ah, I see. But if you look at the picture on page 40, you can see two dragonewt plinths in the background. I'm not sure, if these are the same as on p.38, but at least I would expect, that the picture on p.38 shows a similar pair of dragonewt plinths. So I guess the plinth obscured by the tables is carved with mysterious Auld Wyrmish symbols similar (but not identical) to the visible one.

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