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Tunneled Hills and Plateau of Statues (SPOILER ALERT!)


Harrek

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I've been reading GtG and ToRM #15 about Tunneled Hills and Plateau of Statues. I'll send my players there and I'd appreciate some help.

Both GtG and ToRM #15 give an overall picture of the place. However, I'm interested if someone has made more precise maps, descriptions of places, session notes etc. about either Tunneled Hills or Plateau of Statues.

I also have few questions:

- What/who exactly is the demon child mentioned in the GtG (whose father is Cacodemon and mother a deceased broo)? He sound to be a prominent chaos leader...

- Tunneled Hills was a God Time city, what city exactly? Krajlki Bog is where Genert's garden (I quess center of it) used to be, Genert's dead body lies there. Is what is now Tunneled Hills the former Genert's city?

- Whose place was Plateau of Statues? In ToRM #15 there is a description (p.59) about party going in to Plateau of Statues. It's good but what else is there? Any more info would be nice.

- Weeping Valley seems to be the worst place of Tunneled Hills, what is there and why it is like that?

- Has someone thought more about Than Ulbar or Only Safe? Maps, description, people of note etc.?

In our campaign the demon child is The Big Enemy #1, who's going to awake Wakboth again. There is going to be a huge Hero Wars clash between chaos and Pavis/Prax. I have some ideas to my own questions but I'm looking after another perspective and ideas which I could use in the campaign.  

Thank you.

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4 minutes ago, Harrek said:

Both GtG and ToRM #15 give an overall picture of the place. However, I'm interested if someone has made more precise maps, descriptions of places, session notes etc. about either Tunneled Hills or Plateau of Statues.

The other major resource is Sandy Petersen's Campaign log documented by one of his players, Jeff Okamoto:

http://www.seiyuu.com/okamoto/writing/campaign_log_2_0.pdf

 

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Gods of Glorantha mentioned the following peoples that fought for the Gods (in addition to the ancestors of the Praxians)

  • The Copper Warriors
  • The Golden People
  • The Sky Spears
  • The White Elves

Nomad Gods 1st edition rulebook p62 mentions the Longears and the Aldryami Lords (who are probably the same as the White Elves).  It also mentions the Bodies of Old but I think that's actually from the ruins of Old in Prax.

The Eleven Lights p129 mentions the following Gods with Genert: Flamal, Seyotel, Ronance and the Three Bean Circus.  Yamsur and Seolinthur are mentioned in the Glorantha Sourcebook p122.

The White Elves can probably be ruled out as the source of the Tunnelled Hills.  The Copper Warriors are probably the source of the Copper Sands and thus associated with Genert and the Krjalki Bog.  The Praxian ancestors are associated with Tada and in Prax.  That leaves the Golden People and the Sky Spears as being the origins of the Tunnelled Hills and the Plateau of Statues.

I assume that the Plateau of Statues is associated with Yamsur and the Sky Spears (simply because it's a mile high and thus close to the Sky).  The Spears were actually Cosmic Pillars called down from the Sky (this means that the Plateau civilization can be no early than the Late Golden Age) - a similar origin to the Vent in Kethaela.  As the world degenerated, the cosmic pillars were carved into statues to protect the Plateau and hence none of the Sky Spears were left untouched.  

That leaves the Golden People as the origin of the Tunnelled Hills.  At one end is Star Crystal Mountain which is associated with Pole Star.  If the Golden People are Kralorelans, iIt could be the body of a Dragon that died during the Gods War and the resulting void became a source of the various forms of chaos (Bagog, Krarsht, Thanatar etc).  The Weeping Valley is probably the point at which the Dragon died marking the transition between the World of Life and the World of Horror.  

 

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I would buy the Sky Spears explation. My GoogleFu showed me the way to glorantha.com entry of Lodril:

"[LOE-dril]
Solar pantheon and Doraddi pantheon — father of peasants and volcanoes, a Doraddi Old God

This god is brother to Dayzatar and Yelm, and father of the three Lowfires. Where Dayzatar sought mysticism, and Yelm suffered to prove his worth, Lodril always sought pleasure in common life. At his worst Lodril personifies carnal gratification, totally unhindered by civilized mores. At best he is the personification of the common man.

When Lodril came to earth he became Volcano God. During the Gods War, the Sky Spear pierced the earth trying to impale a slimy thing of chaos. Rather than holding firm, the Spear snapped and broke freeing Lodril, the god who lived inside the weapon. He is sometimes thought of as the source of heat without light. In Kethaela there exists an immense volcano called Lodril’s First Home.

Lodril is usually depicted as a crude but powerful peasant among the solar worshipers, sometimes even portrayed as a slovenly, overweight sot. Among the Pamaltelans he is shown on baskets as a warrior carrying both a long and a short spear."

That would explain the volcanic activity in the area also. Maybe the chaos was too strong for Lodril, so that he had to escape/hide somewhere. Before that, Tunneled Hills were covered with lava...

 

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1 hour ago, Harrek said:

I also have few questions:

A quick note on the Geography of the Wastes. Not everything is where it was in the God time. After Chaos shattered Genert, the Wastes began to separate into different parts that started to drift apart. Prax remained attached as Zola Fel held it tight to the mountains. It was the water spirits that each held their own lump together as the whole floated apart. Waha eventually tied the parts together and Arachne Solara pulled the whole together. Parts of the tunnelled hills are the bodies of All Eyes Open But One (his head is the Vast Teeth Hills), Yamsur and likely a small part of Genert missed by Hyena. Genert's body is gone, eaten by Hyena, not in the marsh. Seolinthur's remains are in the marsh. The city mentioned is that of which Genert's palace was the centre, the tunnelled Hills were part of this as well. Chaos defiled the remains - tunnelling into it to find Genert and the others.

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2 hours ago, Harrek said:

I also have few questions:

A lot of the areas were deliberately left as story hooks for you to flesh out yourself:

Weeping Valley

the demon child

However, The Mostali Graveyard are the Mostali in the city who advised Genert, now corrupted.

The crater of Than Ulbar and the Valley of Pinacles are the lost battlegrounds of the Men-and-a-half, where their god Lodril failed to save Genert. Lodril died many times in the Great darkness, but he was of the underworld and could often return, but he was unable to in the wastes.

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On 10/18/2018 at 9:08 AM, Harrek said:

I've been reading GtG and ToRM #15 about Tunneled Hills and Plateau of Statues. I'll send my players there and I'd appreciate some help.

Both GtG and ToRM #15 give an overall picture of the place. However, I'm interested if someone has made more precise maps, descriptions of places, session notes etc. about either Tunneled Hills or Plateau of Statues.

The Tunnelled Hills and Plateau of Statues is, for me, almost as big and nasty a Chaos Nest as Dorastor. 

 

On 10/18/2018 at 9:08 AM, Harrek said:

- What/who exactly is the demon child mentioned in the GtG (whose father is Cacodemon and mother a deceased broo)? He sound to be a prominent chaos leader...

He didn't figure in our campaign, to be honest. I had him as the father of many of the chaos of the area. I saw him as a Fiend/Broo hybrid who could control any creature of Chaos.

 

On 10/18/2018 at 9:08 AM, Harrek said:

I've been reading GtG and ToRM #15 about Tunneled Hills and Plateau of Statues. I'll send my players there and I'd appreciate some help.

Both GtG and ToRM #15 give an overall picture of the place. However, I'm interested if someone has made more precise maps, descriptions of places, session notes etc. about either Tunneled Hills or Plateau of Statues.

We had it as one of the cities of the ancestors of the Oasis Folk. 

So, lots of earth shrines and long-forgotten earth deities. Lots of secrets about the oasis folk just waiting to be discovered. Lots of ogres, scorpionfolk and broos.

 
On 10/18/2018 at 9:08 AM, Harrek said:

- Whose place was Plateau of Statues? In ToRM #15 there is a description (p.59) about party going in to Plateau of Statues. It's good but what else is there? Any more info would be nice.

In my Glorantha, it was Genert's Palace and the Statues were the servants of Genert, or his enemies, turned to stone.

We had Genert's Hall in the middle of the Plateau of Statues and within that was a giant bed and a throne. The throne contained a Faceless Statue, identical to the one that Pavis found.

The bed was used to resurrect Genert, in our campaign.

 

On 10/18/2018 at 9:08 AM, Harrek said:

- Weeping Valley seems to be the worst place of Tunneled Hills, what is there and why it is like that?

We had it as the Place of Atrocities, where atrocities had happened again and again. The Atrocities were never described, just hinted at as being so horrible that nobody remembered them.

 

On 10/18/2018 at 9:08 AM, Harrek said:

- Has someone thought more about Than Ulbar or Only Safe? Maps, description, people of note etc.?

We used the Thanatar Temple at Than Ulbar. I think it had a full temple to Than, Atyar and Thanatar in my game, so three Great Temples in one. It also contained Major Temples to other Chaos Deities, so was a good place for an adventure.

It had the Crystal Skull, which was the head of Tien, which sent anyone who looked at it insane.

It also had the Broo with a Thousand Heads, a Thanatar Hero with 1,000 Thanatar Heads, providing him with as much Divine Magic as I could think of. Basically, he had access to all divine spells. 

I think we had Only Safe as a Storm Bull Great Temple, like the Bull Pen near the Footprint. Storm Bulls used to gather there and then march into the Tunnelled Hills as a great Storm Bull Army, never to return. It was a safe place for the PCs, if they could reach it.

On 10/18/2018 at 9:08 AM, Harrek said:

In our campaign the demon child is The Big Enemy #1, who's going to awake Wakboth again. There is going to be a huge Hero Wars clash between chaos and Pavis/Prax. I have some ideas to my own questions but I'm looking after another perspective and ideas which I could use in the campaign.  

That makes sense, as he is Wakboth's grandchild.

We never got to awaken Wakboth, as our campaign stopped before that, but it was very much on the cards. I planned on having several groups of chaos HeroQuestors each trying to awaken Wakboth, one from the Tunnelled Hills, one from Dorastor, one from the Lunar Empire and one from the Big Rubble, each fighting against each other and trying to get to be the First. If they had worked together, it would have been easier.
 

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

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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