Notes on Alone

[jeffjerwin]

The City of Alone

 

A compilation of canon and semi-canon for Glorantha.

 

Terarasin founded the city in 1583. In 1621-5 it’s only 38-42 years old, and it was devastated by Harvar in 1611, losing half its population, including many men.

Alone was a center of the Righteous Wind Revolt in 1611.

 

In 1405 a battle was fought on the site of the later city between the trolls and the Alda-Chur tribe as they expanded eastward. If the Bachad were former Kitori, they may have fought against the Elmali.

 

The DP Gazetteer reveals that the town is place where pipes, horns, and harps are made. Jessoin, a ‘skald’ is particularly famous for his instruments. An ‘apothecaries’ ring’ is here made up of healing women who gather herbs from the Perilous Hills and Vale of Flowers.

A secret hero band called the Burning Wind Women resisted Harvar’s tyranny. They cooperate with the rebellious Tres in the Lost Woods.

Eliardo the Plasterer was ‘mayor’ in 1612+ as Harvar’s lackey.

 

In c.1621 there were only 700 people in Alone (WF 15). Most people there were Earth Tarsh or Dark Orlanthi. The Earth Tarsh domination is perhaps greater because of the many dead warriors from 1611 and later troubles, leaving the women in charge.

 

The Zin Letters #3has a vast amount of information about Alone’s Hinterlands and a nice map of the region, and is not widely out of step with canon, though there the Bachad are of Alakoring/Tarshite origin, which is now non-canon.

 

According to that text, Alone was settled by Terarasin after Grizzly Peak with Tarsh Exiles, and consisted at its founding of the following clans or bloodlines:

 

The tree-worshipping and animist Deruvadings, now vanished, also a part of the same migration as the Taravadings and Brynvaldings. These three probably formed a Triaty at one time.

The Taravadings, who seem to be unlike the other clans in the region as ‘aboriginals’ who arrived perhaps before the Torkani, possibly from Heortland (this is suggested by the classification of the Bachad), though the border of Dragon Pass to the east was not marked as with the Death Line and Cross Line, so they could be an isolated group of Orlanthi who escaped the Dragonkill and returned via the Adari region. They were a Barntar-worshipping group, and lost their wyter in 1611 during the slaughter. Their rivals were the Odalya worshipping Brynvaldings, a forest hunting clan. They are now a bloodline.

The Orgolmani, who in 1611 were wiped out with the Alone warlord Hasberd the Bellows. All the adult men died. From Tarsh, i.e., the Bagnot valley.

Yerastori, an Earth/peace clan, who partly survive among the Sarading clan of the Tres. Evidently from Tarsh.

 

WF 15 tells us that the Bachad were Dark Orlanthi and thus of Kitori origin. This is contradicted, however, on page 44 of the same issue!

 

The Tres seem to have coalesced in c.1612 from survivors of the Righteous Wind (see the DP Gazetteer), including clans of the western Far Point. Both the Amad and Bachad were moved from the western fringes of Alone into the hinterlands.

 

The artwork called ‘A Village Near Alone’ appears in Wyrms’ Footprints and in the DP gazetteer. It shows the sloped roofs characteristic of snowy northern Sartar, and the giant-maiming stakes made from tree-trunks.

 

I use the Spanish site called La Mesa de Miranda for a map of the town:

http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.blogspot.com%2F-z1MAeaXrAQk%2FVPrygbF0QTI%2FAAAAAAAAHYc%2Fv5Wyg6buSzc%2Fs1600%2F11043277_792511187506681_4172175173111480555_o.jpg&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNEKuFnhVfcpvhTPZFEj4q7aroid-A.

 

 

The family of Griselda of Alone.

From Dickinson’s writings (chiefly Meet the Parents) we know that she was born in Alone in 1597 to a family that had emigrated from Pavis, who were connected with the Far Point cult of Lanbril. Her father was named Hereward and her mother was (nicknamed?) Regina. She had for a brother the ill fated Rory/Roderick and an aunt named Harsandra, probably on her father’s side; another aunt was Elfrida, on her mother’s side. Ferdy (‘Ferdinand’) was the child of her mother’s affair or perhaps year marriage to a rival criminal in Alone, who was later to take Griselda’s virginity. Uncle Brand and cousin Belladonna are probably also on her mother’s side through aunt Gunnvara.

 

New Pavis was only founded in 1550, and even if Hereward’s family came from the Old City, they would not have ventured into the Far Point any earlier than 1539, when the Dragonewts Dream opened the walls. Most likely they were early settlers around 1583.

This corresponds to the probable conflict after Duke Dorasar’s death in 1579.

If Griselda’s father was from Pavis, he might be of mixed Sartarite and Old Pavic origin, possibly low-born (Wolfhead is her distant (second?) cousin through him); her imperious mother, however, is perhaps connected to the rich Dark Orlanthi families of Alone, given Griselda’s obvious Darkness Rune. Ferdy also shows signs of the Darkness rune, stronger than Griselda, through his unnamed father. 

 

By the 1630s (The Lady of Alone) the now older Griselda had returned to Alone, where she had taken over the family business. Her cousin Lucilla was by then a Vingan and wanderer. Griselda’s mother, father, and half-brother ‘Furtive’ Ferdie had fallen afoul of Argrath Maniskisson [c.1631?] as wanted criminals and were executed, though that may be also because of their connections to Kallyr.

Edited May 10, 2019 by jeffjerwin

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, jeffjerwin said:

WF 15 tells us that the Bachad were Dark Orlanthi and thus of Kitori origin

SKoH notes them as renowned troll-fighters. Despite the label of the Dark Orlanthi as descended from Kitori, I don't recall any other references linking the Far Point tribes to Heortland or the Kitori.  But there could be Torkani who have intermarried with them.

WF15 p.44 as you note describes them as coming from Tarsh. This is consistent with all accounts of the Far Point tribes.

[jeffjerwin]

21 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

SKoH notes them as renowned troll-fighters. Despite the label of the Dark Orlanthi as descended from Kitori, I don't recall any other references linking the Far Point tribes to Heortland or the Kitori.  But there could be Torkani who have intermarried with them.

WF15 p.44 as you note describes them as coming from Tarsh. This is consistent with all accounts of the Far Point tribes.

They appear as Dark Orlanthi on p.32, and Alone as a cross between Earth Tarsh and Dark Orlanthi on the same page, which only makes sense if they have the Darkness rune. However... we know that the Nightjumpers also have the Darkness rune and are Troll fighters. It appears that there are two types of advantageous Troll fighters: other Trolls and Darkness peoples (to see in the dark and be sneaky) and Fire types, like Yelmalians. The Darkness rune among the Bachad could also come from intermarriage with the Torkani, of course.

[jeffjerwin]

Another comment. The Zin letters zine states that it was once the 'Leave-Alone Ruins', with a strong implication that it was an EWF Site. This is consistent with the rough location of Banamabar in the Second Age maps (though they have flaws, obviously) and the vague statements in Greg's Middle Sea Empire.

Banamabar could sit atop another ruin, of course, that of the Snakepipe Hollow civilization destroyed by Chaos during the Greater Darkness.

There may be tunnels into the hill below the town which could be connected to the two thieving clans connected to the town in the Griselda stories: they might be tomb/ruin robbers, as adaptable to the Big Rubble as to the vaults under Alone. No doubt severe taboos are supposed to protect the site, but well...

[Joerg]

13 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

They appear as Dark Orlanthi on p.32, and Alone as a cross between Earth Tarsh and Dark Orlanthi on the same page, which only makes sense if they have the Darkness rune. However... we know that the Nightjumpers also have the Darkness rune and are Troll fighters. It appears that there are two types of advantageous Troll fighters: other Trolls and Darkness peoples (to see in the dark and be sneaky) and Fire types, like Yelmalians. The Darkness rune among the Bachad could also come from intermarriage with the Torkani, of course.

The influence of the Shadowlords extended all the way to the border of Alkoth/horse warlord dominated Dara Happa in the Dawn Age, which means that there can very well be Kitori-related Dark Orlanthi that survived north of the Death Line, and returned to the Pass in the wake of Arim.

Many of those will have suffered from the Tax Slaughter that ended Arkat's Command. Some may have switched sides, taking troll-slaying magics as their darkness heritage.

[m0n0cular]

I've recently been GMing a game in and around Alone in 1618. I used this small map of alone as the basis for a larger map I made: 

The map is on a Finnish site and includes the names of places published in Zin Letters #3, so I guess was something which didn't end up in that issue. From this shape and the snippets published about the city I created an initial map of 1611, before the sacking of Alone in the Righteous Wind Revolt. I then produced a 1618 map showing the footprint of buildings which were razed or have become derelict after the city was sacked and in some places where new things have been built since then:I

Lots of things happened in Alone and around about, and also between me and the players we added quite a bit of colour. Some things:

Elmali priest Urngar the Unready died on the Yelmalio High Holy Day finally tipping the scales of previously recalcitrant traditional Elmal worshippers towards acceptance of Yelmalio. Illustrated by dampening of the flame on Elmal's Platform and the increased light emanated even through the night from the same platform which Yelamlions call the Sun Disc.

A durulz village called High Pond has been founded in one of the high marshes on the boggy uplands. Refugees from the Duck Hunt have forged a new clan here and been accepted into the new Tres tribe. Their village is hidden in the Lost Woods.

The Far Point Roof Sharpeners Guild have annual games with competitors from Alone and Ironspike and all the villages in the area. The competition includes tossing a caber, but with a spike with one end.

Edited July 10, 2019 by m0n0cular

[Squaredeal Sten]

Any more on Alone since 2019? 

I found a little skimpy bit of material in The Coming Storm - much less than i see above here.

I ask because I'm planning a game which will take the party into Alone, though not to stay.

 

 

 

[AndrewTBP]

13th Age Glorantha says

Air Alone

The forests around this recently built small city have always been deep, menacing, and rumbled by giants. The farmers of the area tried ingenious tricks like spiked-trap cottages to impale the feet of the stupider stomp-happy giants.
There's no telling what the war has done to the area, but if you have adventurers who are interested in innovating ingenious methods of combating giant monsters, this could be the place. 
 

In my campaign, the Earth Priestess was from Alone, and they returned there to rescue the kidnapped children in The Hollow (see The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories, pp.84)

Edited June 5, 2021 by AndrewTBP
Details

[Jape_Vicho]

On 6/5/2021 at 12:39 AM, Squaredeal Sten said:

Any more on Alone since 2019? 

I found a little skimpy bit of material in The Coming Storm - much less than i see above here.

I ask because I'm planning a game which will take the party into Alone, though not to stay.

One of the scenarios of The Pegasus Plateau takes place there, precisely in the Woods of the Dead.

"Gloomwillow's Hollow details the Woods of the Dead, a realm ruled by ghouls and worse."

 

Also this thread contains a huge amount of good info and ideas about the Alone Confederarion.

 

[Lordabdul]

On 6/4/2021 at 3:39 PM, Squaredeal Sten said:

Any more on Alone since 2019?

Not much officially, although Jeff has shared a bunch of stuff in the thread linked by Jape above. There will be more info in the upcoming Sartar Homeland Box.

Is there anything in particular you want to know? I've done a fair amount of "research" about it.

[Darius West]

There is also "The Harlot of Alone" (RQ Compendium p10).  It comes from a period likely during the Hero Wars.  It marks the main street of Alone as being Solitude Street, alluding to the fact that the entire city is affected by an aura of loneliness, likely caused by the nearby presence of a Dragonewt city.  The Harlot is described as being dark skinned, possibly marking her as being of agimori ancestry.  The document speaks of the stink of burning wood beyond the city walls.  Is this a reference to the Stinking Forest? Potentially Alone sits on the edge of a greater Stinking Forest.  The burning wood might be a reference to the destruction of siege works beyond the walls, or an ongoing siege where campfires of the besiegers can be smelled.  There is also mention in the earlier part of the document about the local ruler being touchy about his wealth being stolen, and being identified as such by way of a particular carving.

[Squaredeal Sten]

On 6/7/2021 at 6:54 PM, lordabdul said:

 

Is there anything in particular you want to know? I've done a fair amount of "research" about it.

A lot, but it appears it hasn't been written.  i was asking for use in my campaign,  I can create things, - did create some names of clan chiefs and priests  -  but don't want to contradict canon and would  rather run with things that have already been written, if they have already been written.  Also other people often think of cooler stuff than I do..

I will be glad of the Sartar pack this winter - but last week and this week I'm using what i have.