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 Ancient Imaskar, Bronze age Culture

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T O P I C    R E V I E W
Gyor Posted - 10 Sep 2017 : 17:59:46
If the Mulan had to aquire iron knowledge from the Gold Dwarves, doesn't it suggest that the Imaskari didn't have that technology for the Milan to inherit.

So could Imaskar be a bronze, not iron age type civilization?
30   L A T E S T    R E P L I E S    (Newest First)
Bladewind Posted - 15 Sep 2017 : 15:48:00

The whole Taan region is supposed to be the former stomping ground of LeShay, and their exodus into Faerie/Time broke down the planar barriers considerably, making the pursuit of transplanar magic much easier because the 'Veil between Worlds' had thinned down. Perhaps as a result of or a condidtion for that exodus the Magnetic Iron Mountains formed (which mountain range is the most probable for that one MT, the Dustwall, the Katokaro or the Raurinshields ranges?) merging the region's workable surface iron into the shuffled together storage place, draining the lowered Raurin plateaus of rich iron deposits.

The Imaskari Artificer Lords were powerful, but casting a spell to change the nature of a whole crystal sphere is a little too much for my tastes. I am partial to having the Godswall being a localized effect on the Taan region of Toril, akin to the sphere of influence of the Faerunian pantheon, but instead because of its altered planar connections the Lords were able to stop the localweave from parsing divine magics and blocking the flow of worship energy. This effectively blocked the Proto-Mulan pantheon of the worship of their people and made them unable to give any divine guidance unless they got inside the localised weave the Artificers had manipulated.

I further propose The Godswall project might have been limited to only the vast domains controlled by the Artificer Lords to conserve some of the massive amounts of energy that the casting of that spell would require.

I think the casting was done in the Raurinshield mountains in a fortress city like Solon in the Palace of the Purple Emperor, with the Scepter of the Sorcerer-King and a throne similar to Tharkorsil's Seat that radiated divine interference effects for around 200 miles when active (perhaps even farther). The Godswall was probably erected within a year of the first integration of slaves, done in response to the constant prayer the Proto-Mulan were actively advocating, and perhaps a few challenges of the authority of the Aritficer Lords by early rebel Mulan divine agents/assassins.

I think there is evidence that the Godswall was breached or didn't extent to the whole planet. The arrival of Auppenser comes to mind, and perhaps the Procession of Justice of Tyr... Gonna have to search for clues for this...
Markustay Posted - 15 Sep 2017 : 02:36:40
You see, this is why the Celestial Bureaucracy works so much better. Sure, it might take you a thousand years to get approval for something (after going through all that 'red tape'), but at least you know everything is getting scrutinized by a hundred pair of eyes or more.

Faerunian system: "You distract him with a sexy dance and I'll grab the tablets... or whatever"
sleyvas Posted - 15 Sep 2017 : 01:27:59
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay

I DO like the 'firewall' idea, but ONLY if it got its power from Kossuth. Ya know... firewall... that would be outstanding.

And I do believe it would have denied access to all gods. Let me explain - I think ALL Crystal Spheres have that built-in. In fact, unless you custom-order your sphere (a few I've seen are 'custom jobs' LOL), it comes with a stock setup, but it also has a customizable interface where you can 'flick switches' to run certain features on & off.

So here we have Realmspace, and Ao has the God-switch set to 'open' (anyone deeply familiar with computers understands how binary works). Anyone can emigrate, which is how a lot of spheres would be set... AT FIRST. After a time, under normal circumstances, an Overpower would set this to 'closed', and each God would have to petition the OP to gain entrance. But in Realmspace something went wrong: In fact, A LOT went wrong - Ao was forced to split the world in two. Then we have a quite obvious absence of Ao for thousands of years - he doesn't make a reappearance until just before the ToT (maybe he had a lot of vacation-days saved up? )

What if Ao used so much of his personal power to divide the worlds he was greatly weakened (especially if some of those uber-primordials were trying to resist the split), and he became comatose for a time (could Ao actually BE The World serpent?)
Then Mystryl holds down the fort until he can recover, and when she is destroyed by Karsus, Ao awakes and reasserts his own authority. This allows us to 'fudge' why he didn't do anything for some 30K+ years). One of the first things he notices is that some group of humans* managed to figure-out how to 'flip the switch' for the God entry and set it to 'closed', so he reopens it (which is how the Orcish pantheon entered later). He keeps it that way until he is done sorting everything out. Then his Tablets of Fate are stolen, and and he flicks a second switch that shuts-down all direct contact by deities with their home planes (Domains). This separates their aspects from the majority of their power-base. You guys know the rest of that story.

Then everything is restored post-Avatar Crisis, but he makes sure the god-entry switch is set to closed again. Then Mystra dies... AGAIN. She's got a bad habit of doing that. problem is, her overly-complex magical weave permeates everything in the sphere, and the only way to fix it (when things get that bad) is a reboot. He calls up the Multiversal IT guys and they take about a century to arrive (they are swamped - gods are idiots and are always crashing their systems). During that time, a few sneaky bastiches like Zehir and maybe the Raven Queen sneak-in (after all, the barn-door is open).

Now everything is 'fixed', and the switch is set to 'closed' again (unless they get his permission to entry - i suppose he has to toggle the switch on & off real quick LOL). Or if it works like a firewall (Kossuth!) like Wooly theorizes, then he just sets the 'permissions' to how he wants. Either way, you get the gist. At the end of the day, the Imaskari DID NOT 'over power' an Overpower, they merely hacked the system and figure out how to shut the switch. And Ao wasn't around to stop them at the time (because, otherwise you'd think the guy IN CHARGE OF GODLY EMIGRATION would have gotten involved in all of that, hmmmm?) Mystryl probably should have done something, but she probably felt it was over-stepping her bounds (as the regent of Realmspace). Plus, she was probably preoccupied with an up-and-coming Netheril (who were probably also 'hacking the system' using the Nether Scrolls), or maybe Jhamdath (I just checked the timeline - too early for Netheril to have distracted her), or even Calimshan (all that high-level genie-magic getting thrown around).



*The Imaskari, of course.



You assume that Mystryl was watching the trap collector that received the SNMP trap that said the Imaskari had made the change (which the MIBs weren't updated, so the trap came across as a garbled message anyway), or even the log server that was logging so many instances of changes that no one had reviewed it for a millennium. Plus, all the chosen she had in her NOC were all running around playing "look at me, I can make silver fire" such that they had one of those automated pecking birds just clicking ok on all the alerts that came in.
sleyvas Posted - 15 Sep 2017 : 01:20:37
quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik

Given that 1357DR equals 1987AD, and that the Imaskari imported Mulan slaves from our world around -4366DR, they would have come from our world circa 3736BC. The Mulan brought with them their Mulhorandi and Untheric gods which are (approximately based on) those worshipped within Ancient Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia. So the Mulan slaves of the Imaskari would have originated from the "Naqada" peoples of Predynastic Period Ancient Egypt and from the peoples of very early Uruk Period (pre-Sumerian, pre-Babylonian) Ancient Mesopotamia. (Perhaps also from other peoples scattered nearby or between them.)

The peoples of both of these ancient Earth-based "Mulan" cultures are noted for being firmly into their mid-/late-Chalcolithic ("Copper Age"). They predated EBA-I ("Early Bronze Age") in their regions by a full three or four centuries. It's worth noting that proto-Anatolian ("Ancient Turkish") peoples of the era had already (just barely) discovered the rudiments of bronze alloying/metallurgy, and their work may have been emulated (or reworked) on small scales by a few metalworkers of nearby civilizations they encountered.

But these Copper Age folks basically knew how to dig or carve a kind of bowl-shaped pot into clay, sun-bake or flame-harden the clay bowl, fill it with copper-rich ore, keep a fire burning hot underneath with constant fuel and air blown into tubes, then skim/pour/drain the slag out of a tap and pour the remaining almost-pure copper metal into molds (or simply let it cool and harden before extracting it for later remelt/rework). It took a *lot* of preparation and hard work and lots of fuel and ore and time and manpower to produce at most a few ounces of copper per day. A pair of "large" temple/tomb doors made from solid copper exist from this period, immeasurably magnificent and priceless things which probably took several decades (and several copper mines and hundreds or thousands of men) to produce.

The "Naqada" proto-Egyptians of this age were noted for being masters of pottery and ceramics, so their copper smelts may have been somewhat more advanced and kiln-like, they were even capable of smelting bronze alloys (which they hadn't discovered yet) and iron/steel (which they could sometimes obtain in extremely precious quantities from tiny bits of wire-like iron slag stuff in their copper smelts and even from meteorites). (A handful of actual steel artifacts exist from this era, all tiny bead-like holy symbols, all nickel-alloyed meteoric iron, it's assumed that a slightly greater number of "pure" iron artifacts were also fashioned but have long since corroded.)

The proto-Mesopotamians of this age had less advanced methods but actually produced copper in fair quantity, using it for jar seals and ornamental temple trimmings and ornamental/artistic inlays. They were masters of hammering copper into fine, thin sheets. They also fashioned some knives and short swords and small armor plates of hammer-hardened and annealed copper for affluent ceremonial purposes, though these things wouldn't have been very useful in actual warfare vs more durable and sharp (and much more economical) wooden and stone equivalents.

So, in short, the Imaskari's Mulan slaves would have brought with them developed copper craft and perhaps rudimentary bronze craft, and they would have thought of these as precious metals normally reserved only for significant religious or ceremonial purposes. I'm sure they (or their Imaskari overlords) would think these metals suitably precious for use in constructing magical items. They would also be able to work meteoric iron/steel into small objects, and these would be even more rare and precious than copper-based metals they already valued far more than gold.



ONLY if you actually assume that they came from earth. While a lot of people have made that assumption, I'm not jumping that train yet.
Markustay Posted - 14 Sep 2017 : 23:16:40
By the same token, I don't know of any interlopers off-hand during that time period, either. Ao could have been asleep/'away' for any amount of time between the Sundering and the ToT (although blaming the 'splitting of worlds' is an easy-out for us, I personally feel his absence should have occurred MUCH later, perhaps something in connection with Aoskar, just prior to the rise of Imaskar).

On the other hand, saying Ao = Io = World Serpent certainly works out nicely. The only thing is, we've 'seen' him, and he didn't look all that scaly.
Wooly Rupert Posted - 14 Sep 2017 : 20:17:46
Is there anything that indicates that there were no divine interlopers at all, anywhere in the Realms, during the time the Imaskari godswall was up?
Wooly Rupert Posted - 14 Sep 2017 : 20:16:35
quote:
Originally posted by Starshade

How would it make sense to imagine the magical barrier as related to the crystal sphere of the Realmsspace, if the gods needed specifically, to spelljam to the FR to get in? It could perfectly well be anchored to the sphere, not just "firewall" it, but would firewall them from the ordinary deity way to answer prayers.



Because the firewall was keyed to the usual forms of divine communication, and not to the physical presence of near-divinity.

Honestly, it doesn't even have to be a sphere-wide ban; that would take a lot of juice. Just specific to Toril would be more than enough.
Markustay Posted - 14 Sep 2017 : 19:21:39
I DO like the 'firewall' idea, but ONLY if it got its power from Kossuth. Ya know... firewall... that would be outstanding.

And I do believe it would have denied access to all gods. Let me explain - I think ALL Crystal Spheres have that built-in. In fact, unless you custom-order your sphere (a few I've seen are 'custom jobs' LOL), it comes with a stock setup, but it also has a customizable interface where you can 'flick switches' to run certain features on & off.

So here we have Realmspace, and Ao has the God-switch set to 'open' (anyone deeply familiar with computers understands how binary works). Anyone can emigrate, which is how a lot of spheres would be set... AT FIRST. After a time, under normal circumstances, an Overpower would set this to 'closed', and each God would have to petition the OP to gain entrance. But in Realmspace something went wrong: In fact, A LOT went wrong - Ao was forced to split the world in two. Then we have a quite obvious absence of Ao for thousands of years - he doesn't make a reappearance until just before the ToT (maybe he had a lot of vacation-days saved up? )

What if Ao used so much of his personal power to divide the worlds he was greatly weakened (especially if some of those uber-primordials were trying to resist the split), and he became comatose for a time (could Ao actually BE The World serpent?)
Then Mystryl holds down the fort until he can recover, and when she is destroyed by Karsus, Ao awakes and reasserts his own authority. This allows us to 'fudge' why he didn't do anything for some 30K+ years). One of the first things he notices is that some group of humans* managed to figure-out how to 'flip the switch' for the God entry and set it to 'closed', so he reopens it (which is how the Orcish pantheon entered later). He keeps it that way until he is done sorting everything out. Then his Tablets of Fate are stolen, and and he flicks a second switch that shuts-down all direct contact by deities with their home planes (Domains). This separates their aspects from the majority of their power-base. You guys know the rest of that story.

Then everything is restored post-Avatar Crisis, but he makes sure the god-entry switch is set to closed again. Then Mystra dies... AGAIN. She's got a bad habit of doing that. problem is, her overly-complex magical weave permeates everything in the sphere, and the only way to fix it (when things get that bad) is a reboot. He calls up the Multiversal IT guys and they take about a century to arrive (they are swamped - gods are idiots and are always crashing their systems). During that time, a few sneaky bastiches like Zehir and maybe the Raven Queen sneak-in (after all, the barn-door is open).

Now everything is 'fixed', and the switch is set to 'closed' again (unless they get his permission to entry - i suppose he has to toggle the switch on & off real quick LOL). Or if it works like a firewall (Kossuth!) like Wooly theorizes, then he just sets the 'permissions' to how he wants. Either way, you get the gist. At the end of the day, the Imaskari DID NOT 'over power' an Overpower, they merely hacked the system and figure out how to shut the switch. And Ao wasn't around to stop them at the time (because, otherwise you'd think the guy IN CHARGE OF GODLY EMIGRATION would have gotten involved in all of that, hmmmm?) Mystryl probably should have done something, but she probably felt it was over-stepping her bounds (as the regent of Realmspace). Plus, she was probably preoccupied with an up-and-coming Netheril (who were probably also 'hacking the system' using the Nether Scrolls), or maybe Jhamdath (I just checked the timeline - too early for Netheril to have distracted her), or even Calimshan (all that high-level genie-magic getting thrown around).



*The Imaskari, of course.
Starshade Posted - 14 Sep 2017 : 18:18:12
How would it make sense to imagine the magical barrier as related to the crystal sphere of the Realmsspace, if the gods needed specifically, to spelljam to the FR to get in? It could perfectly well be anchored to the sphere, not just "firewall" it, but would firewall them from the ordinary deity way to answer prayers.
Wooly Rupert Posted - 14 Sep 2017 : 16:24:18
quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik

Given that 1357DR equals 1987AD, and that the Imaskari imported Mulan slaves from our world around -4366DR, they would have come from our world circa 3736BC.



This assumes that the flow of time has been constant between the Realms and Earth. We cannot make this assumption, though, given that it hasn't been 100 years since the Realms was published, but the Realms has advanced over 100 years.

There's also the Realmspace supplement, where Elminster has two portals to Earth: one to 1894, and one to (then-modern) Ed's study.

We also have canon time portals in the Realms, which further complicates the idea of trying to make a 1:1 connection.
Ayrik Posted - 14 Sep 2017 : 14:29:24
Given that 1357DR equals 1987AD, and that the Imaskari imported Mulan slaves from our world around -4366DR, they would have come from our world circa 3736BC. The Mulan brought with them their Mulhorandi and Untheric gods which are (approximately based on) those worshipped within Ancient Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia. So the Mulan slaves of the Imaskari would have originated from the "Naqada" peoples of Predynastic Period Ancient Egypt and from the peoples of very early Uruk Period (pre-Sumerian, pre-Babylonian) Ancient Mesopotamia. (Perhaps also from other peoples scattered nearby or between them.)

The peoples of both of these ancient Earth-based "Mulan" cultures are noted for being firmly into their mid-/late-Chalcolithic ("Copper Age"). They predated EBA-I ("Early Bronze Age") in their regions by a full three or four centuries. It's worth noting that proto-Anatolian ("Ancient Turkish") peoples of the era had already (just barely) discovered the rudiments of bronze alloying/metallurgy, and their work may have been emulated (or reworked) on small scales by a few metalworkers of nearby civilizations they encountered.

But these Copper Age folks basically knew how to dig or carve a kind of bowl-shaped pot into clay, sun-bake or flame-harden the clay bowl, fill it with copper-rich ore, keep a fire burning hot underneath with constant fuel and air blown into tubes, then skim/pour/drain the slag out of a tap and pour the remaining almost-pure copper metal into molds (or simply let it cool and harden before extracting it for later remelt/rework). It took a *lot* of preparation and hard work and lots of fuel and ore and time and manpower to produce at most a few ounces of copper per day. A pair of "large" temple/tomb doors made from solid copper exist from this period, immeasurably magnificent and priceless things which probably took several decades (and several copper mines and hundreds or thousands of men) to produce.

The "Naqada" proto-Egyptians of this age were noted for being masters of pottery and ceramics, so their copper smelts may have been somewhat more advanced and kiln-like, they were even capable of smelting bronze alloys (which they hadn't discovered yet) and iron/steel (which they could sometimes obtain in extremely precious quantities from tiny bits of wire-like iron slag stuff in their copper smelts and even from meteorites). (A handful of actual steel artifacts exist from this era, all tiny bead-like holy symbols, all nickel-alloyed meteoric iron, it's assumed that a slightly greater number of "pure" iron artifacts were also fashioned but have long since corroded.)

The proto-Mesopotamians of this age had less advanced methods but actually produced copper in fair quantity, using it for jar seals and ornamental temple trimmings and ornamental/artistic inlays. They were masters of hammering copper into fine, thin sheets. They also fashioned some knives and short swords and small armor plates of hammer-hardened and annealed copper for affluent ceremonial purposes, though these things wouldn't have been very useful in actual warfare vs more durable and sharp (and much more economical) wooden and stone equivalents.

So, in short, the Imaskari's Mulan slaves would have brought with them developed copper craft and perhaps rudimentary bronze craft, and they would have thought of these as precious metals normally reserved only for significant religious or ceremonial purposes. I'm sure they (or their Imaskari overlords) would think these metals suitably precious for use in constructing magical items. They would also be able to work meteoric iron/steel into small objects, and these would be even more rare and precious than copper-based metals they already valued far more than gold.
Wooly Rupert Posted - 14 Sep 2017 : 13:56:18
See, I don't see it as a change to the crystal sphere itself, as much as a change within the crystal sphere. It's like putting up a fence around my yard -- it doesn't change the land itself, but it does put up a barrier preventing access to my yard.

I chose the firewall analogy, though, because it seems to me that what they did was block specific traffic from a specific source; kinda like blocking a specific protocol. As I see it, it was either some sort of access control list (block all requests from Horus, Isis, etc, from host Earth), or blocking the "channel" that deities use to communicate with their followers (a specific port from host Earth, for example).

Approaching it in this manner creates the barrier that kept out the Mulan deities, but does not affect the arrival of any other newcomer deities, and does not affect any deities already in the Realms.

The manifestations that traveled thru wildspace were something different, though -- they were less than full deities, but more than mortals. So they were not gods communicating from elsewhere; they were uber-avatars physically arriving. They were coming thru in an unblocked format via an unblocked route.

Carrying the analogy out one step further... The Imaskari network admins blocked all emails from the domain @mulan.earth.com -- so a package was sent via FedEx, instead.
sleyvas Posted - 14 Sep 2017 : 12:47:38
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

I always thought of it as being more akin to a magical firewall -- not changing the entire sphere or anything, just blocking a specific kind of access from a specific place.

I would say it couldn't have changed the crystal sphere itself, because then no gods from anywhere would have been able to get in, and that would also put mortal magic over Ao.

So a barrier that warded off a specific portion of the Prime makes a lot more sense to me.



I do believe it was the crystal sphere due to the wording from P&P.

Since the Imaskari sorcerers had created an unbreachable magical barrier between the two worlds that denied the entrance of the gods of the Mulan into Realmspace (in a process similar to that employed by the Scepter of the Sorcerer-Kings [described in the Encyclopedia Magica Volumne 3 and the Book of Artifacts], the only way the pantheons could enter Abeir-Toril was to send avatars through Wildspace accompanied by Ptah. Ptah explained that their avatars would be cut off from their divine essences in the Outer Planes for the foreseeable future, and hence needed to be as powerful as possible if they were to battle the Imaskari wizards. Creating such powerful avatars, known as manifestations, required a great sacrifice of divine power.

However, I like what you say about it being a firewall... which normally focuses on source(s) to destination(s)on specific port & protocol combinations ...
So, perhaps the best way to describe the effect would be blocking
source: divine domains of Zigguraxus and Heliopolis
destination: crystal sphere of realmspace
Protocol & Port: Divine power in the form of avatars or the normal god/priest link or possibly even any kind of pact magic sourced from said planes

So, this all being said... how did the gods making manifestations work then? Maybe it all revolved around Ptah, as a deity of wildspace. Maybe he created the magical constructs of the manifestations outside of the godly divine domains since he's more of a universal power, and then he helped the gods inhabit said bodies if they sent him a portion of their divine power to make up for what he spent. Hell, if this is the case, this process may have been extremely time consuming, and maybe this is why it took centuries before the gods of the Mulan made their way to realmspace. I can see it being a very lengthy ritual to transfer the copy of a mind of a god into a new body that is totally divorced from the original (unlike an avatar, which is still linked to the original).

In fact, what if instead of "making" these "constructs" to inhabit, it was more like "gathering" extremely powerful individuals and wiping their personalities and letting a god inhabit them. They may have even been Mulan people from another world or worlds where the gods were worshipped and flourishing in power. To put a twist on it, perhaps Nezram the World Walker came from one of these worlds and followed a manifestation that was originally one of his friends or a lover who disappeared. If this were the case, perhaps even some of the original incarnations of these gods were from off-world and were the families of these individuals who had given of themselves to become the manifestations.
Wooly Rupert Posted - 14 Sep 2017 : 02:48:51
I always thought of it as being more akin to a magical firewall -- not changing the entire sphere or anything, just blocking a specific kind of access from a specific place.

I would say it couldn't have changed the crystal sphere itself, because then no gods from anywhere would have been able to get in, and that would also put mortal magic over Ao.

So a barrier that warded off a specific portion of the Prime makes a lot more sense to me.
sleyvas Posted - 14 Sep 2017 : 02:10:34
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

But of course, the victors write the history books... and so its written that the Imaskari were cruel oppressors and their gods had to come and save them.



Curiously enough, this happened again, with High Imaskar. (see SCAG)



Yeah, that being said, the Imaskari were ALSO noted as making deals with devils, so there may have been some kernels of truth to it. The question just becomes how much were they painted as evil, versus the true state.
sleyvas Posted - 14 Sep 2017 : 02:06:43
quote:
Originally posted by Bladewind

At the time the Imaskari empire had the ten thousands of proto-mulan slaves the civilization already had ruled its territory for a very long time. The Raurin basin area consists of several elevated plateaus and is mentioned to have very few iron deposits [this might be due to the relative old age of the surface area, having leached all pot-iron for millenia into the underdark, the Great Vale or the lakes of the Raurin basin]. For this reason the early Imaskari readily traded for good quality iron with dwarves from for example the Dustwall mountains.

The early Imaskari dynasties, first seated in Inupras and later in the Katakaro mountain-fortresses, are nearly 3500 years old by the time the waisting plague wiped out the population of the lower classes, baffling the local clergies with the plagues resistance to divine magic. This catastrophy forced both the ruling magocracy elite and the devastated citizens to condemn the divines and forge new bronzen Bukhara Spires in search of a new world to maintain productive levels of argiculture and commerce in the regions wiped out the hardest by the plague.

From the intermingling of lower class Imaskari and the imported slaves from the world beyond the bhukara spire came the Mulan people, so I guess the slaves were treaded quite fairly in a few cases, some might even have taught the lower imaskari some of the mythology of the just divines who ruled the mulan homeworld. To the ruling and uncaring Imaskari mage-elites who had set their sights on many more worlds and planes of the multiverse, the proto-mulan and their petty piety were very much beneath their notice, setting stage for their eventual fall by divine verdict. They were busy building things such as the Imaskarcana and doing other things more arcane and otherworldly such as drowning Bhaluin (for its use of necromancy?), and creating extra-dimensional fortresses, forging shadesteel golems for its defences, designing spells and learning to navigate interplanar politics.

EDIT: Anyone know when the Artificers erected the Godswall, what it was made of, and what the event was that led to the decision to implement something that resource intensive?



The godswall wasn't physical. It essentially changed the nature of the crystal sphere.
Markustay Posted - 13 Sep 2017 : 23:43:06
I'm well-aware of what 'Bronze Age Culture' means. The reason why anthropologists use the metal to denote the culture-type was because being able to work a certain metal changes the entire culture (actually, tech changes the culture, but the earliest 'tech' was metallurgy).

And plenty of people knew how to work iron before they were able to obtain large enough amounts for it to overhaul their culture. Not just warfare, either - it makes a huge difference in farming (efficiency = more free time = 'rise of the middle class').

quote:
Originally posted by Bladewind

EDIT: Anyone know when the Artificers erected the Godswall, what it was made of, and what the event was that led to the decision to implement something that resource intensive?
I never thought of it as a physical, earth-bound thing. I just assumed it was a powerful dweomer grafted onto the Crystal Sphere itself (or The Weave, which I've also pictured being a 'skin' on the shell of sphere). At least in part - the crystal Sphere is covered with ancient script; possibly the 'code' of the physics of sphere, including The Weave?
Zeromaru X Posted - 13 Sep 2017 : 18:21:53
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

But of course, the victors write the history books... and so its written that the Imaskari were cruel oppressors and their gods had to come and save them.



Curiously enough, this happened again, with High Imaskar. (see SCAG)
Starshade Posted - 13 Sep 2017 : 16:06:10
Ayrik is correct, most likely it's true for some northern Germany and Scandinavian bronze age as well. Making copper trough 5-6 step processes and making bronze of it, is wery complex. In the last parts of Scandinavian "bronze age", it's quite possibly they knew of iron, but still bought copper from Hallstatt culture (most likely iron age Celts!), and tin from Britain's Iron Age peoples.
It probably was rules of marriages, coming of age ceremonies, lots of magical knowledge of alchemy, marriage bonds to important chiefs (bronze age peoples married their sisters/daughters off to other peoples), etc. Markus: "Bronze Age" isn't simple metallurgy, it something complex, wery old, and different. (And I'd wish Wotc was more interested in history and made more realistic ones
Most likely, if Mulan turned out Bronze age, they started as just that. If their "evil" slaver overlords was the first iron users they had seen, it could turn them off from it for a long time, imho.
Bladewind Posted - 13 Sep 2017 : 14:32:00
At the time the Imaskari empire had the ten thousands of proto-mulan slaves the civilization already had ruled its territory for a very long time. The Raurin basin area consists of several elevated plateaus and is mentioned to have very few iron deposits [this might be due to the relative old age of the surface area, having leached all pot-iron for millenia into the underdark, the Great Vale or the lakes of the Raurin basin]. For this reason the early Imaskari readily traded for good quality iron with dwarves from for example the Dustwall mountains.

The early Imaskari dynasties, first seated in Inupras and later in the Katakaro mountain-fortresses, are nearly 3500 years old by the time the waisting plague wiped out the population of the lower classes, baffling the local clergies with the plagues resistance to divine magic. This catastrophy forced both the ruling magocracy elite and the devastated citizens to condemn the divines and forge new bronzen Bukhara Spires in search of a new world to maintain productive levels of argiculture and commerce in the regions wiped out the hardest by the plague.

From the intermingling of lower class Imaskari and the imported slaves from the world beyond the bhukara spire came the Mulan people, so I guess the slaves were treaded quite fairly in a few cases, some might even have taught the lower imaskari some of the mythology of the just divines who ruled the mulan homeworld. To the ruling and uncaring Imaskari mage-elites who had set their sights on many more worlds and planes of the multiverse, the proto-mulan and their petty piety were very much beneath their notice, setting stage for their eventual fall by divine verdict. They were busy building things such as the Imaskarcana and doing other things more arcane and otherworldly such as drowning Bhaluin (for its use of necromancy?), and creating extra-dimensional fortresses, forging shadesteel golems for its defences, designing spells and learning to navigate interplanar politics.

EDIT: Anyone know when the Artificers erected the Godswall, what it was made of, and what the event was that led to the decision to implement something that resource intensive?
Ayrik Posted - 13 Sep 2017 : 14:25:57
We have examples of civilization in our world (specifically regions in the Middle East, India, and Far East) which were "Bronze Age" in terms of metal yet attained "Iron Age" levels of craft, sophistication, and development. In some cases they knew how to build kilns and forges and bellows capable of smelting iron, they knew how to cast it, they knew how to work it into steel (they even developed legendary methods of burning iron ingots in special plants to produce high-carbon "Wootz" and eventually "Damascus" steels) - but the finest examples and monuments of their craft continued to be worked in bronze (or even brass, where zinc was more plentiful than tin) for many centuries because they simply had no real access to useful quantities of iron. Many continued - and still continue - to produce items for religious, artistic, and functional purposes from base copper or alloyed bronze in subsequent centuries because of tradition or aesthetics.

Magical items are also art items. Sometimes hard steel just doesn't fit the purpose as well as golden bronze. (Even today we have artwork, jewellery, and countless ceremonial items made from copper, gold-plate, or bronze instead of far more durable tungsten steel or far stronger titanium carbide or far cheaper aluminum.)

Realmslore has often commented on magical qualities and properties of metals. Silver vs lycanthropes. Iron vs feys. Perhaps bronze (or copper) have some specific purpose in fighting the enemies or synergizing the magics of ancient civilizations?
sleyvas Posted - 13 Sep 2017 : 13:23:37
In fact, one of the things that may play out that we find out about is that the Mulan people were indeed still split into two groups even in Imaskar. The "Untheric" people were possibly overseen by the "Mulhorandi" people... with the Imaskari overseeing at a higher level even. This would fit with Mulhorand having a high tech level, but Unther not. It would also add more to the explanation of the split happening whenever the two cultures are rescued. So, the Mulhorandi may have even learned some of the "artificer" magics (if they were indeed trained crafting magics similar to pluma/hishna) from their masters or picked them up from books later. Meanwhile, the Untheric people would probably be the ones trading with the dwarves more and initially picking up the secret of steel from them (and naturally, the Mulhorandi can't have the "lowly" Untheric people having a crafting secret that they don't know, so they also learn of steel, as do the Narfellians and Raumathari.... but the Mulhorandi are slower to adapt its use because they have ways to make copper/brass/bronze just as if not more useful).

Noting this would also fit with the Untheric people choosing a city that's known for getting flooded. They return to their primitive roots in which they probably lived in flood basins, used materials like reeds to craft housing, etc... because they simply weren't as technologically advanced. It could also explain why the Untheric people are harsher with slaves than the Mulhorandi people. The Mulhorandi were treated better as slaves, and so they treat their own slaves better. The Mulhorandi people were also possibly given more leeway in their lives, whereas the Untheric people may have been simply pointed in a direction to work.

I will also note that this plays out in how the people of Abeir used the people of Mulhorand and Unther, though that doesn't say anything truly about how the Imaskari did so...

and now I'm kind of wondering something about the origins of the genasi of Shyr in Abeir.... hmmm, and were the ancient Imaskari purebred humans... and were the lands of Unther and Mulhorand always a part of Toril.... nah, probably shouldn't go down that path.
sleyvas Posted - 13 Sep 2017 : 12:38:57
quote:
Originally posted by Gyor


The lowest slaves are used in mining, because mining in ancient times was extremely dangerous work, deadly, it would be a punishment for more valued slaves to be made to work in the mines.

And if the Mulhorandi worked in the mines they'd know what metals the Imaskari had access to.




While I'm inclined to agree that this is true for many modern societies.... I'm not necessarily sure that its true for the Imaskari. This was a culture who studied other planes, who studied extradimensional space, and who studied summoning of extraplanar entities. There are even some suggestions that they may have had interests in elementalism, which does kind of tie into the aforementioned.

So, if you could summon expendable people to be miners (because an extraplanar entity that dies in the prime doesn't actually die) , would that be a choice you might make instead of wasting valuable slaves like the Mulan? So picture hordes of lemure being overseen by devils... or hordes of manes being overseen by devils (who take pleasure in torturing the tanar'ri). Also, if they can summon demons and devils, they can also summon beings of the elemental plane of earth.... and these creatures would be extremely well suited to mining.

Also, one of the big things with mining is actually transporting the material out of the mine. With bags that work as extradimensional spaces, this becomes much easier and less inclined to create collapses as you don't have to shore up as much or make pathways near as wide. Also with elemental earth beings and magic, finding what you need in the earth can be as simple as sending an earth phasing creature in to spy out the surrounding earth and then once you note where the things are that you need, working towards just getting to and working said area.... and again, with say a bag that has extradimensionsal spaces, you may be able to actually create a "tunnel" that's the size of your fist into a wall, then send in shrunken miners to simply mine just that "module" and put it in the bag. Passwall and some affect like a wand that does transmute rock to mud on whatever it touches might be useful for quickly extracting larger "modules" that are say 10 to 20 feet within a wall without having to actually pull out all of that interceding rock... you just go in, change all the rock surrounding what you want to mud, it falls out of the wall and you load it into an extradimensional space, then the passwall effect expires.

Anyway, so what I'm ultimately getting at here is that life for the Mulan people may not have been actually as bad as what we picture. They may have been more of house servants and builders and field servants. Since the Imaskari didn't necessarily have clerics, one would imagine they had more of a need for medical aid. Thus, these Mulans may have been doing the more dirty parts of the medical profession (cleaning floors and tools, gathering and caring for leeches or other such creatures, emptying bed pans, creating linen for bandages, washing bed sheets, preparing mass quantities of materials which Imaskari artificers prepared into poultices, etc...). So, the Mulan folk may have known a good bit about building things from the Imaskari, which fits with the idea that the Mulhorandi people were some of the most technologically advanced in the realms (which they were prior to the ToT). In fact, the Mulan people may have learned to read/write/perform advanced math, etc... from the Imaskari. But of course, the victors write the history books... and so its written that the Imaskari were cruel oppressors and their gods had to come and save them.
Markustay Posted - 13 Sep 2017 : 03:28:17
I don't think the Imaskari didn't know how to work with iron, I just think they didn't bother with it. Thus, their slaves would not have been exposed to it.

quote:
Originally posted by Gyor

When you have the kind of magic that Imaskar had, perhaps the occult value of a substance, out weighs it's other values.

So if Bronze is cheaper and easier to get and a magic bronze sword is as strong as a magic iron sword, then even if they had the iron tech, it may not have been worth putting any effort into exploiting iron compared to Bronze.
Yeah, thats what I was getting at above - with their magical power, the actual material wouldn't have mattered so much.

Supposition: What if they worked with Bronze (in part) knowing their slaves would learn from them? The Imaskari could've treated their weapons so they were equal or superior to the finest steel, but the Mulan would not have had access to those advanced (magical) practices. Basically, they'd be insuring that without magic, the Mulan would never be able to revolt against them.

There are some ancient Tuigan weapons and armor in the Horde boxed set that date back to some of those early Taangan kingdoms (which would mean around the time of Imaskar). I have to check what those were made of (I can only think of a bow off-hand). The only other relevant thing would be that during the First Empire of Shou-Lung (which was also the last empire of Imaskar- Anok-Imaskar) a Shou hero used the Acorn of Wo Mai to bind the Copper Demon of Troos. That would have occurred in the Taan region, and Goerge Krashos and I have both come to the conclusion that the fiend was somehow trapped inside a Raumathari creation... that was made out of copper. Another good indicator the Taan has almost no iron ore, for for whatever reason, the inhabitants of the region refused to use it.

I also happen to think 'Troos' was the capital of Tsharoon, so the fiend would have ruled-over an empire that existed where the Quoya desert is today. Kara-Tur itself seems to have the normal amount of iron deposits (judging by the size of the armies it can field with steel weapons). It just seems to be the groups in the Hordelands - and not just Imaskar - that didn't use iron/steel.
Gyor Posted - 13 Sep 2017 : 00:26:13
When you have the kind of magic that Imaskar had, perhaps the occult value of a substance, out weighs it's other values.

So if Bronze is cheaper and easier to get and a magic bronze sword is as strong as a magic iron sword, then even if they had the iron tech, it may not have been worth putting any effort into exploiting iron compared to Bronze.
Gyor Posted - 13 Sep 2017 : 00:19:11
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay

In my musings (mostly the ones regarding the theoretical 'Dathites'), I have it where there were several other groups brought into The Realms, and the Mulan were treated like 'the bottom of the barrel'. Basically, they were used for manual labor, and not much else. And nothing technical - the Imaskari would not have wanted the largest group (by FAR) they brought in to have any sort of advantage if they revolted. Basically, they worked the farms in the Mulhor Marches, and not much else.

So the pecking-order would have been something like this

1) Muhjari-blooded Imaskar citizens
2) Anoque (theoretical) Imaskar citizens
3) all conquered, 'native' humans
4) 'Imported' humans and native humanoids
5) Imported humanoids

Of course, as in any slave-situation, you had some being treated way better than others, from 'favored pets' to a resource to be used up, even less important than farm animals, depending upon how 'enlightened' the owners/overseers were. Also, if my Dathites did exist (and that one piece of lore hints that they did), then perhaps some groups of slaves were used as the overseers for others, which could have created a lot of animosity post-Imaskar between groups (and why they broke off into several different nations, and why the Chondathans {Chessentans} felt they needed to travel so far west, away from the others). Thus, different groups may have different levels of 'expertise' (tech) than others.

Side Thoughts
So this got me thinking: In my Dathite musings I have it where the Imaskari were looking for a 'warlike' culture to import to do their fighting for them (kind of like the Unsullied of GoT - slave soldiers). The Dathites did not work out so well (a non-docile culture is NOT going to make for very good slaves). The people of Mesopotamia made excellent slaves because their own leaders were already treating them that way. In fact, when you think about it, their lot didn't really improve all that much even after the revolt. They just traded one set of owners for another.

So the thought just hit me - what if the Imaskari had opened Gates to other worlds, ones with even more warlike cultures? And what if they decided it was too risky to bring in large numbers of those, so they sealed those Gates? And what if Thayd knew about the gates, and opened a few of them later on?



The lowest slaves are used in mining, because mining in ancient times was extremely dangerous work, deadly, it would be a punishment for more valued slaves to be made to work in the mines.

And if the Mulhorandi worked in the mines they'd know what metals the Imaskari had access to.

Gyor Posted - 13 Sep 2017 : 00:14:38
quote:
Originally posted by dazzlerdal

Im not sure the mulan were able to inherit from the imaskari.

The mulan were slaves and probably not well treated slaves. They may not have been educated or given anything but the most menial of tasks.

Then the godkings come along and shatter imaskari civilisation by destroying the capital. Chaos and rebellion ensue in almost all imaskari provinces and what is left are ruins and barbarian peoples.

So the mulan have to start from scratch and what they can learn from the imaskari (who may not have taught the mulan to read and write) ruins and left over scrolls of wisdom.





They would have worked in mines and other dangerous jobs so if the Imaskari had iron, the Milan would have known about it.
Gyor Posted - 13 Sep 2017 : 00:13:32
quote:
Originally posted by dazzlerdal

Im not sure the mulan were able to inherit from the imaskari.

The mulan were slaves and probably not well treated slaves. They may not have been educated or given anything but the most menial of tasks.

Then the godkings come along and shatter imaskari civilisation by destroying the capital. Chaos and rebellion ensue in almost all imaskari provinces and what is left are ruins and barbarian peoples.

So the mulan have to start from scratch and what they can learn from the imaskari (who may not have taught the mulan to read and write) ruins and left over scrolls of wisdom.



sleyvas Posted - 12 Sep 2017 : 22:28:46
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay

I seem to have missed that - good catch. I have to link the school of Bhaluin to Madryoch instead (with maybe two of his students being Tanchen and Hilithar.

After Tanchen left to travel the planes (to further his studies), thats when Hilithar probably seized what he could from Madryoch. The then leaderless school fell into less savory hands and began its steady decline into evil (so we can blame Halaster for causing this indirectly). I'm just wondering at what point did they start worshiping death gods (which is a very un-Imaskari thing to do). Hmmmm... just re-read the entry - it doesn't say they worship a god, it just says they are cultists who revere death. Interesting. Almost sounds like Orcus could be involved... or no-one. Just a creepy old school with creepy old students (many of which have passed into unlife; its specifically avoids saying 'undead'). So we are looking at some form of intelligent zombies, similar to the Animus of GH. They also all wear masks (both the dead and the living), and since they are on an island, this sounds very similar to the Undying of Eberron as well.

Ummmmm... and Moon-blessed obsidian should work on them, because, ummmmm... thats what the thread is supposed to be about.



Madryoch was in Metos in the Methwood, which is in southern chessenta / western unther.
Markustay Posted - 12 Sep 2017 : 19:33:48
I seem to have missed that - good catch. I have to link the school of Bhaluin to Madryoch instead (with maybe two of his students being Tanchen and Hilithar.

After Tanchen left to travel the planes (to further his studies), thats when Hilithar probably seized what he could from Madryoch. The then leaderless school fell into less savory hands and began its steady decline into evil (so we can blame Halaster for causing this indirectly). I'm just wondering at what point did they start worshiping death gods (which is a very un-Imaskari thing to do). Hmmmm... just re-read the entry - it doesn't say they worship a god, it just says they are cultists who revere death. Interesting. Almost sounds like Orcus could be involved... or no-one. Just a creepy old school with creepy old students (many of which have passed into unlife; its specifically avoids saying 'undead'). So we are looking at some form of intelligent zombies, similar to the Animus of GH. They also all wear masks (both the dead and the living), and since they are on an island, this sounds very similar to the Undying of Eberron as well.

Ummmmm... and Moon-blessed obsidian should work on them, because, ummmmm... thats what the thread is supposed to be about.

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