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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11701 Posts |
 Posted - 01 Feb 2014 : 14:58:17
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I've been continuing to read through "Secrets of Pact Magic" and there's a race in it that's intriguing me (noting, in most of these "special magic" books, I usually ignore the races... except the obvious ones karsites that are obviously realmsian). However, they've got a race in it that makes me thing I'd like to incorporate it in the realms. The problem is that its an empire that was made out of islands, and whose people were involved with goblinoids and devils and using pact magic. However, nothing says that these people need to be in Faerun... they can be in Zakhara or off the sword coast.
The one part of their history that intrigues me is that their empire is suddenly wiped from the face of history. However, its not that it was destroyed (well, some references say it drowned, others indicate it just disappeared... I'm choosing to believe both happened). Its people seem to suddenly appear in different eras of history. It both reminds me of something that maybe related to either the Elven or the Abeir-Toril Sundering.
Anyway, I was just wondering, if you were to institute this culture somewhere in the realms... where would you put it? My initial thoughts are that the safest place to put it would be in the islands down by Zakhara in the Crowded Sea, with possibly the main home island as sunken.
>>>>>>Atlan history from Secrets of Pact magic>>>>>>>>
In a forgotten past age, a fair island kingdom of humans governed
far-and-wide over the surrounding seas and lands, drawing on the wisdom of ancient magic, primarily the power of spirits. Sages say that every atlan knew pact magic, and over centuries of study, they cataloged hundreds, perhaps thousands, of spirits.
The atlans also built obsidian monoliths to channel and bind the energies of elemental spirits. A supreme monolith stood at the hub of their capital city. It bound the most mysterious of primal spirits—time. Some sages declare the atlans distorted the flow of time within their kingdom, and explorers who have stumbled upon their lost cities report sighting atlans carrying on daily life amid bustling markets, libraries, and arenas. These cities turn back into ghostly ruins by sunrise.
The atlans’ hunger for blood, gems, and rare ingredients for catalyzing their magic drove them to contact the peoples around them; at the same time, the subtle and dark influence of the spirits they bound led them to conquer, enslave, and destroy. Their island evolved into the vile eye of a ruthless empire, and their lust for power was their ultimate undoing. The binder clergy became careless. The spirits twisted the priests’ hearts and minds while the summoned elemental forces corrupted the sea, earth, and sky. In a single day and night, the heart of the Atlan Empire was devastated as cataclysmic waves wiped the capital island from time itself, eliminating its existence from the pages of history. Binder sages
believe that this ancient cataclysm whisked away multitudes of atlan souls to realms of nonexistence. Only the stories told by spirits, the discovery of rare ruins, and the existence of atlan descendants act as evidence and reminders of past atlan dominion.
Today, vestiges of the atlan people linger. Some descendants gather in isolated pockets. Those of mixed human and atlan blood may show their magical heritage. More rarely, an original atlan—flung across the stretches of time—finds himself stranded in another age, searching for some semblance of home.
Some quick notes about Atlans:
They're a lost people. Some descendants grow up in human society without realizing their heritage. All possess a natural birthmark that is a geometric seal. They are shunned by the societies that know of Atlan history. They have a natural ability to bind spirits.
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Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36779 Posts |
Posted - 01 Feb 2014 : 15:55:24
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| Since time and space are related, if they were able to bind time, they could have also affected space. So when our Atlantis knockoff fell, perhaps the sundering of its bound spirits and such cause some of its people to be flung to other worlds, or to other times (including the distant past!) on their own world. |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 01 Feb 2014 : 19:02:47
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You could just use the Farasahad Islands - my name for that (VERY large) chain extending west from Zakhara.
I have a rough WIP from a long time ago - I had replaced the largest island with Jakandor, and another with The Isle of Dread. Weather you use those swaps or not, its still the perfect place for a 'long lost island empire', because we have zero lore about them.
*Clarification Correction |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 02 Feb 2014 16:30:00 |
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Alystra Illianniis
Great Reader
USA
3750 Posts |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11701 Posts |
Posted - 01 Feb 2014 : 21:52:19
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quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
You could just use the Farasahad Islands - my name for that (VERY large) chain extending west from Zakhara.
I have a rough WIP from a long time ago - I had replaced the largest island with Jakandor, and another with The Isle of Dread. Weather you use those swaps or not, its still the perfect place for a 'long lost empire', because we have zero lore about them.
Yeah, I was kind of thinking that the culture from Jakandor (the Charonti one) and these Atlan cultures might have had some resemblance/interaction after I wrote this. The Charonti culture is obviously a wizard culture. The Atlan culture is obviously a pact magic culture. However, I see both cultures possibly having soul weavers (a new class from secrets of pact magic that combines both wizard spells and binding of a single spirit). It would be interesting to put the two as in competition long ago.
I don't (at a glance) see anything detailing the islands in the "islands of the utter south" section of the Zakhara map having any detail, but I must admit to only skimming al-qadim lore many years ago. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 02 Feb 2014 : 16:53:58
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The 'Utter South' are the islands far to Zakhara's south, even below the ones immediately south of the mainland. That chain trailing westward has no name what-so-ever (except for the one I made-up). Originally I called the large island 'Nobanion's Island', and pictured talking animals there, but then as I learned more about FR I realized he hasn't been in The Realms long enough for that. Thus, the swaps I made.
Maybe in the very distant past (10,000 years?) there was a dark, magical empire that spanned northern Zakhara and those islands. I had pictured Rakshasa's being in Zakhara originally (that goes with a lot of my HB), and then them getting booted-out by the genies they summoned and enslaved. What if there was an intermediary empire? What if it was enslaved humans that overthrew their Rakshasa masters, and they made a deal with the equally oppressed Dgen? Then they double-crossed the genies, and acted nearly as bad as the Rahshasa (in other words, they didn't free them as promised).
Then the wheel of time continues forward, and the genies turn on their human masters (instead of how I originally envisioned it). There are some discrepancies now with the Zakhara lore, which are best explained by 'different ages' of Al-Qadim, so that would shoe-horn nicely with that fix (AQ history only goes back about a 1000 years in its own canon, and yet we have FR canon referencing things there before that).
Now, what kind of 'empire of evil humans' would have come from them learning from (and breeding with) Rakshasa and their Dgen slaves? One that was very dark, and based on a lot of summoning magic (we have elemental beings and fiends going on there), which sounds perfect for what you are trying to do. That Rakshasa were routed (and ran to the Yehimal mountains, where they displaced the dwarves there), then the humans had a 'Necromantic empire' along the lines of Clark Ashton Smith's, and then their summoned and bound slaves rebelled and scattered them.
That would leave bits and pieces of their empire all over Zakhara and the islands, which would explain anything you want (and connect the lore from the CBoN with what we know of the Ruined kingdoms). It would also mean there is a large population of genasi in their 'survivor states', and even a decent number of tieflings/cambions (I've lost track of which terminology is correct... damn you 4e).
The Mujhari people that traveled north - and became the folk of the Golden waters and the Imaskari - would also be descendents of that legacy (and would explain why the Imaskari were also big on summoning and translocational magics). |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 02 Feb 2014 16:57:37 |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11701 Posts |
Posted - 02 Feb 2014 : 20:12:24
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Yeah, I like the ideas so far that are being represented by this empire. However, its not really "Atlantis" though the author obviously wants to make references as such. For instance, hobgoblins are a big part of society and treated as practically equals to humans. The things I'm noticing is things like these time/space disruptions where there's an army walking through countryside that they would expect to have their villages... but nothing's there. So, the whole army somehow got advanced forward or backward in time. Being that the formation of Calimshan is rumored to be from some Zakharans who were sent backwards in time... maybe there's some ripple effects here... or maybe those future Calishites were exploring old "Atlan ruins". I'm gonna get back to reading the stories, because the more I read, the more its opening up ideas.
For instance, one of the stories has the Atlans understanding that all the other islands have stronger navies. So, they make a pact with a devil for aid to take over the skies. So, for X number of years, the devils aid the Atlans as proof, but then whenthe time is up, they renegotiate the contract... and if they want the aid of the devils, the King must give up his own soul. The King does it, but he places a curse on the devils that the gods bring to fruition (somehow unspecified) a thousand years later <we know that the devil in question became a bindable spirit>.
Oh, just because I don't want to confuse it with Atlantis, I'm thinking that this island empire of Atlan may be a corruption of a longer name. I'm thinking maybe At'Lahon... or At'Lajon... or At'Lajahn.
And yes, I'm thinking about all of this because I'm wondering what societies predate Zakhara and maybe aren't well represented in those books. Many of them may not even interact with other societies beyond the next island or two away. I'm picturing old, decadent societies (like that of the isle of the necromancer kings/Sahu). Are there some remnants of the Geomancers still out there? The Charonti society from Jakandor makes for a good one on an island... and there's a lot of islands down there near Zakhara that don't appear on any maps except the Scholar's view of Abeir Toril. For instance, trailing off the tip of Zakhara towards what's labeled Tabaxiland on some maps there's a nice little string. Then, below the islands of the Utter South there's another set of islands, and one of these is relatively big (as in its bigger than Evermeet by probably twice its size).
So, what I'm picturing is that each of these islands may have had human or OTHER inhabitants, and it could be interesting to see what you could fit in from some of these alternate sources without effectively breaking the realms (and possibly improving them). |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Any ancient island empires?
