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Ayrik
Great Reader

Canada
7966 Posts

Posted - 14 Sep 2017 :  14:29:24  Show Profile Send Ayrik a Private Message  Reply with Quote
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.

[/Ayrik]

Edited by - Ayrik on 14 Sep 2017 15:07:26
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
Moderator

USA
36779 Posts

Posted - 14 Sep 2017 :  16:24:18  Show Profile Send Wooly Rupert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
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.

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Edited by - Wooly Rupert on 14 Sep 2017 16:25:08
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Starshade
Learned Scribe

Norway
279 Posts

Posted - 14 Sep 2017 :  18:18:12  Show Profile Send Starshade a Private Message  Reply with Quote
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.
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire

USA
15724 Posts

Posted - 14 Sep 2017 :  19:21:39  Show Profile Send Markustay a Private Message  Reply with Quote
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.

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone


Edited by - Markustay on 14 Sep 2017 23:09:59
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
Moderator

USA
36779 Posts

Posted - 14 Sep 2017 :  20:16:35  Show Profile Send Wooly Rupert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
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.

Candlekeep Forums Moderator

Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com
-- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct

I am the Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen!
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
Moderator

USA
36779 Posts

Posted - 14 Sep 2017 :  20:17:46  Show Profile Send Wooly Rupert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
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?

Candlekeep Forums Moderator

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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire

USA
15724 Posts

Posted - 14 Sep 2017 :  23:16:40  Show Profile Send Markustay a Private Message  Reply with Quote
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.

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone


Edited by - Markustay on 14 Sep 2017 23:18:41
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist

USA
11686 Posts

Posted - 15 Sep 2017 :  01:20:37  Show Profile Send sleyvas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
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.

Alavairthae, may your skill prevail

Phillip aka Sleyvas
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist

USA
11686 Posts

Posted - 15 Sep 2017 :  01:27:59  Show Profile Send sleyvas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
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.

Alavairthae, may your skill prevail

Phillip aka Sleyvas
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire

USA
15724 Posts

Posted - 15 Sep 2017 :  02:36:40  Show Profile Send Markustay a Private Message  Reply with Quote
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"

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone


Edited by - Markustay on 15 Sep 2017 15:51:49
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Bladewind
Master of Realmslore

Netherlands
1280 Posts

Posted - 15 Sep 2017 :  15:48:00  Show Profile Send Bladewind a Private Message  Reply with Quote

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...

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Druidic Groves

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