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Bragi
Seeker
USA
88 Posts |
 Posted - 24 May 2018 : 21:20:57
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Recently, I have been going through I14 (Swords of the Iron Legion) and extracting all of the realmslore from it. Today, I started on the Khan's Mighty Army and have an interesting theory that I'd like to get some feedback on.
The adventure contains an oriental barbarian army consisting of 2,450 warriors. Where this army came from is unclear beyond them invading Unther and marshaling their forces against Chondath from the south. Here is my theory:
When the Imaskari settled, what is now the Raurin desert, we know that they annexed Ra-Khati. It is possible that they took some natives of Ra-Khati as slaves and this whetted their appetite for more slaves which lead to them opening the human portals. When the Imaskari empire began to fall, the western Ra-Khati slaves fled towards the Giants' Belt. They were pushed further west by the devastation of the Raurin lands and the formation of the Raurin Desert, finally establishing a small settlement in the Eastern Shaar.
When the arcanaloth Yrkhetep found his way in to Faerun through the many portals in the Eastern Shaar he encountered the nomadic barbarian descendants of Ra-Khati and forced them in to his service. Those who would not comply were killed. He eventually marched them in to Unther where the Untheric survivors were enslaved in to his army before marching on Chondath.
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In Pursuit of Better Worlds,
Bragi of Erin |
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Gyor
Master of Realmslore
1621 Posts |
Posted - 25 May 2018 : 02:26:18
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| Unfortunately I am unfamiliar with that module. |
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Lord Karsus
Great Reader
USA
3736 Posts |
Posted - 25 May 2018 : 02:53:48
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-I am also unfamiliar with the details of what you are describing, but for whatever reason, the first thing I started thinking of was the lost legion from the Battle of Carrhae. Long story short: the Romans and the Parthians fought in a battle at Carrhae (modern Turkey near Syria). The Romans were not only defeated but were humiliate, and an estimated 10,000 Roman soldiers were taken prisoners. Many/most were sent east where they intermarried the local populations and became Parthians themselves, but it is hypothesized that some either were sold or went on their own will further east, to China, where they became soldiers for the Xiongnu and fought against the Han in the battle of Zhizhi. The hypothesis is based on accounts that foreign warriors utilized a "fish-scale formation", which some think might've been the Roman shield formation and that because in the region, Liqian, have strange features. DNA testing shows that hundreds of residents there show close genetic relation to the Han Chinese with a larger deviation from the Western Eurasian gene pool. That's more likely because of this could be explained by interethnic marriages with outsider settlers living in the area hundreds of years ago, since there's no archeological evidence of anything even similar to Roman, but it's still a fun hypothesis.
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(A Tri-Partite Arcanist Who Has Forgotten More Than Most Will Ever Know)
Elves of Faerūn
Vol I- The Elves of Faerūn
Vol. III- Spells of the Elves
Vol. VI- Mechanical Compendium |
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Bragi
Seeker
USA
88 Posts |
Posted - 25 May 2018 : 09:36:43
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I14 is a very early Forgotten Realms 1e adventure and the 2nd to use the battle system rules for mass combat (if you count the H series as being part of the realms). The original boxed set had only just been published a year earlier. So TSR gathered several designers together and the conversation probably went something like this, "You're each going to write a battle system adventure set in the Forgotten Realms, either Chondath or Turmish. We're going to tell you who your main antagonist and protagonists are but you can't reveal them to the players until the last adventure."
So each designer went off and wrote a short battle system adventure. What you end up with are these 8 short adventures and 3 additional mini-adventures. It was envisioned to be an anthology similar to OP1. As a DM you could pick it up and run one of the adventures appropriate for the level of your group. There was a minimum amount of effort actually put towards making the adventures part of a cohesive story.
The adventures all deal with troop battles, from small forces of orcs to larger invading armies. Most of the realms lore consists of the names of rulers, commanders, taverns, towns, and mercenaries in the area. The later of which formed the basis for several entries in FR15 Gold and Glory. One of the adventures, The Final Battle : Infinity Train, connects to an adventure in OP1 named The Sea of Screams. It's no small surprise that they were both written by the same designer, Rick Swan.
It has some interesting pieces of lore involving the origin of Bane in the Forgotten Realms and an artifact known as the Hand of Tyr. I think that it has a bad reputation as a product primarily due to the lack of connection between the adventures even though it is stated upfront that if you plan on using the adventures in a campaign then you'll have to add some of your own material. The lack of information revealed to the players certainly doesn't help. I'm more interested in the two larger wars that are described. The first involving forces in Turmish (actually in Erlkazar before it had a name) and the second being the one that I described above.
Not explicitly stated but based on the FR Boxed Set and the fact that the Time of Troubles hasn't yet occurred, it's likely these adventures take place between 1357 DR and 1358 DR.
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In Pursuit of Better Worlds,
Bragi of Erin |
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Reconciling I14 within the realms
