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Reimagining the Chultan Peninsula

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Gary Dallison
Great Reader

United Kingdom
6351 Posts

Posted - 30 Dec 2019 : 02:58:44

Thanks, Eric did the initial work, i'm just playing with the elements he laid out.

I now need to add in an enormous maggot creature, i think if a bloodword doesnt find a host and starts feeding off its kin then it becomes a hideous bloated monstrosity.

Gary Dallison
Great Reader

United Kingdom
6351 Posts

Posted - 30 Dec 2019 : 19:22:05

So, floating buildings hidden in Chult, disguised by the overgrowth of the jungle. The magic was provided by Trustan and Ortaun, who since they lived centuries ago and have magic similar to skyships i presume were from Halruaa.

Not sure what to do with the magic towers. I'm assuming outcast Halruaan wizards created a few floating towers in Chult, or perhaps some rich Calishite satraps paid for Trustan and Ortaun to create the towers for them.

Apparently Trustan and Ortaun had a hidden backdoor in the magic that allowed them to access any building using their magic.

And on to enormous maggots. Not sure what to name them. Titanolarva. Kyusslarva. Maggotaurus Rex.

Gary Dallison
Great Reader

United Kingdom
6351 Posts

Posted - 01 Jan 2020 : 20:42:00

Come across mentions of the ziggurat of Dur Unkush which is unlocated but is said to rise from the marshy jungle floor.

The ziggurat causes sleepwalking in nearby humanoids and makes them head towards the ziggurat to take part in a secret ritual overseen by a huge jungle serpent.

I've decided to merge the ruins of Orolunga with the ziggurat of Dur Unkush.

Orolunga is located near the marshy Aldani Basin, and has a guardian naga that protects the ruins, and a large ziggurat.

There is also a ziggurat of Lord Quomec that appears to be located exactly where Mbala is in Tomb of Annihilation so i can merge both of those and now have the name of a King of Mbala.

Not sure what to do about the Pyramid of the Moon. I could make it unrelated to Chult and be a temple of Selune, or twist the legend so that it is some evil trap, and the silver priestess is an old queen of Omu or Mbala.

Gary Dallison
Great Reader

United Kingdom
6351 Posts

Posted - 02 Jan 2020 : 10:00:26

So, Dur Unkush mentions that a ritual is performed every 44 days, I'm presuming it is to stop some evil from occurring.

The pyramid of the moon mentions that it reappears every month, it is filled with spirits and turns those who remain into spirits.

I'm wondering why 44 days was chosen. The only thing I can find is that 44 days is how long it takes for the moon to do a full orbit of the earth and in presuming the designer chose that number for a similar toril analogy without realising toril is 1.5 times bigger than the earth. So I will have to assume that the moon of toril is smaller but closer.

I guess every 44 days the guardian naga of Dur Unkush gets people to perform a ritual and that keeps the pyramid of the moon out of phase with Toril, except for a single night in the month (during the ritual itself perhaps).

The Silver Priestess in the pyramid could be one of the queens of Mbala who tried to work some magic using Orolunga / Dur Unkush and failed.
Perhaps she tried to restore her husband (king Quomec) back to life, but he was already caught in the energies that blanket chult. Instead part of the pyramid was blasted out of phase with Toril along with everyone involved and they now exist as evil spirits.

doccarnby
Acolyte

16 Posts

Posted - 03 Jan 2020 : 02:24:31

quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
I might look for more aberrant style worm infested monsters to relate to Kyuss.

In the 3e Fiend Folio there's the ulgurstasta, which is explicitly linked to Kyuss, and the century worm and lucent worm, which aren't but feel like they could fit in with the sorts of experiments in mad ~~science~~ wizardry Kyuss was up to. The century worm even has a stomach full of other, smaller worms that grow in the bodies of creatures the century worm eats.

The Ghostwise halflings make sense, but I'm not really familiar with this area of the Forgotten Realms, why a portal between the Mhair and the Lluirwood rather than a slower diffusion of exiled Ghostwise west?

Gary Dallison
Great Reader

United Kingdom
6351 Posts

Posted - 03 Jan 2020 : 08:22:44

Awesome, thanks, I shall look up those monsters tonight.

As for the portal, it is already there in canon so i will include it and use it to explain and develop thing further.

Overland migrations are fine and used a lot in canon, but they tend to leave behind stragglers and legacies of their centuries long migration.
The ghostwise as far as I know have no other population pockets between Luiren and chult, so that rules out (for me) a traditional method of travel and instead means they hopped from one place to another (using magic - or an aeroplane). But that's just how I deal with things

Gary Dallison
Great Reader

United Kingdom
6351 Posts

Posted - 04 Jan 2020 : 12:19:29

So, tomb of annihilation has this magical field that drains life from everyone and is used to feed an atropal.

Looking at existing lore on chult there are lots of hints at a shadowy demiplane type prison that is coexistent with the material plane region of chult.

The abuya deimshowa have a connection with shadows and the shadow plane. Eshowdow is a creature of shadows that was released from somewhere around the valley of lost honour (where the eshowe and presumably abuya deimshowa journeyed to this shadowy demiplane).
Ubtao has his mazes and it seems like the afterlife involves a maze that people must travel through in order to reach ubtao and eternal salvation.
Undead return to life a lot in chult (and it's all across chult so I don't think it's down to Ras nsi's ability (all the races of chult burn their dead to prevent them returning).
Dendar and seth are supposedly imprisoned in eternal slumber on another plane but with access through the peaks of flame.

It's a recurring theme of shadowy planes that can imprison souls and that causes those who die to have their bodies become undead.

So I'm thinking that the Atropus (from the Elder Evils book) sent a portion of itself to Toril (it was supposedly devouring another world in realmspace), and that crashed into the peaks of flame and left the trail from the valley of lost honour to Kuluth Mar.

Now the presence of this piece of atropus has strengthened the plane of shadow around c
The Jungles of Chult, so that those who die do not have their souls pass into the ethereal plane and then onto the outer planes.
Instead they are sucked into the Shadow Plane where they become food for the Atropus and a number of other denizens trapped there (the sarrukh creatures of legend).
At the same time as the soul crossing to the shadow plane, negative energy from there infuses the body and animates it as undead.

Ubtao teaches his followers about mazes and it acts as a kind of ritual the soul petitioner can perform on the shadow plane which if done correctly allows them to return to Ubtao's own demiplane where they empower him.
As Ubtao is not a true God he cannot have an outer planar domain of his own, but there is nothing to say that he does not have access to demiplane (created by spellweaver perhaps and linked to the temple of ubtao) that can act as a sanctuary for souls in chult.

Gary Dallison
Great Reader

United Kingdom
6351 Posts

Posted - 05 Jan 2020 : 15:52:58

A few monsters found so far that involve Kyuss.

Avolakias (MM2)
Ulgurstasta (Fiend Folio)
Larva Mage (4e Monster Manual)
Herald of Kyuss (4e Monster Manual 3)
Wormspawn Praetorian (4e Open Grave)

I think i'll be renaming the enormous maggots i created to be Ulgurstasta (although i'll not make all of them intelligent, and i wont have them created as siege weapons)

Avolakia are odd, they seem like something derived from Kyuss, but they eat undead. Perhaps the blood worms response to the undead of Ras Nsi, or perhaps what is created when blood worms infest a genuine undead.

Herald of Undead i think will be the remnants of Kyuss' high priests (he may have slaughtered all his high priests, but that doesnt mean they couldnt return as something, reanimated by the leaking power of Kyuss

doccarnby
Acolyte

16 Posts

Posted - 05 Jan 2020 : 22:47:57

The avolakia sound to me like something Kyuss made to deal with a rival necromancer. They eat the rival's zombies, then raises their own not only to replace any friendly zombies that got destroyed, but also so they can feed themselves without needing to eat Kyuss's other servants. Presumably he kept them on a pretty tight leash up until he ascended.

Edit: You can easily slam your thoughts and mine together: the avolakia are what Kyuss made to deal with Ras Nsi's undead.

Edited by - doccarnby on 06 Jan 2020 00:16:33

Gary Dallison
Great Reader

United Kingdom
6351 Posts

Posted - 06 Jan 2020 : 07:45:23

After a bit of thought and research I noticed that there is no mention of the reproduction of an avolakia, they are also pretty powerful.
Sooo, I decided to make the avolakia the heralds of kyuss and make them the original high priests of kyuss that he consumed (it says killed in the history but I think devoured is more fitting). What came out of kyuss were the avolakia.

The undead thing I decided to make an aside, as ras nsi is too far from chultengar for any real conflict, but undead appear throughout chult for some reason.

The avolakia are the heralds of kyuss, the high priests of his cult. They are working to retake Kuluth Mar from the Great Conclave of spirit naga and then release Kyuss from his imprisonment.

Gary Dallison
Great Reader

United Kingdom
6351 Posts

Posted - 06 Jan 2020 : 20:38:30

quote:
Scale Cleaver
XP Value: 600 GP Value: 3,000
Polyhedron Newszine 76
This weapon appears to be a skilfully crafted
long sword with intertwining symbols in the language
of the rare race of marsh-dwelling elves in
the jungles of Chult. Those able to decipher the
symbols can tell that the blade was crafted to aid
the elves in their long struggle against the lizard
men. Against beings with a natural, scaly covering, such as lizards, snakes, dragons, fish, and so
on, the weapon is a sword +5. In addition, it
grants its wielder a magical bonus against foes
clad in armor made of natural scales. Against all
other opponents, the sword is + 1

So apparently there are elves living in what is presumably the Aldani Basin in the Jungles of Chult, and they had a long struggle against the lizardmen.

I'm not aware of any elves existing in or around the Chultan Peninsula at any point in history.
Since they are obviously very insular and secretive (the fact they are undocumented anywhere else says to me that they have remained very well hidden), i'm tempted to make them wild elves or perhaps dark elves.

If they were wild elves it is tempting to make them from the elves that lived in the Calim Desert before it turned to sand. If they are dark elves then perhaps not all elves of ilythiir turned to Ghaunadaur and other demon worship, and a small group fled further west and hid amid the Jungles of Chult where none would find them.

I'm not sure if wild elves are any good at making longswords or crafting magic items of great power, but the illythiiri certainly were.

Gary Dallison
Great Reader

United Kingdom
6351 Posts

Posted - 07 Jan 2020 : 08:53:37

I think I will go with dark elves. They aren't drow because they never bred with demons or devils and so were not affected by the magic of the elven court.

The empire of mhairshaulk fell long before the elves would have arrived and the elves lived in the jungles of chult while the yuan ti were centred on tashalar and the mhair and black jungles.

However the fire nets arose -13500 dr so the dark elves could have fought with them. The fire nets live underground so it's possible the dark elves live in the underdark as well beneath the aldani basin. That's how they have managed to stay secret for so long.
Not drow though, dark elves

keftiu
Senior Scribe

656 Posts

Posted - 07 Jan 2020 : 19:16:37

Have any thoughts on what the populations whose land sunk during the Spellplague are like nowadays?

4e fangirl. Here to queer up the Realms.

Gary Dallison
Great Reader

United Kingdom
6351 Posts

Posted - 07 Jan 2020 : 20:18:06

Unfortunately i'm focusing almost exclusively at the beginning of the realms in 1357 DR. That doesn't mean i'm excluding 1400 lore, but it does mean i'm retro-expanding it to have it's roots in 1357 DR.

Thus far i'm focusing on the Jungles of Chult region, which as i understand it, is the only part of the peninsula that wasn't swamped, which also means i don't really know all that much about the Tashalar, Samarach, Thindol, etc (yet).

If i had to take a guess i would say that the survivors from the likes of Samarach and Thindol retreat to the Jungles of Chult and went native (the Thingulf were originally Chultan and so might be welcomed back by their kin). Samarach and THindol were near the western side of the region that sank.

Samarach and its people are isolationist, i would imagine they would gladly return to Samarach when it comes back and resume their "staying away from everyone".

On the other side. The Tashalar and Lapaliiya would presumably be forced into the Shaar and the Border Kingdoms.

The Tashalans are part Calishite and seem to be the more aggressive so i can imagine them trying to take more land than they had before the sundering.

Just a guess right now. A more educated answer will need to wait until after i've worked on Samarach, THindol, Tashalar, and Lapaliiya

Gary Dallison
Great Reader

United Kingdom
6351 Posts

Posted - 09 Jan 2020 : 12:06:42

I'm doing the wild dwarves at the moment and came across this quote in the 3e campaign setting

quote:
Mhair Jungles: Remnants of an old yuan-ti empire still live in isolated
pockets of these vast, sparsely settled jungles. Bloodflower, a
rare herb extinct everywhere else in Faerun, is harvested here to be
made into a potent healing salve. The jungles also hold wandering
groups of wild dwarves (survivors of a lost kingdom) who trade
enormous green spinel gems, but carefully guard the secret of where
they find them.

It got me thinking, and kind of makes sense that the dwarves from Bhaerynden (after Telantiwar took it) migrated west and did the usual thing establishing dwarf holds along the way.
So there would be dwarf holds in the Channath Vale and around the edge of Halruaa establishing by this group. Then i guess they setup a kingdom of sorts in the eastern edge of the Chultan Peninsula (now called the Mhair Jungle but then was just one jungle stretching all the way to Chult).

I'm guessing that kingdom fell to the yuan-ti and the dwarves split and went further west to Chult proper establishing holds in the mountains that then fell to firenewts. They split again and this time established holds in the lowland areas around the jungle. Over time the jungles reclaimed the holds and by this time dwarf numbers were so low that traditional clan society fell apart and the dwarfs just fled into the jungle in small groups abandoning their ways and becoming nomadic hunters.

All that is i suppose canon. What makes me curious is that the group that migrated west to Chult was said to be the largest migration from Bhaerynden. To me this means it was the most important, perhaps contained royalty and perhaps contained the largest amount of significant treasures (magical, cultural, monetary, etc) from the fall of that nation.

It is mentioned that the dwarves once had access to Elder Runes of enormous power, but they have been lost. One rune i believe was used in the Murghom region which is relatively near to the Great Rift (i also think it was used prior to the establishment of Bhaerynden). What if these Elder Runes were in Bhaerynden at the time of its fall and a number of them were taken west to Chult. I believe that the Chultan migration is the only group that did not return to reestablish the Great Rift when Telantiwar fell which explains why they have remained lost.
These Elder Runes could be hidden in the Mhair Jungle or even remain as sacred stones among the wild dwarves, who have long forgotten what they represent (and use them to copy tattoos onto their body).
It also means that we can use the wild dwarves of Chult as a hiding ground for powerful dwarven magic items from ancient Bhaerynden.

Gary Dallison
Great Reader

United Kingdom
6351 Posts

Posted - 11 Jan 2020 : 13:12:07

Looking at the various religious practices in Chult.

There appear to be several different religious ideas that have overlapped and merged over time.

The Mazewalkers seem to me to be the organised religious organisation that represents the worship of Ubtao (a church if you will, although Ubtao is not a true god - not that that matters, you can create a church to worship a rock if you want whether the rock is divine or not).

The spiritlords practice ancestor, place, elemental, and animal spirit worship.

Lastly jungle druids.

This is according to Faiths and Pantheons, however, i'm conscious that this is very much an interpretation based upon the highly segregated character class based design (and there were many character classes), to offer organisations for each class to join and interact with.

The Mazewalkers seem like a sensible religious/political construct, whereby the city of Mezro holds and defines the religious teachings of Ubtao and spreads it to the rural, jungle dwelling Chultans through travelling priests who act as arbiters of religious / cultural law.

The spiritlords are claimed to be part of Ubtao, but i fail to see how an entirely separate method of representing the same deity would come into being in the same geographic and political niche. Instead i envisage that the spiritlords were the original pseudo religious practices of the Tashalarans that lived in the jungles of Chult before the Chultans arrived and displaced / absorbed them.

Over time the spiritlords were claimed (by the Mazewalkers) to worship Ubtao in his role as father of the jungle and therefore lord of all spirits, etc. This move was likely to reduce tension between the traditional spirit worshippers and the new establishment of Ubtao worship (circa -2800 DR ish).

The jungle druids seem to me to be the same as the spiritlords, but wizards have a totemist, wu-jen, spirit worshipping class, and a separate druid class so there might have been a need to keep the two groups separate. I dont see this need and common sense dictates that each tribal settlement have only one religious representative for the same deity. So jungle druids and spiritlords are the same thing for me, there is no reason why a witch doctor cannot also know the ways of nature, nor why a druid cannot commune with spirits.

Gary Dallison
Great Reader

United Kingdom
6351 Posts

Posted - 11 Jan 2020 : 13:54:33

Looking at the followers of Eshowdow we have several distinct titles

The Abuya Deimshowa (speakers of shadow)
The Abuyaka (priests)
The Kenswa Tokashow (warriors and rogues)

The cult of Eshowdow are supposed to be a secret cult that nobody has yet discovered, which is a problem in itself.

The Abuya Deimshowa seem to me to be the senior members of the clergy and spend at least some of their time on the plane of shadow.

As an evil counterpart to Mezro, i've decided to link the cult of Eshowdow to the previously unknown city of Omu. The Abuya Deimshowa can be the secretive shadowy movers and shakers that emerge from their hidden extra planar home to induct new members into the cult and to give their orders.

As Omu was once a larger empire that covered much of southern Chult, i figure they had an army, and the Kenswa Tokashow were like the secret police enforcers keeping the army in line. Now that Omu's empire has fallen, the Kenswa are roaming bands of assassins.

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