| Author |
 Topic  |
|
sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11696 Posts |
 Posted - 13 Jul 2020 : 19:05:40
|
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Seethyr
Just a quick side note. It would be utterly bizarre if H’Calos - the massive worm destroyer of Maztica who fell from the skies was not from H’Catha. Personally, I reskinned some purple worms (adding claw attacks and such) to make the “H’Calans” which are the Star Worm’s offspring. Perhaps H’Catha is crawling with such creatures?
Why? Aside from the H'Ca part, what suggests any connection between the two?
I get that the names are similar, but I've long been loathe to assume a connection just because of similar words. Cart and care are just one letter apart, but there is nothing at all that connects them.
One possible additional connection would be the aberration link. Another would be that its a creature from the stars, so having it come from a planet with a link to aberrations that also has a similar sounding name makes it convenient. Its not a solid link, but its better than most other options I see. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
Edited by - sleyvas on 13 Jul 2020 19:09:41 |
 |
|
|
AuldDragon
Senior Scribe
USA
549 Posts |
Posted - 14 Jul 2020 : 06:30:18
|
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
quote:
Originally posted by AuldDragon
Quick note: The Anadjiin is based on the Predator, not the Alien xenomorph (that made it into Spelljammer as the Yitsan). :)
Hmmm, will have to look at the Yitsan. BTW, on this topic of turning them into alien v/s predator, Seethyr did something where he brought some Anadjiin to Lopango and has them fighting it out with some illithid/lizardman ceremorphs (think they're the Yangrel…. name may be wrong). Though I never used it, I appreciated the idea that there was this little jungle with this private war going on.
Both creatures are inspired by the scifi creatures, rather than actually being them, so there are ample differences. There's no facehugger/chestburster stage for the Yitsan; instead their eggs look like gold coins and they hatch and hide on a ship until they grow large enough on rats and vermin to start attacking the crew.
The Anadjiin are also quite different from the Predator aliens; they don't themselves travel in space and have no apparent desire to do so. They are consummate hunters, though.
On Coliar, I've added some details to the aarakocra, lizard man, and dragon cultures in my Monster Mythology Update Project.
From Syranita's Entry:
"Despite the large population of aarakocra on the world of Coliar, Syranita’s worship is relatively minor, with Akadi being the favored deity. The aarakocra see the flightless lizard men as interlopers on a world that is sacred to the Queen of Air, and use this as an excuse to constantly wage war on them. The worship of Syranita is generally relegated to smaller shrines in most communities, with her worshipers typically favoring roles of education and knowledge. Her largest temple is found on the relatively neutral port of Athenar, which is also the largest aarakocra port on the world. Her temple is a soaring structure of pink marble and crystal, curving up like a bird taking flight. The peak is some 50 feet high, from which a large group of wind chimes hang, filling the port with soft, pleasant tinkling tones most of the day. The temple is overseen by Dawning Cirrus Danara (aarakocraf P8), a kindly old aarakocra with an intense thirst for reading. She makes a habit of inquiring after new ships at port for books she hasn’t yet read. Due to the relative unimportance placed on Syranita’s worship on Coliar, many aarakocra who find her teachings appealing have left the world to travel wildspace in Corbinas and Eagle Ships."
I didn't put anything specific in Krocaa's entry, but he should have a clergy there, and Remnis might as well. If Quorlinn's faith is there, it would likely be in the form of aarakocran thieves' guilds, but I find that stretching things a bit, personally.
From Semuanya's entry:
"Very few large temples or holy sites dedicated to Semuanya exist. One of the largest is known as the Dome of the Survivor, located in the largest lizard man city on the world of Coliar. This city, Hissta, is the seat of government of more than a dozen smaller islands, and is one of the major spelljamming trading posts on the world. The temple sponsors the program that sends spelljamming vessels into orbit around Realmspace’s sun in order to produce stronger offspring, and it is even said priests some centuries back invented the popular Bloatfly vessel. The priests are scrupulously fair about the waiting lists that they maintain, even ensuring they themselves do not get preferential treatment. Those few lizard men who try to bribe their way into better positions are flogged, and any priest caught altering the rolls is thrown off the edge of the island without trial. These rules have kept the lists virtually unbiased for at least one hundred years.
The temple itself is a large, round, squat structure with a domed roof over a statue of Semuanya nearly 20 feet tall, carved from a single enormous piece of jade. The temple is administered by Elder Klaarstha Jadescute, who has served as high priest for nearly 57 years, and recently celebrated his two-hundredth birthday. He is especially wise, but favors very lengthy considerations about issues, and is considered particularly conservative compared to his predecessors and the younger priests. He advocates for closing the port to all traffic that is not necessary to getting more Bloatflies into solar orbit, although this is a minority view among the lizard men of Hissta."
Sess'innek's worship might be found on remote lizard man earth islands, but it should not be a major force considering how the lizard men of the world are portrayed.
From Io's Entry:
"The most important holy places dedicated to Io are all part of larger complexes. One such temple is the High Halls of Draconic Might on Coliar in Realmspace, a meeting place between dragons and a temple dedicated to Io, Zorquan, and Chronepsis. More information can be found in the entry for Zorquan."
From Zorquan's Entry:
"On the air world of Coliar in Realmspace, the tenets of Zorquan are especially popular, which is one of the reasons the majority of dragonkind on that world have shifted towards neutrality. One of the earth islands floating about within this world is home to a large temple complex dedicated to Io, Chronepsis, and Zorquan, called the High Halls of Draconic Might. Run by a family of blue dragons, this temple complex serves as a meeting place amongst the dragons, and a de facto assembly area where issues pertaining to all the dragon races are discussed."
I also dropped a hint that Elemtia, a draconic deity of the elements and elemental magic mentioned in the Council of Wyrms product may have been the one who granted the dragons of Coliar the ability to become Air Dragons.
None of the other dragon deities should have temples on the world, but a handful of dragons should worship most (if not all) of the deities in some form or another. The notable exception should be Rais, whose worship should not be found on Coliar, if only to not make Coliar's dragons overlap any more with the dragons of Edill in Greyspace (where Rais is originally from). IMO, of course.
Jeff |
My 2nd Edition blog: http://blog.aulddragon.com/
My streamed AD&D Spelljamer sessions: https://www.youtube.com/user/aulddragon/playlists?flow=grid&shelf_id=18&view=50
"That sums it up in a nutshell, AuldDragon. You make a more convincing argument. But he's right and you're not." |
Edited by - AuldDragon on 14 Jul 2020 06:36:37 |
|
|
|
sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11696 Posts |
Posted - 14 Jul 2020 : 11:51:38
|
| Hey, BadCatMan (and anyone else interested), you got my mind flowing on southern Katashaka and an advanced civilization. Initially, the idea of lots of plane travelling ships from there just didn't "hit" me, but I've been thinking on the idea more in the background, in addition to some of my own comments about possibly mixing the Malatran "Ancient Nubari" down in Katashaka… along with several other remote areas of lore in other parts of the realms that are off the beaten path... and I think I've come up with an idea that works. That being said, I don't want to derail this thread, so I'm going to start another. Please come there and listen to my idea and bounce things back at me. You especially have shaped a lot of ideas I've had with the realms with very few words sometimes (I still happily recall the idea you put forth of some people looking up in the sky of Kara-Tur and "seeing" the spirit realms of their Celestial Bureaucracy overlaid on the material world, and that has colored my whole view of Kara-Tur). |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
|
|
|
sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11696 Posts |
Posted - 14 Jul 2020 : 15:12:44
|
Aulddragon/Jeff,
Consider this canon to me then, since we don't really have a starting point.
On the aarakocra worshippers, I do like Quorlinn as a god of "tricksters" and "thieves" for the world, but that such acts are heavily looked down on by the population and thus his churches are hidden, etc.. I know she's not a realms deity, but I actually prefer to bring in the Raven Queen (never thought she would have caught me so much, but she has) as a goddess of death, winter, and fate to the world for the kenku of the world (because I would like a lot of different bird folk). Perhaps she has actually blessed the kenku of this world such that they aren't flightless. In fact, maybe they aren't the "kenku" on this world, but the human sized winged "Tengu" of 3rd edition Oriental Adventures lore (who it says are also called "kenku" in the entry). Thus they could be involved without being the "cursed folk with no wings", and perhaps the few winged "kenku" of the realms (and there are some) might trace their lineage to a long ago transfer from Coliar to Toril via portal/spelljamming/planar travel, etc....
Syranita, Remnis, and Krocaa all work for me, and while they aren't mentioned, I like the idea of there being various giant bird species in addition to the aarakocra (so giant eagles, owls, ravens, parrots, woodpeckers, etc...), and having many of these species as awakened with druids amongst them. These races worshipping Remnis and Akadi both work.
Doing some data mining of the original source and your entries, I see the original states that there might be around "50" major ports. I had posited about 30 of the "really large" earth islands and about 90 of the next size down. If half of these are more towards the interior of Coliar, then they wouldn't make good ports, so I think this actually works pretty well. Something later in the original source states that there are "over 100 separate aarakocra governments", so that works as well with these rough numbers. Some of these governments may be isolationists and more towards the interior of Coliar with no ports for outsiders and absolutely no involvement with lizard folk.
You do give us a name or the "largest port", that being Athenar, and I call that now one of the largest earth islands (of rough size equivalent to six Texas states in total area, being almost 2 thousand miles in diameter, with maybe only a 1/10 of it populated). This being a very "cosmopolitan" port and having all kinds of races would make sense. Maybe there are lizardfolk on this earth island as well, but the place is predominantly controlled by the aarakocra, and the lizardfolk scheme against the aarakocra on the "other side" of the rock in undeveloped areas. There may be some lizard folk though who actually wanted to get away from lizard folk society and have been accepted on this particular earth island in their own community. Perhaps they welcome the idea of allowing the individual to "grow" and excel, versus "working for the betterment of all". This government is very democratic, allowing for elections and leaders using a "horn of voices" to speak before the masses about why they should be elected. There are five main parties it seems (goals?)and those elected stay in office for 7 years. For the last 1200 years, only females have been elected to power. Perhaps propaganda and influence via bards sent to speak well of elected officials is a thing on this world. Perhaps there's a bit of peddling influence for favors. There might also be a thriving use of detectives and writers who "spread the truth" via something akin to newspapers (but might be somethign totally different like a programmed illusion that's changed daily that people can pay for admittance to hear).
You also give us another large port, that being Hissta, and I'll happily call it the "second largest" earth island (let's say its 1500 miles in diameter). You also note that its the seat of government of more than a dozen smaller islands. So, perhaps there are near its orbit, 16 "smaller" islands of sizes varying in size (say 8 of size 10-30 miles in diameter, (so basically a small town with some outlying woods), say 5 of 30 to 60 miles in diameter (so basically 2 or 3 small towns and a bigger city), 2 pretty big earth islands of 70 to 300 miles in diameter, and one "large but not as large as Hissta" of let's say 600 miles in diameter. This should gives us something of an idea of what we might be working with, as the largest of the "smaller islands" would still be say near the size of Texas itself. The government of lizardmen is noted to be very "communistic" with wealth being distributed amongst everyone. There might be some corruption however, with some folks gaming the system in order to "give priority to their eggs" or "get a bit of better food".
This gives us a good starting point for two major groups to develop. Perhaps another good group to develop would be a "birdfolk" government focused on conquest via raiding. They might be space pirates to a degree. Perhaps they HATE lizard folk, and they actually draw aarakocra from other colonies whose lives have been impacted by the lizard folk. Thus, maybe half the citizenry of this "government" are from elsewhere. They might still follow the democratic ideals of leadership, but the 5 different factions might be separate pirating groups, with one acting as the High Captain, but each faction acting primarily separately to obtain similar goals. Like the aforementioned Hissta, this one sounds like a good candidate for a seat of government that's spread across multiple earth islands, but possibly a LOT more of the smaller ones. So, no one major big earth island ruling over smaller ones, but rather maybe 5 of the 70 to 300 mile in diameter islands, with another 25 of the 10-30 mile ones and 15 of the 30-60 mile ones... for a total of 45 earth islands working together. These might be spread out with other earth islands governed by bird folk or lizard folk between them.
Another major sized earth island might be totally dedicated to dragons, and perhaps there's "dragonkin" and dragonborn both on this earth island (since dragonborn are newer than 2e, I don't see a problem with them being on Coliar). This can be another unique government with them worshipping the dragons. Perhaps several smaller bird folk governments (say 4 of them spread across some 20 earth islands) nearby actually has the dragons nominate their candidates for office, but then the people elect them from amongst these candidates. Thus, the dragons and bird folk in this group might be very much involved. The dragons may even send their young to live amonst the bird folk, sending dragonborn along as guardians. The dragons might have palaces amongst this population. I like it very much if this population has feathered dragons rather than traditional. Perhaps there's also a satellite group of each of the bird folk governments that is allowed to have its own city on the major earth island and they work with the dragons directly from there (providing tribute in the form of cattle raised, etc... as well).
Perhaps another earth island is similarly covered with dragons, but these are perhaps universally of a more evil bent. Perhaps these dragons also are notedly NOT feathered. Maybe this earth island is a lot more savage. Perhaps they've also imported kobolds to be their servants (even going so far as to literally put out word that they'll buy kobolds to slavers). These dragons may be more power hungry and expect tribute for the nearby earthmotes (which maybe are almost all lizard folk). The lizard folk possibly serve as intermediate rulers on the earth island with the dragons, basically as a middle class over the kobolds. This larger earth island might have areas of desert, volcanoes, and swamp connected via grasslands (for red, black, brown, blue, and green dragons). The kobolds likely are not allowed to leave the place, and thus most outsiders know nothing of them unless they interact with this particular group.
To note, the dragons of this world do interbreed as well, and the resulting offspring have only one parent's breath weapon, but both parent's immunities. Their coloration also combines that of both parents. Presumably though, their primary coloration is that of their breath weapon (so a blue dragon that mates with a gold and has a child with the gold's breath weapons might be gold with blue spots, whereas its "sister" with the lightning breath might be blue with gold spots). If the children then interbreed, its the primary coloration that's passed around, not the secondary. If we did give these dragons feathers, these colorations might be very apparent in the feather patters. These dragons are also notedly neutral with very few having destructively evil tendencies (greedy perhaps, but not necessarily kill frenzy).
Ah, and I'm just noting that there is a description of the earth islands which I vote we throw out. It says they are "rough pyramidal shapes with the flat side up" and that there are "some that are several yards thick". A later thing wants to limit their size to a little more than 20 miles. Honestly, I like picturing them more like giant asteroids. Granted, the vast majority may be 10 miles or less (number in the thousands), but having as I noted earlier about 300 total that are bigger than 30 miles in diameter (and about 30 of that 300 being humongous) opens up some options . If they are only a few yards thick, that opens up for a lot of possible magical abuse and makes each earth island flimsy and untenable. Having them miles thick also allows for us to have people mining INTO these earth islands (to note, they do MINE, so this change has something of a precedent). The emptied mines may be turned into reservoirs for water, dump grounds for compost, or even points at which caves can be built for living. There could also be an "underdark" in the bigger ones comprised of previously dug caverns, and travel could occur via the "underways" in a secure environment without fear of bandits, etc... I feel things are improved and more options available by this change to the lore, so it should be incorporated.
Sidebar, one of the "major" imports from other people is "smokepowder". I propose that the aarakocra do a brisk trade with Anadia for powderpuff and that the two worlds are very aware of each other. Perhaps the Anadian halflings are dependent on Coliar for food to a degree, such that if the trade shut down the world population might have to shrink. Perhaps the fertilizer of Anadia for powderpuff consists of garbage scows hauled to Anadia containing basic compost material (nothing horrible, but it might consist of a lot of excrement, dead plant material, maybe some dead lizard folk and dinosaurs, etc...). |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
|
|
|
sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11696 Posts |
Posted - 14 Jul 2020 : 15:29:27
|
Also, on Coliar, just noting that there is more of a description of its weather wherein there's clouds more around the exterior and lightning around the exterior. The lizard folk live more towards this area and that aarakocras live more towards the interiors. I don't see a problem necessarily with this, though I'd also put clouds and weather on the interior as well, but perhaps after you get past the "outer ring" you can make out the other earth islands a little more clearly. That being said, when the planet is 40,000-100,000 miles in diameter, I don't envision anyone seeing from one side to the other.
Also to note, there's descriptions of the temperature that make this place generally between 40 degrees at its coolest and generally in the 75 degrees and higher. The wearing of armor is something I specifically don't see happening unless someone has something to control the heat. Shields are something else entirely. I actually picture these cultures using something akin to incarnum and psionic magics that enhance the body, and the study of force effects may be relatively common with things like a shield made of force being a common type of favored equipment. Light armors and silk armors would be the most common.
In the case of silk, it might be interesting if there are giant butterflies and moths raised specifically for their silks. These creatures needn't be humongous and some might be the size of dogs, and they may even be treated as pets. Perhaps the colors from their wings have some kind of uses. Giant spiders might be raised similarly, and perhaps such creatures are treated as beasts of burden as well. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
|
|
|
Seethyr
Master of Realmslore
USA
1151 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jul 2020 : 23:40:50
|
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Seethyr
Just a quick side note. It would be utterly bizarre if H’Calos - the massive worm destroyer of Maztica who fell from the skies was not from H’Catha. Personally, I reskinned some purple worms (adding claw attacks and such) to make the “H’Calans” which are the Star Worm’s offspring. Perhaps H’Catha is crawling with such creatures?
Why? Aside from the H'Ca part, what suggests any connection between the two?
I get that the names are similar, but I've long been loathe to assume a connection just because of similar words. Cart and care are just one letter apart, but there is nothing at all that connects them.
When Mirandos of Helm performed the ritual to free H’Calos, one of the conditions it needed to be under was that H’Catha must just have risen in the sky. I’m pretty sure the H’Catha/H’Calos connection was intentional. |
Follow the Maztica (Aztec/Maya) and Anchorome (Indigenous North America) Campaigns on DMsGuild!
The Maztica Campaign
The Anchorome Campaign |
|
|
|
Topic |
|
|
|
Realmspace Reimagining - Populating other worlds
