Lore24 - The Sovereignty - The Echor Mountains

When the first human tribes came to these western lands, they mostly settled on the eastern shores, in and around the City of Dawn in what we today call The Hartlands. But some ranged further afield. And like earlier elven ezplorers, the human settlers also reached the mountains at the end of the world, the Echors.

It is said that the Echor Mountains encircle all lands fit for human habitation and civilization. According to the Codex, the most holy of texts of the Church of Phaeton, it was Phaeton Himself that raised these slopes from the bones of Aedes, to set the boundaries of his protection. Within the lands and seas encompassed by the Echors, humanity is subject to Phaeton's aegis, and His divine influence shields the Sovereignty from demonic incursions and unholy threats. Outside of the Echor Mountains, humanity is fated to survive amongst the elements.

No human has ever explored even the near side of all the ringing mountains. Only the eastern edges that form the western borders of the Sovereignty have been charted. But both scholars and wizards alike maintain that the Echors indeed encompass a large mass of land and sea.

The Echors on the western borders of the Sovereignty are of further interest, as beneath the mountain range lie the ancestral halls of dwarvenkind. The great city of Irongard is hewn out of the very core of the western Echor Mountains and their creation myth tells us that their Maker created the dwarves in these very halls.

Lore24 - The Sovereignty - Exodus

According to knowledgeable sages, humanity has had a presence in the lands that would become the Sovereignty even before the mass immigration called "the Exodus" took place. Forlorn ruins and excavated tribal remains testify to that notion. But the biggest proof was the presence of the City of Dawn, Aurora, itself.

Before the Exodus, humans were native to the eastern, paradisical, lands, whose original designation have been lost to time and catastrophe. In this paradise, they were shepherded and tutored by the High Elves of that land. The human tribes learned language, culture, invention and even magic from the elves. In time, the inventive folk of humankind struck out on their own, beyond the shores of paradise, to lands over the horizon. It was a clan of these enterprising humans that founded Aurora as the first human city, a colony in the western lands. 

When magical cataclysm befell the eastern paradisical lands, causing them to become "the Lost Lands", humans of all stripe and color, as well as remaining elves, fled westward to these shores. And while most of the elves settled on the island of Lendor, humanity fled to the bastions of Aurora. From there, groups of like-minded humans struck out into the wilderness, to take land, cultivate food and rebuild civilization. Peoples of all ethnicities flocked together, causing the new cultures of the Sovereignty to become a mix of different clans and populations. Intermarriage between clans and, later on, kingdoms, became common, meaning that the Sovereignty is a true melting pot of creeds and colors. 

What caused the cataclysm is a topic of debate among the wise. Some say it was ecological collapse, a freak natural accident that destroyed the life-giving properties of paradise. Others, more suspicious, say the High Elves cast humanity out, out of fear of their pupils surpassing them in magic and invention. A select few point to the current happenings in the lands of the Sovereignty, the rise of Beastmen and monsters, and say that the Mother of Monsters herself rose up against elves and humans. And other select sages suggest it was all the work of magical experiments of epic proportions - rains of colorless fire, devastating invocations - gone awry.

Whatever the cause, the catastrophe was sudden, the ruin utter. The eastern continent became uninhabitable for both elves and humans. And thus, the Exodus.

Lore24 - The Sovereignty - Creation Myths

For my second entry for Lore24, I will delve into the various myths and legends circulating in the lands of the Sovereignty of how the world, Aedes, was created. It seemed fitting to provide creation myths at the beginning of this project. Furthermore, the central idea for the world of Aedes and the lands of the Sovereignty emerged as I was considering what fantasy I could base on the classic Chaoskampf, specifically the Babylonian creation myth of Marduk and Tiamat. For those well versed in ancient Mesopotamian myths, the following legends may seem familiar.

Ecclesiarchic Church of Phaeton

IN THE BEGINNING - the most holy book of Phaeton, the Codex, claims - there was only Chaos. And Chaos was Darkness. In that Darkness came Phaeton, Angel of Light, Bringer of Civilization, Teacher of Laws and Invention. Phaeton cleaved the Mother of Monsters that was Chaos and brought Light into the Darkness. He planted his spear in the corpse of the Mother of Monsters, and the sun rose for the first time. Phaeton appeared before the leaders of Humankind, who had suffered in the darkness, amidst the monsters born of Chaos, and promised them a a golden land to the west, beyond the blighted shores of the Lost Lands. There, He laid the foundations for the Golden Throne, amidst what would become the City of Dawn, and he chose Claudus, Anaxandron, King of Kings, the most noble Human, to sit upon it. A task was given: "Tame this land and multiply, all that is touched by Light, is yours to reign over." 

Tribal Tradition

FROM THE ELEMENTS AROSE THE ANIMA, Masters of Nature, They who ordered Aedes. And when the Anima had given order and rythm and fate to the world, they fathered children: Dire Wolf, Brother Bear, Mountain Lion and many others. From these children, the Human Clans were born. In our ancestral lands, we lived in harmony and freedom amongst the Anima. We trusted Them, our vigor, our fate. There is no higher purpose than to live in peace and balance with the Anima, to take care of the world and give Aedes unto a new generation in a cycle that never ends.

Dwarves of Irongard

DEEP BENEATH THE EARTH, the Maker, He who first forged this mortal abode from darkness, took soulless rocks and breathed fire into them. Massive statues, Titans, misformed pieces of mountain and hill, were thus birthed onto the world. Deeming them failures, and not satisfied with his work, the Maker cast the Titans back into the Heartforge and, with fireproof hands, kneaded and molded the molten forms into new shapes. Thus was Giantkin created. But they, also, were deemed impure. The Maker reached for finer tools, smaller ingredients, and out of the heart of the mountains, He forged Trolls. But, having spent much of His energy, the Maker breathed too little fire in them and at the first touch of sunlight, these Trolls turned back to stone. Rest, though, would only come to the Maker when his creations would be perfect. He reached for smaller but more pure quantities of rock and earth, breathed wind and fire in them, and watched proudly as the Fathers of Dwarvenkind drew their first breaths in the Heartforge under Irongard.

Elves

BEFORE TIME BEGAN, the children of the stars, the Eldar, came to what would become the world, amidst Darkness, Wild and Chaotic. Amidst these elemental forces, and creatures of darkness, the Eldar were prey, vulnerable. The wisest of the Eldar called to their ancestors and from beyond the Darkness, the stars lighted up. In constellations they took form, shapes akin to gods with names such as Corellon, Melora, Sehanine and Lendor. But also more sinister aspects: Lolth, Asmodeus. These Old Gods kneaded the elements and forged the world of Aedes from the Darkness of Chaos. Under the starlit heavens, the descendents of the Eldar, now called Elves, made their home in beautiful forests, on stark coasts and upon silver oceans. As shepherds, the Elves sailed the seas of Aedes, finding and teaching many lesser peoples.

Lore24 - The Sovereignty - Laying the groundwork

Ever since commencing play in our current 5E-campaign, DM-ADD has tugged on me to create and explore other worlds. Settings such as the Westerrealm and the comedic Burgundy were results of that urge, as was the brief reexamination of Greyhawk.

This spring, I decided to pool all world-building efforts into a reimagining of the homebrew world our group has been exploring for the past 13 years, and enrich it with all that has come before and since (both homebrew and official). In doing so, I hope to create a mix that speaks exactly to my (and my group's!) tastes. Pulling from published sources as well as the rich history of our own homebrew games, I strive to concoct the perfect homebrew.

I will be creating / fleshing out this setting taking part in the Lore24 challenge, launched by Yora of Spriggan's Den. Every day in 2024, a new part of setting lore will be published on this blog. This can be a kingdom, an item, an NPC or a small bit of background. Today, I present Lore 24: The Sovereignty.

The Sovereignty (Basileia)

The Sovereignty is the name by which is referred to all civilized human dominions. A millennium ago, humanity fled the fallen lands to the east to settle on this wild continent. Fanning out from the ancient city of Aurora, on the continent's eastern shore, humanity quickly spread to all corners of the land this side of the great mountain chains that divide this continent. And while the humans that travelled across the mountains fell into strange and barbaric ways, on the eastern side of the mountains great kingdoms were established.

In the beginning, these kingdoms all strove to be independent or in control of one another. But in the first century after the Exodus, it became clear that there was one dominant power in the land: the Golden Throne of Aurora, from which ruled it's divinely appointed Sovereign. And so, all lands east of the mountain chains became known as The Sovereignty, or Basileia in the native tongue of Aurora. The Golden Throne mostly retains power and influence through the application of soft power, religious influence and cultural significance, and money - large sums of money. 

The subject kingdoms and principalities of The Sovereignty, with names such as Navaroigne, Lotharingen and Thule, all have early medieval trappings and technology. Religion in the Sovereignty is a monotheistic state church, dedicated to the worship of a living angel named Phaeton. Civil wars are frequent but of low intensity. Sovereigns are formally elected but de facto frequently members of the same influential dynasty. Dynastic upheaval does occur, however, the latest being a decade ago with the ascension of Sovereign Rauxes Anaxandros, King of Kings, to the Golden Throne.

The Sovereignty is intended to be a setting full of intrigue, adventure, mystery, ruins and unexplored wilderness. PCs are challenged to carve out their own domain, principality, perhaps even kingdom, out of the rivaling kingdoms of the Sovereignty - perhaps even staging an attempt at the Golden Throne itself. 

Inspiration

The Sovereignty is partly inspired by the early Byzantine Empire, a mysterious yet powerful state in early medieval Europe. Hence the monotheistic state church and application of soft power. The look and feel of soldiers of the Sovereignty will be largely influenced by the Easterlings of Peter Jackson's film adaptation of Lord of the Rings. Phaeton's church will be both reminiscent of the most corrupt depictions of the Catholic Church in various media sources, as well as of the manner in which faith is depicted in media such as The Last Kingdom  - as a source of power and hope.

RPG-wise, major influences are both early Greyhawk and the Birthright setting (the latter for reasons that will become apparant in subsequent posts). 

All in all, I seek to invoke a Tolkienesque flavour, but with a twist (such as taking the Byzantine Empire as the cultural analog to the main political power on the continent). 

I look forward to developing this setting in the coming year. 

Greyhawk Wars

Greyhawk Wars was part of TSR's push to reinvigorate the Greyhawk line in the early 90s. Taking on Carl Sargent, the company had decided that after Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms had filled similar niches in the genre of fantasy, something had to be done to push Greyhawk forward. According to Jeff Grubb, fellow TSR developer Douglas Niles took his suggestion to "burn it to the ground" literally (spawning the myth that Grubb had it in for the venerable setting), and TSR decided an epic shakeup was in order, giving birth to Greyhawk Wars and producing the From the Ashes boxed set.

The game Greyhawk Wars has gotten someting of a bad rep in Greyhawk- and old school-circles, with grognards claiming that Wars blew up the setting and saw it drifting permanently away from Gygax' original vision.

I disagree.

Greyhawk was always a war-heavy setting, having been developed from a miniature wargame and the pages of Dragon magazine saw reports of troop movements and army strengths. Gygax inevitably led the nations of the Flanaess to war. True, a fantasy world war is maybe a bit of a stretch, but the conflicts - between Iuz and Furyondy, Nyrond and the Great Kingdom, the hidden danger of the Scarlet Brotherhood - were present even in the original Folio-edition.

Now the game itself surely has its flaws. But it is an enjoyable wargame. Last sunday, a few of the D&D-group came over early to try their hand at dominance over the Flanaess.

I set out the map, country cards and counters the evening before the game. As I let the players choose the countries that they played, I set out all the options: 

• Iuz and the Horned Society
• Furyondy and the Shield Lands
• Great Kingdom and the Sea Barons
• Nyrond and Almor
• Scarlet Brotherhood and the Sea Princes
• Keoland

Of all the starting countries, Keoland is by far the weakest, and Scarlet Brotherhood allied with the Sea Princes is a close second. As I had tree friends coming over, it was to be expected that they chose Iuz, Furyondy and Nyrond as starting countries. I was left with the Great Kingdom.

It is interesting to note that there is a great disparity in starting forces. Great Kingdom for example, has a large number of troops at the start of the game, while Furyondy and the Shield Lands have to scrounge the lands for defenses. 

We set the victory condition for the game: 20 countries per alliance. Whichever side, Good (Furyondy and Nyrond) or Evil (Iuz and Great Kingdom) managed to control 20 countries first and hold them at the end of a turn would win the game. We never arrived there because of time constraints, but it was nevertheless a good game - though it only lasted two turns.

Observations

What follows is some observations about the game:

• The game is actually two games: a western front and an eastern front. The war is fought between Furyondy and Iuz and between Nyrond and the Great Kingdom. There is little interation between the two halves of the map. Only the forces of Iuz (operating out of Stonefist on the eastern front) enter a little bit on the war between the Aerdy kingdoms. 
• It is a race over territory. Only in the second turn did we discover how easy it is to conquer countries and add them to the number of countries controlled by your alliance. By raising armies, splitting forces, occupying areas and declaring them conquered, one can easily expand one's empire. As the Great Kingdom, I discovered the entire eastern seaboard open to my troops (ferried across the Solnor Ocean by Sea Baron shps). To the west, Furyondy's player, after allying with Keoland, Celene and two Ulek states, had enough forces to waltz across Geoff, Sterich, Bissel, Gran March and the rest of the West.
• Hero Actions are important but not decisive. During the Action Phase, hero counters can engage in diplomacy, fight monsters and discover treasure, or recruit mercenaries. But all of these have a significant chance of failure. Even with friendly states, the chance of alliance is 50/50. Defeating a monster happens only on a lucky roll of the dice. And if you draw a mercenary card of the opposite alignment, then the action is lost. Yet if an alliance, a treasure hunt or a recruitment succeeds, it is significant. During our game, Nyrond conquered both North and South Province and subsequently allied two Iron League states, surrounding my Aerdy forces. Furyondy succeeded in allying with Keoland, Celene and Ulek, providing the western forces of Good with a significant advantage in numbers. 
• Be careful with your armies. A rash battle can result in the destruction of a significant number of troops, which take two turns to compensate in relation to enemy players. The game gives you the option to retreat at the end of every combat round. A wise empire-builder knows when discretion is the better part of valor.

Conclusion

In the end, the forces of Good, mainly due to the efforts of the Furyondy-Keoland-Celene-alliance, succeeded in controlling 10 countries at the end of turn two. We had to end the game there because our regular D&D-game was about to start and players were already arriving. Both Iuz and myself are brooding on vengeance, however, so we all expect the Greyhawk Wars to resume somewhere in the next couple of weeks.

Greyhawk Facts: the Howling Emptiness of the Flanaess

 As has been eloquently been put forth before by, among others, Chris Kutalik of Hill Cantons fame and Joeseph Bloch the Greyhawk Grognard, the lands of the Flanaess are maddeningly uninhabited. As part of a series exploring the implied setting of AD&D 1st Edition, Kutalik wrote an enlightening blogpost on the empty land as presented in the Greyhawk Folio: 

"If you actually sit down take all the distances and stated populations at face value and start crunching numbers, your immediate impression will be that the lands of Flanaess aren't just stable, if embattled faux medieval nations, but far more like the edge-of-oblivion points of light societies of a post-apocalyptic world."

And further on:

"In other words, even the wildest places of Europe at the time are orders of magnitude more settled and prosperous than Veluna. Those wide light green clearings on the Darlene map turn out not to be dull vast tracts of farmland peopled by plump, happy yeoman, but barely held little bastions.

It's hard not to conjure up images of isolated little hamlets clustered around a grim watchtower or small castle with miles of wasteland and bramble-grown lost settlements filling the miles between. Even inside these “settled” lands armed-to-the-teeth patrols are making the rounds and a monster or two is not an uncommon daily nuisance."

At Greyhawk Grognard, Joe ties the emptiness of the land to the implied endgame of AD&D:

"In that game system, there are two tensions at work. The first is the need for the players to have room in which to expand to play the famed “end game” of AD&D; clearing land, building keeps and towers, and eventually attracting settlers and taxing them. This, I think, is the reason that most of the small villages that are portrayed in the game are shown outside of the normal feudal system of government; who was ruling over Hommlet before Burne and Rufus decided to set up their fortress? By having hexes that are mostly empty, there is plenty of space for players to set themselves up as described in the DMG.

The second, I believe, is the need of the DM to not be overwhelmed by needless detail. Why are Hommlet and Nulb the only villages in their respective 30-mile-across hexes?

Because from the standpoint of the DM, that’s where all the action is! If there were a historically-accurate density of villages and farms on those hexes, the player characters would be overwhelmed with choice. “Which village with an inn is the one that we should concentrate on? Let’s pick this one! I think the name’s neat!” That requires the DM to then have exacting detail on all those villages or be willing and able to make up such detail on the fly."

So there we have it, the Flanaess is a continent where civilization is confined to heavily armed camps, threatened by bandits, outlaws, humanoid hordes and monsters, providing player characters with opportunities to clear the wilderness and set up domains for themselves.

What does it all mean?

As an exercise, I took the From the Ashes material with which I am most familiar and building of Longetalos work in this thread on EN World, calculated the population density of the various states and principalities of the Flanaess. Only a few realms have a density of more than 1 person per square kilometer. In a vain effort to provide some insight, I photoshopped this map (not my best work). 

Some highlights:

• Irongate and Dyvers are positively urbanized with 8.5 and 3.9 humans per square kilometer respectively. I never imagined Irongate as such a center of civilization. This certainly paints a new picture of Irongate as political, military and economic center of the Iron League. Dyvers, of course, is the old capital of the Viceroyalty of Ferrond and as can be derived, the Kingdom of Aerdy's main colony outside of the old Aerdy heartlands.
• The most heavily populated lands are all east and directly south of the Nyr Dyv. The Great Kingdom (including Almor, Medegia and North and South Province) has a population density of 2.8 humans per square kilometer. Nyrond, the Duchy of Urnst and the lands of Greyhawk follow with a density of 1.8, 1.7 and 1.8 respectively. These settlement patterns are still extremely sparse (and not accounting for the numbers of demihumans, humanoids, roving bandits and leaderless armies traipsing around the wilderness), but they paint a band of relative cultivation on the southeastern Nyr Dyv.
• Ekbir is a stronghold of cultivation in the Baklunish basin, and Veluna is more settled than Furyondy. This provokes an interesting idea, that Zeif (for the Baklunish) and Furyondy (in the western Nyr Dyv lands) are dependent on those two states for their wellbeing. Suddenly, the abduction of Thrommel to prevent a Veluna-Furyondy union makes even more sense, as Furyondy without support from the Theocracy would be weakened considerably economically speaking. One wonders what the dynamic between Ekbir and Zeif is.
• Perrenland is a bastion of civilization in the northwestern Flanaess. One wonders what Iggwilv's contribution to this state of affairs was. Did she build Perrenland up to its current state? Or was Perrenland even more civilized before the reign of the Witch-Queen, on par with the Aerdy heartlands?
• The Sheldomar Valley is the domain of scattered humans living in alliance with the native demihumans.

In play, this map provides a guideline on describing the lands of the Flanaess through which the PCs travel. It is also an interesting aid in chronicling the civilizing influence of the Great Kingdom. For all its current wickedness, the Overkings of yore have actually done a great job in kingdom-building, with great rival Keoland paling in comparison. 

For the campaign I am preparing, I am imagining the Flanaess as a wild land with bastions of order surrounded by a sea of chaos. The lands to the east are more cultivated than the wild west, and Flanaess society, economy and religion is still heavily influenced by the Aerdy powerhouse built by the Overkings. Within these points of light, heavy armor and steel weaponry is available. In the wilderness, a level of technology and organization akin to the European Dark Ages prevails. Travel is dangerous, with monsters, brigands and humanoids on the rise and prowling on trade routes and farmsteads alike. It is a land in need of adventurers to safely guide food, weapons and trade goods between the civilized lands, and to clear out the wilderness and establish new bastions of order.

Greyhawk Facts: Humankind is fragmented and besieged

"Humankind is fragmented into isolationist realms, indifferent nations, evil lands and states striving for good. The Baklunish countries in the northwest have grown in power. Nomads, bandits and barbarians rais southward every spring and summer. Humanoid enclaves are strongly established and scattered throughout the continent, and wicked insanity rules in the Great Kingdom. The eventual result of all this cannot be foretold."

- excerpted from the A Guide to the World of Greyhawk Fantasy Setting, World of Greyhawk Boxed Set

As I am preparing for my next D&D campaign - which will be set in the World of Greyhawk - I am considering which materials I will use for that campagin. A common question in preparing for Greyhawk is "Which era will I set my campaign in, Gygax original, From the Ashes-reboot or Living Greyhawk-era?" My answer to that question will be: All of the above (and none).

Marvel, with the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and numerous cartoon adaptations before that, and even the Ultimate Marvel comic book imprint), and movies drawing from either modern or ancient myth do all the time, I will pull inspiration from the primary sources to create my own version of the setting - as Gary Gygax intended when he wrote the original Folio-edition in the first place. As part of this exercise, I will distill my vision of the Flanaess in a few "Things You Need To Know", or Greyhawk Facts, in a number of posts, each post detailing another fact. Today: the degeneration of civilization and the rise of savage humanoids.

Art by Jeff Easley

The Realm of Mankind is beset on all sides by savage enemies, and civilization's light is dying.

The World of Greyhawk is first and foremost a realm of Man. It was envisioned as a humanocentric setting by Gygax, further supported by the passage in the original DMG that D&D was envisioned as a humanocentric game. The Guide to the World of Greyhawk reinforces this fact by summing the human population of a particular state/land and only providing sketchy details on demihuman or humanoid populations. In the original publication, the Elven and Dwarven realms are considered to be fading. It is the Great Kingdom, a human-ruled power, that rose to dominate the Flanaess in recent centuries. Yet that same Great Kingdom has been in decline for the past few decades, being ruled by the aforementioned "wicked insanity".

Overall, the Flanaess is painted as a land of petty human kingdoms and principalities, striving against each other, struggling for survival and even dominance. It is thoroughly medieval in that regard, reminding me of Dark Age Britain, with thinly populated kingdoms fighting each other and the invading Vikings. It also reminds me of the mood of Lord of the Rings, sometimes called "nobledark", where Middle-earth's kingdoms have been frayed and beaten by centuries of onslaughts by orcs and Ringwraiths and are barely holding on. Evil and Chaos are on the rise in the Flanaess, with only a few, battered states, such as Furyondy and Nyrond, trying to combat that rise.

For reasons I will go into in my next post in this series, the Flanaess feels terribly desolate and under-populated. But what if we treat that as a feature instead of a bug? We know that humanoid power is on the rise, with increasing numbers being recruited by states to fight as mercenaries and others raiding and rampaging the countryside. What if the states of the Flanaess not only fight each other, but humanoid incursions as well? The nations of Man are not only divided amongst themselves, they are also, year by year, losing ground to Orcs, Gnolls, Ogres and Trolls. Sterich and Geoff have already been conquered by giants. The Pomarj, Bone March, Lands of Iuz and large parts of the Bone March are already Orc-territory, as are many enclaves in hill, mountains and forests. 

An apocalyptic image, and a world in need of heroes.