There are canonical elemental manses that boost exaltation chance of a child if the mother spends the pregnancy within it, and in e3 we have the pilgrimage to the Caul which is supposed to guarantee exaltation of a child. So it makes sense that other, thematically appropriate actions also help with exaltation chance.
General Exalted Thread
- Pronouns
- They/Them
You know, I was a lot more hyped for the last one when I thought it said, "Unbrided Joy" because I was like, "What does that even mean? Is this some sort of runaway bride style?"
- Location
- Singapore
Ok, so I've been looking at the modern alchemicals. So Autobot gets one. He chooses a modern human to become one. What criteria would he choose?
Normal alchies get simultaneous multiple lifetimes of heroism.
Decision to uphold the status quo? Transgression of boundaries? Usage of tools and devices? Innovation? A desire to improve oneself? Giving yourself up to the greater good?
Normal alchies get simultaneous multiple lifetimes of heroism.
Decision to uphold the status quo? Transgression of boundaries? Usage of tools and devices? Innovation? A desire to improve oneself? Giving yourself up to the greater good?
He wouldn't.
The point of Modern Alchemicals are that they are that random kid that found the Guyver Unit.
Rather than being chosen they stumbled onto the Phlebotinum.
- Location
- Singapore
Bursting Eagerness Soul
Threadwalking Rating Machine
- Location
- Wisconsin
This is hilariously Adorjani (minus the lethality) and I would love to see it combo'd with Adorjan charms. Even just TLA would give incredible boosts to every charm that invokes the number of Intimacies/Principles involved in the scene.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
A worthy goal, in my estimation.
Unfortunately, I only really have things like that as part of my neonatal rewrite of Wyld creatures - essentially, having the raksha-equivalents be capable of weird wacky shit as long as it fits within their established narrative, like being able to use Perception+Presence to literally cut someone apart with a scathing critique of their personal flaws. Still, I suppose that such an approach (essentially, "Charm bullshit to let you use Abilities & Attributes for things they normally couldn't be used for[1]") is at least a low-effort way to get some weird going in your game, so it's worth mentioning.
[1] Such as literally punching up a script with Strength+Melee, using Dexterity+Survival to block attacks by impossibly turning the environment to your advantage (like, crazy JoJo or Toriko shit where you somehow trick an opponent into shooting at a tree instead of you by utilizing the interplay of shadows cast by the branches overhead to create an optical illusion, or the like), or decoding a manuscript with Charisma+Investigation by holding a debate with the text over your right to read it.
Jon Chung
=][=
Fun fact: when it was originally written, the Form gave you 5 motes per action. The cost of a tick-length perfect defense at the time was 6 motes. The cost of an action-length perfect defense was 6m 1w. When I pointed this out to Holden, he promptly went "oh, fuck" and killed the mote gain, to his credit.
The curse of SMA is worse than the curse of Sidereal Charms. People seem to inevitably go "hey I am writing SMA, let me inject ridiculous bullshit", and don't even notice when they do it when they would otherwise have done so in any other context.
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Pretannia is to the south of Halta and the east of the Linowan region. It's basically nestled between the two, just north of the Hundred Kingdoms.
From the description, it sounds like Tiangou is to the west of it, probably somewhere in that V-shaped zone of land between the River of Tears and the Silver River. South of the Tear Eaters. Mankalvar is on the North Silver River, which means it's northwest of Pretannia, and northeast of Tiangou (*far* north).
Lemme gussy up a terrible map. Please note, these are rough borders, nowhere near exact - the people in-setting don't think of it that way and for instance Pretannia doesn't so much have a 'border' as a point where you decide the clans and tribes in the place you're at are closer to being something else than to being Pretannic.
I invite @Omicron and @TenfoldShields to correct me if I got the locations or scales wrong.
1 is the approximate location of Mankalvar.
2 is about where Tenfold said Tiangou was, I think.
3 is Pretannia's location.
4 is approximately where canon put Halta. Your Creation may vary.
5 is the range the Linowan wander across and share with various other tribes.
6 is the approximate location of the Tear Eater tribes of the north.
7 is about where the Bull of the North's canonical empire is - the shape is somewhat arguable of course. The western segment of it he definitely has - it's core Icewalker territory - and the eastern extent of it is basically 'where the Bull needs to have managed to conquer to have reached the Linowan to start his whole war thing with them'. Again, your Creation may vary, there are many discussions on what to do with 'im.
8 is around where the Haslanti are bumming about.
9 is the other possible location for Tiangou, based on Tenfold's description.
So, that's our three homebrew regions, plus all canonical powers of the Northeast. Feel free to adjust borders to fit, or to squeeze more regions in.
Note that these are all pretty big swathes of territory - either of the Tiangou options is France-sized, the fairly conservative Bull's Empire size is about Turkey-to-Afghanistan, Pretannia and Halta are each 'most-of-Europe'-sized, and the Haslanti swathe is about the size of Russia. In this sort of setting, those are vast swathes of land, and any one of them, if united and successfully administrated under a single government, should be a major power.
The Bull and the Haslanti are both about right in that, they're supposed to be pretty significant powers (and even then the Haslanti could stand to be smaller, I pretty much just painted a big swathe in about the right area). Pretannia is explicitly not united and successfully administrated under a single government, it's more like seventy. The Linowan territory is similarly not such an empire - there are numerous non-Linowan tribes in the area, and the Linowan themselves in no way occupy the whole of it. Halta's scale needs to be similarly deceptive, because it's not at all supposed to be a significant power. Tiangou may be meant to be smaller - I put it that size mostly so I could make it visible on the map.
(For those reading An Offer She Couldn't Refuse, Talinin is in the northeasternmost section of the Pretannic region)
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh shit this is really cool! 
Tiangou is about the right size in 2 but tucked further up, it's got that mountain range on the Eastern side, plains to the South, White Sea to the North, and Gulf to the West. With that little ("little") patch of forest as the heartland. That overlaps it with Haslanti some but yeah, roughly where I was eyeballing it. >>
Honestly this is super great, I hadn't quite realized the juxtaposition of stuff and this really helps.
Tiangou is about the right size in 2 but tucked further up, it's got that mountain range on the Eastern side, plains to the South, White Sea to the North, and Gulf to the West. With that little ("little") patch of forest as the heartland. That overlaps it with Haslanti some but yeah, roughly where I was eyeballing it. >>
Honestly this is super great, I hadn't quite realized the juxtaposition of stuff and this really helps.
Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
- Location
- The Destination of Fate
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I really love how much thought you've put into your story. I'm a sucker for stories that consider the geographical and political side of things without overly focusing on it.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
From that I'd probably estimate my Moon's Stone Pond either nestling between 4 and 6. It needs to be close enough to Mankalvar to allow them to realistically send a squadron of bunraku and ordinary soldiers... I guess it might possibly infringe a bit on where you marked out the west border of Halta.Pretannia is to the south of Halta and the east of the Linowan region. It's basically nestled between the two, just north of the Hundred Kingdoms.
From the description, it sounds like Tiangou is to the west of it, probably somewhere in that V-shaped zone of land between the River of Tears and the Silver River. South of the Tear Eaters. Mankalvar is on the North Silver River, which means it's northwest of Pretannia, and northeast of Tiangou (*far* north).
Lemme gussy up a terrible map. Please note, these are rough borders, nowhere near exact - the people in-setting don't think of it that way and for instance Pretannia doesn't so much have a 'border' as a point where you decide the clans and tribes in the place you're at are closer to being something else than to being Pretannic.
I invite @Omicron and @TenfoldShields to correct me if I got the locations or scales wrong.
1 is the approximate location of Mankalvar.
2 is about where Tenfold said Tiangou was, I think.
3 is Pretannia's location.
4 is approximately where canon put Halta. Your Creation may vary.
5 is the range the Linowan wander across and share with various other tribes.
6 is the approximate location of the Tear Eater tribes of the north.
7 is about where the Bull of the North's canonical empire is - the shape is somewhat arguable of course. The western segment of it he definitely has - it's core Icewalker territory - and the eastern extent of it is basically 'where the Bull needs to have managed to conquer to have reached the Linowan to start his whole war thing with them'. Again, your Creation may vary, there are many discussions on what to do with 'im.
8 is around where the Haslanti are bumming about.
9 is the other possible location for Tiangou, based on Tenfold's description.
So, that's our three homebrew regions, plus all canonical powers of the Northeast. Feel free to adjust borders to fit, or to squeeze more regions in.
Note that these are all pretty big swathes of territory - either of the Tiangou options is France-sized, the fairly conservative Bull's Empire size is about Turkey-to-Afghanistan, Pretannia and Halta are each 'most-of-Europe'-sized, and the Haslanti swathe is about the size of Russia. In this sort of setting, those are vast swathes of land, and any one of them, if united and successfully administrated under a single government, should be a major power.
The Bull and the Haslanti are both about right in that, they're supposed to be pretty significant powers (and even then the Haslanti could stand to be smaller, I pretty much just painted a big swathe in about the right area). Pretannia is explicitly not united and successfully administrated under a single government, it's more like seventy. The Linowan territory is similarly not such an empire - there are numerous non-Linowan tribes in the area, and the Linowan themselves in no way occupy the whole of it. Halta's scale needs to be similarly deceptive, because it's not at all supposed to be a significant power. Tiangou may be meant to be smaller - I put it that size mostly so I could make it visible on the map.
(For those reading An Offer She Couldn't Refuse, Talinin is in the northeasternmost section of the Pretannic region)
EDIT: It might also merge a little into the Linowan space, with migratory clans moving back and forth to trade and raid.
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Oh shit this is really cool!
Tiangou is about the right size in 2 but tucked further up, it's got that mountain range on the Eastern side, plains to the South, White Sea to the North, and Gulf to the West. With that little ("little") patch of forest as the heartland. That overlaps it with Haslanti some but yeah, roughly where I was eyeballing it. >>
Honestly this is super great, I hadn't quite realized the juxtaposition of stuff and this really helps.
Don't worry about Haslanti location, I probably massively high-balled it. The only stuff on the map that needs to be Haslanti territory is Icehome and Diamond Hearth. To be frank they might actually be only on the north side of the White Sea based on their origins - Icehome probably shouldn't be there, it's their capital and should usually be more central. Never been placed on a map before (2e fanmaps put Icehome northish of where Gethamane is to give an example of how ??? its location has always been) so feel free to limit the Haslanti to the two (or even just one) peninsulas sticking out into the White Sea.
Edit: In general the map isn't exact and feel free to trim borders as you like, this is just to give a general eyeball of where everything is.
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azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
I would say that the actual territory held by the Haslanti League is significantly smaller than the spacing of the cities its made up of suggests. They're mostly known for the fact that they use airships (and they also use iceships, IIRC), so they can be treated as a functionally naval state, with each member city-state (and its surrounding bit of territory) being analogous to an island.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Whoop. This is the finished Moon's Stone Pond for your consideration, along with a fluff backstory you can use whenever you want to throw in an evil concubine, wife, matriarch or queen dowager who traffics with ghosts and dark things.
EDIT: Also, the 'elephant-pigs' I mention in the Food section are in fact phioma from Ark Survival Evolved. They just seem like something you'd see somewhere in Creation. Hell, most of the creatures in that game seem like they should be in Creation somewhere.
Moon's Stone Pond
Located between the territories of the Tear Eaters, the Linowan and the Halta, the Moon's Stone Pond serves as a buffer between warring peoples, an obstacle to regular trade and as a refuge to it's resident clans. Geographically the Pond consists mostly of highly treacherous bogs and mires, the layout of which change from year to year, shifting with the movements of the great earth elementals that swim below the surface. From the center of the Pond rises the city of Vermoot; all brick tenements and winding alleys, warehouses, temples and the Palace. North of Vermoot a pair of roughly triangular forests stretch inwards, coming together to form a natural bottleneck that restricts travel to the northern bogs.
As of the victory of the Bull Of The North over the Tepet legions, the Pond is in a state of turmoil; tension both political and religious divides the clans between two groups; a brotherhood of Lost Eggs, supported both by Realm legionnaries and Mankalvarn Bunraku, and the traditionalist warbands lead by the warrior Chiho-Chao.
History
Origins Of The Pond
During the Primordial Age when Creation was young and the gods were new, the movements of the Primordials when outside the Jade Pleasure Dome had almost cataclysmic consequences. Isidoros at times did battle with the greatest of the raksha hosts at the edge of the world with awe-inspiring results; the forces unleashed by the Black Boar That Twists The Skies tore Luna from her path through the heavens and dashed her upon the ground. Though she rose from the crater she left behind a piece of the Moon itself, a shard of power that called to all that could hear.
In great numbers the spirits of the earth tore themselves from their quiet contemplations and wormed their way into the crater, coiling around each other as they struggled to be close to the font of Lunar essence. Those that grasped the opportunity to suckle from Luna's disembodied teat swelled in power, growing in power both mind and body, filling the wound in the earth that the Moon's impact left. However, those that could not reach the font became jealous and joining together as one, they found the weakest of the fortunate targets of their envy and struck. Tearing the elemental from the Moon's teat, they suckled themselves, using this illgained power and their greater numbers to cast off the other drinkers and steal the whole of the font. Those cast aside thus plotted in turn, forming their own alliances and concocting their own schemes, resulting in the everchanging geography of the Moon's Stone Pond.
Of course, since the minds of earth elementals are notoriously slow moving, by this point the Primordial War was done and finished, and the First Age was well underway. Solars built great cities and made war against each other, marshaling legions of Dragonbloods and mastering the arts of sorcery. So it came to pass that two Solar generals quarreled with one another by correspondence and went to battle against each other, converging upon the endless, glacial knifefight that raged beneath. However, the will of the Solars in those days was strong indeed and the two warriors led their armies into the bogs without fear, commanding the elementals beneath their feet to cease their motion and allow the Chosen Of The Sun safe passage.
The daughters of the Moon despaired, as they were great friends and sisters of the same school, and their husbands threatened to destroy each other, casting both Lunars into sorrow. In the forms of beasts the two raced ahead of the armies to the center of the Pond and there they worked their magics. Singing to the great serpents writhing beneath them they calmed their hearts and brokered an equitable peace, accomplishing more with cooperation than their consorts did with sheer will. When the generals saw what their beloveds had accomplished, their cold warlike hearts were moved; they cast aside their weapons and embraced one another as brothers, knowing that together they could do so much more than if one of them was destroyed. Thus the three areas of stability in the Moon's Stone Pond were created: the twin forests that mark where the armies of Solars once marched and the immobile pillar upon which all of Vermoot is built.
The Shogunate
The Sidereals knew well that a locus of Lunar power rested in the Moon's Stone Pond and took steps to secure it and divert the fleeing Lunars around it. Once the rule of the Dragonbloods was assured the tiny outpost on the pillar was expanded into a system of essence refineries, mines and residential districts, including a central airship port that extended above the rest of the city, built from the same grey stone as the rest of the city and housing barracks, workshops and offices. This hive of work and commerce was isolated from the rest of Creation by the Pond itself; the only ways in or out were either by air or by careful and meticulous following of a few shifting paths.
This isolation proved to be the fatal key to the fate of the city; when the Contagion came, spread by refugees coming via airship, the entire city turned into a charnel house which none survived.
The Coming Of The Clans
In the wake of the Great Contagion refugees from the east and west, the north and the south. The replenishing natural resources of the Pond proved irrestible to those who had the skills to traverse it and when the sciences of augury, dowsing and other methods of reading essence flows were developed enough the city of Vermoot was open for recolonisation. The dull tenements and Shogunate infrastructure proved capable of housing
multitudes in between migrations across the bogs, the warehouses and shipping yards providing shelter for labour beasts as large and diverse as oxen, mammoth and yeddim. For centuries the clansmen flourished, intermittently warring among themselves and raiding the outside world, propitiating the gods and developing the arts of divination to better track the shifting of the earth. During this time they tamed the rhinoceros and established the temples of Roh-Pogny; god of frogs, festivals, revelry, the calendar and drugs, Crumbling Dikes; god of boars, labouring beasts, funerary rites and warriors, Honnoke Splitwing; goddess of vultures, messengers, swordsmen and courtesans and Furrow-Filler; god of dogs, destruction, savagery and murder.
Barrow Kings
Since the time when the thaumaturgical arts had developed to the point of sensing them the men of Vermoot have sought the blessing of the great leviathans they ride upon. The endless war the earth elementals indulge in is, while more 'civil' than before the peace accord sought by the sisters Lunar, is still raging, providing a pasttime for the mighty beings. A small dynasty of kings united the clans for a short period and worked to raise great manses. Inside this barrows for which they are named they entombed their households and warriors, locking them into an endless cycle of almost-dead devotions and prayer to their elemental masters. These structures became weapons for the elementals to do battle with, wielded as a man does a sword.
Recent Events
The emergence of a forgotten barrow in the bogs south of Vermoot triggered a crisis as the Dead servants of the Barrow King kidnapped people as sacrifices and slave labour, slaughtering entire clans. This attracted the attention of the Pond's sole Lost Egg, Koonan Of The Strangling Vines, an orphan raised by a colony of rosethorns (a breed of wood elemental). Initiated into the arts of Terrestrial Sorcery, Strangling Vines sent out word for anyone who could to come and aid him in defeating the Dead and resealing the tomb. Alongside a force of mortal fighters four other outcastes answered his call; Guanting Lin, graduate of the Pasiap's Stair and legionnaire-on-leave, Misted Vanities, Immaculate Monk, Harmonious Gala, estranged daughter and disinherited heiress of a guild factor and Kolat Arpad, bunraku pilot of and scion of Mankalvar. Together this band of heroes shattered the Dead and took control of Vermoot to great acclaim. Guanting and Kolat had fallen in love during the short campaign and used every means at their disposal to show their respective superiors the opportunity present; a permanent trade route for both, a new satrapy for the Realm and an ally for Mankalvar.
However, clumsy attempts at spreading both the Immaculate Faith and the ancestor cults of Mankalvar, coupled with the sole Pond native being - in short - a reclusive, abrasive ass, has caused a great division between the clans. Some seek the prosperity of the rest of Creation while others wish to return to their traditional ways. The leader of the latter group is Chiho-Chao.
Chiho-Chao
In another life, in another time, the deeds that catapaulted Chiho to the forefront of his clan might have earned him an Exaltation, but the hearty warrior has had to make do with alchemical enhancements; the theft of a potent Kimberian vitriol from Strangling Vines, delivered to the renowned native alchemist Three-Pound Pestle earned Chiho a set of amber tattoos which increase his physical strength, dexterity and reaction time at the cost of both constant discomfort and a destabilisation of the man's mind. Coupled with the raids he has lead upon the Guild's trade routes in Halta and Pretannia this has brought him honour and popularity among his people. The latter deed also earned him a sizable bribe from the Guild; weapons, silver and horses, along with both a remarkably beautiful concubine by the name of Maitsu and aid in recovering an artifact of the Pond; the Mooncalf's Horn.
Maitsu
Born to a daughter of the Rose Of The Jealous Sister (see bottom), Maitsu was raised on deceit and dark magics her whole life, until her father sold her as a concubine to a savage raider. Though initially enraged her mother counseled patience and making the best of her lot, so now she plots to increase her husband's power and create something of the luxury she was born in among the muck of the Moon's Stone Pond.
Military: Warriors Of The Clans
Among the clans of the Moon's Stone Pond, all out war is almost unheard of; there are no significant fixed fortifications to take, and the shifting paths through bog and mire require almost constant scouting. Far more common however are lightning raids upon farms and moving caravans, the myriad routes of the bogs preventing watchtowers and palisades from being effective. Lightly armed 'ceithern' form the mass of the military, skirmishers drawn from the youth of the clans, clad in cloaks of wool and fur, wielding spear, shortsword and dart. The role of heavy infantry is occupied by 'gallowglasses' clad in mail (both ring and scale) and carrying a mismatched assortment of weapons determined solely by the career of the fighter. Leaf-bladed shortswords are prevalent along with heavier claymores and axes. For cavalry the clans turn to two sources - rhinoceros and chariot. Rhinos are by far the most deadly - dressed in patchwork mail and leather, the mounts and riders are matched in childhood and fight together until death, a bond that is legendary in the Pond. The ill-tempered rhinos are either calmed or roused to fury through the use of incense burners, the exact mixtures of which are closely guarded secrets passed down from father to child. Riders come together in brother-bands of five to ten and can exert control over entire swathes of bog marsh, the sheer strength of the rhinos allowing them to cross ground that a man would drown in. Their power in combat is also great; loose formations of ceithern and gallowglasses tend to crumple when hammered by ten masses of meat weighing up three tons each and moving fifty kilometres per hour. Chariots are reserved to the most wealthy of the clans and then only to their most elite fighters; carved of imported woods that grow in Air-aspected demenses and marked with the sigils of Honnoke Splitwing - a privilege maintained only through constant and lavish offerings to the vulture goddess. When driven by trained charioteers these wagons can skim across the surface of the treacherous pools that narrow the battlefield, providing a massive advantage.
Martial arts are unknown to the average fighter of the clans. The standard ceithern has a 'style' determined by his clan and teacher, (most focusing on the use of darts, shortswords and spears in a highly mobile way) while gallowglasses will have cultivated this to the peak of local ability. The Break-Wood tribes loyal to Oojga-Batta have their own martial art, Cracking Limbs Style, which focuses on slow deliberate katas and blows which aim to shatter bones and leave the enemy alive for sacrifice to their mistress. A few orders of warrior priests also call the Pond home, for example the brutal shamans of Furrow-Filler consume the flesh of maddened hounds and fight like berserkers with primitive clubs of wood and rock, enforcer-monks protect the business interests of Roh-Pogny with fists covered in artificially callused flesh and the light-footed devotees of Honnoke Splitwing who meditate upon the flight of birds and practice the use of long curved slashing blades.
Thaumaturgic Arts
The primary art practiced by the witches and occult experts of the Moon's Stone Pond is that of divination and geomantic navigation. The twisting trails of mud and water can drag a man under or sink a wagon and require constant and meticulous mapping. Diviners use a variety of methods, ranging from augery to dowsing and the consulting of familiars. For the most part diviners are part of a singular order/guild that ensures it's members also understand the basics of warding, herbalism and can at least identify the majority of arcane phenonema, although in far flung regions witches and hermits reside who can teach the most important science in the Pond - and more besides. Tamed raitons are fed special diets and branded with ichor tattoos, then sent to haunt a foe and call down misfortune and disaster on their heads, while shells taken from living turtles are etched with symbols of stability and used to mark out wards. Alchemists across the Pond focus their efforts on a plethora of reagents, mixtures and catalysts derived from the blood and sap of elementals, from which they derive concoctions that can promote healing, long life and virility among stranger things.
Food
The primary foodstuffs of the Pond are gathered from wild plants and cultivated tubers. Seeds are gathered from wild grasses and turned to flour while rhizomes are dug out of the wet earth and boiled. In the small farms created by the nomadic clans grow everything from turnips, onions and potatos, the Crop Gods of these being uniquely mobile, moving with the clans whenever migration is necessary. Chickens and other poultry provide eggs and flesh while hunters bring in deer, rabbits, fish and elephant-pigs (a kind of elephant smaller than a cow with small ears, a small trunk, downward facing (fang-like) tusks and a large fleshy rump).
Industry
While bleak on the surface, the bogs conceal large mineral deposits that shift with the mires, meaning from year to year copper, tin, iron, silver and stranger things like jade, moonsilver and First Age wreckage can be recovered through great effort, massive ploughs and digging instruments harnessed to mammoth and yeddim to rip up the peat and soil. Minuscule deposits of natural gasses and oil can be formed by the crushing pressures of an elemental's weight; the geologically shifting region being one of the few sources in all of Creation, although most of the uses for these things died with the Shogunate. The changing landscape also produces a regular, albeit small supply of new Demenses, dragging old ones back down in turn. The products of these can be processed in the few Shogunate-era refineries that still work, although there are few who have the knowledge to operate them.
Dangers Of The Pond
Predators are rare in the bogs, most only venturing there when the pickings in their forest homes are slim. The most common are snakes and wild dogs, the former while not especially venomous are quite difficult to detect before they are provoked. The latter are mostly drawn from domesticated dogs brought into the Pond by outsiders; Furrow-Filler, a Dog Of The Unbroken Earth that is unusually potent for one of his kind, is the only god within the Pond that concerns himself with canines. Extending his savage nature onto herders, wardogs and lapdogs alike Furrow-Filler turns formerly devoted companions to feral killers that slay their owners before escaping to join the packs. Certain clans which harbour cults to Furrow-Filler capture these hounds at great cost, either fighting them barehanded or consuming their raw flesh as part of their manhood ceremonies. Less common are clawstriders. The subspecies local to the region is considerably smaller than it's tropical cousins, with much thicker and duller plumage, appearing almost more like sicklebirds than their truly reptilian cousins. These pack hunters usually confine their attentions to small deer, boars and elephant-pigs, only attacking humans when food is scarce or they are influenced by vagaries of fate or the divine. Mountain lions occasionly roam into the northwest and bears can be found in the twin forests, although they are both relatively small breeds. The massive hellboar is much more commonly seen, being the second most common reason for a clan to migrate after the natural shifting of the Pond. Viewed less as animals and more as mobile natural disasters, hellboars are in many ways the apex predators of the Pond, being capable of killing literally every predator in the region even with their preference for roots and tubers. Cults devoted to the funerary god Crumbling Dikes spring up in their path and can be... disturbingly fervent.
Supernatural threats in the Moon's Stone Pond are legion, ranging from Fae incursions to indifferent elementals and hungry dead. The center of all Fae activity is the eastern forest where the Crippled Tree Oojga-Batta marshals goblins, buck-ogres and degenerate mutant tribes under her banner. Lone silverwights are sometimes sighted in the depths of the forest, stalking campsites where pregnant women reside although abductions are rare. Wyld-tainted greenmaws boil forth from unexplored thickets with the turning of the seasons to assault lone travellers or entire settlements and the corpse of such a creature is worth a considerable bounty in Vermoot. No man or woman of the clans will lay down to sleep without a warding ring of salt, incense or carved runestones, knowing that to do so is to risk death or worse; foolhardy young warriors or miserly traders often wake to the screams of one their number being dragged off into the bog by mortwights or hungry ghosts, the ravenous dead finding a welcome hiding place in the muck when the sun rises, allowing them to continue snatching those living who intrude into their domain.
EDIT: Also, the 'elephant-pigs' I mention in the Food section are in fact phioma from Ark Survival Evolved. They just seem like something you'd see somewhere in Creation. Hell, most of the creatures in that game seem like they should be in Creation somewhere.
Moon's Stone Pond
Located between the territories of the Tear Eaters, the Linowan and the Halta, the Moon's Stone Pond serves as a buffer between warring peoples, an obstacle to regular trade and as a refuge to it's resident clans. Geographically the Pond consists mostly of highly treacherous bogs and mires, the layout of which change from year to year, shifting with the movements of the great earth elementals that swim below the surface. From the center of the Pond rises the city of Vermoot; all brick tenements and winding alleys, warehouses, temples and the Palace. North of Vermoot a pair of roughly triangular forests stretch inwards, coming together to form a natural bottleneck that restricts travel to the northern bogs.
As of the victory of the Bull Of The North over the Tepet legions, the Pond is in a state of turmoil; tension both political and religious divides the clans between two groups; a brotherhood of Lost Eggs, supported both by Realm legionnaries and Mankalvarn Bunraku, and the traditionalist warbands lead by the warrior Chiho-Chao.
History
Origins Of The Pond
During the Primordial Age when Creation was young and the gods were new, the movements of the Primordials when outside the Jade Pleasure Dome had almost cataclysmic consequences. Isidoros at times did battle with the greatest of the raksha hosts at the edge of the world with awe-inspiring results; the forces unleashed by the Black Boar That Twists The Skies tore Luna from her path through the heavens and dashed her upon the ground. Though she rose from the crater she left behind a piece of the Moon itself, a shard of power that called to all that could hear.
In great numbers the spirits of the earth tore themselves from their quiet contemplations and wormed their way into the crater, coiling around each other as they struggled to be close to the font of Lunar essence. Those that grasped the opportunity to suckle from Luna's disembodied teat swelled in power, growing in power both mind and body, filling the wound in the earth that the Moon's impact left. However, those that could not reach the font became jealous and joining together as one, they found the weakest of the fortunate targets of their envy and struck. Tearing the elemental from the Moon's teat, they suckled themselves, using this illgained power and their greater numbers to cast off the other drinkers and steal the whole of the font. Those cast aside thus plotted in turn, forming their own alliances and concocting their own schemes, resulting in the everchanging geography of the Moon's Stone Pond.
Of course, since the minds of earth elementals are notoriously slow moving, by this point the Primordial War was done and finished, and the First Age was well underway. Solars built great cities and made war against each other, marshaling legions of Dragonbloods and mastering the arts of sorcery. So it came to pass that two Solar generals quarreled with one another by correspondence and went to battle against each other, converging upon the endless, glacial knifefight that raged beneath. However, the will of the Solars in those days was strong indeed and the two warriors led their armies into the bogs without fear, commanding the elementals beneath their feet to cease their motion and allow the Chosen Of The Sun safe passage.
The daughters of the Moon despaired, as they were great friends and sisters of the same school, and their husbands threatened to destroy each other, casting both Lunars into sorrow. In the forms of beasts the two raced ahead of the armies to the center of the Pond and there they worked their magics. Singing to the great serpents writhing beneath them they calmed their hearts and brokered an equitable peace, accomplishing more with cooperation than their consorts did with sheer will. When the generals saw what their beloveds had accomplished, their cold warlike hearts were moved; they cast aside their weapons and embraced one another as brothers, knowing that together they could do so much more than if one of them was destroyed. Thus the three areas of stability in the Moon's Stone Pond were created: the twin forests that mark where the armies of Solars once marched and the immobile pillar upon which all of Vermoot is built.
The Shogunate
The Sidereals knew well that a locus of Lunar power rested in the Moon's Stone Pond and took steps to secure it and divert the fleeing Lunars around it. Once the rule of the Dragonbloods was assured the tiny outpost on the pillar was expanded into a system of essence refineries, mines and residential districts, including a central airship port that extended above the rest of the city, built from the same grey stone as the rest of the city and housing barracks, workshops and offices. This hive of work and commerce was isolated from the rest of Creation by the Pond itself; the only ways in or out were either by air or by careful and meticulous following of a few shifting paths.
This isolation proved to be the fatal key to the fate of the city; when the Contagion came, spread by refugees coming via airship, the entire city turned into a charnel house which none survived.
The Coming Of The Clans
In the wake of the Great Contagion refugees from the east and west, the north and the south. The replenishing natural resources of the Pond proved irrestible to those who had the skills to traverse it and when the sciences of augury, dowsing and other methods of reading essence flows were developed enough the city of Vermoot was open for recolonisation. The dull tenements and Shogunate infrastructure proved capable of housing
multitudes in between migrations across the bogs, the warehouses and shipping yards providing shelter for labour beasts as large and diverse as oxen, mammoth and yeddim. For centuries the clansmen flourished, intermittently warring among themselves and raiding the outside world, propitiating the gods and developing the arts of divination to better track the shifting of the earth. During this time they tamed the rhinoceros and established the temples of Roh-Pogny; god of frogs, festivals, revelry, the calendar and drugs, Crumbling Dikes; god of boars, labouring beasts, funerary rites and warriors, Honnoke Splitwing; goddess of vultures, messengers, swordsmen and courtesans and Furrow-Filler; god of dogs, destruction, savagery and murder.
Barrow Kings
Since the time when the thaumaturgical arts had developed to the point of sensing them the men of Vermoot have sought the blessing of the great leviathans they ride upon. The endless war the earth elementals indulge in is, while more 'civil' than before the peace accord sought by the sisters Lunar, is still raging, providing a pasttime for the mighty beings. A small dynasty of kings united the clans for a short period and worked to raise great manses. Inside this barrows for which they are named they entombed their households and warriors, locking them into an endless cycle of almost-dead devotions and prayer to their elemental masters. These structures became weapons for the elementals to do battle with, wielded as a man does a sword.
Recent Events
The emergence of a forgotten barrow in the bogs south of Vermoot triggered a crisis as the Dead servants of the Barrow King kidnapped people as sacrifices and slave labour, slaughtering entire clans. This attracted the attention of the Pond's sole Lost Egg, Koonan Of The Strangling Vines, an orphan raised by a colony of rosethorns (a breed of wood elemental). Initiated into the arts of Terrestrial Sorcery, Strangling Vines sent out word for anyone who could to come and aid him in defeating the Dead and resealing the tomb. Alongside a force of mortal fighters four other outcastes answered his call; Guanting Lin, graduate of the Pasiap's Stair and legionnaire-on-leave, Misted Vanities, Immaculate Monk, Harmonious Gala, estranged daughter and disinherited heiress of a guild factor and Kolat Arpad, bunraku pilot of and scion of Mankalvar. Together this band of heroes shattered the Dead and took control of Vermoot to great acclaim. Guanting and Kolat had fallen in love during the short campaign and used every means at their disposal to show their respective superiors the opportunity present; a permanent trade route for both, a new satrapy for the Realm and an ally for Mankalvar.
However, clumsy attempts at spreading both the Immaculate Faith and the ancestor cults of Mankalvar, coupled with the sole Pond native being - in short - a reclusive, abrasive ass, has caused a great division between the clans. Some seek the prosperity of the rest of Creation while others wish to return to their traditional ways. The leader of the latter group is Chiho-Chao.
Chiho-Chao
In another life, in another time, the deeds that catapaulted Chiho to the forefront of his clan might have earned him an Exaltation, but the hearty warrior has had to make do with alchemical enhancements; the theft of a potent Kimberian vitriol from Strangling Vines, delivered to the renowned native alchemist Three-Pound Pestle earned Chiho a set of amber tattoos which increase his physical strength, dexterity and reaction time at the cost of both constant discomfort and a destabilisation of the man's mind. Coupled with the raids he has lead upon the Guild's trade routes in Halta and Pretannia this has brought him honour and popularity among his people. The latter deed also earned him a sizable bribe from the Guild; weapons, silver and horses, along with both a remarkably beautiful concubine by the name of Maitsu and aid in recovering an artifact of the Pond; the Mooncalf's Horn.
Maitsu
Born to a daughter of the Rose Of The Jealous Sister (see bottom), Maitsu was raised on deceit and dark magics her whole life, until her father sold her as a concubine to a savage raider. Though initially enraged her mother counseled patience and making the best of her lot, so now she plots to increase her husband's power and create something of the luxury she was born in among the muck of the Moon's Stone Pond.
Military: Warriors Of The Clans
Among the clans of the Moon's Stone Pond, all out war is almost unheard of; there are no significant fixed fortifications to take, and the shifting paths through bog and mire require almost constant scouting. Far more common however are lightning raids upon farms and moving caravans, the myriad routes of the bogs preventing watchtowers and palisades from being effective. Lightly armed 'ceithern' form the mass of the military, skirmishers drawn from the youth of the clans, clad in cloaks of wool and fur, wielding spear, shortsword and dart. The role of heavy infantry is occupied by 'gallowglasses' clad in mail (both ring and scale) and carrying a mismatched assortment of weapons determined solely by the career of the fighter. Leaf-bladed shortswords are prevalent along with heavier claymores and axes. For cavalry the clans turn to two sources - rhinoceros and chariot. Rhinos are by far the most deadly - dressed in patchwork mail and leather, the mounts and riders are matched in childhood and fight together until death, a bond that is legendary in the Pond. The ill-tempered rhinos are either calmed or roused to fury through the use of incense burners, the exact mixtures of which are closely guarded secrets passed down from father to child. Riders come together in brother-bands of five to ten and can exert control over entire swathes of bog marsh, the sheer strength of the rhinos allowing them to cross ground that a man would drown in. Their power in combat is also great; loose formations of ceithern and gallowglasses tend to crumple when hammered by ten masses of meat weighing up three tons each and moving fifty kilometres per hour. Chariots are reserved to the most wealthy of the clans and then only to their most elite fighters; carved of imported woods that grow in Air-aspected demenses and marked with the sigils of Honnoke Splitwing - a privilege maintained only through constant and lavish offerings to the vulture goddess. When driven by trained charioteers these wagons can skim across the surface of the treacherous pools that narrow the battlefield, providing a massive advantage.
Martial arts are unknown to the average fighter of the clans. The standard ceithern has a 'style' determined by his clan and teacher, (most focusing on the use of darts, shortswords and spears in a highly mobile way) while gallowglasses will have cultivated this to the peak of local ability. The Break-Wood tribes loyal to Oojga-Batta have their own martial art, Cracking Limbs Style, which focuses on slow deliberate katas and blows which aim to shatter bones and leave the enemy alive for sacrifice to their mistress. A few orders of warrior priests also call the Pond home, for example the brutal shamans of Furrow-Filler consume the flesh of maddened hounds and fight like berserkers with primitive clubs of wood and rock, enforcer-monks protect the business interests of Roh-Pogny with fists covered in artificially callused flesh and the light-footed devotees of Honnoke Splitwing who meditate upon the flight of birds and practice the use of long curved slashing blades.
Thaumaturgic Arts
The primary art practiced by the witches and occult experts of the Moon's Stone Pond is that of divination and geomantic navigation. The twisting trails of mud and water can drag a man under or sink a wagon and require constant and meticulous mapping. Diviners use a variety of methods, ranging from augery to dowsing and the consulting of familiars. For the most part diviners are part of a singular order/guild that ensures it's members also understand the basics of warding, herbalism and can at least identify the majority of arcane phenonema, although in far flung regions witches and hermits reside who can teach the most important science in the Pond - and more besides. Tamed raitons are fed special diets and branded with ichor tattoos, then sent to haunt a foe and call down misfortune and disaster on their heads, while shells taken from living turtles are etched with symbols of stability and used to mark out wards. Alchemists across the Pond focus their efforts on a plethora of reagents, mixtures and catalysts derived from the blood and sap of elementals, from which they derive concoctions that can promote healing, long life and virility among stranger things.
Food
The primary foodstuffs of the Pond are gathered from wild plants and cultivated tubers. Seeds are gathered from wild grasses and turned to flour while rhizomes are dug out of the wet earth and boiled. In the small farms created by the nomadic clans grow everything from turnips, onions and potatos, the Crop Gods of these being uniquely mobile, moving with the clans whenever migration is necessary. Chickens and other poultry provide eggs and flesh while hunters bring in deer, rabbits, fish and elephant-pigs (a kind of elephant smaller than a cow with small ears, a small trunk, downward facing (fang-like) tusks and a large fleshy rump).
Industry
While bleak on the surface, the bogs conceal large mineral deposits that shift with the mires, meaning from year to year copper, tin, iron, silver and stranger things like jade, moonsilver and First Age wreckage can be recovered through great effort, massive ploughs and digging instruments harnessed to mammoth and yeddim to rip up the peat and soil. Minuscule deposits of natural gasses and oil can be formed by the crushing pressures of an elemental's weight; the geologically shifting region being one of the few sources in all of Creation, although most of the uses for these things died with the Shogunate. The changing landscape also produces a regular, albeit small supply of new Demenses, dragging old ones back down in turn. The products of these can be processed in the few Shogunate-era refineries that still work, although there are few who have the knowledge to operate them.
Dangers Of The Pond
Predators are rare in the bogs, most only venturing there when the pickings in their forest homes are slim. The most common are snakes and wild dogs, the former while not especially venomous are quite difficult to detect before they are provoked. The latter are mostly drawn from domesticated dogs brought into the Pond by outsiders; Furrow-Filler, a Dog Of The Unbroken Earth that is unusually potent for one of his kind, is the only god within the Pond that concerns himself with canines. Extending his savage nature onto herders, wardogs and lapdogs alike Furrow-Filler turns formerly devoted companions to feral killers that slay their owners before escaping to join the packs. Certain clans which harbour cults to Furrow-Filler capture these hounds at great cost, either fighting them barehanded or consuming their raw flesh as part of their manhood ceremonies. Less common are clawstriders. The subspecies local to the region is considerably smaller than it's tropical cousins, with much thicker and duller plumage, appearing almost more like sicklebirds than their truly reptilian cousins. These pack hunters usually confine their attentions to small deer, boars and elephant-pigs, only attacking humans when food is scarce or they are influenced by vagaries of fate or the divine. Mountain lions occasionly roam into the northwest and bears can be found in the twin forests, although they are both relatively small breeds. The massive hellboar is much more commonly seen, being the second most common reason for a clan to migrate after the natural shifting of the Pond. Viewed less as animals and more as mobile natural disasters, hellboars are in many ways the apex predators of the Pond, being capable of killing literally every predator in the region even with their preference for roots and tubers. Cults devoted to the funerary god Crumbling Dikes spring up in their path and can be... disturbingly fervent.
Supernatural threats in the Moon's Stone Pond are legion, ranging from Fae incursions to indifferent elementals and hungry dead. The center of all Fae activity is the eastern forest where the Crippled Tree Oojga-Batta marshals goblins, buck-ogres and degenerate mutant tribes under her banner. Lone silverwights are sometimes sighted in the depths of the forest, stalking campsites where pregnant women reside although abductions are rare. Wyld-tainted greenmaws boil forth from unexplored thickets with the turning of the seasons to assault lone travellers or entire settlements and the corpse of such a creature is worth a considerable bounty in Vermoot. No man or woman of the clans will lay down to sleep without a warding ring of salt, incense or carved runestones, knowing that to do so is to risk death or worse; foolhardy young warriors or miserly traders often wake to the screams of one their number being dragged off into the bog by mortwights or hungry ghosts, the ravenous dead finding a welcome hiding place in the muck when the sun rises, allowing them to continue snatching those living who intrude into their domain.
Once upon a time deep in the South East, in a city of marble that lay upon the Dreaming Sea, in the harem of the Dragon-Prince lived two sisters. Both beautiful beyond compare, before they were selected to be the bedwarmers of the Prince poets wrote of them and artists clamoured for just one sitting to immortalise them through their work. The two lived for several years happily before the elder became with child. The Prince had spent many decades trying to sire a child to carry on his line and upon finding out he was ecstatic, ignoring all other concubines in favour of the expectant mother, doting on her day and night, fulfilling all her whims. The younger sister soon became bitter, because for the first time in her life there was something her sister had that she did not. Left alone for month after month, bereft of companionship that bitterness festered into hatred in her heart. In her boredom and resentment she left the safety of the harem for the first time in years, sneaking past the eunuch guards in disguise and walking through the city. Her walk took her through both the upper and lower districts of her home, however, wherever she went she saw mothers, both expectant and not. Reminded thus of her sister's good fortune she stormed further and further along until she stumbled into an old woman, bent and gnarled with her age. This crone took her into her hovel and asked her why a concubine of the Prince was wandering through such a place. As she told her tale the young woman drank her tea and the crone listened, commiserating and reassuring in all the right places, pouring more tea whenever needed. When she was finished the crone offered to help her with her sister - to take everything from her sister, and give it to her, if she swore to learn all that the crone had to teach. The younger agreed happily, thankful for anything to 'even the score'.
Over the days and weeks leading up to the birth the Prince called doctor after doctor to the palace, threw fete after fete to herald the coming of his heir. In the confusion, the younger sister found it easy to sneak out of the palace to attend her lessons. The crone related to her lessons learned at the feet of ancestor ghosts in the Shadowlands that dotted the world, knowledge stolen from the libraries of sorcerers and wrested from the Labyrinth that lay on the other side of death. The girl learned how to bind spirits and the ways of the dreadful corpse-geometries that governed the polluted power of the Underworld. She proved a most talented and attentive pupil and soon the Jealous Sister returned to the palace for the final time on the predicted day of the birth.
Helping to prepare her sister for the birthing bed, the Jealous Sister added gravedust to the burning incense, poisoned the water-basins with nightshade and lay her sister down upon a grave shroud. Before the midwives could arrive, she slit the expectant mother's throat and carved the living child out of her corpse. Her niece in hand, the Jealous Sister took a handful of the gravedust and calling upon the ghastly retinue she had bound over the course of her lessons - the last of which was the crone herself - and the bloody sacrifice of her sister, cast herself and the child through the shallowest reaches of the Underworld, to the outskirts of the city, where she fled with the child.
Claiming the child as her own, the Jealous Sister plied the arts she had learnt as an exorcist, travelling north and west until she found herself in a small town beyond the reach of the wrathful dragon-prince. There she settled, raising the girl-child and teaching her the lessons the crone had taught her, both growing in power year after year. The niece grew to be as beautiful as her mother and aunt, though with a pallor to her skin that belied her origins. Soon a new prince found her, taking her into his court and siring a pair of twins on her. The niece killed the elder daughter, binding the spirit of the child to protect the younger, as she had been taught. And so the chain continued.
Over three hundred years later, the Rose Of The Jealous Sister has daughters spread across Creation, finding places in the courts of the rich and powerful, concealing themselves with power taken from the ghosts of the dead and furthering their horrific thaumaturgy.
The Rose Of The Jealous Sister centers it's practices around 'taking' from others, fulfilling the jealousy that each and every one of it's adherents holds in their heart. artifacts are passed down from mother to daughter, mentor to student, growing in power between each chaotic episode of gift, theft and inheritance.
The power of the Roses is rooted in their Thaumaturgic Lineage - the weight of their treacherous and debased yet unmistakably Terrestrial blood weighs upon the glossolalia they utter, reminding the Void that here stands a child of decay and destruction. They use this power to fuel the thaumaturgic rituals that are passed down through the family, crafting devices of deceit and trickery from the ghosts of their rivals and subjects of envy. The chains binding these lost souls are weaker than those crafted by true sorcerer-practitioners of the Black Art, requiring extensive rituals, rare and expensive reagents and specific conditions to invoke. The most common 'vessels' for a Rose's power are elegant fans, intricate teapots and fine dresses.
The call of the Neverborn taints the hearts of these vile women, leaving none able to find peace, love or innocent joy, from the enchantingly beautiful corpse-brides to the most ancient matriarchs.
Over the days and weeks leading up to the birth the Prince called doctor after doctor to the palace, threw fete after fete to herald the coming of his heir. In the confusion, the younger sister found it easy to sneak out of the palace to attend her lessons. The crone related to her lessons learned at the feet of ancestor ghosts in the Shadowlands that dotted the world, knowledge stolen from the libraries of sorcerers and wrested from the Labyrinth that lay on the other side of death. The girl learned how to bind spirits and the ways of the dreadful corpse-geometries that governed the polluted power of the Underworld. She proved a most talented and attentive pupil and soon the Jealous Sister returned to the palace for the final time on the predicted day of the birth.
Helping to prepare her sister for the birthing bed, the Jealous Sister added gravedust to the burning incense, poisoned the water-basins with nightshade and lay her sister down upon a grave shroud. Before the midwives could arrive, she slit the expectant mother's throat and carved the living child out of her corpse. Her niece in hand, the Jealous Sister took a handful of the gravedust and calling upon the ghastly retinue she had bound over the course of her lessons - the last of which was the crone herself - and the bloody sacrifice of her sister, cast herself and the child through the shallowest reaches of the Underworld, to the outskirts of the city, where she fled with the child.
Claiming the child as her own, the Jealous Sister plied the arts she had learnt as an exorcist, travelling north and west until she found herself in a small town beyond the reach of the wrathful dragon-prince. There she settled, raising the girl-child and teaching her the lessons the crone had taught her, both growing in power year after year. The niece grew to be as beautiful as her mother and aunt, though with a pallor to her skin that belied her origins. Soon a new prince found her, taking her into his court and siring a pair of twins on her. The niece killed the elder daughter, binding the spirit of the child to protect the younger, as she had been taught. And so the chain continued.
Over three hundred years later, the Rose Of The Jealous Sister has daughters spread across Creation, finding places in the courts of the rich and powerful, concealing themselves with power taken from the ghosts of the dead and furthering their horrific thaumaturgy.
The Rose Of The Jealous Sister centers it's practices around 'taking' from others, fulfilling the jealousy that each and every one of it's adherents holds in their heart. artifacts are passed down from mother to daughter, mentor to student, growing in power between each chaotic episode of gift, theft and inheritance.
The power of the Roses is rooted in their Thaumaturgic Lineage - the weight of their treacherous and debased yet unmistakably Terrestrial blood weighs upon the glossolalia they utter, reminding the Void that here stands a child of decay and destruction. They use this power to fuel the thaumaturgic rituals that are passed down through the family, crafting devices of deceit and trickery from the ghosts of their rivals and subjects of envy. The chains binding these lost souls are weaker than those crafted by true sorcerer-practitioners of the Black Art, requiring extensive rituals, rare and expensive reagents and specific conditions to invoke. The most common 'vessels' for a Rose's power are elegant fans, intricate teapots and fine dresses.
The call of the Neverborn taints the hearts of these vile women, leaving none able to find peace, love or innocent joy, from the enchantingly beautiful corpse-brides to the most ancient matriarchs.
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Airships, especially the type they use(which seem to have a lot in common with blimps and such), are going to be pretty inefficient compared to sea transport, especially in terms of hauling stuff. That said, the league's population is canonically is clustered around the various artificial arable areas, and as a league it's fine for them to be less united than other nations. Hell, given their backstory it doesn't seem too out of place to treat them like a smaller, more remote Confederation of Rivers
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
oh snap people remembering my homebrew and using it
what is this warm feeling in my cold dead heart
what is this warm feeling in my cold dead heart
That's pretty much right for Mankalvar, yeah. Maybe a bit further south because I tend to downsize Halta a bit.
I'd personally say they control the territory, if only because no one else uses it, but it's not actually useful to them and the vast majority of their population is concentrated on the greenfields.
I give Halta about its standard size of territory, except they control maybe three percent of it and other cultures and bandits do whatever the hell they like in the rest. Everything said about the Haslanti is even more true of Halta - trees legitimately are pretty bad for living and doing society in, exploration is incredibly more laborious (they literally have no idea what's there once you get off the 'road' in the trees), travel and transport are nightmarish because they literally have to carry everything on their backs, and food supplies aren't the best thanks to the lack of, well, ground. A map of Halta that shows borders is a fucking liar. A road map of Halta and the paths directly between each city is what an actual meaningful map of Halta looks like, because everything off that road is largely unknown to them and completely outside their control.
They originated around Chanta but expanded and colonized out from there. Even that is me being generous, I could easily shrink them to, like, France-sized and ignore the rest because it doesn't actually have a great deal of meaning anyway.
With that take I could put Mankalvar within the northwestern Haltan territories and just sort of eyeing them sidelong as they take over a straight line within the trees and never bothering with the ground. I have the actual fae as being more to the southeast and in the core Haltan lands around Chanta, so the ground is perfectly safe, the Haltans just live in the trees by habit once they leave treaty lands.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
Doing some research, in modern times airships are approximately as viable for cargo hauling as aircraft (being economical for transporting around 500 to 1,000 tons, when competing with ocean transportation), with their main advantage being that they can ignore terrain that blocks access to hard-to-reach places (e.g. northern Canadian mines accessed by ice roads). Modern airships also maintain comparable speeds to ocean sailing ships.
Large Haslanti air boats are described as carrying "many tons" and traveling "as fast as a horse at full gallop", which strikes me as good enough for trade, and the numbers offered in 2e match between sailing and a galloping horse.
This is in combination with their iceships, which get less attention than their airboats but are likely just as important for trade.
- Location
- Singapore
A question on magic spells.
Is it out of theme for sorcerers to have a place they can mark as their atelier/ demense/ villain base, and then be able to teleport there when they are in trouble? I mean, yeah, this has to have heavy downsides, but I'm quite sure its in theme for the evil sorcerer to have an evil lair to retreat to when the plucky hero catches up with them.
Is it out of theme for sorcerers to have a place they can mark as their atelier/ demense/ villain base, and then be able to teleport there when they are in trouble? I mean, yeah, this has to have heavy downsides, but I'm quite sure its in theme for the evil sorcerer to have an evil lair to retreat to when the plucky hero catches up with them.
Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
- Location
- The Destination of Fate
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Travel Without Distance. It's a Celestial Circle spell, and it's right there in the corebook.
- Location
- Singapore
True. But I was more on....
That is basically a short range teleport. What I had in mind was, was a weaker spell. Its farther ranged, and faster. But it has downsides.
1. Only 1 place. It has to be a home, or a place you spend large amounts of time. Your 'base'.
2. After casting, you must take a penalty. Maybe for the next day, you cannot cast a spell or use a charm. Maybe you take several levels of damage.
3. A time limit. Only cast at least once per month. Time for the hero to take a breather.
Its basically the spell Aku uses when he shouts. "See you again, Samurai Jack!". And then plops back into his lair.
You could do that as a variant of TWD, still Celestial Circle, that has a better range and a faster casting time in exchange for less flexibility. At the Terrestrial level, actual teleportation is probably out, but you could have a weaker escape effect, like maybe turning into a cloud of smoke and riding a sorcerous wind home. Not as fast, not as safe, and not as untrackable, but it'll usually get the job done unless your enemies have specifically prepared for it.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
It sounds like you're looking for something analogous to the spirit charm Hurry Home:
It's on page 142 of Rolls of Glorious Divinity.