| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Seethyr |
Posted - 22 Aug 2019 : 20:51:12
I always seem to want to come back to the Creator Races, with Serpent Kingdoms and their GHotR being very much two of my favorite books in FR.
So, in addition to them, there is always Gray Richardson's insanely good work on the batrachi and Aearee found here and in the CK compendiums.
Once in a while I read through that whole scroll and hope to put artwork, formatting and crunch to what Gray has done. But I digress...
In GHotR on page 8, there is the following blurb:
quote:
c. -30700 DR
Lamassu Massacre: One thousand Aearee-Krocaa lose their lives to a much smaller force of lamassu. Later experiments with domesticated landwyrms produce the first winged wyrms, which the aearee name wyverns. Thanks to its new wyvern armies, the Aearee-Krocaa empire expands rapidly.
Besides being some insanely cool lore, is there anything anywhere else about this lore and where did it originate (if anywhere)? So many questions can stem from this, and I'm surprised Gray never delved into this.
Some other questions that I would even love just speculation over...
1. What could the aearee do that was so terrible that it would instigate so many lamassu to come together to kill so many?
2. Why lamassu?
3. Gray often mentions battle rocs -were the wyverns in addition to the rocs?
I have more questions about the aearee in general as well, such as the location of Mount Havroquar - I'm hoping it could be located somewhere in Anchorome. |
| 12 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| TBeholder |
Posted - 19 Sep 2019 : 22:29:44
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
I wouldn't agree that the statement means that the lammasu were an experiment by the Aearee. Its a possibility, but not a necessity. The next entry in the GHotR also has the Aearee getting involved with Pazuzu/Pazrael (demon lord of the skies). Given that Lammasu come from real world Akkadian mythology and that Pazuzu also comes from real world Akkadian mythology.... I'd say conflate the two and somehow have Pazuzu involved. Maybe he was tricking some Aearee. Maybe they were worshipping him. Maybe he was tricking the Lammasu.
Well, Lammasu is mostly a ground beast with wings glued on it, hence hypothesis that the folk making winged critters did it.
Pazuzu may still be involved in this version. He was dealing with some of the Aearee, so the Lammasu could get in a tangle with Pazuzu then and there; after hostilities ensued, they'd meet and ally with some of his other enemies (such as those in the relevant pantheon)?
Since Lamassu Massacre was c. -30700 DR and some Aearee turning to Pazuzu c. -30400 DR, it was probably not a fight over Pazuzu in the first place.
Still possible, because what if it wasn't the first time? Maybe there was a local obscure cult, Lammasu got in a fight with it and tried to root out, Pazuzu followers used misdirection, so things quickly escalated and involved the entire community. Survivors scattered, then jumped on the opportunity 300 years later.
quote:
Originally posted by Seethyr
Though it's a few hundred years apart, the conflict with the gnolls might have been ongoing for some time before the wasting plague, ergo the aearee attempt to force the lamassu to fight for them.
Why would they not want to fight vicious savages who do such things?
Now, with the dragons, it could be less clear:
- Hi! Them the bird-folk want us to join the fight against a Green dragon, who claimed territory over here.
- Let's see. He made a mess of vegetation, now it's hard to hunt anywhere nearby, even where trees are otherwise sparse enough to fly. Also, attacked our scouts on sight. Looks like a visit with entire pack and magical support is long overdue.
(it works reasonably well)
- Hi! The bird-folk want us to join the fight against a Gold dragon who lives over there.
- You know, that one seems a very decent creature. I'd go so far as to say his sensibilities are much closer to our own than that of the bird-folk.
- Hmm, good point.
(things go downhill from here) |
| Seethyr |
Posted - 19 Sep 2019 : 21:01:39
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
If you went with this idea of the wind dukes, I'd recommend that they placed their servants on Coliar. There's no reason that Toril needs to be the source of everything in realmspace.
As to the wind dukes and the obyrith fighting and again back to this Lammasu / Aearee war, Pazuzu is an Obyrith… Pazuzu is also Akkadian... Tiamat would have also been coming around around this time (300 years prior is when the sundering happens and in theory Bahamut and Tiamat come around)… and she's also Akkadian. If the Aearee have some ties to dragonkind, some things with the Aearee may have been that they were ultimately lawful, but not necessarily all on the same axis for morality (i.e. good/evil). We have several Akkadian entities that could have been involved with turning them evil (Ereshkigal/another face of the Raven Queen, Pazuzu, Tiamat, etc...), gods who seemingly have involvement with strange areas of the realms, but you wouldn't have expected to arrive on the ship of the gods with Enlil's brood. Perhaps some of the Aearee started breeding with dragons, and turned away from Krocaa, and so he sent the Lamassu to punish them. In turn those Aearee created wyverns (those same Aearee may not be the ancestors of the aarakocra of the Star Mounts.... there may have been internal civil war and this line was cast out of that area).
In short, I think perhaps the best thing to do with the Aearee is to make them a mix of ideas and ultimately not entirely aligned with one another, but still developing different "troops" or "servitor races" to serve them. They may not even all look racially the same, and ultimately the confusion of whether the dragons were a creator race or not may come down to the fact that the Aearee themselves weren't a "race", but rather a group of similarly visioned beings that sought to rule through control of the skies.
Research has opened my eyes up to some inconsistencies with what I’ve written and what Gray Richardson has written and what’s on the FR Wiki. I have to start from scratch. However you filled in a couple of gaps here for me too.
Coliar for one, apparently occurred when the aearee empire collapsed. The bird-folk of a couple of rookeries took to Realmspace to flee rampaging dragons.
I know not all of that material is canon but it’s certainly excellent semicanon. I’m going to try to work within it’s boundaries. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 19 Sep 2019 : 14:52:48
If you went with this idea of the wind dukes, I'd recommend that they placed their servants on Coliar. There's no reason that Toril needs to be the source of everything in realmspace.
As to the wind dukes and the obyrith fighting and again back to this Lammasu / Aearee war, Pazuzu is an Obyrith… Pazuzu is also Akkadian... Tiamat would have also been coming around around this time (300 years prior is when the sundering happens and in theory Bahamut and Tiamat come around)… and she's also Akkadian. If the Aearee have some ties to dragonkind, some things with the Aearee may have been that they were ultimately lawful, but not necessarily all on the same axis for morality (i.e. good/evil). We have several Akkadian entities that could have been involved with turning them evil (Ereshkigal/another face of the Raven Queen, Pazuzu, Tiamat, etc...), gods who seemingly have involvement with strange areas of the realms, but you wouldn't have expected to arrive on the ship of the gods with Enlil's brood. Perhaps some of the Aearee started breeding with dragons, and turned away from Krocaa, and so he sent the Lamassu to punish them. In turn those Aearee created wyverns (those same Aearee may not be the ancestors of the aarakocra of the Star Mounts.... there may have been internal civil war and this line was cast out of that area).
In short, I think perhaps the best thing to do with the Aearee is to make them a mix of ideas and ultimately not entirely aligned with one another, but still developing different "troops" or "servitor races" to serve them. They may not even all look racially the same, and ultimately the confusion of whether the dragons were a creator race or not may come down to the fact that the Aearee themselves weren't a "race", but rather a group of similarly visioned beings that sought to rule through control of the skies. |
| Seethyr |
Posted - 18 Sep 2019 : 22:35:27
Working out a history of the aearee that could coincide with what Gray has written. I think the general consensus is that the Creator Races are native inhabitants of the Realms and perhaps "evolved" there, but what if they weren't?
Do you think there is a chance they could have a connection to the Wind Dukes of Aaqa? Here is my proposed "prehistory."
quote:
In the time before time, a race of extraordinary elemental beings known as the vaati ruled a grand empire that spread out among many worlds and upon many planes. They were known as the Wind Dukes of Aaqa and on the elemental planes, remnants of their empire exist to this very day.
The rule of law was highly valued among the Wind Dukes, but the vaati were not plentiful in number and it was all but impossible to ensure that the Law was followed in every remote corner of the empire.
Not all of the vaati were so remarkably rigid however, and there were a number of castes that each served a different purpose. Insights and clever ideas often arose among the vindeam caste, and though their philosophies were not always acknowledged, they were never derided. Often, the grandest solutions to a problem came from this caste, whose strange ideas most vaati could not even fathom.
One clever vindeam proposed a plan to protect the Law. This vaati, Krocaa by name, had always had a passion for the avian beasts found on so many worlds. He marveled at how such creatures could fly as grandly as any vaati without use of the Art. Instead, these creatures which were called "birds," were born only with hollow bones and powerful wings. A physical boon that had been a gift of natural selection through the ages and passed down from the gliding lizards from which they evolved.
Krocaa proposed that such creatures would be ideal to bring and enforce the Law where the vaati could not. A servitor race would be bred, taking the best features of both vaati and avian form. It was at this time that the new caste known as the aearee were born, as proposed by Krocaa and approved by the Wind Dukes.
The aearee served and succeeded beyond expectation. Though some of Krocaa's unruly nature was embedded in their creation, the aearee were loyal to the Aaqan Empire without question. Krocaa was elevated above his station - perhaps the first of his caste to rise so far in the rigid society.
The assistance of their avian servitors gave the Wind Dukes many centuries of peace and prosperity, but all good things must eventually come to an end. As history would have it, the Wind Dukes became involved in a grand war of extinction with creatures of the darkest Abyss known as the obyrith. These fiendish creatures were gathered together by the Queen of Chaos who was herself the antithesis of the Law that governed the souls and lives of the Wind Dukes of Aaqa. With their demonic general Miska the Wolf-Spider at the head, the obyrith decimated the vaati in the war's earliest centuries. Unfortunately, Krocaa and hundreds of thousands of his aearee allies were among the first casualties. Their sacrifice was said to have turned the tide of the war, preventing the extinction of the vaati and inspiring the seven Wandering dukes to construct the fabled *Rod of Law*.
Krocaa, in a final act of love for his flock, used powerful elemental magic to save the few aearee he could by banishing them beyond the reaches of the war to a little known world on the prime plane called Toril.
|
| sleyvas |
Posted - 31 Aug 2019 : 16:41:07
Hey, just another thing to note with the "Akkadian" pantheon. We've mentioned Lammasu and Pazuzu as part of the Akkadian Pantheon. However, there's another entity that's part of that mythos that might fit in as "involved" with the Aearee. Tiamat is part of that pantheon. If she were actually a part of Toril's history BEFORE the arrival of the Untheric deities, it could definitely make sense. After all, I see very few Mulans PRAYING to the enemy of the gods, nor do I see the enemy of their gods arriving on the same boat. Throw in certain other things that hint as to Tiamat's formation and maybe we have something. Not sure what... but something. |
| Seethyr |
Posted - 28 Aug 2019 : 19:03:48
quote:
Originally posted by George Krashos
All of that lore in GHotR sprang fully-formed from that great noggin' of Brian R James.
-- George Krashos
Boy do I wish that whole "Days of Thunder" section had a major expansion. It might be my favorite FR era.
quote:
Originally posted by TBeholder
quote:
Originally posted by Seethyr
Some other questions that I would even love just speculation over...
1. What could the aearee do that was so terrible that it would instigate so many lamassu to come together to kill so many?
Given the timing?
Aearee> How about you guys go fight a dragon for me now?
Lammasu> How about I tear you limb from limb instead?
quote:
2. Why lamassu?
The same paragraph immediately turning toward "Later experiments with [...]" implies that lammasu were previous warrior creatures made by Aearee. They are smart, no-nonsense and tough, so if some serious disagreement escalated and they turned on their masters, well, perhaps it was bound to happen sooner or later.
Wyverns were stupid, but more controllable (by Aearee), therefore useful, therefore bred and protected to churn out as many of them as possible.
Hence my hypothesis that the Avariel were a result of yet another such project, but focused mostly on arcane might.
Maybe when the "first generation" dragons got older, and it turned out they become more and more dangerous. Which would help the Aearee to lose much arrogance, too.
I completely agree that the Avariel seem related to the Aearee, but I am very curious how the timing would work out. The lamassu seem more of an otherworldly, celestial type creature that the Toril based aearee wouldn't have had much to do with. However, with a slight alteration in this idea, perhaps they didn't create them, but rather tried to enslave them once they started exploring the planes.
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
I wouldn't agree that the statement means that the lammasu were an experiment by the Aearee. Its a possibility, but not a necessity. The next entry in the GHotR also has the Aearee getting involved with Pazuzu/Pazrael (demon lord of the skies). Given that Lammasu come from real world Akkadian mythology and that Pazuzu also comes from real world Akkadian mythology.... I'd say conflate the two and somehow have Pazuzu involved. Maybe he was tricking some Aearee. Maybe they were worshipping him. Maybe he was tricking the Lammasu.
c. –30400 DR
The Wasting Plague: In a conflict between the gnolls of Urgnarash and the rookery of Kookrui-Shara, shamans of Yeenoghu summon marrashi—spirits of pestilence from the Barrens of Doom and Despair—to blight aearee crops and spread a wasting plague among the avians. Decimated, many Aearee-Quor turn to the demon lord Pazrael for salvation.
As to the idea that the avariel are an Aearee experiment, I'd agree, and I'd also put in ties between the avariels and the ee'aar of mystara
https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Ee%27aar
I might even further posit that somewhere in anchorome there might be a portal with a link to Mystara. This portal might be how tabaxi/rakasta and other cat folk have appeared on Toril (and how a cat deity named Felidae that was subsumed by Bast appeared in the unapproachable east... noting Felidae is an alias of an aquatic elven power named Calitha Starbrow of Mystara).
If this portal has links to the portals of the Yuir and the other portals of the east, it open up some other possibilities. It may also provide some links for the northmen of Mystara and/or Toril (TSR 9230 GAZ7 the Northern Reaches).
Though it's a few hundred years apart, the conflict with the gnolls might have been ongoing for some time before the wasting plague, ergo the aearee attempt to force the lamassu to fight for them. |
| BrennonGoldeye |
Posted - 23 Aug 2019 : 20:27:12
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Seethyr
1. What could the aearee do that was so terrible that it would instigate so many lamassu to come together to kill so many?
It turns out that lamassu take familial matters very, very seriously, as the aearee found out shortly after inventing the first "Yo mamma" jokes.
It would be almost 20,000 years before this form of humor was rediscovered.
Bwahahahahahahahahah! Well done sir, well done. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 23 Aug 2019 : 15:22:53
I wouldn't agree that the statement means that the lammasu were an experiment by the Aearee. Its a possibility, but not a necessity. The next entry in the GHotR also has the Aearee getting involved with Pazuzu/Pazrael (demon lord of the skies). Given that Lammasu come from real world Akkadian mythology and that Pazuzu also comes from real world Akkadian mythology.... I'd say conflate the two and somehow have Pazuzu involved. Maybe he was tricking some Aearee. Maybe they were worshipping him. Maybe he was tricking the Lammasu.
c. –30400 DR
The Wasting Plague: In a conflict between the gnolls of Urgnarash and the rookery of Kookrui-Shara, shamans of Yeenoghu summon marrashi—spirits of pestilence from the Barrens of Doom and Despair—to blight aearee crops and spread a wasting plague among the avians. Decimated, many Aearee-Quor turn to the demon lord Pazrael for salvation.
As to the idea that the avariel are an Aearee experiment, I'd agree, and I'd also put in ties between the avariels and the ee'aar of mystara
https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Ee%27aar
I might even further posit that somewhere in anchorome there might be a portal with a link to Mystara. This portal might be how tabaxi/rakasta and other cat folk have appeared on Toril (and how a cat deity named Felidae that was subsumed by Bast appeared in the unapproachable east... noting Felidae is an alias of an aquatic elven power named Calitha Starbrow of Mystara).
If this portal has links to the portals of the Yuir and the other portals of the east, it open up some other possibilities. It may also provide some links for the northmen of Mystara and/or Toril (TSR 9230 GAZ7 the Northern Reaches). |
| TBeholder |
Posted - 23 Aug 2019 : 11:06:02
quote:
Originally posted by Seethyr
Some other questions that I would even love just speculation over...
1. What could the aearee do that was so terrible that it would instigate so many lamassu to come together to kill so many?
Given the timing?
Aearee> How about you guys go fight a dragon for me now?
Lammasu> How about I tear you limb from limb instead?
quote:
2. Why lamassu?
The same paragraph immediately turning toward "Later experiments with [...]" implies that lammasu were previous warrior creatures made by Aearee. They are smart, no-nonsense and tough, so if some serious disagreement escalated and they turned on their masters, well, perhaps it was bound to happen sooner or later.
Wyverns were stupid, but more controllable (by Aearee), therefore useful, therefore bred and protected to churn out as many of them as possible.
Hence my hypothesis that the Avariel were a result of yet another such project, but focused mostly on arcane might.
Maybe when the "first generation" dragons got older, and it turned out they become more and more dangerous. Which would help the Aearee to lose much arrogance, too. |
| George Krashos |
Posted - 23 Aug 2019 : 06:28:29
All of that lore in GHotR sprang fully-formed from that great noggin' of Brian R James.
-- George Krashos |
| Seethyr |
Posted - 23 Aug 2019 : 01:32:33
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Seethyr
1. What could the aearee do that was so terrible that it would instigate so many lamassu to come together to kill so many?
It turns out that lamassu take familial matters very, very seriously, as the aearee found out shortly after inventing the first "Yo mamma" jokes.
It would be almost 20,000 years before this form of humor was rediscovered.
Well, unfortunately, I believe it was a raptor knight of Shara - one of Quorlinn's greatest warriors who exclaimed to a lamassu prince, "Yo momma's so fat, that when she fell, no one was laughing but the ground was cracking up."
Despite the lamassu "starting it" with "Yo momma's so fat and old when Ao said, 'Let there be light,' he asked your mother to move out of the way," this led to the start of the war. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 22 Aug 2019 : 21:51:31
quote:
Originally posted by Seethyr
1. What could the aearee do that was so terrible that it would instigate so many lamassu to come together to kill so many?
It turns out that lamassu take familial matters very, very seriously, as the aearee found out shortly after inventing the first "Yo mamma" jokes.
It would be almost 20,000 years before this form of humor was rediscovered.
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