| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Vex |
Posted - 13 Oct 2021 : 17:21:25
I’m rather new to the game of D&D but not the Forgotten Realms. Most of my FR knowledge is about Faerûn. I’ve been looking for some lore or history regarding drow civilizations that exist in Anchorome? From what I understand, the land is considerably blank and still “being discovered”. If that is incorrect, please say otherwise.
Honestly, I have a million questions to ask, and not entirely sure if I should just dump them here, or just hope for an open-ended discussion. I started my first D&D campaign back in may of this year, and after playing it obsessively for a couple months, I thought it would be delightful to turn it into a story. However, the campaign was essentially home brewed with the exception of using monster manual. Later on, we looked to merge the campaign into the wider world of Toril to expand on places to visit. I had found a map of Toril with ‘uncharted territory’ and used that as the place my campaign had originated. Later on, I discovered that uncharted territory to be Anchorome!
It serendipitously fit around my campaign and I found that utterly intriguing :D But, as I walk backwards through a character’s history, I find I’m wanting to adhere a bit more to the wider-world lore if it exists.
I beg forgiveness if this is not the right place for such a post, but I have skimmed through the ‘Brainstorming Anchorome’ thread and saw that a few of you seemed to be building up the lore/history and found myself wondering if that is what I should do in regards to bringing some of the drow over to these newer lands. |
| 17 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 29 Oct 2021 : 21:20:20
If you are still interested in the ideas of a pluma/hishna artificer.. I just put this up on DM's guild as pay what you want
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/375827/True-World--Artisan--An-Artificer-Specialization-for-Plumaweavers-Hishnashapers-and-Hornsculptors?src=newest_community&filters=45469_0_0_0_0_0_0_0
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| Vex |
Posted - 18 Oct 2021 : 00:08:49
Oh that is beautiful :D the ruins was an elven city and also had an accompanying citadel/castle inside a mountain range not far from Kultaka. I hadn’t got so deep as to assign any particular elvish heritage but this opens up an interesting avenue in the pursuit of knowledge ! |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 17 Oct 2021 : 23:32:59
quote:
Originally posted by Vex
Ahhh that is a lot of useful information.
So far I’ve built three towns.
one is a fortress built into a mountain run by an arrogant, detestable king that leaves his people in squalor.
Another is a hidden unmapped secret town (population 47) essentially managed by an ancient gold dragon who is a bit of an anomaly. The rest of the town is various metallic dragonkin and a Solar. The Gold is a bit of a mad wizard but more. He prefers to hoard knowledge of all kinds more than he does anything else. Experimenting with magics and such. He’s eccentric and likes to play “harmless” tricks on the unsuspecting/naive that find their way to his town.
Third town is a desert town that’s mostly dead except for one tenday a year, when a bunch of portals are summoned for what was originally termed “trade week.” (A name I need to fix since weeks aren’t a measurement in FR lol)
These were home brewed before I had done proper research into where my campaign even fit in the FR world.
The dragon town and the fortress aren't but a few days apart on foot, but the dragon town is tucked out of the way and rarely visited, except by people that the gold dragon has employed to do expeditions.
Oh, I forgot about another town, but its now ancient ruins from an old dragon battle. the ruins are in a desert now, but before it became ruins it was actually a port city but some kind of magical alteration turned it into a desert.
All this information you've given me gives me so much more inspiration for fleshing out the histories and adding more adventure to uncover more 'knowledge' :D
Well, here's another thing to add in that your "ruins from an old dragon battle" brings to mind. So, there's a huge desert at the bottom of Anchorome where it connects to Maztica. It's called the Sands of Itzcala. Within the sands of Itzcala lie the ruins of Olbi.
Canonically, this is what we know of Olbi
Olbi
The ruined city of Olbi was older than even Tewahca. It was not as spectacular, but possessed secrets all its own. Olbi consisted of a series of clean, well-carved caverns with a variety of statues carved directly into the walls (representing the Maztican pantheon). The precision of the carvings showed evidence of metal tools or magical shaping, and treasures such as works of pluma, hishna, and gold could be found there.
Seethyr did some exploration of his own into Olbit in MZA5 ruins of Olbi. However, why do I mention this? Well, what if thousands of years ago this area had been a place where the batrachi "amphibian folk" lived. Or what if humans tribes once lived there.
Most of the humans that appear throughout the region have stories of coming to the surface from caverns below. For the humans of the Pasocada region (the subrace of humans called Azuposi, who look very tanned like Pueblo indians kind of), its indicated that they may have come through underground caverns from Kara-Tur (as their language bears a similarity to Kara-Tur languages). However, that may not be the case for say the Mazticans. What if these people went below the earth because of some massive destruction, and the survivors only survived by going below the earth.
Furthermore, while this surface desert is known as Itzcala, just off shore is an underwater culture of sahuagin called Itzcatli. The names are similar enough that one might tie the two cultures together (so possibly an amphibian population having ties to a sea population that can walk on land). Long ago, there may have been a great batrachi civilization that went to war with dragonkind after the Tearfall for instance.
One doesn't have to tie all of this together in one fell swoop mind you. You could create linkages between these various cultures over time, etc... |
| Vex |
Posted - 17 Oct 2021 : 18:57:40
Ahhh that is a lot of useful information.
So far I’ve built three towns.
one is a fortress built into a mountain run by an arrogant, detestable king that leaves his people in squalor.
Another is a hidden unmapped secret town (population 47) essentially managed by an ancient gold dragon who is a bit of an anomaly. The rest of the town is various metallic dragonkin and a Solar. The Gold is a bit of a mad wizard but more. He prefers to hoard knowledge of all kinds more than he does anything else. Experimenting with magics and such. He’s eccentric and likes to play “harmless” tricks on the unsuspecting/naive that find their way to his town.
Third town is a desert town that’s mostly dead except for one tenday a year, when a bunch of portals are summoned for what was originally termed “trade week.” (A name I need to fix since weeks aren’t a measurement in FR lol)
These were home brewed before I had done proper research into where my campaign even fit in the FR world.
The dragon town and the fortress aren't but a few days apart on foot, but the dragon town is tucked out of the way and rarely visited, except by people that the gold dragon has employed to do expeditions.
Oh, I forgot about another town, but its now ancient ruins from an old dragon battle. the ruins are in a desert now, but before it became ruins it was actually a port city but some kind of magical alteration turned it into a desert.
All this information you've given me gives me so much more inspiration for fleshing out the histories and adding more adventure to uncover more 'knowledge' :D |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 17 Oct 2021 : 18:03:44
quote:
Originally posted by Vex
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Karsus
quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
The question would be how did they get there, the Rockfire Disaster is of course the obvious solution but an important area of focus would be what does a drow society look like away from the Lolth matriarchy.
I'm guessing the drow in the Rockfire Disaster pursuing the dwarves were mostly male (led by a few females). What would happen, did the females become property, is it a male led society, are they evil like their ancestors, did they descend to barbarism or did they bring magic and civilisation (of a sorts) to a new land.
The drow in Maztica were never explored in any real detail, but that was a missed opportunity.
-The Drow were featured in the Maztica trilogy, and from what I remember, they were still standard-fare Drow.
So likely Lolthians?
When was Maztica part of Toril and not Abeir? As I understand it, Laekarond came over during the Spellplague, but bits of Anchorome and Maztica seems to have been on Abeir? For a century I think I read? Was this the century between the Spellplague and the Second Sundering? Admittedly, I'm trying to visualize the proper timeline of when Anchorome/Maztica had ready access to the weave/divine magics.
@Sleyvas Really fond of the wildhide idea! Looking forward to what all you come up with
So, the original Maztica trilogy was written as if the continent was "discovered" kind of like Columbus discovering America and mixing it with Cortez's invasion of South America. It did NOT go over well with the FR community, and little was done to explore the region. That was in the early 90's. Some people tried to put in a little bit of exploration into reclaiming the region, but there wasn't much interest within the fan community.
Fast-forward roughly 18 years later in real time, and that's when they came up with this idea that there were two worlds (Abeir and Toril) and that they came into "collision" and transferred pieces from one to the other. In other words "the spellplague". WotC used this as a means to get rid of Maztica and Anchorome (to note, little of Anchorome was ever explored by TSR/WotC, except one product called City of Gold and some references to a Flaming Fist mercenary group building a small fort called Fort Flame that was beleaguered by Pasocada elves that did not understand the language of the Elves of Evermeet).
So, suddenly this region of the world and a few countries in Faerun that some felt were "too much like earth history" disappeared. They were replaced by some countries from 4e that were explorations on new ideas (i.e. Tymanther, etc...). Well, this made a lot of people made because just before they disappeared, several of those Faerunian places had JUST started to get some neat storylines... plus a LOT of other reasons that I won't go into because I'll be typing all day.
So, with 5e, the idea is that SOME of those regions have returned, but some of the NEW regions stayed as well. For instance, Tymanther and Unther both exist right now. Personally, I like THAT idea. Keep both. For a lot of these regions, what exactly happened as part of the second sundering is still "unclear"...
So, with that idea in mind, some of us started speculating.... well, if Maztica and Anchorome went to Abeir and a hundred years have passed, that gives us an option to rewrite the history of those regions or even just flesh out whole swathes of the continent that have never been detailed. That's where I can honestly say I feel Seethyr did an amazing job. He was absolutely focused on learning about our world's native american traditions and folklore and trying to adapt that into those regions to give them an authentic feel.
I think I kind of hit him from another angle, because my goal was to keep that flavor he had, but then to throw in much more of the fantasy element to the region. I threw out a LOT of ideas, some bad, some good. One part where the two of us differ is that he wanted to stick with the idea that when they were on Abeir, the gods were unavailable. I am going with the idea that the gods that disappeared were actually in Abeir protecting the people of Toril who didn't ask to be sent to another world. I've also been developing this idea that there's small sections of Faerunians that have been trying to adapt areas of these continents to survive, and that these Faerunians were primarily displaced Thayans who left their homeland because of a civil war and came to the "newlands" in Anchorome because land was available. What I don't want to portray though is the idea that they've conquered all the other civilizations. In fact, I want to portray that they've learned from them, and possibly even accepted some of them. In fact, these "United Tharchs" are spread out... and though aligned for trade reasons.... they often have very different outlooks.
Ok, sorry for that longwinded diatribe, but I felt it might help you understand what has been done with the regions, both officially and unofficially. As to the drow, there are the "Ancient Ones" which were some drow that came to Maztica and were secretly guiding the high priests of Zaltec.
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ancient_Ones
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Darien
Exactly HOW Lolth was involved with these drow is unclear as hell, but at the end of the novels, she curses these drow into drider form. However, it may have been that they were actually worshipping a dark and bloodthirsty god known as Zaltec. At the exact same time that the drow were turned into driders, the humans worshipping Zaltec were turned into orcs, ogres, and trolls.
These drow were working with another priesthood to feed "the darkfyre"... which again was an unclear artifact.... and the humans were serving gods that they learned about because they stumbled upon the religions in old caves underground that may have belonged to other very much older cultures. Some of us have wondered at who the Mazticans were previously worshipped by (was it the serpentine Sarrukh, the frog like batrachi, the bird like Aearee? Were they primordials? Dragons?). To add further to this mystery, there's references in the Grand History of the Realms that makes on think that Qotal is the Chultan god, Ubtao, and that Chult is where Qotal "left Maztica to go to". There's also references in the same product to the Batrachi Lord, Bazim-Gorag, Bringer of Fire... who has ties to the Slaad... and which ties him to Lopango, the Land of Fire. This makes one wonder if SOME of the Maztican gods, like Tezca the sun/fire god, might not be Bazim-Gorag.... and that the "heart hungry" Zaltec might not also be some kind of similar god of the Batrachi like Ramenos.
Well, that's a rather longwinded overview, but hopefully it gives an idea. A lot of this new world is open for exploration. I recommend Seethyr's stuff, because at least its bringing some kind of unified vision to the region, but at the same time its painting large areas with the same brush, so its pretty easy to introduce a city which could be in the region if you wanted to.
Oh, and if you did get my races of the Adusgi Forest title, note that in there is a map which I was trying to incorporate canon places along with places that Seethyr was making. There's huge areas left open for development. Also, the islands off the coast are my own placements, and one thing I've felt is that "the lands that have returned MIGHT still have some things that were originally in Abeir".
Finally, back to Pluma and Hishna... these are magics that are dependent on objects very much. We have something somewhere from Ed that indicates that his feel for the magics of Abeir is that they are magics tied to objects to a degree. For this reason, I feel that it makes a good story that the Pluma and Hishna magics worked even when the weave failed, and for this reason, the Faerunians that were transferred to this land saw their own magics fail but these working... and they gained a respect for them. As such, they've adopted some of this into their cultures. To a degree, it may have helped them learn to adapt their magics as well in studying it (though the storyline I have is that Mystra's dweomerheart detached from "Toril" and attached to "Abeir".... and so the weave grew stronger on Abeir in the past century, partly through the actions of the humans there who were tasked with doing things by dreams of the gods, without knowing the true reasons why they needed to do these things.... which anchored the weave on Abeir in some areas).
Finally, going back to the idea of drow and pluma/hishna... one thing to note is that humans learned of pluma and hishna magics by studying the religions of some fallen people who weren't necessarily human (i.e. Zaltec and Qotal).... there is absolutely nothing that says that humans would have been the ONLY ones to have learned of these magics by studying other cultures. One thing that's been released recently is the idea that there's another drow culture that rejected Lolth
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Lorendrow
So, as far as I know, we have absolutely zero placement for these Lorendrow or "jungle drow". They very much could have hidden settlements in say the jungles of Lopango (i.e. south of Maztica) or even the continents even further south. Personally, I'd rather it be that the reason Faerunians don't know of this is that THEY AREN'T IN FAERUN. There's a lot of the world that's wide open, so why keep trying to shoehorn things into the world in already explored places.
So, having some Lorendrow that maybe worship elemental gods and are down in Lopango or Katashaka or the small continent east of Katashaka or the island chains even further east.... that works for me. Maybe some of them are a lot less focused on religion and much more focused on spirits or magic.
|
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 17 Oct 2021 : 00:54:57
quote:
Originally posted by Vex
So likely Lolthians?
When was Maztica part of Toril and not Abeir? As I understand it, Laekarond came over during the Spellplague, but bits of Anchorome and Maztica seems to have been on Abeir? For a century I think I read? Was this the century between the Spellplague and the Second Sundering? Admittedly, I'm trying to visualize the proper timeline of when Anchorome/Maztica had ready access to the weave/divine magics.
@Sleyvas Really fond of the wildhide idea! Looking forward to what all you come up with
Maztica was part of Toril long before the whole retcon of there being two different worlds. Maztica had a novel trilogy, a boxed set, and I believe at least a couple of adventures, back during the 2E era. (The world of Abeir-Toril being retconned into the worlds of Abeir and Toril was a 4E thing) |
| Vex |
Posted - 16 Oct 2021 : 23:53:33
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Karsus
quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
The question would be how did they get there, the Rockfire Disaster is of course the obvious solution but an important area of focus would be what does a drow society look like away from the Lolth matriarchy.
I'm guessing the drow in the Rockfire Disaster pursuing the dwarves were mostly male (led by a few females). What would happen, did the females become property, is it a male led society, are they evil like their ancestors, did they descend to barbarism or did they bring magic and civilisation (of a sorts) to a new land.
The drow in Maztica were never explored in any real detail, but that was a missed opportunity.
-The Drow were featured in the Maztica trilogy, and from what I remember, they were still standard-fare Drow.
So likely Lolthians?
When was Maztica part of Toril and not Abeir? As I understand it, Laekarond came over during the Spellplague, but bits of Anchorome and Maztica seems to have been on Abeir? For a century I think I read? Was this the century between the Spellplague and the Second Sundering? Admittedly, I'm trying to visualize the proper timeline of when Anchorome/Maztica had ready access to the weave/divine magics.
@Sleyvas Really fond of the wildhide idea! Looking forward to what all you come up with |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 16 Oct 2021 : 18:23:24
quote:
Originally posted by Vex
Hmmm…
hishna/pluma items/armor could be it has some kind of benefit to allow for gliding/feather fall.
Some kind of crystal or ore composite can be added for form and function that grants innate sense of direction. Like a pigeon’s internal ‘homing beacon’.
Grant eagle-eye type ability to see across great distances, perhaps even draw/attract unwitting prey, almost like a reversal of the homing beacon.
A bird spirit enchantment that summons ethereal/astral eagles to aid in combat
a bit of shape shifting magic that borders on druidic type, allowing a wearer to shift into creatures that have claws/scales/fangs- depending on what kind of items are used to make the item.
Seems snake venoms would be a useful component, granting poison/venom damage bonuses or perhaps hypnotic effects. Paralysis and such as well.
Trapping various spirits ( the elementals and such ) into gems and having them as pets or summonable companions
Perhaps those trapped-spirits could be mounted in various jewelry ( or beaded armors ) and provide beneficial effects. It wouldn’t be a phylactery/possession, but maybe more of mutual choice between spirit and the entity in possession of it.
Peacocks and their ‘many eyes’ feathers come to mind, maybe combine that with some kind of hypnotic / will-domination effect. Can combine the two types of magics for extra chaos.
Just a few ideas off the top of my head
Thank you. What I'm settling on is 2 subclasses instead. One working with crystals/glass, and I've only got basic ideas for it at the moment, and I'm going to come back to your ideas on beads and such above when I do. The other, I'm going to say someone that has learned both arts Pluma and Hishna, and doesn't consider either "good" or "evil"... but rather both are "natural". I was going to give an infusion that allowed the wildshape ability, relating it to the jagre who use a hide to transform into jaguars. I like the idea of the eagle eye thing... I'll have to think on that.
Some of the infusions I was thinking were
Wildhide Infusion- gives the ability to wildshape into a jaguar, panther, lynx, leopard, cheetah, wolf, or jackal
Kamatlan Infusion - snake grafts that can attack with venom
Displacer Beast Infusion - displacement and tentacles
Venomous Striking weapon
Plumadancing Armaments (weapon or shield) - dancing weapon or animated shield options
Plumaflight Weapon - doubles the thrown range of a weapon
Venomous Ammunition - infusion for a pouch or quiver holding ammunition. It makes this ammunition cause 1d4 additional poison damage
Firefeather Ammunition - infusion for a pouch or quiver holding ammunition. It makes this ammunition cause 1d4 additional fire damage
As far as a subclass options, I was thinking
3rd choose 3 from Herbalism Kit, Leatherworker's tools, Poisoner's kit, Weaver's tools, and Woodcarver's tools
3rd Plumaweaver & Hishnashaper spells
3rd Trueworld Armor (can act as spellcasting focus)
Option 1 - Firefeather Vestments - (AC 12 + dex) held weapons do fire damage. Being hit causes retributive 1 point of fire damage. Aganazzar's scorcher 1/short rest
Option 2 - Glamourwing Tunic - (AC 12 + dex) Advantage on persuasion and deception effects. Winds cause +1 bonus to AC and dexterity saves, as well as providing an intelligence bonus to ranged attacks using ammunition or thrown weapons (such as bows, slings, throwing axes, etc...)
Option 3 - Snakeskin Leather - (AC 13 + dex max 3) held weapons do poison damage. Being hit causes retributive 1 point of fire damage. Aganazzar's scorcher 1/short rest
Option 4 - Hishnahide Armor - (AC 13 + dex max 3) gain the dual wielder feat.
5th Choose Specialization: Plumaweaver gets the healer feat, Hishnashaper gets the savage attacker feat
5th extra attack
9th Clothing Enhancements. Maximum number of infusions they can have increases by 2. Must be used on either a helmet/headdress, weapon, cloak/mantle, shield, or armor
15th unsure of capstone abilities yet |
| Lord Karsus |
Posted - 16 Oct 2021 : 16:20:39
quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
The question would be how did they get there, the Rockfire Disaster is of course the obvious solution but an important area of focus would be what does a drow society look like away from the Lolth matriarchy.
I'm guessing the drow in the Rockfire Disaster pursuing the dwarves were mostly male (led by a few females). What would happen, did the females become property, is it a male led society, are they evil like their ancestors, did they descend to barbarism or did they bring magic and civilisation (of a sorts) to a new land.
The drow in Maztica were never explored in any real detail, but that was a missed opportunity.
-The Drow were featured in the Maztica trilogy, and from what I remember, they were still standard-fare Drow. |
| Vex |
Posted - 15 Oct 2021 : 20:17:35
Hmmm…
hishna/pluma items/armor could be it has some kind of benefit to allow for gliding/feather fall.
Some kind of crystal or ore composite can be added for form and function that grants innate sense of direction. Like a pigeon’s internal ‘homing beacon’.
Grant eagle-eye type ability to see across great distances, perhaps even draw/attract unwitting prey, almost like a reversal of the homing beacon.
A bird spirit enchantment that summons ethereal/astral eagles to aid in combat
a bit of shape shifting magic that borders on druidic type, allowing a wearer to shift into creatures that have claws/scales/fangs- depending on what kind of items are used to make the item.
Seems snake venoms would be a useful component, granting poison/venom damage bonuses or perhaps hypnotic effects. Paralysis and such as well.
Trapping various spirits ( the elementals and such ) into gems and having them as pets or summonable companions
Perhaps those trapped-spirits could be mounted in various jewelry ( or beaded armors ) and provide beneficial effects. It wouldn’t be a phylactery/possession, but maybe more of mutual choice between spirit and the entity in possession of it.
Peacocks and their ‘many eyes’ feathers come to mind, maybe combine that with some kind of hypnotic / will-domination effect. Can combine the two types of magics for extra chaos.
Just a few ideas off the top of my head |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 15 Oct 2021 : 19:49:36
If you want to explore Hishna magic, please post ideas. I've literally in the last week been trying to play with a concept of making artificer subclasses that aren't "mordern metal wielding or chemical using or firearm". I was thinking of making 3 new subclasses, one plumaweaver, one hishnashaper, and one a person that works with gems/crystals/glass. For the first two, the big thing I see is that they often live in cultures for which the normal medium armors of D&D make no sense, so I've been playing with the idea of making plumacloth armor that's maybe a hybrid of medium and light armor (i.e. more of a dex bonus allowed, but less AC) and hishnahide (an improved hide armor) |
| Vex |
Posted - 15 Oct 2021 : 18:47:19
Wonderful!
I have picked up all of the material you linked, sleyvas. Quite excited to dig in. I very much like the idea of Hishna magic and the Ancient Ones that ericlboyd mentioned.
In my campaign/storyline, I've chosen to steer away from Lolth's influence over drow, mainly because she gets too much airtime as it is. I would prefer to explore a different concept, perhaps a bit inverted. Not quite Aevendrow, but definitely not Lolthian. I spent a bit of time the last couple days ( since first posting ) thinking on what I could do that was a bit different, and have to fit within the canon/existing lore.
After reading a bit of the lore in regards to Abeir and Toril, I thought it would be interesting to have a drow character from Abeir find herself on Toril. Abeir is much less magic-heavy and deity-driven and it tickled me to have her experience such a drastic shift in reality.
So far, my drow character was born shortly before the Spellplague/Blue Breath of Change in the Underdark of Laekarond. She has no idea that during the Spellplague, the continent had been transplanted to a different world, and one ubiquitous with all kinds of magic. She just assumes something about the Blue Breath transformed the world ( which of course, it most definitely did )
Her hometown would be similar to the way that Aevendrow live, only in the respect that they co-exist in relative peace with other Underdark dwellers. They still use currency, focusing quite heavily on trading with the surface. The surface is where most of the lawlessness occurs and one of the primary reasons it drives some of the other non-drow races underground.
Its decades after the Spellplague that she even finds out she's not on Abeir at all. Of course, I had to make a mad wizard (that isn't only a wizard, after all) that only adds to her confusion :D The arambar energy from the primordial has had some kind of affect on her as well.
It's mostly foundational/outline work, but so far I like where its headed. I liked the idea of harnessing a bit more psionic powers, seeing as they would work with or without a weave or deity. I think the arambar-saturated atmosphere of Laekarond would play into that quite nicely.
I suppose I should add in that she only found out she was no longer in Abeir after landing somewhere in Maztica and being shuffled off north to Anchorome.
Ok, I've babbled enough for now, I think. I want to go read up on all this material so I can see what kind of head-trippy adventures I can cook up for her!
Thank you all for contributing so much plentiful and inspiring information!
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| sleyvas |
Posted - 13 Oct 2021 : 22:55:39
Hi Vex,
On drow and the "True World" (as Maztica is known amongst its natives) and what's canon, as Eric points out, there's pretty much only been the stuff for Maztica with the ancient ones and the albino drow that was with the Faerunians that came over to Maztica.
On OTHER drow in that particular region nothing been official, but as one of the folks who spent a lot of time in that Brainstorming Anchorome thread, I don't mind bouncing ideas if you want. One thing that Seethyr had been doing was having some drow SOUTH of Maztica in an area canonically known as "Lopango, Land of Fire" that were also from those drow that had escaped the Rockfire Disaster. He had these drow having been part of some tlincalli (centaur like manscorpions) that were later captured by some magic wielding jungle orc sorcerers.
You can read more on that in the Lopango Land of the Sacred Sun product he made.
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/174537/TWC2-Lopango--Land-of-the-Sacred-Sun
Now, I personally favor the idea of doing several small groups of drow, each with different cultures, all throughout this part of the world, and possibly coming there at different times. For instance, after watching "Dragon Prince" on netflix, the idea of some fire worshipping drow down in the Lopango area similar to the Sunfire Elves is one I like. Maybe they came to the worship after discovering some ancient temple to the god Tezca or the batrachi lord Bazim-Gorag
Up in the Anchorome area, at one point we were playing with having some drow living up on the surface in a section of forest that we had some owlfolk living in (and it was a "dark wood" as in little light penetrated the overhead foliage). At one point we were talking about having the owlfolk being like swanmays (women that shapechange into swans), but in this instance changing into owls. We were debating on whether to make it drow or make it "spirit folk".
Another thing we had discussed was the idea of there being some drow that were in the icier areas and linked to the aevendrow (starlight elves). One thing that Seethyr and I had both agreed on was that there should be Snow Elves in the north part of Anchorome, and that SOME of these migrated south and became the Poscadari elves (who were much like native American tribes). In doing this concept, I harkened back to the original story of the Snow Elves (who are extraordinarily tall and very fair complexioned) which says that their god was outcast from the Seldarine for having "had involvement with a being known as Megwandir that many believe to be Lolth". So, I thought it might be interesting to have some drow living in the icy lands as well, but hidden away. Ironically, this was before any talk of Aevendrow had ever been spoken (not unusual for people to have similar ideas mind you), but when I heard of the Aevendrow in Faerun, it hit me that perhaps their culture should mainly be in northern Anchorome and the continents above that (one of which is named Aurune).
BTW, not really drow oriented, but if you're interested in developing Anchorome's northern areas, I recommend two DM's guild products.
The first is ANS3 Blacktoe Glacier by Seethyr
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/306328/ANS3-Blacktoe-Glacier?term=black+gla
The second is one I made just introducing some alternative races for the region to make it very different from Faerun that I find fun conceptually (mostly furry type races... I had a lot of fun playing a kercpa wizard). Its "Pay what you Want", so it won't break the bank.
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/349805/Races-of-the-Adusgi-Forest-and-Surrounding-Environs?term=adusg
One thing I never got around to writing up was I wanted the adusgi (sometimes Adusgee) forest, which is bigger than the High Forest of Faerun, to be becoming a "battleground" of ideas.... basically those who sought to tame the wilderness and its giant flowers, in the form of the Abeil.... and those who sought to keep the wilds, well, untamed. Neither group is "evil" but they definitely have different views.
I also very much recommend getting Seethyr's bundled product.
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/280958/Maztica-Alive-BUNDLE
For a mere $20 you won't find more product anywhere. Of those, I recommend most the Anchorome Campaign Guide, Blacktoe Glacier, Lopango, and Journey into Rainbow
"Once around Anchorome" was also a great thing Seethyr did where he basically wrote up a story as he traversed Anchorome to give just a little insight into the various areas
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/345789/ANS4-Once-Across-Anchorome?src=by_author_of_product |
| Gary Dallison |
Posted - 13 Oct 2021 : 21:51:37
The question would be how did they get there, the Rockfire Disaster is of course the obvious solution but an important area of focus would be what does a drow society look like away from the Lolth matriarchy.
I'm guessing the drow in the Rockfire Disaster pursuing the dwarves were mostly male (led by a few females). What would happen, did the females become property, is it a male led society, are they evil like their ancestors, did they descend to barbarism or did they bring magic and civilisation (of a sorts) to a new land.
The drow in Maztica were never explored in any real detail, but that was a missed opportunity. |
| ericlboyd |
Posted - 13 Oct 2021 : 21:47:28
Maztica, which is a pseudo-Earth analog of Maya / Aztec Central America (not something I would have included in the Realms, but it is what it is) is south of Anchorome. Maztica did have a colony of drow and a colony of desert dwarves (formerly shield dwarves), both of whom were cut off from Faerun by the Rockfire Cataclysm and forced to march westwards.
The wiki pages on this topic aren't great, but they should give you a start googling if you're interested.
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ancient_Ones
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Desert_dwarf
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/987_DR
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| Vex |
Posted - 13 Oct 2021 : 20:54:00
Thank you :D |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 13 Oct 2021 : 19:04:39
One of the first things to remember is that it's your Realms. So even if something canon says otherwise, you can do what you want at your table.
That said, a lot of us do stick with canon, to varying degrees, so I can totally get not wanting to color outside the lines.
But Anchorome is one of those mostly wide-open areas, with very little solid info on it. My personal philosophy for these kinds of things: if you don't break written canon, then no one can say what you're doing is wrong. For example, if the published info says "We don't know what's here" then there's nothing that says you can't put in a forest-city of one million kercpa. After all, there's nothing that rules it out...
In short: do what works for you! |
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