| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Gary Dallison |
Posted - 06 Jan 2022 : 12:16:47
Has anyone ever actually looked at this place in detail.
I'm up to page 14 and already i've noted several horrifying mistakes that may or may not be caused by GHoTR actually setting dates for events.
The decimation of Chukei province for instance is supposed to have happened during the Li Dynasty, when the Nine Immortals punished the people for their lax morals. This caused the people to spread south and brought about the rebirth of the empire.
However, i would have thought the decimation of Chukei happened when the immortals fought Tan Chin, which is of course before the Li Dynasty.
Similarly the Dragon Wall was supposedly erected during the Li Dynasty but of course this was done by Tan Chin, which again is before the Li Dynasty.
I think i'm going to put these mistakes down to translation errors. Perhaps the Shou language lists events in the Dynasty they occured. But the First Kingdom had no Dynasty, it was pre dynastic, and so its events are listed as the Li Dynasty but a slight tense change makes it pre Li Dynasty that is often missed by scholars who do not understand the intricacies of Shou history.
Also lots of spelling mistakes for people names and slight inconsistencies with names for government bureaucracy (the Department of the Census or the Department of Imperial Censors) |
| 20 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 10 Jan 2022 : 00:19:05
Since I redid the shou dragonship.... I figured I'd try my hand at a simpler tsunami. As usual, some things look really cool on a flat 2d drawing, but then when you try to figure out what they are in 3d, they make no sense. So, "the underside fins" become "loading ramps that double as sails that gather radiant energy", because they'd definitely get in the way with the ship landing if they didn't fold up somehow
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5194077
Also, since they're from Wa, I'm now picturing the Abeil bee people getting their hands on the manufacturing facility for them... bee people getting ahold of a factory that makes ships based on insects that have areas for gardens in them.... suddenly the atrium areas being fillwed with bonsai trees get the trees ripped out and replaced with flowers. The locusts are then fitted for strafing bombardment service while being escorted by regular flying abeil. |
| Lord Karsus |
Posted - 09 Jan 2022 : 21:40:22
-I'll look. I might have some of it saved on my portable hard drive, along with the Elves stuff. A lot in the thread was more discussion and back-and-forth and conceptual stuff, rather than actual completed ideas/articles/etc. |
| Gary Dallison |
Posted - 09 Jan 2022 : 15:58:44
If you've still got that info i'd be glad to have it, although i'm sure we'd all like the hoards of information lost on the wotc boards and other things they destroyed. |
| Lord Karsus |
Posted - 09 Jan 2022 : 15:26:26
-The book itself is terrible. The organization and editing is non-existent. You can have a major events glossed over or not even mentioned in the relevant "History" section and then find major information that would make more sense in those relevant "History" sections in sections that are partially or even barely related. Example I am making up: A large war not being mentioned in the history section of a country but then being discussed in the items section. Being written from the point of view that it is, okay, you can excuse some continuity problems to a degree, but it's very annoying.
-I don't know if they exist anymore because I think the WotC boards stuff is archived somewhere but not sure, but myself, Markus, BadCatMan and a handful of others were constantly finding random important tidbits in the weirdest places, stuff written and overwritten, conflicting information, and so on. |
| Gary Dallison |
Posted - 08 Jan 2022 : 16:56:54
By all means, i'll stick to pre spellplague, you can take post.
I'm thinking one of the Imaskarcana, or another weave anchor was present in the far east. It was probably located in Tharkos, and thats why Kujawa setup shop there.
The dragon killed Kujawa and stole the weave anchor, then vanished.
The Nine Immortals are all Imaskari artificers that setup small kingdoms in Kara Tur / the Hordelands and went on a journey to try and track down Imaskari artefacts including this Weave Anchor.
The dragon laired in an extra dimensional space. The Weave Anchor caused this space to expand so that it became coterminous and coexistent with the material plane, but only to cover Kara Tur and the Hordelands. (i took that from manual of the planes and PGTF which has the celestial bureaucracy located in the spirit world and the spirit world is part of the astral plane but is coterminous and coexistent with the material and yet only covers Kara Tur), an expanding demi plane could do that - the Shadow Plane did.
The Nine Immortals each manage to reach the dragon's lair and trap the dragon, thus becoming the new rulers of the lair, with unfettered access to a weave anchor. In the spirit world they are of course ageless and so they become the Nine Immortals. They later learn to transform into dragons (much like House Orogoth).
So the Celestial Bureaucracy is a bit of a fake. The Path, the Way, the Faith of the Nine Travellers are a corruption and romanticised version of the tale of the Nine Imaskari artificers. The Path refers to the literal path the different travellers took to find the artefacts and reach immortality. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 08 Jan 2022 : 15:46:18
Hey Gary, I'm gonna throw out some ideas on ways to revamp some of Kara-Tur post second sundering. Hope you don't mind me using this thread for that. I just hit on a few ideas this morning while thinking about that ship I drew.
In the past I've talked about the island of Machukara. Posting the notes from the old Kara-Tur boxed set for reminders
Machukara
Machukara is the northernmost island of Wa. Because of its dense jungles, it remains largely unexplored.
Machukara is actually a part of the Paikai province, but it usually is thought of as one of the Outer Isles.
The government has not yet decided quite what to do with Machukara. Its strategic position would seem to make it ideal for a military base, but the shallow reefs surrounding it make it impossible to dock ships. Clearing away enough of the jungle to establish a colony seems unfeasible. The trees tower hundreds of feet in the air and grow so close together that no sunlight reaches the jungle floor. Vines as thick as a tree trunk and as tough as marble grow in vast tangles. Where there is no jungle, there is treacherous swampland. Savage orange gorillas with blazing red eyes and silver-scaled serpents whose poison can fell an elephant are only a few of the dangerous creatures said to exist there.
As far as the government is concerned, Machukara is unpopulated. Yet, reports from travelers contradict this. A fishing boat sailing off the northeast coast sighted a garden of giant white lilacs growing along an inlet. A single petal, they reported, was larger than the sail of their ship. Venturing closer, they saw a group of small, hairy men tending the garden. The hairy men vanished into the jungle as the ship
approached.
On another occasion, a ship blown off course by a hurricane was heading toward the northern coast of Machukara. The strong winds parted the trees and revealed a 100-foot ivory column with a face carved in the top. The face abruptly blew a gust of wind at the approaching ship, filling its sails and sending it back out to sea.
Over the years, expeditions have been sent to explore the interior of Machukara. None have returned. Desperate refugees have also sought asylum on the island. The most famous of these is Tazu-ei, the son of a noble who became disgusted with the dissension in his family and fled to Machukara seeking a life of simplicity and peace. Like all the others who have sought refuge in Machukara, he has never been heard from again.
So, some ideas to put forth on how to transform this island
The "short, hairy men" are korreds. They tend the giant plants on this island (to note, giant really means giant, as they say a lilac petal is as big as a ship's sails, and trees tower hundreds of feet in the air... plural....).
So, in theory, this is one of the largest "forests" in the entire world, and its right near Wa.... who sees it as a great place for a military site "but they can't land ships there due to the shallow reefs". This from a country that has invented the ki helm for tsunami spelljammers and rudders of propulsion for small locust flying craft. Why would shallow waters be a problem? I would assume that Wa has a hidden base here, and this might be where its main spelljamming fleet is located, but the government denies its existence.
So, let's start off with giant plants. Lilacs with petals the size of sails. So, they preserve flower petals to use as ship's sails.
Regular bamboo can grow 30 meters tall (100 feet) and is maybe 20 cm in diameter. If "taller" bamboo had to be exponentially wider (each times bigger equalling a doubling of width), then a seven hundred foot tall piece of bamboo would be (20 x 2 to the 7th)= 2560 cm (83 feet) in diameter... It would also be hollow with sections that have what might be considered a floor. A six hundred foot tall piece would in theory be only 41 feet in diameter. A five hundreed foot tall piece would be only 20 feet in diameter, etc... The people of Wa might clear "growing room" around this bamboo so that they can get taller, and wider pieces. The smaller pieces that are cut could then be cut into ready made housing with roofs made from the natural sections in the bamboo. Still growing pieces could be treated almost like multi-level skyscrapers in our world. fully grown (700 foot tall) pieces of bamboo might be felled and used to make tsunami spelljammers, with smaller sections added on to make them 950 feet long.
Maybe there are plants there that grow a giant raspberry like berry that are filled with hydrogen (called aeryberries). They might use these to make temporary balloons. Maybe they can't carry people, but they might lift things weighing say 30 pounds on less, and with string be used to maove building supplies around. They might also use the hydrogen for burning things. These berries might grow on large vines, and these vines might be what is used for the woody pieces of rudders of propulsion.
Perhaps this island went to Abeir, and while it was there it was discovered by the Abeil from Abeir, and so now there's a war on for control of the island between the queens of the Abeil hives and the Emperor of Wa. The queens may see this giant bamboo as the perfect place to use for honey storage, and so they may live in the giant bamboo and send there workers to gather pollen from the giant lilacs. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 08 Jan 2022 : 03:42:24
Just because we're talking about Kara-Tur and just because I finished up my new dragonship.... 5 pictures of the 3d model painted for your perusal, with a sail painted with a symbol I came up with and the Shou Chiang words "Shou Lung Dragon Fleet" in Shou.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5191411
Shou Dragonship Reimagined TAKE 2 (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5191411) by sleyvas is licensed under the Creative Commons - Attribution license. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 08 Jan 2022 : 02:46:29
It very much could be salvaged. It just becomes how much time will it take to do so. That being said, I think its a worthwhile effort, and the easiest and possibly best first step towards fixing it, oddly enough is to embrace the spellplague and second sundering so that you can throw in whatever changes you like. Accept as much of what's written as you have to, but it all becomes past history. Change populations by importing people and/or races. |
| Gary Dallison |
Posted - 07 Jan 2022 : 19:17:48
I dont think Kara Tur is unsalvageable.
The 9 immortals could be imaskari artificers.
The weird naming convention of emperors being given animal names could be a holdover from the 9 immortals. Imaskari artificers liked to give themselves nicknames, so what if the names of them are actually corruptions of their imaskari nickname, like "eldritch bear", "soaring phoenix", "sable nightmare". The local natives approximate the names in Imaskari to beasts, these get corrupted over the years in language and meaning until we have the current names for the 9 immortals.
The thing about honour being important, but not with violence, i reckon that could come from the "nature spirits" that the locals interbred with. I reckon these were fairy like creatures and whichever ones were in the Shou Lung land were non violent (maybe earth).
If i work on all the historical events so that they are manipulated by the dark wu jen or light wu jen then it might make them less real world analogous.
As for the celestial bureaucracy. It sounds like a construct, the story being carefully engineered to match the shou lung government. One thing i did note, is that no one ever asks the Celestial One directly, so how do people know he exists or is what the stories say.
Also, the Imaskarcana, there are a few missing, i wonder if at least one of them is in Kara Tur (it was part of the empire and a number of imaskari fled there after the fall), which means the weave should be in Kara Tur. However, when i read about the wu jen, the text makes them sound distinctly druidic and nature based. It mentions monks / priests (the terms seem to be interchangeable) but no actual wizards.
I could do with a hand on oriental creatures and stuff from D&D that is not FR related. Anyone know any core sources that i could plumb for ideas. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 07 Jan 2022 : 19:01:38
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
If I recall correctly, I think that the one thing that caught my eye was a quote that stated basically that the Emperor "rewrites history" whenever a new one arises, so as to state that the history written isn't necessarily factual. Now that may have been in another product, but I could swear it was the Kara-Tur book.
You didn't saw that in another product, that happened in the real world. The historical Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang burned a lot of books and rewrote history at least once. I won't be surprised if Kara-Turan emperors do/did the same, seeing how these products (Kara-Tur, Maztica, etc.) are just blatant copy-pastes of the RW's history... |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 07 Jan 2022 : 17:49:24
hey just wondering... is there a symbol/ flag for Shou Lung or Wa documented anywhere? |
| Gary Dallison |
Posted - 07 Jan 2022 : 15:45:51
It does state in the kara tur book that history is rewritten every time to put a new emperor in the most favourable light.
Which of course means all the evil people in history may actually have been good guys.
It also mentions that the light and dark followers of the way have heavily influenced history throughout its history.
I suspect Shin Gisen and Shin Lu were a dark way manipulation (that didnt go exactly to plan).
I'm sure the should lung would love dragonborn, they would be seen as lesser immortals sent to help the shou lung |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 07 Jan 2022 : 14:42:53
If I recall correctly, I think that the one thing that caught my eye was a quote that stated basically that the Emperor "rewrites history" whenever a new one arises, so as to state that the history written isn't necessarily factual. Now that may have been in another product, but I could swear it was the Kara-Tur book.
As to looking at it in detail..... I've wanted to, because there ARE some interesting ideas in it. But it became something I was always sidetracked with. I was most interested in Wa due to its having developed its own spelljamming methods (rudders of propulsion, ki helms, etc...) and an "unexplored" island nearby with giant plants that I was envisioning as also having giant bamboo that they may have used in constructing lightweight ships.
Kind of odd you bring this up, since I literally was looking at my old 3d design of the shou dragonship 2 days ago and thinking "I can do better" and I'm working on that right now.
SIDENOTE: I know Gary may not be interested in this idea, but given the "reverence" that Kara-Tur has for its dragons, if during the spellplague dragonborn came to Kara-Tur, how do you think they would have been treated? I look at this as one way to put some possibly interesting new twist on that society to reshape things. |
| deserk |
Posted - 07 Jan 2022 : 12:02:48
quote:
Originally posted by George Krashos
I have to confess that I've jettisoned Kara Tur and Maztica from my Realms consciousness. The Hordelands to a lesser extent. They are all so derivative that they turn me off completely in terms of trying to tie them into Faerūn, detail them or their histories. So many more important things in the Realms for me to detail and write up.
-- George Krashos
Can't help but agree, though I do think the bits on Anok-Imaskar mentioned on GHotR are intriguing. I think the lands featured in the Horde books (Endless Wastes, Murghom, Semphar) are salvageable in terms of reconstructing/soft-rebooting them to work in the Realms, since correct me if I'm wrong, the names of these lands (though obviously not the published heavily RW-derivative actual version) seems to come from Ed, so the original ideas he had could be restored for these areas. But retconning Kara-Tur to work with Realms would be a vast project that would essentially amount to making another setting.
You don't by the way happen to have any idea how Ed originally envisioned the Hordelands? Is it something like a wild land of monsters and centaurs? And if there are humans there, how are they like in comparison with the Tuigan? |
| George Krashos |
Posted - 07 Jan 2022 : 11:01:33
I have to confess that I've jettisoned Kara Tur and Maztica from my Realms consciousness. The Hordelands to a lesser extent. They are all so derivative that they turn me off completely in terms of trying to tie them into Faerūn, detail them or their histories. So many more important things in the Realms for me to detail and write up.
-- George Krashos |
| Gary Dallison |
Posted - 06 Jan 2022 : 16:31:15
The Dynasties appear to be a bit wonky too.
GHoTR mentions 8 dynasties, but i'm only counting 6. Unless however you include Tan Chin (which i guess has a dynasty of only one person) and the Lui Dynasty of T'u Lung which isnt actually part of Shou Lung, although the dynasty is a splinter of the current Kuo Dynasty. |
| Gary Dallison |
Posted - 06 Jan 2022 : 15:37:33
Before 4e. Sorry i couldnt help it |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 06 Jan 2022 : 15:30:49
The Realms was a "real world" before? |
| Gary Dallison |
Posted - 06 Jan 2022 : 15:26:44
True, but if we make the Nine Immortals into Imaskari artificers then its not real world anymore. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 06 Jan 2022 : 15:12:47
History is written by the victors. The Li Dynasty may have ordered the historians to credit them for all pre-dynastic stuff.
Anyways, this stuff is awfully similar to RW history. I mean, the Nine Immortals? |
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