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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
 Posted - 21 Feb 2012 : 14:38:14
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When the Imaskari artificers of Lower Imaskar opened Bukhara Spires to another world to replace their decimated peasant population, the world they reached was evidently Earth or a very close mirror of it on another crystal sphere. Crucially, the inhabitants had no access to the Art, suggesting that the history of this world would probably resemble that of Earth closely*.
In seeking inspiration for names, minor or lost gods, cultural heroes, political or religious movements outside the norms of mainstream culture and so forth among the Mulan, I wished to narrow down the time period during which the Imaskar carried out their campaign of large-scale kidnapping on this Earth or Earth-like crystal sphere.
At first I thought of simply subtracting 630 years from the Dale Reckoning date given in GHotR, given that time passes at a similar rate for Elminster and Ed Greenwood and that in 1987 for Ed Greenwood, it was DR 1357. Being aware that many things might have interfered with the relative temporal rate in the intervening period, I considered it unlikely in the extreme that I should be so lucky as to find an exact correspondance, and this pessimism turned out to be correct.
Around 3,700 BCE most of the gods mentioned as being the gods of the two groups of Mulan are either nonexistent or merely number among the throng of similar gods worshipped around the eastern Meditarranean. There is, as yet, not really anything resembling Sumer and Akkad in Mesopotamia, let alone specifically Babylon.
There is some evidence that the two Bukhara Gates opened at different time periods on the Earth-analogue crystal sphere. On the other hand, another explanation, and perhaps more plausible, as well as fitting all the available evidence, is simply that during the 400 years that the Imaskari had the gates, they made several excursions and that since the end and the beginning of a 400 year period are very different, one might say that they took people from 'two different eras'.
In any case, I will examine whether there is a need to assume that some temporal manipulation was involved seperately. At first, I'll try to find out if the people of Unther and Mulhorand seem likely to have descended from any people who coexisted within a 400 year period.
Let's begin with the Mulhorandi, who come from a culture like Egypt. At what point in time was the pantheon of the area later known as Egypt on our Earth the most like the Mulhorandi pantheon as it appears to have originally existed?
Well, it was not -3,700 BCE, at least. By no stretch of the imagination could Ra be called a ruler of a pantheon or the father of the gods of the Mulhorandi until at least by -3,100 BCE and it would be more accurate to say that it happens late in the Old Kingdom era.
The retention of Ptath as an older founder of the pantheon, the relative importance of Osiris, the lack of Atum** as well as the incorporation of Hathor and Thoth into the pantheon places the most likely period sometime during the merging of the Ennead and Ogdoad cosmogonies, during the 22nd century BCE.
The evil nature of Set, instead of being one of the primary gods of rulership and heroism, and the importance of Isis, would both suggest a much later date. On the other hand, a careful reading of the history of the Mulan does not suggest that Isis was necessarily anything but a minor goddess at the time of Imaskar and it would actually make more sense if Set was highly regarded by his fellow gods, if possibly vain and ambitious, before the events of the Orcgate Wars and the succession crisis after Re.
The lack of Amun*** and the relative lack of foreign influences into the mythology suggests strongly that a later date than the New Kingdom is unlikely. While it is not impossible that this mythology post-dates the Hyksos and the Sea Peoples, the strong preference that Re and later Horus-Re was to show for technological and sociological elements that more properly belong to the era before those changes makes it unlikely. The heroic nature of warfare**** and the long time until Mulhorand developed a naval tradition both suggest a more isolated time.
Do any scribes have canon FR information that appears to contradict this? Or different thoughts?
Next post, Unther.
*More likely, Ra having come to represent an amalgamation of himself and Atum to most of the ancestors of today's Mulhorandi, with Ptah having taken on some aspects.
**Especially given how the linguistics and mythology of the kidnapped people corresponds fairly accurately with that of Bronze Age Earth, west and east of the Fertile Crescent.
***Again, more likely his close identification with Ra and later Horus-Re.
****As opposed to the increasing marginalisation of heroic warriors at the hands of a mass of more-or-less professional military dominated by the bow. In addition, Egyptians after this era had been forcibly introduced to the capabilities of the recurve composite bow, meaning that it was no longer just an interesting foreign curiosity. Since the Mulhorandi of post-Imaskar would have had access to at least some of the infrastructure of the ruined cities, as well as plenty of wood in the Shalhood, we'd expect to see them developing good composite bows in numbers sufficient to arm a whole army early in their history. Instead, early Mulan warfare appears to have revolved around chariots, which means that composite bows were, if present, reserved for the warriors elite.
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 21 Feb 2012 : 15:23:34
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Page 94, Powers & Pantheons -quote:
The powers of Mulhorand and the fallen deities of Unther are ancient in origin. Millenia ago, at the height of the Imaskari Empire, the wizards of that land wielded immense powers and in their pride refused to bow down to any divine entity. When the population of their lands collapsed in a calamitous plague, the godless sorcerers of that empire opened up a pair of gates to another world. In a series of lightning-raids they captured countless slaves and brought them back to Abeir-Toril, and then permanently closed all connections between those lands and the Realms. These newly arrived peoples came from two different regions and time periods of that world, but quickly intermarried with each other and the surviving Imaskari citizens to form a new race of people known as the Mulan. Despite harsh repression from the wizards, the Mulan maintained their faith in the deities of their home world and offered up countless prayers for their salvation and emancipation.
Accent, mine. You did say you wanted to stick to canon. 
I prefer a different explanation myself, and I would prefer that the Babylonian gods and Sumerian deities were one and the same (which they are supposed to be!), and it appears Erik tried to fix that one point by saying 'two' (regions and periods) rather then three. I assume some of the folks taking from the second (non-Egyptian) region still followed 'the old faith' (using the more ancient names for their gods). That messes up some of the lore we have from Old Empires (IIRC), but screw it - that was some very uninformative (of RW mythology) writing. What Toril probably got was two avatars of each of the Sumer-lonian Pantheon - one for each aspect (call it 'hindsight', or call it 'fudging', or call it an 'unofficial retcon', but common sense should trump everything).
Funny thing is, we have to be highly selective in how we apply this type of backwards-engineering of lore: Note that it says they brought slaves back to Abeir-Toril. Applying newer lore to that sentence, one can now surmise the Imaskari had a base in Abeir as well (which, come to think of it, I would have liked much better then 'they hid in a cave for thousands of years' - thats got to be the most craptastic lore ever).
I would also like to apologize to all the good folk of Candlekeep at this time, for having put up with ME for the past 5 years.  |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Eladrinstar
Learned Scribe
USA
196 Posts |
Posted - 21 Feb 2012 : 16:59:05
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| Keep in mind Abeir-Toril has long been the proper term, it even means "Cradle of Life", with Toril as a shorthand. We can just gloss over it if we want. We can just say it says Toril. |
Edited by - Eladrinstar on 21 Feb 2012 17:00:15 |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 21 Feb 2012 : 17:29:12
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But what did the folk of Abeir call their world? Tarathdeon?
Would they have also used 'Abeir-Toril'? 
Or would they have called it 'prison'* in some (Draconic?) language, or even 'Exile'?
@Icelander - I personally think that both Set and Basst already existed on Toril, but thats just my HB musings. I associate Basst with Kiga (a more primal form of her cat-aspect).
We also don't know how or when the Vedic pantheon (at least a few members of it) entered Realmspace. I had some theories in the old WotC/Utter East thread about them, but once again, nothing canon. I turned them into the Lords of Creation, which is part of the K-T panthoen (the Torillian version of the Celestial Bureaucracy tends to absorb all other deities it comes into contact with within its infra-structure). Ergo, the K-T (CB) pantheon actually consists of several smaller pantheons, and uses Oriental-deity names for Torillian powers as well (like Cyric, who they call Sirhivatizangpo, or Bhaal, who they called Niynjushigampo).
*Because it was designed to be a prison for the Primordials. |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 21 Feb 2012 : 18:38:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
Page 94, Powers & Pantheons -quote:
The powers of Mulhorand and the fallen deities of Unther are ancient in origin. Millenia ago, at the height of the Imaskari Empire, the wizards of that land wielded immense powers and in their pride refused to bow down to any divine entity. When the population of their lands collapsed in a calamitous plague, the godless sorcerers of that empire opened up a pair of gates to another world. In a series of lightning-raids they captured countless slaves and brought them back to Abeir-Toril, and then permanently closed all connections between those lands and the Realms. These newly arrived peoples came from two different regions and time periods of that world, but quickly intermarried with each other and the surviving Imaskari citizens to form a new race of people known as the Mulan. Despite harsh repression from the wizards, the Mulan maintained their faith in the deities of their home world and offered up countless prayers for their salvation and emancipation.
Accent, mine. You did say you wanted to stick to canon.
Yes, I have read this. On the other hand, GHotR states that the gates were built and: "During the next four centuries, the Imaskari abducted tens of thousands of humans as slaves and brought them to Faerun as slaves".
Sticking to canon means interpreting both statements in a way that is consistent with further lore and is not logically inconsistent.
The way that seems most plausible to me seems to be saying that the Bukhara Gates were located in two different regions on the same world, Earth or an analogue, and that the Imaskari made several excursions through over four centuries. The first of these were made primarily against the Egypt-like society and took place around the 22nd century BCE, for reasons stated above.
If we could postulate that there was, for one reason or another, a break of some time before the Imaskari made their next slave-gathering expedition, this time through the other Bukhara Gate, we would have a logical explanation for why the people come from two different time periods. And as it turns out, it would make perfect sense that that after the first rush to replace the lost labour, security concerns would mandate a slowing of the process and eventually a complete stop for a generation or so, in order to assimilate the new population and prevent excessive unrest.
Not to mention that a continual process of slave-taking from the same society would tend to break down the fabric of society there and encourage anarchy and lawlessness, which is a very bad thing for archmages wishing to take the maximum number of managable slaves for the minimum amount of risk, effort and magic.
If I were to discover that the Mesapotamian slaves were taken after the 22nd century BCE, but before the end of the 18th BCE, we would not have any canon problem at all.
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
I prefer a different explanation myself, and I would prefer that the Babylonian gods and Sumerian deities were one and the same (which they are supposed to be!), and it appears Erik tried to fix that one point by saying 'two' (regions and periods) rather then three. I assume some of the folks taking from the second (non-Egyptian) region still followed 'the old faith' (using the more ancient names for their gods). That messes up some of the lore we have from Old Empires (IIRC), but screw it - that was some very uninformative (of RW mythology) writing. What Toril probably got was two avatars of each of the Sumer-lonian Pantheon - one for each aspect (call it 'hindsight', or call it 'fudging', or call it an 'unofficial retcon', but common sense should trump everything).
While I am quite prepared to have common sense trump everything in my games, there is absolutely no need for even an unofficial retcon until we have conclusively demonstrated that there exists an insoluable problem with canon.
As it stands, I think I can estimate the era during which the Bukhara Spires were open on Earth (or Earth-analogue), for how long and at which approximate times the Imaskari took their slaves without encountering any logical or canonical problems.
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
Funny thing is, we have to be highly selective in how we apply this type of backwards-engineering of lore: Note that it says they brought slaves back to Abeir-Toril.
Abeir-Toril is, no matter the edition, the correct term for the crystal sphere where the world of Toril resides. The name both translates to 'Cradle of Life' and refers to the two most important worlds there.
For anyone interested in sending a postcard to the Imaskari slavers, their residence at this period of time was most probably:
[Unknown, Nemrut] or [Bhaluin, Semphar]
Lower Imaskar
[Former] Empire of Imaskar
Faerun
Toril
Abeir-Toril |
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Eladrinstar
Learned Scribe
USA
196 Posts |
Posted - 21 Feb 2012 : 18:50:20
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Also Mulan are an ethnic group with one "look" to them, so even though they came from two sources and later split into two groups worshiping different pantheons, would it make sense to say for a time the Egyptians and Mesopotamians the Imaskar brought over intermarried with each other, and that Untherites are descended from both, just as Mulhorandi are descended from both?
Does anyone know if Mulhorand and Unther are originally Ed's? I know the placenames likely are (all those TH sounds, and the names of the cities sound very Realmsian) I just suspect that all this real-world influence may not have been his idea. |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 21 Feb 2012 : 18:56:09
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@Icelander:
While I agree with you in-principle, I just wanted to point out that the retcons to the setting could possibly allow us to 'stretch' certain canon. Anytime the words 'Abeir-Toril' are used, we now have a bit of leeway in how we want to use the lore (but only in certain instances, like this one).
Strangely, they created Abeir, but then didn't bother to do anything with it besides using it as "FR's garbage pail". I have found dozens of ways to backwards-canonize it by finding past lore to link to it, but they simply didn't bother (except for Brian, with some little bit connecting the shifting geography of the ToT to it).
Anyhow, have fun with this project. I know I spent several years trying to work all of this out (and Gray and George before me), and every time a new product (or article) came-out, it immediately crapped on all my theories, so be prepared to be very upset when 5e is released.
quote:
Originally posted by Eladrinstar
Also Mulan are an ethnic group with one "look" to them, so even though they came from two sources and later split into two groups worshiping different pantheons, would it make sense to say for a time the Egyptians and Mesopotamians the Imaskar brought over intermarried with each other, and that Untherites are descended from both, just as Mulhorandi are descended from both?
It says so in my quoted passage above.
quote:
Originally posted by Eladrinstar
Does anyone know if Mulhorand and Unther are originally Ed's? I know the placenames likely are (all those TH sounds, and the names of the cities sound very Realmsian) I just suspect that all this real-world influence may not have been his idea.
Yes, they were, but not to the extent Old Empires pushed them.
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"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 21 Feb 2012 18:58:18 |
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 21 Feb 2012 : 18:56:57
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quote:
Originally posted by Eladrinstar
Also Mulan are an ethnic group with one "look" to them, so even though they came from two sources and later split into two groups worshiping different pantheons, would it make sense to say for a time the Egyptians and Mesopotamians the Imaskar brought over intermarried with each other, and that Untherites are descended from both, just as Mulhorandi are descended from both?
Some interbreeding is inevitable over all these centuries, but, on the other hand, the Untheri and Mulhorandi of today do look distinct and their cultures are obviously extremely distinct (and astonishingly like their ancient cultures).
Culturally, the presence of living gods (who seem extremely traditional) will account for the 'stasis' that their fashions have been in. The different looks could be due to breeding with different Faerunian peoples or they could be due to the slave populations having been kept somewhat seperately. I imagine that with two very religious populations, there were many clashes over religion and culture.
The war that the two fought almost immediately after establishing their own nations is evidence that there was bad blood dating back to their imprisonment. So, perhaps less interbreeding than otherwise might have been.*
*Ordinarily, two thousand years in captivity would result in all vestiges of original culture or ethnic identity being lost.
quote:
Originally posted by Eladrinstar
Does anyone know if Mulhorand and Unther are originally Ed's? I know the placenames likely are (all those TH sounds, and the names of the cities sound very Realmsian) I just suspect that all this real-world influence may not have been his idea.
Almost none of the direct cultural 'lifting' was his idea. |
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Lord Karsus
Great Reader
USA
3746 Posts |
Posted - 21 Feb 2012 : 19:43:52
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quote:
Originally posted by Icelander
Abeir-Toril is, no matter the edition, the correct term for the crystal sphere where the world of Toril resides. The name both translates to 'Cradle of Life' and refers to the two most important worlds there.
-Abeir-Toril is/was the name of the planet itself, not the Crystal Sphere. The Crystal Sphere is simply 'Realmspace' in Spelljammer sources, metagame and in-game. |
(A Tri-Partite Arcanist Who Has Forgotten More Than Most Will Ever Know)
Elves of Faerûn
Vol I- The Elves of Faerûn
Vol. III- Spells of the Elves
Vol. VI- Mechanical Compendium |
Edited by - Lord Karsus on 21 Feb 2012 19:44:19 |
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Jakk
Great Reader
Canada
2165 Posts |
Posted - 21 Feb 2012 : 20:10:14
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quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
I would also like to apologize to all the good folk of Candlekeep at this time, for having put up with ME for the past 5 years.
I claim this apology as my own, but I can only cover 3 of those years. Mark, you've been far more valuable to this community than I think you realize. When I learned about your house fire, the first image that entered my mind was the monastery library burning in The Name of the Rose, particularly when you described your "baked hard drive"; the loss of so much of your homebrew Realmslore was a significant loss to this community, whether we realize it or not. Just keep posting your ideas here... Ed and THO have at least hinted that you've been correct more often than not, so keep the hypotheses coming.
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
We also don't know how or when the Vedic pantheon (at least a few members of it) entered Realmspace. I had some theories in the old WotC/Utter East thread about them, but once again, nothing canon. I turned them into the Lords of Creation, which is part of the K-T panthoen (the Torillian version of the Celestial Bureaucracy tends to absorb all other deities it comes into contact with within its infra-structure). Ergo, the K-T (CB) pantheon actually consists of several smaller pantheons, and uses Oriental-deity names for Torillian powers as well (like Cyric, who they call Sirhivatizangpo, or Bhaal, who they called Niynjushigampo).
This is the kind of stuff I'm referring to above. I seem to remember you having a similar theory regarding the Norse pantheon (of whom Tyr is the only member still (widely) known in Toril)... do you have any ideas as to what happened to the rest of them? I had a hypothesis for returning them related to the Spellplague that I posted somewhere in the Keep sometime in 2009, I think... but don't search by date if you go looking for it. I had connected them to a Northmen settlement of "the continent erroneously known as Anchoromé"... and I may or may not have used the accent on the e, for search purposes. 
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
@Icelander:
While I agree with you in-principle, I just wanted to point out that the retcons to the setting could possibly allow us to 'stretch' certain canon. Anytime the words 'Abeir-Toril' are used, we now have a bit of leeway in how we want to use the lore (but only in certain instances, like this one).
Strangely, they created Abeir, but then didn't bother to do anything with it besides using it as "FR's garbage pail". I have found dozens of ways to backwards-canonize it by finding past lore to link to it, but they simply didn't bother (except for Brian, with some little bit connecting the shifting geography of the ToT to it).
Anyhow, have fun with this project. I know I spent several years trying to work all of this out (and Gray and George before me), and every time a new product (or article) came-out, it immediately crapped on all my theories, so be prepared to be very upset when 5e is released.
Part of me suspects that this is the point to all of these revisions... every time something is found that makes sense, it must be changed. No, that's too cynical and far too  in general. Anyway, I'd love to hear these theories, assuming you still recall them all. The way you describe it, and I'm inclined to agree, it's almost as if the Realms obeys Humean non-causality... if A then B, A, therefore C. I have a few different names for this sort of logic, but they're nearly all potentially inflammatory... 
At any rate, there have been so many contradictions added to the lore in the last three editions that, in the absence of my older FR books, I'm almost prepared to go back and hide in Golarion until Ed's FR book comes out at the end of the year. However, that raises a good point in itself, and brings this post back on topic...
What, if any, connection is there between the D&D-Earth Ancient Egypt, the Torilian Mulhorand, and Osirion of Golarion? What if Osirion was founded by planar migrants from ancient Egypt, and the Imaskari slaves of this culture were taken from Golarion? Osirion was clearly named for Osiris, and yet Golarion has no trace of the Egyptian pantheon. Perhaps the gods knew that the slaves taken by the Imaskari were in far greater need of their protection, and that the other gods of Golarion would watch over their people on that world.
Thoughts? Lore sources that can confirm or refute this idea? In particular, lore sources that can shed light on the fates of the other members of these pantheons are most welcome, and I know this particular topic has been touched on before. |
Playing in the Realms since the Old Grey Box (1987)... and *still* having fun with material published before 2008, despite the NDA'd lore.
If it's comparable in power with non-magical abilities, it's not magic. |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 21 Feb 2012 : 21:14:08
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My thoughts? I could go on forever LOL
I don't want to ruin Icelanders thread (I have a very bad habit of doing that), so I will quote you and start a new one. |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 21 Feb 2012 21:14:32 |
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 21 Feb 2012 : 23:04:05
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quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
@Icelander:
Anyhow, have fun with this project. I know I spent several years trying to work all of this out (and Gray and George before me), and every time a new product (or article) came-out, it immediately crapped on all my theories, so be prepared to be very upset when 5e is released.
I'd be very surprised if 5e is at all concerned with what went before, so they are unlikely to much around much in the ancient past. And it's not as if I anticipate that I'll be the target demographic, so I expect that 5e will change little for me.
If possible, I want to make sense of the lore about the past and see if it can be synthesised into a coherent picture, but as for what happens past 1375 DR (or earlier, if my game is set earlier), that's up to the players, not a publisher. |
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Jakk
Great Reader
Canada
2165 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2012 : 06:26:11
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quote:
Originally posted by Icelander
If possible, I want to make sense of the lore about the past and see if it can be synthesised into a coherent picture, but as for what happens past 1375 DR (or earlier, if my game is set earlier), that's up to the players, not a publisher.
And this is the way it should always be. That's all I'm going to say; I had a longer post here, but it started flogging dead horses, and I don't want to be a party to that particular fetish any longer. |
Playing in the Realms since the Old Grey Box (1987)... and *still* having fun with material published before 2008, despite the NDA'd lore.
If it's comparable in power with non-magical abilities, it's not magic. |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2012 : 18:21:09
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quote:
Originally posted by Icelander
I'd be very surprised if 5e is at all concerned with what went before, so they are unlikely to much around much in the ancient past. And it's not as if I anticipate that I'll be the target demographic, so I expect that 5e will change little for me.
I thought the same about 4e (the 'light lore' approach), and one of the very first official articles on the DDi - the one on the Moonshaes - completely nuked my one CKC article.
And the Utter East vingette in the GHotR went in an entirely different direction then the 54 page(!) workshop-thread on the WotC site.
It got to the point I was afraid to share my thoughts - I put a target on anything I talked about.  |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 23 Feb 2012 23:26:57 |
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Brian R. James
Forgotten Realms Game Designer
USA
1098 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2012 : 23:19:54
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quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
It got to the point I was afraid to share my thoughts - I put a target on anything I talked about.
I still enjoy your musings Mark, even if I don't always agree them 100%. It's clear that you and others like Icelander share a deep passion for the Realms, and I hope to see both of you published in the future. |
Brian R. James - Freelance Game Designer
Follow me on Twitter @brianrjames |
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2012 : 00:10:44
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Now, for the Untheri.
As noted somewhere, I identified among the Untheri pantheon gods which originated with the Sumerians*, Akkadians (central Mesopotamia 3100 BCE-2170 BCE, central and south Mesopotamia 2170 BCE - ca 800 BCE), Assyrians** and Amorites (nomads to the NW, on the Levant ca 2400 BCE - 2100 BCE, central and south Mesopotamia 2000 BCE -1595 BCE).
Untheri names also suggest a heavy preponderance of Eastern Semitic linguistic dominance, most likely specifically Akkadian. Sumerian names are also plentiful, but canon has examples of Assyrian and Amorite names as well, albeit not as common. The relative preponderance of Sumeric influence would tend to place the period earlier rather than later, with 2200 BCE to 1600 BCE all being possible, but with strong indications that at least one large population was taken from an urban center which still spoke some Sumerian on a daily basis, which would place it in south Mesopotamia before 2000 BCE.
Perhaps most vitally, there are no canon names that I can find that are exclusively Elamite, Hittite/Hatti or Hurrian/Mitanni, suggesting that the Untheri probably descended from peoples of Mesopotamia before the arrival of said groups.
Neither the mythology nor the language bears traces of Kassite influence, either, but that is not conclusive, as that language is little enough known so that some aspects of Unther which differs from Ancient Babylon could just as easily be the result of Kassite influence as it could result from contact with the Imaskari, the other Mulan or greater Faerun.
I thought I recalled a statement from Ed or another author stating specifically that the area from which the Untheri were taken was 'Babylonia', which would narrow our timeframe and geographic area, but I am unable to locate the source. In any event, the linguistic and mythographic analysis combines to place us somewhere around the area that would later become Babylon and extends into the timeframe of the establishment of the city in 1867 BCE.
Given the importance of the Amorite god Marduk in the Untheri pantheon, but with the fact that he has not yet become the ruler of it in mind, I would prefer to set the of the last slave-taking at least two generations after the Amorite invasion, but no later than 1700 BCE.
*Living in south Mesopotamia from ca 4000 BCE to ca 1500 BCE, at which time they had become completely merged with the other ethnic groups in the area, primarily Akkadians and other Semitic-speakers, and the mythologies, languages and cultures had merged. The date chosen as the end of the existence of 'Sumerians' in Mesopotamia is mostly based on the idea that at this point, it is extremely implausible that there were native speakers of Sumerian left there. Sumerian did survive as a ceremonial, religious, scientific and litarary language for much longer, however.
**North Mesopotamia ca 2400+ BCE - 608 BCE, extensive raiding and founding of colonies in central Mesopotamia between ca 1950 BCE and 1900 BCE, possible service as mercenaries dating from that time in central and south Mesopotamia and until at least ca 1390 BCE, at which time they established their own hegemony over central Mesopotamia.
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2012 : 08:01:49
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The balance of the analysis, then, puts the Egyptian population as being from Lower Egypt, most likely somewhere between Khmun (Hermiopolis) and Djet-Sut (Mephis), though all the way down to the delta is possible, assuming that the cultural influence of the first Nome penetrated fairly deeply down there. The time period, sometime near the end of the Old Kingdom, with the beginning of the Middle Kingdom period being a possibility. Not before 2200 BCE and not after 1700 BCE. In many ways, between 2150 BCE and 1750 BCE best fits the evidence, with the geographic focus having been in the area ruled by the Theban dynasty (11th).
The Mesopotamian population most probably comes from the area of Sumer after the Semitic 'invasions' and reaching up to the beginning of central Mesopotamia, with a strong possibility that a significant segment came from the city of Babylon itself. The time period, not before 2500 BCE and not after 1700 BCE, with the major population likely to date from after 2170 BCE and a strong possibility that a large segment of the people came from a period after 2000 BCE and most likely before 1700 BCE.
As we can see, the time periods converge very nicely and the evidence thus supports there were indeed two Bukhara Spires with their Earth terminus in different regions, but the reason for why the Mulan people come from 'two different time periods' is not exotic temporal manipulation, but simply that the end and the beginning of the 400 year period during which they took slaves (according to GHotR) did actually represent different time periods and eras in Earth history.
Now, where were the locations of the two Bukhara Spires? The Imaskari would want to locate them conveniently close to population centers, but in some place where accidental discovery by natives is extremely unlikely. Two possibilities for this would be locating them in the sea near an inhabited coastline* or in a rarely traversed part of a desert which is nevertheless geographically close to a major populated area.
A multitude of reasons suggests to me that the Untheri were led into the ocean by the Great Enemy enslavers and thus came to associate Tiamat with all that was evil and opposed to their gods. Locating one Bukhara Spire in the coastal waters of the Persian Gulf just outside Sumer seems perfect. As for the Mulhorandi, either a similar arrangment in the Red Sea (or less likely, the Mediterranean) would do, or the 'red land' of the Libyan desert could have been used.
The Imaskari might have prefered dry land, but on the other hand, the Bukhara Spires were batrachi 'technology' and thus might have functioned better partially submerged. Also, at the technology level of Earth at this time, a 'wet' location was infinitely more secure. The Imaskari might not have had reason to fear a small incursion of Art-less humans from this world, but a full-scale invasion mounted by a powerful polity would at the very least have been extremely costly and annoying.
I prefer the Red Sea, as that is where I would put it, from a strategic and economic point of view.
The time frame, then, I tentatively identify as having extended from around 2161 BCE to 1749 BCE, with the focus of slave-taking being on different areas at different times. The astute observer will note that I am ascribing more than one historical 'fall' of a dynasty or empire to the predations of the Imaskari, which is both consistent with the likely effects of the kind of slave-taking that would be most economic** for numerically limited, but individually powerful Imaskari mages, as well as fitting the real world evidence, which in both cases saw stable and powerful empires 'fall' (or at least stumble for a century or two) for less-than-clear reasons which might have included population decline.
*With a simple floating bridge, easily created or transported by magic, being used to ferry slaves to the portal.
**Defeat, intimidate or control the leaders of a powerful society and demand or take tribute in the form of large populations of people, with obedience being enforced by the internal mechanisms of the pre-existing state. |
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Edited by - Icelander on 23 Feb 2012 10:09:11 |
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2012 : 15:09:26
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Now, for a non-canon* intermission, specifically for Markustay, Anthony Edwards and any other contributors to the delightful 'Ixinos, The Island of Warrior Women' netbook.
After the first successful experiments with portal-travel were carried out in Bukhara, research in the area gradually spread elsewhere in the Imaskari Empire. While safety concerns still loomed large with every Bukhara Spire that was potentially accessible by an extra-planar invader, the increasing magical and military might of the Empire made it practical and inevitable that numerous hubs of portal research were established.
Smaller portals and those traversing merely spatial distance on Toril itself and not the wider multiverse required less stringent security measures and there were few areas of the Imaskari dominions where such devices were not diligently, almost compulsively, studied, built, engineered, improved upon and experimented with.
Bukhara Spires proper, i.e. the massive bronze gates that could be used to transport armies or huge amount of goods over the Empire in the blink of an eye remained mostly a governmental/military monopoly, more because of the expense involved than any a consistent enforcement of a law to that effect over the millenia, but Artificers of private means would research and build smaller portals almost anywhere Imaskari lived.
Any place experimentation in planar travel was carried out required much more careful security than 'mere' extradimensional spaces or permanent shortcuts through Toril's spatial dimension, impressive though these may be and vital to the Imperial interests. While Bukhara theoretically offered near-perfect security, with isolated physical location and the genie-bound fortifications of the Howling Gap providing a natural barrier to any potential invading army of portal-borne threats, its importance to the area of portal research steadily diminished.
First of all, the very isolated location that made it perfect for the first research worked against it as the Imperial culture developed. While Artificers could easily travel by portal or other magic, their servants, slaves and even the occasional trader was not so lucky. The degree of urbanisation for the lower classes was therefore somewhat dependent on the vagaries of physical geography, even if the upper class had transcended it.
As the shepherds of Semphar hill-country, the hunters of the Limia uplands and the korobokuru of Shan Nala gradually (or suddenly) lost their independence and became either a part of the Imaskari underclass or their slave labour, Bukhara lost its importance as a trade stop. As a consequence, any Artificers who chose to live there would have had to import all goods and services beyond a certain minimum standard for a backwater town and thus had to accept a lower standard of living than they would enjoy in a city where the non-magical inhabitants had a more thriving economy.
Added to that, when Bukhara was founded and originally served as the headquarters for the dangerous first steps of batrachi portal research, it was not only the northernmost, but the westernmost settlement in Imaskari lands. If the Howling Gap was closed, an invading army coming through a portal would have had to either cross the Raurinshield or Godswatch Mountains, or, alternatively, take a detour of nearly a thousand miles before reaching Imaskari civilisation, allowing plenty of time for preparation of defences or flight.
The inexorable spread of Imaskari farms and villages over the fertile lands of the Raurin basin meant that before -7,500 DR, that distance was halved and before -7,100 DR, Bukhara was no longer a frontier outpost, but had acquired a hinterland of farmland and smaller settlements to the south, east and north. And fortification of the Howling Gap would make no difference to the ability of an invading army to rampage through these lands.
Gradually, too, subtle defences of magical and extradimensional nature began to enjoy more favour in Imaskar than such crude reliance on geographic strongpoints, albeit enhanced by magic, as that of the Howling Gap. Such defences against extraplanar attack could be erected in the urban areas of Imperial Imaskar and Artificers wishing to research portals could therefore afford to live where the economy was blooming, living standards were highest and culture was at its most advanced.
The growing metropolis of Inupras, as well as such rising cities as Raudor, Epem, Ciar and even Akcorme quickly outstripped Bukhara as centers of research in portals. Bukhara enjoyed somewhat of a renaissance as the establishment of new Imaskari lands to the north and the east made it again a stop on a vital trade route, but it never grew to rival the principal cities of the Empire again.
The catastrophic destruction of Inupras, to all appearances connected with imprudent use of portals, might have resulted in more stringent security standards and a return to using geographically isolated locations for such research, but years of chaos, dynastic strife, the fracturing of the Empire into two realms and the consequent collapse of overland trade with the provinces that became Upper Imaskar combined to reduce Bukhara from the status of mildly prosperous trading town to a bucolic backwater at the beginning of the Middle Kingdoms era.
As the location of Bukhara's workshop and her tomb, the town saw periodic upswings in tourism and even pilgrimages, with many of the more scientifically- or scholarly-minded Artificers viewing Bukhara as rivaling the importance of First Lord Artificer and Emperor Umyatin**** for the establishment of their glorious civilisation. While for the most part these people had more in common with geneticists visiting the grave of Darwin than any religious movement, there were a few, mostly composed of Imaskari females of magical power, who approached the level of a cult of Bukhara.
Some of these continued to maintain the site of her first successful portal to a Prime Material world, the original Bukhara Spire. The location it led to was an insignificant oasis on a windy plain (or desert, depending on the climatic shifts) and very few human travellers were spotted there over the first few millenia of its existence. It was not a threat in any way and existed to the Imaskari of the Middle Kingdoms merely as an interesting historical artifacts, allowing one to travel briefly through the very first world gate built by their civilisation.
With the Silent Death and the subsequent Shartra-period, Lord Artificer Khotan, a learned and far-sighted man, remembered the world to which the first Bukhara Spire had allowed access. While the terminus of the existing portal was located in a very inconvenient place for large-scale transport of people through it*****, it was possible that these Art-less humans might somewhere be found in sufficient concentrations to justify the expense of building larger Bukhara Spires to enslave them in numbers.
The Imaskari learned about their target and selected their locations well, as noted above, and the callous, but practical, maneuver of Lord Artificer Khotan did indeed yield a measure of the economic prosperity for which he had hoped. Once the slave population had reached sufficient numbers and was self-sustaining******, the two Bukhara Spires that had been used to collect the Mulan were dismantled on the Earth-side. Reopening them would be possible, but would require an immense injection of magical energy and would have to be done from the Torilian side.
The Spire in Bukhara, however, was not dismantled. Even at this late date in Earth history (ca 1749 BCE), only occasional travelers passed it and they were prepared enough to accept a small village of Imaskari 'guards'/keepers/curators living in the oasis without questions or much curiosity.
During the 412 years that the Imaskari maintained some presence******* on Earth, they had amassed a fair store of knowledge about the situation there. In particular, the members of Bukhara's 'cult' had grown fascinated with this complex and rapidly changing world. The lack of dangerous monsters in the oceans made shipping by nonmagical means a much less daunting prospect and had in the few short centuries that the Imaskari had been watching stimulated a bewildering array of cultures and societies over an ever increasing area, already larger than Imaskar and ten times as diverse and vital.
Two things in particular united these disaffected citizens of Imaskar. They had long deplored the male-dominated society of Imaskar, a hold-over from the days of warrior chieftains and solidified by the warrior-wizard Umyatin's ascension as Emperor and Lord Artificer. And they were at odds with the total rejection of divine guidance embraced by the majority of the Imaskari elite. Thus, they had established Bukhara, a potent symbol of the value and importance of Imaskari female Artificers, as their own guardian spirit.
The cultists were well aware that regardless of the potential divinity of Bukhara, she would be unable to answer their prayers while they dwelt inside Imaskar proper, due to the powerful arcane fields blocking the influence of the divine (and on Earth, no god seemed to manifest or respond to prayers directly). In addition, while they all respected Bukhara and considered her worthy of emulation, many of them yearned for a more transcendent religious experience, a belief in a higher force than any ancestor or cultural hero, no matter how important.
From the beliefs of the Durpari and the various mountain tribes, the cultists had syncretised versions of the Mother of Earth and the Silver Sister of the Sky. In addition, other nature gods of female aspect were worshipped by some of them, representatives not only of such natural phenomena as the the Calm Depths of the Blue or The Animals of the Wild, but of huntresses, shepherdesses and the mistress of the home and hearth. Few of these divinities had much resonance with these sophisticated, educated and magic-using scions of the upper classes of Imaskari society. They rarely did physical labour, did not hunt or keep animals of their own and their stewardship of the home and hearth was of the character of manager of servants (such mundane things being tasks for lower class people, not Imaskari of either sex).
On Earth, however, they found peoples who worshipped gods much more to their liking. There was an ancient and rich island civilisation to the west of their oasis, not far off the coastline where one of the two civilisations where the Imaskari had taken their Mulan slaves was located. There a Mother Goddess was popular among the people and she was joined by a pantheon of mostly female powers, including a Mistress of the Animals and most excitingly of all, a goddess of wisdom, protection, learning, eternity and renewal, whose worship ascribed to her lore that the Imaskari recognised as magic.
They called her many names, including Mistress of Wisdom, Mother of Magic, Cradle of the World or the Mother of Snakes. Some combined her with the fertility goddess of the Mother of Earth as well as the Mistress of Animals and even the Silver Sister and the Calm Depths into one goddess that they called the Great Mother Goddess.
If the ecstatic cultists interpreted their findings primarily in light of their own inclinations and desires, leading them to disregard or actively denigrate other powers in the pantheon that represented more masculine traits as well, their sins are no worse than those of any amateur religious anthropologists motivated by political agendas.
Some of the more warlike of the Imaskari cultists, who, while fascinated by a divinity that they could identify with and that held out hope for answers to the deeper mysteries of the world, were more interested in reports coming from an area to the far north and west of their oasis. In region concentrated in a valley between two rivers there thrived a warlike culture of tall, powerful people.
The smallest of them rode their stunted horses while they followed their herds of cattle, caprids and horses, but their main occupation was making war on settled neighbours. Their way of war was founded in seizing livestock and other desirable goods with lightning raids while whooping warshouts and brandishing their weapons, challenging champions of their enemies to fight them in single combat.
The larger and richer warriors would often have a light war chariot drawn by two horses, either simply to transport him to some prominent place on the battlefield and wave his weapons in challenge or, if he had horses capable of pulling a greater load, carrying a younger warrior as a driver while the champion could ply his bow or throw spears with lethal effects while on the move.
Aside from bows and thrown javelins, important weapons were bronze axes and long spears tipped with cruel sharp bronze. The most dangerous of the warriors were those slim, rangy persons light enough to be carried by a single small pony and agile and skilled enough to use a bow from horseback without saddle or stirrup (neither of which were known to them or the Imaskari at this time). These people were also coming to attach a superstitious degree of reverence to the personal dagger********, often used to settle interpersonal disputes in a permanent manner.
Their gods were gods of weapons, victory, glory, thunder and the sun and sky. In short, they were very similar to the rest of the peoples that populated most of the vasts steppes of this world, not all that unlike the Taangan of Toril apart from the greater wealth represented by their cattle and, for that matter, tediously resembling a slightly more mobile version of the early Imaskari and the mountain tribes that were to later form the military of the early Empire. Their hair might be of a more varied colour and their skin lighter, but even in this they merely resembled certain tribes around the Lake of Mists and recently the northern parts of Imaskar, not to mention the now-vanished (interbred) hunters of the uplands of Limia.
Why, then, did these people so excite the Imaskari wizardesses? It was simply that their women rode to war with the same frequency as the men and were accorded respect and authority according to their valour. While the strongest warriors and those most successful in the foot duel with dagger, axe or spear were usually men, owing to their greater upper body strength, the ranks of the lethal riders who could shoot arrows at full gallop or spear a man from a moving horse were dominated by the slighter women. Their war leaders and chieftains were as likely to be women as men.
The Disciples of Bukhara, as the 'cult' had taken to refering to itself, took to spending a lot of time on the Art-less world. They were mostly too cautious and aware of the potential backlash by the reigning Lord Artificer if they were found to have endangered the Empire to interfere with societies on any large scale. Instead, individuals simply sojourned among the religiously congenial people on the island realm or the warrior women, whom the Disciples had taken to calling 'Amazons', in a common trade language of the island kingdom*********.
Participation in religious ceremonies without being able to sense the presence or guidance of the goddess proved not enough for the Disciples, however. They theorised if enough worshippers of their now-adopted goddesses could gather outside the Imaskari Planar Barrier, the goddesses would manifest or at the very least grant visions, spells and protection to their worshippers. Dozens of Disciples proved unable to prove the truth of these hypotheses, even while praying outside the estimated boundary of the effect, around the Lake of Mists or to the west in the lands adjoining the Jhaamdathans. The obvious conclusion, reached only after several generations of Disciples had exhausted all other conceivable methods**********, was that more worshippers on Toril were needed.
The risks of abducting or worse, inviting, a substantial population of Goddess worshippers from the other world to Imaskar were staggering. It was hard to imagine how such an act could be kept from the ruling elite and with it being done for reasons of religious motivation and intended to facilitate either emigration or full-blown societal revolution***********, it was not likely to be well received by them.
It was true that since the closing of the large Bukhara Spires to the world without Art, interest in that world had died down to no more than a flicker, with the Disciples among the very few who even remembered its existence. On the other hand, how would anyone hide the emergence of a flock of people in the middle of the Empire from the eagle-eyed scriers of the Lord Artificer?
The choice of waiting or finding an alternate method was taken from the Disciples as a volcanic eruption on the island kingdom caused their crops to fail and most of their fleet to be destroyed. From the wealthiest realm on the Art-less Inner Sea, they went to an island of starvation and chaos. Their warlike neighbours on the northern mainland had become a naval power almost to rival them during the time while the Disciples watched them and while they were also reeling from the 'Black Spring', their fleets had not been damaged to the same degree and it was certain that one of the local warlords would soon feel confident enough to sail to the island and sack its legendary riches.
The several dozen Disciples leapt into action, their misgivings and caution swept aside by the necessity for swift action. Some, those who had recently sojourned on the island, used their acquintanceship with local figures to convince as many of the population as possible to join them on a journey to a new land.
Others, aware that with this bold act on the part of their sisters, the odds of this world being forever closed to them increased markedly, went among the Amazons and recruited as many adventurous young warriors as possible, in particular those who had already formed friendships with Imaskari women there on sojourn and learned to worship the goddesses that they favoured.
The most important part of the operation was the renting of a great fleet among the minor potentates and more-or-less pirates of the archipelago to the northwest and the many small islands of the sheltered bay to the north. The crews were well paid with Imaskari copper, gold and precious stones, these being much more valuable in this world than Toril. In return, they agreed to travel to the belaguered island and transport a great mass of refugees to the eastern shore of the inland sea which was connected to their own sheltered arm of the Inner Sea by a narrow strait in the north. From there, the warriors of the Amazons would escort them overland to the Bukhara Spire at the oasis.
By contrast, the Imaskari end of the operation was not complex. The creation of a small one-way portal which one person at a time could enter and which would transport them to an island on Toril's Inner Sea was not beyond the means of a group of a couple of dozen upper-class Imaskari. The location of the island was somewhat close to the Jhaamdathan Empire for comfort, but the surrounding seas were much too fierce for the tiny river vessels of the Jhaamdathan 'navy' and even if they obtained galleys such as those used on the world without Art, no plausible trade route would have any cause to venture close enough to even see the island as more than a distant shore.
The refugees from the island kingdom were both men and women, but the Amazon women chosen to escort them were exclusively female and the Disciples of Bukhara did not find it overly difficult to convince the surviving men to accept a position as slaves to the women. They were, after all, archmages among people without Art and the commanders of the only army there. They had also plucked the people from an increasingly grim existence on the island and been able to select from a desperate throng of refugees only those who professed to share their religion and beliefs entirely.
The crew of the single-banked rowing galleys who brought them from the island were a different matter. If allowed to go back to their homes, they were likely to tell a story of the elite of the island kingdom escaping to a certain shore. In the telling, it was certain that the story would expand to include the elite carrying not only religious and cultural artifacts with them, but also all the portable wealth of the island, which was legend. And it would not take a very bright pirate king or minor potentate to follow the tracks of a thousand people to the oasis.
And an invasion of a bucolic army of gold-hungry pirates through the original Bukhara Spires would quickly become known to the Lord Artificer and from there, the full details of the scheme would not long escape him. So the Disciples did the best they could. Unwilling to massacre the crews who demonstrated courage, skill and marvellous ingenuity in transporting so many so far without using any magic, the Disciples offered them yet more treasure to join them on their march and settle with them in a new land. If any were not persuaded by the lure of treasure, the unspoken threat of the bows, spears and axes of the Amazons and the mysterious death-dealing powers of the robed females would have spoken even louder.
The Disciples made it with their charges to the oasis and back to Toril. They began to dispatch the new settlers through the one-way gate, at a very slow pace due to the limitations of the design************. Having come to the conclusion that the men of the island kingdom offered more than enough men for their new realm, they were uninterested in making the former mariners part of their adopted people.
Loading them down with the promised treasure (for the Disciples were an honourable group), they instructed the mariners to make use of another early Bukhara Spire, this one opening on Toril, in a warm cove of ancient Kolophoon, one of the former dominions of the batrachi. As it was now located some distance away from the sandy beeches of the landwyrm-infested peninsula to the west of the Alamber, they were advised to take rafts with them and beware of the sahugin.
Of the Disciples, many went through the one-way portal to take part in building their new community. Others, either not wanting to leave Imaskar yet, or intending to travel there overland, stayed behind to destroy the one-way portal and eliminate all traces of where it had led.
Some rumours of the events related above must have reached the Lord Artificer, for of the Disciples who remained in Imaskar, many were arrested or quietly confined by their families and many more were married off to loyal Artificers, 'offered' governmental posts in distant provinces from their former friends and where they could easily be watched or suffered similar fates.
The stewardship of the Bukhara Spires was placed with War-Artificer Vilyatan, an implacable and powerful warlord and wizard, who had earned a fearsome reputation extending the bounds of the Empire to the south and east and then ferreting out lingering disloyalty to the sole Emperor and Lord Artificer in these new provinces.
The Disciples of Bukhara dwindled for a century or so and eventually no more of the Imaskari branch of the organisation would magically visit the island that they had expended so much to settle. The ones who had emigrated to the island quickly stopped using the term for themselves, prefering instead to be refered to as priestesses of the Great Mother Goddess or one of her aspects. The last visit by an Imaskari wizardess happened in -3,615 DR, when Artificer Yuara came there to die, and at that time, she believed that she was the last of the true Disciples of Bukhara.
It appears that either none of the Disciples who was arrested ever gave up the location of the settlement or the Lord Artificer did not feel it was worth the Empire's time to eradicate it, as no War-Artificer led armies ever darkened its shores, not even after the establishment of the fortress of Metos not all that many hundreds of miles away.
The valiant mariners, or those of them that survived, quickly discovered that the landwyrm-infested land where they had made landfall was neither fertile nor safe. Incredibly, some of the women from the island kingdom had formed attachments with them, and they were thus not wholly doomed to extinction, at least not if they were to find food and shelter. To the south they managed to find more verdant lands, as well as wood enough to ford the river they found, and they also found friendly locals living there.
Language difficulties made extensive interaction difficult, these people had no interest in coinage with no immediate utility as a form of barter and the mariners were not in any condition to make war after their immersion in the water and fight with sahuagin and landwyrms, but they left these handsome mahogny-skinned people better fed, rested, with directions to coastal lands to the west eschewed by their friendly hosts and a few more female companions, oddly determined to follow them to their new homes. Gifts of precious stones were appreciated more than attempts to press cold hard copper and gold on their hosts and the two peoples parted in friendhip.
Upon reaching their promised land, mostly by floating rafts along the protected waters of the bay they occupied, they found it hostitable and homelike. Along the way, they had encountered many tribes of the handsome mahogny people, sometimes picking up mates and sometimes remaining behind to wed.
Even so, the first generation of men mostly did not wed, but instead found other outlets for their time and energy... in art, crafts and exploration. Those who ranged the furthest found that some people from the Empire to the west of a ridge of mountains had emigrated, lacking any taste for rule by distant psiarchs. Thus, while most of the mariners who made their long journey to a new world died without heirs, the sons of their luckier friends found that there were more than enough women to wed, especially as many of the men seemed to have a terminal case of heroism in facing the dangers of the Inner Sea in only those modest proto-galleys they had managed to construct.
*Which nevertheless takes good care not to contradict canon and serves to explain some rather odd, but nevertheless canon, things appearing in early 2e lore (FR10 Old Empires, FR15 For Gold and Glory). Basically, Chessentan culture was/is astonishingly Hellenic for a world without any evidence of the specific confluence of factors that produced real-world Greeks and judging by their names, their language was/is in some degree a close analogue of Ancient Greek. As they are described as 'Mulan'** and supposed to have spoken Untheric until recently (ca 200 years ago), with the Faerunian languages with which they came in contact not resembling Greek in the least***, this suggests some untold story.
**More or less a common descriptor for people stolen by the Imaskari from 'the world without Art', not necessarily a unique ethnic identifier (as evidenced by the Untheri and Mulhorandi both being Mulan, but nevertheless being distinct in appearance as well as culture)
***As far as can be determined, none of Turami (Modern or Ancient), Jhaamdathan or the modern Chondathan have naming patterns remotely similar to Ancient Greek ones.
****Significantly, not an especially popular (or at least widely spoken) view while Lord Artificer Umyatin or his immediate heirs lived.
*****Not to mention that it was among the smallest Bukhara Spires ever built, being closer in size to ordinary one-person portals of modern Faerun (or indeed Imaskar at its height) than to the massive edifices built to allow military travel or large-scale economic utilisation of resources.
******Born slaves are usually less troublesome than captured ones, meaning that given a choice, slavemasters will prefer to breed their own. This is only cost-effective if there is underutilised farmland lying fallow, however, because otherwise the value of the labour of the new slaves will not offset their feeding costs. The particular situation in which Lower Imaskar found itself in, however, is a perfect example of a situation where an initial injection of human capital is necessary, but which then becomes largely self-sustaining and the capital (slave population) will grow at exponential rate until the underutilised land has been fully reclaimed.
*******This is not to say that they settled it or were ever there in great numbers. Just that at different times during this period, Imaskari spies, infiltrators, scholars, diplomats, traders and slavers made occasional excursions there.
********Usually as long as largest single piece of bronze that their infrastructure would allow them to cast.
*********Useful throughout the eastern end of that world's Inner Sea, as well as the language of voyagers who sailed through a narrow strait into another sea from which the lands of the Amazons were only a short distance away.
**********Some of them managed to receive contact and even spells from the Earthmother and several of the other goddesses with clear Faerunian presence, but as the theorists among them would assert with considerable force, these effects were neither more powerful than the arcane magic that they already wielded nor substantially different in kind. Once they had managed to reach true Goddesses, they would know a different kind of power, as well as communion with wiser and more enlightened beings.
***********The Disciples never had a centralied leadership and their eventual goals varied somewhat. Some of them wanted to establish a new homeland for Imaskari women far away from the Empire, some wanted to transform society in Imaskar, either to make the sexes fully equal or to establish the primary of women. Still others wished to preserve either or both of the cultures found on the world without Art while they worked to discover the source of whatever force inhihibted both arcane and divine might there and circumvented it, in order to emigrate to this new world.
************It was carefully constructed to be affordable to a small group, difficult to detect with scrying or other magic and almost impossible to track to its destination. Rapid deployment of forces through it was not a priority. |
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!
Forgotten Realms fans, please sign a petition to re-release the FR Interactive Atlas
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Edited by - Icelander on 23 Feb 2012 15:16:54 |
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Eladrinstar
Learned Scribe
USA
196 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2012 : 18:35:47
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| You're missing the part of the text referenced by footnotes/asterisk 2 and 3. |
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
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Eladrinstar
Learned Scribe
USA
196 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2012 : 22:54:04
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| Oh, wow, did not notice that. Footnote-ception. Well now I can read this without being utterly confused. |
Edited by - Eladrinstar on 23 Feb 2012 22:54:40 |
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Eladrinstar
Learned Scribe
USA
196 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2012 : 23:23:11
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| So wow, that's really fascinating. Minoans and Aegeans in the Realms, huh? So, if the Bukhara spire was still up an running in 1374, what year what it be on the Earth on the other side of it? |
Edited by - Eladrinstar on 23 Feb 2012 23:24:27 |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2012 : 23:35:17
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Unfortunately, AFAIK, you can only do three footnotes with html (¹²³). We could use the 'size' function, but then the numbers won't be floating near the top (though that's not so awful)
Of course, if Icelander is going to footnote his footnotes, we could do things like 1-1, 1-2, 1-3 - but that would still only give us nine (although I think Icelander and I might be the only folks here that would find that limiting). 
Interesting read, BTW. I keep forgetting about the Ixinos Netbook.
Has anyone answered my question about where the term 'Bukhara Spires' originates from?
@Brian - its all good. I really got paranoid when you killed Tan Chin in a core source. 
EDIT: I also theorized that the entire Taan-region is a 'thin spot' in the Weave - a place where it is much easier to pierce the veil between the worlds. There is some sort of archfey or primal spirit (really, whats the difference?) below the Taan - Hro'nyewachu, and I think this region may be where the Fey did their 'mass exodus' from Toril to the Feywild (which either caused the 'thin spot', or it was chosen because of the thin spot (Huge Gates being easier to open there). |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 23 Feb 2012 23:46:23 |
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 24 Feb 2012 : 11:57:57
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quote:
Originally posted by Eladrinstar
So wow, that's really fascinating. Minoans and Aegeans in the Realms, huh? So, if the Bukhara spire was still up an running in 1374, what year what it be on the Earth on the other side of it?
Earth-time and Toril-time appear to mostly synch for short periods of time, at least. That is, in 1987 it was 1357 DR in Toril and time seemed to pass at a similar rate then, at least.
I'd expect that in 1375 DR, the real world time was somewhere between 1999 and 2013, with the highest probability clustering around 2005 or so.
Also, I wouldn't say that there were Minoans and Aegeans in the Realms any more. It's been five thousand years and the groups that arrived weren't exactly typical Minoans and Aegeans even at the time of arrival. And let's not forget that ca 50% of the 'Minoans' were actually Kuma-Manych valley early Indo-European semi-nomadic chariot/horse warriors.
In the modern day, someone descended from a Sumerian has about equal chance of being a Saudi fighter pilot, Greek fisherman, New York stand-up comedian, Turkish chef, Bedouin herdsman, Bulgarian college professor, Romanian exotic dancer, New England longshoreman or a host of other things. Genetics is a poor guide to the kind of language or culture someone will exhibit 5,000 years later.
In the Ixinosian netbook, the original 'Amazon' culture died out sometime before -400 DR, only to be deliberately revived in accordance with pictograms and art found on the island (and magically translated script, as well). Thus, the language and culture are not even direct descendants, but direct copies.
The Aegeans, meanwhile, were male sailors, pirates and adventurers, not smiths, engineers and scholars. Maybe 50 of them managed to marry (or the equivalent) and have descendants. Their culture and language had effects out of all proportion to their numbers, with the land that became Chessenta being thinly populated at the time and the original mariners establishing what amounted to the first aristocracy of the area (which still persists), but the culture that emerged was very much Chessentan, not any specific real world one. |
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Edited by - Icelander on 24 Feb 2012 12:35:18 |
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 24 Feb 2012 : 13:01:36
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As it happens, I have a fairly firm mental picture of the early days of Chessenta in my head.
The only problem is, the infusion of real-world people there is a very non-canon solution for canon oddities, i.e. the island of Ixinos and its Greek-named Amazons and the Greek naming and culture in Chessenta.
Ought I retain this non-canon exlanation, or work on explaining this as an indigenous Realms development, convergent with Earth? |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 24 Feb 2012 : 21:20:36
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I would mix-and-match - do a little of both. There was an early influx of Mediterranean peoples (proto-Greeks), and the Grecco-Roman anomalies would have stemmed from the same (ethnic) peoples developing along the same lines. Not perfectly convergent, but the same folk ethnically, that 'grew up' under similar circumstances in a similar environment.
I have also played the 'god card' before in my musings: when a deity represents a specific cultural group, they bestow a certain amount of their own 'persona' on that culture (this is actually a two-way conduit that gets opened). When this culture (civilization, tribe, whatever) winds up on different worlds, the deity acts as a leveling-factor to some degree, and the cultures continue to develop on similar (but different) paths.
An Aside:
This is a real coincidence - last night, while responding to this thread, I was watching Supernatural, and the episode was about the Amazons.
Bizarrely, the show linked them to Harmonia. 
I knew there was a reason I disliked that show - they really crap all over mythology and folklore to tell their idiotic stories. The only reason why I even watched it was the theme of the episode, and the remote was too far away (at least 2-3 feet!)
However, while trying to figure-out the logic behind the episode (there was none), I checked out the Amazons, and they do have a very interesting history, and seem to have some authenticity.
So take THAT! realistic armor thread. |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 24 Feb 2012 21:25:09 |
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 24 Feb 2012 : 21:40:54
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quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
I would mix-and-match - do a little of both. There was an early influx of Mediterranean peoples (proto-Greeks), and the Grecco-Roman anomalies would have stemmed from the same (ethnic) peoples developing along the same lines. Not perfectly convergent, but the same folk ethnically, that 'grew up' under similar circumstances in a similar environment.
As far as I can see, there are no 'Roman' anomalies in the Realms. Anything that seems 'Roman-esque' can adequately be explained by such facts as there being only so many ways to design tools for certain jobs at certain levels of technology, economic power and infrastructure.
If there are occasional 'Roman' names, I have not noticed them*. The distinctive three name convention (praenomen, nomen, cognomen) of Roman aristocracy seems absent.
It might be necessary to propose some form of convergent evolution to explain the cultures of Kara-Tur and the same might serve (rather more easily) for the 'Spanish-ish' theme among Turmish names (and thus, some Chondathan ones).
*Many names in the Realms appear superficially related to the 'Romance' language family (3e Turmish, some Chondathan). None of them are specifically 'Roman', that I have seen, at least.
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
I have also played the 'god card' before in my musings: when a deity represents a specific cultural group, they bestow a certain amount of their own 'persona' on that culture (this is actually a two-way conduit that gets opened). When this culture (civilization, tribe, whatever) winds up on different worlds, the deity acts as a leveling-factor to some degree, and the cultures continue to develop on similar (but different) paths.
While gods can be an enormous influence for long-term stability of culture and language, any kind of extra-planar origin is an extra-planar origin. I do not shy away from introducing one when necessary, but I prefer to exhaust less fantastical options first, assuming that they can adequately explain all the evidence. After all, Toril was not entirely populated by planar migrants.
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
However, while trying to figure-out the logic behind the episode (there was none), I checked out the Amazons, and they do have a very interesting history, and seem to have some authenticity.
So take THAT! realistic armor thread.
Amazons have as much evidence* for their historical existence as harpies, griffons and cyclops-giants.
Cultures where some females were accounted the same status as prominent warriors and buried with the accountment of warriors existed. This doesn't make such cultures Amazons, make it certain or even likely that these cultures were what was being refered to by Greek legends about them** or make any of the statements about Amazon culture in the legends likely to apply to these cultures.
At the very least, there is an enormous difference between 'there were only female warriors' and '25% of those buried as warriors were female'. Even the tribes I specifically used in my non-canon speculation above never went above a proportion of 50% for female burials with warrior regalia, so even if all those buried with weapons represented warriors, the culture was never dominated by female warriors.
*Frequently the same sources.
**If they are, the legends were amazingly inaccurate in location, as almost none of them got it right, and they were also remarkable in that they didn't start telling these stories until ca 600 years after these cultures moved, died out or changed to the point they were no longer recognisable, which is a very long time for oral transmission of anything. Consider that in order for this to be true, the Greeks would have had to orally transmit tales of these cultures for hundreds of years before the fall of Troy and tell no stories of their own cultures in the same time period, suddenly start to tell legends of Troy and then, hundreds of years after that, suddenly decide to start telling the legends of these ancient cultures far away as if they were contemporary. Most likely, the tales were simply fiction, of the kind that gave us medieval stories about tribes of one-legged men travelling by giant leaps. |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 24 Feb 2012 : 23:33:54
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So you don't trust Wikipedia, eh?
Anyhow, I've already discussed my theories regarding K-T - theories built on top of those expounded by others - at least two of which went on to be WotC designers. There was an indigenous population very similar (physically) to our Earth Orientals, and an influx of interloper influences, which we've traced to Anok Imaskar (which came from Kuje, IIRC, and was made canon by Brian James).
Canonically, Imaskar both influenced and was influenced by cultures on other worlds, and Anok Imaskar is canonically both the last Age of Imaskar and the first Age of Shou-Lung. The most basic premise of The Forgotten Realms is its multitude of connections to many other worlds. They are not just canon, they are its underlying theme. We need not shy away from such explanations.
And I think you misunderstood on how I meant to apply the 'divine influence' card -
For example, suppose we have canon that a certain group of people (Mediterranean, for instance) appears in the Realms at a certain time, and are also from a certain era back on Earth. Then later, both groups seem to have 'advanced' to a higher order of civilization (perhaps developing certain technologies), and although they may have not had contact for centuries, perhaps millenia, they still seem to be similar enough for it to seem odd.
That leads one to suspect that the influence of one world on another was continuous over a VERY long period of time. This leaves us with two major avenues to pursue - that the influence was direct, and interloping went on longer then we realize (which could be the case - Ed has told us that many gates operate intermittently), or that the deities they brought with them are still dealing with both branches of that culture, and are influencing their development, albeit subtlety.
As for the Spanish naming conventions for Turmish - It is my gut-feeling that Ed was leaning for something akin to the inter-play of the North African Moors (Muslims) on early Spain. Turmish is very similar to Moorish Spain, especially in the dress and mannerisms, not to mention the ethnicity. If you've never seen the movie El Cid, you should - I highly recommend it.
Wonderful film; brilliant ending.
Anyhow, its fairly easy to say that some portion of the Spanish Armada was caught-up in the Earth-version of Umberlee's Fist, and deposited off the coast of Turmish (shipwreck situation). That should fudge the naming conventions enough. The technologically superior Spaniards would have asserted dominance over the less-sophisticated Turami in the area (probably around the time Cormyr was founded, and could possibly be traced back the Year of Sundered Webs).
EDIT: Interestingly enough, if we don't want to use a time-portal, and just go with the 'terrain swap' thing that happens whenever the Weave collapses, then in the fall of Netheril happened around 200 AD, when the Romans controlled most of Spain. Instead of the Spanish Armada (which just seemed convenient when I wrote that), you could say a group of Roman slave-ships traveling back to Rome passed through a section of instability and wound-up off the coast of Turmish.
That ties into my theory that opening very large or continuous (over long periods) Gates damages the veil between the worlds and creates thin-spots. The 'thin spot' this Roman fleet encountered could have been caused by earlier Imaskari forays into our world.
EDIT2: While that could possibly give us some people of Iberian ethnicity in Turmish, it wouldn't explain the Spanish naming conventions, because the culture was primarily Roman at that time. It may just be easier to chalk it up to coincidental/convergent evolution. |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 24 Feb 2012 23:58:34 |
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 25 Feb 2012 : 00:42:23
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quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
As for the Spanish naming conventions for Turmish - It is my gut-feeling that Ed was leaning for something akin to the inter-play of the North African Moors (Muslims) on early Spain. Turmish is very similar to Moorish Spain, especially in the dress and mannerisms, not to mention the ethnicity. If you've never seen the movie El Cid, you should - I highly recommend it.
Amn and Tethyr have Moorish Spain inspirations. There is little reason to expect them in Turmish, which is independent and has been for the past 1400 years and for most of it has had no reason to fear invasion in any serious way.
And I note that I had never seen any Spanish-sounding name for a Turmish person until the 3e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting introduce them. The single 2e Turami I can recall was named Akabar bel Akash, which would be perfectly logical for an unknown language with the potential for strong Untheric influence.*
The Turami are also not described as looking very Moorish and certainly not very Spanish. They are, to put it simply, adapted for life on plains near the equator, i.e. being tall, long-limbed, curly-haired and with dark mahogany skin, much like Nilotic people in our Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia.
In order to retain this appearance for all the time they've dwelt in more northern climes, we have to suppose that a) They were recently arrived when the Jhaamdathans found them** and b) Their typical diet supplied them with fairly high concentrations of Vitamin D and continues to do so.
For their language, I think I'm going to say that modern Turmish is heavily derived from Jhaamdathan, but through a very different path than Thorass and modern Chondathan were. Both Thorass and modern Chondathan have vague 'Romance-language' feels and I think that as long as I don't add to the 'Spanish-y- feel, I can get away with postulating modern Turmish as being a unique language not all that like Spanish, but just happening to have picked up a few names sounding similarly that retain a lot of popularity.
Given that Turami were previously probably split into several populations, I imagine that their 'original' language had already become several different ones by the time of Jhaamdath's fall, so their new homeland, if it was to be linguistically heterogenous, would have had to pick one and might well have consciously decided to emulate... almost anything. And since then, there are a lot of years.
*Ba'al or bel are Akkadian words for 'lord' and made it into a lot of Semitic languages in some form. Akabar and Akash both sound natural for derivation from Akkadian or related languages (in fact, both are fairly close to words or names in languages that in the real world did develop from Akkadian or related languages).
**More realistically, when Jhaamdath was founded, as a large-scale migration would have been noticable to the Jhaamdathans after that and thus they would not have 'found' them there, but encountered populations earlier.
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 25 Feb 2012 : 01:22:07
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You've read Tom Costa's article on FR languages*, I presume?
It helped me a lot.
You'll note that Turmic is of Thorass derivation, but far enough away from the others to stand alone.
*Dragon Annual #4 |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 25 Feb 2012 01:34:58 |
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 25 Feb 2012 : 04:03:48
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I have read his article, yes, but what's it based on? Ed? Costa's own musings, many of them before certain facts came to light?
I find many things there quite interesting, but other things clash rather harshly with published history and the way languages evolve.
For one thing, the Imaskari family is being equated to Turkic languages, but it includes under it some 6,000 years of history before the fall of Imaskar and 3,000 after it, not to mention incomprehensably vast geographies. There is little reason to expect all of these languages to share a source and even less to expect their familial relations to endure forever. The article is clearly written in an era where 'pre-dating the Mulhorand and Unther nations' was unimaginably ancient, but in fact anything called 'Imaskari' must have done so.
In addition, there is no canon support for supposing that Midani is related to Untheric. The only reason would be the fact that some of the languages distantly related to the ones that original Untheri would have spoken eventually, in the real world, evolved into Arabic.
In fact, we have conclusive proof that a proto-language of Alzhedo* existed on Toril contemporary with the establishment of the first Imaskari settlements and before it becomes an Empire. This happens millenia before any Mulan are seen on Toril.
Mujhuri, despite no doubt significant influence by the Mulhorandi of their conquerors and suzerains, appears to have retained a strong element which resembles Midani.
Supposing that a great number of Midani speakers arrived in the north-east parts of the Rauric and the Plains of Purple Dust (quickly making their way to more hospitable land) in -339 DR (by the Scattering of Fate) and the language and culture of these newcomers was fairly successful in displacing the 'original' Durpari*** settlers in Murghom and less so in Semphar, we have a fairly good explanation for these two lands.
The Mulhorandi would have exerted effective authority there between ca -1,490 DR to -1,087 DR, theoretical authority (with more or less enforcement) after that, and effective authority again between ca 205 DR to ca 922 DR (for Semphar, at least) and then sporadically for Murghom after that. The arriving Mujhuri are therefore in a good position to establish themselves in the new country, with Mulhorand quiescent for a long time after the Orcgate War and with what little external focus it had preoccupied the threat of the two empires to the north.
The Great Conflagration, the Summoned and the War of the Claws would then have provided ample distraction for the Mulhorandi, whose god-kings of the era were not over fond of involving their land in the outside world.
I would not put Midani in a language group with Untheric, but I might be persuaded that Durpari might share linguistic roots with a proto-Zakharan language and that another branch of this proto-language would also have been spoken by the original Imaskari.
On the other hand, the 10+ millenia since then** would have caused them to diverge far enough to make any relationship impossible to confirm. After all, on Earth, linguistic history past 5,000 years is largely the realm of frenzied guess-work. For all we know; Suomi, Icelandic, Cornish, Basque, Turkish, Mongolian and Berber might all have sprung from one language within the time-frame that this article attempts to trace Realms-languages.
As far as Costa's article collects canon found elsewhere, I find it invaluable. Where I think he has invented canon of his own, I am forced to discard it where it conflicts with later lore, at least if I can't reconcile it. That is, unless you can confirm that his article was ever regarded as Realms canon, as opposed to interesting speculation by a fan.
*Evidently far more related to Midani than any language the Untheri were likely to speak.
**Most without writing.
***Having existed around the Golden Water since at least -8,350 DR, the Durparis must have produced a great number of ethnic groups and languages (whether all of these were lost to history except the ones called Durpari today, is, of course, a matter for speculation), since that is enough time for almost any linguistic and physical evolution. So successive waves of them colonising Murghom and Semphar from -1922 to -1500 DR would not necessarily produce a culture, language or 'race' that in -339 DR (let alone today) much resembled the ones who remained behind. |
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The identity of the Mulan
