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Groo
Acolyte

2 Posts

Posted - 23 Apr 2022 :  20:53:16  Show Profile Send Groo a Private Message  Reply with Quote  Delete Topic
Hello my friends,

I am trying to build a campaign in the Golden Ages of Netheril, but I still have some doubts.

Mainly, how the men, orcs or other creatures can reach the enclaves, if they are floating. There are portals, ways to climb it (!), just magic?

Thanks

Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
Moderator

USA
36779 Posts

Posted - 23 Apr 2022 :  23:19:00  Show Profile Send Wooly Rupert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Groo

Hello my friends,

I am trying to build a campaign in the Golden Ages of Netheril, but I still have some doubts.

Mainly, how the men, orcs or other creatures can reach the enclaves, if they are floating. There are portals, ways to climb it (!), just magic?

Thanks



Flying -- either on an individual basis or some sort of flying conveyance -- or portals would be pretty much the only options.

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Gary Dallison
Great Reader

United Kingdom
6350 Posts

Posted - 24 Apr 2022 :  08:58:19  Show Profile Send Gary Dallison a Private Message  Reply with Quote
In canon you will not find an answer, possibly because nobody has actually had an in depth think about how Netheril as a society might actually work, and also because it is a huge undertaking spanning several thousand years.

I have an answer but its just my answer and is only based upon canon.

First thing is to establish what Netheril was like in the Golden Age.

During the Golden Age the enclaves were not part of Netheril. Each enclave was its own nation with its own laws and its own head of state. Almost all enclaves followed Ioulaum's advice and that was why the enclaves remained loosely allied with Netheril.

Also it is worth pointing magic was not cheap or free, even in Netheril's time. Yes it was cheaper thanks to the mythallar and we have no evidence of there being any costs at all, but the lack of unlimited magic is evidence to support there was still a cost associated with mythallar magic.

There is also the relationship between the enclaves and Netheril. The enclaves needed supplies and people, the cities of Netheril needed the enclaves for protection from monsters and from other enclaves (who behaved like predatory corporations).


With that in mind we can explore what means of transport exist and which is the most likely and support by canon.

First is that enclaves can change their altitude, so in theory they could land. It was likely impractical and fraught with potential problems so probably not performed very often at all. No mention in canon that i remember.

Next we have magic. You could fly or teleport or use other means of magic. Magic is not cheap and single use magics are inefficient and would require the archmage and his students to use up resources in order to attract normal citizens (who could not teleport) to their enclave.

Then we have portals and gates. In canon it is mentioned that a number of mercantile organisations operated portals across Netheril for the transportation of goods. A magic item style gate would be most efficient as it could be powered by the mythallar. I believe the How the Mighty Are Fallen adventure depicts these physical gates.


My interpretation is that the Netherese had stargate style gates that allowed you to hover over a settlement, dial into their gateway and connect the two forming a stable portal that allowed people and goods to travel through. Initial setup costs would be high, but long term it would more than recoup the cost.

I figure this situation started in the Silver Age and continued right through to the Shadowed Age when the gates (like everything else) started to fail as phaerimm magic/life drain started to disrupt things.



Also dont forget, that when Netheril was in the Shadowed Age, the political makeup of Netheril changed. It stopped being a lowland republic with allied enclaves, and changed to a triumvirate where the 3 greatest archmages used strength and fear to force both enclaves and lowland cities to obey their orders. This then further devolved into just Karsus being in charge (after Ioulaum fled and Lady Polaris vanished).

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Delnyn
Senior Scribe

USA
883 Posts

Posted - 24 Apr 2022 :  09:16:32  Show Profile Send Delnyn a Private Message  Reply with Quote
The enclaves probably have been elitist and did not want lowlanders visiting their enclaves unless it was absolutely necessary. Even then, access would have been granted only to specific areas and within the minimum time need to accomplish a task (e.g., delivering food, water and raw materials).

My thought experiment is to image 1300's Cormyr if Vangerdahast had access to all the Nether Scrolls and Mystra's Ban were not enacted. That would be a rough first draft of Golden Age Netheril.
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Groo
Acolyte

2 Posts

Posted - 24 Apr 2022 :  14:44:06  Show Profile Send Groo a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Thanks to all answers.

I was a little confused because, in "How the Mighty are Fallen", there are a lot of plots (including the main), that happens in lowlands (forests, mountains, north sea), and at same time there is at least two enclaves too (Karsus and Delia, and maybe Yeoman's Loft). Then, I was asking myself how that transition - enclaves to lowlands - could happens.

Anyway, the answers give me nice ideas to use some Neth Gatehouses in special places, or outposts.

Thanks to all
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DoveArrow
Seeker

96 Posts

Posted - 23 Mar 2023 :  23:54:03  Show Profile Send DoveArrow a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Groo

Hello my friends,

I am trying to build a campaign in the Golden Ages of Netheril, but I still have some doubts.

Mainly, how the men, orcs or other creatures can reach the enclaves, if they are floating. There are portals, ways to climb it (!), just magic?

Thanks



My understanding is that there wasn't a lot of interaction between the High and Low Netheril. According to Lost Empires of Faerun, they acted as separate countries. It also sounds like the High Netheril used a lot of slaves, so I'm not sure if there was a need to maintain trade relations with the Low Netheril.

As for how they transported raw materials from the mines and fields that their slaves tended on the ground, I would imagine that they would move the floating cities to the appropriate location and use mythallar powered items to transport the materials to the city. The mythallars had a magical radius of one-mile and many of the cities had more than one mythallar. It sounds like it would have been reasonable to use the primary mythallar of a small city to move within range of an on-the-ground site, transport up what they needed using several mythallar items with the fly spell cast on them, and then float away. A larger city could have a second mythallar near the outer edges used specifically for purposes of transportation.
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TBeholder
Great Reader

2377 Posts

Posted - 24 Mar 2023 :  13:19:33  Show Profile Send TBeholder a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Mythallar-powered quasimagical items were cheap. And since anything permanently stuck on an enclave is going to remain close enough to its mythallar, there's no need for more expensive standalone solutions.
On the ground side, not so cheap, but it's still not as costly as a mythallar, spelljammer helm, etc. Then again, some ground cities had mythallars (Algid).
There were mentions of Netherese airships, but for either military (Algid's patrol vessels) or entertainment (elemental skimmers) purpose, not cargo hauling.
quote:
from Netheril:
At one point in Netheril’s history, a permanent Oberon’s extra door of incredible power and distance was set up in order to accommodate the heavy trade
- p.15
Lathery used the magic of its mythallar to capture fish for export to other cities. Lathery levitated along the shoreline of the Narrow Sea, teleporting fish that swam beneath the enclave into a storage room that was affected by continual Veridon’s storm spells.
- p.79
There were several companies that specialized in the creation of gates in Netheril, but Transgate Industries was the most revered. Throughout their 120-year history, they never had any problems with their magical gates: they were reliable, safe, and always got their passengers to their destinations. [...] Through this seven years of analysis and testing, they were able to create the most stable gates ever seen in Netheril. Oddly enough, when one used one of their gates, there wasn’t a one-round confusion as one regained lost bearings (similar to the effect of a dimension door spell). For some reason, they were able to instill a sense of relational location equilibrium into the equation—something that the other gate companies never accomplished.
- p.105
from How the Mighty are Fallen:
The guards explain to the patrons that travel to the Karsus Enclave (or any other floating city) costs 50 gold pieces per person. It's roughly a one-hour waiting time for each departure, since they don't want their patrons teleporting onto some cargo (each city follows a specific schedule).
- p.9




quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison

Also it is worth pointing magic was not cheap or free, even in Netheril's time. Yes it was cheaper thanks to the mythallar and we have no evidence of there being any costs at all, but the lack of unlimited magic is evidence to support there was still a cost associated with mythallar magic.

1/10x price. Price of conventional items soon jumped to 3x, as almost no one made them now.
quote:
from Netheril:
Once this magical item was created, the floodgates were opened, and the nation of Netheril was suddenly faced with a glut of magical items. The prices of such quasimagical items dropped to one-tenth the going rate for “real” magical items.
The cost of traditional magical creations—those that required a permanency spell—rose to three-times the going rate, since only those who left the range of a mythallar required such items.
p.6-7
allow them to retire. Most of these new magical items were designed with the common person (the middle class) in mind. This group of people were the ones in greatest numbers and carried with it the greatest promise for get-rich-quick schemes. These small-time arcanists had the right mentality: make an item cheap, simple to use, and make it appear to be invaluable — basically turn a nicety into a necessity.
The first items to enter the market were simple roomlights, a globe that continually shed light in a room. This ended with it being perfected into a globe that would light with an activating command or sound (depending upon the desires of the purchaser). Soon, every house floating on an enclave had one in every room.
Next came running water, contrived by opening a permanent fissure into the Elemental Plane of Water, controlling the flow with a simple spigot. Once this was accomplished and sold to every house, indoor plumbing and water closets were the next logical step.
- p.8


People never wonder How the world goes round -Helloween
And even I make no pretense Of having more than common sense -R.W.Wood
It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo. -Ed Whitchurch

Edited by - TBeholder on 24 Mar 2023 13:30:43
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