-Let me think some more...
Actually, some parts of the Neverwinter Nights CRPGs are canon...
-The parts concerning the Sarrukh are not, however.
What'll probably happen is that I take what tidbits exist, link them to one or two unidentified ruins and then work out what I want from the combination.
-And, that's really all I got.
GEEEEE IIIIIIII JOE
Humans existed, and that some of them were 'evolved' enough to be able to understand and utilize magic (INT 11+).
If the humans are one of the creator races, mustn't they have been around there much earlier than the Elves came to Fearûn?
Is it known when the Rus travelled around and had their "civilization" or migrated to the country later known as Rashemen?
If the humans are one of the creator races, mustn't they have been around there much earlier than the Elves came to Fearûn?
humans were there in the times of sarrukh, they experimented on them, creating yuan-ti and others
tough their society was similar to the upper paleolithic cultures
Is it known when the Rus travelled around and had their "civilization" or migrated to the country later known as Rashemen?
-82 DR Year of Witches
until recently I thought Talfir was the first human civilization, rising and falling in the shadows of the nonhuman ones at least since the first mention of the Ironfang Keep (-25 000 DR)
If the humans are one of the creator races, mustn't they have been around there much earlier than the Elves came to Fearûn?
-The Elves arrived in Realmspace in two migrations, one in -28,000 +/- and the other in -24,000 +/-.
18DELTA (CYRIC, CYRIC, CYRIC) :P
(or seeing it, in this case). ;)
I know the Citadel of the Raven is REALLY old - pg. 10 of the GHotR dates it as a Human Fortress built around -18,000 DR.
Also, I just came across this a little while ago, while looking for map references for another thread - pg. 33 of Silver Marches, The Spine of the World entry:
"The few intrepid adventurers who have penetrated to the heart of the Spine of the World spread tales that the ice today preserves the abandoned ruins of what seem to be human cities, as well as the lairs of frozen dragons. In other places, strange creatures, both large and samall, are frozen forever in the ice - some perched or standing, as if the cold claimed them in mid-stride. "
Accent mine.
I new the sites of Neverwinter, and waterdeep were old, but...
anyway I was thinking the otherday posting here about the Rus, but since they were already mentioned I had changed my mind.
however if the Realms Ancient Cities are like the RW ancient Cities, then you will find that they are either gone, striped of resources for other buildings, simply rotted away, or like Rome and other ancient cities, they are underworld on the history channel
however if the Realms Ancient Cities are like the RW ancient Cities, then you will find that they are either gone, striped of resources for other buildings, simply rotted away, or like Rome and other ancient cities, they are underworld on the history channel
-Yup. Or, worse, because of magical catastrophe and such.
India may have the earliest recorded 'urbanization' - something usually attributed to the great empires of Egypt or China - archaelogical finds date some cities back 7000 years!
However, except for some really crappy OLD B&W photographs, most of these ruins were destroyed when the British started 'modernizing' India. During the Imperial period, Railroad companies broke-down all the ancient ruins into small stones to line the Railway beds!
The book contained photos from the 1800's of some really cool stuff, but when official British Archaelogical teams went in some 20 years later, they were aghast to find most of the sites were dismantled by the enterprising Railway companies.
7000 year old cities... broken down and used for 'liner material' a mere 20 years before anyone had a chance to study them.
That blow chunks dude. 18DELTA (CYRIC, CYRIC, CYRIC) ;)
To real hostorians, it probably brings them to tears.
The few surviving ruins (ones that were found after the railway companies had their way) had evidence of traded goods and materials from Rome, Egypt, Persia, and China! As a side note, statuary from one Indian city was dug-up in Pompei!
Shows you how little we know, and just how 'global' the old world really was - India was a 'hub' for a while, of trade along the Silk Road, between the ancient Empires of China and Rome.
I love history, and this RW stuff gives me so many cool ideas on how to spin some of the southern K-T stuff (and not just the religion).
Sorry, BTW, for the thread hijack... I told you to watch-out once you got me talking... :embarrass
the present state blows chunks
the past, the buildings were works of art.
they say history repeats itself, they are not kidding there.
person A makes huge mistake, then a few lifetimes later person B makes the same.
oh man, its such a drag
That is the usual problem in archeology and it was not only the case during the colonization phase of the british empire. The people in antiquity did such things too. They reused old stuff, used ruins and unused buildings as a kind of stone pits. When the needed lime, they burned marble and destroyed the art of their forefathers. That was done everywhere in europe, asia, the middle east, egypt and it was done for millenia. The christs used antique temples as stone pits for some byzantic cathedrals (e.g. happened in Didyma), they used older buldings to build city walls and all the like.
Sometimes we could really be happy, if they reused it and build it into "modern" houses. That is better than burning the marble.
Besides if you are happy to walk a bit through rome, well they used many many parts of the antique roman city to build their middle aged city and sometimes you can find a funny part of a once beautiful ornament of a temple, theater or the like, between normal clinker. And they build complete houses into antique buildings and ruins. You could even find the theater of Pompeius Magnus (the one where Ceaser was murdered in its steps) on the map. Some structures of the modern quartes follows exactly its original shape, and if you are going into some of these modern buildings you can find parts and chunks of the the theater built into its walls (I have seen whole collums of marble as part of a ordinary wall in a stairway. that was a kind of funny looking thing).
The middle aged buildings of Athen are also made of the antique parts and the osmanians used the acropolys as a kind of fortress and to house their explosives (a little "accidant" with this stuff destroyed it some hundred years ago).
The few surviving ruins (ones that were found after[ the railway companies had their way) had evidence of traded goods and materials from Rome, Egypt, Persia, and China! As a side note, statuary from one Indian city was dug-up in Pompei!
Shows you how little we know, and just how 'global' the old world really was - India was a 'hub' for a while. of trade along the Silk Road, between the ancient Empires of China and Rome.
That is a well known fact since 200 or so years. Because if you read antique biographies of Alexander the Great and his successors and their empires (esp. the Seleukids) you will find many evidences for such things. Alex came to india and the empire of Seleukos Nicator reached that far and controlled the silk route and other tradeways. The buddhistic art was greatly influenced by the greek art. Without greeks they would not have created the statues of buddha we all know today (e.g. the ones wich the taliban destroyed in Afghanistan). It is also known that during the Ptolomia reign some buddhistics came to the mediterranean world and brought gifts and the like from one of their rulers. Some of this was found in egypt during the last decades.
The thing that really gauls me is that many of these structures survived 7000 years into the 1800's - something I doubt any modern city could possibly do - and then disappeared a mere 20 years before we could have really learned something.
We actually have photographs of some of them! We were THAT close...
No, I can't fault locals using old material to continue their lives... but what happended there was just criminal.
On the other hand, one of the most important archaelogical finds in the Middle-East - an original copy of the Old Testament pre-dating all others - was found in a hole in the ground next to a road that is still in use today. On a school field trip, some kid asked if he could look in the hole (actually a tiny cave), and the teacher said "sure... but anything that could have been in there would have been found years ago". Turns out that everyone that ever passed that hole thought the same thing. :D
That entire area was one of those 'ancient sites' you described, wherein the local peoples just kept re-using the old stuff to build new, so nothing was left except for a few old 'holes'.
We only discover things like ancient civilizations and Dinosaur bones when the terrain shifts in some way (rivers cutting through, earthquakes, etc...) and uncovers them, or quite by accident (like that farmer who was trying to dig a well in China, and discovered all those clay Statues!)
Just imagine how many ancient cities could be underneath our feet, from 10, or 20, or even 30 thousand years ago... and we'd never know it.
I was watching a show on dinosaurs the other day, and the paleontologist joked that they only dig where the bones 'show up', but there are probably thousands of locations just waiting to be discovered that never will.
One of my favorite quotes from MiB:
Kay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.
-The Forgotten Realms have 32,000+ years of "civilized history" attached to them, that we know about. There's 32,000 years give or take, to add stuff in, rediscover things, and so on.
I'm surprised he was able to get an early pre-release copy.
when the smoke was in the air, 3000 houses were in a field that was abandoned in the last year of the waterboil.
I'm assuming this is 4e lore?
I've never heard of ANY group keeping the same name for 20,000+ years, but what do I know?
Chalk it up to magic.
As long as Brian doesn't mind, here is the map from his original (FREE) GHotR -
Of course, that would stick the Talfir right in the way of The Battle of God's Theatre... maybe they hid...
Talfir
In my opinion, and it really is only my opinion since none of this is official, the Talfir are an ancient human tribe dating back to the Dawn Ages. At this time, the Talfir were slaves of Caesinmalsvir, a draconic demesne centered among the forest known today as The Wood of Sharp Teeth. The Talfir were freed when Caesinmalsvir collapsed following the first Rage of Dragons c. -25000 DR. Being a forest people, the Talfir thrived on the periphery of elf communites, fishing in streams or hunting small game.
During the Crown Wars the Talfir fled the east abandoning their forest homes for good. The Talfir settled in the foothills of the Troll Mountains in the lands known today as the Green Fields. Keep in mind that the Talfir at this point are still quite primitive and know nothing of civilization. During the rise of Calimshan, the Talfir are easily conquered though they are permitted to maintain their ancient customs and worship of their barbaric gods. Wars with invading beholders ultimately lead to Calimshan withdrawing its troops from Talfir lands. The Talfir then spread north into the Chionthar river valley where they, for the first time in their long history, established a nation.
Centuries later, the Shadowking forcibly assimilates the Netherese and Talfirian realms of the Chionthar river valley into the empire of Ebenfar. Escaping persecution, one Talfiric tribe escapes west and crosses the Sea of Swords to settle on the island they name Gwynneth. Ultimately Ebenfar collapses and the Talfir intermarry with the growing Tethyrian population in the region. Likewise the Talfir colony on Gwynneth is later overtaken by Tethyrians and Illuskans to become the Ffolk of the Moonshaes. If I remember correctly, the Gur originated further east and had little contact with the Talfir tribes of the Chionthar river valley, having arrived there after the fall of Ebenfar.
I can work them in as a tribe of the proto-humans I've dubbed the Cortae - your basic neolitithic-level Celt-like people (who were also responsible for many of the Stone Circles... copies of ones left behind by the Le'Shay).
One of these days I'll get back to my "History of the Human Race" on Toril.
Dude! That map hurts my eyes. I'd love to see you put together some ancient maps of Faerûn Markus!
I do plan on doing a series of maps with tribal migrations of early peoples, but I'm still trying to finish the complete map of the Faerû-Turan continent (I'm on version 4.0, coincidently enough).
When I get around to the truly ancient stuff, trust me, you'll be the first to know (since your the only designer still working on pre-history material, expect me to badger you with questions and run stuff by you ad nauseum).
WotC said the games are canon. That's a revision of what they said earlier, of course, but it still stands.
-Citation? The Neverwinter games themselves have never been canon. The Baldur Gate gates as well (only the novelizations).
I guess you could call this the “not throwing out the baby or the bathwater” rule. If it happened in a novel or in a game product—any part of the FORGOTTEN REALMS canon—it happened.
http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20080828a
As I said, this is a revision of their earlier policy. But it appears to be what they're going with.
of the traces of what had come before... if you want to dig really deep, you can introduce things from 40 millennia past to your campaign.http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20080828a
As I said, this is a revision of their earlier policy. But it appears to be what they're going with.
-It seems to me, he meant game product as in D&D sourcebook.
-Reading all of that, though, reminds me of how off the ball said designers are/were on things. Oy vey...
But whatev. It's no big deal. The designers have also said canon is what you make it.
FR has become the cutting-room floor.
'Re-boots' were invented by comic book companies by guys who didn't respect the giants who went before them, thought their ideas were "uber Kewl" (even if no-one else did), or didn't want to take the time to do all the research to keep the continuity intact (in other words, sheer laziness).
Re-boots are NEVER done with a customer's best wishes in mind - they are always done by people who feel they'll never 'measure-up' to the great talent of the past, so they stomp all over everything out of spite and re-create the world in their own ugly image.
Thats what comic book companies started... and why I stopped reading comics in the 90's.
I guess I'll have to stop buying RPG products as well (at least ones produced by Ha$bro).
Don't mind me... I just saw the beautiful new Eberron map, and I'm in the mood to pull wings off butterflies...
A few million, at least. :headexplo
No one remembers the great yeti empire that once stretched from the farthest shores of Kara-Tur across the northern climbs to the Reghed Glacier of Faerûn. Arisen to preeminence during the ice ages, over 40,000 years ago, before the Days of Thunder, and before any of the creator races. No written record of this civilization has survived.
The yeti-folk were a magic poor society that later fell to barbarism and the Sarrukh dinner plate. Though in their day they erected exquisite pagodas, sprawling palace compounds, and carved elaborate temples from wood and clay and ice, the majority of their population lived in settlements comprised mainly of yurts, wooden long-houses, intricate dwellings carved from ice or excavated from the sides of glaciers, and kiva-style earthworks dug into the earth and covered over with logs and hides to make a roof. Their primary building materials were wood and hide, with some use of clay and mud bricks, and the ever-present ice--they did not use stone or metals. Wind, weather, and the churning teeth of the ubiquitous glaciers that covered Toril during the ice age, have since ground their works to dust.
40,000 years of history have completely scoured all traces of their society from the face of Toril. All that is left of this once awesome nation are the savage, cannibal yeti that haunt the cold places of Toril and the pitiable Taer of the Unapproachable East, sad shadows of an empire lost to time.
The once great yeti pantheon, the Morgruihr Nazhedeen, were a formidable and terrible presence across the planes--now remembered as only a faint racial memory in the nightmares of children. The homeplane of the yeti gods has long since slipped beyond the Astral, and yet their devolved descendents, the vaporighu, who in bygone eras were a powerful planar race as numerous as the archons or eladrin, still maintain a feeble subsistence on the fiendish planes.
There does yet exist a sole vaporighu metropolis in the Barrens of Doom and Despair (the plane now called Banehold), in a distant cold region beyond Loviatar's realm. The city of Muirsh Anjuur posesses a startling beauty. Square fortresses, palaces and lofty pagodas--dingy remnants of ancient glory--are carved, tibetan style, into the stone of the slopes of steep moutains. The city sprawls through a small valley nestled snugly between parallel mountain ranges. Although seemingly savage and brutish when encountered elsewhere on the planes, in the city of Muirsh Anjuur the vaporighu adhere to an elaborate protocol of courtesy and deference to a rigid caste system run by warlords and mandarins.
Though not a burgeoning economy, the city retains a vestige of power due to the existence of several ancient portals which link Banehold with the Abyss, the Nine Hells, the plane of Dismal Caverns, the Deep Wilds, Sigil and remarkably to several ancient planar locations thought lost or destroyed before the Spellplague--locations that cannot be accessed today by any other known method!
The city is a nexus for the soul trade, selling larvae to the Tanar'ri and Baatezu. They also trade with hags and khaasta.
These vaporighu are especially known for their hidecrafters--artisans who make clothing, hide armor, tents, rugs, and other works of terrible beauty from exotic pelts, dragon hides, and the skins of humanoids. They also have a strong tradition of skilled alchemists who create exotic elixirs and concoctions which have powerful effects never before seen by human adventurers.
The city is notable for several ancient portals which connect with remote mountainous locations in the Reghed and Great Glaciers, and various northern mountain ranges across Faerûn, the Hordelands and Kara-Tur. Though used rarely, these portals are accessed on occasion by certain fiends to travel to the Realms, and by certain vaporighu hidecrafters and alchemists requiring raw materials for their "art."
Not a human civilization, but still a puissant and notable one that predates even the Sarrukh--and yet is completely forgotten.
No one remembers the great yeti empire that once stretched from the farthest shores of Kara-Tur across the northern climbs to the Reghed Glacier of Faerûn. Arisen to preeminence during the ice ages, over 40,000 years ago, before the Days of Thunder, and before any of the creator races. No written record of this civilization has survived.
The yeti-folk were a magic poor society that later fell to barbarism and the Sarrukh dinner plate. Though in their day they erected exquisite pagodas, sprawling palace compounds, and carved elaborate temples from wood and clay and ice, the majority of their population lived in settlements comprised mainly of yurts, wooden long-houses, intricate dwellings carved from ice or excavated from the sides of glaciers, and kiva-style earthworks dug into the earth and covered over with logs and hides to make a roof. Their primary building materials were wood and hide, with some use of clay and mud bricks, and the ever-present ice--they did not use stone or metals. Wind, weather, and the churning teeth of the ubiquitous glaciers that covered Toril during the ice age, have since ground their works to dust.
40,000 years of history have completely scoured all traces of their society from the face of Toril. All that is left of this once awesome nation are the savage, cannibal yeti that haunt the cold places of Toril and the pitiable Taer of the Unapproachable East, sad shadows of an empire lost to time.
The once great yeti pantheon, the Morgruihr Nazhedeen, were a formidable and terrible presence across the planes--now remembered as only a faint racial memory in the nightmares of children. The homeplane of the yeti gods has long since slipped beyond the Astral, and yet their devolved descendents, the vaporighu, who in bygone eras were a powerful planar race as numerous as the archons or eladrin, still maintain a feeble subsistence on the fiendish planes.
There does yet exist a sole vaporighu metropolis in the Barrens of Doom and Despair (the plane now called Banehold), in a distant cold region beyond Loviatar's realm. The city of Muirsh Anjuur posesses a startling beauty. Square fortresses, palaces and lofty pagodas--dingy remnants of ancient glory--are carved, tibetan style, into the stone of the slopes of steep moutains. The city sprawls through a small valley nestled snugly between parallel mountain ranges. Although seemingly savage and brutish when encountered elsewhere on the planes, in the city of Muirsh Anjuur the vaporighu adhere to an elaborate protocol of courtesy and deference to a rigid caste system run by warlords and mandarins.
Though not a burgeoning economy, the city retains a vestige of power due to the existence of several ancient portals which link Banehold with the Abyss, the Nine Hells, the plane of Dismal Caverns, the Deep Wilds, Sigil and remarkably to several ancient planar locations thought lost or destroyed before the Spellplague--locations that cannot be accessed today by any other known method!
The city is a nexus for the soul trade, selling larvae to the Tanar'ri and Baatezu. They also trade with hags and khaasta.
These vaporighu are especially known for their hidecrafters--artisans who make clothing, hide armor, tents, rugs, and other works of terrible beauty from exotic pelts, dragon hides, and the skins of humanoids. They also have a strong tradition of skilled alchemists who create exotic elixirs and concoctions which have powerful effects never before seen by human adventurers.
The city is notable for several ancient portals which connect with remote mountainous locations in the Reghed and Great Glaciers, and various northern mountain ranges across Faerûn, the Hordelands and Kara-Tur. Though used rarely, these portals are accessed on occasion by certain fiends to travel to the Realms, and by certain vaporighu hidecrafters and alchemists requiring raw materials for their "art."
what book is that from? i never heard of it before.
The Yeti are probably the last race I would attach a long-lost civilization to. The Yeti race of the Well of Souls series (incredible read, BTW) was one of my least favorite of the novels (psionic Yetis, with the ability to cloud people's minds so they can go 'unseen'). They were called Gedemondas.
However, I find Gray's take interesting, as always, and I may use some of it somewhere. The fact that I would have never considered the Yeti is proof to it being a very creative take.
Of course, the Centurian Empire that ruled the Taan some 30,000 years ago is at least equally interesting. :D
The shattered remnants of that can be seen in the Sharran, Nomadic (Wastes), and Desert (Zakharran) Centaurs (all of which are canon). Perhaps thats why the Red Thunder Mercenary Company (FR15, pg.20) was so interested in establishing a base of operations in the Hordelands... they are searching for something, or trying to regain ties to their ancient past.
The fall of that Empire was precipitated by The Sundering, and the drastic changes in climate that ensued, turning the Taan into a wasteland. Many of the tribes fled those lands seeking more hospitable regions, but one last Kingdom prevailed for many years before finally falling - in the Forest of Tuarania (modern-day Thay). It wasn't until Ghaunadaur-worshipping Dark Elves invaded their forest and created a ritual that would leave-it a blasted plateau of lingering evil that this last vestige of the mighty Centurian Empire fell.
I just thought I'd throw that out-there... its part of my History of the Wastes. ;)
Its Homebrew.
The Yeti are probably the last race I attached a long-lost civilization to. The Yeti race of the Well of Souls series (incredible read, BTW) was one of my least favorite of the novels (psionic Yetis, with the ability to cloud people's minds so they can go 'unseen'). They were called Gedemondas.
However, I find Gray's take interesting, as always, and I may use some of it somewhere. The fact that I would have never considered the Yeti is proof to it being a very creative take.
Of course, the Centurian Empire that ruled the Taan some 30,000 years ago is at least equally interesting. :D
The shattered remnants of that can be seen in the Sharran, Nomadic (Wastes), and Desert (Zakharran) Centaurs (all of which are canon). Perhaps thats why the Red Thunder Mercenary Company (FR15, pg.20) was so interested in establishing a base of operations in the Hordelands... they are searching for something, or trying to regain ties to their ancient past.
The fall of that Empire was precipitated by The Sundering, and the drastic changes in climate that ensued, turning the Taan into a wasteland. Many of the tribes fled those lands seeking more hospitable regions, but one last Kingdom prevailed for many years before finally falling - in the Forest of Tuarania (modern-day Thay). It wasn't until Ghaunadaur-worshipping Dark Elves invaded their forest and created a ritual that would leave-it a blasted plateau of lingering evil that this last vestige of the mighty Centurian Empire fell.
I just that I'd throw that out-there... its part of my History of the Wastes. ;)
ok its not official stuff thanks. if it was i was wondering what books i was missing or what giant holes were in the ones i had.