Steve Long

Re: Haiku Hero
 
Many Hero books
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Please buy some today!
 
 
Ars gratia mercatura!

Good call-out! The technical term for this, which I suspect Carlyle uses at some point(s), is euhemerization -- derived from the ancient Greek mythographer Euhemerus, who first developed the theory that gods must have started out as ancient kings and heroes who gradually got turned into divine figures over time.

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I've been reading a long thread about the Turakian Age setting recently, which naturally has inspired me to think about the setting and ways to add to it -- specifically, the possibility of a city book, since I don't think I've written a detailed Fantasy city book. So I thought I'd find out which cities would most interest y'all, and why. I make no promises, but knowing what y'all suggest will help me guide my imagination.
 
My own personal most-likely candidates would include Aarn, Eltirian, Talarshand, Tatha Gorel, Tor Vilos, and Trisadion, though any of them would be interesting to work on.

Yes, I just learned that existed the other day. Gonna check it out sometime soon, if possible.

Yes, I just learned that existed the other day. Gonna check it out sometime soon, if possible.

I would consider the rivers being navigable to decent-sized cargo vessels -- at least equivalent to the "Shaanda barges" -- all the way between Lake Beralka and Aarn (with provisions for getting around the Ettinstone) to be a major factor in Aarn's growth. That would make Aarn the gateway on the Sea of Storms to the Beralka/Shaanda/Mhorec system for traders from the southern Westerlands as well as Northern and Central Mitharia. Combine that with Aarn being the only deep water harbor between Bellinberg and Tatha Gorel, and its proximity to the High Pass into Tornathia, and you have more than enough stimulus to build it into the largest city in the world.
 
Tavrosel, which might be Ambrethel's second-largest city, would derive many similar advantages from its location, as its magnificent harbor would make it the natural exchange point across the Sea of Mhorec for the many desirable goods from the eastern region of Mhorecia: minerals and enchanted items from Arutha, fine iron and steel work from Hrastarin, cattle and leather from Ingushel, gemstones and jewelry from Mount Keluurazond, plus the products of Khoria coming through the Great Pass.

\So, my vote goes to Eltirian. Here's why.
 
A TA city guide should, first, encourage people who read it to want to see more of the TA setting; and in doing so, it should show what gamers can get from TA that they won't get anywhere else.
 
For me, that rules out Aarn. The Great Trade Metropolis is a familiar Fantasy trope, and the text in TA gives nothing to distinguish Aarn from, say, Waterdeep in Forgotten Realms or Nexus in Exalted. Hey, Waterdeep has a big dungeon underneath it, and an eccentric beholder crime lord! Okay, so those are ideas that seem clever to people who aren't, so such lack is a point in Aarn's favor. But unless Steve can think of a way to make Aarn the best damn Fantasy trade metropolis ever, I don't think it's worth his time.
 
Same goes for a hypothetical Sunless Realms city. Buy Menzoberranzan, cross out some names and write in others. Also, it's not a great way to showcase the wider world.
 
Tavrosel, with its mix of peoples and cultures, has a strong case as "Ambrethel in Miniature," but it's still a bit bland.
 
Vornakkia, though, is the part of Ambrethel that I like most, and it seems the most distinctively itself. Maybe it's my imagination, but I think Steve also had a lot of fun writing it and devising all its quirky cults. The cities are all pretty good, but I think Eltirian would work best. It's got the trade city/adventurer's base utility. It has abundant internal instabilities that can drive plots. It has distinctive religion, which is one thing Turakian Age does better than most Fantasy settings I've seen. And it has a strong external conflict -- political, military and religious -- with Talarshand, which is ready to erupt again.
 
In fact, these two cities are so entangled with each other that I'd even suggest a double citybook, detailing them both.
 
Halathaloorm is very good too. I wouldn't complain if Steve chose it. But Eltirian and Talarshand, locked together by long enmity, is just irresistible to me.
 
Dean Shomshak

You certainly make a good case, Dean. And looking at the GM's Vault, if you go deeper into both cities -- literally -- there are even more intriguing possibilities.
 
One other thing that Tavrosel does have going for it is the potential for political and military plots. Several larger nations have influence in Tavrosel's region and would love to acquire it, most imminently and dangerously the Sirrenic Empire and Hargeshite Empire of Vashkhor. Those two great powers have their own ancient enmity, and Tavrosel could become a flashpoint in conflicts between them.

Now that I think of it, the kind of post-chaos scenario Dean talks about could play out most interestingly in the kingdom of Khrisulia in Northern Mitharia. That land has been ruled for almost a millennium by the wizard-king Ansgar, called "Ansgar the Twice-Lived" because, after his magically-prolonged life came to an end, he reanimated himself as a lich. Unlike other liches Ansgar is as benevolent as he was in life, and has governed justly and capably. However, recently his behavior has become erratic: staring blankly and silently at nothing for extended periods, making provocative and threatening statements to neighboring states, lashing out at his subordinates for no reason then apologizing later. His people fear Ansgar is finally succumbing to the evil madness that so often afflicts liches. PCs might very well assume they should take him down before that happens. But when Ansgar died without a named heir it appeared Khrisulia's nobles would war with each other for the crown, and there's no more provision for succession "now."
 
What's really happening is that
 

There is no such thing as too much What We Do in the Shadows.

Bat fight!
 
(Sorry, been watching too much What We Do In The Shadows lately. )

Bat fight!
 
(Sorry, been watching too much What We Do In The Shadows lately. )

Well, by those criteria, I think your optimum vote would be Orasamn. The disadvantage to choosing Tatha Gorel, the city ruled by a dragon, is that Scauromdrax the Magnificent (that's actually what he's called) has over nearly three centuries built up such a reputation as a wise and just ruler, the rulers of other states sometimes seek his advice. Anyone who kills him will probably carry a stain of infamy not just among the Gorelians, but any other law-abiding land they visit. Gorgashtar would be almost the opposite problem, because the lich Varakes isn't the Big Guy -- he's one of the chief lieutenants of the Biggest Guy, Kal-Turak. There will be no resultant chaos because the Ravager of Men will appoint someone else to govern Gorgashtar, but the PCs will now be prominently on the radar of the greatest evil in all Ambrethel.
 
Sargath, the Vampire King of Dragosani, is a usurper who murdered all the former royal family, and killed or "turned" everyone else who opposed him. His capital, Orasamn, has for nearly a century lived under the same kind of fear as the villagers in Transylvania in the novel Dracula. Killing Sargath would not solve the problems for the Dragosa, because it would leave no obvious successor, save among the remaining nobles who are vampires themselves and would probably fight for the throne.

Aarn started off slow in the poll, but it's picked up some steam. Before the Hero Games downsizing, a book for Aarn was on the publication schedule, and Steve indicated he was eager to write it. He probably has notes for it already.

All this will take some thinking before I cast a vote -- including the standards by which I choose. But one criterion I think worth considering is "What have I not seen before?" And this makes the three cited cities viable candidates,m because I don't recall a Fantasy setting guide built on the premise that the setting is about to self-destruct. (Maybe Exalted, but only in some senses, and there the button to detonate has already been pushed.)
 
So yeah. Players will want to kill the dragon, lich, or vampire lord. Make it hard -- the Big Guy wouldn't still be in charge if it were easy. Give fair warning that it's hard, such as background about the previous assassination attempts that failed, and the horrible death meted out to the would-be assassins. But make it possible. Then build the setting around what happens when the Big Guy is gone. Do the players think their PCs are just going to take over HAHAHA, no. They've just started a civil war. I heard one Pathfinder module described as Fantasy F***ing Vietnam. This is Fantasy Beirut, or Fantasy Post-Saddam Baghdad. It would also give Steve a chance to apply his Dark Champions chops, making him peculiarly well suited to design such a setting. (I certainly couldn't.)
 
Dean Shomshak

My vote is for Aarn.  A 6E Turakian Age setting with the depth of "Ptolus" would get me to spend serious cash and stimulate years of roleplaying.

Halathaloorm, Trisadion, Dar Enroque... the cities built by magic are probably the most exotic looking.

I'd like to see Halathaloorm. It sounds like something out of the Eternal Champion series.

I've been reading a long thread about the Turakian Age setting recently, which naturally has inspired me to think about the setting and ways to add to it -- specifically, the possibility of a city book, since I don't think I've written a detailed Fantasy city book. So I thought I'd find out which cities would most interest y'all, and why. I make no promises, but knowing what y'all suggest will help me guide my imagination.
 
My own personal most-likely candidates would include Aarn, Eltirian, Talarshand, Tatha Gorel, Tor Vilos, and Trisadion, though any of them would be interesting to work on.

I'm a couple years late to this part of the party, so forgive me if I'm stating something everyone knows already, but I thought I'd try to offer a little perspective on this issue.
 
The blunt truth about it is this:  most readers/gamers expect the same ol' races (species) in their Fantasy settings, and often become upset (and more importantly from a publisher's perspective, less likely to buy a product) if they're absent. Not all gamers think that way, but enough of them do that many, many Fantasy settings -- including some of my own, like TA -- include them.
 
Conversely, settings that try to diverge significantly from that model often fail to attract enough attention to be commercially viable. Multiple publishers have published books/games about M.A.R. Barker's fascinating world of Tekumel (the Empire of the Petal Throne, as it's sometimes called), but none have had any true commercial success. There's nary an elf or dwarf in sight, and the races are truly bizarre by human standards (many of them have three or four legs, multiple arms and eyes, and so on). The cultures derive from India, Babylonia, China, and Mesoamerica rather than medieval Europe. But despite the intense love of the setting that a small group of gamers has for it (check out Tekumel:  The World Of The Petal Throne to see just how detailed and complex this world is), most gamers can't wrap their heads around something so divergent, and thus the setting has never sold particularly well (at least not compared to the likes of Greyhawk. the Forgotten Realms, and other such settings).
 
The same goes for most other significantly "divergent" settings, such as Jorune.
 
So in a lot of ways, the similarity you see from world to world is just a matter of (a) publishers sticking with what seems to sell best, and (b) gamers sticking with what they're most comfortable with).
 
The solution I've found (more or less) is to try to introduce some divergent elements into an otherwise "standard" setting. Thus you get things like the Drakine, the relatively weird cultures of Vornakkia, and so forth in the TA setting. That seems to balance out the desire to be unusual with the desire for broader commercial success. I would love to design a highly divergent setting, such as Tekumel or Jorune -- I have quite a few ideas, some jotted down in a file, others bouncing around in my tiny brain. But even if I ever do decide to write it up and publish it, the odds are it wouldn't sell as well as a more "standard" world, and that my time would be better spent (financially speaking) by creating more material for Ambrethel, or creating a more standard world with just some minor variations. But even if I never publish a divergent setting, they're fun to think about.

I've been reading a long thread about the Turakian Age setting recently, which naturally has inspired me to think about the setting and ways to add to it -- specifically, the possibility of a city book, since I don't think I've written a detailed Fantasy city book. So I thought I'd find out which cities would most interest y'all, and why. I make no promises, but knowing what y'all suggest will help me guide my imagination.
 
My own personal most-likely candidates would include Aarn, Eltirian, Talarshand, Tatha Gorel, Tor Vilos, and Trisadion, though any of them would be interesting to work on.

For practical purposes the same question could be asked of modern religions. While they have a God or gods with identified names and attributes, the vast majority of their worshipers never encounter them personally, nor anything that can be definitively attributed to their direct intervention. It is their belief, their faith, that God exists and that It responds to them, despite the absence of proof.

In the real world the gods of myth were attempts to anthropomorphize the randomness of the world and the forces of nature. If they were essentially persons, that made them understandable, and therefore open to persuasion not to hurt us and maybe help us. That gave people a sense of control in the face of the world's chaos. (Let's just avoid whether this process applies to modern religions.)
 
If we accept the Hero Universe's premise that gods are brought into existence out of massed human belief, then worship precedes the god. People don't worship a god because it shows up and demonstrates why it should be worshiped; worship is a people's psychological need, and the god is simply that need manifested. But once it exists, a god would be expected to promote its own following, which gives it tangible rewards.

I’ve been skulking this thread, and am coming late to it, so forgive my tardiness for this comment. Thomas Carlyle wrote a book called Heroes and Hero Worship discussing how fame can lead to this sort of level of “worship.” The first chapter is a discussion of how Odin rose from a historical figure to actually become a god, and it is fascinating. 
 
I never really enjoyed the deities and similar stuff in fantasy because it always seemed a little (a lot?) contrived. The idea of a God’s power depending upon worshipers seemed kinda cheesy and paradoxical to me because why would anyone worship a god who is not yet powerful, and how could a god become powerful if he does not yet have worshipers?! But Carlyle at least helped me make sense of it for the first time in my life.