From: Harald Smith 617 726-2172 (SMITHH@A1.MGH.HARVARD.EDU)
Date: Mon 06 Jun 1994 - 05:33:00 EEST
Hi all--
I have run both microcosmic and larger, heroic campaigns. The latter typically grow out of the former.
The first campaign I ran started as a microcosmic look at the Kingdom of Imther. The players proceeded to explore a long haunted area of the kingdom and ended up with a mission to hunt and destroy chaos in Imther with a couple of tools with which to do so. Well, where to start? They didn't know so they asked their priests. Since the majority of the characters were initiates of the Conquering Daughter, the priests said to go and consult the Oracle in Jillaro.
So off they trekked down the great Daughter's Road from Hilltown, pursued by bad guys. After significant danger, several characters reached the Oracle and asked their questions. They received cryptic answers in the forms of riddles, but interpreted enough that they decided they had to find a legendary castle of giants--Gonn Orta's "castle" to be precise.
And so began a great quest across Balazar (using Griffin Mountain). The characters met kings, talked with great hunters and resident priests, fought chaos (including a rather nasty scorpion dragonsnail where they came to the rescue of a party of trolls--over the objection of the Khelmal initiate) and Himile-wielding trolls of the Rockwoods to finally reach Gonn Orta (who politely ignored them). They accomplished their mission at Gonn Orta's castle and ... have yet to make the return journey which is a heroquest which I haven't been able to fully flesh out yet.
The quest included specific events at various locales as well as an extensive downtime narrative (in the form of a journal by the Irripi Ontor scholar). Incidentally, if anyone is interested in seeing a posting out of this journal let me know. Since the journal focused on the quest through Balazar and the Elder Wilds (across Blank Lands in the current terminology) it will not see the light of Yelm in any other fashion.
My current campaign is definitely microcosmic as I flesh out more and more of Imther in the heroic attempt to publish a pack on Imther (definitely a long enough effort to qualify as a heroquest, I think). It has worked through politics and sinister activities in one of Imther's main cities. Now, the characters are engaged in a great effort to bring relief to the Central Mines following a devastating earthquake. This has led the characters deep into the earth and even into the dwarf realms (where after a particular comment by one character they were nearly recycled into the World Machine). With only one key action left to go in this piece, though, the campaign will probably be moving on. And since one character, Tanaiya, a Carmanian adept and personal friend of Palamtales, is the Keeper of the Carmanian Archives on Dwarven Affairs and is supposed to be bringing dwarven artifacts back to Carmania to support the archives
there, I suspect that a trek across the empire via Jillaro, Dara Happa, and perhaps Glamour is in order.
My campaigns have invariably had at least one character interested in trading. My original campaign had Hysterius, a trickster of Orlantio who claimed he was a trader (hasn't been a traitor yet :-) ). Never got far with any major trading expeditions, though.
In my current campaign, Ipas (named by GM fiat when the player couldn't come up with a name and said "I pass") has a scheme to become a lumber merchant using the extensive non-elf forests in Imther's eastern reaches (very hilly region extending from the main mountain range down to the Elf Sea). There are difficulties with this trade, of course. The eastern border includes bandits and regular raids from the Kingdom of Garsting. Whether there are hostile elves or not remains to be seen.
Another character, Grucius the Grey (named by the player for the seeming lacking of personality which Grucius had) is a fighter who in downtime married the owner of a outfitter's shop. With the effort to help the Central Mines after the major earthquake, Grucius decided to make a tidy profit on selling blankets there. Unfortunately, blankets turned out to be in far greater supply than was needed and he has lost his investment. And the Lunar bureaucracy attended to events has even gone so far as to have the characters deliver a wagon load of blankets to a village which desperately needed food and had already received a prior load of blankets.
(As a side note, I use the RQ Cities character catch-up fairly extensively for downtime, supplementing it with local rumors and events.)
Copper is mined in Imther. It is a royal monopoly, owned by the King and Queen of Imther, who employ purchased slaves to dig out the ore (sometimes with dwarf aid). The King and Queen use the copper to pay their Imperial taxes. What is left is then sold to the Native Imther corps, other mercenaries, and the khelix (local brotherhoods/guilds) of armorers, smiths, or weaponmasters, or used in trade with other provincial kingdoms.
Exports from Imther include copper (as noted above), preserved foods (a specialty of the cult of Imthus and Aidea, the kingdom founders) such as cheeses or dried meats, and apple cider.
Martin (x-rq-id 4182) noted Iphigios, the Pelorian craft deity. And
yes, as he noted, the Conquering Daughter is also a patron of crafters and artisans--in fact, as much a patron of crafters as she is of warriors.
My writeup of the Conquering Daughter includes the divine spell of Finecraft (1 pt, ranged, one day, nonstackable, reusable). This spell doubles the normal skill percentage of the target in all crafts associated with the cult for the spell's duration. It does not effect skill bonuses. (The cult related crafts are Cooking, Masonry, Pottery, Sculpture, Shieldmaking, Stoneworking, and Weaving -- the last because the Conquering Daughter helped weave together the southern provinces of the empire).
Now, I should note that the mythos for the Conquering Daughter is currently in a state of transition. Greg had expressed some reservations about the version I had written. Following discussion with him at RQ Con and further correspondence since then, the mythos for Hwarin Dalthippa is taking some interesting turns (which emphasize her little understood fertility powers over the martial powers previously assumed). I will refrain from posting anything more on her until the dust settles and I can get the cult writeup reworked.
I like the idea of amber from Garsting along the shores of the Elf Sea. Particularly since that trade would be exploited by Imtherian merchants to bring the gems into the southern provinces of the empire (and even on to Dragon Pass), bypassing the circuitous route down the Arcos and back up the Oslir rivers. And this would certainly explain why one faction in the Lunar Provincial Administration (pushed by the Etyries merchants) wants to establish a border fort along the Elf Sea itself.
--Harald
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