A New Spelljammer Canon

The Imperial Elvish Fleet is fascist. The Scro are the bedraggled remains of a society nearly wiped out during the First Great Unhuman War, which nevertheless survived and changed enough to begin the Second War. The Known Spheres are replete with hypocrisy disguised as virtue.

This is the new Spelljammer I'm designing (redesigning?) for my players.

The first series of adventures will begin with the PCs imprisoned for many and various crimes against elfdom (potentially including being a goblin, or membership in the anti-Seldarine organization, the Revolutionary Eire'a). The prison, however, is not a traditional brig or prison-ship, but rather the secret imperial resource-world of Highsun.

Rather than have PCs meet in a tavern and decide to go plumb the depths of some tomb together for their first adventure, they will be thrown together by crime and happenstance as the empire-shaking Revolt on Highsun begins. If they want to escape to Wildspace, they'll need to work together, and somehow fight, lie, or sneak their way through the slave-city of Elendin to the Ryledge Shipyard where goods are taken offworld.

The campaign against the Elvish Empire has begun.

The Fortress of Egilsten

Population: ~5,500 dwarves
Ruler: Prince Berja Gunnirsson Egilir
Thanes: Ingrid Alfarsdottir Alring, Jari Jarisson Falengr, Agil Eivarsson Harfangr, Byrni Magrsson Steinson, Grimmir Ormirsson Jyrar
Clans: Egilir (noble), Alring, Falengr, Harfangr, Steinson, Jyrar

Egilsten stands at the extreme north end of the Goblin Country, between that awful land, the giant-haunted plains of Umbrinol, and the ruinous empire of the necromancers, Teral. It was founded in the Ninth Age by the dwarf Egil Grimmson, who still stands as a folk hero to the dwarves of Egilsten to this day. Though the fortress has no colony stone, it sends tribute to the Rikonung of the Dwarves as though it were a recognized colony.

The fortress at Egilsten's heart is built on a rocky promontory overlooking the Bluerill River. This promontory commands the fords at the southern end of Riverwood Forest, and passage is impossible for many rods to the north or south, giving Egilsten control over the river-crossing. The fortress itself is old hewn rock, cut from the bowels of the hill; granite cliffs face the river and the town below, while a winding path on the northern side of the slopes permits entry to the stronghold. It has seen little use in recent centuries, as few have been foolish enough to attack Egilsten. The dwarves, somewhat uncharacteristically, have permitted moss to grow along its walls and partially obscure it from a distance.

The town proper sits around the base of the hill, and is ringed on three sides by a mighty wall, and to the east by the river. A statue of Egil Grimmson stands athwart the courtyard of the fortress, visible from everywhere in the town. There are six major dwarven clans, and thus six clan-halls clustered within the walls. As is true of most green dwarf settlements, there are a number of temples in the town, but none so well-placed as that of Eiri Earthfather at base of the approach to the fortress, or the one to Helda Stonemother at the only entryway through the walls, on their south side.

A secondary town of some 1,200 halflings and 800 rock gnomes has grown up around the fords, outside the walls of Egilsten proper. The dwarves consider these quaint little houses to be under their protection, and visit fire and blade upon any who disturb their wards. The gnomes and halflings are permitted to elect their own mayor and do most of the dwarves' trading for them; this trade settlement is known as Tjaldgul, which means gold-market in Orthr. The halflings and gnomes generally refer to their town as Toggilford, but this is a corruption of the dwarven name.

The dwarves of Egilsten have fought for the halflings of Umbrinol in the past, and are considered consummate mercenaries. Ingrid Alfarsdottir, the Thane of Clan Alring, has been on many campaigns in the west and south.

Aurelien Greenmantle and his murderous band of goblin-killers has often made use of Egilsten as a resting and restocking point. The Toggil Inn has thus been improved with the use of stolen goblin gold, and now stands as a major traffic point between Teral and Umbrinol.

War and the Little Folk

Armies are brutal. Conquering armies rape, destroy, and annihilate. Defending armies do the same. When a battle is fought, men lose their minds and become drunk on slaughter, letting it spill over every one and every thing. They treat friend and foe alike, killing everyone indiscriminately as long as they don't wear the same colors or a uniform at all. The Ancient and Classical worlds were no better than the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, or even the Enlightenment. Soldiering changed little; the chaos caused by war allows those who merely dream about wanton murder and theft the freedom to let loose. The overwhelming sensations of being near death, of winning a hard-fought victory, of murdering at every hand, lead otherwise sensible men to become monsters as well.

So what's the question? The question is: how would this change when your foe wasn't a person like you, but rather a wholly different creature?

The example I'm looking at here (because it may be relevant to my game soon) is the elvish army moving on Arovrienna and the ring of goblin encampments that have sprung up around it. If the goblins win, there's no question they'll rape and kill ilmai and aloisia landholders alike. These elves are foes, they look like a different race of people, and they provide sport for goblin egos (goblins in the 10th Age are one of the flawed "mud peoples" made by the Felnumen, or lesser gods, and their particular mental block is that they have no humility).

But what if the elves win? Will there still be cruel and vicious elf knights who may exploit the madness of the battle and ensuing war to further their own grotesque desires? Jocelyn, to whom I first pitched this idea, said to me: "Yes." My original thought was no. I'd like to examine both answers.

NO. The distinction between friend (insider) and foe (outsider) is too great. Fighting in a battle against an enemy race (or any other race, one that is not necessarily known as a foe) allows for immediate and complete identification of those who belong and those who do not. Therefore, there can be no confused emotions spilling over onto members of your own race. This is something like National Pride, but taken to an absurd level. Elves protecting other elves from goblins would certainly feel as though they are doing something noble and thus wouldn't stoop to the level of sullying their victory.

YES. So what if you can identify the outsiders? There are people who simply use the swirling maelstrom of the aftermath to do whatever they please. This isn't going to stop because they were fighting goblins instead of other elves. While an elvish army may be among the most controlled and disciplined, you're still going to get those who feel their emotions wash over them (particularly amongst the soulful and lusty elves) and allow their reason and judgement to be overriden by the madness of war. Just because identification of the outsider is simple doesn't mean, in this case, it makes any difference.

I so want to go with no. But I fear the answer is yes.

Gross Goblin Gods Monday: Kushad Siegebreaker

KUSHAD

(Siegebreaker, the Raper)

Lesser God, CE

Portfolio: Sieges, rape

Aliases: None

Domain Name: The Blazing City, the Fifth Hell

Superior: Halash, Toynash

Allies: Duzarh and Halash

Foes: Bishush, Lorosh, Ashad

Symbol: An iron-prowed ram

Worshipper Alignment: Any evil

Kushad (KOO-shad) is one of the sons of Ulagos the Potter and brother to Toynash, the ruler-god of the goblin pantheon. Younger and more lusty by far, Kushad is famed for the rape of Ezaya (which produced Lorosh, the God of Farming, his son) as well as battling Ashad the Lord of Slaughters.

He is the patron of siege engineers, invading armies, and works closely with his older half-brother Duzarh, Lord of Loot. Halash, the powerful step-child of Toynash, rules the goblin war pantheon and has nominal authority over the insanities of Kushad.

The goblins know him as a lusty and violent bugbear—he is always depicted fully erect, and his penis is generally tipped with iron on all of his eikons. He wears a filthy knotted beard and has round staring eyes, often depicted as blazing red.

Kushad is known as the Raper and the Siegebreaker, and his portfolios coincide violently.  The way in which he “breaks” sieges, of course, is by smashing the city gates with his ram-prick and allowing the besieging army entrance. He represents the goblin will to dominance, particularly the patriarchal structure of their society (also represented in Atabaq the Father) and his control over rape is not seen as a damning factor but rather as a great honor.

He is a favorite of armies on the march or conducting long sieges, and many rams are christened in his name.

Some notes on Goblins

I've been working diligently to get the disparate types of goblin-kin under one umbrella in the 10th Age. Bugbears, hobgoblins, and the little guys actually form a weak 3-part caste system in Arunia (and a much more cohesive one in the Moon Kingdoms) wherein the weakest link in the chain serves as a political class, the hobgoblins as "knights" generally seeing themselves as honor-bond to duty, and the boisterous (and unpredictable) bugbears as scouts and heavy elite troops.

They don't always work in common. Often times, bugbears encountering either of the other two groups will just kill and eat them. However, in the most successful goblin tribes (those that emulate the society of the vanished goblin empires of Tsaphon, Negev, and Ennegev) this triarchy holds strong and provides three legs to support the whole of the raiding culture.

Goblins of Arunia are "debased," that is, they have a lower stature and more bestial nature than their Moon Kingdom cousins. However, they are no less attracted to power, cunning, and backstabbing. Indeed, they are just as intelligent though their magical tradition has long since died out leaving them without the one thing they would really need as a people to re-establish a homeland: wizards.

For this reason and this reason alone, the goblin menace is less of a dire threat and more of a nuisance. After all, goblins have scattered to the four corners of Arunia where they have set up distinct colonies. Goblins are endemic, whether you are in a forest, below ground, or on a high plain. They can be found anywhere and everywhere, usually thriving in their brutality.

They value things that most other cultures would consider ugly. Stark, twisted, and even the gothically ornate are all types of things which appeal to goblins. Their weapons are sometimes fashioned to look  like grotesque reflections of real things in the world: dragons, birds, lions, etc.

If all of the mudmen (the creatures created by the spirits descended from the Gigantine God Ulagos the Potter) have one critical flaw, the flaw of the goblins is hubris. Whereas orcs cannot empathize, goblins simply cannot see the value in races other than their own. They believe almost inherently in their own greatness and the greatness of both their race and their person.

While the goblin-kin races may be encountered separately (tribes of hobgoblins or bugbears) or in groups without their other kin (as leaders of orcs, led by ogres, or some such) their society is at its most complex when the three strata live and work together and fall into their more-or-less "natural" social castes.

The Hunyadi

THE origins of mankind are hotly disputed and no scholar can claim a theory which explains them sufficiently. It is well known, for instance, that black men came up from the south where they once had homes in the lands of Zesh, fleeing the oppression of their God-king. But when they arrived races of men had already been living in Atva-Arunia for centuries and it was with the tall white fellows that they interbred. There were the Eyls and Thegnari, the Llyreans and Valelans, and in the south-east there were the Khewed, Ishtrians, and Hadashi folk all of whom were really many smaller tribes of men that had been knit together by politics. Southwards there were Mugharians and in the far far east the Zhongguans (also called Dhiaojiongese).

Thus, it baffled the scholars of mannish history when, two centuries ago, a new tribe of men appeared as though from nowhere. The lands that men call "the Moon Kingdoms" lie in the east, beyond the Straits of the Moon and are generally known to be inhabited by a race of monstrous goblins much taller, and wiser, and more shrewd than Atvian goblins. The same goes for many of the creatures that live there: history tells us that pure goblins and ogres and such were driven over the straits in ancient days by the trolls when they fled and that they have remained closer to their original forms while the Atvian creatures have decayed and grown small and mean.

Monsters with Reason

From lingering around other people's games, it has become apparent to me that a lot of times monstrous demihumans are simply aggressors. When they are encountered, they may demand some gold, but more times than not they will attack just for fun. I think that there's something to be said for a good fight now and then, but there's also something to be said about giving your monstrous demihumans (and enemyhumans and regular demihumans) the power of reasoned thought. Most small parties of goblins, for example, should know better than to attack well-armed and well-armored adventurers unless they have a huge advantage in numbers.

Smart foes are the basis of a challenging game, and they also help to bring a sense of realism to the setting. Not every monstrous demihuman is a ravening beast that desires nothing but to bathe in the blood of their foes. Many are quite capable (and should be portrayed as such) of advanced tactical maneuvers, but also in judging the relative strength of their enemies and making a decision based on whether or not they think violence is the best solution. Hell, violence is almost never the best solution. Unless they are particularly bloodthirsty (gnolls might qualify here, and hungry orcs probably can as well) there's no reason to go out of their way to attack someone that they can intimidate instead.