In reading through the Ghosts of Saltmarsh version of the U series modules, I finding myself wanting to complicate the sahuagin or possibly even replace them with Lovecraftian deep ones and/or their various RPG derivatives.
In turn that makes me wonder about the undersea kingdoms of the Azure Sea. Have any of you developed them?
I recall Aeolius described an underwater campaign many moons ago in the Dramij Ocean, and in a LGJ, Fred briefly described a merfolk kingdom in relationship to Ekbir, iirc, but I can't recall anything similar for the Azure Sea (and/or related bays, oceans, and seas).
If you've developed or imagined such, or can recommend CF! articles or forum posts—or published sourcebooks or adventures—please let me know.
Also, I'd love to hear folks thoughts about the relationships between deep ones, koalinth, kraken, kuo-toa, locathah, merfolk, sahuagin, sea olves, tritons, ulat-kini, etc. in the Azure Sea, Jeklea Bay, the Tilva Straits, Pearl Sea, and Vohoun Ocean, etc.
"The Maze of the Morkoth" in Dungeon #70 is an interesting undersea adventure with some information on aquatic elves and locathah communities. Quick conversion: Duqan Empire=Suel Imperium, Doblos=Xerbo, unnamed volcano god=Joramy.
The Monstrous Arcana sahuagin trilogy: Evil Tide, Night of the Shark, Sea of Blood.
GA1 The Murky Deep. Whitton is Saltmarsh, Desarius is Delleb or Boccob, and Manannan Mac Lir is Osprem.
"The Ecology of the Kopru" in Dragon #354 is also worth looking at.
Agnosco Adventum from the Canonfire! Chronicles has a brief introduction to Drawmij, who has an undersea abode somewhere within the Azure Sea, though I do not recall the specific source I got that from.
The adventure itself also describes the lair of a morkoth, the lair of a dragon turtle, and the lair of a tribe of ixitxachitl and the tribe of locatha that they have enslaved.
Dungeon Magazine #077 includes the adventure To Walk Beneath the Waves. It introduces the mage Nelzim who lives in Rawnis on the Keoland coast whom I also included in one of the hooks in Agnosco Adventum as an apprentice of Drawmij. Nelzim specializes in aquatic magic. The opponents the PCs must focus on in this adventure are Kuo Toans.
In addition to responding to posts, I'll use this thread to record substantive notes as I develop them.
I look forward to rereading Dungeon 70 and Dragon 354 (once I recover my collection from storage) and will read Agnosco Adventum asap. The first map is already generative.
I haven't read PC3, GA1, or the Monstrous Arcana sahuagin sourcebook and trilogy, so thank you for all those suggestions. Rip, do you recommend The Sea Devils sourcebook in addition to the trilogy?
Also, for the classic modules and sourcebooks, do folks prefer the PDFs from DMsGuild, DriveThruRPG, or another (re)publisher (if any exist)? I have one foot firmly in the twentieth century (i.e., I prefer printed texts), but given the cost difference and ease of acquisition, I'm open to buying PDFs—but seek guidance.
I have also submitted the first of a three part series detailing the Azure Sea and its mysterious places. I submitted Part one and am working on parts two and three. Let me know if they are helpful.
As far as references go, the 2e sourcebook "The Sea Devils" was very good and the Monstrous Arcana adventure series "Evil Tide", "Night of the Shark" and "Sea of Blood" were all very good. I retconned them into the Azure and used them as references.
Take a look at the Downloads section on CF for a map of the baronies from my Sahuagin article. Here:
The last of my Keoish Intelligence Reports on the Azure Sea is now posted. This third article was mostly just me using my old notes and/or making up undersea locations. In looking at the maps of Greyhawk, you can see all sorts of mysterious adventure locals scattered all throughout the map, but precious little in the seas. I was hoping to give some folk reasons to explore below the waves.
My first adventures were the U series, so I started off my Greyhawk experience with a healthy respect for the villainy of the sahuagin. I also really enjoy the Sargent authored Ivid the Undying, so I based my article on that template. I imagine the sahuagin being like an undersea Aerdy with room for adventurers to explore under a backdrop of an evil empire.
I do intend to write up my thoughts on a Greyhawk version of Atlantis in a little bit. I had some notes on this from my DM days, so I have a ton of half remembered ideas that will be coming together in the future. Until then, enjoy the intel!
Between your works, The Sea Peoples, and The Sea Devils, I feel prepared to sketch out Jeklea Bay and nearby parts of the Azure Sea IMC.(Depending on my players, I may check out Evil Tide and Kenzer's Beneath the Waves too.)
On a related note, besides Dragon 68, do any of you have other sources to recommend regarding the Koalinth? I like how O-D featured a religious schism between traditionalists who venerate Maglubiyet, heretics who serve Panzuriel, and a third group, but koalinths in general seem marginal to the Oerthly and deific orc–goblinoid conflicts.
On a related note, besides Dragon 68, do any of you have other sources to recommend regarding the Koalinth? I like how O-D featured a religious schism between traditionalists who venerate Maglubiyet, heretics who serve Panzuriel, and a third group, but koalinths in general seem marginal to the Oerthly and deific orc–goblinoid conflicts.
“Heroes of the Sea” by James Wyatt, Dragon Magazine #250.
Erik Mona's "The Great Embarkation" recounts a purported origin of the aquatic elves, and it's possible that koalinth were born in the same conflict.
Thanks Rasgon, I had never read that issue before and think "Heroes of the Sea" provides the most published detail on the koalinth. (I also enjoyed reading the issue's other thematically related articles.)
Reflecting on Iquander's "Great Embarkation" and your "History of the Elves of Oerth," I think that the koalinth should not derive from that moment of Oerth's prehistory: humanoids are late-comers to the Flanaess, introduced during the Baklunish-Suloise Wars. Thus, the hoch jebline were not targets of the ancient olves—in contrast to the kuo-toa, quaggoths, etc.
In terms of origin myth, the koalinth seem to call for another goblinoid god, perhaps a scion of Nomog-Geaya who took the war against land olves beneath the waves?
In terms of Oerth's history, combining the World of Greyhawk Guide with Iquander's Great Embarkation (and the Chainmail skirmish game) makes me wonder if the koalinth on Oerth came from the Utter West and made their way east to the Dramidj Ocean and then over and around the Flanaess. (I wish I had my LGJ #5 to review Fred Weining's article on Zeif: I recall it mentioned merfolk but can't recall if it mentioned sea olves or koalinth.)
If this holds, then the koalinth invasions might parallel the Great Migrations and hence make them relative newcomers to the Azure Sea.
I think that the koalinth should not derive from that moment of Oerth's prehistory: humanoids are late-comers to the Flanaess, introduced during the Baklunish-Suloise Wars.
Well, we know there was a wave of humanoid migrations at that time, just as there was a wave of human migrations at that time. But just as there were already humans in the Flanaess, it's possible there were already orcs and goblins in the Flanaess, living alongside the demihumans and Flan. I think the various myths about conflicts between the demihuman and humanoid gods suggest this to be the case.
It's also possible that the Flanaess humanoids died out at some point and were replaced by western migrants, or they migrated into the west and back again.
The connection between quaggoths, hobgoblins, and bugbears is sort of a pet theory of mine. The rivalry between hobgoblins and elves specifically goes back to the original Monster Manual, and Paizo's Classic Monsters Revisited suggested some ancient rivals of the elves engineered goblins into hobgoblins. That made me think of Erik Mona's ancient quaggoth war, and I realized that the increasing hairiness and "beariness" of hobgoblins and bugbears might actually suggest quaggoth blood had been engineered into the goblin species. It's just a theory, of course.
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In terms of origin myth, the koalinth seem to call for another goblinoid god, perhaps a scion of Nomog-Geaya who took the war against land olves beneath the waves?
Rasgon, have you given more thought to the quaggoth-bugbear-hobgoblin-goblin continuum? I'd love to read your take on it. (I can't recall any gods associated with the quaggoth.)
Reviewing Panzuriel's online entry and pondering the matter for a couple of months, I think you're right that he/it is a better candidate for creating the koalinth than creating a new god.
Has any edition featured "sea goblins"? It seems a bit odd (interesting) to have sea hobgoblins but neither sea goblins, nor sea orcs.
Has any edition featured "sea goblins"? It seems a bit odd (interesting) to have sea hobgoblins but neither sea goblins, nor sea orcs.
Though the existence of such does seem realistic, it also seems a bit boring, from a gaming point of view, to simply have aquatic versions of every land-dwelling humanoid race.
We already have aquatic hobgoblins, ogres, trolls, and ghouls. Plus, we have original undersea humanoid races including the sahaugin, locatha, merfolk, sea elves, Kuo Toa, and more from other source books.
I think that writers simply decided that introducing sea orcs or sea goblins would be a rather boring and unoriginal thing to do in a product that customers were paying for. So, it is perfectly reasonable for them to exist. They have just been left for each DM to introduce on their own.
Rasgon, have you given more thought to the quaggoth-bugbear-hobgoblin-goblin continuum? I'd love to read your take on it. (I can't recall any gods associated with the quaggoth.)
As always, a tip of the hat to The Great Embarkation by Erik Mona. The idea that hobgoblins were created by ancient enemies of the elves appeared in Classic Monsters Revisited by Paizo Publishing. There's some Clark Ashton Smith in here, too, and some ideas from the adventure Sea of Blood by Bruce Cordell.
Quaggoths and the goblin races
The war had been going badly for the quaggoths. They had been the most civilized of the mammalian races prior to the coming of the elves, building gigantic temples of basalt to Tsathoggua, god of sorcery, Nerull, god of death, and Yhoundeh, goddess of elks, in the northern forests, and trading slaves to the kuo-toa of the Isles of Woe in exchange for additional occult secrets. Now, their mastery of the north was threatened by the more numerous elven legions, whose magic was more focused on combat than on the shaping of life. Settlement after settlement was wiped out by elven combat-mages in retribution for the death of Amaranthe, sister to the elven queen Maebhel.
In desperation, the quaggoth sorcerers turned to the lowliest of their slaves, the fecund goblin race, and reshaped them into their own image using lore encoded in their great tome, the Pnostic Manuscripts, incorporating some of their own blood in their creations to make them larger and hairier than before. Two new races arose: the orderly hobgoblins, who did not fear the sun, and the stealthy bugbears, who had the most quaggoth blood of all. The new goblin races bred quickly, much more quickly than the elves, and the quaggoths sent their new forces against their elvish enemies.
Still the elves won, triumphing over the newly-born, poorly-trained goblin-kin. The bulk of the goblin horde were driven beyond the Fals Gap and the remaining quaggoths and goblinfolk were driven into the furthest north and beneath the depths of the earth.
Still the elves were not done. They drove the kuo-toas into the oceans and the darkness and imprisoned the god of the anguiilian eel-folk into a sculpture made of serpentine. Not satisfied with their slaughter, they used the Pnostic Manuscripts they had stolen from the quaggoths, as well as lore taken from the eel-folk, and shaped aquatic forms of their own race, and the aquatic elves followed their enemies into the oceans to slay them there.
In desperation, the enemies of the elves joined together and created one last time, shaping similar aquatic forms for the hobgoblins. The koalinths, or aquatic hobgoblins, followed their enemies into the sea, and although they were unable to prevent the extermination of the sea-dwelling kuo-toas, they have made life more difficult for the aquatic elves ever since.
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