Hello everyone. I know this topic must be an old and oft-explored one, but can somebody please point me towards some info on the Ur-flan. I've had a pretty good look around this site and come up near empty so far. I'm given to understand that it was a movement among the early flan tribes allied with Vecna rather than one tribe in particular. Is this at all accurate? I've prepared a fairly extensive story arc concerning an ancient Ur-flan necromancer who was the first chieftain to be buried at Spear Tor and some extra background would be very useful.
It's never been officially spelled out, which is probably why there isn't that much to go on. Your estimation of them more as a movement is pretty much as accurate as anything else. I think of them more as an order or a tradition of druidic necromancers, or necromantic druids , though never very cohesive, often splitting into smaller groups such as the Necormancers of Trask, and the Northern Adepts. The original Horned Society might have been an Ur-Flan branch. They seem to have been widespread across the Flanaess, and older than Vecna, having been the enemies that indirectly caused the fall of Queen Sharafere and the City of Summer Stars. Some think Vecna may have been one of them, though he turned to his own agenda at some point. Maybe they were another offshoot of the refugee Tiamat-worshiping priests of Caerdiralor (see - http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=lg/lgmp/20080429a, or maybe some remnant of Sulm's necromancers who fled that kingdom before Shattados brought doom down among his people, or maybe just a corrupt druidic sect that grew naturally (or unnaturally) from some primitive Flan tribe. Or maybe a marriage of any or all of those things.
The Ur-Flan aren't necessarily connected with Vecna, although Vecna has been referred to as one.
As far as I know, the first reference to the Ur-Flan is in Ivid the Undying, which explains the term this way: "The sacred sites of the Ur-Flannae, the rare mystics of the Flan people (feared by the Flan far more than by the Aerdi)."
So the Ur-Flannae are rare, magically adept Flan, feared by others of their race but not so much by the invading Oeridians. There are several references to sacred sites belonging to "Ur-Flannae mystics" in that book. Three of the greatest of the Ur-Flannae are said to be buried on the Isle of Cursed Souls. "If this is true, the perils below it do not bear even thinking about."
Ur-Flannae necromancers and wizards are also portrayed as threatening the City of the Summer Stars in the same book. As with the Isle of Cursed Souls, this is on the opposite side of the Flanaess from Vecna's kingdom. There are burial chambers of "Ur-Flannae mages or necromancers" in the Gull Cliffs.
The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer uses the term "Ur-Flan" instead of Sargent's "Ur-Flannae," but seems to use it in the same way. It's said that certain Flan delve into "the necromantic arts of the ancient Ur-Flan," and that the early Aerdi principalities were individually unable to take on the Ur-Flan and Suel. It's presumed that the Northern Adepts of Old Blackmoor were a cabal of Ur-Flan sorcerers, and that some of the depraved families of the Ataphad islands in the Dramidj Ocean can trace their lineage back to the Ur-Flan. "Ur-Flan insurgents" attempted to assassinate the King of Aerdy in -107 CY by summoning a "winged horror." We learn in the section on the Old Faith that the ancient Flan druids were allied with "the sorcerous Ur-Flan, who held entire tribes in bondage to their evil." This verifies that only the feared magic-users of the Flan merit the title "Ur-Flan" - the other members of their tribes were simply Flan.
None of these references mention Vecna. The only reference I'm aware of that ties Vecna to the Ur-Flan specifically is this Living Greyhawk column, which says the following:
Quote:
Vecna and the Ur-Flan: The Ur-Flan were a mysterious group among the Flannae about whom little is known for sure. It is known that several of their number, Vecna and Keraptis among them, made themselves overlords of pre-cataclysm empires and these Ur-Flan empires were quite evil. The druids did not concern themselves with the Ur-Flan as long as they were not a threat to the Balance or the Eternal Cycle. This passive acceptance allowed Vecna and others like him to flourish, and some held whole tribes in bondage to their evil. When Vecna betrayed the druids and twisted their power over nature into a source of undeath, they were completely unprepared. Some druids fled, many died, and the few who remained served the Whispered One. A number of scholars believe that the druids who served Vecna rescued many of the Ur-Flan secrets and the Old Faith preserves that knowledge to this day.
Of course, if Vecna and Keraptis were ancient and feared Flannae magic-users, that makes them Ur-Flan, though they otherwise have nothing to do with one another (except perhaps for the serpent intertwined with Keraptis's sigil, which we also see twined with the sigil of Acererak).
I don't think the Ur-Flannae were any kind of cohesive movement, and I don't think they can be traced back to a single source like Caerdiralor or Sulm. They're simply a catch-all term for ancient Flannae magic-users, some of them necromancers, who seem to have inspired terror in the tribes and kingdoms that they ruled. The druids often collaborated with or at least tolerated them, but the Ur-Flannae were arcane spell-casters, not druids (unless they multi-classed). Otherwise, Ur-Flannae in one part of the ancient Flanaess probably weren't connected to Ur-Flannae in another.
There is also a Lore of the Ur-Flan regional feat from one of the Dragons -
Lore of the Ur-Flan: You're schooled in the ancient art of the Ur-Flan necromancers.
Regions: Bright Lands, Flan
Benefits: Add +2 to the DC of all saves against necromancy spells with the evil descriptor. This bonus stacks with the bonuses granted by the Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus feats.
I tend to interpret the ur-flannae etymologically. Since the prefix "ur-" usually means "earliest" or "original", I assume the Ur-Flannae were a sort of "proto-flannae" who dwelt throughout the Flanaess prior to the development of the less-ancient Flan cultures. Rasgon is correct in asserting that in most canon literature the term is specifically applied to magic-users, and therefore it seems logical to assume the Ur-Flannae had a society that placed much emphasis on magical power.
If one also includes Living Greyhawk material and fan-made materials, then the picture is fleshed out a bit further. At least some of Vecna's followers were Ur-Flannae, for example, and we also have the city of Tycheron (present-day Dyvers) as a relatively powerful Ur-Flannae city run by wizards. The term itself is also broadened to apply to the societies from which the spellcasters came and not only to the spellcasters themselves. This broadening of the term, to my mind, is entirely logical inasmuch as it makes little sense to refer to the mages of a given society as being of a separate race.
However, given their ancient origins, the distance between their settlements, and the sparseness of canon literature, I do not think it's necessary to assume the Ur-Flannae were all from the same culture or society. I suspect, based on the etymology, that one might even be able to argue they weren't even of the same race. It's entirely possible to interpret the term simply as "the people who lived here before the Flannae and contributed to their development as a race".
Thus, in my campaign the term Ur-Flannae applies to a variety of human (and in one case non-human) cultures that existed in the Flanaess before the development of the early Flan nations. While most of these cultures bear certain similarities, they are not necessarily related and did not all exist simultaneously.
it makes little sense to refer to the mages of a given society as being of a separate race.
That would be illogical, but there's nothing in Ivid the Undying or the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, at least, to indicate that "Ur-Flannae" is the name of a race, or that the Ur-Flannae were a separate race from the rest of Flannae society. From the sources I've found (I haven't seen the Living Greyhawk sources you cite), it's simply the name of a caste of magic-users among the ancient Flan. Perhaps they were given that title due to their long lives, artificially extended with magic or prolonged after death with necromancy. Many must have been the literal ancestors of the other Flan enthralled to them, so giving them a title meaning "progenitors of the Flan" made sense. Perhaps magic was something traditionally taught only to those of a relatively advanced age, which might help explain their rarity.
Of course, your mileage may vary, and everyone needs to do what makes the most sense to them in their own campaigns.
Thanks Rasgon for the excellent (as usual) summary and smillan for the LG reference!
I actually have a manuscript in preparation for submission to CF! about the Ur-Flan. Actually, it's about the Flan Great Circle, the Fall of Tharizdun, the birth of Berei, the Rise of the Ur-Flan, and a few other odds and ends. I plan on posting it as "heresy" rather than "history," because it presents a view very ideosyncratic to my campaign and I haven't tried to match it up with what canon information there is (although given the paucity of information about the Ur-Flan there are no glaring contradictions).
Like Bubbagump, I see the title "Ur" as meaning "first". For the purposes of my article, I assume that the Ur-Flan arose from within the Flan, and that they were the first to have large cities, writing, complex agriculture, etc. So for me, "Ur-Flan" means a complex level of civilization that arose within the "primitive" nomadic Flan. Actually, I make an explicit connection by way of "Ur" to the Sumerian condition of independent city-states that were culturally, but not politically, united.
The article is currently being reviewed by mortellan (nudge, mort, Needfest's over!) and as soon as he either passes on it or suggests revisions I will be uploading it.
Mortellan was kind enough to give me the following summaries of the Dragon articles I don't have. What follows are direct quotes from him:
DRG 208 (pg 54) Is in reference to Queen Sharafere receiving emissaries from the Ur-Flan. The rest is well known as is just an excerpt from IVID anyhow.
DRG 291 (pg 92) is the article on Death Knights. It references St Kargoth's pact with Demogorgon, whose cult was once profligate among the Ur-Flan of the eastern coast of the Flanaess.
(pg 95) is the same article. It mentions Lady Kath and how she's been digging up long buried secrets of the ancient Ur-Flan necromancers who once inhabited those lands before the arrival of the Aerdi. (She lives 2 days northeast of Stringen.)
DRG 293 (pg 90) is Gary's article on Veralos, Lost City of the Flan.
DRG 294 (pg 96) is about the Sword Druzianth. It says more than 800 years ago Baron Lum used it against Ur-Flan necromancers near what is Bonewood today, and that he lost it in that fray. _________________ My campaigns are multilayered tapestries upon which I texture themes and subject matter which, quite frankly, would simply be too strong for your hobbyist gamer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Mp7Ikko8SI
GVD was inspired by the ur-priests from the Book of Vile Darkness, who are much the same.
I've always associated the Vasharans from that book (a race of evil humans who predate the creation of the modern human race) with the Ur-Flan. The idea would be that they lived in the Flanaess before the Flan came, involved with the creation of the Causeway of Fiends and similar sites, and later mingled with the Flan race.
There is also a Lore of the Ur-Flan regional feat from one of the Dragons -
Lore of the Ur-Flan: You're schooled in the ancient art of the Ur-Flan necromancers.
Regions: Bright Lands, Flan
Benefits: Add +2 to the DC of all saves against necromancy spells with the evil descriptor. This bonus stacks with the bonuses granted by the Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus feats.
That's from Dragon #315. It's interesting that the Bright Lands - home of the ancient Sulmi - is specifically singled out, indicating that the Ur-Flan existed there.
There's actually a second Ur-Flan feat in the same article. "Lays of the Northern Adepts" ties to the Ur-Flan of ancient Blackmoor, and it's interesting that it's purely defensive in nature, not necromantic and evil like the Ur-Flan known to the south. It's the only example I've seen of "benign" Ur-Flannae magics.
it makes little sense to refer to the mages of a given society as being of a separate race.
That would be illogical, but...
Forgive me; I was unclear.
I meant that IF we assume the term "Ur-Flannae" is a designation of race, then it wouldn't make sense to apply it only to wizards. For example, if everyone living in a given town is Irish, it wouldn't make sense to designate the window washers as Germans.
As a note of little sigificance ... the Ur-priests were updated in Complete Divine not too long after the BoVD. Personally I really like the class, and think that it fits the Ur-Flan rather well, although it is not technically linked to them (not in that book at any rate).
Most insightful. Thankyou all. I think for my campaign I would cautiously take a middle ground of saying that the Ur-Flan were a more settled, technologically and magically developed off-shoot caste of the standard nomadic flan. Perhaps these elite flan, dominated by wizards and ur-priests, grew larger as nations like Sulm and the Occluded Empire gained ground and forced the nomadic flan into subservience. While not politcally allied, I kind of like the Ur-flan being a mysterious society that was philosophically allied across the flanaess...
In any case, the information that you guys have provided will certainly suit more Spear Tor arc. Thanks.
There is also a Lore of the Ur-Flan regional feat from one of the Dragons -
Lore of the Ur-Flan: You're schooled in the ancient art of the Ur-Flan necromancers.
Regions: Bright Lands, Flan
Benefits: Add +2 to the DC of all saves against necromancy spells with the evil descriptor. This bonus stacks with the bonuses granted by the Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus feats.
That's from Dragon #315. It's interesting that the Bright Lands - home of the ancient Sulmi - is specifically singled out, indicating that the Ur-Flan existed there.
There's actually a second Ur-Flan feat in the same article. "Lays of the Northern Adepts" ties to the Ur-Flan of ancient Blackmoor, and it's interesting that it's purely defensive in nature, not necromantic and evil like the Ur-Flan known to the south. It's the only example I've seen of "benign" Ur-Flannae magics.
Yeah, I had assumed the nature of that feat was based on the Northern Adepts being best known for the defensive nature of the standing stones and mounds they constructed that keep the Black Ice from coming further south, and possibly keep Iuz out of Blackmoor.
There is also a Lore of the Ur-Flan regional feat from one of the Dragons -
Lore of the Ur-Flan: You're schooled in the ancient art of the Ur-Flan necromancers.
Regions: Bright Lands, Flan
Benefits: Add +2 to the DC of all saves against necromancy spells with the evil descriptor. This bonus stacks with the bonuses granted by the Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus feats.
That's from Dragon #315. It's interesting that the Bright Lands - home of the ancient Sulmi - is specifically singled out, indicating that the Ur-Flan existed there.
I wouldn't read too much into that. In Living Greyhawk, there was a Bright Sands core plot arc and if a player created a 1st level PC whose home region was the Bright Lands (NOT a Triad controlled region, btw), it unlocked several character creation options. Likely, making this feat available was just something someone thought would help entice people to make such characters. LG was hugely against Evil or near-Evil acts and PCs (except for the BK), so allowing a feat which encouraged the casting of Evil spells (and which bumped the DCs up considerably!) was probably seen as a benefit which would entice some players to create Bright Lands PCs.
Now, that's just my cynical guess. My other guess would be that Creighton or whoever created that feat really thought that the region had something to do canonically with the Ur-Flan and got it pushed through despite LG's anti-Evil acts stance. Creighton would probably know, since, iirc, Bright Sands was his baby.
Well, I thought that I had posted this, but I guess the last time that I posted it I closed the browser or shut down the laptop before submitting it. So ... once more for posterity:
As far as the "feel" or "tone" of the Ur-Flan, there's a great comparison that I really like for them. In the Belgariad series by David Eddings, there's a group of people called the "Morindim".
wiki wrote:
Morindim are nomadic, tribal demon worshippers, living in the frozen wastes north of the Kingdoms of the West. Their upper class consists mostly of Dreamers, who "commune" with the demons, and Magicians, those who control the demon by forming a body to imprison it in. If the magician should fail to control his demon, it will break free to wreak havoc on its former master and the clan, usually until nightfall when it returns to its own reality.
They have a really tribal feel, and deal with fetishes and are very, well, they just have a great feel of these wilder, witch-doctorish, totemistic demon-worshippers. I don't really like the mechanics of how they summon demons (having to do with illusion), but I like the ideas that it presents. Their culture is one that isn't reflected in a lot of fiction, and not only did Eddings make them a tribal demon-whorshipping people, but they even live in the right climate and terrain! Although he did it long after GH was around. (tee hee)
Anyway ... if you haven't read Eddings' stuff, pick up a copy of one of his books. If you have, let me know what you think about the comparison.
I've always associated the Vasharans from that book (a race of evil humans who predate the creation of the modern human race) with the Ur-Flan. The idea would be that they lived in the Flanaess before the Flan came, involved with the creation of the Causeway of Fiends and similar sites, and later mingled with the Flan race.
That's certainly the idea I was running with when I mentioned the Ur-Flan in connection with Druniazth. I've always been strongly drawn to Sargent's NE Aerdy Ur-Flan sites: the Causeway of Fiends, Isle of Lost Souls (aka ...Cursed Souls), and the Blood Obelisk of Aerdy. I've considered making Chokestone the fallout zone from an Ur-Flan curse/retributive strike, too, but haven't run a GK game in ages, so it's remained speculative pondering at this point. _________________ Allan Grohe<br />https://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html<br />https://grodog.blogspot.com/
I meant that IF we assume the term "Ur-Flannae" is a designation of race, then it wouldn't make sense to apply it only to wizards. For example, if everyone living in a given town is Irish, it wouldn't make sense to designate the window washers as Germans.
In my campaign - even though it never had any impact on play since PCs rarely if ever worried about it - Ur Flan were a secret cabal and society of Flannae sorcerers, primarily necromancers, who predated the split of the Flannae into different tribes and nations. So they were both a secret society, and representatives of an ancient (Ur) culture of Flannae, a sort of keepers of the pure Flan way. I made them into pretty ferocious baddies who ended up being defeated by the Oeridians because many of the Flannae themselves seized the ocassion to finally get rid of them and their oppression. One of the reasons that in the end racial strife did not occur between Oeridians and Flannae, as they had at the end fought on the same side.
All sorts of baddies can then be made to be members of surviving groups of Flannae. _________________ Lisbon Portugal<br />
Sorry to resurrect this old thread (pointed out to me by Rip in the thread on Acererak's tyranny), but I didn't see anyone reference Vecna: Hand of the Revenant.
On page 16, Vecna’s mother, Mazell, explains to Vecna that “our ancestors are said to have learned arcane magic from a great serpent they named Mok’Slyk who appeared in the sky one night. It gave the gift of wizardry to all the Ur-Flan people though since that time, every Ur-Flan tribe but ours has either been destroyed by witch-hunters or has forgotten Mok’Slyk.”
Mazell further explains to her son that “in order to preserve its gift, Mok’Slyk consumes the spirits of the dead who revered it in life, absorbing everything that person learned in this world to pass on to the next generation of rulers,” and that “only the great god-kings could speak with Mok’Slyk while they were still living and now they are gone with the ancient empires.” Finally, Mazell tells Vecna that “The legend of Mok’Slyk has been with our people since before the first words were written and the first brick put to a city.”
From this, one could ascertain that the Ur-Flan may have once been distinguished by their connection to the Serpent, ie, arcane magic. Perhaps the other Flan tribes never bore witness to the revelation of Mok'Slyk, and thus were at a disadvantage. This knowledge of arcane magic may have allowed Ur-Flan civilization to outpace that of the other Flan, resulting in the rise of the "god-kings."
In time, of course, the other tribes would narrow the gap (perhaps with the aid of benevolent deities), while the Ur-Flan societies slid into decadence and corruption.
GVD was inspired by the ur-priests from the Book of Vile Darkness, who are much the same.
I've always associated the Vasharans from that book (a race of evil humans who predate the creation of the modern human race) with the Ur-Flan. The idea would be that they lived in the Flanaess before the Flan came, involved with the creation of the Causeway of Fiends and similar sites, and later mingled with the Flan race.
That's actually a very cool idea, Rip, and provides a nice way to integrate the Vasharans into Greyhawk canon.
Note that the BoVD seems to imply the Vasharans are native to a place called "The plateau of Vashar." The best known plateau in GH canon is the Okalasna Plateau on the Tilvanot Peninsula. Could that be the homeland of the Vasharans? Interesting that the Scarlet Brotherhood's official name for their nation is just one syllable short of VaShar, also.
Elsewhere in Greyhawk canon the term "Ur-Flan" is used for the mystics and sorcerers who ruled many of the tribes, rather than a tribe in their own right, but Mazell's words make more sense if you read it as "Mok'Slyk gave the gift of wizardry to the Vasharan, our ancestors." Or it could just be read as meaning "those tribes ruled by Ur-Flannae mystics," with "Ur-Flan tribes" as shorthand.
As for the Vasharan, the Okalasna Plateau seems like a reasonable location for them to have originated in, though it's not clear what cataclysm forced them to leave it, unless the invading Suel simply slaughtered them all. Either sort of catastrophe would have left remnants that might influence the Scarlet Brotherhood to this day.
I really associated the Vasharan with the Sinking Isle, because, first, it's an ancient, pre-Flan (possibly pre-human) and exceedingly wicked civilization, and, second, there's a unique Book of Vile Darkness (a document the Vasharan are credited with originating) discovered in the ruins. On the other hand, I also associate the Sinking Isle with the Elder Elves described in Gates of Firestorm Peak and elsewhere, which require an island to have sunk beneath the sea after their mad attempt at piercing the boundaries of reality (and, as recounted in the Sea Devil trilogy of modules, create the malenti after experimenting with sahuagin).
This makes me wonder if the Sinking Isle could have contained both Vasharan and Elder Elf inhabitants. Perhaps the Plateau of Vashar was located there - as a plateau, it might be the only portion of the island that peeks above the waves when the Isle rises. But the homophony of Vashar/Shar is interesting, and Vasharan traders might have come from the Tilvanot to the Sinking Isle in elder times.
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, though never very cohesive, often splitting into smaller groups such as the Necormancers of Trask, and the Northern Adepts. The original Horned Society might have been an Ur-Flan branch. They seem to have been widespread across the Flanaess, and older than Vecna, having been the enemies that indirectly caused the fall of Queen Sharafere and the City of Summer Stars. Some think Vecna may have been one of them, though he turned to his own agenda at some point. Maybe they were another offshoot of the refugee Tiamat-worshiping priests of Caerdiralor (see - 
