Care to share your own ideas for developing the region or your opinions regarding the published TSR/WotC/Paizo material?
I'm thinking of running a game set there, pre-Wars. The base area will be a coastal fort sponsored by the Prince of Monmurg and the guilds of that city.
One of the first things I have done was to look at the encounter lists in the WoGH boxed set. Amedio and Hepmonaland share a chart. FtA has a somewhat different list.
My initial modifications/combinations for the Amedio list:
#1 qullan replace gibberlings
Both races are murderous, sword-wielding savages. Instead of the official sword-sharpening version, my qullan make and carry obsidian edged sword-clubs; wickedly sharp weapons that blunt after a couple of rounds of combat.
#2 beastmen replace dakon
Both species are neutral (LN and N(g)) animal people and both make good 'woses' or wild men o' the woods.
The Sam Wood art for Living Greyhawk Journal is what pushed me over the top on these guys.
#3 Amedian elephants will be like smaller mastodons. Hairy, but like the Sumatran rhinoceros and not a shaggy, cold-climate beast. Regular AD&D elephant stats will work just fine. These creatures are cousins of mastodons of the Sulhauts (the tables allow for Pleistocene encounters there).
SKR removed heffalumps from the Amedio. But I'm ignoring a significant part of The Scarlet Brotherhood source-book for this campaign.
GVDameranug's article on Olman history looks fun to me.
There are a few adventures from Dungeon Magazine that are intended to be placed in a jungle, though I cannot remember their names off hand.
The Lost Shrine of Tomoachan takes place in the Amedio.
The Savage Tide AP gives some details of coastal forts in the Amedio. Fort Blackwell is a free port, but there are several others along the east coast controlled by The Scarlet Brotherhood. Sasserine, a large city on the southern shore of Jeklea Bay is also detailed. Finally, that AP adds some encounter areas to the Lost Shrine of Tomoachan.
Agnosco Adventum, from The Canonfire! Chronicles, adds details and encounters within Fort Blackwell on the Amedian Peninsula and the surrounding waters.
The Fen of the Five-fold Maw (TPK Games) pits the PCs against a primitive tribe of Lizardfolk, some wielding Aztec-like weapons as you described above.
Note that the last two adventures listed above were authored by me, so... 😉
Also, a much more recent generic module (Dungeon #100 +, D&D 3.5 era) was an adventure dealing where the adventurers deal with a royal exile and his band trying to survive on a jungle coast. IIRC, the Amedio was one of the suggested settings (the big map may have even resembled the Amedio).
I'm sure someone will remember...
Oh. And there's a ton of Amedio stuff in The Scarlet Brotherhood.
A really interesting book I recently listened to was Lost City of the Monkey God. It is 1/3 about the legends behind a rumored lost city in Honduras, 1/3 about its discovery early this century, and 1/3 about the consequences to the team that discovered it. While characters are not likely to employ LIDAR in your campaign, the descriptions and opportunities some of the characters the author describes should provide plenty of ideas. Also, his description of the environment is incredible, from vegetation through animals and finally microbes.
Another avenue to pursue would be to watch the move The Mission. It inspired a campaign concept where the characters set up a mission on behalf of a church (tentatively Pelor as he was the most "forgiving" good-aligned god) in the Amedio to combat the Sea Princes slaving and also combat demon-worship in the jungle. It would have been a very different campaign, as clerics would have figured prominently and the always difficult question of "how does religion work" in AD&D would have to be addressed... for experienced and mature role-players only.
My take on the Sea Princes' slaving is that they are not ordinarily launching slave raids. Instead, they mount expeditions looking for cat pelts, dye-woods, exotic timber, and any other valuable resources. When they meet friendly natives, they trade. If hostiles attack and are defeated, falling into the hands of the Holders, the savages will be shipped back to the Hold in chains.
(A Lawful Good type would likely enough execute many of these hostile Amedian savages for their crimes of cannibalism, vile worship, and brigandage, but the mostly Neutral Holders are more pragmatic than that. Slavery pays. )
There is an active slave trade, though. It is carried out mainly by native tribes that trade captives to the Holders in return for printed cloth, rum, glass, steel knives and hatchets, etc. Some savage tribes specialize in slave-taking, using nonlethal blowgun poison, vine-ropes, saps, etc.
Being enslaved sucks, but it is an improvement over ending up in the stewpot.
There are a few adventures from Dungeon Magazine that are intended to be placed in a jungle, though I cannot remember their names off hand...
Dungeon Magazine #10, and maybe 15 and 22:
I'm sure someone will remember...
Well, James, you're on fire !! You're hitting all the stuff that I want to mention! LOL! That's twice today! ha ha ha!
So, yes, The Shrine of Ilsidahur (Dungeon #10) suggests a location in the Amdio for it.
The other adventures you (and SirXaris) are referring to are by David Howery, who wrote the "Dark Continent" series. There are also Dark Continent adventures in these issues:
#15 - "The Elephants' Graveyard"
#22 - "The Leopard Men"
#34 - "Rogue"
#51 - "Journey to the Center of the World" [by Chris Hind]
#56 - "The Land of Men with Tails"
Anybody here use the Amedio much?
Care to share your own ideas for developing the region or your opinions regarding the published TSR/WotC/Paizo material?
#2 beastmen replace dakon
Both species are neutral (LN and N(g)) animal people and both make good 'woses' or wild men o' the woods.
The Sam Wood art for Living Greyhawk Journal is what pushed me over the top on these guys.[…]
Anybody here use the Amedio much?
Care to share your own ideas for developing the region or your opinions regarding the published TSR/WotC/Paizo material?
#2 beastmen replace dakon
Both species are neutral (LN and N(g)) animal people and both make good 'woses' or wild men o' the woods.
The Sam Wood art for Living Greyhawk Journal is what pushed me over the top on these guys.[…]
So … this made me curious.
How come you decided to do this part?
Was there something that prompted you to not want to have the histories of both of them as they are?
I'm all for beastfolk. I like them a lot.
But, I'm curious about why you chose to get rid of the Dakon?
Mostly, I wanted to avoid overcrowding.
Beastfolk, at least in the new art, grab my eye. I have always liked their language/mode of communication, camouflage, weapons, etc. I'm not sure how plausible their belief system is IN GH, but it can probably work with tweaks.
I'm planning on carnivorous apes being in the mix and I wasn't sure if these along with dakon would be monkey-boy overload.
Another thing I just realized, and I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned, yet.
There's a user who used to be pretty popular on the boards here, Chibirias mka Maria DelTorre, was a huge advocate of the Olman.
Another thing I just realized, and I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned, yet.
There's a user who used to be pretty popular on the boards here, Chibirias mka Maria DelTorre, was a huge advocate of the Olman.
She used to have a blog called the Olmanifesto and she posted here about them a lot.
Sadly, the blog was taken down after she passed away, but, it was a fantastic look at the Amedio and the Olman. Some of it can still be found in part on the Wayback Machine.
You might like to take a look at it.
...Also, a much more recent generic module (Dungeon #100 +, D&D 3.5 era) was an adventure dealing where the adventurers deal with a royal exile and his band trying to survive on a jungle coast. IIRC, the Amedio was one of the suggested settings (the big map may have even resembled the Amedio).
I'm sure someone will remember... ...
...I guess no one else remembered it. It was called "Dragon Hunters", in Dungeon #103, for four 7th level PCs. It explicitly suggests the Amedio for anyone using it in a Greyhawk campaign. Based on some of the map shown, Fort Akor would be on the southwest corner of the northward jutting peninsula (the Amedio Peninsula?).
One place for the exiles to come from would probably be the Great Kingdom, if you modify the part about his father, the "king", killed in war and his mother now being the ruling "queen". Make it a duchy or principality (thus Henri's title, "prince"). But why go to the Amedio instead of Hepmonaland? They wanted them THAT far away? Well, maybe.
Another possibility, if you're willing to set it pre-584, could be the southern Wild Coast. Rulers could call themselves whatever they wanted there, including "king" or "queen". The "kingdom" would have to be big enough to explain 97 defeated exiles, all military (including the retired guy running the tavern). That would imply that the kingdom had a population of several thousand, at least.
Of course, more possibilities open up if you ignore the exile thing or completely modify it.
Yeah … nope. LOL. I searched pretty hard, trying to figure it out, too. I just couldn't find enough clues. :P
jamesdglick wrote:
One place for the exiles to come from would probably be the Great Kingdom, if you modify the part about his father, the "king", killed in war and his mother now being the ruling "queen". Make it a duchy or principality (thus Henri's title, "prince"). …
… Of course, more possibilities open up if you ignore the exile thing or completely modify it.
Another possibility -if one ignores the "king"/"queen" titles, and say they're just mistaken references by NPCs, it could be "Marquis" and "Marchioness".
A somewhat serendipitous, remarkable find, while researching the University of Magical Arts for an new page on the GH Wiki.
Turns out, Kieran Jalucian (headmaster of the University) had a spellbook that he kept whilst traveling when he was younger. It's known as Kieran's Journal.
And it includes a great deal of information about the Amedio and tribes of Olman natives there. It has a particular account of a non-hostile tribe who even took him on a tour of an ancient Olman ruin, leading to his discovery of a lost spell. He copied lightning serpent from a stone engraving therein.
It doesn't really specify a whole lot of what's in the book, but, a creative DM could use it as a resource to convey information about the Amedio to players!!
I'm thinking of running a game set there, pre-Wars. The base area will be a coastal fort sponsored by the Prince of Monmurg and the guilds of that city. . . .
SKR removed heffalumps from the Amedio. But I'm ignoring a significant part of The Scarlet Brotherhood source-book for this campaign.
GVDameranug's article on Olman history looks fun to me.
NorkerMedic, did you end up running your Amedio fort game? If so, care to share about it?
Besides GVD and Mar's works, you might find Samwise's article, The Rhola and the Toli: the Battle for Jeklea Bay helpful, which Canonfire published in the same period when GVD, Mar, and others were posting about and discussing the Olman.
I'm researching for a possible campaign set in and around the Hold of the Sea Princes. I've posted about it in the past but am now seriously planning to run it (or a campaign set in and around the Bone March).
Beyond incorporating some of the UK and U-series modules—and the community's work here on Canonfire!—the campaign will help me explore the CY 577 to CY 591+ decades, particularly the fitful efforts to abolish slavery, which reportedly began in CY 577 with the efforts of Prince Jeon II, the governor of Sybarate, and their allies.
Beyond the vociferous opposition from the Hold's planters, and the later conquest of the Hold by the Scarlet Brotherhood, I want the campaign to explore the disparate backgrounds, cultures, and languages of the enslaved peoples who work the Sea Prince plantations culture, and how their hybrid and polyglot culture stir the winds of revolution that lead to the liberation of the Grand Duchy of Berghof and the leadership of Utavo the Wise.
The campaign will feature the PCs participating, in one way or another, in a slave revolt. Depending on their backgrounds, the PCs might be rebellious slaves, sympathetic allies, or oblivious outsiders suddenly compelled to choose a side. Contingent on how the PCs gel, they might attempt to spread the revolution, lead or betray it, or flee the chaos (perhaps to the Amedio). Along the way, they would learn about the hidden powers at play and determine how to intervene (or not).
I haven't adventured in the Amedio since playing through (most of) the Shackled City Adventure Path, although I've occasionally thought about making a 3e update to 1e's All That Glitters… to tie in to Cauldron and it's environs since I recall it was set nearby.
(Though I'd have to give it a different title since there's a LIVING GREYHAWK™ adventure by the same name.)
Another thing I just realized, and I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned, yet.
There's a user who used to be pretty popular on the boards here, Chibirias mka Maria DelTorre, was a huge advocate of the Olman.
She used to have a blog called the Olmanifesto and she posted here about them a lot.
Sadly, the blog was taken down after she passed away, but, it was a fantastic look at the Amedio and the Olman. Some of it can still be found in part on the Wayback Machine.
You might like to take a look at it.
Believe it or not, some kind soul saved Ms. DelTorre's work on the Olmanifesto on a backup blog, complete for our reading pleasure!
As for the more general question, I do have some ideas for Hepmonaland for my future Silver Wolf stories, but I don't feel I know quite enough to do the place justice yet. For one thing, Ms. DelTorre would probably have laughed and/or facepalmed at the names I came up with for the characters and cities in that part of the world. I'd still need to read up more on both Ms. DelTorre's writings and sources like SKR's Scarlet Brotherhood accessory.
That said, in my Greyhawk SKR's book would be seriously wanting as a scholarly work. It doesn't describe the demihumans and humanoids that doubtlessly live there...and this is where I'd disagree with Ms. DelTorre in that I think every human culture on Oerth has access to modern metalworking because they either acquire modern steel weapons in trade with gnomes and dwarves or picking up the craft themselves from the demihumans. The Oerthly equivalent of somebody like Montezuma or Atahualpa would know full well was heavy banded or plate armor is, but they would simply choose not to wear it. Instead, they might use materials like ankheg shells or the hides of similarly armored monsters to produce wearable human armor.
I don't have plans for the Amedio Jungle as much, save that I plan to have the Hold of the Sea Princes' civil war eventually end with the Sueloise jungle savages setting up their own state in the former Hold's territory, bringing some of the Amedio's influence directly into the Flanaess. Some of these Sueloise savage leaders got Scarlet Brotherhood support in winning the civil war in exchange for allegiance and the savage leaders' providing a steady supply of Fodder for the Brotherhood's conquests.
The Scarlet Sign originally planned to use the Hold of the Sea Princes to generate wealth the same way it wants to use the Lordship of the Isles, but they're nothing if not flexible and found a use just as valuable for the Hold and its new leaders.
All are puppets, their strings pulled by their master Korenth Zan, last living resident of the Suel Empire and its royal house, destined to re-establish his eternal birthright.
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It was called "Dragon Hunters", in Dungeon #103, for four 7th level PCs. It explicitly suggests the Amedio for anyone using it in a Greyhawk campaign. Based on some of the map shown, Fort Akor would be on the southwest corner of the northward jutting peninsula (the Amedio Peninsula?).
