Looking for a little help. I am trying to identify all canon, and then non canon references to Flan Kingdoms or Cities predating Vecna. Are there any? Sulm, Totencha(?), is there anything else?
There's a group/kingdom Erik Mona calls the "Necromancers of Trask" who opposed the elven City of Summer Stars from "Ivid the Undying"...And it's Tostenhca (from "Greyhawk Advenures")...
Kwint
Much of the available information is in Rary the Traitor, plus a few tidbits in the LG Bright Sands info download.
Flan realms include Sulm, Itar, Ronhaas, Truun, Rhugha, and Durha as listed on the "Bright Desert: Empire of the Bright Lands" map. There are also some other interesting locales on the map.
The only other info I recall off hand is that one of the early Aerdy kings was nearly assassinated by a demon summoned by the Ur-Flan(the commoners who saved the king's life were ennobled as the first knight Protectors). Seeing as it is very doubtful that the Ur-Flan sent out an assassin all the way from the Bright Desert, it seems sensible enough to assume that the realms of the Flan are merely touched upon in the area known as the Bright Lands, and that the Flan/Ur-Flan had other cities spread far and wide across eastern Oerik, and certainly much closer to the lands generally known pre-GH Wars as the Great Kingdom. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
The Isles of Woe (although we don't know for sure they were Flan).
Tostenhca (a city, once ruled by Keraptis)
Ehlissa (ruled by Queen Ehlissa, of the Nightingale).
Burgess (a kingdom conquered by Vecna, according to Dragon #272).
Necromancers of Trask.
Acererak's theocracy, or whatever he ruled.
Rhuaga, Truun, Ronhass, Sulm, Itar, Durha
Utaa (former capital of Sulm)
Unaagh (a necropolis in Sulm)
Sennerae (the capital of Itar)
Tycheron (Kas' capital, located near modern Dyvers)
The unnamed predecessors of Sulm (mentioned in Polyhedron #157)
Lathu (mentioned in the Living Greyhawk Almor history)
Velverdyva culture (mentioned in Samwise's timeline)
The Yaheetes
There's also the Flan city in the Rift Canyon - Veralos? It's mentioned in one of the LGJ Mysterious Places articles by Gary Holian (I think).
The Tyrants of the Trask are almost certainly the ones who the Aerdi are mentioned fighting against in northern Aerdy in Ivid the Undying (see the Battle of Chokestone etc). They or their followers would also have been the ones whose assassination attempt against that King of Aerdy was foiled by the first Knight Protectors of the Great Kingdom.
Oh and while we're mentioning LG stuff - Onnwal had a Flannae kingdom called Caerdiralor before the coming of the Suel and the Oerids. In fact it substantailly predated both the migrations, the realm of Ehlissa and Sulm/Itar etc.
There's also the Flan city in the Rift Canyon - Veralos? It's mentioned in one of the LGJ Mysterious Places articles by Gary Holian (I think).
Good catch. That article also mentions a Flan kingdom called Nuria.
Also, is Dar-Kesh Anam a Flan city? I don't know anything about it, not having LGJ #1.
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Oh and while we're mentioning LG stuff - Onnwal had a Flannae kingdom called Caerdiralor before the coming of the Suel and the Oerids. In fact it substantailly predated both the migrations, the realm of Ehlissa and Sulm/Itar etc.
Intriguing. I don't see anything about it on the Onnwal website. Care to share anything more?
Dar-Kesh Anam seems to be some sort of pocket demi-plane and doesn't seen to be related to any Oerthly civilisation.
Caerdiralor - can't really share much more as it might be part of active plots (or it might not ). Scholars in Onnwal and Irongate know little enough about it and even the Flan Headlanders remember it only in garbled tales. If the Dwur of the Headlands know anything about it, they're not saying - but they do hold a hatred for the Flannae that goes back into the deep and distant past.
Ok, that was significantly more than I expected. I would like to categorize the cities/nations into three categories... Canon, LG and Other.
Therefore I have cut and pasted the following:
Sulm, - Canon
Itar - ?
Ronhaas - ?
Truun - ?
Rhugha - ?
Durha - ?
The Isles of Woe - I have these as other (not Flan)
Tostenhca (a city, once ruled by Keraptis) - Canon
Ehlissa (ruled by Queen Ehlissa, of the Nightingale) - Canon (Flan?)
Burgess (a kingdom conquered by Vecna, according to Dragon #272)
Necromancers of Trask -?
Acererak's theocracy, or whatever he ruled - Flan?
Utaa (former capital of Sulm) - Canon
Unaagh (a necropolis in Sulm) - Canon
Sennerae (the capital of Itar) - Canon?
Tycheron (Kas' capital, located near modern Dyvers) - I have this as not Flan. THough it may have been populated by Flan it was built by/on behalf of Kas and was not a city of their design.
Lathu (mentioned in the Living Greyhawk Almor history) - LG
Velverdyva culture (mentioned in Samwise's timeline) - Other
The Yaheetes - Canon
Fleeth - Canon
In using the word "Flan," I have come across different usages, though not everyone using the word realized that they were using it in different ways. I am using the word to mean the specific racial/cultural/linguistic progenitors of those peoples most often exemplified in Geoff and Tenh.
However, I have seen and heard it used to imply any civilization predating the ROCF/ Invoked Devestation in the Flaness. This seems to include the Isles of Woe (which I do not consider Flan), the people of Galap Driedal, the Cairn Builders, the early inhabitants of Blackmoor.
Those nations were all mentioned in the Living Greyhawk Journal article in Polyhedron #157. Do you consider that to be canon?
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Necromancers of Trask -?
Mentioned in the LGJ article in Dragon #293.
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Sennerae (the capital of Itar) - Canon?
Polyhedron #157 again.
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Tycheron (Kas' capital, located near modern Dyvers) - I have this as not Flan. THough it may have been populated by Flan it was built by/on behalf of Kas and was not a city of their design.
The Flan culture of the Velverdyva is actually Rasgon's fault. He is the one who suggested a connection between Vecna and wandering sheep-herding Raoists.
I don't think Kas ruled anything from Dyvers. If Vecna controlled that far, the Fals Gap would either have been completely sealed against the Oeridian migrations, or Vecn'as whole shtick is nothing but empty air since he was obviously unable to affect a massive migration through a major geographical choke point.
Rather I would say that a separate, unnamed, rival to Vecna, Flan nation was based around Dyvers, and it casued the deflection of the Oeridian migrations north of the Nyr Dyv.
Perrenland I believe was originally a mountainous Flan society. I think this was in the LGG if I am remembering correctly.
I tied this to the Duchy of Berghof and Tostenhca but I don't think there is any canon tie between them other than they all were Flan areas in the mountains that had architure far beyond any other Flan dwellings found elsewhere.
Just a though since Sulm popped up and it could relate to Flan in the Sheldomar. In various places people have suggested that the Olman might have come from and/or held as part of their empire the Bright Desert, the Pomarj et al.
OJ1 provides Sulm was founded -1034 CY and tSB provides that the Olman migration from Hepmonaland was c. -1000 CY.
I think the most realistic possibility for Olman in the Flanaess is that, while most went to the Amedio, fleeing Olman - particularly early explorers - landed in various places around the Azure coast and left some trances of their culture there, but were eventually absorbed into the local Flan populations.
The Olman may have sparked cultural changes among the Flan at this time, such as Sulm and perhaps others. I see that the Flan moved into the Pomarj at c. -1000 also. That may have been a result of the same process as a Flan tribe was given power to utilize, or need of, more lands or was bumped into the area by another.
Rather I would say that a separate, unnamed, rival to Vecna, Flan nation was based around Dyvers, and it casued the deflection of the Oeridian migrations north of the Nyr Dyv.
How about this: there was a small Flan nation (basically a city-state) called Tycheron near modern Dyvers. In the past it was subjugated by Vecna.
At some point prior to the Great Migrations, one of the youths sent to Vecna as tribute by the Tycheronians was seen by the archlich as having potential. The youth, whose name was Kas, was trained to be a member of Vecna's special forces, and eventually rose to become one of Vecna's most trusted warlords.
Though Kas was ruthless and unprincipled in war, he wasn't the creature of pure evil that Vecna was. When he rose to a suitable rank, he was able to use his influence to get himself named consul of a region including his home city. While he brutally supressed any rebellious tendencies elsewhere, he allowed his relatives quite a bit of leeway.
The Migrations begin. The Oeridians pour out of the Fals Gap. Kas, who is in charge of the northern defenses, deliberately allows them to pass by and take refuge in Tycheron as part of their path to the Solnor in an attempt to weaken Vecna's regime. He tells his master, who is more concerned with his private researches at this point anyway, that this is a deliberate strategy to concentrate their forces on the Suel Firstcomers to the south. Vecna recognizes the magically powerful Suel as a more potent threat, and concurs with his general's wisdom.
So, a combination of things:
- Vecna becoming less and less concerned with events on the Material Plane over the last few centuries.
- Vecna delegating more and more of his government to underlings like Kas.
- The double threat of Oeridians to the north and Suel to the south.
- Deliberate sabotage by Kas.
In using the word "Flan," I have come across different usages, though not everyone using the word realized that they were using it in different ways. I am using the word to mean the specific racial/cultural/linguistic progenitors of those peoples most often exemplified in Geoff and Tenh.
However, I have seen and heard it used to imply any civilization predating the ROCF/ Invoked Devestation in the Flaness. This seems to include the Isles of Woe (which I do not consider Flan), the people of Galap Driedal, the Cairn Builders, the early inhabitants of Blackmoor.
THoughts?
Well, the most common understanding of canon is that the Flan were the first humans to live in the Flanaess, though it may be that all canon strictly supports is that they were there when the migrations began.
Anyway, if the Flan were the first humans *and* you suppose that Galap Driedal, the Cairnbuilders, the Woe-dwellers, etc were human (none of which is actually established as such in canon, afaik), then obviously all these Pre Cataclysms cultures must be Flan.
But you can (and, IMHO, should) contest one or both of these assumptions, which is why a lot of folks don't consider those older cultures as being Flannae.
I believe that either Gary Holian or Erik Mona stated that they consider him to have been of a non human culture for that reason, also. \Regardless, the "problem" remains. Either these early cultures weren't human or the Flan weren't the aboriginal human race of the Flanaess.
Personally, I favor the first way of thinking about things.
Btw, this passage doesn't mean he must have been pre Flan by my reading, though its a valid interpretation. He could have been a Flan wizard, theoretically, even if that's not the easiest reading of it.
Quote:
Know you that in the elder days before the Invoked Devastation
and the Rain of Colorless Fire, when the ancient peaks
of the Abbor-Alz still thrust skyward sharp and majestic and
the Flan tribesmen were but newcomers to the land, there
existed between the Bright Desert and the mouth of the river
Selintan a great fortress called Inverness. The walls of this
castle were said to be proof against enemies and all things
magical or natural. Know you also that here was said to
dwell the great wizard Galap-Dreidel at the height of his
power and glory, and that he did lift the Castle lnverness
from the very foundation of rock upon which it rested.
Mona interpreted Galap-Dreidel to be a Vaati. _________________ "It is easier to milk a cow that stands still." Tzeliobas-Aristomenes, General Cleaning, Greyhawk Construction Company.
My post on this last night didn't make it to the boards - but the Apocropha for the LGG (stored on this site IIRC) has pieces on the Cairn Builders and on Exag in Perrenland which state that it was non-human races before the Flan that constructed both. In fact several non-human races appear to have been responsible for many of the cairns in the Cairn Hills.
It's possible that the Isles of Woe were also built by pre-human races and then occupied by Flan thereafter.
Erik Mona has a loose timeline of pre-Flan non-human races in the Flanaess on his blog. He seems to think that the Flan were the first humans and any constructions predating them are the work of non-humans.
Do we know whether Burgred and the Mara were Flan? I am thinking of the preamble to Vecna Lives!:
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". . . and so, after the Rain of Colorless Fire, the One-Named-In-Whispers ascended to the Spidered Throne. In the third year of his ascendancy, Burgred, King of the Mara, refused the tribute of heads the Whispered One demanded. The One-Named-In-Whispers took only himself and Kas, his evil counselor, and devastated the land of the Mara with his magic. Burgred paid with his own head.
I suppose I have alway thought that there were other human civilizations prior to the Flan. To me it makes a richer tableau, a better adventuring environment. Without lost civilizations, what are we digging for?
In a world where elves live 600 years, and dragons thousands, how lost is something 2000 years old?
So, I prefer the idea of other Pre Flan civilizations.
No idea, I am afraid. They turn up in the afore-mentioned quotation from Vecna Lives!, and I think that Burgred appears in a frieze in Die, Vecna, Die!, but I do not recall there being any geographical indicators (and I cannot check because a friend has borrowed those modules). Since they seem to have been subject to Vecna's Occluded Empire, perhaps they were somewhere in the vicinity of the Sheldomar Valley?
I suspect Burgred, King of the Mara, is the same as the King of Burgess mentioned in Dragon #272.
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"The Crown of Burgess was the headdress of an ancient ruler, the only man in his time with the courage to stand against the unholy legions of Vecna. The monarch was executed in the courtyard of his own castle after his kingdom fell to Vecna's minions, as had all the surrounding domains before it. To mock the final king of Burgess, Vecna had the crown placed on the man's head before it was removed by the headsman's axe. As the axe fell, Burgess swore his crown would return to haunt Vecna and that a person wearing it would play a role in the Whispered One's doom."
Yep, both were kings, both defied Vecna, both were beheaded, and they have similar names. "Burgess" must be a Keoish corruption of "Burgred."
Having some fun with this, I have placed Burgess in the History of the Gran March as one of Flan Kingdoms of the Lort/Sheldomar river basin. And the Crown is one of the few magic Items we are including. Appropriate to its story, the artifact's common name is the Bunion of Vecna as it will not go away and he always finds it underfoot.
Crazy thought on the whole Galap-Dreidel thing, but his name always sounded Suel to me (I think Grodog said the same thing at some point) so the real history IMC assumes that the story from which the Ghost Tower quote comes is just some wild peasant folktale turned into history by a hack scholar. You can find plenty of instances like that in real world history. In MC's real history Galap-Dreidel was a Suel leader who settled with his followers on the eastern shore of Woolly Bay during the Migrations.
What about the Plains of Pesh? Was that a Flan location or did the battle happen before the Flan or even on Oerth at all?
Pesh was way before the Flan or even humans, I think. Where it was, though, I'm not sure about.
The Exag piece in the LGG apocropha mentions that the original inhabitants of Exag went to see a great battle on the plains south of a lone volcano to the east (which sounds like White Plume Mountain). This for some reason made me think of Pesh, but it doesn't sound long enough ago, as this event appears to have happened about 15,000 years before present. <shrug>
I suspect it was intended to be the Battle of Pesh, and I suspect you're right about the location.
Have to ask Erik to be sure, though.
Alternatively, since we know the Wind Dukes buried their dead in the Cairn Hills, Pesh might have been around the region of modern Urnst or Greyhawk City. Of course, 15,000 years ago the Nyr Dyv would have been significantly smaller, so it might have been in a place the Lake of Unknown Depths now covers.
Krovis is a neutral quasi-deity, allied with Trithereon, whose purpose is to ensure that the Flanaess is never dominated by any one nation or individual. When that's not much of a danger, he sleeps beneath the Drachensgrabs, waiting for an hour of need. He's at least 2000 years old. He has definite Flan features.
It's probable he was awake for a time during Vecna's reign, protecting the Pomarj against the lich's incursions. The article says he also campaigned against the Isles of Woe and Baron Lum.
Alternatively, since we know the Wind Dukes buried their dead in the Cairn Hills, Pesh might have been around the region of modern Urnst or Greyhawk City. Of course, 15,000 years ago the Nyr Dyv would have been significantly smaller, so it might have been in a place the Lake of Unknown Depths now covers.
If I remember correctly all that the AoW says on the subject is that the Battle of Pesh took place to the north. I always assumed it would be in the Lake Aqal area because of the vaati and the weirdness of the description there.
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