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    Canonfire :: View topic - Darak Urtag and the Chomur Conundrum
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    Darak Urtag and the Chomur Conundrum
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    Master Greytalker

    Joined: Aug 17, 2004
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    Sun Mar 18, 2012 10:27 am  
    Darak Urtag and the Chomur Conundrum

    As part of the "beyond the flanaess" project; myself, cruelsummerlord and darkherald are working on the area - Darak Urtag aka Orcreich.

    I find that constructing a coherent historical context is more time consuming then the actual gazeteer, itself. As canon is often non-existant or when it does exist is sparse and contradictory.

    Hence; the Chomur Conundrum
    One source claims the ancient oeridian chomurian kingdom, where I place the ancient oeridan homelands, was Darak Urtag BUT the Sunela Coast already has an established state of Chomur.

    Personally, I like to keep the historical references based in political realities rather then the fantasical as it lends an overall sense of gravitas to the game world. Nor, do I like the whole "lost clans of chomur" solution as it doesn't feel right. I also believe it is easier to change the western lands due to the sparse references rather then the more canonical sunlea coast.

    I thought to alter the name of the ancient oeridian kingdom somewhat and call it a oeridian mistranslation; any help from the wordsmiths out there would be appreciated but I am open too other solutions.

    I welcome your solutions for the Chomur Conundrum; lets hear them...

    Thanks in advance

    Corrected Ceb Wink


    Last edited by Crag on Sun Mar 18, 2012 11:35 pm; edited 1 time in total
    GreySage

    Joined: Aug 03, 2001
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    Sun Mar 18, 2012 1:54 pm  
    Re: Darak Urtag and the Chomur Conundrum

    Crag wrote:
    One source claims the ancient oeridian chomurian kingdom


    What source is that? That doesn't sound like anything official. My suggestion is to ignore it; it looks like an error to me.

    My primary source on ancient Oeridian kingdoms is 2e's Book of Artifacts. The entry for Johydee's Mask mentions "the Seven Kingdoms," from which Johydee emerged. Also, the entry for Kuroth's Quill mentions "the Age of Veth beyond the Wasted Lands" and the entry for the Ring of Gaxx mentions the Mountains of Storms.

    Living Greyhawk Journal #3 then says "Before the Oeridians began their migrations into the Flanaess, their race was scattered throughout much of Western Oerik. In the timelost centuries before the Suel and Baklunish empires initiated their terrible conflict, the servants of evil deities held sway over the most prominent Oeridian nation. In time, the wise priestess Johydee (JOY-dee) tricked them into creating a magical mask, which she used to overthrow their hold on her people."

    The Oeridians are normally assumed to be simply named for the continent of Oerik, or vice versa, and I don't know if they really need a homeland more specific than that. But if nothing better comes along, I would suggest "Veth" as the name of the evil-dominated nation whose government Johydee overthrew, thus ending the Age of Veth. There were six other Oeridian nations, scattered throughout Western Oerik, but Veth would likely be the one that later became known to some as Orcreich or Darak Urtag. The Wasted Lands are likely simply a collective term for the ruined Suel and Baklunish empires.

    I don't think it's a stretch to imagine the ruler of Veth (quite possibly the wizard Virtos, from the Invincible Coat of Arnd entry, if you imagine that Johydee and Arnd worked together to free their people) recruiting orcs and goblinkin as mercenaries to enforce his reign over the oppressed Oeridian people. After the fall of the government, the Oeridians left to follow Johydee's prophecy, the scattered descendants of the seven kingdoms initially gathering in Ull. Only the orcs remained in what was once Veth.
    Grandmaster Greytalker

    Joined: Jul 10, 2003
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    Sun Mar 18, 2012 9:15 pm  

    Crag,

    I have been working on Darak Urtag myself since about August 2011. That along with some other projects. It will be interesting to see your take on it. Originally I was going with the name Hurzak Gur until Cebrion informed me that Duicarthan had named the area Darak Urtag years ago. So I decided to run with it and made Hurzak-Gur its capital. I slightly tweaked how religion is viewed in Darak Urtag. Sir Xaris has also provided me with a few suggestions for it as well.

    Later

    Argon
    GreySage

    Joined: Jul 26, 2010
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    Sun Mar 18, 2012 10:40 pm  
    Re: Darak Urtag and the Chomur Conundrum

    Crag wrote:
    Hence; the Chomur Conundrum
    One source claims the ancient oeridian chomurian kingdom, where I place the ancient oeridan homelands, was Darak Urtag BUT the Sun[el]a Coast already has an established state of Chomur.


    Could this Chomur on the Sunela Coast actually be the New Chomur? After the Chomurian kingdom was laid waste and the Oeridians scattered, some founded what they named New Chomur on the Sunela coast. Many centuries later, common usage has dropped 'New' from the name and it is currently known simply as Chomur. Only sages of ancient history would know that a city/state by that name existed previously in antiquity.

    SirXaris

    Edit: Changed "Sunlea" to "Sunela" according to Cebrion's correction below.


    Last edited by SirXaris on Mon Mar 19, 2012 7:50 am; edited 1 time in total
    Black Hand of Oblivion

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    Sun Mar 18, 2012 11:11 pm  

    Make that "Sunela". "Sunlea" is a typo. Wink
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    Master Greytalker

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    Mon Mar 19, 2012 5:23 pm  
    Chomur conundrum

    Much like Rasgon, I am not entirely certain where this reference is coming from, or how it came into conflict.

    But, I gotta say - I can't see that there seems to be anything at all wrong with Rasgon's little braistorm up there. It seems to fit both canon and fanon without causing any conflicts ... and it's just well written and sounds nice.

    He dribbles to mid-court, and it's *Rasgon* with the three-pointer! The crowd goes wild!! <ra-a-a-a-ah>
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    Adept Greytalker

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    Tue Mar 20, 2012 2:52 pm  
    Re: Darak Urtag and the Chomur Conundrum

    rasgon wrote:
    Crag wrote:
    One source claims the ancient oeridian chomurian kingdom


    What source is that? That doesn't sound like anything official. My suggestion is to ignore it; it looks like an error to me.

    My primary source on ancient Oeridian kingdoms is 2e's Book of Artifacts. The entry for Johydee's Mask mentions "the Seven Kingdoms," from which Johydee emerged. Also, the entry for Kuroth's Quill mentions "the Age of Veth beyond the Wasted Lands" and the entry for the Ring of Gaxx mentions the Mountains of Storms.


    I don't see anything in the BoA (or DMG) entries for the Mask, Ring, or Quill that tie them specifically to the World of Greyhawk (unlike, say, the Rod of Seven Parts). Is there something I'm missing that leads you to tie them to the WoG, or is that some sort of fan-created construct that says that all the artifacts in the DMG are necessarily part of Greyhawk?

    I ask specifically because I'm mostly done with my second Darlene-style map covering Zindia and the lands south and west, and much of Orcreich is going to be in the next one...

    I should also point out that my Chomur isn't going to be either in current-day Orcreich (which would contradict the reference in Sea of Dust) nor in the place where OJ26 has it. Mine goes in that little triangular tip at the top of Zindia. It should be west of the Sea of Dust, and the map in OJ26 has it too far south for my taste.

    Joe / GG
    http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com
    GreySage

    Joined: Aug 03, 2001
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    Tue Mar 20, 2012 3:18 pm  
    Re: Darak Urtag and the Chomur Conundrum

    Thulcondar wrote:
    I don't see anything in the BoA (or DMG) entries for the Mask, Ring, or Quill that tie them specifically to the World of Greyhawk (unlike, say, the Rod of Seven Parts).


    You're right - they're written in that book as entirely generic artifacts independent of any specific campaign world. However, all of those artifacts (maybe not the Ring of Gaxx) are tied specifically to Oerth in other sources (LGJ issues, Ivid the Undying, etc.), so I'm happy to steal names from their descriptions there to help flesh out Oerth's distant regions.

    I wouldn't presume to say anything I wrote above is unalterable canon - it's very much open to interpretation. But given that we know very little about western Oerik and given that no other official world has claimed those names, I like giving them to Oerth.

    Quote:
    Is there something I'm missing that leads you to tie them to the WoG, or is that some sort of fan-created construct that says that all the artifacts in the DMG are necessarily part of Greyhawk?


    It generally is safe to assume that all the artifacts in the 1st edition DMG are part of Greyhawk, and it isn't just a fan-created construct. One good centralized source is "All Oerth's Artifacts," a list of artifacts associated with the Greyhawk setting compiled by our own Grodog and Erik Mona and published in Dragon #299 under the Living Greyhawk Journal rubric. I mean, both of those people are fans, but it's also official.

    Most of the artifacts from the 1e DMG, including Baba Yaga's Hut, Johydee's Mask, Invulnerable Coat of Arnd, and Kuroth's Quill appear in that index. Kuroth and Johydee were both given descriptions as Greyhawk quasideities in Living Greyhawk Journal #3 (and were mentioned in Greyhawk Player's Guide and other sources; Johydee and other famous artifacts (the Mighty Servant of Leuk-O, Machine of Lum the Mad, Crystal of Ebon Flame, Orbs of Dragonkind, and Johydee's Mask) and their creators (also including Tuerny) are mentioned in Ivid the Undying. Johydee and Ehlissa (of the Nightingale) were mentioned in the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer.

    Both Johydee and Arnd are pre-Migrations figures (Arnd's antiquity is established in Gary Holian's "Paladins of Greyhawk" article in Dungeon #104, while Johydee's was first established in Ivid the Undying), but they didn't necessarily live in the same nation or belong to exactly the same generation. Kuroth might be a much more recent figure for all we know (Dragon #294 places one of his legendary exploits in the Court of Essence during the time of the Great Kingdom, but he's an immortal quasi-deity so that doesn't mean he couldn't be much older).

    I have to admit that I don't think Gaxx was mentioned in any specifically Greyhawk source, even the artifacts index. Jason Zavoda's index cites only Dragon #82 (an article on spellbooks by Bruce Heard which press-ganged almost every proper name associated with a spell or artifact as the creator of a wizardly spellbook) and Eldritch Wizardry as sources for Gaxx. So feel free to not try to place the Mountains of Storms anywhere on Oerth, I guess! They could well be on some other world.

    Quote:
    I ask specifically because I'm mostly done with my second Darlene-style map covering Zindia and the lands south and west, and much of Orcreich is going to be in the next one...


    Feel free to do what you like, of course. My speculation above is just my best guess based on the sources I have access to. "Veth" could be something other than a country (maybe it's a city, or a person, or a verb), or you could decide that the entry for Kuroth's Quill in the Book of Artifacts is entirely uncanonical because the version of the Quill there is completely different from the version in the DMG and the specifically Greyhawk version Grodog wrote up in Dragon #294.

    And of course there's no real reason the Oeridians or Veth have to be associated with the Orcreich region. I suggested they were way back in this thread because Orcreich is apparently 4,000 miles due west from Rauxes, which fits with a line in Ivid the Undying. But I went on later in that thread to point out that there are a lot of lines you can draw from Rauxes, and not all of them are due west.

    My approach is simply "Here are some words that appear in an at least nominally official source, they're somewhat associated with Greyhawk, no one else is using them, there's very little canon for them to conflict with, so let's see what we can put together from these fragments."
    Master Greytalker

    Joined: Aug 17, 2004
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    Tue Mar 20, 2012 9:19 pm  

    Thanks; rasgon for the solution, I have incorporated it into the latest version.

    I like it but with a tweak, sorry I can't see the entire oeridian population just up and moving surely some old cranks decided to stay. Volcanoes erupt and oceans swallow islands. Even looking death squarely in the face some choose to stay put. Add the warfare element and even more true patroits would be willing to confront the humanoid menace - we can still win as the orcs rampage through the streets.

    * My mistake; the reference is from a fanfic piece. I thought it canon but no, sorry everyone. Before tackling an area I like to get as much background as possible. Sometimes the canon and fan gets blurry.
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