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    Canonfire :: View topic - Al Karak Elam in Oerik (TOO LONG!)
    Canonfire Forum Index -> Greyhawk- AD&D 2nd Edition
    Al Karak Elam in Oerik (TOO LONG!)
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    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Mar 05, 2003
    Posts: 33
    From: Aerdy

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    Tue Dec 30, 2008 7:47 pm  
    Al Karak Elam in Oerik (TOO LONG!)

    (This is too long. It's probably boring. It's not steeped in canon or I'd have put it in the 1st Ed. forum, despite that being the system I played the most. It's based on events in my campaign around 1999-2000, so that means it's a "we did it like this" post. It's also not spellllling and grammar checked. I went to public school. You've been warned.)


    The Henders Mantone Interviews: The Winged Folk

    The following is an edited transcript of a portion of one interview of a series conducted by Elder Scribe Croger with the Mantone Company's founder and famed explorer and adventurer, Captain Henders Mantone. This transcript covers the arrival of his group into an unknown land from an escape from certain death in the Sea of Dust.

    As always, the reader should be aware that much trivial information has been removed, as well as information not related to the topic at hand. Furthermore, Henders Mantone's normal speech patterns translate poorly to writing and have been altered to eliminate needless wordiness, profanity, and other distractions.

    Elder Scribe Croger: What did you see as you approached the exit of the cavern?

    Henders Mantone: Daylight, my friend. You simply can't understand how much daylight means to you when you go well over a month without it. Torches and lanterns can't compare, and those lighting spells just feel eerie. Humans are creatures of light, and we need it and yearn for it when it disappears.

    The whole cavern was illuminated , and we could see that it was massive. There were carved reliefs of chariots and warriors on the walls, carved from some sort of bright white stone rather than the grey rock of the natural cavern. The floors had these gorgeous gold and white tiles, obviously ancient, but many of them were still relatively intact. I'm sure the ceiling was decorated somehow, but I can't say I cared at this point. All I wanted was to feel the sun on my face, and the rest of the group must have felt the same because we literally sprinted out into the sun, nearly tumbling down the side of a cliff twenty feet from the move of the cavern.

    It was Gardan, with those feline sense of his, that saved me. I was running blind, my eyes watering from the brilliance of the long-lost sun, and suddenly a big pile of orange and black fur landed on me and we skidded on the dirt and gravel to the precipice. It was probably two thousand feet down at this spot, the bottom being nothing but jagged rocks.

    Croger: What did you do? Surely your party must have been taken aback by this development!

    Mantone: After we got our wits and sight straightened out, we looked at our surroundings. The mouth of the caven was massive, with a carved arch and various figures of the ancient Suel with Suloise inscriptions and other tidbits to be examined. Maddy hadn't studied up on that spell, but she had seen enough Suel over the past few months to let us know that this was a Suloise Gate, an ancient entry point into the old empire. The rest of the writing were names of rulers and heroes of the Suel people carved under their images, with a couple carvings that looked like tablets that she guessed were some sort of rules for entry. Everything was in extremely good condition, considering the age and exposure to the elements. We then realized that the cliff once had a great bridge that travelled several hundred yards across this gorge to a table mountain on the other side.

    Croger: A table mountain? I know not of such a thing.

    Mantone: Literally a mountain with a flat top, like a mesa or butte but far taller and much more massive. This one in front of us had what appeared to be large trees growing upon it, with what appeared to be some sort of jagged walls further on.

    Croger: Walls? There were people upon this mountain?

    Mantone: Aye, they flew over to greet us with spears and swords in hand. They were beautiful. Tall, well-muscled men and women, skin deeply tanned and eyes or brilliant shades of blue, gray, silver, and green and hair of blonde. They wore flowing clothing of white or light blue linen, trimmed with gold and their long hair danced upon the winds created by their feathered wings. When they arrived, two landed while a half-dozen more circled over us, weapons at the ready.

    I couldn't make out anything they said, nor could Madylane. They repeated their question, a challenge of some sort, several times in that language before Harconan stepped forward and said something back to them in something could have passed for bad impersonation of that language and the winged folk just stared at him for a long while until motioning for one of the flyers to return back to the mountain. The two on the ground stayed on guard, as did those in the air, and it was awhile before we saw another of the winged folk returning with the messenger.

    To make a long shortly a bit shorter, he got there and said, with benefit of his incantation, “It has been generations since the forbidden passage has exhumed any walkers. It has been longer since since we have seen an elf, man-elf, or one of Oeridian shades, and only in the scrolls do we recall the the race of Panthrus or the lost Vallatori. You will come with us, to be our hostages and guests, and your stories will be known.”

    Croger: Did you fight the winged Elves?

    Mantone: They weren't Elvish in any way, shape, or form. There might be Elves with wings on Oerth, but I've yet to see one. These were the Al Karak Elam of legend, in the flesh, and we were in far too poor a condition to put up a struggle at this point. That... thing... down there had torn us up enough that those featherheads could have decided to cut us up and we'd have pointed where to swing the blades to help.

    At any rate, this Elamite wizard cast some sort of spell that allowed us to safely stand on a floating disk and float across to the bridgehead on the mountain's top. When I say stand, I mean that everyone else but myself and Rugor stood up, as we were laying on the disk in a fetal position with our eyes shut tight until we felt dirt touch our faces. I can sail the seas or ride the skies, but not on a magical disk pulled by some creature I'd never before encountered.

    Croger: An Elamite?

    Mantone: Al Karak Elam. “Al” means “people”, while Karak means “Castle” or “Mountain” and, in this case, both are one and the same. “Elam” is the name of the land. This is the Land of Elam. The winged folk live on top of the table mountains, and maybe one or two of those much smallers mesas, so they are the People of the Castle Mountsains of Elam. The humans below, we learned later, are the Al Humuk Elam, or “People of the Earth of Elam.”

    Croger: I see. That makes sense to me. What happened next?

    We were taken to their city, which consisted of many buildings of stone pillars and slabs with walls made of what looked to me like sailcloth tied off with elaborate knots that were used only when weather was foul or when privacy was needed. The grandest structure of all was similar to the other towers, but much larger and permanent walls of some sort of light steel that folded like a curtainwhen not in use. The inside was very spacious, with ceilings up to thirty feet or more. Many of the winged folk would fly in between the pillars and out the other side of the building, or up through great holes in the ceilings to higher levels without a bit of hesitation.

    We were carried again on the disks to the throne room of the winged folk's chosen ones, which is a king that is picked by the people. Apparently, most positions in the society are neither sought after nor obtained by desire, but instead appointed by the people to fill some societal need. In this case, the male and female leaders in charge of overseeing the city were Ballua and Qallam, and both were incredible specimens of great physical presence and beauty.

    The Chosens instructed us to shed our weapons and clothing in exchange for some of their linen garments. Our protests were quite short, as we felt no danger here that we could possibly overcome by force of arms. It was highly likely that, if the winged folk wished our demise, we would already be dead, so we allowed ourselves to be stripped of our tattered garments and our well-used weapons for the time being.

    After we were allowed time to change, bathe, and eat a feast of exotic fruits and vegetables, we sat down upon great cushions filled with cotton and were instructed to share our tales with the Chosens and their advisors.

    With Gardan's story, they were disappointed as even he knew nothing of his birth. As I mentioned before, he knew nothing of his land of birth or family, having been taken away from them shortly after birth and ending up in the slave pits of Ulakand until his liberation by Denton Loggersson's band fifteen years later. Harconan's story went just as poorly, as his people had spent literally generations trapped in a pocket plane by a forgotten foe and had long forgotten their own history in the long struggle to stay alive in that hostile environment. The rest of our stories went well enough, but our valiant deeds and tales of adventure were much less interesting to the Al Karak Elam than our geopolitical discussions.

    The Al Karak Elam have some exceptional maps, and they weren't willing to share them with us, except for the Flanaess, which was very accurate to our eyes, but missing the names of the nations inhabiting it. The winged folk knew of the fall of the Baklunish and Suel Empires, and stated that they had once traded with both during the period in which they themselves were part of yet another empire, and they knew of the Oeridians as an enemy of old. Their knowledge of the Flan is stranger, and they spoke of them as yet another empire, despite our assurances that the Flan of yore were little more than herders and gatherers with some very few exceptions.

    Their own history is fascinating, and it took weeks for us to start to put it together, mostly in snippets from various holy men or the Humuk tribesmen we would meet on our excursions off the mountains.

    Croger: Mountains? You were not held in one place during this time?

    Mantone: Actually, no, we were the guests of the Chosens and they took us with them as they travelled from city to city. We journeyed to four of main cities of the Al Karak Elam and to the towns of the Humak in the valleys, then to the holy citadel of Chogzanhabil where we became acquainted with their holy triumverate of gods. Their names were Pinikir, Khumban, and Ninsusinak, if I recall correctly. Maddy took some notes on them, so you would have to ask her to elaborate on the spiritual side of the Al Karak Elam and Al Humuk Elam. She has made some comparisons to gods worshipped here in the Flanaess and believes that at least two of them are worshipped here in another aspect. Personally, I never was much for church.

    Croger: You started to mention their history before I interrupted you?

    Mentone: As far as we can tell, the Winged Folk once travelled across Oerik, perhaps even all of Oerth itself as adventurers and merchants. This all changed when the Gates of Liyan were sundered by the armies of the King of the city-state of Eridu, Abzu Alulin. The Gates of Liyan were the only true weakness in the natural defenses that shielded Elam from the outside world, and it was these gates atop twin thousand foot stairways flanking a magnificent waterfall that provided the final touches to the barrier. Unfortunately, the Elamites were lax in their attention to threats and had taken little notice of the growing martial fervor of the Eridu, who simply marched their armies up the stairwell bearing great quantities of foods and alcohols and invited the Winged Folk's finest to feast with them in honor of the years of peace between their neighboring lands. That night, the Eridu fell on the slumbering Elamites and slew them to the last. The Humuk town that played host to the occasion was also a victim as the Eridians killed the peaceful folk to the last man. With so many important folk dead and a crisis appearing in their midst, the Elamites were unable to find the courage and wisdom needed to confront this foe. Within days of the massacre, the Winged Folk and their ground-dwelling friends surrendered and became the vassals of the Eridu state and were forced to appoint a King to serve as the voice of the Kings of Eridu.

    Many years passed, though the Al Karak Elam's differs greatly from our own reckoning so how long exactly wasn't clear to us, and the Eridians were conquered by another city-state and that one by another and another. Eventually, the city-state of Kish reigned over an empire that spanned 300 nations, which I presume meant city-states or regions. This group of overkings was far more brutal than those who preceded them and many of the non-human states were treated as unworthy of life despite their exceptional service to the empire's armies. After years of literal enslavement as herd animals, the nation of Sakai rebelled, and the centaurs of that land were marked for total extermination. The Overking sent his finest army to do the deed, but that army was composed primarily of demi-humans, anthropos, and humanoids, all of which were ill-treated by the King of Kings. These warriors rebelled and the entire empire plunged into civil war for nearly a generation until the Overking himself was slain by the Al Karak Elam King Hawkwind in the throne room of his palace in Kish. With the empire shattered, the Al Karak Elam warriors returned to their homeland, rebuilt the Gates of Liyan, and forgot about the outside world for generations, except for trade of foodstuffs for finished goods with the Suloise.

    Eventually the Suel Empire was destroyed and the Elamites ventured in small numbers through the gates of Liyan and into the world below and found that the old empire had been replaced by yet another, and found that things had reverted back to a condition as bad or worse than what the Kings of the Kish Dynasty had fostered. So, the Al Karak Elam returned to their homeland permanently and only a tiny number of merchants are allowed through the gates while the rest of the world thinks of them as little more than myths and legends.

    Croger: When you ended your stay with the Elamites, how did your party ever return home?

    Mantone: We couldn't go back the way we came, but we'd gained enough trust from the winged folk that they felt compelled to help us find our way home. That was a two year journey that eventually brought us to the land of Mulwar, and I still have trouble saying that word without feeling the bile rise up my throat.
    GreySage

    Joined: Jul 26, 2010
    Posts: 2695
    From: LG Dyvers

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    Thu Jan 27, 2011 11:06 am  

    That's quite an interesting conversation, Fenreer. Some good information in there that can add some flavor to a campaign.

    I have a Winged Folk Character from waaaay back. He's an 11/11 Fighter Illusionist. Haven't gotten a chance to play him in forever. :)

    SirXaris
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    Joined: Jun 17, 2012
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    Sun Jun 17, 2012 11:01 pm  

    I also had a 'Winged -folk' F/I. He was killed in Ravenloft, pin-cushioned by animated flying polearms while soaring upwards in a tower towards some giant beating heart pulsing in the ceiling. As the party was weakened greatly (duh, Ravenloft) no recovery was possible for regeneration/resurrection. Now I picture him as a residual haunting, a translucent, winged spectre flying endlessly up the tower on dark, eerie nights. A look of anguish on its ghostly face as it plummets endlessly, again and again through the ages. Or better yet, a zombie Avariel, skeletal wings protruding from its rotting back.

    I currently have two Al Karak Elam characters (children of the former) and have enjoyed playing the race ever since the Dragon article way back in the day. Of course, none of the characters has ever divulged the whereabouts of their new homeland.

    In our campaign, after the massacre, the remaining Avariels disappeared only to be discovered inhabiting treehouse cities in the giant Bronzewood forests of Raenei (Luna), one of Greyhawk's moons. (Obviously we are a Spelljamming campaign, but based in Greyspace). The xenophobic fliers finally found a spot where no other sentient beings exist. And although the wildlife is much larger and more dangerous, especially the wyverns, of which hunting is a favorite, daring, and necessary pasttime, the Al Karak Elam are recovering.
    Also, due to their near extinction, and because very few males escaped the butchery on Oerth, the Al Karak men have practiced a culture of polygamy since leaving. This has been changing as the new generations, more balanced gender wise, have matured, but it is still a favored way of life for those older wind lords.
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