Ortho: Nations, Provinces, People, Places

Gerzel's last post seems to be a good place for a thread split as it does not directly deal with places on Ortho, but with extensions of the Harmonium beyond Ortho...Nice ideas though...Just my two cents...
kwint

I'm still trying to grok all that's been written so far...Trying to follow the three primary Ortho threads is a bit confusing; for instance, trying to figure out what relates to the past and what relates to the present...I've downloaded the pdf, but it's the 22 page one and a lot has been written since then...It would be nice to see a 'to do' list so as to show what has been achieved and what needs to be done, preferably by the project co-ordinator (which I assume to be you, Clueless)...It's a great project idea with some exceptional ideas submitted, if a bit scattered in scope...I like the fact that it's pretty much fluff and little stat oriented [as I'm still playing 2nd ed. and don't plan to convert to 3.5 ]...

Anyway,
Good Stuff So Far,
Kwint

Well, I've reconsidered my beholder nation a bit after reading the pdf.

In my new conception, the beholders are meaner than in the old. Most grell are still unrestrained from eating humanoids; the beholder capital is a secret place deep in the Flamedance Mountains (same setup, extinct volcano). The village on the volcano rim is no longer a large metropolis of humanoids but rather a small village of aboriginal gnome beholder cultists living in a shamanic culture.

Despite the xenophobia of the Eye Tyrants I say that they HAVE to be more unified than average beholders. If the beholders were constantly at war with their mortal enemies (the beholders) then they could never band together and make a collective pact with the Harmonium.

I don't have my MM so if someone could send me a pdf or jpeg copy of the beholder (and gauth stats) stats (its actually legal since I own an MM) I could work on some stattage. Was thinking about a beholder Master of the Unseen Hand NPC.

Ya, I sorta liked a more tempered, LN-ish take on beholders, not that there weren't LE ones, just that they were more harmonious... Kwint

Yea, I think Coldash'd be the best place for it... or in its own secretive mountain... shrug.

Really? I HATE the Hive Mother. I find it a really dumb uninspired creature. "How can we get beholders to work together when they hate each other? Oh, right, monsters who frce beholders to work together"

It doesn't even charm other beholders, it dominates them... domination that ends as soon as a beholder is in view of another one due to the antimagic eye. I think its a silly tacked on concept that I have intentionally done away with because a society of creatures who hate each other held together by a single creature (or number of creatures) who force them to cooperate using mental domination is silly and, frankly, I'd rather rework beholder civlization (Ortho specific) than include them as anything more than random aberrations.

The way I see it, they only need to use their domination ability occasionally; beholders being lawful creatures, they learned to accept the hive mothers' rule eons ago. The domination effect gives the Mothers a weapon against truly recalcitrant inferiors, but generally speaking their presence is authority enough.

The difference between "civilized" beholders who live in complex hives with many morphologically distinct castes and lone beholders who consider all others of their kind to be rivals and enemies is the hive mothers. But it isn't the domination ability that makes this true - the beholders who live in hives obey their superiors and their superiors have the ability to force them to do so, not because they have this ability. Beholders have been living in hives for a very long time, quite possibly since the creation of their race. These beholders are civilized because they're civilized - the hive mothers, overseers, and their domination are almost a side-effect of the civilization rather than the other way around, or would be if they hadn't come about basically simultaneously.

Now, if you really really hate hive mothers, I don't actually have an objection to going a different route. I mean, go ahead, there's room for many different kinds of beholder societies in the multiverse, and creativity is good. But I like them, personally; I think they fill an important and interesting role. Not one that couldn't, with a little creativity, be replaced, but they exist and they work well enough as they are.

Uhm yeah. Remind me to write up the strange magical ability of Ortho to grant perminant stat increases to half-ogresses...

I'm not sure if the following questions from the "Ortho: the Beginnings" thread were answered, so I thought I'd repost/bump them here:

Two billion seems like a rather high population, especially given the apparently small proportion of land to sea on Ortho...Could they possibly feed that many people with a pseudo-medieval/early-renaissance technology?...Thoughts?...Also, if Arcadia has 100 million Harmonium, certainly it should be considered less of a colony and more of a province...I mean, it certainly is the most harmonious place in all the (outer) planes...Thoughts?...Also, I was wonderin' what you folks think alignment and racial percentage make up of all Ortho is?...And, as a last question, I noted that the merfolk are mentioned in the creation myth; are they still around and, if so, why not make them a province, perhaps a Province of the Underseas? Well, that seems like enough questions for now, although I'm sure I'll come up with a few more as that's what I'm good at...
Kwint

Oh! And yes, I think there should be Hardhead merfolk, with their spiky read coral armor patrolling the seas of Ortho and various planar colonies elsewhere (maybe they have their own colony in the Elemental Plane of Water, busily trying to convert the elemental races with the help of the hydraxes).

Living among or near them should be eyes of the deep, aquatic beholders with ties to other beholder cultures on Ortho.

Okay, I know I'm selfish, writing up a second province when a lot of people haven't even set up a first one, but I got on a roll and decided to throw out the result. This is Hazhkan, AKA "location #4" on the Big Map. Works out sort of as a fantasy Kiplingesque India, though there's certainly other flavors of imperialism present as well - one of the places that the Harmonium's still establishing itself in.

On the western edge of Ortho's largest continent lies the tropical province of Hazhkan. A low-lying land, criss-crossed with fens, jungles and huge tracts of bramble and vine, Hazhkan is a place that has only recently been claimed by the Harmonium. Great cities and prosperous farmlands have been carved out of the wilderness, but much of the land is still uncharted and its inhabitants remain blind to the guidance of Law. Decades of work remain yet to be done here, and heroes can make their names many times over in the service of the Harmonium.

Geography

Hazhkan stretches for nearly two thousand miles along Ortho's equator, and nearly half that distance north to south. Three words are almost entirely sufficient to describe the entirety of Hazhkan's geography and climate - flat, wet, and hot. Soft, rich sediments allow plants of all kinds to flower and flourish, and abundant rains cause shallow lakes and slow, silt-choked rivers to form throughout the countryside. The tangle of plants and streams make maps of Hazhkan difficult to scribe at best - the very shape of the land changes from season to season, with jungles spreading and new riverbeds being carved out of the land with each new year.

Settlers

The masters of Hazhkan, at least in their own minds, are the Harmonium-sponsored settlers who have come to the land in the past few centuries since the unification of Ortho. As a backwater wilderness, Hazhkan was never considered to be much of a bastion of chaotic forces, but the will of the Harmonium is not to be denied - all of Ortho shall be unified under the rule of Law. Those worthy souls who have chosen to come to Hazhkan know themselves to be the forefront of a new order, bringing enlightenment to a land which has never known anything but savagery. They are willing to do almost anything in order to further the Harmonium's mission and purpose.

Hazhkan's settlers have built many cities and fortresses of stone, and cleared what land they can to plant rice, grains and other crops. Their work has not always been completely successful - tropical heatwaves have caused many a crop to wither in the fields, insect plagues and diseases have caused much death and hardship, and at least three cities have been abandoned after flash floods tore at their centers, leaving only waterlogged ruins behind. Still, the Harmonium settlers persist.

And the newcomers have found valuable resources in this land. Gold is one of the most obvious ones, panned in rivers and streams across Hazhkan. Tropical fruits, inks and dyes, hardwoods, and exotic furs also come from this land, along with more mundane goods such as soft coal, shale and limestone, and salt. Such items are traded to neighboring provinces, and bring in the extra food, cloth goods and metalwork that the settlements of Hazhkan need to survive.

Settlers in Hazhkan are of many races. Humans are most common, of course, from a myriad of provinces, but Motmurk orcs are also prevalent, eager to test their strength against the challenges of this unknown land. These souls have been lectured on the need to transfer their loyalties to their new homeland and not hold any needless attachment to their old lieges in Motmurk, but whether this has been truly accepted by all is not yet clear. A few beholders have also come to Hazhkan - most common in the east, but valued everywhere for their magical talents and engineering abilities. And finally are the rakshasa - tiger-men, and unknown elsewhere on Ortho, but powerful, well-suited to Hazhkan's hot, muggy climate and devoted to the spread of Law. The rakshasa are not yet wholly trusted by the other people of Hazhkan, but still considered valued allies in a dangerous land where civilization itself is an uncertain thing.

Natives

Though Hazhkan is not an easy place to live in, it still has a large population of native people. Savage folk who dwell in the marshes and jungles, surviving as best they can as hunters and gatherers, the Hazhkan natives live short, dirty and brutish lives. Might makes right, No one who sees the squalor in which they live can doubt the good intentions and divine right of the Harmonium.

Some of the Hazhkan natives are slowly but inexorably being civilized. They've been brought into the new cities, taught to till the land and sell their goods at market, their histories recorded in writing and their tribal gods replaced with the worship of the Lord of Law. For a few of the tribes, this is progressing well. One shining example of this are the river nomads of the Qijari delta. They have been easily assimilated into the Harmonium, bringing their skills at crafting light boats and carving wood along with them, and prospered greatly. Their numbers are easily twenty times what they were a century ago, and indistinguishable from people of other lands save for their dusky skins and the odd facial tattoos they preserve as a mark of their past.

Many other tribefolk have not yet been so fortunate. They have proven unable to keep up the sustained labor needed to farm the land or practice a trade in the cities, and have drifted into peonage or begging for charity. Such an outcome is unfortunate, but the Harmonium was not built on forcing the industrious to feed the indolent; those who have wasted their first chance at prosperity must find their own way thereafter.

Several institutions have been created to bring discipline to the savages. The temple-farms of the southwestern coast take on any who will come, teaching discipline and exacting hard labor in the fields in exchange for food and shelter sufficient to live - not an easy life, but a longer one than a landless beggar might otherwise possess. The monastic compound at Aj-Rakaith accepts orphans, foundlings and other young children for instruction, but can only accept a few and often has problems with children who think they have some right to remain with their families. None of the institutions in Hazhkan are perfect, but all are better than letting the savages remain unenlightened.

Even with centuries of progress, there are still a few of the native tribes who have not heard the word of the Harmonium - or refuse to listen. These unbelievers hold to the deepest swamp, the most tangled jungle, and resist any who would challenge their isolation with fire, wood and stone. Their miserable resistance is not so important that the Harmonium must seek to destroy them outright - time will suffice to spread Law across all the land. The one exception is when a tribe of marsh halflings is discovered, for a few remnants of this race of chaos-friends still dwell within the unmapped depths of Hazhkan. News of a surviving pocket of halflings raises the Harmonium's full ire.

Kingdoms

Many kingdoms, districts, colonies and petty empires rise within the province of Hazhkan. Some were founded by outsiders who came to the land in the first days after the coming of the Harmonium, an enlightened noble class who set themselves as protectors and lieges of the native folk of a certain area in anticipation of later reward. Others are pure colonies, inhabited entirely by outsiders and granting citizenship only to those natives who demonstrate an understanding of and acceptance of the rule of Law. A few kingdoms are even ruled by natives directly - Qijari is one such.

Each of the kingdoms of Hazhkan obeys the dictates of the Octave Council and holds to its laws, but also establish their own dictates and preserve their own customs. Kingdoms collect taxes and fees, recruit soldiers and officials to serve the Harmonium's will, and enforce the code of the Harmonium within their own borders. Representatives to the Council of Ortho are named through a series of contests - one chosen through a tournament of arms, one with a test of wits, learning and oratory, and one through a display of master craftsmanship. Each kingdom may name up to three candidates for the great contest when a position on the council opens, but only one person in all of Hazhkan can hope to win.

Monsters

Creatures of many kinds dwell in the jungles and swamps of Hazhkan. Most are dumb beasts - hydras, basilisks and carrion crawlers, destrachan and swamp krenshar, oozes and monstrous vermin. The larger and more dangerous of these creatures have been beaten back from the settled lands, but a few still raid outlying fields and towns. Punitive raids are sometimes conducted to discourage such attacks.

More dangerous are the flights of gargoyles and bands of minotaurs and jungle trolls who still call the depths of Hazhkan home. Like the less intelligent monsters, these creatures have lost much to the Harmonium - but their cunning has allowed them a better chance to survive, and bred a hatred of the new arrivals and all their works. They raid against the new kingdoms when they can, which is not often - an organized soldiery is well able to drive back such attacks, usually with heavy losses. Still, even the little damage that they do is more than the Harmonium would like to see.

Greatest of all the creatures of Hazhkan, though, are the mighty dragons. Such creatures have dwelled in the jungle since the earliest of days, and are a force that not even the Harmonium and the Lords of Law can dismiss lightly. Some kinds of dragons - greens and bronzes, for instance - are inclined to favor the dictums of the Harmonium, and have even made common cause with it. Others, most notably the black wyrms of the swamps, oppose its coming, and have been attacked by paladins and other heroes. Such battles have not yet been frequent enough to trigger a state of outright war between the Harmonium and the dragons of Hazhkan, but this may only be a matter of time.

Gods

Many of the deities of Ortho have taken an interest in the lands of Hazhkan, and continue to do so. Their actions as much as any other have shaped the past of this land. Gods of Law and Chaos alike play their great game, seeking to shape Hazhkan according to their will, and often clash with one another in this ancient land.

On the side of Law, the Lord of Discipline and the Lord of Scribes figure most prominently. The interest of the former is obvious - bringing order and the Word to the savages of the land, and encouraging them to structure and prosperity. Be it through the gentle touch, the stalwart example or the thankless scourge, his servants and priests will tame the wilderness and make a great garden of it. The Lord of Scribes has a similar interest, but a subtler one - to chronicle both what is being built, and what has come before - preserving the history and legends of the native folk, ensuring that they will not be forgotten and keeping the past alive.

Opposing them most of all is the fading belief in the old Lord of Tricksters. Though the deities of Chaos have fled Ortho with the Harmonium's triumph, still the Trickster is worshipped in secret, under many names and none. Its followers spread lies and deceit and flame, causing great trouble for the new rulers of Hazhkan and the death of not a few. What traps and curses have been left by this departing god, waiting to be sprung on those who would call themselves masters of this land, remain yet to be seen.

It's from Rip's "Who Gets What Territory" Myth...The Aqua-tiefling is very localized whereas the Merfolk would be found throughout the oceans of Ortho, if they weren't wiped out in the past...I was just wonderin' 'cause they're mentioned in the Official Harmonium Creation Myth, which mentions all the races that are part of the Harmonium Movement...If the Merfolk were still around, a province for the Oceans would make more sense than, say, giving Land #10 or Land #17 province status (especially as those two provinces are fairly inhospitable and, in actuality, very, very, very small when one scales the flat map to actual global size...If we could only get a Peters Projection for the Map of Ortho)... Kwint

Anyone have any ideas for names of the oceans?

The one in the lower left should be the Ocean of Fogs, I think. We could go the alliterative route and have the other two be the Ocean of Foam (in the center) and the Ocean of Fevers (in the lower right).

I was trying to think of words that related to the idea of harmony, but I kept coming up with things like Passive and Tranquil and there's already a Pacific Ocean and a Sea of Tranquility.

In all honesty? Not much.
From a biologists standpoint, the change is massive to costal ecoststems. Think about how many birds feed on stranded seelife left by the tide. With out a moon, there is no tide. (And no, not having a tide controlled moon doesnt cause devestation if you start off with no moon. It's only a problem if the tide which already exists is removed.)

So, canged in see life, costal life... probably a lot less of things washing up on shore. From a character standpoint, nothing major. Just make sure you reflect the lack of a moon and the lack of a tide in the culture. Little changes, nothing more.

I think that the lack of the moon itself would be more interesting. For one thing, the field of astronomy would be very backwards. Just think of how much of our early astronomy was determined using ideas and assumption based on what we knew of the moon. No eclipses, no basis for...

Wait. Without a moon, they must have a completly differant calander.

The Eight Jewels of Harmony are the eight largest and most productive of the Harmonium's colonies. These triumphs of the Harmonic ideal produce nearly a third of the grain consumed in all Harmonium cities, almost uncountable military and trade resources, convert vast amounts of raw material to finished goods and provide five out of eight of all soldiers in the Harmonium's armies.

Intagril the oldest of the eight provides the Harmonium with many formidable spell casters and a great deal of magical equipment.

Anoc is the largest of the eight jewels even with only half of its prime sphere actually occupied by the Harmonium. It is a huge world of plains and sky, with relatively few mountains. Only Anoc's Northern hemisphere is inhabited as the equator is far too hot for any permanent settlement. The southern portion of the sphere is largely unexplored due to veins of ore that seem to block divination and travel to the South is exceptionally hazardous. The colony exports a large portion of the grains consumed throughout the Harmonium.

Arcadia is the great colony of the outer planes. It is the great training and staging ground for the armies of the Harmonium.

Meter is the most politically outspoken of the eight jewels, at the fore for the push to become a province and demanding rights for its citizens. While this does cause tension the colony spans the entire prime sphere and has provided some of the best generals, officers and elite forces that the Harmonium has ever seen. It also is rich in both agriculture and mining recourses.

Lucidia is a small colony built on the moon orbiting a firery volcanic prime sphere. It is the base for a great many spell-jamming ships and is a large port of call helping to protect four major trade routes.

Fjorge is a world inhabited by a race of small industrious insectile creatures, called the K'jinte. The first explorers from the Harmonium where quickly drawn into negotiating between two hives. Now the Harmonium has brought peace to the world by acting as mediators between the hive-clans. The K'jinte are a strong industrious race that have taken a natural ease to adapting to the Harmonium way of life individually. The only problems come from competition between hives as their warriors pheromones will cause them to attack warriors of another hive automatically. Thus while K'jinte armies are highly efficient the generals of the Harmonium must be careful not to mix warriors from different hives.

Anara is the great industrial world blessed with great veins of ore and thick forests. It has only been colonized for a hundred years but has quickly become a vital part of the Harmonium's economy.

Eallia is a ocean covered water world ruled by two nations, one of aquatic elf serfs ruled by the aboleth and one of sahuagin. The colony provides a large supply of algae and fish food stocks.

Actually, we could combine my ideas with Gerzel's if that's okay.

Intagril could be the world of intelligent plants (which could still be called Synthesiates). It might have other races too.

Anoc could be the world of the spiky red lichen, or that could be Lucidia.

Meter could be what I called Red Terra, except I don't know if everyone likes the idea of alternate Earths. If that's too far out there for most of you, feel free to disregard it.

"Iotia" could be Anara. I'd rather use Gerzel's name.

Quite possably. This is just a first draft. Although I do think that the alternate earth is a bit too much for me. I'd say leave the alternate earth part off.