Ortho: Nations, Provinces, People, Places

Hey, Kwint. I love the little beholder compass rose. I hadn't noticed it the first time.

I've read both of those now, but I hadn't read The Dragon Waiting yet at the time I wrote that.

Here is my current draft for the figure that brought the Harmonium philosophy to the colony of Integral. I'd like to use this but I'd prefer to get eldersphinx's blessing on the story first .

Enoril, The Orator
Male, Human - NG - Age: 149 years
Born Harmonium 50 - Last Seen: Harmonium 199

Enoril was born fifty years after the Harmonium was first established. He grew up in a small village on the edge of the Han, on the coast between the Flamedance mountains and the Elven Shaar to the west. His father was known to have a great amount of wealth and fortune shipping exotic spices and potions into the Greater Han. Officially, these shipments came from the near-bye islands which today have several spice plantations on them that are about three-hindered years old, and spice growing is known to have gone back further. However, many scholars have found evidence and have speculated that Enoril's father actually dealt with the elves to the east. These evidences and speculations have been systematically erased to form a more unified vision of the history of the Harmonium.

What is undeniable is that at a young age Enoril had contact with many cultures, including the elven as he was known to be able to speak their dialects, and traveled widely with his father, through Han and even farther. As a boy he was known for his clear voice and his ability to help people talk through confrontations. At the age of sixteen Enoril sought out and was accepted into the prestigious wizard's collage in Han's regional capitol but only stayed only through the first semester. He then traveled through the world for five years, eventually meeting and becoming a student of Landrien of Voll, and was one of the first class of student's eventually enrolled in Landrien's collage, helping both as student and founder to the new collage having already learned from Landrien for a couple of years.

After being one of the five first official graduates of the collage, Enoril went on to help teach and guide first-year students. His final project, a ballad called 'The Founding Harmony' is still taught and sung today in many collages across Otho, the epic song dedicated to his late mentor Landrien. From there Enoril spent his time working at first as an aid to older teachers, and then gaining a professorship in his own right.

Finally, after eight years spent at being a student in and helping to found the Collage of the Choir, Enoril gave into his wanderlust to explore the world leaving to seek out other bards and counter the wrongful use bardic magic. Unlike many of his counterparts in bard-hunting he recruited far more bards than he put down. He had an exceptional eye for talent, and a calm manor for quelling conflict that he at times was responsible for nearly a quarter of the enrollment in the collage.

Enoril returned to the collage on a regular basis to teach for a semester or two and then leave again for the next twenty years. At the end of these wandering years Enoril was slowly convinced to spend more and more time teaching, and less traveling. On his forty-fifth birthday he announced his acceptance of a full-time professorship at the collage, as well as a seat on the collage's director's board. Nine years later, he accepted the office of Dean of the Collage of the Choir; a seat he held for the next fifty-two years.

During the final forty years of his life, Enorril lectured and helping to tutor many students, but retired more and more into his own studies. Then one day before is one-hundred and fiftieth birthday Enoril disappeared from the campus, leaving all of his possessions behind.

He was known as a great force and teacher for Harmony, and even in his retirement had put forth great efforts to help others and keep the peace. Still his extremely long life, and rumors of research into history and rituals that were frowned upon officially by the Harmonium. Just as the first schism began this great force for Harmony and understanding disappeared from Ortho's soil.

Be my guest

It wasn't originally my intention to place Karesh on any specific world, but with the work you guys have done lately, the idea of having it in Thaera has grown on me *grin*

Right I've been working a bit more on it and will try to give a blend. Now remember the eight jewels are not the only worlds the harmonium controls. They are only the eight most productive and stable. THe backbone of the harmonium if you will. They are also not the only integrated worlds but they are the oldest each at least a century old, with most closer to two. Integral itself is nearly 300 years old as a colony in the Harmonium, joining before the War of Iron.

I have considered that the eight jewels might be the eight worlds that joined the Harmonium before they invaded the abyss or as they were invading contributing troops and matirials to the effort. I dunno.

Sorry Rip, but I claim dibs on intagril. Actually I already have some plans in the works for Integril, and really would like to claim it as my baby for the time being. Though I still think there is plenty of room for your world.

I would like the lichen to be on Lucidia. It just strikes me to fit better. Anoc on the other hand I would put as the world of intelligent plants.

Hmm... Just not sure myself on the whole world of mimicy thing. However if you want to handle the write up for Anara Rip I have no problems with it.

Here is some more info with DM Darks and stats on Enoril the bard written up earlier in this thread.

Darks
The Elves: Enoril visited the elven lands many times as a child with his father, and never lost touch with the elves. He did his best to argue against the war with the elves but at that time was almost a lone voice in a hurricane of others. Once the war started he took a personal oath of pacifism and refused to aid the armies by going to war with them, but did not forsake the cause of Harmony. As the final slaughter of the elves began he worked to help evacuate them to their hidden retreats saving thousands of lives.

He believed in Harmony but could never get over the destruction and abuse of the elves, and kept a meticulous secret record of the atrocities, one volume of which is still hidden in his secret study under his home near the campus of the Collage of the Chorus. He also took certain steps to make sure the Harmonium would never be able to forget the wrong they did. When he left the campus for the last time he left to meet the surviving elves now living in the realm of air in their hidden realms and retreats. There he began a ritual to transcend his mortal form.

Secret Libraries: Enoril not only kept records of the destruction of the elves. He also gathered tomes and information that was outlawed by the Harmonium and secreted them away to several secret libraries hidden throughout Ortho. The largest of these is deep underground accessed through a cave mouth opening near his birthplace, containing over ten thousand tomes of various sorts. Not all of the tomes are outlawed, and many of them are magical. A much smaller library is under his home mentioned before, near the campus of the Collage of the Choir, and is known of and used to this day by a small secret group of professors and trusted students. Each of the libraries are cloaked from scrying and most are also disguised to appear normal with no telltale dark spots on scrying and other divinations. Most of the libraries have a small cell of keepers working without knowledge of the location of the other libraries for the most part.

Returning to naming the oceans and seas of Ortho, I thought I'd take Rip's idea of where they are and apply it to a map...In the map below, I've identified the three oceans (large Numeral I through III) as per Rip, and then divided those into obvious oceanic seas (letters A through L)...Rip has suggested Ocean III be designated the Ocean of Fogs, but I disagree as I think that Fog describes but a small portion of that body of water...For further info concerning that interaction and suggestions, go here...Any suggestions?...
Kwint

I think a larger region can be named after a smaller but memorable feature within it. The Pacific Ocean isn't very passive, for example, but it seemed so on the particular day that an explorer named it, and the name stuck. To give other examples, the Indian Ocean borders other lands beside India and the Atlantic Ocean borders continents other than Atlantis (in fact, the Atlantic Ocean is named after a land that only exists in legend).

A place called the Fire Bogs doesn't have to be entirely engulfed by flame all the time; if parts of it occasionally explode, that's enough to tag it with that name. A place called the Forest of Serpents could have large serpent-free areas; if it has a yuan-ti lair within it, that could be enough to get the whole forest associated with snakes.

Similarly, if one ocean has a large, perpetually misty area, and other oceans don't have areas like that, then calling that whole body of water the Sea of Fogs (or a Latin equivalent, like Mare Obscurium) isn't out of line.

I'm all for making some up randomly. After all "Why is this place called dragon bay if it has no dragons?" can be the start of a good adventure.

Clueless, I notice in the latest version of the pdf that you refer to Province #17 as Uninhabited Polar Land...Do you truly feel that it should be uninhabited, cause if you do, well, in the end, Ortho's your baby...I'd just question why an uninhabited land would hold provincial status...
kwint

Colony Est Year Population Exports
(Harmonium) (Millions) (Yearly Avg)
Intagril 268 1760
30% Human 24% Elven
11% Kuotoa 9% Planetouched
8% Dwarf 8% Locanth
4% Orc 2% Dragon
2% Sea Elf 1% Gnol
1% Other
Anoc 314 484

Arcadia 273 3810

Meter 331 678

Lucidia 326 232

Fjorge 289 4201

Anara 412 741

Fallia 387 1205

I like this idea. If the suns are Law and the moons are Chaos, the shattering of one of the moons would represent a disruption to the primal balance between the two forces, forcing Chaos to fight in order to survive.

I like that, too. Even if, originally, both the moons represented the chaotic side, the Harmonium may well name the surviving moon Accord as a propaganda device - the moon is now purged of its chaotic nature, as everything on this world has been.

Thought I'd pass this along to y'all...In my effort to figure out how big Province #17 is, I checked out a map at wikipedia of Antarctica, did some eyebal, pen and paper calculations and came up with some dimensions for the map below...First, the length (N-S) is roughly 2200 miles, the width at 60 degrees latitude is roughly 350 miles, at 70 degrees latitude is roughly 900 miles and at 80 degrees latitude is roughly 600 miles wide...This, of course, assumes that Ortho is the same size as the earth (is this the case?)...
Kwint

note: the hash marks at the bottom of the map are 15 degrees of longitude each...

The Harmonium has controlled the entirety of the planet of Ortho for more than five hundred years. They write the histories, present tthe methods of law and proper culture, control all trade and travel, even dictate matters of religion to exclude all deities not acceptable to their creed. Their grip on authority is absolute.

Yet there are still rebels.

Some dissidents come from outside - Anarchists and other planars who seek to create unrest on the Harmonium's home ground. Others are native born, individuals who for whatever reason have chosen to oppose the Harmonium and its works. Against the combined forces of an entire world, these rebels are mere irritants, powerless - but still despised by the government for their actions. Among the most effective of these groups are the ones known as the Burrowdogs.

The Burrowdogs are not an organized group, but more of a diffuse movement - lone agents who have adopted similar tactics, methods and goals in their struggle against provincial and planetary authority. They seek to cause visible unrest and dissatisfaction, raising controversy and dealing out embarrasment as opposed to inflicting actual harm. The Burrowdogs know that their handful of agitators will never be able to affect a planetary government on their own - so they try to lampoon, humiliate and make laughingstocks out of the authorities and their messages. Success at this goal, they hope, will undermine the Harmonium and help to lead to a general uprising.

Burrowdogs are adept at stealth, at disguising themselves and spreading innuendo and subversive messages. Their methods are many and varied - some spread bawdy and vulgar rhymes that put down local rulers, others plant fake evidence of deeds that turn a region's potentates against one another, and yet others will prick the ego of the local police from hiding in order to create a widespread and heavy-handed retaliation against all the citizens of a district. Burrowdogs are generally not adept in the arts of combat or magic, and so are easy prey if discovered - but after all, if combat skills are required, a Burrowdogs has probably already failed at what she set out to do.

Burrowdogs can be found in most of Ortho's provinces, but are probably most common in the land of Motmurk, where harmony first arose from tyranny and is still closely linked to that form of rule. Humans, dwarves and members of other races living alongside the orcs are particularly susceptible to Burrowdog subversion, and the police forces of the province are poorly suited to deal with such agitation. Even determining that Burrowdog presence exists in a Motmurk city is difficult, usually requiring a broad and intrusive search - which is expensive and disruptive to daily business even if it works. This response alone is enough to guarantee the Burrowdogs at least a partial success in their work.

As a result, outside investigator specialists are sometimes called in when Burrowdog activity is suspected. Members from the Harmonium's planar branch have recently shown more success than others in such efforts, possibly due to their broader viewpoints - a result that has been noted, and led to even non-members recommended by Harmonium officials being hired for investigative work.

As a result, searching for Burrowdog presence in a city on Ortho can be very rewarding work, both in hard cash and in favors owed by high-ups. It can also be quite risky. Local authorities and police will resent outsiders' presence in their bailiwick, may attempt to hinder or pre-empt any investigation, and if the Burrowdogs are caught will almost certainly try to take the credit for themselves and dispose of the criminals in a most unpleasant and visible manner. And the Burrowdogs themselves are certainly not incompetent or easily caught. All in all, hunting Burrowdogs is an experience best left to the professionals.