I'm making a character from Ea with ties to the Letheon Liberation Front. There's a lot of material about the war going on there and the giths, but not so much about the humans and prior civilization. These are some of the things I am wondering:
1. Is there a real-world cultural analogue to Ea/Letheon, a la Valley of Bone and Mayans?
2. Is Allarian spoken in Letheon?
3. Do they worship the standard pantheon? (Perhaps under different names?)
4. What's the climate and terrain like?
Has anything been established about this, or has anyone given any thought to it? I'm happy to make some stuff up if not.
I'm hoping someone else can answer this, since I don't remember much about Ea. I'm also having trouble remembering who was involved in creating it. I suspect if you check over the character sheets for the gith characters, especially the older ones, their backgrounds will give you some clues, at least about who to ask.
Good idea, covaithe... I did look at a couple of gith sheets, but they didn't have too much info. Les, for example, is not even from there. But I didn't look at them all; I'll go back and look at the rest.
Also, the wiki mentions (IIRC) Dunamin as the original creator.
Have there been any adventures set there that anyone can recall?
Nope. Most adventures have been in Daunton and surroundings. There's a complete list here - only 3 adventures have not been in Daunton or on the island!
The Captain's Caper: various nearby islands
Menace of the Icy Spire: a nameless nearby island
The Jade Frontier: the Jade Empire
Well, Ea is a whole continent, so I guess there's room for plenty of different peoples and places there.
From what I can remember about other places, we don't really have an arctic/tundra style setting, nor a desert setting, do we?
As far as cultures go, not that a real-world analogue is required, but I kind of like the sort of instant fluency they can provide. For an arctic setting, Vikings might be a good choice. For desert, the obvious choice is Arabian, but there could be others - Saharan, maybe.
Anybody have a hankering for any of those (or something else)?
I remember Don Incognito brainstorming up an idea for a Viking-inspired arctic land that was plagued by war-crazed demons, as well as an Egyptian-themed desert kingdom. Can't remember much in the way of details, though, or where the posts would be.
The vikings was regarding the bladelings, and I think the Egyptian kingdom might have been for devas and goliaths, so they'd probably in the Manual of the Planes and the Pre-proposal for PHB2.
I've got a desert land coming as the homeland of my Psion, I just want to be the first character from there and after that it's open to anyone. Of course it'll be like October, so...
It's not Egyption though, it's decidedly persian in nature and so surely there is room for both.
I suspect if you check over the character sheets for the gith characters, especially the older ones, their backgrounds will give you some clues, at least about who to ask.
The vikings was regarding the bladelings, and I think the Egyptian kingdom might have been for devas and goliaths, so they'd probably in the Manual of the Planes and the Pre-proposal for PHB2.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DarwinofMind
I've got a desert land coming as the homeland of my Psion, I just want to be the first character from there and after that it's open to anyone. Of course it'll be like October, so...
It's not Egyption though, it's decidedly persian in nature and so surely there is room for both.
Ok, cool... I think actually Viking/winter appeals most to me for the character I have in mind. Bladelings could certainly be included there.
As Ea is a continent, this could be a new region there or it could be applied to Letheon itself. It doesn't really matter to me which one - does anyone have any particular feelings either way?
FYI, the reason I want to set this in Ea is because my character's background is linked to fighting aberrations. The character is a druid, and I have in mind a secret, ancient order of druids that stands opposed to things coming in from the Far Realm - like the Gatekeepers from Eberron or the Circle of the True mentioned in PHB2. Ea's where the aberrant action is, so the druids are either from there or have gone there. A Viking culture would suit druids very well, I think.
Since this would be my second PC and Ingot is just starting out, she won't be appearing on the scene any time soon. I may write up a little bit about the setting bits though, just to get it out there.
Those are good questions all around and I do have a lot of additional material behind Ea when I wrote it up, though unfortunately I don't have access to it right now. Going from memory:
Quote:
Originally Posted by ryryguy
1. Is there a real-world cultural analogue to Ea/Letheon, a la Valley of Bone and Mayans?
No, not as such. However, a significant part of the cultures are inspired from the abundance of D&D lore behind giths, illithids, and other iconic practicioners of psionics, and that lore might in turn have had real-world analogues.
If you really want relation to real-world cultures, I would think you might draw a little inspiration from Spartans and samurai for githyanki and Shaolin monks for githzerai.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ryryguy
2. Is Allarian spoken in Letheon?
For ease of play (as is the norm in 4E), yes.
Technically they would speak their own language, but it would be close enough to Allarian to suffice as equivalent, just like Magari is considered equivalent to Dwarven.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ryryguy
3. Do they worship the standard pantheon? (Perhaps under different names?)
I had not really settled on this topic, since the role of gods in the L4W world was a hot topic at the time I was writing Ea (pre-launch of L4W).
Unless I'm mistaken, we ended up deciding that there would be no more than the 12 established gods. Considering that Ea is a Far Land, the citizens of Letheons might worship them under different names but they would technically be the same.
However, it should be noted that the gods play a relatively smaller part on Ea overall.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ryryguy
4. What's the climate and terrain like?
This was left intentionally open. Ea is continental in size, and as such the environment depends on where you are.
Most of the kingdom of Letheon is dominated by fields and plains, often with grass growing the height of common humanoids - though a great deal has become corrupted and poisonous following the Xelgonne Enclave occupation. Central Letheon rises into signicant mountainside, with very expansive underground tunnels and caverns.
In the meantime, I ended up setting a new land called Surtyr in the north of Ea. It's a viking inspired land and ties in with another new land called Valhyr. I noticed that Ea was a continent, as you mentioned, so it seemed easiest to just plop down a new area that wasn't part of Letheon proper.
As I wrote it up Surtyr is wintery and cold, but with lots of volcanic activity, so there's geothermal warmth in some areas - think Iceland. The war between the giths has spilled over into the borderlands, but the more remote reaches are still relatively untouched... for now.
I noticed mention of Surtyr and Valhyr around the forums after my return, but haven't yet digged into it. Growing up in Denmark I've learned quite a bit about Nordic mythology, and viking culture personally appeals to me quite a lot.
I'll go check out Surtyr in the wiki some time after work.
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