Erebus Red says
fusangite – sounds like an interesting mix! But as your setting is 1247, which is pre-Joseph Smith and post Moroni, what are you taking from Mormonism?
Joseph Elric Smith says
I assumed he had it set with what happened to the last of the laminites, after all the nephites were gone. THough I would love to hear More on how he handled the other visitors to the continent before columbus, it sounds like some thing I may have to look into.
Wow! Thanks for the interest. This is a somewhat long and involved explanation:
My first campaign was basically set atop four pillars:
1.
Celtic mythology and stories about trips to other "worlds." Key materials for me were The Spoils of Annwfn and the Legend of Saint Brendan the Brendan the Voyageur. Also important were the tales of Mael Duin. The Brendan and Mael Duin stories basically treat the islands of the Atlantic Ocean like a Dr. Who/Star Trek universe -- an infinite number of islands stretching to the West; on each island/world is a problem that needs to be solved or a test that needs to be passed. The Spoils of Annwfn is considered by some to prefigure the Grail story; it is a pagan story of Arthur and his Knights journeying to Annwfn on a quest to obtain the Black Cauldron. In their quest, they pass through 7 cities: The City of Trees, City of the Sea, City of Riches, City of Frustration, City of Celebration, City of Four Sides and the City of Glass.
2.
Early Eurasian Conceptions of the Land to the West. In addition to the Celtic material, I drew from some pre-Columbian and 16th century materials. In particular, I looked at the Chinese stories of Fusang (the land east of Kamchatka discovered by Buddhist monks in 485 AD); de Soto's and other Spanish conquistadors' myths of El Dorado and the Seven Cities of Cibola (I also looked at factual stories and conjecture about these places); Diodorus Siculus, Pliny's and Seneca's (apparently the cave in which Kronos is imprisoned is located on Cape Breton Island) speculations about lands northwest of Britain (and also their stories of Phonecian contact with the Sargasso Sea); the Iberian myth of the Seven Cities of Antilla founded as reliquaries on the Atlantic Isles from seven bishops escaping the Moorish invasion in the 8th century; and the Vinland Saga and other sagas of Viking contacts with the New World.
3.
Mormon Alternate History.I basically set the game in the America of the Lamanites -- a fallen people who nonetheless have great cities and a vague remembrance of their great past. I also cheated and adopted Brigham Young's theory that the Three Nephites were not called back but continued to walk the earth. I also spent considerable time toying with the various theories of the geography of the Book of Mormon. Finally, I went with the Chesapeake Bay hypothesis, placing Zarahemla on the Delmarva Peninsula, although I did use elements of the Great Lakes hypothesis.
4.
Aboriginal History and Myth.I focused mainly on Iroquoian and Algonkian myths about history but borrowed from various aboriginal traditions.
I then looked for resonances between these things and decided to make the campaign a story of a quest for the Grail; the quest would pass through the seven cities (7 cities of Cibola, 7 cities of Antilla, 7 cities of Annwfn) and in each city the characters would find a different grail artifact/mormon relic e.g. Javelin of Teancum=Lance of Longinus, Sword of Laban=Excalibur, Seer Stones of Zarahemla=Emerald from Lucifer's crown. In Mormon theology, there is this idea of things in the Western Hemisphere parallelling things in the Eastern -- Christ coming to both continents, etc. So I hatched the idea that the European and AMerican worlds are on a collision course because the relics of the two civilizations have gotten mixed-up; the characters go to recover the Lance of Longinus that they believe has been taken into the West by bishop Oporto at the founding of the first of the sevem cities of Antilla.
In addition, the three Nephites are Jonas, Jonas and Kishkumen; Kishkumen stands for the Fisher King while the two Jonases (who I made to look identical) are like yet unlike and vie to act as counsellors to the party.
There are other great resonances between the British Heptarchy and the Iroquois Confederacy, beautiful similarities between Celtic and Iroquois mythos e.g. think of the story of Vortigern and Merlin and Geoffery of Monmouth's
History of the Kings of Britain and compare it to the Iroquois Confederacy at the eve of the American Revolution.
Anyway, I imagine this has come across as a deluge of bizarre obscurity and chaotic thought but it really takes a whole 2 year campaign to explain what I created.
I recommend to those interested that they pick up a copy of Geoffery Ashe's
Land to the West.
