Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 2078302" data-attributes="member: 13966">In any case it seems House Malarn is simply going to be the most economically-powerful human-blooded Pillar, since they have cornered much of the Eyrian sea trade and have contact with the Sarynthi (though House Kiron is close enough to possibly have dealings with them as well).  Malarn also holds the steppelands, giving them some agricultural resources to boot.  So I think it's safe to assume that they are the economic backbone of the human-blooded Pillars.Of course, they're also one of the furthest from Eyrdeyn so may have less political presence in the high courts and such, and they're likely to have a higher number of fishers/farmers/shepherds amongst their people, so probably bear fewer politically-savvy, artistic, or magically-inclined nobles.  Instead most Malarn nobles are likely to be sort of like merchant lords, governing their agricultural and fishing monopolies in Western Eyros, and they likely have to spend a lot of time dealing with the difficulties associated with a large domain (i.e. longer borders to enforce, more vulnerability to raiders, more patrols to set up, and simply more people to deal with for tax-collecting/census/law-enforcing and such).Just extrapolating stuff based on the map and such so far, but my guesswork could be wrong. *shrug*Anyway, on to my next contribution, which fits neatly on the big eastern island of the map.  This is the last of my long-winded ideas for now, so my next few contributions will be tiny, I promise!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> East of Eyros and Ghalfaen, south of Indracca, across the Pearl Sea lies the large island-state of Orrukar, a wealthy and independant nation but significantly smaller than any of its neighbors.  Orrukar has few natural resources and, with its small size, isn't worth conquering by Eyros since its people would simply take their few resources with them in their great ocean galleys if they fled.  Eyros made a half-hearted attempt to take over Orrukar two millenia ago, but the Orrukarn had a stronger (though smaller) navy and superior knowledge of the reefs and sandbars around the island-state.  Indracca's sultans have tried several times to take Orrukar by force or by mercantile means, but the Orrukarn people were always able to flee the larger assaults with their possessions, and Orrukar has never been open to foreigners trying to buy out the Orrukarn businesses or lands.A large tropical island, Orrukar has been half-cleared of vegetation to make space for the sprawling Orrukarn cities of glass, quartz, obsidian, and ivory.  The Orrukarn have gathered vast amounts of these materials from distant lands to build their cities on the island, while creating glass through invoking lightning on the beaches and acquiring their ivory from the giant bones of creatures in distant lands, supposedly robbing elephant graveyards or the like.  For all their splendor and beauty, the cities of Orrukar are fragile and would be easily destroyed by hurricanes or invaders if not for the Orrukarn shielding their shores with some temporary magical fields that weaken the force of tidal waves, winds, and siege weapons.Orrukar pearldivers produce a lucrative trade in high-quality pearls which they sell to Eyros and Nistadeen, competing with Indracca in that trade as both border the Pearl Sea.  Orrukar is also known for its seafood exports, from delicious clams and lobsters to exotic fishes and calamari, a delicacy in both Orrukar and Eyros.  Through these sea-based trades, the Orrukarn acquire meats and grains that they cannot otherwise get on their island, and they are voracious carnivores for the most part, with a taste for certain breads and fruits as well.  Infrequent Orrukarn ambassadors or trading costers sometimes visit Eyrdeyn to meet with their Eyrian counterparts and discuss business.  Orrukarn are also reknowned glasswrights and glassblowers, and they sometimes export panes of clear or colored glass all across the continent.The Orrukarn themselves are known to some other peoples as gnolls, a name that extends to the more savage distant kin sparsely found in northern lands.  The Orrukarn are much more civilized and regal however, and despite being jackal-like humanoids they appear rather noble and graceful to most folks, with an intelligent gleam to their eyes and well-groomed hair/fur.  Orrukarn have hair and fur of white, tan, sandy blonde, or somewhere inbetween, with small splotches of black in some spots.  Their eyes are bright green, blue, or red, and the Orrukarn seem to order their people according to hair and eye coloration, which apparently has something to do with their bloodlines and heritage.  Orrukarn tend to be slightly taller and leaner than the savage northern gnolls, and they stand straighter with a regal bearing.Orrukarn gnolls speak a highly-refined version of the Gnoll language, which they call Ar'kash.  Amongst their people, only scholars of history learn the original Gnoll language spoken by their savage brethren.  Many Orrukarn learn to speak the languages of Eyros, Nistadeen, or Indracca for purposes of trade and diplomatic relations.  Gnolls of Orrukar wear fine jewelry and ornamentations of gold, silver, and ivory, embedded with pearls, obsidian, turquoise, and sometimes Indraccan lapis lazuli.  Their clothing however is odd and, to foreigners, both wondrous and vulgar, for the Orrukarn are not only incredible glasswrights and gemcutters, but also talented sorcerers and mentalists, who learn to weave and forge glass and quartz into amazing mineral-fabrics, garments infused with minor magicks or psionics to flow like silk yet remain solid and smooth as the glass or quartz they are cut from.  Using interwoven pieces of opaque, translucent, and trasparent quartz along with colored glass, Orrukarn garments are beautiful but often revealing and considered indecent in most other lands.The Orrukarn blend the savage culture of their ancient forebearers with the civilized sophistication of their present society, so they are both hedonistic and sophisticated at once, emotional and detached in equal measure, a strange society indeed.  Amongst their more enlightened pursuits however, is the hallmark of their civilization, psionic arts.  They pursue self-empowerment and enlightenment as an art, and for ages they have possessed an elite caste of psionic masters who have achieved the greatest heights of their people's ideals.  Orrukarn are generally wise and intelligent, and disarmingly polite, but they have an obviously high opinion of themselves, treating other races often as children or primitives.  Yet for all their mental prowess and haughtiness, they are only a small civilization, a nation of a few thousand, likely no more than a tenth the population of Ghalfaen or even the halfling seafarers.  Orrukarn are highly inbred as few other gnolls have developed the civilized nature necessary for inclusion into Orrukarn society, and they do not breed with the savage gnolls.  Their magical and psionic arts have apparently, thus far, preserved their health and kept them from developing deformities or deficiencies despite this inbreeding.Edit: Forgot something that I meant to add.  The Orrukarn have no religions and put no stock in religion, so they have no clerics, druids, paladins, rangers, or the like.  Their closest thing to religion is simple philosophical musings, and their fervent drive towards self-empowerment, enlightenment, and helping others to achieve the same.  The capitol of Orrukar is a city at the center of the island, Dorukaaz.  A few other details on Orrukarn may be in the rules/crunch post I'll have up soon in the other thread.</blockquote>

Verification