Cody,

For all of your math, you forgot that the dark moon did not exist prior to the comming of man. So the fact that the flood plain didn't exist before the comming of man makes sense. See, Visions of Lives Past into boxed text about the appearance of the dark moon.

Now, kindly put all your math books and calculators away and lets talk about why the space station that is called Aperio showed up in the first place. Keep in mind that Viridis translates from latin as "Green". While Aperio translates open and is the latin root for "To Appear".

I actually covered all those topics in my post, including some theories about WHAT Aperio. I did mention it did not exist prior to the God's War, and even that it may be a spaceship.

Sorry Cody, I missed that. No offense intended.

Eric

Travel and the spread of information in Arcanis

A recent discussion as to what player characters can and cannot know recently got me thinking about the actual mechanics of travel in this world. Before the age of the internet (yes, youngsters, there was once a time when the internet didn’t exist!), or even the printing press, the spread of knowledge, information, and even gossip was limited to how fast your average person could travel by foot. There were no emails, no cars, and no mail service. If you wanted to travel quickly, you were forced to go by horse-courier (hopefully with a network of fresh rides) or by ship. Consequently, it could take days or even weeks for even a single person to go from one place to another, with their news and gossip being limited to what a single man (or small group) can carry.

There are many means by which a person can travel using ancient, pre-industrial technology, but the main means are 1) by foot, 2) by animal drawn wagon, 3) on horseback, or 4) by ship. In the world of Arcanis, we have two additional means of transportation available that we did not have in our world: the Portals of Anshar, and other magical means. Each of these methods has advantages, and for the most part they are listed above in the order of how common they are in the population due to price. The majority of people on Arcanis are peasants, with even (presumably) the various non-human races having enough social stratification to make the faster means of transportation untenable except in special circumstances.

The most common means of transportation available in Arcanis is the ones that (the) God(s) gave us: our own two feet. In our modern society, the idea of travelling more than about 30 minutes by foot is almost ludicrous—with options like cheap cars, mass transit, taxies, etc—but this was once the only means most people had to travel elsewhere. This meant that the vast majority of the populations of our ancient worlds (and those Arcanis) never travel more than a few miles in any direction from the place of their birth. When travelling by foot, you must take into account a few things to get a realistic understanding of pace: road quality (or existence), how much food you are carrying, and your own physical fitness.

The first of these is the easiest to quantify as the presence and absence of a road is a fairly binary trait. Even a muddy trail is significantly easier to walk over than bushwacking (also easier to navigate so you spend less time figuring out where you are). For example, if you are bushwacking through a forest or moving through rough terrain, you are lucky if you can manage a single kilometre forward in an hour of travel, with more realistic travel being significantly less optimistic (including less than a single kilometre in an entire day of effort). This is because you have to contend with things like moving around mountains, finding paths through swamps, around thickets of trees, rivers, etc. All of this is done with you having to constantly reorient yourself based on things like the stars, sun, and landmarks that you cannot always see as only the wealthiest individuals have a compass, if anyone does in the day or in Arcanis.

On a road, on the other hand, all you need to know is where this path eventually leads and keep walking where it is going. The roads would be designed to go around natural obstacles, so they would mean that a lot of the orienteering time is done for you, making it mentally and physically less taxing. Speaking for myself, on a well paved road (which you wouldn’t find in the setting, but still) you can at a fairly healthy walking pace make 2 km/hr along the road without breaking too much of a sweat, though this also depends on the quality of roads. A Roman (or Coryani or First Imperium) Road connecting city to city would probably allow a person to make the 2 km/hr walking speed, but little side roads like country lanes in Milandir would be muddy dirt paths which probably are impassable swamps in rainy periods are much less easy going.

You also have to consider your own physical needs when marching down a road. Though we don’t think of it too much, walking for eight hours a day requires a lot of calories, and these are the days before power bars existed. This means you have to carry all your (very bulky and perishable) food on you while travelling, increasing your weight, decreasing your speed, and increasing your need to eat food to make up for it. If you are not carrying food (or have run out), then you have to forage around the road/path for food, which means you can spend your entire day looking for food without making ANY forward progress. You also have to consider how far your body will let you walk in a given day, as anyone who has walked in bad shoes (or no shoes) will tell you is a nightmare for any length of time. Unless your feet are calloused to the point of being made of iron, your feet will give out after only a few hours requiring you to rest for a while before you continue, without even mentioning your actual stamina.

All combined, you will be super lucky even on the best of roads to make 10 km/day of travel on foot. Even the best armies of the ancient world were hard pressed to make more than 30 km/day with a well-established baggage train carrying their food or with foraging parties ensuring that the army itself could feed itself. Just to give you an idea of what kind of timelines you are looking at, based on the maps provided by PCI comparing the continent of Onara to our world, it is about 500 km from Grand Coryan to Savona (as the crow flies). This means that it would take, assuming a direct path of travel and good roads a minimum of thirty days to walk between those two cities. If you are a legion that is well supported, you could probably do that in seventeen, again, assuming a direct path (which on land, in ancient times, almost never exist). This means that even to go to the nearest village maybe ten miles away, it will take a full day’s walk just to get there, which is prohibitive in a time when man-hours were much more precious than they were today for everyday survival.

But what, perhaps, could you do with beasts of burden? Well, if you are pulling a wagon you probably will not significantly improve upon your walking pace. Sure, animals like horses and oxen can walk faster than humans and can subsist on grass if available (unlike humans). For one, wagons—unlike humans and even horses alone—do require roads of some sort if you have any hope of not destroying the wagon on the way to your destination. For two, the animals best used to pull wagons (such as draft horses) are not built for speed, but stamina and strength. Even ignoring such things, unless you carry fodder with you and feed the animals via bags on their faces, they will still need to stop and graze and rest. All combined, even on horseback a man can only realistically cut his trip shorter by about half in equal terrain (about 15 km/day in rougher terrain on road, or as much as 50 km/day on more level terrain). This means that a rider can make the same theoretical trip from Grand Coryan to Savona in as few as ten days.

In some ancient cultures in our world—such as Persia under Darius—the imperial government organized a series of posting houses every ten to fifteen km along their major roads which consist of stables and inns. Here, an Imperial Courier could change horses every few hours allowing him to travel a much greater distance as you would never have to let your horse stop and rest. With fresh mounts and warm meals available to the courier, you could pass as much as 385 km/day, which means you could make the same hypothetical trip as above in as little as two days! However, the expense of maintaining that many posting houses along the roads, with that many horses available (with care, maintainance, staff, etc) means that you are lucky if there are more than a dozen such couriers able to make use of this service at any given time. In terms of player characters in Arcanis, they almost certainly would never be able to use this system even if they wanted to.

Leaving the world of land behind, we move to the sea. While on land you have terrain, need for food (of both you and your mount), and constant threat of bandits to worry about, the sea provides much freer means of traffic. The number of physical barriers (like reefs, islands, etc)that would impede your travels are relatively few compared to land, and the number of bandits is correspondingly low as pirates would be restricted to ships fast enough to catch you down. Because ships are (usually) powered by the wind for long voyages, you are expending fewer calories to transport a large amount of goods, and with a large enough crew you can keep moving constantly without need of rests. This means that ships are the jet planes of the ancient world!

There are disadvantages, however. Ships are extremely expensive to build, and require crews of (often) dozens of people. These are a lot of mouths to feed and pay, which means that only the very rich can make use of them regularly. Additionally, while the wind is ‘free’ power, it does not always blow the way that you want, which means that you are often going to have to fight your way by tacking, which slows your net progress significantly. Still, it is not uncommon for ancient galleys to make as much as 6 or 7 knots (11 to 13 kph) under sail. Going 24 hours a day, this means you can in theory travel over 250 to 300 km per day, all while carrying literal tonnes of cargo and passengers! If your destination is along the coast, it is by far preferable to travel even in a poor mans berth on a ship than any other means of travel. However, we know that few of the Arcanis nations are true naval powers, which means that the actual amount of transport ships is probably far less than in nations like Rome during their Empire or England during its colonial period.

Arcanis also presents us with two additional means of transportation: The Portals of Anshar, and other magical means. These means typically allow a person to—at great expense—travel instantly from one place to another. This is an amazing feat that even we today have not yet managed, and should allow even greater means of transport than we have available to us today! Unfortunately, this is not so. Why? Because the Ansharan Church charges extraordinary amounts of money (somewhere in the realm of 10 Gc/trip in the current setting by my math based on the 3.5 campaign) and that the Gates are located in very specific places. Sure, if you are made of gold and needed to send a message from the King of Milandir to the Emperor of Coryan, you could make a trip that would probably take as much as a month in the time it takes you to cross your average city. However, even your average Hero would balk at this cost, and it would only be used in the most dire of emergencies or for the most dire of messages (like declarations of war and the like).

Other magical forms of transportation are probably even more rare, as all the spells we know to move people more than a few dozen feet at a time are either tightly regulated (such as exotic or secret spells) or require very high-tiered casters to be able to use them. As magic-wielders probably make up only a small percentage of the population, and those who are capable of such grandiose displays of magical talent definitely make up only a small percentage of that already small percentage, it is safe to say that the use of such methods are rare at best. One such ‘alternate’ means are the Elluwe’ pools of the Elorii, but these are only open to Lifewardens so are even more restrictive than Portals.

So, what does this mean for the world of Arcanis? Well, it gives you a little bit of background on the timescales of your average adventures. For example, there was one adventure in the Crusade! storyline in which you travel from Mil Takara to the She Haulk Mountains, which is a distance akin to the Savona-to-Grand Coryan journey. Done on horseback, this would take you some two weeks to make it through as you aren’t moving on roads (or not always), but you are moving over the fairly even terrain of the Hinterlands. This means that the entire round-trip would take the Hero a full month (at least) to complete. Similarly, another adventure has the Heroes travelling from Savona-ish to Grand Coryan, with at least some of it done off-road (though still with horses), and what seemed like only a few days in total was probably a full week at the very least.

It also is informative of how fast information travels on Onara. It is entirely possible that the major ports of the world—such as Censure, Naeraanth, Savona, Sulpecci, and Midake along the Sea of Yarris—are fairly well informed about the events in and around each of those locals as word takes less than a week by sea to reach most of them. This is made even more true—to an extent—by the amount of traffic moving between the various ports as entire crews can carry large amounts of books, documents, gossip, and missives. While this seems like a good thing, do remember that much of the information that would be passed along (to the public, anyway) would be little more than gossip and rumours, which means only those who are rich enough (and literate enough) would actually get the ‘real’ news.

The Portals also mean that the various kingdoms, empires, states, secret societies, and churches are also very well informed about the movements around the major cities of the Known Lands as these bodies have the wealth to maintain spies and informants in position and report their findings directly through the Portals of Anshar. However, for the most part those people who are rich enough to have the means of using such methods probably have a vested interest in not openly publicizing their information. After all, in a world where it could take weeks for news to move from one place to another, being able to undercut the competition in business, espionage, or event the publication of a play or introduction of a new magical technique is invaluable.

For the common man, however, inland of the sea (and away from major river ports such as Grand Coryan or Panari) news spreads at an almost literal snail’s pace. What does make its way into the Inns and towns deeper in the empire likely takes the form of travelling bards, adventurers or merchants spreading tales over much ale and wine, and random gossip about the movers, shakers, and events of the major centres through which they travel. As most people in this world would not be literate (despite what many adventures seem to suggest), these tales would only take the form of oral exchanges. As anyone who has ever played the game “Telephone” will tell you, unless you are trained in an oral tradition, the original story will be mangled horribly with each telling until—very shortly—the story only bares a kernel of the original. It is from this that most of our myths and legends came from, and I see no reason why it would be any different on Arcanis than Earth.

This is made even worse because we know that in the Known Lands, printed books (and therefore printing presses) are vanishingly rare. While in our world the introduction of the printing press heralded a massive increase in knowledge across almost all social demographics, in Arcanis it seems that only the Republic of Altheria (and presumably the Church of Althares) has access to these machines, and as such maintain a stranglehold on knowledge in the world. The evidence of this comes from the ARPG book where “Altheran Printed” books are available, but at a massive price compared to other books. This means that almost all documents need to be hand-written by scribes outside of a few groups powerful enough to have their own (possibly illicit) printing presses, which means that there are probably very few copies of each individual book or scroll in existence in this world. In our world, the Library of Alexandria instituted a law where that every book, scroll, and tablet that came through the port of Alexandria had to—under some hefty consequences if resisted—be sent to the library to be copied for its own collection. As such, outside of designated Altheran Libraries (including those collections of Secret Societies) it is almost impossible to track down specific pieces of information as the collections are woefully incomplete.

But what about Heroes? Well, unless there is something very strange going on, all that is mentioned above applies to the Heroes. With a dearth of books, you are likely to only learn rumours of bits of knowledge in your travels unless you have very specific contacts (such as a Secret Society) or if your family is among the most powerful in the world and can afford to keep records of such events. Your average joe Hero, however, will probably come from less lofty birth such as a legionnaire or a squire or even a former slave, which means that their access to the inner workings of the world is limited severely. Even those who do have access to the events of the past and the exploits of the great suffer the same “Telephone” effect, where people will very rarely transcribe things objectively, putting their own spins on information to make themselves sound more brave or—in cases of fault—make themselves look better. Even those with access to such lofty information would probably be severely restricted in their access to the knowledge, as Secret Societies would not reveal their uttermost secrets to lower-level members, and even a person with an extensive collection of first editions and first-hand accurate accounts will be restricted by the simple need to READ the damned things (in a variety of handwriting, which makes reading very difficult).

So, to quickly summarize: In Arcanis, unless you are one of the major players in the (human) world, you don’t have the means of moving anything from information to people to cargo from one place or another in anything resembling quickly. This slow rate of travel limits the spread of information that those who are not super-powerful or super-connected have access to. Additionally, the politics of the land further reduce the spread of knowledge in the world, with various groups—such as kingdoms, churches, socieities, and the like—actively seeking to restrict knowledge and secrets making their way out into the world for their own benefit.

Good post Cody, considering how often we get from one city to the next over the course of a box text, I suspect this never occurs to the majority of players.

One thing to mention though is that the average walking speed is 5 km/h, not 2 km/h (assuming presence of a road, and decent footwear). Otherwise I would agree with everything you wrote.

On the broad points that travel is hard and oral information is suspect I have few (or rather no) disagreements. Yeah - walking is hard. I once was part of planning the logistics and hiking an 18 day backpacking trip. Best day? 20 miles (32 km). Worst day on that trip? 2 miles (taking off the pack at several stops to swim through a river). I get the geography of walking and riding.

At the same time I disagree that most of Onara is mired in ignorance by the tyrannies of geography and illiteracy.

I think two of the best books on life in "ancient times" are Life in a Medieval City (by Gies) and more recently The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England (by Ian Mortimer). On the point of Geography both paint a much more nuanced picture with a surprising amount of (seasonal/organized) travel. Ian Mortimer is particularly disparaging of the idea no one ever went more than 10 miles from home, since that would have quickly led to inbreeding. He lists the importance of trade, pilgrimages and extended kin renewing familial ties as prime factors that kept society "moving around." It certainly was not like it is now, where I'll be jumping on a plane in March just to head to Arcaniscon, but its not everyone in a village forever trapped in one valley either.

Further I would argue that Arcanis has a huge leg up on the medieval world with a large number of strong centralized states with good infrastructure. Particularly in Altheria, Coryani, & Milandir, I expect most individuals go on the domestic version of "an adventure" a couple of times in their life. They to go to the trade fair, or a cathedral or the big city. Maybe several times.

How much information gets distorted depends a lot on the information.

Gossip or entertainment? Sure. I bet they gets blended and changed all the time. On the other hand information that is important to you? Or information that connects with several other things you've learned in life? I don't think that drifts as much. I am pretty sure you remember pretty well the news you get about how uncle Fred, your Dad's brother and and sometimes business partner, is doing "over there" ... and what he's doing. And if he's more likely or less likely to repay in full the money you loaned him last year after the bad harvest. I don't think stuff like that drifts much.

And then there is the written word. The cants have not drifted at all in at least 3000 years. Some information is amazingly resilient.

If you have any kind of noble, mercantile or church background you read and write in Arcanis. Broad swaths of "the peasantry" seem to be basically literate as well in Altheria, Censure, Coryan, Haina, Milandir and Ymandragore (see table 2-6 in A:RPG). Though books are (very) expensive a lot of people are clearly learning from something. I assume many families take it as a point of pride to own something similar to the "family bible" or "the classics" (whatever passes for the Illiad on Onara) and that parents educate their children well enough to read and understand a basic contract. Cheap "broadsheets" or "wood cuts" may be popular in towns and cities as well ... and carried by traders and peddlers who travel between smaller communities. Vlad Tespesh (aka Dracula) was lampooned by some of his neighbors and rivals in eastern Europe with with woodcuts in the 1400s. The "classic one" you find with a little digging on the internet is a story that he invited all the poor people in his domain to a "feast" and then gruesomely killed them all so he could claim he was such a great ruler his land was free from poverty. (A lie, which may come back to the fallibility of information - still 600 years later its still out there to read word for word...)

What about something in the middle ground? How many people were there that had something to say about the Coryani Civil war and eventually wrote it down somewhere in some form (journals letters etc)? I'm guessing a lot. Albeit disorganized and scattered across Onara in a zillion private hands. And to be sure many different accounts likely differ a great deal. Ironically it may be the elorii Laerestri who have the best consolidated collection of primary sources for much of recent history. If you could get at it. Probably a great mod kernel somewhere in the idea of the Knowledge Wardens trying to get their hands on Laerestri reports ...

From the player perspective all this my be somewhat academic since PCs, by their very nature, do not necessarily conform to the norms of their society. (One hopes their creation is informed by their society...) In the end, how much your PC knows IC (and on what topics) is largely a role playing choice. If your (grand)parents fought at the battle of Enpyben maybe you know something about "Bug Monsters." If you think your PC knows about "things" more broadly then I would back that up with skill ranks in Knowledge (History) and Knowledge (Myths & Legends).

Altheria, perhaps. We know that Coryan and Milandir have have large peasant/serf populations, not to mention Coryan's slaves. While it is reasonable to assume that most middle/upper class citizens would have been to a major center periodically throughout their lives, I'm skeptical that the poor would have.
I think that you are looking at the world in an overly simplistic way here. Yes, I understand that the core rulebook implies that if you are a Coryani citizen that you are born with the ability to read (exaggerating slightly here). Keep in mind, however, that these rules were written for the heroes, who are generally smarter than the average bear. If you are born to a family of poor farmers, I guarantee that your parents work 16+ hours a day just to keep the farm running (if you are a serf, you work 16+ hours a day for your lord and then have 8 hours a day to tend your own land, sleep, etc). As soon as kids are old enough to help, they go to work to reduce the work load for the parents. There is no formalized schooling system for the lower class so unless you leave to join the church, your likelihood of learning to read is low.

Sure, major events like the Civil War or the Wall of the Gods falling would be known across the continent, but per Cody's post, how long did it take that information to get everywhere, and how accurately was the information transmitted? I guarantee you that there are some back water areas that didn't hear until a year or more after the fact, and by the time the news got there some details of the story were incorrect. My cousin's friend's uncle said that Illir himself rode down from the heavens on a silvery llama to smite Uhxbractit with a holy salted cod. He saw it himself, he was there.

Valinor

Okay, the last article finally got my creative juices going again, so it is time to delve less into a brief (and slightly error-ridden) analysis of how the physics of our world apply to Arcanis, and more into the narrative minutiae of the universe itself. So without further ado: What are Valinor, really?

Okay, first of all, let us do the background for those who haven’t dug too deep into the matter. The Valinor are the divine—or semi-divine—servants of eleven out of twelve of the Gods of the Pantheon of Man, with only Anshar not having any within her ‘choir’ for reasons that make sense both in the metanarrative (she’s actually Yig rebranded) and within the universe (suffering goddess and patron of the ill begotten does not need servants). These beings are, functionally, the angels from many of our own religions from Judaism to Zoroastrianism to Islam to Ba’hai, though in appearance they fall very much into the modern Christian aesthetic of tall, beautiful humanoid beings with wings, though with the steel-grey eyes common of the Val’s. They are the servants of the Gods who do their bidding upon the material world, probably doing tasks that having a being of omnipotent cosmic power would be in appropriate (the whole sledge hammer to swat a fly analogy). We also know that these beings (usually) have two names: one ‘given name’ (such as Manetas) and one ‘titular name’ (such as the Pride of Illiir), with the titular name reflecting some aspect of their patron deity that they somehow represent. These beings are among the most powerful creatures which walk (or fly over, as it may be) the world of Arcanis with individual Valinor able to take down almost any threat in existence save for VERY powerful creatures such as True Dragons or (likely) the Sorcerer-King of Ymandragore.

Now that we all have at least some of the background out of the way, we can start looking at some of the more specific information. The earliest (within the universe) reference that I can find to the existence of the Valinor can be found in the 2nd Edition of the Codex Arcanis (still need to find an original printing. . .) in the descriptions of the Pantheon of Man. Here, it tells us of a time known as the Mythic Age before the God’s War against the Other when the members of the Pantheon did bicker and war with one another. Some say these conflicts were spawned by the Other, while there is at least as much evidence that says that it was Sarish’s doing. Either way, the Valinor were the primary (known) cats paws in this war, with the Valinor of Neroth and Illiir being the most active. In fact, we are told that Sarish (neutral in most conflicts) leant out his own personal Valinor to all sides as mercenaries in exchange for greater powers granted to his own servants by the various conflicting parties.

During these wars—again, before the Other ‘killed’ the ‘gentlest member of the Pantheon’—the main conflicts seemed to be power plays between the two most powerful of the Gods (at that time, likely), notably Neroth and Illiir due to Neroth’s jealousy of the worship of humanity towards Illiir. We know in this war that Neroth began to lose this war, and eventually killed his ‘brother’ Illiir and leading to the destruction of Illiir’s Paradise. It was in this battle in which Sarish, seeing the balance of power shifting too much to Illiir, sent his own forces to sway the Pride of Illiir (the most powerful of Illiir’s Valinor), leading to his fall from grace and eventually culminating in the troubles of the First Imperium and the events of the Coryani Civil War.

So, what do we learn from this? Well, for one it shows a possible source as to why the Valinor existed. During the Mythic Age, the Pantheon of Man warred against many Elder Beings (as seen in the fluff text in the 3.5 Players Guide for the Warped One prestige class) as well as among themselves. In all likelihood the Valinor were originally either created or recruited to act as soldiers in the Gods’ various wars. In the story told by the Hara’mia of the Khi’faree, we are told that the GODS of the Pantheon travelled back from the end of time to throw him and his brethren down from their position on this world, but are given no references to the Valinor being present. Alternatively, after the ‘Children of Illiir’ (humans) arrived in the annals of history, the Valinor already seemed to exist. This suggests—to me—that the Valinor were either created, recruited, or suborned into the service of the Pantheon of Man after their little time-travel shenanigans, but before humans were either created or (somehow) fell under Illiir’s sway.

It also tells us that the Gods have the ability to grant specific powers and abilities to their Valinor, as seen with Sarish’s ‘mercenary’ Valinor during the Mythic Age. In fact, the appeal of such power was so enticing to the Valinor that many of them actually (are said) to have abandoned their previous patron in favour of siding with Sarish. After the Wars among the Gods, these ‘betraying’ Valinor were given a choice by Sarish to either be cast out from the Gods or be given positions as the generals in Sarish’s demon armies fighting the continued battles of the Gods. We have (potentially) seen examples of both of these, with the existence of Fallen Valinor (such as Xabal and Zirth of Garundi) who are not leading Demon armies, and others (such as Urumeh, the Honour of Cadic) who are fallen and are leading battles against the chaos of entropy. This information suggests that the Valinor may have reached their current form due to being ‘empowered’ by the Gods, and may once have been a more minor race of mortals. This is interesting as their creation could be the very same creation as that of mankind (or maybe even the Celestial Giants, for all we know!), but the Valinor are simply a more. . . godly subset of this population whose natures have been twisted into their current form by their close contact with the Pantheon of Man.

The possibility of an ‘uplifted’ race could be mirrored in what we’ve seen of other races, gods, and other beings in this universe. When Saluwe’, Hurrian, Nier, and Yarris needed more power to defeat the Other, they ‘absorbed’ the essence of the Elemental Lords to become more than what they were before. The Sorcerer-King has done everything he can to ‘uplift’ himself by seeking the means of making himself a god. The Valinor themselves were able to imbue through some means normal humans with a percentage of their own divine essence, giving them supernatural abilities and the ability to access psionic powers. With this kind of metaphysics in the universe, this theory is as sound as any other, and could explain why there is no mention (that I can find) of the Gods simply ‘making’ the Valinor as many have ascribed to the Judeo-Christian God and his/her/their angels.

This is somewhat muddled by the words of the Love of Illiir who says that a God cannot harm their Valinor, for the killing of a Valinor (such as Manetas) would be akin to hacking off ones own limb. This may be a poetic way of describing a relationship such as a parent to a child, where the parent simply could not fathom harming their child no matter what their transgressions, but it could imply a more direct connection. When the Love of Illiir was asked if Illiir would lose his love of humanity if (s)he died, (s)he scoffed it off saying that the Gods were more complicated than that. This gives us somewhat confusing views as to what ‘role’ exactly each Valinor’s relationship is to their patron, as each (known) Valinor has some title which reflects an ‘aspect’ of their God. Some are clear like the Reluctance of Hurrian, the Pride of Illiir, and the Hatred of Neroth, while others are more abstract like the Dreaming of Larissa or the Blade of Nier. While the exact nature of these name relationships is up for debate, it is undeniable that they have some power behind them. When the Reluctance of Hurrian released his brother Valinor the Wrath of Hurrian from his chest (a reference to the Warped One myth in the 3.5 Players Guide?), a continent/world-spanning storm was released. When the Reluctance ‘died’ and went to the Paradise of the Gods, the val’Tensen emerged from the Storm with far less control over their own rage. This means that, whatever power the Reluctance of Hurrian had upon them (maybe their family’s scion?) was manifested even though they were not directly touched by the divine.

We also know that—unlike the angels in Abrahamic religions, specifically Islam—they have at least a limited amount of free will in that they can consciously choose to abandon their “God” for another. This also supports how the Pride of Illiir could be ‘led astray’ by Sarish and his servants (such as the every machinatious Cunning of Sarish, Loshnek); how the Patience of Illiir could defy his orders by losing his patience, becoming Xabal; and how others like the Hatred of Neroth can be so murderous and psychopathic. In fact, in the penultimate adventure of the 3.5 campaign, we learn that not all of the Valinoric Host is opposed to Manetas’ ‘usurping’ of Illiir and the rest of the Pantheon, with others (such as the Hatred of Neroth) actively supporting him. Others, like the Love of Illiir (the only Valinor in Valinoric form that anyone in the campaign has interacted with, aside from the val’Sosi) were in a faction who professed to be serving the God’s wishes to protect and let humanity rise and fall on their own. There are even those who did not take ANY side, but were compelled into action through the use of the Horn of Tultipetian. The existence of this Horn does belie some of the Valinor’s ‘free will’ as it was a command to summon their host, but since it was said to be made by Yarris himself, surely the Gods have the power to will even those of free will to do what they want. Hell, we now know that the Dreaming of Larissa (or whatever being is now the Sleeping Emperor of Khitan) appears to agree 100% with Manetas’ methods, if not him in general, as the ‘Valinor’ invoked Manetas’ name in the positive when leading the Khitani to their new home. As in a possible future in the 3.5 campaign (to Pierce the Veil of Darkness and Light) shows the corpse of the Sleeping Emperor on the Coryani Cathedral of the Pantheon/Illiir (at the time) it seems the two beings, while alike in many aims, disagree on certain other points, however.

Moving back to the names of the Valinor, the Codex Arcanis lets us know that their ‘titular name’ is not their true name. It is because of this that the “[blank] of [god]” titles have gained traction among humanity, as each Valinor is known by the role they serve for the Gods. This is very common to the Jewish (and Christian and Muslim) archangels, where their names literally mean “[blank] of God.” For example, Michael means “Who is like God”, Gabriel means “The strength of God”, Samael means “The severity of God” (angel of death), etc. It is possible that the “Valinoric Names” are simply literal translations into English of similar names. In fact, it is from these that we may get names such as “Manetas”, as in my reading I have not found any source for this name (as opposed to Xabal, who was purportedly given his name by the people he saved). As this name is very pronounceable, it means it is either not his ‘true’ name, or is a contraction similar to how Skizz (the Strength of Saluwe’) is a contraction of Skozorantus (which, while difficult to pronounce, is still very possible).

Mechanically, we actually have some really good data as to what a Valinor IS, at least in the now obsolete 3.5 days. In those rules, the Valinor qualify as Divine Level 1 divine beings, which corresponds to a demi-god. These beings are able to grant divine spells to their followers (which are only a few thousand in number) following the D&D tropes of divine magic, and have a whole host of other powers which I invite you all to look into. Manetas, with the stats provided in “The Last Rays of a Dying Sun” was a 50th level character, with the 20 levels of “Outsider” common of divine celestials. The other 30 levels were split between the Harbinger of the Dawn, Cleric, and Divine Emissary classes, giving him legal access to a wide range of spells and abilities tied to Illiirite worship. I am not the greatest for the Divine Rules of 3.5, and while I know that even demi-gods can provide spells to their followers, do the same demi-gods have to get their own spells from a higher ranked god? If this is so, could Manetas still be ‘in the service’ of the Gods, at least somewhat? This is less of an issue in the current rules set, but Henry has previously mentioned that when Xabal fell and recreated the Pantheonistic worship in Bastion, he was only able to teach those spells that were accessible by a worshipper of Illiir. While there may be ‘priests’ of Sarish and Saluwe’ and Yarris in Bastion, only the Illiirites could call upon Cants as Xabal knew nothing else.

All that being said, there was one other point from the final 3.5 adventure prior to the Grand Coryan BI of note: When the Heroes found Villa’tavorentes, the dragon informed them that mere mortals could not harm the divine, only the divine (or those equally powerful) could accomplish that feat. In that adventure, the dragon offered to bathe the heroes in his own blood to infuse them (temporarily) with the divine might needed to actually strike the Valinor. Mechanically, this may be similar to a Natural AR in the current game, but at the time did not really have a mechanical effect. Even in his ‘depowered’ form, he still maintained DR/15 (Epic) which from my read of the stats remained in effect even after the dragon-blood bath beyond “You can now hit him.” I do not know if this means that Valinor have a ‘mortal-proof’ shield around them, or simply that you need suitably powerful weapons to actually dent their divine-empowered hide, but either way it makes the accomplishments of the dragons and Elder Elorii to down these creatures fairly impressive.

Beyond these mechanics, we also know that the Valinor have at least some potential for psionic magic. When the Val race was created by imbuing humanity with Valinoric essence, it unlocked the potential for control over the Arcanum with the power of the mind. This implies that the Valinor themselves must also have similar powers to allow the new Val race to have this ability. However, the single ‘empowered’ Valinor statblock we have does not show any ability that I can see for Psionic magic, which would suggest that maybe I am in error and that it simply tapped a pre-existing human capacity. On the other hand, while not a “Valinor” any longer, the ‘stripped’ version of Urumeh seen in “To Pierce the Veil of Darkness and Light” WAS psionic in his diminished form, which means that the Valinor may not be naturally psionic, but like Vals requires an awakening that not all Valinor do or are mentally capable of.

Another trait to note is that Valinor are not infallible. While in this setting the Gods like the Fire Dragon, Illiir, and likely Belisarda are viewed as somewhere between the very human-like Greek Gods and the nebulous concept that matches the Christian God in that they seem to have at least some means of manifesting as a physical, tangible being, but are so powerful our puny minds can only scratch the surface of what they are thinking. The Gods generally have the ability to see all and hear all of what is going on in their domains—at least so long as other Gods aren’t involved—which gives them a level of omniscience. The Valinor, however, do not have that. While very powerful and very observant, you can fool a Valinor. The whole “Champions of Light” mission passed under Manetas’ nose sufficiently that he did not choose to get involved until he almost literally could do nothing about it. The Love of Illiir didn’t even know how Manetas was freed from his original prison in Nishanpur, even though it was by a group of mortal Heroes (see: the Blood Reign of Nishanpur). In many ways, the Valinor seem to be something of a ‘missing link’ between humanity and the Gods, with enough ‘divine essence’ to glimpse a fraction of the God’s will directly, while being flawed vessels as simply mortals are. Hell, the Love of Illiir didn’t even know if the Gods were still alive (or, refused to give a more clear answer), only saying that if they were dead/failed in their mission all of creation was doomed.

The next topic of interest is the Valinoric mission. According to the Love of Illiir (and some things Henry has let loose), the Gods have left Arcanis to fight the even more nebulous concept of ‘Oblivion.’ In their stead, they left the Valinor to watch and protect humanity until such a time that they will be needed. In this roll, the majority of the Host have basically taken the United Federation of Planet’s Prime Directive to heart and refuse to interfere in the rise and fall of mankind. Even when Manetas threatened to enslave them all, bringing in his own Valinoric army to help him, the majority of the Host required the Horn of Tultipetian to stir them to action (against their own will, I might add). These Valinor were also the ‘source’ of all the Divine Spells in the 3.5 days, providing all the clerics with their prayed-for spells in the stead of the God.

So, where does this leave us? Honestly, I barely know. The Valinor are an extremely complicated subject that we have very little solid evidence to go on. While there are many references to them in Arcanis canon, very few seem to take the time to stop and chat with mortals of our realm, regardless of race or allegiance. Those few we have seen—Loshnek, Xabal, the Love of Illiir, and Manetas—seem to have no interest in providing us further details to understand who and what they are. Only time will tell as to if we can learn about this interesting—and terrifying—race.

Being a peasant means a hard life, harder than anything I do, but there are good years and bad years. In the bad years people starve which is a slow/horrible way to go. But there are good years too. Both Milandir and Coryani are blessed agriculturally. I believe there are plenty of peasants who come out somewhat ahead in most years. In those years I think some travel is doable. Even for people of very modest means. I do concede that a rural slave in the Coryani version of a Latifunda (Roman plantations/farms run by slave labor) isn't going anywhere.

Love me a silver Llama!!!

Okay. I don't challenge any of this. Sure this report reaches the boonies a year late. In its mangled silver glory. What I do challenge is that many (N)PCs are condemned to such a slippery report on reality. I believe that having even a modest set of connections (by being part of the Mother Church, or a noble house, secret society, blah blah blah) frees you from having to accept or ignore such dubious narratives...though you may have to sort through several such reports.

VALINOR

I wrote a Tukufu letter on Valinor. While it focused primarily on the difference between the states of being either fallen or "in grace" it touched upon some of Cody's points. OOC I'd just add a few bullet points:

1) I do not recall ever seeing a direct reference to any Valinor from Yarris. I suspect, like Yig/Anshar he doesn't have any.
2) Only some True Gods have Valinor. Many (Belisarda, Kassegore, & Yig) do not.
3) The PoM have other divine or semi divine servants as well. There are the Veil Walkers who patrol the Underworld (see For the lesser Gods) and Celestial Shield Maidens (mentioned in passing on pg 5 of the Bestiary).
4) I would forget the old rules where valinor granted spells or had a stat block. Valinor work and move at the speed of plot. (and Cants now have their own (on some levels deeply weird) rules). Its true Manetas had stats at the end of the campaign, but he also had different (much more pedestrian) stats in Blood Reign of Nishanpur. And when he waved his hands on the steps of the capitol and immolated the Brotherhood of Man assassins, he wasn't working off of either sets of stat blocks. The upper limit on the power they have displayed involves unleashing hurricanes and teaming up to kill (or subdue) the True Dragons.

Beyond that we get into guesswork. To know more about the Valinor I think we need to know more about their creators,the PoM. The PoM, as far we can tell are NOT: Ancient creator deities like Kassegore (POM did not create humanity). Nor are they creepy ancient things (well maybe Yarris) like Tzihet - they have an agenda much more developed than eating the souls of sacrifices; nor are the POM planetary sized life spirits like Belisarda. So what are they? We don't really know, but I suspect that like the Varn the PoM started off as something smaller than what they are now. And I suspect that Valinor are a byproduct/effect of how the PoM gained divinity...which if true might explain why most PoM members have them and no one else does.

Because the PoM is known to have played games by jumping forward and back through time we should consider that the PoM may primarily use Valinor to guard the timeline from undesirable influences and to ensure that certain things unfold and happen as required by "The Divine Plan."