Children of the Sky Sourcebook impressions

Wow! I think it’s great.

I haven’t read everything yet, but the history and Kio background material sure has some impact to it.

The val’Sungha (and the three houses within the val’Sungha) are interesting (and presumably playable).

It takes the Kio from, ‘who are these weird tall pale people’, to ‘ok, so that’s who they are’. Makes me want to create a Kio character. Perhaps we can see some scenarios involving the Kio.

And the book is not just all about Kio. There is some very interesting Undir background and background for the League of Princes that has changed the way that I look at that area.

To address your “how are the Shadow Towns rich” comment, I ask you to look at the history of places like Samarkand in our world. For the most part, the cities of Central Asia produced nothing of consequence, being in arid areas and on the Steppes. However, they were almost always the richest cities of their eras. Why is this?

Ultimately, the wealth of a community typically has less to do–historically–with what they make, but what they do with it. The Shadow Towns are the major trading centers of the Western Lands, with only Metra (hostile) and Liveh (friendly) competing. That means some 5/7 of all trade leaving the Western Lands (simplified) goes through those ports. All those ports have to do is charge fairly basic port fees for the use of those ports and import/export taxes, and they earn a massive amount of money. The city doesn’t have to buy these products, only tax the right to use their docks.

If the cities weren’t powerful, they wouldn’t be able to do this. After all, a more powerful nation would come and exert sovereignty over them. . . Which they did. The Coryani dominate them navally, and the League by ground forces and legal force. However, neither care to exert direct control and choose to rule it as a dependency (likely to avoid the costs to avoid rebellion, upkeep, full defence in the face of the kio or Coryan, etc). As such, the Shadow towns straddle the boundary between Coryan and The League, with the Speculator princes earning a profit.

Remember, though, the Shadow Towns do have export products, usually high value finished goods like glass or lace. These are lightweight and more easily transported than raw materials, and fetch a higher price. Also, the speculator princes likely own fleets of merchant ships, relying on the Coryani to stop pirates so they can focus on making money and not on building warships.

To rule that is. . . Complicated. Day to day it is probably the Speculator Princes in Council, making decisions that earn them the most money. The kio enforce Archons on them, and they are nominally dependents of Llhyllifel, but aside from a few bandit hunting missions and tribute (maybe a tax break on trade) they likely leave the towns alone to rule themselves. The Coryani also enforce tribute, and keep the waters clear of pirates, but are fine raking in the tributes and filling their own coffers than officially controlling them. The Princes seem to care little about politics and have no interest beyond their own cities and trading ventures, so they see no need to extend their power or try to overthrow these more imperial forces. After all, that costs more money and they care about making money.

Addendum (several hours later):

Now that I’m on an actual computer. . .

To the profits of import/export, you seem to be thinking that trade networks like the Silk Road only earned money either for China (Silk) or Rome (wine), when in fact those nations actually saw (comparatively) little profit from the total trade. These products are not carried by the same traders from Chang’an to Antioch, but only for a few dozen or hundred miles. At each stop, the items would be bartered for, those traders would get paid, then they would head home. As such, the same bolt of silk would pass through dozens of middle men before they got to their final destination.

At each point (oasis town, port, etc), these items would be taxed in some way. In the case of many Central Asian cities like Samarkand, this include things like Inns, paying tribute to the local groups for the right to sell in the market, or even “protection money” so that the various Turkic/Mongolian/Scythian tribes didn’t just attack you. As such, even though these cities didn’t have anything to export besides slave and horses for the most part, they served as stopping points and common market areas so the gold and silver flowed into them despite their importance. In the case of Samarkand, you have people coming from Rome, Parthia, the Mauryans, China, as well as the tribal peoples of what is now Russia to the north. Additionally, there was sea-going trade going into the South Asian ports like modern Karachi which then got funneled up, adding groups like the Srivijayans and East Africa into the mix.

In the case of the Shadow Towns, they are five of the largest ports in the area, and servicing the Sea of Coryan trade. They are closer to Plexus than Metra and Liveh which makes them attractive for Plexan merchants, and because they are not officially controlled by the kio are less (outwardly) antagonisitic to Coryani merchants. Even though the Shadow Towns may resent their overlordship by both the Coryani and the League, they are able to cut lucrative deals with both groups, and probably can undercut even cities like Liveh and Metra as attractive markets. After all, both of those cities have undir rebels that pose terroristic threats and act as pirates which you would want to avoid. With the Shadow Towns, they have no nationalistic interest (like Eppion and Bhiharn do) so they can trade ‘freely’.

Hello Eric,

Glad you (mostly) liked it.

That said here is where I have 5 nits to pick:

Where is House N’sai? There’s been ONE Kio family that has repeatedly appeared in the modules set in Metra and the League, but there’s not a peep of them anywhere. IMHO N’sai deserved a paragraph under the Houses.

I honestly forgot about them. Looking at the layout, I don’t have the space to fit them in without cutting another House.

Where are the fallen Kio Wraith lords? After the BI at Seremas I feel like we should have something on them.

The Kio Wraith Lords were recently revealed, as you noted. I try to write the source material up to, but not including the events occurring in the new campaign. While I would have loved to write about them, I was blocked due to that (self-imposed) restriction.

Here’s a good one: We get *multiple* references to the importance of Kio swords in their culture. We are reminded again that Kio will go to almost any lengths to retrieve heirloom swords. We get a new swordless flaw that’s kinda cool. We get some beautiful art of their swords…but we then learn that there are 9 *Legendary* swords handed to to the val’Sungha from the True Kio at the founding of the League of Princes. And that 2 have since been lost. But … we don’t learn their names, or how they were lost?!?. Barring something extraordinary, I bet those two stories get retold over and over (and over) again like the Greeks told the Illiad and the Oddessy over and over again. I am sure the court of Caphara risks going nuts every time a decent rumor surfaces of their current fate. I wish WE had something of those stories.

To be frank, it was a matter of space. The book was promised as a 32 page book and budgeted as such, and then it ballooned to 66 pages and with it, the accompanying increase in costs. I also wanted to add a ‘Who’s Who’ section, but couldn’t afford to do so.

Trade and the flow of goods bothers me. Why the Shadow Towns are so wealthy doesn’t really make sense to me. I think I’ve become more sensitive to this issue since the Blessed Lands book which also didn’t make sense to me. I think the Shadow Towns got short thrift. Who rules them? What do they trade? In the real world, as I understand it, the most important and lucrative trade routes involved (1) silk (aka the Silk Road), (2) incense (up from the East Coast of Africa to middle East and beyond), (3) Salt (not as sexy, but called white gold for a reason), (4) Spices & (5) precious goods (gold, ivory, gems). In Arcanis we can also add Blast Powder. None of those fit with what is written in the Kio book? Finished goods? Are they better than dwarven or Altharian manufacture? Agricultural goods? Tastier than what’s grown in Balantica? As written I don’t know what the Shadow towns have that everybody wants. And it also doesn’t seem like they are the middlemen between some kind of trade circuit between Seremas and Coryan. That might also have made sense.

I didn’t go into the Shadow Towns because this is a kio-centric book. I had to touch on the undir, the val’Bausicz, and others because of their impact on the kio, but this book was never designed to be a travelogue of the Western Lands.

I also, constitutionally, have nits to pick with retcons. I don’t like the changes to LlylifelI. (A) I don’t like retcons in general. (B) In part because I had a back up character that was a Llylifellen Kio bard in the original campaign (Glynnwheir or Glynn to friends) … he followed the ideas of elemental spirits and was proud of his homeland’s great Cathedral on the Plains of Blood that was build on the orders of (the presumably Kio) King Malikar. That’s now apparently erased. Although the new stuff has cool parts, I’m not 100% comfortable with that. (C) Elements of the “new LlyllifelI don’t make sense. Since they have almost zero ability to project power outside their borders (as per the revisions), it doesn’t make sense that the Shadow Towns pay tribute to them. Why would they? What do they get in return? Given that Llylifel enjoys trade with Entaris and gets tribute from the Shadow Towns, why is it described as poor? It seems like there should be a lot of cash moving around.

Retcons. I’m not a fan of it either, but in this case, I didn’t have much of a choice based on what I wrote about the undir. Let’s be honest, the undir were bland and boring. Humans with webbed fingers and with a greater lung capacity. Not terribly exciting. So, I came up with this cultural schism and voodoo-vibe that, IMO, makes them much more interesting.

Having done that, the whole elemental worship thing didn’t jive, so that had to be changed. In exchange, players gained a different take on them, plus that crazy King Crow Warped One stuff that you just know will be rearing its ugly head.

Anyway, that’s why I did what I did.

Thank you for reading the book and giving feedback. Good, bad, or indifferent, it’s always useful and appreciated!

Best,

Henry

Remember: this is a Kio book, not a Western Lands book. Details not related to that ethnicity and race may not be included.

Hello Eric,

I glad you liked it.

As far as having a val’Sungha character, the book will eventually be converted to 5E. You can always make one for any 5E campaigns that may pop up.

Thank you for your thoughtful responses.

Henry

While looking at both the story and the game mechanics of Children of the Sky, I noticed one inconsistency. This doesn’t take away from the overall high quality of the book, though.

The rules on “Magic of the Kio” (pp.56+) lists Heritage psionic spells for the val’Sungha. In contrast, the story of “The val’Sunha” on p.21 says, “this explains why the val’Sungha is the only val family that does not have a unique and dedicated discipline of psionics, because not enough time has passed to properly develop one.”

An in-game explanation can be simply that the flavor text is an in-world writing, and the in-world author is either mistaken or wrote that material before the val’Sungha developed their psionic heritage. The Arcanis tradition of in-world authors who have biases and make mistakes (intentionally from the perspective of the real-world author) dates back to the original Codex Arcanis.

Hi Cody,

The Shadow Towns pay heavy tributes (twice!) and still make money hand over fist. For that to work I believe there has to be something very special going on. Not even Censure or Savonna get written up of producing such staggering wealth. To me that means there is something very special going on. Maybe like modern Hong Kong.

When I look at the real world there are only two variations of spectacular trading hubs. (1) The city produces something extraordinarily valuable (incense, spices, precious materials) or (2) they sit on important real estates on a major trade route.

I would expect to see one or the other in the Shadow Towns but I don’t.

To address your “how are the Shadow Towns rich” comment, I ask you to look at the history of places like Samarkand in our world. For the most part, the cities of Central Asia produced nothing of consequence, being in arid areas and on the Steppes.

This is a perfect example of a well located city on a huge trade route! But I note that Samarkand lived and “died” by the trade route. When the Silk road dried up, so did Samarkand. It’s still a big city in modern day Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan is Not a rich country. And Samarkand is no longer longer an internationally “happening” city.

If there was a huge trade route between Coryan and the Western Lands then this model could explain the wealth of the Shadow Towns. But the Shadow Towns don’t seem to fit this model because there is no mention of/or obvious trade route…certainly I don’t see the Kio exporting or importing lots of Coryani goods. (perhaps there might be something between Seremas and Coryan using the Shadow Towns as intermediaries)

The other option is a local resource that is highly sought that people will travel halfway around the world to get.

As written the Shadow Towns ALSO lack such a resource. Well crafted goods or boutique agricultural produces are certainly valuable. But don’t make sense as a foundation of such extreme wealth. In addition to the potential prices being under cut by local substitutes elsewhere, the artisans or farmers could theoretically relocated to Plexus and sell their goods on greater margins. They would be closer to the major markets (and the Corvis River), be free of pirates, and skip out of paying tribute twice! Whatever the taxes in Plexus, that has to be a better financial deal.

In the case of the Shadow Towns, they are five of the largest ports in the area, and servicing the Sea of Coryan trade. They are closer to Plexus than Metra and Liveh which makes them attractive for Plexan merchants, and because they are not officially controlled by the kio are less (outwardly) antagonisitic to Coryani merchants. …snip… they are able to cut lucrative deals with both groups, and probably can undercut even cities like Liveh and Metra as attractive markets.

I agree that they are five good ports and have good geography. But I disagree strongly that it makes sense that they can somehow outcompete Liveh. Liveh isn’t paying boatloads of tribute twice over. I don’t believe that with the tribute that they can cut “lucrative deals” on essentially normal items that can be found or produced elsewhere.

I had always assumed that the Speculator Princes (and the Shadow Towns’ governments) were run by Kio. Which perhaps is not true. The Kio book certain makes it appear that it’s largely the Undir who run the Shadow Towns. If so then the Kio book may not be the place to address this. But its something that at some point I would like to see addressed.