Thunder Rift BC2300

[Havard]

Collecting some ideas spawned in this thread where we were discussing Thunder Rift's prehistory:

Rather than clutter up the Furries thread with Mystara's past, I moved this comment here:

I have to disappoint you there. They are quite small...halfling size I would guess. Of course, there could be a gigantic one somewhere in those swamps...

Should have been clearer - I meant "giant" relative to a real newt. So halfling-size would work, given that I haven't developed them yet.

hehe! I'm being so submerged in the fantasy genre that any reference to the real world would escape me!

In that case, perhaps we are onto something here. I am wondering if the entire Thunder Rift may actually have been a Newt realm at this time?

I am also becoming fascinated with the idea that the Newts of Thunder Rift could be a source of Blackmoor artifacts in the TR setting...

So now I am obliged to ask - What did Thunder Rift look like in BC 2300? Still possibly a realm dominated by the Newts, or have newcomers (perhaps fleeing the GRoF itself) already begun to trickle in and upset the balance of power?

Here's what I've got with the Thunder Rift Timeline so far:

BC ca 4000: Rise of Blackmoor
On Skothar, the Kingdom of Blackmoor begins its meteoric rise in power. The colony of New Thonia is founded in what will become The Known World. One Blackmoorian city is founded near what will become the Canolbarth Forest. This city explores the connections with the Plane of Water, and brings in creatures who are at ease with the aquatic element, such as Froglin as slaves. (See CM6 Legacy of Blood and DAB: Dave Arneson's Blackmoor).

Some Froglin escape and make their way into Thunder Rift. They eventually evolve into Newts (Knight of Newts).

BC ca 3000: The Great Rain of Fire
The Blackmoor Civilisation is destroyed in a Cataclysmic event.

BC 1500: Hutaakan Era.
The Immortal Pflarr creates the Hutaakans and places them in mountainous regions of the Known World. (HW Boxed Set)

Source: http://pandius.com/th_rift.html

We linked the Froglin to a Blackmoorian colony, but there's no reason why we cannot change that to fit with Geoff's ideas. Beyond the fact that Thunder Rift has Newts in BC2300, we know very little else about the region from such ancient times.

I have assumed that most of the oldest ruins etc in the valley are from the Hutaakan Era, a civilization which in turn was completely wiped out during the Gnoll invasions.

One question that arises is how the Hutaakans were able to settle in the valley if it was already home to the Newts. Did something happen to the Newts prior to this, reducing their numbers dramatically?

I think that might be a good theory. If the Newts are the same as the race I created (which would be more logical, IMO, than having newts evolve from froglin), then they are quite old, and entered their decline long ago. Plus, being amphibious, perhaps the landlocked TR setting is unhealthy to them - fewer eggs are laid, and few hatchlings survive. The local water might not have the right balance of chemicals for them to maintain optimum health. However, enough manage to survive to keep the race going.

I think that might be a good theory. If the Newts are the same as the race I created (which would be more logical, IMO, than having newts evolve from froglin), then they are quite old, and entered their decline long ago. Plus, being amphibious, perhaps the landlocked TR setting is unhealthy to them - fewer eggs are laid, and few hatchlings survive. The local water might not have the right balance of chemicals for them to maintain optimum health. However, enough manage to survive to keep the race going.

TR would have still have been within the polar regions on Brun during the time of Blackmoor, right? If that's the case then perhaps the same carnifex magics (or something older than carnifex magics) that created the temperate climate in Mogreth would be in effect here. If we assume that the newts created a zone of habitability for themselves amidst this harsh cold climate, then we might also assume that when the axis of Mystara shifted, this zone would become less habitable for them. Throw in the added pressures of new mammalian species moving into the area and it might explain why the newts declined.

It's very parallel to the idea that we had for Mogreth->Nithia->Ylaruam, where what was once a lush wet swampland slowly became a hot dry desert.[/quote]

I like this notion. If we assume that the Carnifex derived a lot of their early magical knowledge from the Hluth-gur, then its possible the frogfolk got some of theirs from the Talgh'gar. So, by extension the foundation of a lot of Carnifex magic might have come from the newts, and therefore it would make sense that they could have created such a sanctuary. Given that the Hluth-gur displaced them violently, they would have needed to in order to survive.

Furthermore, with the passage of time and the rise of other races, most of the good territories would have been taken. The far north was probably the only place left for them. At that time, their refuge was probably a huge, warm lakem with a few islands. Their cities would have been underwater and on the fringes.

I like this notion. If we assume that the Carnifex derived a lot of their early magical knowledge from the Hluth-gur, then its possible the frogfolk got some of theirs from the Talgh'gar. So, by extension the foundation of a lot of Carnifex magic might have come from the newts, and therefore it would make sense that they could have created such a sanctuary. Given that the Hluth-gur displaced them violently, they would have needed to in order to survive.

So it seems they would have been in need of a Hidden Valley all of their own, and what better place to hide it than in the frozen north (where no one lives or even cares to visit ).

Furthermore, with the passage of time and the rise of other races, most of the good territories would have been taken. The far north was probably the only place left for them. At that time, their refuge was probably a huge, warm lakem with a few islands. Their cities would have been underwater and on the fringes.

This could make for some very interesting locations to explore within the TR valley - some of which could have survived to the modern day.

So it seems they would have been in need of a Hidden Valley all of their own, and what better place to hide it than in the frozen north (where no one lives or even cares to visit ).

Exactly! Every endangered people needs a secret refuge - it must be written down somewhere.

This could make for some very interesting locations to explore within the TR valley - some of which could have survived to the modern day.

I think so too. I'm inclined to think the cities that were once on the lakeshore would be the ones most likely to survive, because they would (after BC 2300) be high up in the hills. The ones on the old lake bed would have long since been stripped to build homes for newcomers. This, however, provides opportunities for some architectural oddities, for DMs who are so inclined. For example, some of the stones in a castle wall might have strange, worn carvings of marine scenes in them that no one can identify.

What further ideas do you guys have on the situation of the valley back in this ancient era?

Havard

[Seer of Yhog]

Perhaps, as a consequence of the magic, some of the mountains around TR were volcanically active. This may have produced rivers of lava, ash-choked hills, or other natural barriers to further isolate the refuge.

[Big Mac]

I'm not too familiar with the area around Thunder Rift. Would climate change (in the past) be able to allow civilisations into the area (including the area just off of the map) and then (when they are at the sort of cultural level that you want to "preserve") cut them off from the outside world?

Cold is normally seen as a "bad" thing, but it could be possible that deep snow and ice could form bridges over chasms, and that these could vanish if valeys around TR get too warm. If you did something like that, you could pick some areas that have things like fast flowing rivers or waterfalls and decide that they were terrain it was possible to cross before a certain era.

The opposite thing is more well known. You could have a society (or a couple of societies), that bridges the gap between Thunder Rift and the outside world, and use them to bring people into and out of the area. This society could even be one of the races found inside Thunder Rift - so Thunder Rift could (at that time) just be a small part of a bigger territory. Then an ice age could come along and make the areas outside Thunder Rift uninhabitable. People could retreat into TR, retreat out of the area totally or die.

Either of these things could cut of TR slowly, without the need for a cataclysmic event...

...not that there is anything wrong with earthquakes that block passes, or volcanoes that poison half the people in a mountain range...

...but a big destructive event is something that has been done quite a bit in D&D.

War would work, as it could decimate the people who knew how to find Thunder Rift. Plague could wipe out the people in a valley that leads into Thunder Rift.

You could even have a race have territory across Thunder Rift and a large external area and have the people outside Thunder Rift get killed off. That would mean that (in the distant past) Thunder Rift was "not too relevant" to the society, because it was "just a fairly hard to reach valley" that had some of their people in it.

I think that if you think about what you are going to have to do to cut off Thunder Rift, and how long ago you need to "close the door" you might find it easer to work out what groups in Mystaran history can connect with it. (It might rule out some of your options or make others seem more obvious.)