Middle-Earth Down Under: An Antipodian Campaign

Norman Talbot — Department of English — The University of Newcastle — University Drive — Callaghan, Newcastle — NSW 2308, Australia

The readers of Other Hands may be interested in the enclosed background material to the role-playing game Hunter Variant, developed by myself, my son Nick Talbot and my daughter Ruth Talbot-Stokes. The system is (as far as I know) only played in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales, Australia (And we have no immediate plans to change this!). Six scenarios are extant based on this antipodean Middle-earth campaign, and I am working on a novel version of the first, “Felix of Godsport’s Last Tournament” It concerns the Ogre Mages and a long-past intervention by an Istari. The second novel, “The Rent-Collectors Who Accepted as Currency Hay from Orestaia Faos,” will deal with the finding of the Palantír at Khand’s Grave Beach, and what coveted it.

To The Scholars of the Ithilien Groves, A Historical Note Bearing Greetings From the Antipodes.

By the hand of Porkshy, called the Two-Up Philosopher, Dean of the Landward’s College, Godsport, for the Free Peoples of Girt-by-Sea

My colleagues, and my venerable master Rollif the Landward, ask me to fulfil your request for a summary of the Annals of “the Colony of Girt-by-Sea”. Since a re-stored monarchy’s expectations about history must be unlike those of an independent Alliance of Free Peoples, what follows may sometimes offer an unfamiliar emphasis, but it is sent in good faith, and of course with hearty congratulations on the triumphant end of a grievous and cruel war. We all look forward to the close future cooperation that my colleagues’ visit surely heralds. If your honored Steward sponsors a reciprocal visit, you may yet be able to tell me what I should have included to be of more appropriate help to you!

I can postpone descriptions of the other races of the Unbroken Alliance until after my summary of the Annals, but must initiate that summary with some notes on the Race of Men in Girt-by-Sea, including their relations with the State and Empire of Gondor.

Preamble on Númenórean Remains

The far-travelers of Núménor knew our land. The Sun-Pillar of Tar-Telperien stands at the Hot Gates on our East Coast, slender and tall, but made of a white metal that neither the hate of warriors, nor the labor of slaves, nor the skills of evil mages, nor the mal-ice of defeated gods has made a mark upon over all the centuries. Nor were the complex ellipses carved on the chronometric floor be-low ever scarred by any mischief until my own lifetime. Now blasting-powder has cracked a single deep sliver from the south most or summer time-dial at the pillar’s foot, for some three men’s length, and blackened a much larger area. For we too have had our wars.

Her monument is opposed, though not matched, by the two on the South Cliff of that solemn harbor. The copper sheathing of the Shrine of Sunrise, placed there by order of Atanamir the Great, has long been removed; though most of its massy portico remains, the altar-bowl has been used for abominations no Númenórean could countenance. Of the Colossus of Ar-Gimilzôr the feet and shins only remain, but these too are valued by the elder races of Girt as proof that Men have an ancient title to dwell in the land.

Some believe in legends of much more esoteric “remains”. In the stories of the Old Ones whose land this was before our ancestors came, and in the dream-singings of the Geniuses, dwellers on that coast for Ages of the World (our “Glaciations”) are tantalizing allusions to powerful “Hidden Things of Númen” and the name of “Lost Tar-Míriel”. But of these things, by the nature of their sources, nothing more can be said at this time.

Preamble on Gondorian Remains

Two mighty things of your early history at least the wild bounty of Ulmo has left us. The Farstone or Palantír employed in the great Observatory of Godsport, and which your honored King Telcontar was the first to employ to speak to us, was cut from the belly of a dead diving-whale washed up on the beach of Khand’s Grave in 2078 (your 2977).

The great Crystal of Harmony, that once graced the cliffs of your fierce city of Umbar, now stands in the Sea Meadow above Freeport. It replaces the black Sphere of Starmetal upon which the hands of the Free Peoples were first laid for the vows of our Alliances. Mysteriously indeed was that Crystal rolled through all the seas of Middle-earth into our little mangrove village of Fishers’ Ghosts! Beyond these mighty trinkets, what Gondor has sent us is people.

Notes on Early History

(to the King-strife)

Ever since the flat earth became a ball, dear colleagues, your northern hemisphere has dominated our southern, not in its magnetic power or gravitational integrity but in the number, complexity and sophistication of its sentient races, and the evil with which they invest numbers, complexity, and sophistication alike. Certainly virtue has also taken most ennobling and spectacular forms in the elder hemi-sphere, but it can seem to us of the south that we pluck from Gondwana-current more buoyant evil than good!

This rather gloomy view of the North well suited our ancestors’ second-century arrival on Girt’s shore in the Seven Royal Oaths. Are the Oaths much celebrated in your song and story, northern colleagues? No? Well, perhaps not: all histories welcome the cooling mists of oblivion to soothe some sore spots on their body politick and Hyarmendacil I was not the king of Gondor most devoted to a dispassionate vision of justice. But even if the Royal Oaths are forgotten by most citizens in your difficult new kingdom and only recalled by your historians, I can assure you that lyrics of maudlin nostalgia for the Bay of Belfalas are still hoarsely chorused every eighth-day eve from many a Girtish tavern.

Each Oath was a fleet of prison-ships, of which each bottom was generously stuffed with an interesting cargo of the criminals, misfits and rebels that Hyarmendacil had reluctantly resolved to do without. The First Oath was drawn mainly from Gondor itself; the Second, Fourth and Fifth were filled largely by the hard-handed Reavers of Umbar, Anduin Vale and Calenardhon; the Third seems to have been a mixed creel, with Porosian Haradrim and Easterlings noticeable for the first time. But in every Oath, and especially the last two, there were al-ways Dunlendings of the Debatable Lands: such troublous neighbors they were (and disobedient) for a long-suffering Eternal Kingdom! From such flotsam are we sprung. Specifically, as my wife points out, prisoners of the first three Oaths were almost entirely male; we were born of the Late Oaths.

Our ancestors, those precious goods treasured up behind colonial bulkheads, called themselves the Lit-tle Curses. They had their bad points, but so too did the Scarlet Swearers, the guards that oversaw them, with point, edge and thong, as they built port and harbor, tower and hall, road and bridge, in the seven-year “sworn servitude” that discharged their debt to Royal Gondor. Incidentally, within the years of Oath Two, the Scarlet Swearers ceased to wear scarlet, though their language doubtless retained its color. The unflattering reason is that the Old Ones, ancient rulers of Girt-by-Sea and still its allies and guardians, could strike down a scarlet coat from afar, while themselves scarce visible, clad only in the clay livery of the land.

Our Golden Age was brief indeed, since it was not long before the Northern invaders made our coastal cities uninhabitable. Still, the memory that we had such an age of beauty, however lacerated by aggression from without and competing theologies from within, is a constant comfort and challenge to our present bruised self-esteem. Some say the North stimulated greatness in us, others that it blighted a natural growth.

In recent centuries nobler vows have replaced the blood that daubed our frontiers, but we still appreciate the saying that “Grim is the gift gripped from North currents”. In the last years of the Oaths the Hounds of Harad began their “whitebirding”, a notorious form of slave-catching that, Cuin of Arnach well says, “gave the very Ocean an evil name!” In less than thirty years of systematic raids the Haradrim burned every trade-port and fishing harbor on the Ulmic coast and the Haldrim Reef, and murdered what Girtfolk they could not enslave. Hardrim they call it now, a bitter jest that links the invaders’ race with the black fused fangs that remain of that lovely thousand-mile reef the Sea-Elves and strand men once traveled “half-year South, half-year North”, in the long raft-cities, Ulmeia, Vor and Storm-Step.

Two centuries later, it was the war between the Haradrim and the no more merciful white Corsairs of Ulmo and Umbar that created our Alliance of the Free Nations. Your Empire, as had become customary, promised us aid, but could rarely afford to keep such promises. Fortunately for the good con-science of your rulers, we soon relieved them of the guilt of such promises. All through your King-Strife our Duchess Falassë welcomed citizens of the Empire who wished to take the Southern Searoad to become free Girtmen here, whatever side they sup-ported. However, at some point (rightly or wrongly) she also sent ships to aid Castamir the Admiral. King Eldacar, on his restoration, cast the Southern Sea Colonies out from his Empire, and declared Obloquy on the Duke. It was during this war that our Alliance of Elves, Dwarrow and Men was tested, and thereafter trusted. It was Falassë’s grandson Pelagion who underwent the Old Ones’ initiation to make alliance with them against the Cold Ogres, dreadful creatures of the mountains, much like evil Rock Geniuses

Castamir’s Corsairs, disappointed of an Empire, decided on a coastline of victims instead. Alternately with Harad’s Galleys of the Sleepless, and no more mercifully, they strafed our eastern coast-line until the Singing Elves and much of Mankind were forced to retreat inland, across the Eredduil, the Bloom Mountains and the Sunbitten Lands, to the shores of the Inland Sea. The first colonists, led by the Valiances of the Vale and the Dunlending Apts, founded the Abers of Freckland, Maiden Castle, Freck Bridge, Sweetwater, Sebright of the Ships, all in four years. And Godsport, which is where I was born, has been Girt’s chiefest dancing-floor for coin, pen, sword, fishtail, tongue, prick and belly ever since, down the changing years.

It was here on the Inland shores we met the Southern Dwarves, or Dwarrow. But I shall begin with the more familiar beings, the Elves, and then turn to the Dwarves, Old Ones, and Geniuses. Will that content you? If not, why, unroll the scroll further on: I shall never know!

A note on the races of Girt-by-Sea

Elves

There are no Elves indigenous to the Southern Continent or the South Islands. However, at least a few Grey-Elf explorers came here before humanity, and influenced the Geniuses, the Old Ones of the Rain-Forest. However, I do not suppose the Singing-Elves (those you call Green-Elves) that spread through our beloved South Land over the same period as ourselves are much different from your own Elven neighbors. Their gardening and bush-wifery, no less than their music and dance, are much respected; some Men, especially of the Old Ones, consider that they are even over-influential upon our lives. Com-pared to us they are too skilled by half, and some-times too honest in their chaffer!

Sea-Elves: None remain, but no big ship is allowed to forget the Sea-Elves that died with the Haldrim Reef. They taught the dolphins to sing, and the beasts still swim beside almost every keel (except those that smell of blood) calling and calling their lost teachers.

Grey-Elves: Rarely seen in the cities, they pay us little attention, as far as we can tell. Although resented by some as “the Lofties”, the name derives not from their pride but from their living in the Mount Lofty Ranges (as well as the Dryslopes and Warrumbungles). We are merely uninteresting to them, but the Old Ones they actively dislike as barbarous and animistic: they consider the Dream-search, like Shapechanging, a misunderstanding of Song Theology. As for the Dwarrow, how could those enemies of magic be anything but infuriating to beings with magic in every bone? What Elves think of the Geniuses I have never been told.

Dwarrow

“Southern Dwarves” dwell in the Moth-Mountains, the Jenolan Smith-Caves, and the new Mountains of the Evenrust. They are haters of all magic: it vexes, they say, the bones of the Mother. In their wry unhuman humor they call themselves the Eldest Earth-Children, the Volcano-Worms, the Hammer-Suckers, the Mother Lovers, the Bastards of the Ice That Ate The World, and so on and indeed they are prodigiously long-lived. I have been in Cobber Petra, their stone craft-city “that the glacier flowed across and would not bend”, and indeed (whatever you think of their Mother-Worship) there are enough events from enough years carved onto the tall leaves of stone in their chamber of Modyar Bull, or Recordings, to quite persuade me of the millennia of endurance they boast. Also I have seen more than one high-quality spell dispersed by a single glance through “The Mother’s Green Tears” (representing chips from their primal Glacier) or the ruby lens of “Bull’s-BIood”, in circumstances that I believe not even the scientific skepticism of the Elves of Dryslope could dismiss.

The Dwarrow claim to know the Dream of Durin, from the First Age, at first hand. Indeed, one of their families bears the name of Durin even yet. Men can interbreed with Elves, and interbreeding with the Old Ones is quite common. However, it is not possible for us to breed with Dwarrow, because, they say, they come from the First Age. Indeed, our chirurgeons say that the bones of Dwarves are made from a different “carbon” from ours. Dwarrow say that they have lived in the volcanoes through a whole “Ice Age”; their tales of the Cold Mother of the Walking Ice, the Gondwana Earthdance and the Anger of the Mountains are both convincing and significantly similar to songs of the Old Ones.

Dwarrow have parthenic muscles, very short crowded fibers, wide baskety wombs, deep chests and abundant hair-follicles; even their lungs are more dense than ours. Both their kinds of blood are difficult to shed because of the hardness of their skin, and I have seen a deep chest-wound suffered by a Dwarrow, that clotted within five minutes. I have never seen a Dwarrow even near five feet in height, but they weigh something over twice the weight of a normal grown man. They cannot, of course, swim or float, though I have seen one walk under water. Dwarrow have had to “teach themselves the sun”, and to protect their shadowskin, as they call it. They are deathly pale and yet their hair and eyes are black. Their eyes are enfolded and heavy-lidded, with diffraction and indices different from ours. The Old Ones, whom the Dwarrow call the Sun-Children, prefer not to see them, and the races avoid each other.

Old Ones

Probably a form of Men, they live in families. Some travel all year between hunting-grounds; an-other kind shuns the very grasslands and woods, the streams and lakes that the first kind seek. This kind is black and naked, and lives in the fierce heat of the wind-deserts, scorning all protection from their Sun, drinking the dew she sends and eating the tiny and the hidden life of the stones, such as tower-ants and sun-lizards. Both kinds are shape-shifters, and all tell us stories of their Dreams, where all animals, and some trees, wear human form. It is these stories that the Elves hate; I do not under-stand them enough to hate them, but suppose some are derived from the days when the Geniuses were not recognized by the Old Ones as humanoids like themselves.

Fire-carrying is a shamanistic skill (some say their elders train themselves to swallow it, which of course is absurd). Still, I have seen them suck flame from a hollow staff-stick and spit it into the dry punk of reeds without suffering burns, so the tale has a cause! Each Old One adopts a particular kind of creature as her or his own soul-image, and reveres it utterly. If it be a food-animal, that Old One who adopts it could not, even when starving, eat of it. Yet they are devoted hunters, and will persist in their hunting at all times, with-out an eighth-day or any of the holidays of our customs, except for funerals, for which all things stop. When the funeral is complete, the name of the one dead may not be pronounced until many years have passed, and then only in stories in which the one dead has become an active spirit; for this reason, though their memories for places and food are prodigious, we historians cannot rely upon them as upon Men and Elves (and sometimes Dwarrow).

The Geniuses

Old Ones regard Geniuses as something like gods, but are not afflicted by religions in the way that Men are. Their mysteries are strictly divided be-tween males and females, which Men would find unendurable. They are said to be much like the rocks and trees that take human shape in the Old Ones’ stories, though I have never myself seen either rock or tree turn into a Genius, or the reverse!

Geniuses are also like the Dwarrow, because their bones seem quite different from ours, with a simpler matrix, though who can say what is simple in the closest magic of the World? Their muscle-fibres are longer, thinner, & less numerous than ours, with something of the stiff delicacy of a very old man. But strength and tension can go together! They can run, or walk, for immense distances on little nourishment, endure great heat and dehydration, and (what is harder for us to understand) exist for days without speech or company. They eat immense quantities of protein-rich food, and burn up fat and alcohol very quickly; they also have prodigious memories and telepathic (& maybe shapeshift) abilities.

The Annals

Gondor’s Calendar was used by Men-in-Girt until the Obloquy of 1448, after which the Girt Calendar was adopted, of which year 1 is Gondor’s 899. In parentheses indicate Gondor reckonings (where necessary) in these annals. Note: artistic citations are restricted to the third century, to indicate the culture of Golden-Age Girt.

1 (899): King Falastur ordains Valacar’s First Expedition to the “South Islands.” Valacar lands north of Hot Gates, claims “The South Land.”
5 (904): Valacar’s return: “royal pearls and gold” presented.
13 (912): Valacar’s Second Expedition: “the Three Lost Ships.”
14 (913): Minas Telperiën (“the Port of the Pillar,” later “Hot Gates”) founded. Falastur d.
34 (933): King Eärnil I visits captured Umbar, ordains Ciryancar’s Expedition.

36: Ciryancar’s Town founded: later “Crown Anchorage.”

38 (937): King Ciryandil takes title “Lord of the Southern Seas,” creates Ciryancar “Duke of the Pearl Coasts.”
115: Rovacil’s Expedition finds Crown.
(1014): Anchorage devastated by fire, helps in rebuilding. Hot Gates founded.
134: The Inlander’s Gold discoveries: Mine Town founded.
(1035): The Vintner’s Riot. Hyarmendacil I condemns “Rebels, Wasters and Rioters” of Osgiliath to the Southern Mines, declares Dukedom of the Pearl Coasts vacant and appoints his Admiral, Cirion the Scarlet, “Duke of Crown Anchorage.”
136: First Royal Oath: on its arrival Cirion dismisses Duke Ciryancar, who disappears on the same night.
143: Second Royal Oath. Old Ones resist Inlander’s Gold settlers.
145: Cirion’s soldiers forbidden to wear scarlet.
(1050): Hyarmendacil I “cleanses the Harnen:” victory over Harad.
152: Third Royal Oath. Famine: Mine Town abandoned.
167: Hot Gates slaves’ revolt. Cirion d.
168: Fourth Royal Oath. First Dwarrow Battle. Miners’ revolt.
173: Fifth Royal Oath. Walkout revolt. Second Dwarrow Battle, retreat from Inlander mining towns. Gold Cult among refugees.
180: Sixth Royal Oath. Haradrim begin “whitebirding” raids. Third Dwarrow battle. Sun-Swords Cult begins among soldiers.
186: Harad atrocity: “the Drowning of the Dwarfs.”
189: Haradrim intercept Seventh Royal Oath: first known use of “Khandian Fire.” Prisoners saved by Sea-Elves of Raft Vor.
190: Haldrim raft-cities destroyed. Sea-Elves massacred.
212: Haradrim repulsed at White Smile by combined force of Men, Dwarrow and Green-Elves, led by Ulman the Mage. Sea-Elven wilbera and puppy-drums first played by Men. Ulmo’s Lullaby composed.
214: Haradrim burn Crown Anchorage but are driven back into the sea with Grey-Elf magical aid. Song-play The Brewer and the Sea-Elf Thirst by Gariouen (?).
220: Battle of the Bridges massacre. Crown Anchorage burned for third time. Ulman disappears Inland.
232: Haradrim defeated at Hot Gates. “Fishers of Girt” song and revolt. “Dirge of the Sea-Elves,” “Ulman’s Song” and The Deed of Ulman sung. Fishers’ and Weavers’ Guildhouses opened in Freeport.
233: Haradrim fleet sunk, “Khandian fire” used for the last time. Gest of the Drowned Dwarfs composed (probably by Mackekkis).
234: Pact of Three Nations. Dukes of Girt to be elected by vote of Free Males. Crown Anchorage rebuilt, “Crown- and-Anchor.” Blood-Drinker Cult discovered among young males of White Smile garrison.
247: Finduilas’ Fire. Wind and Water translated. Year of the Dukes’ Fever. Irmilla Andros dances her Fight and Feast and Finish up some Fancy-Men. Sermian composes Song of Two Trees. First Dwarrow weapon-stalls.
248: Nelly Maigre’s Songs and Satires and Satires. First Dwarrow carving-show.
265: The Chants of the Dwarves translated:“Dwarrow protests”.
266: Duke Ciryancar III founds Crown Scriptorium, with three librarians (Lady Seriol, later Duchess Seriol of the Songs, was first Librarian for Men, Grey Gilfa-las the first for Elves — the only Grey-Elf ever to serve — and Spinster Thrawn the first for Dwarrow). Orfanael’s High-Pitched Laughter from a Flying Horse. Electorate extended to include Free Female Householders.
281: Orfanael’s Wine-Cask Masque-House, first play Leo Lebannin’s The Duchess and the Elf, next Orfanael’s Greed Persuaded, next Ardiana Lebannin’s The Sea-Elf Princess and the King of all the Lands. Elvenharps Hall opened in Freeport. The Cult of Nysyen begins in Freeport and White Smile. Cult of Evnysyen in Hot Gates.
289: Gilfalas Blacknail (celibate daughter of Duchess Seriol) returns from sojourn with Dwarrow, founds Quean-School and Carl-School, the first of Gin’s Singing-Schools of Man. Disappointed of her love, Grey Gilfalas founds the Prowess Games of All Races. Geba of Harad’s Mask of Race, Orfanael’s Bath-House Plays, Mamma Noa’s Tragedy of the Golden King and the Gilded Paramour and The Hero’s Lie.
290: Singing Bridge built between Crown-and-Anchor and Freeport. Temples of The One-Person founded in Hot Gates and Freeport Under-Bridge.
291: Vorondel’s Even Clowns Weep Even Emperors Laugh, Elena’s Mist. First Child’s-Play: Quean-School’s Children’s Bridge.
295: Elena’s Fishgut Justice. Carl-School’s The Dumb Slave.
298: Quean-School’s The Slave’s Mistress banned, pirated. Mamma Noa’s Tragedy of the Fish, the Fisherman and the Fishknife.
299: Duke Cirion VI Greyfeather proclaims “Freedom of the People,” ending slavery, and “The Tillers’ Tithe,” granting workers a share in their labour’s gain. Orfanael’s Last Play Last Laugh. Cult of the Triple Goddess appears in Walkabout and Crown-and-Anchor. Knife-dancing Cult begins in White Smile, Elementalist Cult at Hot Gates.
314: Corsair raids begin. Alliance of the ??
389: Three Peoples vowed at the Sphere of Harmony above Freeport.
389: Corsairs take White Smile. Grey Elves liberate galley-slaves.
400: Robry Elf-Friend (once a slave) discovers and destroys secret Corsair port-city at Drowned Vale. Jegrais (the Pirate Queen) and some twenty-score Corsairs escape inland.
(1307−1401): Corsair-Harad Wars: “First Tropic Wars.”
435: Orcs brought to Girt by Corsairs as oarsmen and fighters.
444: Mages warned in dreams by Old Ones about overland invasion.
445: Battle of New Year’s Day: Major Orc invasion repelled.
504: Duke Cirion XI caught by Orcs, crucified on Hot Gates South Cliff. “Magic” wave destroys Orcs, White Smile cliff swept undersea: the Geniuses’ first intervention in Man’s wars.
(1432 — 1447): Gondor’s King-Strife.
539: Duchess Falassë welcomes refugees from the Northern war, irrespective of their loyalties. Gift of galleys from Umbar.
545: Falassë sends ships to help Castamir the Admiral.
(1447): Castamir d. Eldacar restored.
549 (1448): Eldacar proclaims the expulsion of Girt from the Empire of Gondor and Obloquy against Falassë. Girt Calendar adopted.
605: Pelagion’s Alliance with the Old Ones against Orcs and Cold Ogres.
606: Alliance of the Four Peoples. Miryan III abdicates in favour of Pelagion. Orcs take Freeport.
699: Umbar takes Freeport, drives Orcs westward. Free Peoples retreat across Bloom Mountains to Inland Sea. Abers of Freckland settled. Geniuses contacted.
700: Freck Bridge, Maiden Castle founded.
701: Hyando of Umbar, Elix of Khand join the Free Peoples. Sebright of the Ships founded. Orcs defeated by Duke Vorondel’s ambush at Earhole Pass.
702: Godsport, Sweetwater founded. Geniuses ally with Free Peoples. Orcs defeated at Freckland Abers.
(1603): Hyarmendacil II burns the Umbar fleet.
708: Rock Geniuses eradicate Black Tunnelers from Freck Isles and Vorondel Cliffs. Godsport Castle, Maiden Castle built. Free People and Genius leaders go secretly to the Sphere at Freeport to amend the Alliance: the Midnight Vow.
911 (1810): Telumehtar commands the sack of Umbar. Blood-Drinker Living Lord becomes ruler of the Ulmic Coast.
912: Freeport besieged by Blood-Drinkers, burned, librarians Ustcd Stonc-Ax, Luial Leaftip and Faramir Fairhand save Freeport Library by alliance with the Good Dragon, lltheor the Golden, and the Brown Mage.
914: Blood-Drinkers rebuild Freeport as “Life City,” cast down the Sphere of Harmony into the sea. Second Tropic Wars begin.
(1835): Harad Black Guards capture Umbar, cast down the Crystal.
939: The Mistwood Treachery: Iltheor and Air-Geniuses destroyed, Tree-Geniuses decimated, by Blood-Drinker Dragons.
939 — 954: Refugees from Umbar swarm both coast and Inland. “The Hulks” prison-ships supply Life City.
951: Brown Mage opens Godsport Ninefold School. Blood-Drinkers attack across Bloom Mountains. Last Storm-Genius dies repelling them. Ducal elections by adult suffrage.
954: Duke Elix defeats Umbar fleet at Gulf Lee.
(1854): Serifes of Harad claims the Umbar throne. Corsair migrations.
957: Emissaries from Narmacil II of Gondor received in Godsport, but murdered in Life City as they return.
1009: Voroneia commands the besieging of Life City. Rock Geniuses break the Temple of the Blood-Drinkers. Hulks emptied.
1010: Life City cleansed. Rebuilding of ”New Freeport” begins. Duchess Voroneia resigns, disappears.
1012: New Freeport, Crown-and-Anchor and Singing Bridge reopened. Gondor emissaries declare war, pronounce Obloquy on Elix II. Girt rejects Gondor’s accusations and jurisdiction.
1012—: Decay of Ulmic Coast trading cities.
1207: Sebright (Blue Robes), Freck Bridge (Belted) and Godsport (Brown and Grey) Colleges of Wizardry founded.
(2128): Steward Eradan sends emissaries to New Freeport and Inland.
1230: Emissaries coldly received in Freck Bridge and Godsport.
1300: Maiden Castle’s Green-Robe College and Abersport Elementals College founded. One-Person Cult appears in Sebright, Cat Cult in Godsport.
1319: Goddess Cult develops on Orestaia Faos Island.
c. 1400: Umbar’s Crystal Sphere washed up north of New Freeport.
1477: Alliance vows, sworn on the Sphere, renewed on the Crystal.
(2463): Istari come to New Freeport, seeking ancient artifacts.
1590: One-Person Priests claim their god’s sovereignty of the Freck Islands. Annuial killed on Freckport Quays. Goddess worshippers, One-Person worshippers both secede. Damanir Felix elected Duke. Fanatics (both groups claim the atrocity) murder the thirty-one “un-weaponed Elves” in Godsport.
1590 – 1593: Freck Islands War. Godsport besieged: Black Tunnelers damage God-spring beneath Castle. Alchemical Guild begins in Godsport and Maiden Castle.
1593: Explosion on Orestaia Faos. Island Cults collapse.
1618: First Great Drought. Cold Ogres attack Freck Bridge, defeated by Ogre Mages summoned by Felix I’s mages.
1858: Second Great Drought. Elven Mark destroyed by fire.
1859: Orcs and Cold Ogres attack Elven rebuilders, destroy Western Dryslopes. Old Ones and Geniuses aid the Elves.
1901: Duke Simonimon founds the Godsport Tournaments for prowess in all weapons, and open to all comers. Otter and Mara open unarmed combat school in Sebright. Inland Girt’s first Religious Revival.
2078: Thorongil Northman, emissary of Ecthelion II of Gondor, wins Godsport Silver Sword and counsels Duchess Felicael against Necromantic Cultists.
2097: Eisil the Red becomes Governor and General of New Freeport, “discovers” financial corruption and suspends the assembly.
2106: Pangs of the Earth. Dwarrow days of lamentation. Savage Umbar raids on North Ulmic Coast. The Forty Assassinations: Assassins’ Guild destroyed in Godsport. Inland’s second Religious Revival.
2112: Eisil establishes New Freeport as capital of Ulmic Coast.
2114: Eisil wins civic vote to restrict citizenship to Men.
2115: Haradrim slaughter Old Ones on Gulf Lee Coast.
2117: Third Great Drought. Three Weather-Mages murdered. Ogre Mages disappear from Godsport’s ducal Castle.
2118: New assassinations in Inland cities. Black Guard (mainly from Umbar) called in by Eisil. They seize control in the Trade-ports, rob, torture and kill Elves and Dwarrow, and exile Old Ones. Blood-Drinkers worship in public again.
2119: Eisil declares war on Dwarrow and their allies. His Black Tunnelers breach Dwar-row treasury and smithies; Dwarrow retreat into Jenolan-the-Smith. Orcs burn Freck Bridge and Sebright of the Ships. Fishers of Sebright rally the Inland.
2120: Men and Elves of Inland, under Duke Felix IV of Godsport, defeat Orc army and Cold Ogres, then halt Eisil’s army in the Bloom Mountains. When Eisil uses black blasting-powder, Rock Geniuses bring down the Crags of Wingspan upon his army (at the cost of their lives).

Files

Right-click and choose "Save link target as" for the .markdown files.

page-06.png (379.05 kB)