Re: Vadeli & Waertagi

From: Sandy Petersen <sandyp_at_idgecko.idsoftware.com>
Date: Fri, 31 May 96 12:16:48 -0500


THE CLOSING
>Apparently even the riding of sea-creatures figures as navigation,
otherwise >the Waertagi would have been able to communicate through the Closing, at least
>between their dry-docks.

        Dragonships are not alive. The sea creatures which the Waertagi sometimes ride for short distances were still unaffected, but it was impossible for the Waertagi to use these to communicate for three excellent reasons:

  1. Almost all the Waertagi went down the drain.
  2. The few remaining Waertagi did not know where the other ones dwelt. They couldn't very well send a sea monster to search all the coasts of the world hoping to find the one or two other spots that Waertagi happened to survive.
  3. The fact of the matter is, riding a sea monster for more than a day or two is kind of impossible. The monster has to hunt for food, you can't breathe underwater, etc. etc. Imagine actually sitting on the back of a great white shark to travel over several hundred miles of sea. It's inconceivable that you would survive, Closing or no Closing. While the Waertagi use sea animals as mounts, they don't normally ride them day in and day out, and they are almost always used in conjunction with more conventional vessels.

>We know that mermen, sea animals, sea birds are not affected by the
>curse.
>We don't, really. Gloranthan ornithologists to the front: are there any
>migrating birds crossing the Homeward Ocean?

I believe that creatures who are tied to the sea -- including sea turtles, mermen, pinnipeds, and _certain_ seabirds, are not affected by the Closing. Note that after the initial wave, ships could thereafter travel so long as they stayed close to the shore. Shorebirds were not affected at all, and most seabirds were certainly considered "of the sea".. Long-range birds such as albatrosses and the like may have been able to make the journey, if they were considered truly of the sea (so they could land on the water to rest).

        I have no doubt that a large number of seabirds perished at the time of the Closing, though. Those species are extinct now.

>I really doubt that there are any coast-dwelling mermen who ever
made their
>way around Magasta's pool. The Ludoch colonies before Pamaltela and
>Genertela don't seem to be in constant contact.

        A trip across the Homeward Ocean is a major saga and a very difficult trip for a merman to make. It is as hard or harder as making your way overland from Kralorela to Loskalm, and how many people have done _that_?

Some points about the Closing

The Closing does affect tree trunks. A tree trunk washed out to sea, unless it gets waterlogged and sinks beneath the surface, will be washed back to shore as driftwood.

        The Closing does affect the Waertagi. Even a cityship at anchor -- a non-moving vessel -- is affected by the Closing. If the Waertagi aboard it were able to do special rituals to trick the Closing into thinking it was an island, and perhaps do a magic to anchor the ship "forever", they could escape.

        The Waertagi must do Dormal's ritual just like everyone else. Dormal's Ritual contains within it the secret knowledge to break the Closing, and the ritual doesn''t have to be said exactly the same by everyone -- just the secret knowledge has to be known and expressed ritually. No doubt the Waertagi do the ritual in their own tongue, and in their own way, but it is still Dormal's technique of busting the closing.

Joerg B/
>Actually, IMO the browns _may_ captain a ship, otherwise the
Vadeli wouldn't
>have been able to launch any ship. The reds were not the driving
force for
>the Vadeli expansion after the Opening, and most Vadeli ships
won't have any
>red on board.

        The reds were not the driving force for the expansion, but their discovery was a prerequisite to that expansion. EVERY Vadeli ship has at least one red on board (though possibly locked into the bilge, fastened by chains to the keel, and never shown to any outsider), in order to meet the requirement for a red "captain".

>Elemental weapons: swords (storm), axes (earth), spears and arrows
(fire),
>clubs (darkness), and tridents or similar for sea - what kind of
weapon may
>they use?

        Knives, picks, scythes, sickles, flails (these do not count as "sea" weapons to the Vadeli, but nets do), throwing disks, staffs, Gygaxesque polearms, crossbows, slings, hammers, war adzes (basically axes with the blades going the wrong way), whips, war shovels (tragically, these _do_ exist), bolas, rocks, morningstars, clubswords, axeswords, etc.

>Frankly, I fail to see why any self-respecting, millennium-old
Vadeli should
>even consider this God Learner rubbish about weapons being elemental.

        Because it originated with them and the Brithini, not with the God Learners.

Sandy P.

Sandy Pl.


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