From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer) To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest) Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily) Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 14 Jun 1994, part 3 Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM Content-Return: Prohibited Precedence: junk --------------------- From: MARTINCRIM@delphi.com Subject: Some info on Cam's Well Message-ID: <01HDIA28Q8PE91Y5UY@delphi.com> Date: 13 Jun 94 17:04:37 GMT X-RQ-ID: 4558 File: CAMSWELL.1 Copyright 1994 Martin R. Crim All rights reserved CAM'S WELL SCENARIO PACK: BACKGROUND Introduction Cam's Well is an oasis in Prax, on the trade route from Heortland to the new Lunar colonies on the Zola Fel. It also lies on an alternate trade route from Heortland to The Paps. It is a stronghold of the oasis people, a place where they have some control over their own lives. It also holds importance for the Praxian Nomads, because it is the largest oasis in the Orani's Mistake area. Geography of Southwestern Prax Cam's Well sits on a vast flat plateau known as Orani's Mistake. The plateau sits about 100 to 125 meters above sea level, rising higher in the west. Only ten miles south of Cam's Well, you come to a cliff that stretches in both directions as far as the eye can see. The cliff is forty meters high along this stretch. Below it, flat and relatively fertile plains stretch for three to ten kilometers to the sea. Cam's Well sits in a natural bowl about three kilometers across. If you climb the edge of the bowl, you see that it is a ridge rising five meters above the center of the bowl, and ten meters above the surrounding plain. In Storm Season, harsh winds blow harmlessly over the top of the bowl, leaving the air in the bowl calm. Dust from the storms settles down into the bowl, coating people, animals, and the earth itself. The earth in the bowl is brown and fertile. If you dig down, you find clay and rock. The elders know that rain water collects in the bowl, filtering down to Cam. Two muddy hollows collect rains in Sea Season. The hollows become ponds full of life, but dry up in the middle of Fire Season. If you leave Cam's bowl, you cross sand and flinty clay. Tough plants tear at your clothes, and grow thickest in silt washed out of the many canyons and arroyos. Bands of sand mark ancient river courses or recent floods, depending on which expert you listen to. You can try to use tall rocks as landmarks. Some rocks stand tall enough to provide shade from the deadly sun. You pass rock outcroppings carved by the wind into weird shapes. You will see very few hills in Orani's Mistake, except at the western edge. That edge includes the foothills of the southern Stormwalk Mountains. Further west are the mountains themselves, impassable to normal traffic. The peak of Storm Walk Mountain is visible from Cam's Well, and lies west and a little north. Another landmark is the peak of Wintertop, far to the northwest, visible only when the rain has cleaned the air and the wind has not stirred up the dust. The People of Cam's Well The free natives are known as Cam's Folk. They have lived there since the Godtime, following their ancient ways. Cam protects them. Everyone farms, except for temple residents, the ten full- time crafters, and Honey Man the beekeeper. Also, there are thirty or so slaves, who are part nomad. Slaves cannot join any cult, and they do the heaviest and dirtiest work. All Cam's Folk keep animals. Each household has a herd of udads, a type of sheep. They provide milk, wool, and meat. Cam's Folk eat udad only for important occasions. They raise guinea pigs as their principal source of meat. They are the only Oasis Folk to raise animals, though some native farmers do so. Every day of the year, the folk drive the udads out to graze, and milk the ewes with lambs. The farmers make cheese regularly. They shear the udads after the spring planting. Children do their share of the chores. The farmers plow, sow the grain, and harvest it. The rest of the year, they gather oilseeds and dates, herbs and roots. In the dry season, Cam's Folk irrigate the land with well water. Skullbushes grow throughout the bowl in profusion, pollinated by bats that roost in the ruins. Skullbushes produce oilseeds, husk fodder, a musky nectar for flavoring beer, a very durable wood, and oil. Date palms, grapes, many herbs, and other edible plants occur naturally. The residents cultivate many of those plants, and also grow grain. For millennia, Cam's Folk grew the native Praxian grain as their staple food. The Folk received a gift of maize from the Lunar Survey which followed the Battle of Moonbroth. Now few grow any of the old grain, and maize is the principal food crop. Every household also has some poisonous Friend Snakes for pets. These are arm-length pit vipers that eat rats, mice, and any extra guinea piglets. The snakes rarely attack people, and anyway Snake Witch knows how to keep a snakebite from being fatal. When the rains come, frogs and fish appear in the two pools of water outside town, as if by magic. People say that Cam sends them. The farmers catch only a small number of fish, but each Friend Snake eats a frog. Then the water dries up, and the pools disappear until the next year. Every day, farmers bring food to the temple. Usually, it is a brace of guinea pigs (already trussed), a skin of udad cheese, and whatever herbs or roots they gathered that day. The temple residents supplement that with guinea pigs of their own, and food grown in the garden. The temple also stores the entire town's harvest of grain, oilseeds, and dates, the staple foods. The temple must provide food for the giant watersnakes. The older ones are intelligent, and are called Awakened. They can talk well, although a bit sibilantly. Each awakened watersnake eats a guinea pig or two a week, or a few Friend Snakes. Unawakened snakes, being smaller, eat less. Now and again a watersnake goes out of the temple and takes an udad. The Friend Snakes that live in the temple, temple complex, and garden have to find their own food, and try to avoid becoming food. Myths and History of Cam's Well: This is what the elders know. Cam herself knows far more, but does not communicate with outsiders. In the Golden Age, Cam was born to Escaturigine, Mother of Wells. Her father was Genert, which makes Cam an incarnation of the Earth Maiden. Cam took this corner of Prax as her favorite place. She wandered at will beneath the surface of the earth. She controlled the mighty underground rivers that flowed down to the sea, returning the water of the up-running surface rivers. Then the bad gods slew the Earth and destroyed the World Mountain. When the rivers changed direction, Cam weakened. She came to the surface at her holy site, at the request of a tribe of the lost. She protected them against the howling winds. When Eiritha threw the land's protection to Storm Bull, Cam lost the ability to move about underground. Fending off an army of chaos cost much of her weakened strength. Waha dug his canal and polluted the waters, weakening Cam further. Cam used much of her remaining god-strength to seal off the polluted underground waters from her own aquifer. For the remainder of the Great Darkness, Cam's folk hid in the obscurity of their refuge. Several times, hostile armies found them anyway. Each time, Cam saved her folk, although a few always died. After the hostile armies left, her folk crept out to rebuild. Each time, they had less to work with, and ruins remained. At the Dawn, Cam greeted the reborn Sun and the newborn Time, who added some stability to living. Since then, she has aided her people in maintaining their ways. In return, her people maintain the ancient worship. Cam's Folk have prospered in the last century, and have sent colonists to other oases. That involved tricky negotiation with the nomads, but proved profitable for all involved. Now families of Cam's Folk live at Agape, Biggle Stone, and Barbarian Town. With all the ruins standing around, it might seem more sensible to rebuild. However, the colonization policy comes from Cam herself. Nomads treat Cam's Folk as slaves, as they treat all other native farmers. However, they treat Cam's Folk a bit better than others because they fear the snakes and unspecified superstitions about the goddess of the well. There are only two paths through the cultivated land around the settlement. These paths are usually free of snakes, and by custom the nomads may kill any snakes they find there. Elsewhere, the snakes abound, providing an incentive for the nomads to stick to the trail. Getting from one place to another in southwestern Prax: The main caravan routes do not go through Cam's Well, but one must understand where they do go in order to understand the economic role of Cam's Well. Caravan Alley remains the most traveled route in Prax, taking travellers along a short route from the relative safety of Sartar to The Block and The Paps. Caravans from Heortland set out from the Marcher Barons' fortified town, Knight Fort. Most pilgrims and traders bound for The Block go along the edge of the Stormwalk Mountains, where intermittent streams provide water. From Barbarian Town, they strike out for Sounder's River, crossing it at Waha's Ford. Then they follow the river east to the canal, and the canal almost to the Devil's Marsh. At a safe distance, they circle around toward The Block. Those continuing toward the Sacred Ground go by way of Tourney Altar. Caravans from The Paps to Heortland retrace these steps. Caravans travel in both directions in all seasons except Fire. Caravans go through Cam's Well for one of two reasons. First, the caravans may wish to travel between The Paps and Heortland but avoid the Block. They would need a good reason to do so, because the route through Cam's Well holds greater danger than the Barbarian Town route. One danger is the greater distance between sources of fresh water. Another is that a miscalculation in direction may deposit the traveler at the edge of chaos-infested marshes. Second, a new caravan route has sprung up in the last few years between Heortland and the Raus Domain on the River of Cradles. This caravan only travels during Dark Season, when the plains are cool and the sea traffic grows cautious. The caravan makes one round trip each year, but other caravans may soon adopt the route, if it continues to prove profitable. For either destination, Cam's Well allows caravans to rest for several days. When the weather and omens are good, they head on. The Paps caravan heads toward Biggle Stone, the Raus caravan towards Agape, and the Heortland-bound towards Small Well. From Biggle Stone, the Paps caravan follows the edge of the Belly Hills to the Sacred Ground, a relatively lush area where travel is easy. From Agape, the Raus caravan circles the Head Acres and usually takes the Bilos Gap route to the Zola Fel River. Once, it went instead by way of Horn Gate and the Weis Cut. [end of part 1]