> I suppose we read KoS fundamentally differently, or
> you have been
> working on a compleatly different source.
If all else fails...
P137. Bits in [brackets] mine.
"Sometime during his reign Sartar also visited the
beastfolk at Duck Point [note: it already existed] and
built walls for that little city. [yes, already a city
before he got there, all he did was add walls] No city
ring was set up, nor did people [as opposed to ducks]
inhabit the nearly [but not quite] empty shell for
some time. [so they did eventually] We know next to
nothing else about the event, for Sartar went alone
and neither he nor the ducks ever told what went on.
But he returned after two months with the ducks sworn
to be loyal to his family, and he never ate another
fowl of any kind."
P139
"Tarkalor built a road from Wilmskirk to Duck Point
early in his reign, linking the capital with that
river port and opening a second route between Sartar
and Kethaela."
P141, just after Runegate has fallen to the Lunars: "The victorious emperor led his army south and seized Duck Point without resistance. It had been abandoned by human and duck alike." [these are the humans and ducks who didn't exist, right?]
> Anyway, no point in me trying to change Duck Point
> in an established
> campaign. The new version just seems a bit of a
> letdown. Wasting the potential of the place rather.
Quite!
The first para. in KoS is repeated word-for-word in "Land of Thunder", p23.
Which then goes on to say "The ducks have never lived here, although refugees and outlaws occasionally hid in the city."
If taken at face value, this is obviously silly. So let's not take it at face value. Quite clearly from KoS, Duck Point was inhabited. Sort of... How's this for a theory? No-one (or at least, no duck) actually *lived* there, any more than people *live* in the City of London. It's a trading centre. Ducks live outside, and visit on a daily basis: or perhaps stay overnight, but don't take up permanent residence. Some humans might stay there, and I'm quite sure it has an Issaries temple. Probably temples to the weird duck versions of human cults, too (the fully Duck cults stay outside the city). And inns. There's a Geo's, isn't there? It definitely has a market place!
It has its magical walls, with towers by each gate, as specified in LoT (page 62, "Sartar's Cities"). All documented.
But to continue beyond the duckumentation....
What's a bit different in Duck Point is that some of those gates are water gates. The city is partially flooded. This is where the Road meets the Creek-Stream River, and it shows. Quite a lot of the place is designed for transferring goods from cart to barge, and selling them to people. There are boats. Lots of boats. And duck boatmen sneering at humans and over-charging them for transport. One of the main annual sporting events is the Boat Race: think dragon boats, paddles not sculls, complete with drummers. Teams named after colours, of course, and yes, Light Blue and Dark Blue are two of them, and with the most intense rivalry :) Having underwater duck swimmers towing as well would be *cheating*, so don't get caught. Don't get caught sabotaging another team's drum, either.
Everyone passes through, trading. Humans, sure. Mainly Sartarite. And some who come up from the South: that's why the road was built! Argan-Argar trolls from the Plateau, their wagons drawn by beetles. All sorts of Beastfolk. Grazers, from time to time.
Since the place was founded by Sartar as an Issaries stronghold, Issaries is seen as the *ruling* god here, and his (Law-)staff is a symbol of rulership. His other main symbol is his paddle. God of travel, in Duck Point: of course he's got a paddle! Though his son Diros, by his wife the Creek-Stream-River, is the main boatman.
Orlanth, god of Flight, is mainly seen as the guy who promised to give us Flight back some day and hasn't quite got round to it yet. Humans. You can't trust them. Yes, there's a temple to him. A normal one for humans, and one for ducks, that humans aren't generally welcome in (and unless they're good at swimming underwater, can't reach). The statue of him there is wearing scale armour. Erm... well, it's wearing scales. At least, we hope "wearing" is the right word, don't we? And of course, being god of Flight, he's got wings....
Did I mention the local (duck) police force? Not
Humakti, it's all right. This lot are sane, practical,
and careful not to catch anyone they might not be able
to deal with. Good at running past the end of the
alley where the Heroes are hiding, quacking comically,
whenever the film requires it.
They don't even use swords. Instead they have a
variant on what really was one of the most effective
melee weapons of all time: the English Bill. Halfway
between a spear and an axe, with added spikey bits.
Their version is of course somewhat shorter: a Duck
Bill. So the police armed with this implement are
Duck-Billed Flat-Feet.... sorry!
You can buy anything in Duck Point. The really weird stuff never gets as far as Boldhome. A lot of goods are intended for a beast-folk market: had you ever thought about what ducks use in the way of cosmetics, for instance? The amount of money you could charge for a good water-proof feather-dye?
There is definitely NOT a meeting point for Duck Tricksters in Duck Point. Just don't visit the Red Hat tavern, OK? (Duck Tricksters, BTW, in duck society, are bonded to the Cult of Grandmother Duck, not to an individual, and are strictly forbidden to ever harm or annoy another duck. Humans, however, are fair game. And many duck entertainers are, in fact, Tricksters.)
(sigh) That *was* Duck Point, back when my PCs visited it in 1597. A thriving, wonderful little city, full of life and colour. In five years time, those Lunar b****ds will burn it to the ground. And then, yes, it'll be an almost uninhabited shell, I expect.
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