Since I don't own this issue, can anyone tell me what else it says about Zyxl? What kind of galleys are these? Does it say what the people are like? Culture and/or society?
“I thought it was my worst luck since I inherited my father’s business. I had purchased bundles of northern furs hoping to trade them back to the warriors of Zyxl in exchange for a handful of their strange gems. Alas, their galley never saw the docks of Dogon, and I was stuck with rolls of furs no one in Gombar would want. Worse yet, I feared they might rot in the Strait of Tangor’s warm climate.
Well if that's all that's ever been mentioned about Zyxl that that gives a lot of free reign to work with it. Hax Zyxl been mentioned anywhere else?
GP
Since it is an island, maybe a touch of Madagascar/Mauritus wildlife? Maybe there still are Dodos on Mystara? Or Dodo-like Gyerians?
Havard
North African seems most likely given Zyxls proximity to the Tanagoro Lands. We also know that they are a warrior culture. Perhaps sea-going Moors or Saracens?
Since it is an island, maybe a touch of Madagascar/Mauritus wildlife? Maybe there still are Dodos on Mystara? Or Dodo-like Gyerians?
Or pehaps the whole Zyxl island could be M-Madagascar (it would explain why this small island is marked at Master's Map separate from the rest of Tangor)? Could it have a Serkasta culture, with some traits of Tangor culture (and if Tangor are demi-ogres, could the Sherkasta be the "dawrf-like" Vazimba?)?
Pehaps, just like RW Madagascar, its original name isn't Zyxl, but "oldworlders" are simply too used with it to use the native name, even if it was originally the name of the mapmaker's dog ;)
Thoughts?
Roger
Medium-high level heros looking for epic crusades have problems to find an evil country to fight against. Everybody is good!
So I would prefer Zyxl to be an evil island, which sends pirate ships (may be even powerful undead ships) to haunt the oceans. May be an undead magocracy (or Thanatocracy).
Some vampire-lords rule dominions in the island. Their undead pirate fleets bring them prisoners to feed on them, or to transform in undead, waiting for the moment of conquering the world under the sun (or the moon).
I'm thinking something more along the lines of the Barboury Coast & pirates... Of course there would be M-African natives with M-Spain/Portugal settlers from the SC.
I tend to imagine the pirates of North and eastern Gulf of Hule and Kastelios-Gargarin davanian coast as our M-Ottoman Corsairs and M-Barbary Pirates. But if you mean just a non-european pirate nation, I think it's a good idea
BTW, Madagascar used to be a famous pirate hideout. Pehaps Zyxl could be our M-Madagascar without using the Sherkastas. If we assume that the M-Austronesian languages have actually a tanagoro origin, this would mean that they're related to the Nuari of the Pearl Islands!
Maybe they are a link between the Tangor peninsula and Cape Horn? The Texiras colony on the horn would be the perfect link between the "old world" (i.e. KW) and the "new world" (Skothar & "Sea Kingdoms").
You mean, a physical link? Or cultural link?
I think there is a shortage of evil, evil, evil countries in Mystara.
Medium-high level heros looking for epic crusades have problems to find an evil country to fight against. Everybody is good!
I'm not so sure about that. IMHO, we have enough "evil, evil, evil" nations, and that they're powerful enough for medium-high level heroes. Hule is the most iconic example for Mystara. The Heldannic Knights are often pictured as evil, and they conquered a fairy large (for mystaran standards) empire for themselves. Denagoth would be another good "evil" adversary for the PCs.
Also, "non-evil" nations can become "evil" accordingly to your PCs and their view of the world. For thyatian PCs, Alphatia are obviously evil, and the same goes for Alphatian PCs about Thyatis. And even the "non-evil" Shadowelves are seen as "evil" by many oldworlders, especially exiled aflheim elves.
So I would prefer Zyxl to be an evil island, which sends pirate ships (may be even powerful undead ships) to haunt the oceans. May be an undead magocracy (or Thanatocracy).
Some vampire-lords rule dominions in the island. Their undead pirate fleets bring them prisoners to feed on them, or to transform in undead, waiting for the moment of conquering the world under the sun (or the moon).
Hm, this culd be used as well. Pehaps Zyxl was once a taymoran colony? It would explain both the undeads and skill at the sea.
You mean, a physical link? Or cultural link?
I was thinking more of an ethno-economic link similar to the link Europe made with the Americas and Asias in the 15th and 16th C. (Which we are told Mystara, or at least the KW, is modeled after).
Roger
I was thinking more of an ethno-economic link similar to the link Europe made with the Americas and Asias in the 15th and 16th C. (Which we are told Mystara, or at least the KW, is modeled after).
Indeed. But I don't know if the Verdans got there already, or if the go there frequently. Otherwise, the Ogrekin of Gombar and Suma'a would know that there are many, many nations beyont the Straight of Izonda, not just a "bunch of barbarians"
Pehaps Zyxl was once a taymoran colony? It would explain both the undeads and skill at the sea.
Now this is an interesting idea! Taymora rises again like an undead zombie! Oh, the irony. :evillaugh
Real world Carthago was half-African, half-Phoenician and had practices of human baby sacrifices to the gods.
Zyxl could have a naval technology such as Thyatian, but full of undead magic. They would hate Thyatian, Alphatians and "barbarian peoples".
Yesterday I was reading an old "Dragon" issue about half-undead (template characters in new D&D, whose rules I do not know). A pregnant woman that becomes undead gives birth to a half-undead baby (a human with some zombie, ghoul or vampire characteristics, such as a need for eating living meat or blood thirst; a half-undead ghoul was called "ghul"; all half-undead have a longer life span, inmunity to sleep, venoms, charms, etc... I could try to adapt this monsters to OD&D stats.
Let's imagine undead Taymoran lords or necromancers survived, created half-undead humans capable of breeding, and so populated an island (Zyxl) with this always hunger races. Nearby countries pay tributes of living animals... and prisoners. Zyxl would be the home to a few undead or half-undead necromancer lords, united in a common Dark Council (RW-Carthago also had a powerful council, instead of a king).
Proposal: People from Zyxl are called Zyxels or Zyxeli.
Love the Carthage Taymoran colony concept. Rather than making it an "evil country", I suggest have the current ruler/upper class be evil with maybe a resistance going on. This seems like a more Mystaran way of doing things.
Carthage, arent they basically Romans from Africa? With Necromancer rulers, we could have dark skinned zombie legionaires, sounds pretty scary to me! Imagine the rowers of the Zyxel Galleys to be quite efficient!
The Island is quite big, so there could be more than one political entity on the island. A tiny Savage Coast colony/trading post would work well. Maybe some hidden benign power, like druids (African equivalent) hiding out somewhere?
Havard
Carthage, arent they basically Romans from Africa?
No. Carthaginians had a Phoenicians elite over a mostly Numiadian and Libic population. The government form was similar to that of Rome and many Greek city-states, but the military relied much more on subject nations or foreign mercenary units (Hannibal and the other Carthaginian generals fielded Celtic light infantry, Balearic slingers, Numidian cavalry, elephants etc.), while the native forces were mostly navy.
GP
No. Carthaginians had a Phoenicians elite over a mostly Numiadian and Libic population. The government form was similar to that of Rome and many Greek city-states, but the military relied much more on subject nations or foreign mercenary units (Hannibal and the other Carthaginian generals fielded Celtic light infantry, Balearic slingers, Numidian cavalry, elephants etc.), while the native forces where mostly navy.
Even better! This distinction between the elite and the general population works very well if we want to go with my idea of an evil upper class and a more sympathetic lower class.
Havard
As Agathokles noted, the big power of Carthage was its navy; its land forces were a mix of foreign mercenaries from around Northern Africa and Spain with forces from tributary states, like Numidia.
For a context of Zyxl being off the coast of Tangor, that the region of the Tangor coast adjacent to Zyxl should have states whose economy is based on raiding their neighbors and selling both the corpses and the war captives to Zyxl for manufactured goods. The corpses become soldiers for the Zyxl army and the live captives first become slaves, THEN become zombie soldiers when they die.
Slaves would have held over the promise that if they stay in line and serve exceptionally well, their masters will turn them into undead, making them citizens. This gives an incentive to good behavior. (Slaves who turn out useless turn into food for the half-undead population or else end up as zombie soldiers.)
"Zyxl" (a deceased gladiatorial hero whom the general claimed was also a fallen queen of that same nation).
Besides, I checked Haldemar's claimings about the meaning of "Nentsun". According to this site, "armpit" would be "sughu" in Ethengarian (M-Mongolian). I guess that Haldemar may actually be wrong. Pehaps he did such claims for feeling outraged for the size Thyatis has at that map. But I guess that she ould indeed may had been queen of Zyxl once.
I wouldn't be surpresed if Dorfin IV indeed was once a barbarian king and have nothing to do with a karameikan gnome, as Christican Constantin suggested at his hulean timeline.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertatia
http://www.cindyvallar.com/havens3.html
Maybe even still using undead; it wouldn't be hard to imagine that a utopia (of sorts) could be created if animated bodies did the hard-labor; the only reason it didn't work in the Death Gate Cycle was because those undead weren't animated, and there was a limited supply of life in that multiverse. It would add some irony, too; they abhor slavery, but keep animated undead as "slaves"