Oltecs on the Savage Coast
by David KeyserHaving done a careful read of the Red Steel sets and the Savage Coast Campaign book, I can summarize the scattered details found there. But in brief, what we got...
From the Red Steel and Savage Baronies box sets-
1) When the Oltecs arrive between around 3400 BC, they never travel far enough west to reach Herath and encounter aranea. They find manscorpions and tortles along the Savage Coast.
2) The elves arrive later, around 2300 BC and keep separate from the Oltecs.
3) The goblinoids on the Yazak Steppes destroy Oltec civilization(and elven civilization) when they sweep down from the Yazak Steppes. The Oltecs survive in scattered communities.
4) The Nithians arrive and colonize, some intermixing happens with the remaining Oltecs, and they also drive the manscorpions west where they received asylum in Nimmur. So the Nithians never got to the Orc's Head Peninsula. The Nithians are present for 200 years, from 700-500 BC before the Spell of Oblivion erases most traces of their existence.
5) Dwarves who migrated to the Savage Coast built over old Nithian settlements. So they were likely at least as far west as Bellayne, and probably there was some interaction with Herath.
6) Nithian pyramids and ruins still present in the modern day are assumed to be former Wallaran outposts.
7) In the Red Lands(Terra Vermelha), there lies an Oltec ruin called Antro do Dragao(Dragon Den), which was built by the Oltecs and was later occupied by other cultures including the Nithians.
8) Today the remaining Oltecs have intermarried with the Ispan colonizers of last century, forming the current inhabitants of the Savage Baronies. Nithian and Traladaran ancestry(from a 450 AC migration) are also found among the people of the Savage Baronies to a lesser extent.
9) Saragon is the location of the Oltecs with the strongest Nithian bloodlines who remained after the Spell of Oblivion, and they even managed to retain some Nithian art, culture and philosophy. These people intermixed with Ylari as well as Ispan colonists a century ago.
10) There is an Oltec ruin detailed in the adventure in the Savage Baronies box set, near the Yazak Steppes and Saragon.
11) The Barrier Mask which protects Saragon, as well as the bracers that are found in the above adventure, are part of a larger artifact known as the Mannequin of Ixion. The Oltecs had fashioned the various components of the mannequin in their different cities, but were unable to assemble it in time to stop the goblinoid invasion.
That is the highlights of what we know, the rest needs to be filled in. I haven't done much searching in Pandius, although I checked and no one has created more components of the mannequin.