Taymora in Canon
by LoZompatoreHere you are the bits of info I collected from PC3 in my original article for the Italian MMB:
QUOTES:
From PC3 adventure booklet:
page 6 (about an ancient Taymora settlement of unknown name):
1) - "Twelve human skeletons covered in rust (all that remains of their armour)"
page 7:
2) - "Hidden among the mud are relics dating to the days of the Taymora civilisation. These include four gold chalices (...), two silver candlesticks inlaid with lapis lazuli (...), a gold brooch set with a large sapphire (...), a gold ring (...) and 200gp in Taymora currency."
page 16:
3) - "During the descent the adventurers pass over the ruined of the Taymora civilisation. The shark-kin think that the ruins below are haunted - and they are right. The ruins contain hordes of undead which wait patiently for Saasskas the Hissing Demon to summon them..."
page 26:
4) - "When the sea swept over the ancient Taymora civilisation, the rock slab which provided the foundations of Tamoraz was torn from the face of the land and carried into the depths, where it came to rest on a shelf overhanging the Abyss..."
page 28:
5) - "The temple [of Tamoraz] is built from cut stone blocks and has a large dome in its centre."
6) - "The double doors are made of copper and are covered in green copper oxide."
7) - "Large silver doors lead into the central hall of the temple. Through these comes the sound of the devilfish chanting. Anyone who examines the doors seems that they are engraved with scenes of pastoral life. Happy, smiling, humans, carry baskets of fruit and follow teams of oxen as they plough fields. The dress is reminiscent of that worn in ancient Greece."
In My opinion the last word of the reference above is a strong clue when describing the Taymora civilisation
8) - "As the foot of the doors are broken pedestals and shards of pottery. Among these are various small gold statues, small pieces of jewellery... All these items are from the ancient Taymora civilisation"
page 29:
9) - "A large 3'-diameter gold basin (...) is set into the floor. On it are two carved platinum statues of dolphins (...) with eyes made from large emeralds"
10) - "The ceremonial hall contains four solid gold statues (...) of the ancient Taymora. The eyes of the statues are made from large star sapphires."
From PC3 DM's manual:
page 41:
11) - During the ancient days following the destruction of Blackmoor, bands of humans calling themselves the Taymora moved south. Arriving at the fertile plains surrounding the southern sea, they established settlements along the cliffs and on the plains. They traded with the Verdier and Meditor elves, but when the sea rose, the majority of the Taymora perished. Battered by huge tidal waves and hurricanes of tremendous force, the few surviving Taymora fled the area and settled farther north in the present day lands of Karameikos. They were later absorbed by the Traldar when they arrived in the area... The ancient settlements of the Taymorans still remain on the floor of the Sunlit Sea where they are haunted by the remains of their dead.
page 44:
12) - On the first Terrace can be found innumerable sunken villages and towns of the Taymora civilisation. Claimed by the sea as it rushed to cover the land, the bleached bones of the settlements’ inhabitants lie there still. The shark-kin inhabit many of the ruined settlements, but there are some places where the shark-kin fear to go. These dark and sinister sites harbour malignant entities, beings whose evil has festered for much longer than they have been covered by the sea.
page 45:
13) - The Ruins of the Taymora: Scattered over the sea floor are the ruins of the Taymora. Avoided by most of the underwater races, these sunken homes are used by giant crabs, eels, sharks, and other creatures as lairs. Some of the ruins are rumoured to contain deep subterranean passages which still contain ancient pockets of air. Great treasures are said to await anyone brave enough to venture into the remains of the lost civilisation; however, rumours of undead guardians prevent even the hardiest of adventurers from exploring too far.
page 57:
14) - As a youth, Caxctiou loved to explore old ruins. He and his companions entered large numbers of Taymora tombs to lay the dead to rest. One day they set off to explore the ruins on the Terraces. Led by their shark-kin guide, they entered an ancient temple and were confronted by the horrific form of Saasskas the Hissing Demon. Using her demonic powers, Saasskas claimed their minds and souls. Her undead servants leeched the life out of them and turned them into velya.
page 59:
15) - As an Immortal, Saasskas takes a long-term view. Her plan is to spread dissent among the races of the sea and to set them against one another... She raises the dead of the1 sea as her soldiers in her war. Thousands of drowned sailors and the bones of the ancient Taymora wait for the day that she will send them against the sea peoples in a wave of unstoppable undeath.
COMMENTS:
The Taymoras are a relatively advanced people if we take into account the historical epoch in which they live. We could suppose that their social achievements are mostly due to the cultural influence of Meditor and Verdier elves, with whom there is an established trade (quote 11). The Taymoras were skilful jewellers and gemcutters, moreover they knew and used currencies (quotes 2, 9 and 10). They should be at least at the copper civilisation stage (quote 6) or maybe bronze (quote 1, maybe). It is not clear if they knew iron metallurgy or not.
From the other notes we know that the Taymoras used pottery (quote 8), were skilful builders and stonecutters (quote 5) and they built temples (quotes 5 e 14).
They dressed as ancient Greeks, farming and pasturing (quote 7). They reached the coast migrating from the north (quote 11) in 2500 BC and they built many towns and villages in the actual Ierendi-Minrothad area, attracted by the fertility of the local plains (quotes 11 and 12). From these info they do not seem to be a sea-oriented culture.
Among them there were for sure necromancers or evil summoners (quote 12); most of them, if not all, are devoted to Saasskas, as it seems that all the undead who dwell in the ruins of Taymoran settlements are under her control and await for her command in order to be summoned (quote 15).
It is possible that Tamoraz (the only Taymoran city with a known name) was the capital of their country, even though the Hollow World Boxed Set says that the first empire to be built on Mystara after the Great Rain of Fire was the Nithian Empire. Maybe the Taymoras were grouped under a confederation or an alliance of city-states, or some other less centralised government. The city of Tamoraz could have been just a prominent settlement of this culture. It was nevertheless a quite big city (from the maps shown on PC3 adventure booklet).
As it is known that the 2000 BC earthquakes are caused by an internal strife among the Immortals, it is possible that the practice of necromancy could have been related to the utter destruction of the Taymora civilisation (the Meditors, the Makais and the lizardmen were not as heavily affected as the Taymoras by the cataclysm). Most of the Taymoras' settlements should have been placed along the old coastal plains, as just a few people managed to survive to the cataclysm (quote 11).
If the Taymoras are assumed as being some kind of M-Greeks, then it could be easily inferred that the Greek traits of the Traldar culture were taken during the Taymora assimilation around BC 1500. The fallen, survived Taymora had a far more sophisticated culture than the invading Traldar, and a cultural contamination process happened before the Taymora disappearance.
Lastly, I'd say that the Taymora are of Neathar stock, both for their likely M-Greek culture and for their birthplace (the "north"). Given the fact that the Neathar-stock Urduks migrated in the Sind region in BC2500 (the same date as the Taymora migration) and that the HW pre cataclysmic migration map shows a Neathar people nucleus north of the Black Mountains, I'd suggest that the Taymora and Urduks actually moved south-west together from this area, taking different paths along the way and ending to settle different regions of Southern Brun.