It's for a new campaign I've been planning for my PC's in the Valley, but there are no real ruins or points of interest so I wanted to explore the only area of any mystique the Dead Forest...
But how on Athas was there ever a Forest at the bottom of the sea... I'm venturing to guess the Rhulisti had something to do with it. Just wondering if anyone else ever ran a campaign in the Valley that included this area.
C'mon Pen, Xlore et al ... I know you guys have something in your cranium concerning this 'oddity'?
But then again I don't even know where the Dead Forest *is*, so...
Not to bring a kank back from the dead, but did Lynn Abbey have people living in the Valley in RaFoaDK... IIRC, Manu saw people in the Valley just before he pulled that half-gainer into the Ring of Fire?
Oh, and as far as your actual initial question of "where did the forest come from" my guess is that it was a side-effect of the construction of Ur Draxa - with all the plant life within the city there's going to be a good deal of pollen that'll make it out into the valley, and perhaps the Dead Forest just happens to lie in the primary direction that the wind blows. Wildfires have their own benefits to nature, so perhaps it's just a cycle of destruction and renewal that goes on every year as the "seasons" within the valley change.
I suppose that the forest would begin to regrow with the sudden deluge of water from the Storm
The Valley of Dust and Fire does indeed say what destroyed the former jungles. It says they were "slain by wind and the ashfall of the Valley".
It also says that "(t)he trees will never regrow, but in many places small and sturdy shrubs grow through the ash, fed by tiny springs in the deep ravines and dells of the ruined woods".
Lastly, it mentions that "the forests consists of charred gray trunks and dead trees of all kinds. Every year, a few more fall to the ravages of the Great Ash Storm. Half the threes of any forest region still stand as bare white skeletons." I would say that from this I would say that with the appearance of the Cerulean Storm, all of the remaining standing dead husks would be blown over.
I thought it (VoDaF) mentioned something to the extent of 'trees being uprooted by a great cataclysm'
I still have my notes from the books, but they ( my books ) are 'out of reach at the moment'. ( I also had a footnotes of p32 and p36-37 )
Something in there lead me to infer that the city was there before Borys came?
Eric-
I thought it (VoDaF) mentioned something to the extent of 'trees being uprooted by a great cataclysm'
Well, everything I wrote up were excerpts from the Dead Forest terrain entry on page 32. It appears to be about the general "dead forest" terrain to be encountered throughout the Valley. Page 36 describes what is called "the Dead Forest", this is the largest of all dead forest terrains in the Valley. This largest of the dead forest is described as "many of the dessicated trees have been knocked flat by some ancient cataclysm—entire hillsides are littered with the wreckage of the once-beautiful forest".
Because the p.32 excerpt describes the dead forests as being remnants of an "ancient jungle". And the page 36-37 excerpt describes the largest dead forest cluster being an "ancient forest" destroyed by an "ancient cataclysm".
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However, in the history of the Ur Draxans it mentions "Over thousands of years, the Ur Draxans have become enlightened and ennobled by their associations with their city and the Dragon", and "Every Draxan alive today can trace his lineage back to the first citizens of the city, great heroes of the Dragon's armies.
So the question as to who came first, the City or the Draxan's isn't quite answered difinitively. We can say that the city is probably thousands of years old, and the dead forests are at least even older. I would go out on a limb and suggest that the city was there (maybe not as large back then) and was once surrounded by lush forest before the Cleansing Wars started.
What was not so long ago the Valley of Dust and Fire was once an island. When the water of the Sunrise Sea was replaced by silt to form the Silt Sea, the silt took more place, why the cities formerly near the water - Ebe, Bodach, etc - were swallowed by it. So what formerly was land sticking out of the waters to form an island is now land sitting below the silt line.
IIRC its the raging ashstorm and powerful cyclonic winds - powered by the vast tracks of open air magma - that prevent the silt from covering the former island.
Its called "Deadvlei" and its in Namibia.
The calcined trees are hundreds of years old.
For some really good photos go here ---> Deadvlei
f.
On earth a person standing at sea level can see 5km (approx 3mi) to the horizon. After performing some basic trigonometry comparing a distance of 210 mi 'as the crow flies' ( from the map ) to the hypotenuse based on a triange with points at The Bleak Tower ( where it is said one can see the Great Ash Storm ) and directly above the outside edge of the Storm, and using a rise/run of 20ft per mi ( apparently from p29 ) we find that the hypotenuse is almost identical to the 'as the crow flies' distance leading us to one of three posibilities:
1: Athas is HUGE ( larger than Earth according to these calculations and rivaling Saturn )
2: Athas is flat ( ala all folks that came before Gallileo )
3: The Valley lies on the 'Sea floor thingny' as you so elequently put it.
Pen-
On earth a person standing at sea level can see 5km (approx 3mi) to the horizon. After performing some basic trigonometry comparing a distance of 210 mi 'as the crow flies' ( from the map ) to the hypotenuse based on a triange with points at The Bleak Tower ( where it is said one can see the Great Ash Storm ) and directly above the outside edge of the Storm, and using a rise/run of 20ft per mi ( apparently from p29 ) we find that the hypotenuse is almost identical to the 'as the crow flies' distance leading us to one of three posibilities:
1: Athas is HUGE ( larger than Earth according to these calculations and rivaling Saturn )
2: Athas is flat ( ala all folks that came before Gallileo )
3: The Valley lies on the 'Sea floor thingny' as you so elequently put it.
Right at the beginning of VoDaF it says that the great dust storm rises 10 miles high and can be seen from 200 miles away on a clear day. I don't know if your math re: the horizon applies to taller objects as well, but if so then that'd make Athas what, about 7 times the size of the Earth?
As for the valley itself, what maps we have from the VoDaF supplement seem to indicate that if it was an island, it wasn't much of one - the silt drops 2000 feet down to the valley, so if Penn's right that's a *ton* of expansion from water->silt...and it would have swallowed up the entire tablelands if the silt rose a 1/2 mile above the old sea level.
On the other hand, the full-size map of the valley shows that the nearly the entire outer edge is badlands, which (on Athas at least) are almost universally associated with the "border'ands" around mountains. Although there are few actual mountain ranges in the valley, it's quite possible that the valley was once surrounded by a mountain range, and thus a "below sea level" island (truly a valley in the middle of a sea), and that during the last 2 millenia the great silt storm has worn those mountains completely down, leaving only the badlands.
But as far as it once being an island in the sea...unless it sunk when the ring of fire sprang up (again, a possibility) I don't see how that'd work.
3: The Valley lies on the 'Sea floor thingny' as you so elequently put it.
There is a sideview diagram of the Silt Sea out near the Valley, it shows the Silt Sea's silt depth being at least 3,000 feet deep. In other words, the "surface" of the silt sea is 3,000 feet above the floor where the Valley is.
If we take some things implied through VoDaF—the Valley is 3,000 feet below the silt surface, an ancient cataclysm knocked low the dead forests, open magma rifts ring the City of Ur Draxa—why not imagine that the wider region of Ur Draxa was once a modest sized island in the Sunrise Sea, and similar to the myths of Atlantis, some "ancient cataclysm" caused Ur Draxa to "sink below" the old sea level. The ancient cataclysm also set in place the magical dimension barriers. VoDaF says the heat from the open magma rifts creates the super-heated furnace winds that whip of the Great Ash Storm that domes over the Valley, but who is to say that the Great Ash Storm wasn't also magically fueled or guided on some level. *shrug*
Of course this ancient cataclysm wouldn't have been necessarily natural, but probably created by the Borys, and maybe the other Champions, to put the prison of Rajaat as far from meddling eyes as possible.
On the other hand, the full-size map of the valley shows that the nearly the entire outer edge is badlands, which (on Athas at least) are almost universally associated with the "border'ands" around mountains. Although there are few actual mountain ranges in the valley, it's quite possible that the valley was once surrounded by a mountain range, and thus a "below sea level" island (truly a valley in the middle of a sea), and that during the last 2 millenia the great silt storm has worn those mountains completely down, leaving only the badlands.
QUOTE]
I like this idea a lot
Obviously the place was an island, as mentionned in VoDaF, and obviously it sunk. The sinking process is unexplained, and AFAIK so is the process that prevents the silt from crashing in. One smells magic.
Eric is laying down the conceptual framework for it.
(I had forgotten the valley was 3,000 feet below the silt line, I thought it was maybe 50-100 feet.)
I am leaving town for the next week ( back to my folks place where my books are stored for the time being as there is not much space in my studio ). Fortunately I will have my DS literature and my calculus books from college, but no access to the internet ( they were born inn the stone age and don't see a need for a computer even ).
Hypothesis: The silt that now constitutes the sea came from the bedrock of what would have been the base of the island.
Experiment: Using calculus i will find the volume of a "slice/dome section" of a sphere using the dimentions we have been discusing and the 'hint' that the Sea of Silt is roughly 'bowl' shaped ( as I understand it is not perfectly circular and I will not be able to account for the displacement of the various islands and other structures or the fact that the botom is not perfectly smooth ) I will then subtract the volume of the resulting 'cone' that was the result of my previous calculations and this should be the volume of Silt needed to fill the basin.
My theory is that the volume of silt needed to fill the basin is approximately the same as the volume of 'dust' that would have been produced if an island had 'exploded' in the center of the sea (a cylinder) I will be calculatiing the volumes of 2 cylinders: One having a circumfrence equal to the entire Valley and one being just as large as the island that Ur Draxa rests on.
Now, before the flames come I do understand a few fundamental things I am leaving out in the math... but I will try my best to cover those with standard deviation and 'fluff'
Now you say, 'Silt is fertile... how could the bedrock of an island ( as islands usually consist of igneous stone ) be fertile?... I will try to cover this with compaction of the silt and the remains of the life energy ( Rhulisti Goo ) that died in the Brown Tide ( as I feel the Tide came from the death of whatever 'organism' it was that they were harvsting from the sea to begin with )
Or, the Silt may have come from a rift sililar to the one that was unleashed upon the area now known as The Dead Lands.
I implore you all... feedback of any kind is greatly appreciated... but be kind ( cynical is cool though) as I have speant a great deal of time on this to create an awesome campaign in the Valley that my players should ( hopefully ) delight in... and... i cry... easily (JK)
Dirk-
I do think you are on to something with the ring of badlands at the edge of the Valley, but, may I propose that they were created as the land fell 'inward' while the island was sunk rather than 'outward' as in the formation of the mountains elsewhere on Athas?
Pen-
Thank You! Most sincerly. Please continue to challenge my thesis with your ever openminded knowledge. I smell magic as well, summonded in order to hide the Dark Cyst from any who would come to free the Warbringer.
Eric-
With the absence of my books from the begining of my post, you have fueled my hunger to 'create/write/theorize'. By finding the canon I needed to complete my project... I too will be in MN ( yay for 90 degrees and 90% humidity *bleh )
Well.. it's off to my abbacus and slide rule... wish me luck ;)
When the Cleansing Wars raged, the destruction to the land brought on by the massive use of defiling unsettled the balance of the four elements (Athas is made of relatively equal parts of the four elements), letting through innordinate amouts of paralements. In short, water turned to silt. Also, as each Champion was created, the sun turned a bit darker, empowering the sun paraelement.
Right now everyone is a slave to the dominion of the paraelements sun and silt, the former baking us, and the latter ensuring the land is barren by substituting itself for the life-giving waters. The only places on Athas where their dominion is not absolute are places where there is so much natural sources of water - like the Last Sea or the Ironcrag Mountains: the rain clouds that are produced there filter the sun's harsh rays, casting it back to its gentler pre-Cleansing Wars self, and the flowing water brings back the balance of the four elements once had during the Green Age.
Eric-
With the absence of my books from the begining of my post, you have fueled my hunger to 'create/write/theorize'. By finding the canon I needed to complete my project...
I love theorizing/speculating about making wild ideas fit, especially in my favorite RPG settings, Dark Sun is among my faves. I only wish academic research was as fun as RPG research is to me.
I too will be in MN ( yay for 90 degrees and 90% humidity *bleh )
You're telling me! Whew, I've been working with my father this summer, he's a roofer, and being on an angled asphalt shingle roof with no shade for up to 8 hours a day in this heat and humidity is... giving me a new appreciation for heat rules and dehydration rules!
You're telling me! Whew, I've been working with my father this summer, he's a roofer, and being on an angled asphalt shingle roof with no shade for up to 8 hours a day in this heat and humidity is... giving me a new appreciation for heat rules and dehydration rules!
Of all the jobs I have had, none was more HATED than roofing. It was the only job that I had to clean the shower AFTER using it. Makes me happy to be in grad school.
An island that naturally forms with a ring of mountains around it so as to keep the sea at bay is laughable. Short of postulating the rhulisti did it, even though their technology was in lifeshaping, not island-raising, I don't see it happening.
Obviously the place was an island, as mentionned in VoDaF, and obviously it sunk. The sinking process is unexplained, and AFAIK so is the process that prevents the silt from crashing in. One smells magic.
I won't argue that my idea is unlikely and that it might have instead been an island that, for whatever reason, "sunk," but to call the idea laughable is going a little far. We've got a good number of islands on Earth that are basically the remnants of a volcanic mountain that exploded, with the water filling in the center. If the volcano was large enough, or if a meteor impact or something caused a crater instead, it's quite possible that it could have created a "natural" valley-island. Throw in the fact that the overall sea level may have lowered before it rose again (as it was converting to the silt sea) and who knows. *shrug*
And anyway, note that I never, ever said that the idea relied on it being "natural." The entire valley is unnatural no matter how you look at it, just like a lot of the other geographical features on Athas, so I'm fine with it potentially being either Rhulisti-built, shaped by magic, or the result of an actual island sinking. My idea is just "another possibility."
Also: Although not directly related, geologically speaking, there's a decent theory about how the Black Sea was formed ~6000 BC when, due to rising sea levels, the Bosphorus Strait finally connected the Mediterranean to the until-then large valley/fresh-water lake region whose shoreline was some 100 meters lower than that of the Bosphorus. True, it's not a case of mountains (naturally or unnaturally) creating a "sunken island" as it were, but it is a real-world example of a below-sea-level valley sitting (literally) within miles of a sea and yet remaining separated from it.
As for the whole Ash Storm thingy - I think VoDaF tries to explain it using pseudo-science, something along the lines of "the intense heat from the Ring of Fire causes the heated air to rise, which creates a dome of air currents blowing away from the valley that collide with external air currents at its borders, thus creating the Great Ash Storm."
That being said, the trees could have been remnants of what was first brought there for the purposes of building and enchanting the city. If the valley is now cool enough, then they might eventually grow back. The slave tribes in the area are in survival mode though, and I doubt that they would do anything but attack or hide from intruders. They have spent their whole lives in the shadow of the city, and probably don’t trust anyone.
Nothing against anything said here, but it seems to me that people are forgetting the purpose of the Valley of Dust and Fire. .... The entire valley is the defenses to protect against those who would try to free Rajaat.
Well, in fact I had mentioned as much when I said above, "...to put the prison of Rajaat as far from meddling eyes as possible." :D
If the valley is now cool enough, then they might eventually grow back.
I don't think this would be at all possible. The trees that are there are dead, not just dormant. The Dead Forests's entries mention that there is soft loamy soil beneath the ashen layers that are fed by water springs, all this is enough for a shrub undergrowth to exist in patches throughout the Dead Forest regions. The conditions were good enough for plants to grow. If the trees could be regrowing they would have. To me it is pretty clear. The trees are dead and there were no seeds that survived whatever killed them.
Frankly, I have trouble believing the city of Ur Draxa could even have a high level of agriculture itself. With the Great Ash Storm covering over the whole region there is not enough sunlight for plants to grow enough to harvest. I mean, I'm a fan of post-apocalypse stuff that I have read quite a bit about what would happen with post-apocalypse scenarios, particularly nuclear winter or meteor impacts. In both of these it is hypothesized that it would be the increased cloudcover that would blot out the sun for years or decades that ends up making it impossible to grow food in quantities to feed everyone in the world. Well, we have thick clouds blotting over the Valley for centuries if not thousands of years. How can any plants that feed this city grow there with no sunlight? I dunno, this just hit me recently and I find it one of the most troubling things. In any case, the Cerulean Storm is there now and nothing grows no matter what.
And now with the Cerulean Storm, there will be no trees growing ever, until the storm is stopped. Why? The continuous winds of the storm are too great.
Well, in fact I had mentioned as much when I said above, "...to put the prison of Rajaat as far from meddling eyes as possible." :D
I don't think this would be at all possible. The trees that are there are dead, not just dormant. The Dead Forests entries mention that there is soft loamy soil beneath the ashen layers that are fed by water springs, all this is enough for a shrub undergrowth to exist in patches throughout the Dead Forest regions. The conditions were good enough for plants to grow. If the trees could be regrowing they would have. To me it is pretty clear. The trees are dead and there were no seeds that survived whatever killed them.
True, I was thinking more about trees that have pollenated from the city itself. However, given the storm, it is very doubtful that they would have, without druidic help.
Frankly, I have trouble believing the city of Ur Draxa could even have a high level of agriculture itself. With the Great Ash Storm covering over the whole region there is not enough sunlight for plants to grow enough to harvest. I mean, I'm a fan of post-apocalypse stuff that I have read quite a bit about what would happen with post-apocalypse scenarios, particularly nuclear winter or meteor impacts. In both of these it is hypothesized that it would be the increased cloudcover that would blot out the sun for years or decades that ends up making it impossible to grow food in quantities to feed everyone in the world. Well, we have thick clouds blotting over the Valley for centuries if not thousands of years. How can any plants that feed this city grow there with no sunlight? I dunno, this just hit me recently and I find it one of the most troubling things. In any case, the Cerulean Storm is there now and nothing grows no matter what.
And now with the Cerulean Storm, there will be no trees growing ever, until the storm is stopped. Why? The continuous winds of the storm are too great.
The only thing is that the sky above the city was the eye of the storm, and they did have light and quite a bit of agriculture. This was probably magic made to start, but it is now cultivated by slaves, or at least was. With the Cerulean Storm, everything is new and different, so all the old rules go out the window.
The only thing is that the sky above the city was the eye of the storm, and they did have light and quite a bit of agriculture.
I'm not sure this is true. VoDaF, p. 74, states with regards to The Dragon's Sanctum that "(t) Dragon's Sanctum is an open area of beautiful forest (primarily trees of life) seven miles in diameter. ... Overhead, the eerie dancing aurora appears as a warm golden glow—the hue of the sky as it should appear, unmarked by the roiling cloids of ash that roof the rest of the Valley of Dust and Fire. This is the eye of the storm, the center of the Dragon's power."
I believe the eye of the storm that pierces the cloud cover is only over the seven mile diameter Dragon's Sanctum, not the entire city. A caveat, I'm not saying the city inside the walls are lashed by the Great Ash Storm (which does blow just outside the walls at over 100 mph almost down to the ground, as p. 51 states), only that it is cloud covered.