Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Sep 02, 2003 6:43:12	After reading the Prism Pentad for the 2nd time just recently I find myself enjoying the idea of playing a halfling. Not the hobbit like complacent fat weak halflings, but the feral hunter pygmy type. So now I am just wondering what supplements there are out there to better fill in the gaps for the Darksun campaign halflings, are there any out there that detail one of the mountain domains of the halflings? and how many different mountain clusters do the halflings inhabit. etc. etc
#2 xlorepdarkhelm_dup Sep 02, 2003 11:41:13	I don't really think there is anything out at this time, however I'm sure the athas.org team would appreciate getting some material on Halflings from you, if you're up to it.
#3 zombiegleemax Sep 02, 2003 14:26:16	The Good and the Green was a nice little essay on halflings of the Forest Ridge. I seem to have lost my copy somehow in one of several recent comp crashes but I'm sure someone can post a link for you. Just to clarify, halflings don't live in the mountains, they live in the jungles. Little tribal cannibal pygmies . . .
#4 gforce99 Sep 03, 2003 12:49:52	And to add to this question, could someone explain what happened to the two different branches of the Halflings? The nature benders and nature masters? I think one is called Rhul-Thraun. Where are they now? Which one did Nok belong to? Thanks
#5 zombiegleemax Sep 03, 2003 13:30:51	The Unofficial and Unabridged History of Athasian Halflings, part 1.2 First there was the Blue Age when Athas was covered in oceans and the sun was a deeper shade of blue than Aunt Ethel's hair. At this time, halflings were the only intelligent species and they were called the Rhulisti. Thri-kreen were also around, but they were just real big dumb bugs, not uber cool killin' machines. The nature masters were the ones who manipulated the very essence of life to shape some spongy-like substance into whatever they needed. Then along come the nature benders who were just like the nature masters, only bad. The nature whichevers screw everything up by creating the brown tide, a weirdo as of yet fully unexplained or understood thingie or substance that starts killing everything in the sea. In order to stop the brown tide, the rhulisti tap the Pristine Tower, channel the suns energy and kill the brown tide. The sun turns from blue to yellow and the seas begin to retreat. The rhulisti then start the Rebirth, where they change themselves into all the other races of Athas (for some unknown reason and barely plausible reason). And so the Green Age begins. Lame explaination? Yup. But that's Athas for you. If you can't tell, I'm not reall fond of the ancient history of Athas. Anyhow, modern halflings are descendants of the rhulisti but their nothing like their ancestors. Nok wasn't a nature master/bender. He was a feral little druid. Nok probably wouldn't know jack about the rhulisti since that was all over 14,000 years ago. The closest thing to the rhulisti are the Rhul-thaun of the northern Jagged Cliffs. They still practice life-shaping, but even their society is far different than the ancient rhulisti.
#6 gforce99 Sep 03, 2003 13:50:21	Thanks for the reply. Is there any more info available for the Rhul-thaun? Are they planning to invade Tyr, fly into space, bring Rajaat back from the ...whatever? And are the Pyreen a New Race that evolved from the Rhulisti like everyone else?
#7 flip Sep 03, 2003 14:03:00	Originally posted by GFORCE99 Is there any more info available for the Rhul-thaun? Wind Riders of the Jagged Cliffs http://store.yahoo.com/svgames-store/ds2439esd.html And are the Pyreen a New Race that evolved from the Rhulisti like everyone else? Yes. Although there are also therories that tye the Pyreen more closely to the Nature Masters themselves ...
#8 xlorepdarkhelm_dup Sep 03, 2003 21:27:23	Originally posted by GFORCE99 And to add to this question, could someone explain what happened to the two different branches of the Halflings? The nature benders...? ... Where are they now? There's a theory that's been going around that the nature benders (the non-friendly, more dangerous group, if memory serves) is the race most directly responsible for the development of the Tohr-Kreen Empire and the Kreen as a race, possibly being the ancesors of the Zik-Chil (smallish, green-tinged kreen-like species that has some rather unique physical traits like 5-fingered very dexterous upper hands, referred to as the Kreen's "Priest" race, if memory serves again).
#9 zombiegleemax Sep 03, 2003 23:43:34	I'd rather have the zik'chil either have learned the art of lifeshaping, or stolen the knowledge from the ruins of the ancient rhulisti than have the nature benders be the secret power behind the throne (which is unusual for me since I tend to like multi layered structures like that in my plotlines). At best, and perhaps a slightly more interesting or at least more unique take on it would be that the zik'chil have in someway 'merged' with the ancient nature benders, hence the unusually human characteristics.
#10 xlorepdarkhelm_dup Sep 04, 2003 1:05:02	I see what you're saying Mach, however I really like the idea of the life-shaper (nature-benders?) having modified the Kreen to become sentient, and then altered themselves to be more Kreen-like. Set the Kreen with a goal of eventually conquering the tablelands area (where the exhiled rhulisti life-shapers were banned from), and then imprinting it onto the racial memories of their "pet race". Time has worked against them, however, and that original plan has been distorted and corrupted over millenia, and the racial memory, while an amazing thing of the Kreen, is far from perfect. The life-shapers, in their effort to make themselves superior, have, for all intents and purposes, written themselves out of existence, leaving only the Zik'Chil and Tohr-Kreen Empire in their wake - expansionistic to the extreme, and with an insatiable curoisity and desire to conquer the Tablelands - an area that logistically speaking, doesn't really provide the Tohr-Kreen Empire much more than they already have (having easy access to water and what I'd assume to be abundant food already), other than somewhere deep in their racial memory, they were initially programmed to attack it, and capture it for their rhulisti "benefactors". Well, at least that's my take on it. The life-shapers really don't exist any more, having changed themselves into pseudo-kreen (Zik'Chil), and lost their original purpose due to relying too much on the amazing memory of that race. Maybe not all of the life shapers did this, which could have led to the ones who did become Zik'Chil attacking and killing off the ones who didn't (or maybe there's a lost society of rhulisti life-shapers out there hiding from the Tohr-Kreen, somewhere past the Jagged Cliffs (which they couldn't cross back). Also - if (as someone suggested) the Pyreen are possibly direct decendents of the Rhulisti Life Masters, that could possibly explain why they are so protective of the Rhul-Thaun, and why they are so adamant against the Tohr-Kreen invading (helping the Rhul-Thaun defend the Cliffs and all). Animosity like that, which remains in verbal histories of societies (or written history in some cases on Athas) usually points to the idea that the decendents of both sides most likely retain that hatred.
#11 gforce99 Sep 16, 2003 8:50:03	Where can I learn more about this hostility between the Pyreen and the Tohr-Kreen and the Pyreens relationship with the Rhul-Thaun? Jagged Cliffs?
#12 Kamelion Sep 16, 2003 9:03:14	Where can I learn more about this hostility between the Pyreen and the Tohr-Kreen and the Pyreens relationship with the Rhul-Thaun? Jagged Cliffs? I thought that there was some stuff in the 2nd DS boxed set about the Pyreen and the Rhul Thaun. IIRC, the Pyreen valley is located near the Jagged Cliffs so that the Pyreen can keep an eye on the Rhul Thaun living there. Also, there is a group of halflings living in the Glowing Desert north of the Tyr region (also 2nd boxed set). They dwell in the area of an oasis called Small Water and live as desert raiders - totally different from the forest halflings and the cliff-dwelling rhul thaun. (I've been steadily working on a piece that details the area around the Scorched Plateau and the Small Water halflings feature in that to one degree or another. First installment due up in a week or so - finally!) "Mindlords of the Last Sea" also has some apocryphal details on Blue Age rhulisti, who apparently cooperated with psionic athasian dolphins to create vast underwater domains. It could be possible that some of these still exist, buried deep beneath the Sea of Silt. And then there are the bits in "City by the Silt Sea" that talk about subterranean rhulisti farms and ruins and the like (all taken over by the dray and various nasties now). More use as background, but does include maps that you might be able to retrofit and use. Although it was never properly covered in the official releases, many fans have incorporated the "rhulisti tunnels" that allegedly crisscross the athasian underdark into their games. There were some threads about this recently...
#13 zombiegleemax Sep 16, 2003 9:48:56	Although it was never properly covered in the official releases, many fans have incorporated the "rhulisti tunnels" that allegedly crisscross the athasian underdark into their games. Something to give this a twist. Its said that very little of Athas during the Blue Age was surface land. Granted the halfings could easily have delved out the tunnels and such but if they were submerged tunnels back then, ruins and such for these areas could have been built going up the walls and hanging from the cavern ceilings. Makes things a little more strange to the PCs when there's a small city at the top of a cave that there's no entrance to and no indications that the original inhabitants had wings to fly up there.
#14 zombiegleemax Sep 26, 2003 19:27:09	If you really need to get into an Athasian halfling mood and need to get hobbits out of your mind, watch the last half of Mummy Returns. Even though they are undead, and a little on the hilarious side, the little pygmy mummies start all kinds of ideas flowing about the forest ridge...
#15 zombiegleemax Sep 27, 2003 6:42:32	I guess you could look at the halfings as little pygmies (akin to the undead weirdo thingies from the Mummy Returns). I personally picture them far more into stealth and poison than swarm tactics, but maybe that's just me.