Text from B3 is in italics
Brotherhood of Gorm
Their god, Gorm, is the god of war, storms, and justice. The followers of Gorm are male fighters of Lawful alignment. All wear golden masks of the face of Gorm, a long-haired, bearded man with a stern gaze. Each Brother also wears iron chain mail over a blue tunic. Under the armour, each has a small blue lightning bolt tattooed on his right shoulder. The Brothers believe in justice tempered by mercy. They worship Gorm on the fourth day of each week and consider lightning storms to be holy.
Dragon 315 -
Alignment: LN
Favoured Weapon: Longsword
Domains: Air, Law, and War
Gorm sounds like he may be Thor under a different name (lightning, 4th day = Thursday, etc)
Magi of Usamigaras
This faction worships Usamigaras, the god of healing, messengers, and thieves. They are all Neutral magic-users, wearing silver masks of the face of Usamigaras, the smiling child. The Magi also carry silver daggers and wear rainbow-coloured robes.
The right palm of each is marked with small silver lines in the shape of a five pointed star. The Magi are usually friendly towards clerics, thieves, elves, and magic-users, but look down upon fighters, dwarves, and halflings. Usamigaras is worshipped on certain days when the heavenly stars and planets are in the right patterns. The Magi record the positions of the stars and planets so that they will know when their holy days are.
Dragon 315 -
Alignment: CN
Favoured Weapon: Dagger
Domains: Healing, Magic, and Trickery
Warrior Maidens of Madarua
The Maidens worship Madarua, goddess of birth, death, and the changing seasons. They are Neutral female fighters. The Warrior Maidens wear bronze chain mail armour over green tunics. Each Maiden has a small sickle-shaped scar on the inside of her left wrist. Madarua has a special holy day at the beginning of each of the four seasons.
Dragon 315 -
Alignment: N
Favoured Weapon: Longspear
Domains: Death, Healing, and Protection
Cult of Zargon
The Priests of Zargon are a fourth faction. They are found mainly in areas outside the basic adventure. The Priests of Zargon serve the evil monster Zargon and control the undergound city.
Dragon 315 -
Alignment: LE
Favoured Weapon: Light Flail
Domains: Destruction, Evil, and Law
Hope that helps,
Gary
One thing puzzles me though,
Magi of Usamigaras
This faction worships Usamigaras, the god of healing, messengers, and thieves. They are all Neutral magic-users, wearing silver masks of the face of Usamigaras, the smiling child.
The Magi are usually friendly towards clerics, thieves, elves, and magic-users, but look down upon fighters, dwarves, and halflings.
If I recall correctly, Havard and DM wrote somewhere in the Complete List of Mystara Immortals thread that Usamigaras was a halfling immortal. Why then would he have a cult of mages worshipping him and discriminating against halflings??
:-) Jesper
Now, on to Jesper's question: it was not I nor Haavard who wrote that Usamigaras is a halfling, but rather it was Aaron Allston in WotI.
There are some great problems with Allston's writeup in WotI as I already said in the Immortals' thread, and Usamigaras is just one of them. According to B4 he was "the smiling child". Allston turned him into a "halfling" when he wrote his short bio in WotI, completly ignoring the line saying that his priests don't go along with halflings, among others.
Now my explanation of this is that B4 was written with rules in mind more than atmosphere. in OD&D halfling, elf and dwarf were CLASSES just like Fighter, Thief, Cleric and Wizard. What it is implied in the above mentioned line is that the Magi of Usamigaras are friendly towards spellcasters (arcane and divine) and thieves, while they do not tolerate fighters (so they discriminate against the "fighter-type" races too, namely halflings and dwarves). That's the only possible explanation really, especially if you consider that there are NO hins and NO dwarves in Cynidicea during the adventure, so how the hell do the inhabitants know what kind of race are they (Cynidicea is not easily accessible, so I don't think there's a lot of demi-humans passing by, especially since it's in the middle of the desert)???
I've got some serious gripes with Tubak being another name for Ixion, for example, given the fact Ixion has always been the NG type and Tubak was more LN!! The fact Allston completely disregarded what was written in GAZ12 (the spirit world and all) is astonishing to me, since he pourposefully rejected the version of Tubak, Yamuga and Cretia given by Jim Bambra and overwrote them (completely missing the flavour of the spirit world).
Even stranger is the fact that PWA2, a later sourcebook, lists TUBAK and IXION as two separate deities! Whoa, confusion arises here...
Also, there was IMO NO NEED to have the three Cynidicean Immortals as three new deities, but Allston thought otherwise and made them so. Thor would have been a good choice for Gorm, Vanya for Madarua and Idraote for Usamigaras. Alas, they don't match in power levels and even in spheres, so...
Anyway, I've stuck to Allston's description, so much for my disliking :D :p
First of all Thanks to Gary for the nice work ;)
Now, on to Jesper's question: it was not I nor Haavard who wrote that Usamigaras is a halfling, but rather it was Aaron Allston in WotI.
Maybe Allston is Loki in disguise and just wanted to confuse us Mystara scholars. :D
Gary
Now, on to Jesper's question: it was not I nor Haavard who wrote that Usamigaras is a halfling, but rather it was Aaron Allston in WotI.
I see. My bad. :D
There are some great problems with Allston's writeup in WotI.
That's the only possible explanation really, especially if you consider that there are NO hins and NO dwarves in Cynidicea during the adventure
I agree. It seems to have been written more for classes than for atmosphere.
I've got some serious gripes with Tubak being another name for Ixion, for example, given the fact Ixion has always been the NG type and Tubak was more LN!! The fact Allston completely disregarded what was written in GAZ12 (the spirit world and all) is astonishing to me, since he pourposefully rejected the version of Tubak, Yamuga and Cretia given by Jim Bambra and overwrote them (completely missing the flavour of the spirit world).
Even stranger is the fact that PWA2, a later sourcebook, lists TUBAK and IXION as two separate deities! Whoa, confusion arises here...
I didn't know that. I have to get my hands on the Ethengar gaz so I can read more about Tubak and the Spirit World.
Anyway, I've stuck to Allston's description, so much for my disliking :D :p
Too bad, I would have liked to see alternative versions of Cretia and Yamuga and Tubak :D
:-) Jesper
Ixion/Tubak as LG might be a good compromise to your problem, Marco!
I agree that making the Cynicedians equivalents of existing Immortals would have been a good idea. IMC I have instead included the Cynicedians in the Thyatian Pantheon, since they could fill some roles that were missing from that pantheon, namely:
Gorm: Patron of Strength (I dont want Thor in the Thyatian one)
Madura: Patroness of Victory (Equivalent of Nike)
Usamigaras: Cant remember what I decided to do with him offhard :P
By the way I've spotted a new immortal!!!
Vulcan is mentioned in the Penhaligon Trilogy, in the last book IIRC. I suspect he is an identity of Wayland, perhaps the Thyatian/Karameikan name for him, as he is believed to be the one who made the sword Wyrmblight and later reforged it to Peace.
Thought that might interest some of you
Håvard
"The scholarly part of his personality is offset by the chaotic nature of the Sphere of Energy and the fiery nature of the sun he embodies, so Ixion has a fiery temper and a passionate nature. [...] His NEUTRAL alignment represents the midpoint of his scholastic mind and his fiery personality."
Also, if you check out Hollow World, you'll see that Ixion is NEUTRAL even there, and the description matches the one found in WotI (Allston added some bits here and there, but based himself on HW text).
So his LAWFUL nature is a later addition and is mainly restricted to the Savage Coast religions... that's why more than ever havin him NG (the embodiment of GOOD instead of LAW) is more appropriate. This way he can have NG, LG, CG and TN clerics!
If he were LG, he could have only LG and LN priests, and this doesn't match!
Concerning the three Cynidiceans, I must add something.
IN the Cynidicea gaz Gorm is portrayed as a tanagoro. This can't be true, since GOrm is a typical Viking name (Gorm is said to be the first Danish king). So IMO Gorm must have been an Antalian (prolly a cleric of Thor, this way we explain his association with storms and war and his allegiance to Energy) coming to Cynidicea shortly after its foundation and he could have been the first king, as Allston writes and is testified by the images inside one of the temple's chambers in B4.
Usamigaras's real identity is more puzzling, but I would follow Allston's interpretation, since there is really nothing solid against him being a halfling (said passaged in B4 can be interpreted reading "fighter" instead of "halfling" as I explained).
Madarua, now this is a problem. Madarua is not the embodiment of Nike, but if you look closely at the original description of the Maidens of Madarua that Gary kindly posted at the beginning of the thread, you may spot some interesting things:
1. she's associated with natural cycle (life - death) and harvest
2. she's associated with seasons and time
3. she's NOT associated with war, even if she's got Warrior Maidens as servants, so this may say something.
Regarding point 3, we may also look at Gorm to better understand the role of Warrior Maidens. Gorm only accepts males inside his clergy, and these males are warriors at heart. Madarua could have accepted only females and called them Warrior Maidens also as a rivalry against Gorm.
But apart from this, Madarua is clearly more a patron of the natural cycle, of natural balance, rather than victory. War comes in to a lesser extent. Allston instead insisted ONLY on his "warrior aspect" in the short bio he wrote for her, and completely lost the original portfolio of the deity.
To me, she's much more similar to the Greek Demetra or Roman Cerere (the Magna Mater) or the Babylonian Cybele than to Nike or Athena or whatever.
So what I'm pondering now is: what If I completely discard Allston's description and hypothesize that Madarua is the only one of the three Cynidicean deities that had always been immortal and never a mortal queen of the city? What if she was first worshipped by the settlers of Cynidicea (traldars prolly)?
And more: could I link her to Ninsun (Sumer goddess of fertility and harvest, and mother of the hero Gilgamesh), who appeared in Immortal and MAster set as creator of Humbaba's Eye, who's got SAME level (Empyreal) and SAME sphere (Energy)? Maybe Madarua is just one of the names the mortals gave her...
As you can see, many ideas to ponder for the moment... :P
Oh, as for Vulcan, thanks Haavard. I'll add this ID to Wayland ;)
So what I'm pondering now is: what If I completely discard Allston's description and hypothesize that Madarua is the only one of the three Cynidicean deities that had always been immortal and never a mortal queen of the city? What if she was first worshipped by the settlers of Cynidicea (traldars prolly)?
And more: could I link her to Ninsun (Sumer goddess of fertility and harvest, and mother of the hero Gilgamesh), who appeared in Immortal and MAster set as creator of Humbaba's Eye, who's got SAME level (Empyreal) and SAME sphere (Energy)? Maybe Madarua is just one of the names the mortals gave her...
That makes sense I think, go for it!
I just had another thought about Cynidicians being ancestors of the Traldar:
Gorm, Usamigaras and Madarua = three immortals
Halav, Zirchev and Petra = three immortals
Two males, one female
A warrior immortal (Gorm/Halav), an immortal who was first a mage (Usamigaras/Zirchev) and the female immortal (Madarua/Petra).
Reincarnations?
Just a ramble of thoughts late in the night :D
:-) Jesper
I just had another thought about Cynidicians being ancestors of the Traldar:
Gorm, Usamigaras and Madarua = three immortals
Halav, Zirchev and Petra = three immortals
Two males, one female
A warrior immortal (Gorm/Halav), an immortal who was first a mage (Usamigaras/Zirchev) and the female immortal (Madarua/Petra).
Reincarnations?
Now that's interesting. (As one acme lab mouse said to another, "Are you pondering what I'm pondering?")
Anyway, the Traladaran trio could certainly have been used in place of Gorm, Madarua and Usamigaras... a pity that Allston hadn't invented them when B4 was written... or that Allston didn't recycle the Cynidicean trio when he wrote GAZ1. ;)
Usamigaras originally took the form of a child, but outsiders who saw art depicting him assumed it was a halfling, and spread stories about the new "halfling Immortal". Some hin started to worship him, and of course Usamigaras wasn't going to turn down new worshippers so he took a second form (much like Atzanteotl has both human and elven forms, although he was an elf in life). However, the original cult resents these newcomers and thinks they're heretics.