![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
More inspiration from ibn Battuta
Jul. 25th, 2021 01:02 pmAs always, I read history mostly for education, but with one eye on things I can steal for my gaming and fiction settings. The travels of ibn Battuta have been a goldmine for both.
But this one comes from when Battuta was in what is now Souther Iran, near the city of Shiraz. Hus guides tell him that the wastes they were covering were unpassable for two months in the summer, as the winds blow so hot that anyone who braved them would die, and that if a man's friends tried to wash his body for burial, it would simply fall apart.
I did a little fact-checking, and that part of southern Persia does get seasonal hot, dry windstorms, similar to the Santa Ana winds here in California. Dangerous, yes, but not as deadly as reported. Unless we put the winds in a fantastic setting. . .
Pick a stretch of blasted desert in your campaign world. As I tend to use a fantasy version of Europe and North Africa, I'll use the Sahara. Now, in my setting, there was a great Dwarf Empire that stretched across most of North Africa when it was still grasslands. Human clients or slaves worked the land, and the dwarfs protected them from their mountain redoubts.
One of the greatest dangers facing the empire was the periodic appearances by the demon lord Yeenougu, who was able to somehow manifest himself in central Africa at least six times in recorded history. The Visitations, as the records call them, resulted in Yeenougu creating vast mobs of gnolls and hyenas which he would send on invasions of the fertile Sahara lands.
During the Fourth Visitation, a team of human and dwarf wizards combined in a magical ritual designed to destroy the approaching horde and the demon lord himself. They created a huge firestorm that raged for weeks, destroy the gnolls, and banishing Yeenogu. But they miscalculated the power they were harnessing and were unable to fully dismiss the storm. Now, every summer, when the winds begin to blow hot wise beings run for their lives.
Because what begins as hot winds will soon develop into raging gales, and wind-blown dust will give way to burning ember and sheets of flame. Being from the Pillar of Fire appear, and rage uncontrolled. At their peak, the fire winds consume everything, leaving not ever ash, just scorched rock. Then the winds and fires die down, and in a few weeks, they are gone for the next year.
Sounds good, right? Let's make it better!
The dwarfs, knowing that Yeenougu was not the only threat from the mysterious South, built lines of forts along their southern borders. Knowing that even with the fire winds, the borders still needed to be guarded, they built tunnels between the forts and turned them into storehouses, deep wells, and barracks. The only entrances are in the now ruined forts and require special keys to enter. . . unless you are in the fort when the fire winds start to blow, in which case they will open for any dwarf.
So you have a linear dungeon that is at least a hundred miles long, a Maginot Line of forgotten chambers. Who knows what the dwarfs left behind, and who knows what has crept in?
Now, placing this wonder. . . looking at the Sahara, I think the Tanezrouft works well. It's utter dry, desolate, and no one dares live there.
This is why I love worldbuilding. Three lines in the journals of a 14th-century traveler have created not just a place of danger, but a place of mystery that has a reason to be there!
Oh, and those wizards? They did this working in around 4200 BCE. Their magic caused the desertification of the Sahara and hastened the fall of the dwarf empire.
But this one comes from when Battuta was in what is now Souther Iran, near the city of Shiraz. Hus guides tell him that the wastes they were covering were unpassable for two months in the summer, as the winds blow so hot that anyone who braved them would die, and that if a man's friends tried to wash his body for burial, it would simply fall apart.
I did a little fact-checking, and that part of southern Persia does get seasonal hot, dry windstorms, similar to the Santa Ana winds here in California. Dangerous, yes, but not as deadly as reported. Unless we put the winds in a fantastic setting. . .
Pick a stretch of blasted desert in your campaign world. As I tend to use a fantasy version of Europe and North Africa, I'll use the Sahara. Now, in my setting, there was a great Dwarf Empire that stretched across most of North Africa when it was still grasslands. Human clients or slaves worked the land, and the dwarfs protected them from their mountain redoubts.
One of the greatest dangers facing the empire was the periodic appearances by the demon lord Yeenougu, who was able to somehow manifest himself in central Africa at least six times in recorded history. The Visitations, as the records call them, resulted in Yeenougu creating vast mobs of gnolls and hyenas which he would send on invasions of the fertile Sahara lands.
During the Fourth Visitation, a team of human and dwarf wizards combined in a magical ritual designed to destroy the approaching horde and the demon lord himself. They created a huge firestorm that raged for weeks, destroy the gnolls, and banishing Yeenogu. But they miscalculated the power they were harnessing and were unable to fully dismiss the storm. Now, every summer, when the winds begin to blow hot wise beings run for their lives.
Because what begins as hot winds will soon develop into raging gales, and wind-blown dust will give way to burning ember and sheets of flame. Being from the Pillar of Fire appear, and rage uncontrolled. At their peak, the fire winds consume everything, leaving not ever ash, just scorched rock. Then the winds and fires die down, and in a few weeks, they are gone for the next year.
Sounds good, right? Let's make it better!
The dwarfs, knowing that Yeenougu was not the only threat from the mysterious South, built lines of forts along their southern borders. Knowing that even with the fire winds, the borders still needed to be guarded, they built tunnels between the forts and turned them into storehouses, deep wells, and barracks. The only entrances are in the now ruined forts and require special keys to enter. . . unless you are in the fort when the fire winds start to blow, in which case they will open for any dwarf.
So you have a linear dungeon that is at least a hundred miles long, a Maginot Line of forgotten chambers. Who knows what the dwarfs left behind, and who knows what has crept in?
Now, placing this wonder. . . looking at the Sahara, I think the Tanezrouft works well. It's utter dry, desolate, and no one dares live there.
This is why I love worldbuilding. Three lines in the journals of a 14th-century traveler have created not just a place of danger, but a place of mystery that has a reason to be there!
Oh, and those wizards? They did this working in around 4200 BCE. Their magic caused the desertification of the Sahara and hastened the fall of the dwarf empire.
