Are not heroes.
Speaker 2Nor villain. Neither cames nor magicians.
Speaker 3But we can tell you their stories. We are.
Speaker 1Welcome to Haloumi. You were listening to doorkeepers a lot or building podcast where we talk about ancient history heroes and villains and the forces that were with Advo. I'm Carter and I'm frank whether you're interested in stories looking for inspiration in your own world building or perhaps you want to participate.
Speaker 4We've got something for you. This week we're going to be talking about another of the five members. We'll figure out which one that is. But first Frank how are you doing.
Speaker 5I'm doing pretty good. It's been it's been an interesting week come a long weekend to make up some hours at work. But I've been I finally got some time to relax last night you know. Watch one of the Avengers movies. I saw The Avengers reason. It's my girlfriend because she never seen it before. It's great. How'd you do it. Yeah. I mean she she liked it. She's so she. She has to read a lot of academic stuff right now and so. Have having something that's just really dumb and palatable to kind of come back to without thought is exactly what she was looking for. Yeah because we're kind of where she is she's never really gotten into him and she's interested in the bigger Medick conversation we're going through it exploring them together. I I've tasked myself with the impossible goal of trying to reduce it to only like five or so maybe six or seven movies total to watch to really get like wrap your head around all of this stuff that's going on in the MCU so you know good luck with that.
Speaker 6Yeah. I mean you know you've got like maybe a dozen good movies and they'll see you and the rest are kind of like mom.
Speaker 5See but like. And that's the thing is I'm such a diehard Marvel movie fan like I love the story I see every single one of them I watch even the bad stuff like I saw Iron Fist Season 1.
Speaker 7Ooh ooh. I was mostly I was mostly drunk through that. I don't see all of it.
Speaker 5I see the I have I unfortunately did not see Agent Carter been told by should definitely check that to her that would think of me. When you watch it I just think of you in a dress and then honest and spy gear. Yeah. And Howard Stark flirting with Howard Stark.
Speaker 4Just think of me flirting with her stark.
Speaker 5Tony's dad yummies. Now it's it's going to be I don't know. Like there's there's definitely stuff that's. Really you know the KREM Dila crowd but there aren't really bad Marvel movies. I feel like I mean there's probably a couple. I mean it's one or two is not going away. Thor you had a couple of really redeeming scenes where that like it felt like Star Wars meets Lord of the Rings. You know like the flying ships and shit or it's like oh my god this is actually kind of cool. But the rest of it was. And now you can kind of take it or you.
Speaker 8Captain America 1 Captain America was pretty good. I liked it.
Speaker 9I think I think it's worth revisiting that story because it comes from a time where it almost feels like it almost feels like a simpler Marvel universe like everything is a lot more like. Whereas everything right now is don't worry no spoilers but everything right now is pretty rough.
Speaker 10And it's a it's a dark turn in the in the Marvel world things things back then were like simpler it's you know the good guys did a good job and they you know won the day and even watching like the Avengers there was something almost like innocent about it in comparison to like knowing what comes next.
Speaker 5I haven't I hadn't gone back and watched the first Avengers movie in like a long time forgot. Like Hey this is actually a really good fucking movie. Yeah. Anyways so that's kind of what I've been up to. What about you mannam. So what's your life look like.
Speaker 4Would you do at the beginning of this week. I still might have some room into that. Yeah. Don't get me sick. Yeah I guess I've been busy you know kind of midterms just pop up so I just had one of those not too bad class. When was your if you're doing midterms in September like the first big assignments which basically tend to be like three big assignments sometimes two. I started it August 20 seconds. Things are actually to a room and then OK. Gotcha.
Speaker 5All right yeah. It's not a crazy timeline a month in. I mean yeah you started pretty. You started I think around here. Mmm. As far as I know schools have you know like Ben two friends gone to stuff. Typically it's around like day after Labor Day. Starts out you started like a full two more than a month.
Speaker 11And are they going to be like hey you know I get a paper due this week in another paper. Can you do like the beginning of October.
Speaker 5Oh OK. Yes. So you definitely got stuff in the pipeline. That's kind of just been occupying your time. Did you at least get some time yesterday to relax.
Speaker 11Yeah yeah. Back in those poker nights in poker. Oh it was. There's a lot of people booking around today. It was looking like now nine people some of them.
Speaker 5Oh wow. How big does a game of poker get. It was up to like six.
Speaker 4I mean we managed to make it work.
Speaker 12You figured out a way. Were you like dishing out most of the deck then.
Speaker 11Me everyone typically had something like Mr. deck over plan Texas Hold'em so you know two cars for everybody.
Speaker 5I was about to ask if it was Texas Hold em yeah that's 18 cards. That's a big 54 card. Yeah. So that's not too much but it's definitely. Wow. That actually sounds like a lot of fun. I wish I played poker with my friends.
Speaker 6Yeah it was fun. It was. It was a lot.
Speaker 5Yeah yeah Happy Days like get some peace and quiet when you finally like went to sleep. Yes. Yeah. Well Carter we're so we're talking about the we're we were revisiting the four Mecca's today. The four remaining mechas. We did an episode about Youngdahl which is the technically the fourth mecca of the five. If you want to check out that episode you can go back to 16 episodes 16. Go back to Episode 16. Check that out. But before we get into that a couple of things we're going to we're going to do some nuggs. But before we get into that I just wanted to say shout out to the to the Reddit community again Aarsal worldbuilding. Y'all are some bad asses. We sent up a question last week about the four elements and sort of revisiting then as a follow up to episode and we got some really interesting responses from people. One person was talking about having OneSource essence instead of an entire complex map. And I think something about that was really attractive to me is the idea of the simplicity of it. And how that can still be really interesting but the thing that grabbed me is of course somebody created like. Without going into all the all the details tears in classes on top of tears and a dozen elements in one. And they had to do with whether they were physical or like something even beyond that. And I wish that they had given me a little more detail giving us a little more detail but it definitely was inspiring enough that I have. We're revisiting the cosmological map. Yeah. So some stuff in the pipeline there don't want to say too much don't promise anything but that there is definitely. We'll keep you posted.
Speaker 4Always. Yeah. So there's going to be some good stuff coming from that. I will start off from the thing now. Yeah yeah you got some because again this is one of those nerds where it's like I had a quick question that I'm going to ask you.
Speaker 5You do the work. All right. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 11Lay it on me so you know in kind of going with my previous spiel with geography and like you know geography geographical features really do change the way people live because they live in places.
Speaker 5Yes they do. People live in places. It's true. Carter 2080 thank you.
Speaker 4Where at Everest has there been. Or is there the greatest naval superpower. It can be mercantile or it can be more like whatever but like where is the key. With all the boots and.
Speaker 5Well you asked two different questions there. Two questions that would be the same thing in our world but may have no correlation in the world element. The first question you asked is what is the where's the greatest naval superpower. The second one is who has the most boats. Yes. And I would say. That might possibly be the bronze SEALs who have the most boats because they do a bunch of trading and stuff like that but they might not be the biggest naval power and indeed the biggest naval power might not even have. Boats at all. Because I was actually thinking the elves which is so funny because that was literally related to the thing I was bringing up. Perfect. So yeah I mean it was like I mean we haven't really gotten into the SEALs because to be honest I haven't developed a lot of him a lot of stuff about them but I've been actually thinking about them a lot recently.
Speaker 11Yeah. We better. Well so one of the main things was.
Speaker 10So one of the things that's like pretty clear that I know that I want to do with them was take the idea of frontier living western America expansion and treat that as the approach to at least one Aevum worth of their expansion. So like I think kind of after the oceans return gave him Tertius and all of the craziness was going on above the water. They said well hey there's some perfectly fine land down there that nobody's using. Why don't we just go and farm that and live in peace. And I think probably during Aevum Tertius that was the case. You know they were expanding out there and most of the stories were kind of westward expansion but then like shit gets crazy and Aevum court and it's the age of war for like a long ass time.
Speaker 12I mean I'm totally. You can you can tell me what you're thinking but I'm totally picturing an image of like CLV with like schools of trained like manta rays with like weird contraptions on their back and like magical enchanted like sky like schools of fish that create like a field of like death so they literally just send a bunch of fish flying towards. Enemy combatants. You know imagine a ship a galleon or something sailing over an area and they been warned that these are dangerous waters and then all of a sudden the school of fish just goes and rushes up on the underside. And then some sort of like a magical field flashes between all of them and slices the whole thing into a little glow.
Speaker 4Q blitz do you think they train crack.
Speaker 5I think that they don't train crack in the least like half a going relationship with crack and maybe it's I think it's it's might be the equivalent to like you appease a dragon to keep it and you know sedate and so you get food and shit.
Speaker 12So I can totally see them feeding it like giant whales and shit like keep it down.
Speaker 4Very good. Yes exactly.
Speaker 10Well so mine was associated with that.
Speaker 5I've been thinking a little bit about sea life recently and one of the things that I was really attracted by was I was playing this game recently where like flying around the space you know that that outer space area is like people tear forming and they're talking sometimes about Waterworld and how there's like floating cities and that kind of really inspired me thinking about I wonder if there's any floating cities in haloumi in Saddar or even just like in parts of the primordia check previous episode. Episode 19 if you're curious about you look like. Of like you know maybe there's entire cities that are just you know like that but then the bigger thought of oh shit raiding parties pirates imagine like a pirate empire where you have some sort of like organized crime to the level where they are they're like plundering entire cities. You know all of the Vikings. But there but it's all happening like at sea a waterworld with Kevin Costner.
Speaker 6Now fuckin second image of like this like ancient gold like Golden Age gold Navy gold now are floating Atlantis that like the Pirates are fucking found taken over.
Speaker 5Oh dude that's their home base. That's so good. Yeah they have like they. Yeah they recovered some lost city that was just out at sea somewhere and then just like it was our base now. Oh I like that especially because to the south east to the eastern side and especially the southeastern side there's a lot of like crazy shit that goes on in the seas and oceans there and I don't think I can really break any NDA is with myself on that because you are in the room. Carter but one day we will talk about what goes on beyond the continent of Adara yes.
Speaker 4One you were confident that if someone were to say we can we can crack em.
Speaker 5Now I just liked the idea of like this. There's something evocative about you know a sort of a fantasy city that is first of all how would that work. Is it exactly that floats tire and then that they have to deal with pirates. You know and like that there's this whole sort of anarchic you know Nassau esque empire of pirates who are all like hiding out in this one city Citadel sort of. And they just go and wreck shit. Sort of a wind waker you feel yeah yeah. But I think I think now is a good time to jump in to talk about the mic.
Speaker 6No but now I have to do a quick aside because I'm fucking you said when we hear and it reminds me of the most tedious fucking main quest line we had to go fucking.
Speaker 4Go get shards of triumph forks whatever the fuck go.
Speaker 5Now that's what the Finnish guy calls him calls him try him for x.
Speaker 4That was the fucking worst.
Speaker 5Yeah it was. God I remember that just extending out like me and everybody I know like extending out into Lake. All right. So this is just the time to like go and fuck around in the world because there's no way to find all of these easily. So you just kind of have to just go square by square and find all the undiscovered stuff. I mean as far as like if you're trying to get through the game that if you're just trying to like way because you're just like having fun or whatever. I don't know that that was actually a time where you know it basically became like I don't know Mevo plays absolve a couple of days later play well more Zelda like. Yeah.
Speaker 4Was not being driven by the story at all would ever wear.
Speaker 5Definitely was like a kid. Could have been designed better. Okay let's let's let's do some let's do some rebuilding huh.
Speaker 4FRANK Yeah you are only.
Speaker 5Yeah I think I'd like to. So yeah just as a rehashing the in the world of May on the lands of ever and to not Lahi. There are five places known as the five mechas. Each one is a mecca for a different reason. We talked recently about Humala that was in episode 16. Like are we saying it's a place where all of the dragon born convene.
Speaker 13Sort of in an endless stream as sort of a birthright. But there are other areas as well.
Speaker 5So we are going to. OK I got 3 or 8 which is Tortora. You. You when you want to read a little excerpt about Tartaro that starts off. There it is. Okay.
Speaker 14And in a land filled with holy sites none is more holy than any golden capital of Tartaro. And the side presumed to be the first city known as the first Mecca. It is believed by many that it was an angle at the gathering and the knowing watched as the Nameless One brought about the ash curse. Surrounding surrounding and golem is a rainy if lush land. The myriad jungles have been replaced over millennia with agrarian lands and small townships each claiming some valuable artifact from the first city. For these reasons Tortora is the focal point of those who still cling to the ancient practice of true lawful worship.
Speaker 10Oh there are so many things the kids start talking about with this man Holleran grab.
Speaker 4Well I think first I won't ask who lives there.
Speaker 5This. That's I mean I don't think that there's one predominance. I think there's probably some peoples who lay claim to it more so than others like you're probably not going to find a lot of dragon born there because dragon born arrive later. But I think anybody who found a true association with the city. Most more than any other race humans I would imagine. And then after that probably the elves I'm thinking because those were kind of the two main demos that were present in the first city when it was still a functioning land Djiboutian we didn't have a bit of period of time where. Humans are kind of.
Speaker 4Second class citizens.
Speaker 7They weren't citizens at all.
Speaker 5Yes their cattle. Yeah. Yes they were they were they were second class first class cattle. Yeah true that's true. So you're thinking like. I mean I think the thing is though is that if there's anywhere in the world where people are still trying to live with an understanding or a belief that that reflects the tradition of at least how the stories go of the way things were supposed to be. I feel like it would be and Golon yeah cuz of its nearness to the first city. Yeah I mean and I do think that there are a lot of humans slavery like you are saying at first but I want to say that I think there might be a little.
Speaker 4A little strife. You could say between the humans and the elves that live there.
Speaker 5Yeah. I mean I think there's probably because so much of it is speculation. It's not like they have a holy bible to look at and say and an argue over the text of it's really just like what do we uncover. What do we find in this place. Because that's a thing like theirs. As far as religious texts go there's there's nothing that associates itself with them. With OMH own left no record of themselves when they disappeared or whether they were even present in the first place. So it's so much of it is just people laying claim to what they think.
Speaker 9So it's almost it maybe be more like archaeologists and anthropologists arguing over what or who early civilization looked like and then deriving sort of a form of worship or religion from that. I think we get from.
Speaker 4Like an interesting kind of view of like a like a like a.
Speaker 9And then like a real alpha Olva elfen LLN are male Elvia are female.
Speaker 4They get like synonyms in some elfen that are just like you know bickering over like like an excavation site in the middle of this huge bustling city just like you. And they basically I imagine that all of this. It's like it's kind of like Roma and like all this excavation and all this rape of these priceless archaeological things are just in the middle of the city.
Speaker 10That's actually a really good analogue because you can't you can't walk 10 paces without tripping over something historic in Rome. You know you like everything has been there for hundreds of years if not like a thousand and you know some things are older than Christianity itself like the Pantheon you know as fuck in it's crazy but that thing was literally around I think before Jesus it is because I think it's 53 B.C. when it was when it was when it was built.
Speaker 12And it's like Christianity is one of the oldest establishments in you know in the entire world. And that building is older than that and people like tens of thousands of people visit it like.
Speaker 5Every day and I think that that's yeah you're definitely right that there's something similar to that that there's there's a lot more to do with that than there is with an analog would be like maybe I guess Jerusalem might be a good example also like to pull from Europe but I think the thing is is that when we as as a people excavate Jerusalem it's not changing anything about like break texts you know it's not like oh this then shows us that the God of the old testament was you know behaved like that. You know it's it doesn't change anything because you have testament you have you know all the different. I don't know the break text and stuff like that. So it's like. You know yes it's I think you're right I think it's more like Rome. Yeah and people are still finding new things that you know the part that was you know.
Speaker 4The first lady and it's glory. And most of it doesn't make any sense I think.
Speaker 5I'd bet like it's I mean I definitely picture it as being similar to in the wheel of time when they find are they called Teranga real. Is that what they're called Telangana. Yeah yeah. How long grail of you know these ancient artifacts that. You have to be exceedingly careful with. Because if you try and activate them or trigger them in any way you could like level half the world or something or just cause some credibly dangerous power to come out of it. And so people you know it can be years. Hare fully exploring the surface of something and then you flick something and sometimes it's just a Babul it's just like a fun little child's toy or something and then other times it's these incredibly dangerous pieces. But I think that. So so yes we have these large demographics of elves in humans. But I think that that's really only representative of you make a good point that that that's only representative people who are trying to. Worship or connect to oh or Yavor the first city or something like that.
Speaker 13Whereas there are I'm sure plenty of people that are there that are scholars that are artificers that are you know there's plenty of interest that and the promise of knowledge you know people doing their their doctorates you know they're going there because of the you know they're they're part of a college it's about uncovering things from the golden hour. There are no more a dwarf.
Speaker 10That's you know yeah it is just is just trying to find some powerful artifacts. Oh there's probably people who are like doing what you call that Tumer like Tomb Raider tomb robbers Tomb Raiders or whatever grave robbers find they uncover some shit and they try and sneak it out of the country so there's probably some some stolen goods type activity going on as well.
Speaker 4Yeah yeah but I mean I honestly think that England might be like the most diverse city in.
Speaker 15Yeah. Yeah it's probably true actually because even though there might be more humans and elves that are worshipping there's probably so many other peoples that are just there because it is just a fascinating place. Yeah I think there's something about it that draws like settlement.
Speaker 10It's sort of like a consistent gold rush. You know you can go if you get lucky you can find something there that will that will make your name forever. But
Speaker 4I definitely think there is a lot of like we were here for first kind of thing between the humans and the elf.
Speaker 10Yeah I think there can definitely be some asshole tree where the humans and elves as much as they might argue with each other. They definitely cast some vitriol at anybody else who tries to lay claim to the city.
Speaker 4Yeah that's the funny thing is that you know they're arguing with each other. Only you know up until someone else comes around that they both share.
Speaker 5Yeah yeah. And they both turreted like angrily start shouting at them yeah bitch. Well that's actually I just want to bring that to the forefront for a moment so we have over the last. Hey congratulations. Episode 20 men were trucking along. BRIDGES Yeah they get our branches.
Speaker 10Really. I mean the only reason that we're still doing this is because people are listening to. It's a thank you to all of you people who are clearly insane for wanting to listen to us ramble about a imaginary world for an hour a day.
Speaker 5No. So like one of the things though like we have consistently reinforced is the fact that the gods are not to be worship they actually forbid worship of themselves. There is even a it's a is a command believed to be given by own to all of the regions and all other deities is to say you are not to seek worship and you are not to be worship. And. The regions in response acknowledge that they are not to be worshiped. They are not to be sought out as gods and or liked but only to be patron like to be to be sought for the favor of. Which is so different than the one God that is truly allowed to be worshiped the true lawful worship of worshipping own. The thing is that that is problematic about this. Own has left less evidence than any other god even even you sniggering who we talked about a couple of weeks ago who is like the god of basically inaction and not doing even your Senate Grann and Nanjiani. You know which we've kind of had a streak of I guess quiet gods have had more influence in their in their world but Owen has never been seen or heard of since. Basically like creation they can kill to worship. They don't get anything from it.
Speaker 10You know they like the Inuit in a land that is that is dirty with gods to be allowed to reach out and receive power from. They do not receive anything from connecting with own even less than you sent a grant who might offer some you know release like you know you learned to temper your passions. Or you know Nanjiani who can at least give you some divination own offers. Literally nothing.
Speaker 4So one can't be a cleric. I don't know. I think.
Speaker 5I think I would still allow for a cleric. Like if I was to run a game of DD I think I'd still allow for a cleric of my own but I don't know what their domain would be because. Yeah. Would they receive.
Speaker 10I mean to be clear indeed there is a lot to be said about faith and that faith is the source of magic so that even if your god is dead or whatever you can still become a cleric of them.
Speaker 5But it's not because you're receiving power from them. I don't know. I mean I think a cleric alone would just look different. Maybe they just don't even cast magic at all.
Speaker 4Priest.
Speaker 5Yeah well and that's the thing is there are more like priests and priestesses than they are. And what would you even do as a cleric of own like what are you. What are you clinging to. There's no holy text there's no I mean there's so much speculation because this God has the God in some ways like the creator God has left no evidence of themselves. I don't know.
Speaker 4Sounds like an episode.
Speaker 10Yeah I mean it definitely should be. I think that there's maybe I guess what I'm imagining is that it's more cultural than anything else that somebody might quote worship own but that they also have like you know maybe they have like a different patron god on the side that they still seek the favor of almost like you know I don't want to draw too much from this but in the same way that like the break traditions or the Christian or even Islamic traditions like there's not necessarily. A lot of evidence for the things that you believe and maybe you don't even believe it that's strongly like you just go to church because your family's gone to church but it's just kind of a cultural thing you know.
Speaker 4But now I think maybe we can do a little bit more with Tartaro. Yeah. Like on a larger scale yes. What does the land look like right. It seems that it's hot.
Speaker 5Yes it is definitely. Back when I was doing some climatology maps of Siddhar because I went there I ended up with a micro region that was like very very like overheated humid near the water's edge but it's not super far up in latitudes so it's it's like. It's sort of like this weird pocket jungle starter. So yeah so I mean I think I would compare it to like Brazil in terms of its. Brazil but it and are like a higher latitude. So you get those really lush rain forests and like that hot sweaty weather but you also get people who are rapidly like or who have for a long time just. Knocked down every chunk of the jungle and turned it into arable land. OK so it's hot and wet and they usually bunch jungles this just. Feels from. Yeah well they Signum probably significantly less jungles which the thing is is that land has got to be shit to to cultivate because so like one of the things about jungles is that they are incredibly efficient ecosystems.
Speaker 13There they are teaming you know they're the places on the planet that have the most life per square you know cubic foot or whatever there can be like you know several thousand different species that inhabit a single cubic foot.
Speaker 5You know when you're when you're looking at the Amazon you literally judge the ecosystems by how high up in the trees they are because there are vastly different worlds as you continue to climb. What happens is is that that basically as a result of all the life that is there the soil has basically no nothing to like.
Speaker 12It's all being used all the nutrition all the nutrients in the land are being used up by all the life there's like nothing left over.
Speaker 5So when you like knock that shit down and turn it over like you have to basically terraform on a low level in order to get anything out of that land which means I think becomes like the farm deserts you know where it's just not not not a desert in the actual sense of like you know to try and Erivan stuff but just like Yeah it's like the sparseness there's this sort of Baroness about like looking across the land and being like wow you know we have seriously cultivated the fuck out of this place OK.
Speaker 10And I think that that might be a thing that I don't know if that's the halflings proper but it definitely has strong associations with them because they have a fixation on agriculture agrarian land is basic being seen as sort of the apotheosis of of life.
Speaker 4OK. And that one of the things that we have here is that there are small townships Royd like edges of England and Tartaro. Proper each Schrade have some artefact. Yes. Yeah and this is just because the first city was massive.
Speaker 5Encompassed a very large area. Yeah. And so like. Yes yes yes. Angolan was Angolan the capital for Atara. Only takes up some of the kind of like what would be the calling of the Metro downtown area of what used to be. I mean you have to remember that this stuff is you know like 50000 years ago. So all that's left is like ruins. You know there's so much that's you know been completely lost and it is said that end goal in itself was kind of the nuke site. The place where the ash curse was triggered from the nameless one which as a result actually attracts a more sinister crowd who are like basically like oh this is the place where the Nameless One came from. You know they're sort of almost this morbid fascination about that association between you've got a place where I give you can imagine if we actually if there was like if there was a site that people said oh this is the Garden of Eden.
Speaker 10Some people would visit it to be like hey this is where saying that is the thing you say.
Speaker 4Yeah but like Tortora as a whole is like basically the entirety of the first city which as a short aside with regard to that I definitely think that the whispers of the nameless are set up here in a very secret fashion.
Speaker 10Oh my gosh I can totally picture like a whole secret society that is decentralized. You've got like threads that are reaching out in all directions to people who are like random locations. Yeah for sure. Yeah that's really cool.
Speaker 4And one of the things that just go on a little tangent here because you mentioned the famous one the wizard of nameless. Definitely I did a little bit of thinking about them and they're definitely like they install themselves in their god worship like circles. But not really worship or you meet like in other faiths other faiths and churches and that's when they were from basically anyone having trouble with their faith or like. Yes yes.
Speaker 5You know you've seen that there is problems but the name was one or like or situations where they kind of like twist the patronage towards like oh well it's actually more like this and they get a little bit further and a little bit further away from like the doctrine of that faith until they're you know until they're actually successfully turning people into like worshippers or you know patron seekers of the nameless one even though they don't know it yet. Oh that's cool. OK. Oh that's sinister. But yeah okay. But you're talking about smalltime. Talking about a little little cities outside of Tartaro. So as a reference Tortora is extremely small to be a country if you think about Romar which is a persued episodes I think actually 8 and 9 we talk about Ruark it's a two parter. That's a city that's I think where that's a country that's like what six miles across. I think we just like the. Yeah. It's very small Tortora is even smaller than that. You know this is like this is like if you turned if you took Chicago land Chicago and all of the surrounding Metro which actually might be more than six miles there. So maybe even smaller than that. If you took all of that area and jumped forward like several Ilan's till when it's completely decayed and decrepit and then set up a city on top of that and said This is not a city an entire country and said this is just one country it's like Vatican sized you know the area.
Speaker 4Just imagine like you know like a local tavern in this lake and you know like three horse town. It's like literally half built on a ruin. And so like half of one wall is just like super ancient and like made of like an unknowable material. Yes.
Speaker 10OK. Actually I like that because there's definitely going to be stuff that did survive. And I think a lot of it straight up just won't respond to magic or any form of excavation. So you literally just have like chunks it's like yellow we uncovered most of this but we have no idea what it is and it's not going anywhere and it doesn't do anything.
Speaker 5So we turn know. Yeah. There's I mean there's definitely sites all over the. Ooh ok. I just saw something. I wonder if there is. If that almost becomes like a. That's pink that picture for a second. So you've got this this tavern. You've got like one entire wall that is like a 25 foot stretch of this strange material does that. I mean first of all the tavern Key probably charges more for people who want to look at it or something like that.
Speaker 4Of course you know it's you know silver paste per touch and all.
Speaker 9Yeah there's literally like like a like a rope off to the side. Oh and I'm sure there are some like hawkers or people who are like they kind of turned it into a whole thing where they're like oh but there's magic here and you can feel it.
Speaker 10And you know they're kind of planting thoughts in people's heads and suggesting things and you know and then people go up there and I thought the the magic Oh gosh that's you know really it's just like I'm just playing off of their imagination here by mistake.
Speaker 5Yeah exactly. Yes it's snake oil salesmen I think. I mean that's probably. And that's I think what makes Tartaro so interesting is because there's a lot of that mixed with like faith and that how much of it you know they're sort of this question of like how much of this is just the imaginings of people who are going here. And then how is that distinguished from the people who just truly believe and truly worship own which by the way has got to be so weird for anybody who does not.
Speaker 9Come from there because literally they will be doing things that nobody else ever does. Like bowing before and like praising and you know lifting their hands up or whatever. That's got to look so strange to anybody else in the world because literally nobody else does that.
Speaker 5Yes. You know like it's not like in our world where people have all sorts of we have. Humans have all sorts of different gods that we that we worship and stuff like that. But there it's like literally not it's not a part of culture in the same way.
Speaker 4That the only other things that are worshiped like you know the nameless one and the quite refutes. Right.
Speaker 9And like even if people sometimes you know cults break out or weird sects of other religions break out where they say oh actually our God is to be worship that stuff usually doesn't last very long because sooner or later that will start to grab the attention of the God and they have like shut that shit down on the quick killing to be like what the fuck are you doing. Yeah yeah. I mean it's typically associated with a great calamity. You know it's almost like there's like the curse of worship you know where the people who worship other gods are rapidly like they start to get sick and ill are like you know though they're attracting the wrong attention. Yeah. You know if they're if they're worshipping a god of you know of of a war you know if they are like worshipping Ottar then they find themselves like hounded on all sides by difficulty and like strife and and their ability to fight has been you know completely reduced or evaporates and that kind of thing.
Speaker 4So I've got a couple of things to say more about Tortora. Yeah yeah. So I think weird shit happens. Just like we like people see random things like there is like a lot of like weird feelings and hallucinations that go yes.
Speaker 5And that's and I'll let you continue. But like really quick like that's definitely associated with the snakeoil stuff like this kind of what we're saying is is like how much of it is actually real because there are weird magically strange things that do happen here and they seem to have like no impetus no trigger because the stuff is so.
Speaker 15It's so foreign to the way that people approach magic present in the later ages. Yeah. And I think that you remember in Iraq we were talking about like Muse.
Speaker 4Can sometimes manifest in certain ways and be like you know you are one of the chosen of me. You're doing great thing. Good job. Like an exemplary artifact or something that was like a creation that was worth her recognition and how she like literally came down all those time to go. Right on the creation of the first buyer. Right. Yes. Yes well I think no God has ever manifested in art to her. As far as anyone can remember. And you know the true you know choose your own. Or like you know obviously it's because the old doesn't let Ledum and then like but there's whispers of like they say this is of like no it's because like this is where the askers happened like this is like no one like they can't come here and interesting.
Speaker 16So like almost like in the spiritual world there's this signature this hole in the fabric of the spiritual world. Right over in Golon.
Speaker 4The idea is like this is where like the nameless woman it took his courage spear of energy and stabbed it into the air the crystal. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 5Oh I like that. Oh I like that so much. That's really fucking cool. Holy shit dude that's that's a really awesome idea. I think so yes definitely. OK so so no gods ever show up in Tartaro. And I think that they maybe even like don't trade near there. Actually there's probably a whole thing where it's like do they trade near there. Are there some gods that actually find it almost like as painful as it is to get close. They're almost like it's it's my job to be regionally responsible of keeping watch over this place or even just as a sign to the heavens assigned to all beings that like this is not okay and I don't know. Like almost like a vigil of protest protest or something. Yeah there might be a god that like they can't actually enter a territory they can't even get close but like as close as they dare. Almost like something orbiting a black hole I. Yeah just like a sign of protest. I think there's certainly been sightings but stopped the like loan or we'll documented and that might actually be what determines.
Speaker 9You know what. There are probably scholars who use that as like here's why these are what the actual borders of Tartaro are. Because these are linked the closest sightings have ever gotten.
Speaker 5You can witness like certain types of you know if you can figure out whether magic is inherently clerical or not faith based or not in nature.
Speaker 10You can kind of look and say this is the line where there have been there is no evidence that faith magic has ever been performed here. And you know this is where some other stuff begins which then implies I think that there's like people who are again you know doing like a doctoral thesis or whatever and like it's like a series of three monks who are just like slowly walking around a circle. You have one person trying to cast faith based bells you know in one location and then they go to another and then they go to another location where you are very close.
Speaker 4Yeah exactly.
Speaker 10Like you're doing a holy survey of a location to detect spiritual traces of energy or whatever.
Speaker 4Yeah. And I think that I think that there's a God ometer is very hard over the right because because gods tend to show up in places like the Necas because there's so many people and there's so much stuff going on that draws their attention. Right.
Speaker 5It's hard not to notice them even when you have such low fidelity of the world beyond the Ethereum if you're a god. You know it's hard to tell what's actually happening.
Speaker 4You get the clearest picture where there's the most people exactly as strong as faith. I think that's why they that I brought that up and that's why I've heard Torah's interesting in that way is because all the other meccas like this is not a thing like this God stuff happens not common but far right far far more common and. Yeah it's measured over like.
Speaker 10Like every couple of years some something fairly significant happens and maybe even mundane things might happen even more frequently that at the very least there's like tons of evidence for things happen.
Speaker 4You know it's like a roar or a cow. Right. Muse's chosen or very elite few. But right there are like Italy there's at least like a dozen or a couple of dozen of them. It's like it happens and it happens like enough times in people's lifetimes that you get a collection of these people. Yeah.
Speaker 5They question Carter I want to know when you think Tartaro started to build out like what is sort of like the timeline of this country look like when did it first get recovered. Because I don't think that there is probably anything during Avrum and beyond sort of a morbid fascination and maybe there is even like weird there's a weirdness about it for a long time that people like were terrified to be there and they even believed it was like a cursed land. But like when did to when do you think like this this locations or to pick up as a as a location of you know a city.
Speaker 4So I think that this is an interesting coincidence that people have seen but no one's like there's like one guy that people consider crazy was like really pointing this out and that's it was. So when was the last buyer created.
Speaker 10Oh that would have been right around the edge end of the Third Age third Aevum.
Speaker 4So Aevum Tertius ends with the final spire being completed and I think that's like Mark Kidd spot where someone is like okay it was you know around the same time and maybe even the same like you know month that something really started happening there.
Speaker 9Oh shit dude like there is almost like a reversal like. Yes. Holy shit I don't. First of all to be clear we are not claiming this to be actually canonically true or not but it is. It is culturally or like story telling canonically true that a lot of people believe this that with the completion of the spire they broke a curse that was over the land for a long time before of like you know. This is a Kersee place right. And it's almost like we have brought back the gods we have brought back their nature to this place and we have inverted the evil that was once here. I really like that. I really like that.
Speaker 4And there's like one like who's like yeah we definitely did this evidence like no one came here and like anyone who did come here is like really sick and then all this stuff and then everyone else is like. But like that's so circumstantial you don't have any hard evidence all this is hearsay. Right. Right.
Speaker 5Like you are. Correlation does not is not causation and that there is a lot of you know and then there's other people who are like you know it's not important whether it's correlation or causation or not because like I know it's true. Because I believe it or something. You know. How this see this. This makes it a lot more interesting because I mean the city is already. You know that that situation is already very interesting to me but I love this this concept that there's almost this myth of. Because I mean Avrum Secunda like up until Aevum Scicluna everything was basically prehistory in a civilisation's and countries the shredded empire did exist but you know the modern thoughts of what a country was or whatever didn't really exist until there was NASA. There was a necessary structure for those things to mean something for relations and things. And it is a reduction. To say that you know that is it is straight up prehistory because obviously we have tons of Texan things from Avrum Scicluna. But as far as like the modernized you know their version of modernized quote medieval world that stuff starts to pop up in even Tertius. So I totally can see you know especially because they are deifying civilization itself. They're deifying you know whereas in you know again I just use it as a reference because it's my strongest reference but in Judeo Christian tradition the perfect place was a garden. It was. It was. It was. It was this idea of like humanity's subjugation of nature sort of like rulers of it. And in noble action like an ennobling the natural world. Met being made to be responsible for it. But in the traditions of Halime it's a city the city is the site. And from flight from procreation from from like a time when you know the creator God is supposed to have been if not present only recently Abson. I don't know. I just think that's interesting. I mean I wonder how that changes the way people. View that you know that the passage of time and where where people came from things.
Speaker 4That did any of that make sense whatsoever. But I got I got get some.
Speaker 5OK. We are kind of closing out on time here. Anything else you want to touch on before we before we finish up.
Speaker 4No I said my I did my big drop drop and stuff already. OK.
Speaker 5Then. Then. Carter let me ask you Is there anything that you are really interested in exploring later. Yes I want to see if in the world certain events are linked with certain dates of creations of Spikers like. Oh yeah definitely.
Speaker 4I mean there's definitely one there's there's one that we know are the Korean the first fire big event and that no.
Speaker 5Yes. Yes a pretty significant one and I think what I would say is that I bet there's probably traditions all over the place where people point out the significant events. You know some people come up with their own shit and like. You know the equivalent of like my cat gave birth till like. Two.
Speaker 10Cats with perfect albino fur that doesn't just have you know like just the people who are like OK you know sure you know that's that's the strangeness. I mean but maybe like maybe there is something about the weirdness of you know. So yeah there's probably townships in entire countries that have a tradition of being like we celebrate this day because this with the completion of a spire.
Speaker 4Yes. And I think what you find interesting you'd like to revisit this. Well it's something that.
Speaker 5I think we've always really talked about on some low level but I feel like it'd be good to have like a proper episode about it but I don't know. There's something about. Forbidden worship or worship forbidden by the divine hierarchy itself. And the fact that like the physical manifestations of that of not you know that the people are unfamiliar with that sensation of the experience of worshipping a god that is really engaging to me. And I just I don't know I'm always I'm always curious to see like you know the implications of that as a manifest presence or some. I don't know. I mean I would I would think that that episode worthy. But I think that stuff will have to wait until later. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this as exploration into the lands of Zadar and the realms beyond perhaps for found some good material to add to your own stories. You can reach us at the log keepers on Twitter or. Laura keeper's podcast G.M. dot com especially if you've got questions or comments follow up to the episode ideas you e-mail us you tweet at us and we will talk about your stuff on the show.
Speaker 4Well you certainly will. You can also follow us on iTunes Stitcher GPlay or wherever you might listen to podcasts like Spotify which I still find strange that it does. Cash bonuses strongest music and Spotify.
Speaker 5Yeah well I mean I don't know what else Spotify would really do. I've I mean apparently it's podcasts apparently.
Speaker 4And if you like Spotify and Paramor I haven't read. If you like us on Spotify or Spotify. Fucking Spotify give us just a little you know advertising gig will do it if you like us. Give us a five star rating. Which it does help a ton. Even better spread the word.
Speaker 5Tell the CEO Spotify about us tell the CEO Spotify tell Spotify as interns. Especially they've got more pull than you think. They're the future if you work for Spotify. Tell us yet tell us if you were for a spot EFY about our own podcast yet thought.
Speaker 17Please do anyways. Yes.
Speaker 10Thanks to Josh Zilker for his composition of land the heroes and the Lurky proceed. And thanks to you for listening.
Speaker 4And until next time please don't forget there's always more tales to tell. Oh. Oh. Thanks everybody. That's a wrap.
Speaker 18See you later. Everybody keep listening. Keep truckin. If I can be flying peace base.