Ghyll:Dagger Seas

Not complete- notes only (As last time, comments appreciated. )

Primus, Segundus, Tertius, and Marty comprise the four Dagger Seas, massive estuaries that empty along with a number of minor estuaries and rivers into the Shallow Gulf. The seas and their associated dagger peninsulas have been a major center for shipping, fishing, and the diffusion of culture between the peoples of Ghyll for centuries.

Geology of the Dagger Seas

The dagger seas and the shallow gulf are all relatively young- based on geological evidence, the center of the Shallow Gulf is likely to have been the site of the ancient city of Avaz Minor, and thus the point of detonation of the Avazian Justice Device during the Third Avazian War. ...

Ecology of the Dagger Seas

The dagger seas comprise a variety of habitats, moving from fairly typical fresh water species at the "points" of the seas to the rich ecosystem life of the placid gulf, with unique ecosystems living in the bodies of the seas themselves, and in the shallow open waters, freshwater and salt marshes, sandy beaches, mud and sand flats, rocky shores, temperate shellfish reefs, forests, and deltas along the margins of the seas themselves. Sea Spiders, Sea Cucumbers, Sea Saws, Sea Monkeys, Sea Chanties, and a number of other gulf creatures travel up the seas to fresh waters at various points in their life cycles. It is the richness of this environment that allowed nomadic early Ghyllotines to settle on the dagger sea shores.

Ancient History of the Dagger Seas

Archeological research has uncovered settlements of our people on the shores of the Dagger Seas as early as -5000 EC, with the major Dagger Sea city-states rising between -3000 to -2500 EC. Plentiful fishing, gentle climates, and eventually massive riches from shipping made the region a popular target of neighboring empires, as well, and large parts of the Dagger Peninsulas have been ruled at various points in history by various other peoples, most notably

• That Courtly Empire That Flourished and Developed All Kinds of Knowledge and Technology When The Rest of Us Were Still Huddled In Caves Eating Dirt But Then Fell Almost At Random
• That Culture of Nomads that Apparently Got Bored of Hunting Elk after a Thousand Years and Forged a Global Empire Over Night and then Apparently Forgot About It Again
• That Culture That We Only Really Know About Through the Trash Talk of Other Ancient Cultures
• That Culture That New Agers are Always Going On About
• The Nitenmangrey.

In general these conquests changed little in the life of the ancient peoples of the region, but spread Dagger Sea culture throughout the rest of Ghyll. Consider this fragment of a letter from a hordemaster of That Culture of Barbarians Who Were Totally Brutal Bad Asses With Big Knives to his Clan King regarding his capture of an unnamed Dagger Peninsula city:

Our horsemen met no resistance at the gates of the city, which were opened for us as we approached. Once inside we were met with gifts, and a beautiful lady who spoke our language. She thanked us for liberating the city from their opressors. When I responded that we were here to slay all of the adults and sell the children into slavery she seemed unmoved, and said it could only be an improvement on their previous occupiers, who had just stepped out for lunch and were due back any minute. Then (accompanied by a band of musicians), she narrated a pantomime which illustrated the horrors they were currently enduring.

I have killed 600 men, put out the eyes of 20 men with my thumbs, and eaten the entrails of 30 fallen enemies. Your armies were unfrightened, clan lord, even at the terrible, terrible, hideous, horrible, aweful things we saw illustrated. Some of the men vomited, doubtless due to the foul air of the place, likewise this was why your obedient servant and his warmasters may have been seen moaning and in tears. Even a mighty, relentless, black, evil, unstoppable force like the city's current occupiers could not move us.

I quickly negotiated regular tribute from the city, in the form of coupons for valuable savings in shipping, hotel stays, and fishery products, to be stored in the city awaiting our army's return. I assure you, my clan lord, these are very valuable coupons, and my men were anxious to move on and win more glory for your great name.

So anxious we ate our lunch on the road.

Recent History of the Dagger Seas

Until recently, the Dagger Seas region continued to prosper as it always had prospered. The maritime wealth and easy-going cosmopolitan reputation of the area only increased with the end of the great civil war, when the Empire of Men Who Make Speeches In Elaborate Hats and Die Nobly at Sea withdrew from the region. (Having obtained it, at least nominally, as a spoil of the preceeding war with the Empire of Guys Who Set Out To Explore Exotic Places But Generally Kill and Enslave Everybody When They Get There, who had themselves yet to even establish a fort in their territory won by treaty from the Empire of Steve.) While the rest of the world was embroiled in the (relative) chaos leading to Conflict That Is Not Happening life along the dagger seas apparently proceeded. The region's city-states seem to have continued in the sort of well ordered lawlessness they had been living with for centuries; at least this is the apparent case- as with the rest of Ghyll, for familiar reasons this era's records are difficult to make sense of.

Paradoxically, it is with the rise of contemporary scholarship that the fortunes region began to decline. As the demand for secret tomes, passage for scholarly meetings, and the associated secret conflicts between organizations such as the Bureau of Forgotten Knowledge, the Aminfarances Institute of Science and Technomancy, the Council for Quezlarian Research, and even the humble(?) Cranee Historical Society rose, the area's high traffic and diffuse governmental authority let to it becoming a hotbed of smuggling and piracy. The horrible discoveries of Captain Riquiras in -159 EC intensified the situation, as it became the site not only the passage of scholars and scholarly materials but also a destination for archeologists...

Some problems to tease at: Vejur. Carl Sagan. Pirates (ARRRRR!). Link to Alezan/Hideous images/Dark Gods? Geography and Geology- Get some perspective on continental shift over 10,000yrs. Work in a love story. Besq Boats sez: LONG maritime history, Nitenmangrey.

Smuggling, but no mention of tarriffs (yet)- lots of Samizdat in Ghyll. Council for Quezlarian Research, Aminfarances Institute of Science and Technomancy - competing scholar armies? Naval warefare. Better make these big- less like the great lakes and more like (several) Chesapeake Bays. Maybe a rough edged gulf of mexico?

--Joe Bowers 18:02, 26 Sep 2004 (EDT)