Mt. Deismaar and the land bridge

[Magian]

I've always wondered were it was on the maps I've looked at. Any ideas?

I look at the map and have several spots that it could have been. Or perhaps it was the entire straits.

[AndrewTall]

I had it in mind that the land bridge was to Diemed, but I'm not sure why beyond the obvius religious link. That would probably put the bridge as crossing to Mieres as the nearest point, but given the width of the Staits unless there are a lot of unmentioned islands that doesn't really fit.

Really given the description of the bridge I'd have expected an north/south america sort of join that got disrupted by Mount Deismaar vaporising, but that simply doesn't fit the local geography on the map.

Thinking about it the sinking could have radically changed ocean current by opening the straits to a through current. That could in turn have rapidily eroded the land to widen the gap - and probably caused significant damage to local fishing for centuries in so doing which could in turn have weakened Diemed significantly during the early years of the empire's formation.

[Magian]

After reading your post I looked at the map with province names and it seems to make sense that Diemed's southern two provinces of Bliene and Aerele had something to do with it. Aerele with the name of the straits after it. The mountain range in Bliene as geological evidence if continental drift is considered. I'd think the bridge would connect to the mountains west of Mieres using this argument.

I was looking at the islands to Baerghos and Taeghas as well. Its the shortest leap over the water.

Then I went to thinking of play on names like Bindier in Brosengae and the province that may have bound the two continents.

Continuing with the play on words I was trying to find the meaning of arnien for some explanation of Arnienbae. Just found its a name of people in Scotland or something. Nothing much more. Coincedentally I found a link for Arni en bra where some guy had a ladies under garment over his shirt.

[AndrewTall]

After reading your post I looked at the map with province names and it seems to make sense that Diemed's southern two provinces of Bliene and Aerele had something to do with it. Aerele with the name of the straits after it. The mountain range in Bliene as geological evidence if continental drift is considered. I'd think the bridge would connect to the mountains west of Mieres using this argument.

I was looking at the islands to Baerghos and Taeghas as well. Its the shortest leap over the water.

It's fairly open I think, probably hotly contested by rival faiths of course...



Then I went to thinking of play on names like Bindier in Brosengae and the province that may have bound the two continents.

Continuing with the play on words I was trying to find the meaning of arnien for some explanation of Arnienbae.

Arnienbae could be a corruption of a name and 'bay' - 'Parnien's Bay' for example. As a thought it could have been a freshwater lake before the land bridge collapsed which would have caused havoc ecologically and on the local economy, although that doesn't really fit with the imperial city then springboarding the growth of the empire.

[Retillin]

I remember reading somewhere that the land bridge connected to Bliene and Aerele. Also something about the land bridge being hilly/mountain-ish land. But off the top of my head I can not recall where I came across that.

[ryancaveney]

Also something about the land bridge being hilly/mountain-ish land. But off the top of my head I can not recall where I came across that.

It makes sense, given that the one and only thing we think we know for sure is that there was a honking great mountain in the middle of it. :)

[darthjordy]

I ran a campaign recently where the remenants of the landbridge formed a few small islands. The major island in the middle of them was called the island of Tyr.

Surrounded by a magical deadzone and large sea creatures to destroy any incoming ships. Makes for a good high level campaign setting. Characters end up getting their ship destroyed and wash up on the shores of the island.

Characters discover ancient ruins and signs of the great war on the island. The island itself would be extremely enchanted, with many different types of environments and creatures.

To attract the characters to this place could the the promise of some rare magical item, or in our case to find a cure for a character who had been stricken by a magical disease. I have some random encounter tables and samples of the magical environments that I can post. Makes for a good place to set because it allows you to pretty much invent things to keep your players on their toes, because they never know what they could encounter next. I added quite a few mini adventures in this setting, like the discovery of other planar creatures.

Introducing a new player while in this campaign was an interesting experience. The whole idea was that their character had been fighting alongside Haelyn during the great war when she was hit by a magical dagger which turned her to stone. Fast forward a thousand years, the PC's discover this ancient statue with an immaculate dagger protruding from its chest. Upon removing it, the character instantly comes to life and is a living relic from ancient times. Interesting stuff.

[Magian]

I ran a campaign recently where the remenants of the landbridge formed a few small islands. The major island in the middle of them was called the island of Tyr.

Surrounded by a magical deadzone and large sea creatures to destroy any incoming ships. Makes for a good high level campaign setting. Characters end up getting their ship destroyed and wash up on the shores of the island.

Characters discover ancient ruins and signs of the great war on the island. The island itself would be extremely enchanted, with many different types of environments and creatures.

To attract the characters to this place could the the promise of some rare magical item, or in our case to find a cure for a character who had been stricken by a magical disease. I have some random encounter tables and samples of the magical environments that I can post. Makes for a good place to set because it allows you to pretty much invent things to keep your players on their toes, because they never know what they could encounter next. I added quite a few mini adventures in this setting, like the discovery of other planar creatures.

Introducing a new player while in this campaign was an interesting experience. The whole idea was that their character had been fighting alongside Haelyn during the great war when she was hit by a magical dagger which turned her to stone. Fast forward a thousand years, the PC's discover this ancient statue with an immaculate dagger protruding from its chest. Upon removing it, the character instantly comes to life and is a living relic from ancient times. Interesting stuff.

Pretty cool stuff man. I'd be interested in seeing what you post if you choose to share.

As I read some more I came to the feeling that the land bridge was definitely connected to the province of Aerele in Diemed. I had come up with a notion that it was where the Imperial City is at least Mt. Diesmaar. My reasoning was to make the Iron Throne an artifact of that last bit left of the mountain. Then I decided just to go with it being a part of Diesmaar and it was moved to the Imp City. Somewhat like a large rock that was fashioned into the throne and functions as an artifact, maybe boosting bloodline to an emperor that is invested with it as if it was like a domain. I think there is a bit somewhere about it being a relic or magical item from some website.

[aaron smith]

Ruins of Empire booklet, page 16, Under "Description:"

".... Most of the kingdom is covered in forest, with the remnants of the Deismaar range of mountains to the south."

That to me, pretty clearly indicates that the Straits of Aerele towards the east of the map is where the mountain range ran. Probably right smack in the middle of the interrupted mountain chain at the top and bottom is where you would fine Mt Deismaar.

[Tahliat]

According to the book of Priestcraft Page 17:
"The Anuireans eventually built temples throughout the empire, but to honor Haelyn's heroism at Deismaar they built his first temple in the hills overlooking the city of Aerele in the barony of Diemed, close to where Mount Deismaar once stood."

That's the only mention of the location of the landbridge that I can think of.

My guess is the land bridge connected from the mountains of Bliene in Diemed to the mountains in Aduria west south-west across the straits (Right above where the on Map of Anuire ADURIA is written) and not to the mountains in Mieres because those don't reach all the way to the straits of Aerele.

[Green Knight]

Heretical me did away with the land-bridge altogether. It existed only in the dim past of Aebrynis, long before the Andu came to check out things. I simply could not fit my head around one mountain blowing up to create a trench hundreds of miles long and several provinces wide. Not without obliterating every single creature within a trillion miles of the battle. And at any rate I wanted to have Mnt. Deismaar around as a site for holy pilgrimage...only made the choice all that much easier.

On my maps I have Mnt. Deismar adjacent to Bliene; the Holy Mountain starts in the foothills of Aerele, becomes mountains in Bliene, before culminating in the province of Deismaar.

[AndrewTall]

you should go to Lindesfarne, it is easy to think of a landbridge sinking... The local hotels make good money out of tourists stranded by the tide.

http://www.lindisfarne.org.uk/general/travel.htm

I figured that the land bridge was less 'the whole of the straits' and more 'a few mountain tops and islands that troops could cross at low tide with luck, sturdy rope, and understanding of seasonal tides.

[Michael Romes]

you should go to Lindesfarne, it is easy to think of a landbridge sinking... The local hotels make good money out of tourists stranded by the tide.

http://www.lindisfarne.org.uk/general/travel.htm

I figured that the land bridge was less 'the whole of the straits' and more 'a few mountain tops and islands that troops could cross at low tide with luck, sturdy rope, and understanding of seasonal tides.

Why? It could well be a fully developed mass of land. Such land bridges existed even in our real world, e.g. the connections between Great Britain and continental Europe or between Great Britain and Ireland:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland

[AndrewTall]

Why? It could well be a fully developed mass of land. Such land bridges existed even in our real world, e.g. the connections between Great Britain and continental Europe or between Great Britain and Ireland:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland

Timing mainly, although that could be the result of literal rather than poetical reading of canon - if the land bridge vanished over the new few decades rather than in a matter of days it could have been much more substantive.

What concerns me more is that the straits appear to be deep water over a 50 mile wide expanse with no substantive intervening islands. A substantial landbridge suggests that we should have been left with an archipelago as former hill-tops and mountain peaks remained above the surface even after thousands of feet of general subsidience.

If however the land bridge at the time of Deismaar was already just such remains of a former larger mass with only the mountain tops really above water, and suffered further subsidence and loss of a substantive mountain at Deismaar then the end result is easier to explain.

I can't see a problem with a broad expanse of relatively low lying alluvial deposit type terrain being exposed by the removal of a few key mountains and then sea erosion rapidly scouring away to sand/dirt to make a shallow strait, but that erosion would require years and I would have expected some residual islands, also the position of the land bridge in the apparent centre of the straits with flanked island chains doesn't really fit that method.

It does however spark the idea of Mount Deismaar not so much blowing up, as instead a province-sized mass of land being shifted partly into the Shadow World - similar perhaps to Tuar Annwn - and being pulled entirely into the plane of Shadow as the veil restored itself - a fantastical explanation of course but one with the intriguing possibility of quests to the Holy site, or even one day restoring it to Cerilia.

[Green Knight]

I'm sure it can be reasoned many ways, but I can't bring myself to believe in them. We're not talking some low-lying wetlands being washed away. We're talking a land-bridge the unarguably contains mountainous terrain, spanning a massive straits of deep water, all destroyed in such a way that it didn't insta-kill everyone within a hundred miles.

But as I said the main reason for me keeping it around was that I wanted a Holy Mountain...

Andy: Maybe the Mnt. went into the shadow world, or maybe it even went all the way to heaven along with the new gods?

[adg]

Well, the strait of gibraltar is believed to have been closed off at one point. Thats quite a decent sized strait, and it happened all without any explosion of godly essences;)


For all we know, maybe there are continental plates meeting in the strait, having caused mount deismar to form in the first place, and the explosion after the godwar there pushed the continental plates away from eachother much faster then would happened by nature itself, having them move a long distance over a few years, before slowing down, and ending with the current geography of the strait.

In a world where powerful magicwielders can shift earth with theyr spells, why should not the rampant forces of godly essences, wich would be incomprehensibly much greater, be able to shift a continent? Or blow up a mountain like krakatoa, and then lower the land/seabed a thousand feet or so?

[Rey]

Aren't there tectonic plates rubbing on each other in the coastal area of California? And wasn't there an idea by the villains in movies such as Superman and James Bond that included use of powerful explosives that would shake those plates and make them move one atop the other... and to conclude with a Bill Hicks quote "leaving nothing but a cool, beautiful serenity called... Arizona bay." ;)

So, could some powerful wizard(s) go a bit too much hog wild and cause such a movement inducing a series of deadly earthquakes that would shatter and utterly destroy the land bridge. Not in a day or two but in a longer period of time, months, maybe years...

The maps and data show that mountain range in Aduria spreads from southwest to northeast, ending (if we draw an imaginary line) in the provinces of Bliene and Aerele.
I'd put Mt. Deismaar closer to Adurian side than Cerilian for the sake of mountain range continuity. Now it's only a matter of agreement how much larger would this area be. Would it make province of Bindier in Brosengae a part of it too, would it then mean that the Arnienbae was once a lake...

[Jaleela]

I was thinking about exposing players to Aebrynis' past. I too was curious about the land bridge that was destroyed. I found this NatGeo documentary regarding Yellow Stone interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7as7Ej_U6yU

Given that the straits of Aerele was supposed to be formed by the destruction of Mt. Deismaar, one can liken it to the destructive power of a super volcano.

[AndrewTall]

At the risk of annoying Thelandrin with thread necromancy (most of the originals are around to some degree I think making it not too unfair).

A series volcanic event would give some interesting underwater issues, although a good old fashioned meteor aka Fist of God would have a similar effect.

My worry is that thousands of people survived the collapse of the landbridge - armies clash but frankly if a super volcano pops, dinosaur killer slams in, etc then survivors would live on in spirit only :cool:

I'm thinking:
1. A shift - at least temporarily - to the Shadow World of the actual mountain - possibly with a new mountain rising up to mirror the Shadow World mountain due to the godly essence - kind of a reverse of the typical Shadow world mirrors Aebrynnis effect.

2. A major series of earthquakes starting a few hours after the gods death due to the mystical strains on the land that lasted for years, the Karamhul present at the battle sense the shock to the earth and warn people giving the organised forces a head start - although the ensuing tsunami's make a mess of sailors such as the Masetians and anyone else who stayed near the coast.

3. Much sediment, etc being rapidly eroded over the next few decades as a gibralter-style landbridge is destroyed allowing the oceans to flow down the straits resulting in much of the landbridge being simply washed away.

4. Still many islands left in the straits but only Albiele, Beaghos and Caelcorwynn worth showing on the map. The rest of the straits is then an Australia-style area of relatively shallow seabed that is accordingly very fertile - particularly due to some residual volcanism perhaps.

I note that the Mieres description also mentions the Deismaar mountain chain, but the angle of the mountain chain in southern Mieres doesn't really look right to go up to Diemed.

[Thelandrin]

I'll let you off this once. :p

[Jaleela]

I would hope that there would be some leeway in topic discussions regardless of thread age. ;-) Not everyone has been kicking around the board since it was formed.

It was a discussion point, like I said, something I had been curious about as I'm about to launch an "ancients" campaign. It certainly was not something meant to be dismissive of other concepts that other had considered. Sideath a former province of Tuarhievel, is a perfect example of being "sucked" into the Shadow World.

[AndrewTall]

I'm sorry if I sounded grouchy Jaleela, that wasn't my intent - I was making a joke at Thelandrin's expense over his tough line on thread necromancy, in general its a fair cop when its done as the early posters can't respond to any comments, etc but a new reader won't necessarily recognise that the time gap prevents response but I didn't mean to imply that you were doing anything wrong.


Personally I love talking about stuff like this :)

We definitely need something fairly cataclysmic to explain the disappearance of the landbridge, but have the problem that coastal cities like Ilien were coastal before hand and weren't too badly affected - economic blight but not tidal waves sort of thing and there were lots of survivors which is why I go for something mystical/delayed but still epic in concept.

The more I think about the more I like the shift into the shadow world approach - how about a quest to restore the holy site? Of course Azrai also died on the mountain too - and who knows what corruption has seeped into the holy stone whilst in the land of nightmares... :D