Potential new bookmarks - The Unbroken Arm
Aug 13, 2019 18:22:11 GMT
gabec, aconda, and 1 more like this
Post by rufff1 on Aug 13, 2019 18:22:11 GMT
Had a little musing for a potential bunch of new bookmarks and just throwing it out there - The Unbroken Arm
This would be before the breaking of the arm of Dorne and even before the Long Night - the land bridge linking Westeros together as one mighty continent, some have even suggested that the arm also connected to the Rainwood in the Stormlands (see bottom for what some have argued it looked like). Admittedly, we know little of what this world looked like and what we do have are legends, but I'd argue that it does actually have the possibility for a coherent setting.
Some notes:
In the East you have the Great Empire of the Dawn ruling everything east of the Bone Mountains, this was before the Long Night and the Bloodstone Emperor and is the greatest empire we know of from the period.
In what is now the Dothraki Sea there is an actual inland sea, the Silver Sea, the lands of its shores are ruled by the Fisher Queens, a matriarchal society who some legends claim give birth to Huzhor Amai - one of the many forms of the hero of the Long Night.
South of the Silver Sea are the wide grasslands where the First Men supposedly began their migration, nearby too would be the kingdoms of the Gipps, the Cymeri, and the Zoqora who Huzhor Amai would one day conquer.
Also throughout the region are the fabled Hairy Men, the supposed ancestors of the Ibbenese and perhaps the Skagosi, who were fearsome raiders, riding to battle on unicorns and had not yet been driven from mainland Essos.
Somewhere in the grasslands of central Essos was also the lost city of Lyber where the acolytes of the spider goddess and serpent god fought an endless bloody war. To the east of Lyber was the kingdom of centaurs - presumably the first humans to tame and ride horses - presumably proto Dothraki. Along the North Coast of Essos the enigmatic woods walkers- cousins to the Children held sway. Meanwhile where now stands the Red Wastes and the Southern Dothraki Sea were the myriad of Qaathi city states, established before the Saarnori would one day force them South. On Slavers Bay you would have the first stirring of the civilisation that would become Old Ghis, still in its infancy.
Presumably along the Rhoyne you would have fledgling Rhoynar city states as they explicitly remember the time before the Long Night in their legends. In Lorath the enigmatic Mazemakers built their strange mazes and in Norvos a simple people inhabited the reaches of the Noyne building in wood, until driven from the region by the Hairy Men - these Noynefolk it is believed were the forebears of the Andals. In what would become Valyria you only have simple shepherd living in villages cowering in fear from the dragons who nest in the Fourteen Flames.
In Westeros itself you have a patchwork of lands ruled by tribes of the Children of the Forest and Giant Clans. Also you have the entry of the First Men to Westeros. One of their leaders was the First King said to be buried at Barrowton, another, or the same depending on your point of view, was Garth Greenhand and his many children all of whom predate the Long Night. A mechanic like the Andal invasion could be implemented only ending in the destruction of the Children or with the signature of the Pact stabilising the boundaries of the Children and the First Men and making them convert to the Old Gods. Conflicts like Uthor Hightower fighting the Giants on Battle Isle or Brandon of the Bloody Blade slaying CotF at Red Lake could be inspiration for conflicts. In later bookmarks you would also have Durran Godsgrief building his castles and establishing the Stormlands and you could have a travelling Bran the Builder as a Merlin like mystic advising construction projects at the Hightower and Storms End. On the Honeywine itself it seems that human habitation may have predated the First Men migration, as a trading post for the Ghiscari, Summer Isles, and Dawn Empire to trade with the Elder Races, House Hightower existed before Garth came to Westeros - with Uthor of the Hightower wedding his daughter and appearing to have a kingdom of his own already - perhaps the Hightowers sprung from these traders?
On the Iron Isles you could (admittedly there is no clarity if this is before the Breaking of the Arm or Long Night) have the thousand year rule of the Grey King followed by the fratricidal wars of his hundred sons that only left 16 alive, perhaps they are the selkies and merlings Owen Oakenshield drove into the sea?
I fully acknowledge that the information we have from this is GRRM writing ancient myth and painting in broad strokes, but that is also true of YiTi, Ib and the Bone Mountains in every bookmark, and the Ghiscari Wars submod as a whole. I do genuinely think that there is enough to go off for a submod in here
This would be before the breaking of the arm of Dorne and even before the Long Night - the land bridge linking Westeros together as one mighty continent, some have even suggested that the arm also connected to the Rainwood in the Stormlands (see bottom for what some have argued it looked like). Admittedly, we know little of what this world looked like and what we do have are legends, but I'd argue that it does actually have the possibility for a coherent setting.
Some notes:
In the East you have the Great Empire of the Dawn ruling everything east of the Bone Mountains, this was before the Long Night and the Bloodstone Emperor and is the greatest empire we know of from the period.
In what is now the Dothraki Sea there is an actual inland sea, the Silver Sea, the lands of its shores are ruled by the Fisher Queens, a matriarchal society who some legends claim give birth to Huzhor Amai - one of the many forms of the hero of the Long Night.
South of the Silver Sea are the wide grasslands where the First Men supposedly began their migration, nearby too would be the kingdoms of the Gipps, the Cymeri, and the Zoqora who Huzhor Amai would one day conquer.
Also throughout the region are the fabled Hairy Men, the supposed ancestors of the Ibbenese and perhaps the Skagosi, who were fearsome raiders, riding to battle on unicorns and had not yet been driven from mainland Essos.
Somewhere in the grasslands of central Essos was also the lost city of Lyber where the acolytes of the spider goddess and serpent god fought an endless bloody war. To the east of Lyber was the kingdom of centaurs - presumably the first humans to tame and ride horses - presumably proto Dothraki. Along the North Coast of Essos the enigmatic woods walkers- cousins to the Children held sway. Meanwhile where now stands the Red Wastes and the Southern Dothraki Sea were the myriad of Qaathi city states, established before the Saarnori would one day force them South. On Slavers Bay you would have the first stirring of the civilisation that would become Old Ghis, still in its infancy.
Presumably along the Rhoyne you would have fledgling Rhoynar city states as they explicitly remember the time before the Long Night in their legends. In Lorath the enigmatic Mazemakers built their strange mazes and in Norvos a simple people inhabited the reaches of the Noyne building in wood, until driven from the region by the Hairy Men - these Noynefolk it is believed were the forebears of the Andals. In what would become Valyria you only have simple shepherd living in villages cowering in fear from the dragons who nest in the Fourteen Flames.
In Westeros itself you have a patchwork of lands ruled by tribes of the Children of the Forest and Giant Clans. Also you have the entry of the First Men to Westeros. One of their leaders was the First King said to be buried at Barrowton, another, or the same depending on your point of view, was Garth Greenhand and his many children all of whom predate the Long Night. A mechanic like the Andal invasion could be implemented only ending in the destruction of the Children or with the signature of the Pact stabilising the boundaries of the Children and the First Men and making them convert to the Old Gods. Conflicts like Uthor Hightower fighting the Giants on Battle Isle or Brandon of the Bloody Blade slaying CotF at Red Lake could be inspiration for conflicts. In later bookmarks you would also have Durran Godsgrief building his castles and establishing the Stormlands and you could have a travelling Bran the Builder as a Merlin like mystic advising construction projects at the Hightower and Storms End. On the Honeywine itself it seems that human habitation may have predated the First Men migration, as a trading post for the Ghiscari, Summer Isles, and Dawn Empire to trade with the Elder Races, House Hightower existed before Garth came to Westeros - with Uthor of the Hightower wedding his daughter and appearing to have a kingdom of his own already - perhaps the Hightowers sprung from these traders?
On the Iron Isles you could (admittedly there is no clarity if this is before the Breaking of the Arm or Long Night) have the thousand year rule of the Grey King followed by the fratricidal wars of his hundred sons that only left 16 alive, perhaps they are the selkies and merlings Owen Oakenshield drove into the sea?
I fully acknowledge that the information we have from this is GRRM writing ancient myth and painting in broad strokes, but that is also true of YiTi, Ib and the Bone Mountains in every bookmark, and the Ghiscari Wars submod as a whole. I do genuinely think that there is enough to go off for a submod in here