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Post by xerxez on May 7, 2013 17:57:34 GMT -6
Imagine a world where all of mankind, numbering less than several million
people, live on a vast desert hemmed in by towering walls of stone whose
tops reach the clouds but are insurmountable because the atmosphere on
high is not breathable. There is no technology beyond simple metallurgy
and stone craft. Powerful city states lie nestled against the cliffs in those
rare places where life giving waters cascade down from the unseen
heights…beneath these cities stretch the only forests in all the world,
relatively small woodlands that become fens and marshes and then
unbroken desert the further from the falls one follows them. No one leaves
the sight of the world's walls because out there lies only more desert, no
sea, no lakes…to travel into that waste brings one only to a strange mist
barrier and sinking wet sands.
Here and there are scattered mountain ranges lower than the great
walls, close in proximity to them, but harsh and forbidding, filled with
strange overgrown reptiles and giant insects. Beyond the cliff cities lie
scattered settlements of a mysterious desert people who by unknown and
secretive means eke water from the desert sands. Giant simians are used
for menial labor in the city states. A strange race of giant panthers serve
as the fighting companions and mounts of an elite warrior society, once
the protectors of a lost kingdom. The ancient bloodlines of the rulers of
that lost kingdom bequeath to its few heirs telepathic gifts which make
their possessors seem as sorcerers to the masses…and some of these
"sorcerers" use their psionic abilities to enslave weaker and unsuspecting
folk.
In this world, iron is rarer than gold and almost no one possesses it,
using instead weapons of brass or stone. What iron there is was mined
from a mysterious meteorite that fell from the heavens ages ago. To
possess an iron edged weapon is to possess what seems a blade of magic
to it's enemies, for armor does not exist.
Water is the most precious
commodity of all. There are no horses, no common mounts---only six
legged hairy pack animals which cannot be trained to carry men and are
good only for food or carrying goods across the desert. Except for the
panther riders, men walk where they need to go. All political power lies in
the hands of the city-state rulers and the merchant princes who influence
them, not to mention the influence of a ruthless and mysterious
underworld criminal syndicate who have an entire city state to themselves
and have servants hidden in the other cities of the world as well.
This is not a world for the faint of heart, but it is a world for those
who crave intrigue and adventure. This is the world envisioned by the late
fantasy author Randall Garret. This is the world of…GANDALARA! Anyone else on the forum ever read the "Gandalara Cycle"? It was a series of several books later condensed into a trilogy during the early eighties. Our gaming group used it as a setting for quite a long time. Aside from that, Garret and his wife and co-author Vicki are tremendous story tellers and writers.
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Post by owlorbs on May 9, 2013 8:53:30 GMT -6
Sounds interesting. Care to elaborate on the first book a little, if you can without spoilers? I see it is easily available for small expense.
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Post by kesher on May 9, 2013 9:39:09 GMT -6
I remember seeing them in B. Dalton(!), but I never ended up reading them.
Out of curiosity, what rules did you use to play in the setting, and what kind of stuff did characters do?
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Post by thorswulf on May 9, 2013 11:42:37 GMT -6
I just read them recently. Very good reads! The world and its peoples, customs, and history are well done indeed.
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Post by xerxez on May 9, 2013 23:18:47 GMT -6
Okay, I did not read these books until 2010, or 11.
I tend to be a bit fossilized in my reading--what I read in the 80's or heard
of in the 80's, I find myself going back to again and again, most notably Tolkien, Leiber, Howard, and the like. I picked up one of these Gandlara
books one day at work during a lunch break, just on a hunch, started
reading, and was pretty hooked right off. I devoured them, which I hadn't
done with many books in recent years. I gave them to my son, who was
sixteen when he read them, and he also got hooked.
One of my co-workers, also one of my players/fellow DM, whose favorite
author is Salvatore, reads nearly everything and anything. His most recent
feast was the Game of Thrones, but he has been knocking down fantasy
books since the 80's as well and reads everything new...I loaned them to
him and he came back pretty stoked and said this was one of the best
series he had read in a long time. He's pretty discriminating.
They are good! And pretty unique. I believe the author had somewhat of a
following from previous science fiction novels, he was somewhat brainy.
This was the series he worked on until he died. He did not write the last
novel, but his wife, who had worked on them with him from the beginning
in a supportive role, penned the last book in his memory by following
detailed outline notes he had made, and I think she did great.
It's hard to write any synopsis of this without spoilers but essentially it's a
body transfer story, kind of like den of Earth in the Heavy metal movie, but
different. An old and dying man from our world survives a cataclysmic
event and awakens in the body of a young native warrior of Gandlara,
almost a soul replacement. You are not given to know where and what
exactly the world of Gandlara is...He awakens at the scene of a battle and
there is immediately a mystery to solve..he doesn't know why the battle
took place or even who he is now, though he does get some psychic
residue from the previous soul who owned the body he is in. He finds out
eventually that a great relic is at stake, deals with some bad karma that his
Gandalaran counterpart drummed up, establishes new relationships with
people the young warrior new, and finds out he is one of the ancient order
of cat-riders. There is a pretty good love story thrown in the mix as he
sets out to rescue the great relic and confront an evil mastermind with
psychic powers that seem nothing less than magical, though in fact they
are scientifically and genetically explained. And of course, the hero has
some powers of his own....
In answer to your question, Kesher, we used a percentile based "no rules"
free form game--no real mechanics at all to speak of, it was borrowed
from the Tekumel forums. The d100 is rolled, high is bad, low is good,
middle is neutral. The GM told you what your roll did based on this. There
wasn't even a hit point or armor class system. Surprisingly, this system
survived almost a year. You can see the obvious weaknesses in it, mostly
due to power gaming tendencies in some, and that did it in, but without
doubt we had some of the best characters and games in that campaign we
had ever played, lots of good memories. I liked all players, but one player
had the tendency to keep pushing the envelope and abuse the lack of any
codified rules system and his character became a downer for everyone, it
just killed all the fun. There were no rules to hold him in check, he seemed
to enjoy this fact, and rather than stop playing with him, we simply moved
back to D&D. But thats water under an old bridge.
Anyway, it would be much like Barsoom as a setting, but without
technology or alien races. In fact, that might make it unappealing to some
as a setting--no magic, no demihuman or alien races, just humans that
have some slight modifications. When we used the setting, we changed it
to fit D&D races and concepts. We added all D&D races and monsters, but
adapted them to fit the culture and history of Gandalara. Although there is
no magic, there are psionics, this is a cornerstone of the tale. I actually
think it would be cool as a setting without adding fantasy elements, but
probably not as a regular campaign.
It is an appealing world, harsh and barren as it is, the author creates some
interesting culture and history and really, that's all stage scenery to what is
really a character driven tale--it has probably a dozen characters who
loom large in the story and leave very lasting and memorable impressions.
The criminal underworld, with it's seedy home city of Chizan, is nicely done,
with it's army of thieves, assassins and cutthroats--Chizan would make a
great place for city adventures based on thief intrigues.
That's another cool thing about the series...there are some breathtaking
cities described. I really want to visit Raithskar, city of the Falls--one of the
coolest fantasy cities I've seen in any setting.
I typed this thread in because I'm tempted to turn back to Gandlara as a
campaign setting, this time without any outside elements, maybe using
OD&D rules. The AD&D rules would probably also be great, especially using
the Psionics.
Anyway, I am fairly certain nearly all in this forum would like the books, I
highly recommend them.
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Post by xerxez on May 9, 2013 23:33:05 GMT -6
You asked what the characters did, Kesher, in our game--lots of stuff!
We used a rotational GM system I both loved and hated--you DM'ed a
number of adventures, I thin it was 5 or 7, then you took up playing and
another player took over as DM. We all co-created the world details.
It was still about seeking treasure and glory--there were alot of town and
adventures and even a full scale siege warfare once involving thousands of
warriors!
There were too many adventures for me to recount now but one very
memorable one involved the heroes being sent to retrieve a lost sword
from a desolate isle--it was guarded by a terrible White Worm which aside
form being able to kill and eat you also had the power to possess people
spiritually--the party survived, though my character's hand was hacked off
by a Dwarf PC whom the Worm managed to get control of and had him
attack me! I played a Buchaneer named Captain Hachar Al-Hazket. They
killed the hideous beast, won the blade, but another Dwarf in the party
decides he will smith a replica of the blade to give to the Emperor who
wanted it, keeping the real relic for himself. When we handed over the
fake, the Emperor's magic users immediately declared it a counterfeit and
we, hailed only moments before as conquering heroes, were suddenly
consigned to the gladiatorial pits....but that is another adventure! Fun
times!
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2013 6:55:53 GMT -6
I enjoyed this series enough to have read it twice so far and will no doubt re-read it again in the future. Took me years to track down a cheap copy of the final book, but got it in the end. I must confess I'm a dog, not a cat person and so giant girl thingycats did little for me. If I was to use this as a gaming setting I reckon I'd swap the cats for giant lizards. Edit: amused to see the built in censorship of this forum took the word "p ussycats" and turned it into "girl thingycats", now that's going just a bit too far.
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Post by owlorbs on May 10, 2013 9:38:40 GMT -6
Thanks for the expanded info. This really stimulated my interest so I shelled out $11.60 for the first three books. Now they're only about 60 volumes deep on my "need to read" pile.
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Post by xerxez on May 11, 2013 10:29:26 GMT -6
I know you will enjoy it owlorbs! I so need to get back to reading avidly, I
have backed off in recent years.
I am always reading something but not at the rate I once did.
Currently, I am very into "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", which I had never
actually picked up until a week ago when my son returned from college
with a copy. Not a fantasy title but pretty good stuff, I'm enjoying it. There
is one part where the old Catholic mother (from the Old World) is telling
her daughter who just had a baby in 1902 that she must not only teach
her daughter to be a good Christian and read a page everyday from the
Bible and Shakespeare, but that she must also teach her daughter about
elves and dwarves and faeries and ghosts, the little people who are not of
the earth and live forever, as well as a belief in Irish folk magic.
The daughter responds this would be teaching the child foolish lies and
things she does not believe in herself--but her mother says they might be
lies and might not be, "You don't know...". When the daughter asks why
she should teach the child things she does not believe in herself, the
mother tells her that it is so the child will have the most important thing--
imagination. And the child must believe in these things in her childhood so
that when she is old and the world becomes ugly sometimes, she has a
place of beauty inside herself to which she can retreat. I think D&D is
something like that!
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Post by Vile Traveller on May 11, 2013 22:14:25 GMT -6
Always looking for new (to me) authors - thanks, xerxes!
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