Punth: An Interlude

The Primer: Chapters 1, 2, 3

Work on the land of Punth continues, albeit slowly. However, as I sketch out the next portion of the primer, I have been looking at setting and background. 

In my one complete Punth hexcrawl I had laid out the complete background for Punth, the Qryth and so forth. I don't want to formally remove that from the Canon, but some of the questions of the setting should be left for interpretation.

People don't necessary pick up RPG books for a fully wrought adventure. I have no grand media empire to expect that anyone will be using all of Terrae Vertebrae. I'm not looking to fashion Lore. All worlds created in the course of gaming, I suspect, resemble Virconium more than they do Middle-Earth. 

Of course, even a blank sheet of paper has limits, though one may draw whatever one wishes on it. The narrative in the hexcrawl post was fairly specific, but more about the past than the present. That narrative still holds fairly well to my image of Punth, but it is now the 'Lowest Common Denominator'. The story a scholar investigating Punth might most readily tell, based on generally accessible evidence. This is not the same as the absolute truth.

The Qryth are still green and four-armed; there was still a tower that fell, there are still deserts and sand-dunes. 

But there are a few areas to decide for one's self:

• How sincere are the Qryth in their role as leaders - do they live by the Codes themselves?
• Can (and do) the Qryth communicate by other means than by the Codes?
• How competent are the Qryth? [Yes, stronger and faster than any human. But how well is Punth getting along?]
• What is the nature of the Ka-Punth's revolt against the Qryth? [Freedom fighters or terrorists?]
• If the Qryth were to die off, would the state of Punth maintain itself in roughly the same fashion?
• If the Qryth were to be contacted by their home planet, would they be welcomed home? Or have they been so thoroughly culture-warped and genefucked that they would never wish to?*
• What was the Sorcerer-King trying to accomplish?
• Can Punthites wield magic? Or must they rely on outsiders, willing or otherwise?
• Do the djinn have any genuine power, or are they only unquiet spirits?
• Do the djinn have any collective plan to regain their former power?

Anyway, the Primer rumbles slowly onwards. I might commission some art one of these days. An Appendix-N post might not be a bad idea.

*The Qryth's world presumably having developed along very different lines, so that a company of enlightened peaceable Star Trek-types could arrive to rescue a set of inbred maniac jarheads who have been playing the role of Colonel Kurtz with the natives - and react in horror.