“Exag, City of Clay” in Dungeon 145 places the Flan migrations into Eastern Oerik at 2600 years ago. That would be -2000 CY more or less. Flannae Tracking started -2150 CY, which would be before their migrations. Any ideas or other canon?
I'd much rather think the Flan have been in the Flanaess for tens of thousands of years, personally - that they're natives of the continent, rather than immigrants.
I'd much rather think the Flan have been in the Flanaess for tens of thousands of years, personally - that they're natives of the continent, rather than immigrants.
I feel the same way, but absent canon or my own developments to the contrary, I am open to new ideas. However, coming from the west like the B, O and S (sw) just does not seem right. Looking back at the text, with Exag in the NW, I guess that "into" was only my assumption. It actually says “spreading across” so they could have been relatively localized in the Flanaess, or multiple places therein, for tens of thousands of years. But something must have happend then to get them moving.
The problem with that idea is that it contradicts a lot of other stuff written. For instance, the (not quite canon) Great Embarkation story of the elf-reptilian wars, and the reference in Ghost Tower of Inverness to the tower existing when the Flan were but newcomers to the land.
The Flan were here before any other human ethnicity that still survives. They were here before the elves. They probably should be here before the Baklunish empire is up and running (or else where did they come from?).
Anyway, tens of thousands of years is a crazy long time to think about human ethnic groups existing coherently if Oerth is anything like the real world. The Flanaess isn't isolated enough, really.
The problem with that idea is that it contradicts a lot of other stuff written. For instance, the (not quite canon) Great Embarkation story of the elf-reptilian wars, and the reference in Ghost Tower of Inverness to the tower existing when the Flan were but newcomers to the land.
It doesn't contradict either of those things; it just places them back further in time than you evidently assume they belong.
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Anyway, tens of thousands of years is a crazy long time to think about human ethnic groups existing coherently if Oerth is anything like the real world.
The key word there is "coherently" - yeah, they wouldn't have been the Flan tens of thousands of years ago, but they would have shared a bloodline with the modern Flan.
I noted the "2600 years ago refererence" but didn't think it contradicted any canon. I'm assuming the author(s) meant the Flan came to the region around Exag some 2600 years ago.
I'm sure there were multiple periods of Flan expansion and contraction in ancient history. Pegging their arrival in P-land to 2600 years ago does bother me a bit.
It definitely puts the elves farther back than the articles suggest, though there are other references (such as the Valley elf one) that also prove problematic with the less ancient elf hypothesis. Of course, the Great Embarkation is LGG apocrypha, not canon.
I am leery of stretching history into antiquities of the sort suggested, its true. It tends to imply a level of stasis that doesn't hold true in the real world. Folks move around... a lot. Civilizations rise and fall in far less time. And when you throw in magical calamities, hordes of non humans and monsters, and everything else....
In India, you can go back maybe 11000 years to the early Indus civilization while still claiming some connection to the modern inhabitants other than geographical location. And even then, you have waves and waves of invaders of differing culture and ethnicity.
I suppose my disagreement isn't so much with the idea of humans having been in the Flanaess for tens of thousands of years. Its just with the idea that calling them "Flan" means anything over that stretch of time. But then there's already a tendency to treat the Flan like a homogenous group when its probably a term equivalent to "native american" and refers to a widely diverse group of peoples.
Personally, I like all humankind originating in the Suel basin. The Seven Houses War resulted in the splitting of mankind into its primary races: Suel, Baklune, Flan, Oeridian, Suhfang, Tuov, and Olman. From hence would the Flan enter the Flanneass. Though, I doubt this would be a popular theory.
Alternatively, perhaps some 2600 years ago was when the Flan domesticated the horse. Such would have greatly improved their ability to spread from localized areas in the Flanneass to encompass the whole subcontinent.
Its just with the idea that calling them "Flan" means anything over that stretch of time.
I agree with that; culturally and linguistically, there would be changes. When I said I'd rather the Flan had been in the Flanaess much longer, I didn't mean to imply there would be no cultural development or new waves of settlers in that time.
Perhaps the Flan were originally a cohesive civilization-group that then 2600 years ago broke up into the several sub-flan civilizations across the Flanaess that we are familiar with. It just seems odd that we go with Oerid, Baklun, Suel and Olman all existing in large bands or empires but the Flan have never at any time in history been a single force.
Yes, but I'd argue that the flaw is in the idea that the Suel, Baklunish, and Oerids were ever united. The Suel in the Flanaess come from "The Suel Empire". But what says that's the only ethnically Suel community around? There was a Baklunish Padishah, but how much of that did he really control? The Oerids were clearly a bunch of tribes only loosely related. You can tell just by how many languages there are: Keoish, Velondi, Ferrond, etc. And there are distinct cultural traits between the East and West Oerids (preferences in clothing patterns, for instance).
The game tends to present these ethnicities are far more monolithic than they likely were.
The Oeridian example is a perfect case then for the Flan to have a common starting ground then branch into smaller tribal nations after a migration. Theirs I assume would be counter to the direction of everyone else. Dating ancient migrations can be hard the further you move from the present day. No research for example can pinpoint to the exact year or decade the Americas were first populated. All in all I like the Exag article as it does use Greyhawk timelines and local geography despite the poor treatment to canon we usually expect with a 3.5e product.
IMC, the proto Flan were shamanistic/spirit worshipping types who were displaced from the west (Zeif, etc) and moved into the northern reaches of the Flanaess, avoiding the reptilian infested southlands. This about 5000-6000 years ago.
The first cultural break is that some of them encounter the "Druids of the Elder Age" and adopt what is now the Old Faith. These Old Faith types aid and abet the elves in the war against the lizardy types and move southwards into those lands.
Some of those involved in the wars were repelled by the brutal nature of the fighting and adopted a new faith that was spreading: The Raoan pantheon (Rao, Allitur, Zodal, Pelor, Nerull, Atarra, and much later St. Cuthbert). That's the group of tribes in the Veluna/Furyondy/Tenh arc.
I haven't really decided about the Ehlissans, Necromancers of Trask, and other eastern Flan. But I'm inclined to consider them yet a fourth group.
All these guys are Flan in the same way all the American Indians are a single group (ie: uhhhh, sorta...) "Flan" is really a term for "all the humans the Oeridians and Suel found already living here when they showed up."
I'd agree with those stating that the racial groups were not "unified." I have taken to narrowing my definitions for what "Baklunish," "Flan," "Oeridian," "Suloise," et al mean.
For instance, when I use the term "Baklunish," I only refer to those groups / cultural traits that were brought together to give us the Baklunish Empire. I am sure there were other related groups - some with almost identical cultures. However, if they don't feed directly into what history has called the Baklunish Empire, I call them something else. In the case of the Baklunish, I peg the term to the time of the Hegira. Anything before that would be Proto-Baklunish in my book.
With regard to the Oeridians, it is obvious there are many lands outside the Flanaess that have Oeridian peoples in them. The legends surrounding Johydee clearly state that those Oeridians that followed her east were only one of seven kingdoms. If one adopts the Chainmail background, then you have the western realm of Thalos - which is exclusively Oeridian.
I've not tackled the Suel, so I can't comment on them.
As for the Flan, some of them had reached rather far west in the days before the Twin Cats. The Ataphads, in particular, were populated by degenerate Baklunish and Flan.
Anyway, I have no problem with the relative dates of the Exag article. They are sufficiently general so as not to conflict, in my mind, with any canon.
IMC the Flan are ancient, and have existed Eastern Oerik for many thousands of years. Calling them one cohesive group is possible only through general bloodlines and a general geographic isolation from other humans. There are similarities that, to Europeans for example, would make them the same. Hair color, technology, etc. The fact that the Oerdians, Suel and Baklunish do not speak any of the Flan languages led them to consider it one language; this is exactly how many early settlers viewed native americans.
I have them as a series of bronze age cultures that rose and fell. They developed and regressed through contact with demihumans and humanoids. The tribes were in many ways similar across the Flaness, but had significant differences. The cultures of the Illiad, ancient greece (pre classic), Gaullic peoples, and the Celts are whom I am drawing on here. If Homer had not been so insistent that the Greeks were different from the Trojans, we would probably think of them as one culture today. The entire Greek and Anatolian region had a common culture at that time.
IMC there were seven flan kingdoms in the Sheldomar (not Ur Flan), in the region around the headwaters of the Lort River. They claimed "kingdoms," though in truth they would not be more than baronies or counties in the modern Flaness.
It is from this time that many of the "legends," come, those still told around camp fires in the March and Keoland. The early battles against Vecna, a golden age of 7 kingdoms, etc. These are much like the legends of the Knights of King Arthur in their durability and variance.
I always do dinfinitive research before putting a date in any of my articles, so I would imagine the date should be rather factual. _________________ Kneel before me, or you shall be KNELT!
The problem with that idea is that it contradicts a lot of other stuff written. For instance, the (not quite canon) Great Embarkation story of the elf-reptilian wars,...
Where does info on the "Great Embarkation story of the elf-reptilian wars" section in particular come from?
I also prefer the Flan to be natives of the Flanaess as well, and that it was everybody else who migrated east and came into contact with them. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
The reason I ask has to do with the serpentfolk material I have written, in particular that the serpentfolk were thrown down by the elves. I'd like to see how what Erik wrote fits with what I wrote. Things are bizarrely similar as it is.
Anybody who has links to these articles please PM them to me. In the meantime I'll try to find them myself using the search function. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
I'm pretty sure he put them in the LGJs, with the UrFlan and Cairn Builders.
lol, gonna take me awhile to get readjusted again. That sounds like a question I should've known the answer to right off the top of my head. _________________ Kneel before me, or you shall be KNELT!
"Few records remain of the centuries of warfare between the two races. If the kuo-toa had any relations with the gloomy aboleth, nothing came of them during the conflict. Evil to their cores, they had enslaved or killed all races they had contacted in the early aeons, and thus enjoyed no allies. The olve, on the other hand, recruited many to their cause. Unable to rouse the dwarves from their underground lairs, they nonetheless enlisted many gnomes, as well as extremely early Flan and the dying race of the Rujari, primitive antecedents of human beings. These latter folk coined the name "gogglers" for the kuo-toa, an appellation that remains popular to this day."
Thanks for the link. The info on the Flan is interesting. And then there are the primitive humans. Too many Elf Quest comic books perhaps. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
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