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    Canonfire :: View topic - Chebikav, Land of Shar
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    Chebikav, Land of Shar
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    Grandmaster Greytalker

    Joined: Jul 09, 2003
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    Tue Mar 03, 2015 4:47 pm  
    Chebikav, Land of Shar

    Couldn't find an old thread to put this on, so I'll have to create a new one... Confused

    On the map in Scarlet Brotherhood, on the west end of Hepmonaland, at the mouth of the Chiuhtle River, there's a town called Chebikav, literally, "Goblin Head" in Suel, but probably using "Head," like "Cape" or "Ras," to mean Goblin Point or Cape Goblin. The Chiuhtle is the border between Lerga and Xolapequa, put I can't find anything in SB which actually mentions the town. Is there anything in canon on this? If not, I'll be happy to do my own...Wink
    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Thu Aug 20, 2015 10:31 am  
    Re: Chebikav, Land of Shar

    jamesdglick wrote:
    Couldn't find an old thread to put this on, so I'll have to create a new one... Confused

    On the map in Scarlet Brotherhood, on the west end of Hepmonaland, at the mouth of the Chiuhtle River, there's a town called Chebikav, literally, "Goblin Head" in Suel, but probably using "Head," like "Cape" or "Ras," to mean Goblin Point or Cape Goblin. The Chiuhtle is the border between Lerga and Xolapequa, put I can't find anything in SB which actually mentions the town. Is there anything in canon on this? If not, I'll be happy to do my own...Wink


    OK, doing it myself would be a hassle. Laughing

    It's odd that the text of Scarlet Brotherhood seems to have nothing to say about it. Did I miss it? Question
    Black Hand of Oblivion

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    Sat Aug 22, 2015 9:26 pm  

    Nope. It wasn't written up so far as I know. Read this thread, in particular post #13 from Mortpierre: http://community.wizards.com/forum/other-published-worlds/threads/925291
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    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Sun Aug 23, 2015 7:46 am  

    Cebrion wrote:
    It wasn't written up so far as I know. Read this thread, in particular post #13 from Mortpierre: http://community.wizards.com/forum/other-published-worlds/threads/925291


    Ah. Nice.

    I haven't had the time to inspect the entire thing (I finished page 1), but based on the time stamps, I assume they were planning to write for 594 CY, although this post:

    Post #23: "If you were going for a Rel Astran vessel, why not make it the caravel that turned up in Hardby a few years ago after apparently rounding the southern tip of Hepmonaland?

    It apparently vanished on the return leg..."

    ...might make it late 580s.

    Anyway...

    http://community.wizards.com/forum/other-published-worlds/threads/925291

    Post #13: "...even nearer, we have the small town/village of Chebikav. Probably a fishing community... ... ...So, what kind of local problems do we face here?

    a) Chebikav villagers could be “buying” the protection of the “water spirits” (read: make sure their fishermen aren’t attacked) by sacrificing people. They could tie them on the beach or perhaps on the reef closest to shore (since the Ixitxachitls aren’t likely to come out of the water to fetch them). Of course, foreigners are preferred since it means villagers get to live a while longer…"

    Post 19: "As he [skipper of a Rel Astran vessel] was passing near Xuxchan Bay, he encountered pirates (from the nearby Pirate Isles). Unable to loose them, he entered the bay and made for the shore. Unfortunately, his ship ran into reefs and sank. Some of the crew escaped and were rescued by villagers from Chebikav..."

    Post #29: "If we retain the sb fooling pcs, the pcs have no ally in the Olman village [i.e., Chebikav]."

    Post #34: "Chap 2: PC sails to the olman village [i.e., Chebikav], disguised as crew. The true crew are Sb agent, but they are VERY friendly with pcs... ... ... ... ...Chap 6 ...The locathah KNOW about the ship, and where it is... They will also explain their war against Ixitxachitl and may know about the olman sacrifice [at Chebikav]. "

    Post #35: "If I understand you correctly, the PC sail to the Olman village as part of the crew of a (disguised) SB ship..."

    Post #36: "We also must not forget that Olman absolutely dont trust (and fear) Suloise..."

    ...hmmm...

    1) My thought was that by 591, Chebikav would be a SB trading post, but that's not mutually exclusive that it was originally a fishing village;

    2) Everyone seems to be stuck on making Chebikav an Olman village. I don't have The SB with me, but my impression from where the borders were was that Chebikav was run by the SB by 591 CY, not to mention that Chebikav is a Suel name (qv previous post). But maybe it's actually Rasol, explaining the linguistic resemblance, and the SB hasn't taken over yet (assuming late 580s)? Or maybe the SB was there in 591, but pulled out for some reason afterward (if post-591)?

    Post #34: "6- Chap 4:they meet their contact, a sb agent usually used for giving info for kidnapping Olman..."

    Post #40: "...That said, you can still include a SB agent among the natives of Chebikav. Remember Xolapeqa? Their warriors are capturing folks from Cuhuetla and leaving them on the coast for SB slave-ships to pick up... How about saying that those slaves-to-be are left in Chebikav. The locals guard them till the SB slave-ships arrive. In exchange, they get to keep - say - one slave out of 5 to do as they please (read: use them in their sacrificial ceremonies)."

    ...or maybe the SB named the place, but merely have it under observation, as the above posts suggest?

    BTW, "Goblin Point" would suggest the presence of goblins, wouldn't it? But maybe the SB were using "goblin" to refer to creatures for whom there was no word in Suel (or Rasol). Or maybe there's a rock formation that looks like a goblin?
    GreySage

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    Sun Aug 23, 2015 12:07 pm  

    I just remembered I wrote a thing on hobgoblins trading with Hepmonaland, to explain why hobgoblins have carnivorous apes as pets.

    From this thread:

    Quote:
    Before the continent of Atalya sunk beneath the Solnor Ocean ten millennia ago, it built colonies on the eastern coast of Hepmonaland. When the ocean drank their homeland, the stranded Atalyans walled themselves off from the rest of their new continent, shutting off their lives and gene pools from outside influences. For countless generations they remained in their walled cities, breeding their males to be fierce protectors and their females to be wise administrators, until male Atalyans had become degenerate brutes scarcely distinguishable from the gorillas who roamed the forests outside. As the millennia turned and some of the few remaining Atalyan cities crumbled due to external attack or internal revolution, the degenerate, ape-like Atalyans spread into the jungle, seemingly little different from the true apes, though larger and smarter, and used to eating meat.

    Around 600 years ago the hobgoblin king Bhutok, fleeing the expanding Great Kingdom, raided the last intact Atalyan city in Hepmonaland. He nearly destroyed the city walls when the queen called a truce, making Bhutok's tribe a deal: an annual payment of Atalyan slaves in exchange for hobgoblin aid in defending the city against other threats. The deal was struck, and remains in force to this day.


    I was directly inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs here for the idea of intelligent carnivorous apelike creatures descended from an ancient human civilization (specifically I was thinking of ancient Opar, though the apes who raised Tarzan may well be related). I think the Tarzan books are probably the origin of the AD&D carnivorous ape.

    Of course, Chebikav is on the western coast of Hepmonaland, and I put the Atalyan colonies on the east coast, but that's only where they initially settled; the unnamed Opar-like last city could be anywhere near the Chiuhtle River, with the slaves brought to the river mouth to trade with hobgoblins (who now have to deal with the Scarlet Brotherhood as intermediaries in the slave trade—at least, Anna Meyer's map puts it very definitely under Scarlet Brotherhood control). If there is a lost city of carnivorous apes along the river, I'd put it deep in the interior of the continent, on the Lerga side of the border. The Scarlet Brotherhood mentions "strange carnivores" that roam the eastern regions of Lerga; civilized carnivorous apes might be among them.

    The idea of Atalya (which comes from a non-Greyhawk-specific Dragon Magazine article) isn't really necessary. The lost civilization could have been from the Sinking Isle, or maybe even the Torhoon. Or they could have been Suel, actually, who settled in the area anyway and make for very adequate Atlantis stand-ins. Maybe some of the Suel migrants deep in the interior interbred with beasts or made a pact with Demogorgon and devolved into something less than human, while the others remained tanned and freckled versions of their ancestral selves.

    Anyway, basically the idea here is that it's called "Goblin Point" or "Goblin Head" because hobgoblins come here to trade for carnivorous ape slaves (and possibly other slaves, as long as they're there). That doesn't mean it isn't also an Olman fishing village, though given the demographics of the area it's going to have some heavy Suel influence as well as Olman. It's probably going to be more like Xolapeqa than Lerga, demographically, but it definitely wasn't pure Olman even before the Scarlet Brotherhood took over.

    Goblins and hobgoblins aren't mentioned among the natives of Hepmonaland (though bugbears are), but I can imagine goblin-crewed ships leaving Blue and Highport (or the Bone March) to trade for slaves there. If they had a functioning slave market for hobgoblins, it's not a leap to say they started selling slaves to others as well, including perhaps the ixitxachitl and other aquatic races that might have some use for air-breathing sacrifices (perhaps aboleths, sahuagins, chuuls, tojanidas, and kopru). If Chebikav was already a slaver trading port, that would help explain why the Scarlet Brotherhood was eager to conquer it. Today, they use it as a base for further slaving runs into the interior of the continent, but some of the old pacts still hold.

    I notice that Lerga has a fair-sized bugbear population (around 400 in total, perhaps), which might be a simpler reason to call a town "goblin head." That doesn't mean it was a bugbear town; it might have been named for the severed heads the locals displayed on the town's walls to help keep bugbears out. If there are hobgoblin slavers, they might trade with the bugbears or even have introduced them to the region.

    The Paizo supplement Classic Monsters Revisited described a variant bugbear dwelling in tropical swamps and rivers called the murd. Murds are standard bugbears except that they can turn themselves into a liquid, tar-like form at will, something like gaseous form except instead of a gas they turn into mud to creep into sealed houses, murder the inhabitants, and escape without a trace. Supposedly they're terrified of snakes, which means local tribes keep trained snakes as guardians and revere snake gods as protector spirits. Many of the gods said to be popular in Xolapeqa, including Llerg, Quetzalcoatl, and Beltar, have snakelike forms, so that tracks. I'd also add Coatlicue, Tlaloc, and Hurakan.

    I would also expect to see ivory for sale in Chebikav. A bear-sized elephant called the onco is supposed to have valuable ivory tusks.
    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Mon Aug 24, 2015 12:26 pm  

    DOH! Forgot to consult SB as a source! Oh well, I'll get around to it...

    Post 70: "I would suggest the year 591 CY. That way, we’re up to date with the LG Gazetteer but don’t have to worry about what happened since then in the various regions of Living Greyhawk."

    ...ok, FWIW, they went for 591.

    Post 45: "...Needing a place to repair, the captain looked at his maps and saw that a fishing village in Xuxchan Bay (Chebikav) serves as a regular stop for SB slave-ships. He tried to steer his ship there but, while crossing the bay, ran into hostile Tako that damaged the hull to the point where the ship started to sink. Those sailors who didn’t drown were killed by the Tako. Only the captain managed to escape, using a door as raft.
    Through sheer luck, he managed to reach Chebikav...
    However, the SB knows the bay is unhealthy to surface-dwellers. Several undersea species (Ixitxachitls, Locathahs, Tako, etc..) use it as a battlefield and none of them look kindly upon interlopers. Indeed, the SB slave-ships had avoided trouble so far only because Chebikav is located on the northern border of the bay and the SB ships hug the coast to reach it."

    ... they seemed to have passed on the idea that it was the missing Rel Astran ship. Too bad. Would have been a nice connection.

    Anyway, they don't seem to have ever finished it. Hmmpf. But the discussion is a start for a vague, squishy sort of canon, I guess...Wink

    rasgon wrote:
    I just remembered I wrote a thing on hobgoblins trading with Hepmonaland, to explain why hobgoblins have carnivorous apes as pets...

    ...Chebikav is on the western coast of Hepmonaland... the unnamed Opar-like last city could be anywhere near the Chiuhtle River, with the slaves brought to the river mouth to trade with hobgoblins (who now have to deal with the Scarlet Brotherhood as intermediaries in the slave trade—at least, Anna Meyer's map puts it very definitely under Scarlet Brotherhood control). If there is a lost city of carnivorous apes along the river, I'd put it deep in the interior of the continent, on the Lerga side of the border. The Scarlet Brotherhood mentions "strange carnivores" that roam the eastern regions of Lerga; civilized carnivorous apes might be among them...

    Anyway, basically the idea here is that it's called "Goblin Point" or "Goblin Head" because hobgoblins come here to trade for carnivorous ape slaves (and possibly other slaves, as long as they're there)...

    Goblins and hobgoblins aren't mentioned among the natives of Hepmonaland (though bugbears are), but I can imagine goblin-crewed ships leaving Blue and Highport (or the Bone March) to trade for slaves there. If they had a functioning slave market for hobgoblins, it's not a leap to say they started selling slaves to others as well... If Chebikav was already a slaver trading port, that would help explain why the Scarlet Brotherhood was eager to conquer it. Today, they use it as a base for further slaving runs into the interior of the continent, but some of the old pacts still hold.

    I notice that Lerga has a fair-sized bugbear population (around 400 in total, perhaps), which might be a simpler reason to call a town "goblin head." That doesn't mean it was a bugbear town; it might have been named for the severed heads the locals displayed on the town's walls to help keep bugbears out. If there are hobgoblin slavers, they might trade with the bugbears or even have introduced them to the region...


    Options: Checbikav was an old post where...

    1) ...hobgoblins traded for ape slaves;

    2) ...Pomarj goblins traded for slaves;

    3) ...whose palisade is surmounted with bugbear heads;

    4) ...someone traded for bugbear slaves.

    Most of these are not mutually exclusive. Maybe none of them. In these cases, I assume that "Chebikav" is the SB's name for the village.

    rasgon wrote:
    That doesn't mean it isn't also an Olman fishing village, though given the demographics of the area it's going to have some heavy Suel influence as well as Olman. It's probably going to be more like Xolapeqa than Lerga, demographically, but it definitely wasn't pure Olman even before the Scarlet Brotherhood took over...


    -That's where I'm going. I don't have any real problems with this:

    http://community.wizards.com/forum/other-published-worlds/threads/925291

    ...but the native should either be Suel, mixed Olman/Suel, or there should at least be an explanation of why the Olman natives haven't been ethnically cleansed. "Not convenient yet" might do, I suppose, although that should be explained, too. Maybe as of 591 CY, the SB hasn't figured out all the connections,* like ...

    rasgon wrote:
    ...I would also expect to see ivory for sale in Chebikav. A bear-sized elephant called the onco is supposed to have valuable ivory tusks.


    ...slaves and ivory makes sense.

    *Which would be somewhat dependent on how long the SB had been there. IIRC, the SB only recently (early 570s) started to seriously colonize Hepmonaland.
    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Sat Oct 24, 2015 7:40 am  

    Suel word for hobgoblin = hochecbi.

    SB, p. 23: "Not wanting a war on two fronts, [the SB] has ordered the cessation of all unfriendly interaction by Brotherhood agents with the non-Suel nations of Hepmonaland."

    SB, p. 37: "...The people of [Hepmonaland] were an especially rare sight... until the Brotherhood unloaded boats of Olman and Hepmonaland warriors..."

    -First reference of the SB using Olman troops. Maybe SKR meant "Suel warriors from the Olman Islands and Hepmonaland"?

    SB, p. 52: "Sharba has had friendly trade with the Lordship of the Isles for nearly 100 years, and continue to do so [as of 591]."

    SB, p. 55: SB first made contact with Zar in 575.

    SB, p. 55: The Xolapequans steal Cuhuetlans and leave them bound on Xuchan Bay to appease the Scarlet Botherhood.

    SB, pp. 55, 57: The Chiutle River forms the border between Lerga and Xolapequa.

    SB, pp. 28-29: Turazo or Turashar are detailed.
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