The Twin Cataclysms - Gates of the Oerth
Date: Mon, August 19, 2002
Topic: Myths & Legends


How did so many Suel manage to survive the Rain of Colorless Fire? How did so many of the inhabitants of the lands beneath the Ocean Tor arrive to that bizarre realm?

Author: CruelSummerLord


The Twin Cataclysms-Gates of the Oerth

by

CruelSummerLord

Used with Permission. Do not repost without obtaining prior permission from the author.

Respected Iquander;

It has been called to my attention that some are curious as to how the Suel could transport themselves halfway around the world, and to places like the realms beneath the Ocean Tor. Perhaps this theory may offer an explanation...

Surely you know of the great upheavals caused by the Reign of Colorless Fire. And yet, Suel survive across the Oerth, some supposedly in Western Oerik as described in your own article which Profesor Tizoc sent to me some time ago. They survive in Orannia, in some small enclaves in Hepmonaland, and have become blind, faerzress-using albinos in the realms beneath the Ocean Tor.

"The Chronicle of Secret Times" makes an allusion, when Slerotin leads his twelve tribes into the Sheldomar Valley, that he used a great gate to transport himself and his people out of the Imperium before the final calamity crushed the imperium. How did so many Suel cross the Crystalmist Mountains even as the Rain of Colorless Fire was pummelling their realm into oblivion?

The Suel, as you yourself have noted, have spawned some of the most powerful mages on Oerth. Is it not feasible, then, to think that they could have foreseen the vengeance of the Baklunish, and transported themselves to far-away places to continue the legacy of their race? Certainly Suel exist on Orannia, from what I have seen of that mysterious realm. They transported themselves by the thousands through the Crystalmists, with apparently few casualties. They have spread across much of the Oerth through use of these magical gates, or so the reaearch I have done so far postulates.

Yet while the Suel made their way into the Ocean Tor, it does not explain how many of the non-human residents made their way there. We know of the loss of the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords at this time, as the Rain pummelled the dwarven halls into oblivion. Some very sketchy legends from the realm of Holgi Hirsute say that the dwur fled through portals constructed by their Suel allies to parts unknown. Given the vast power of the dwur in that strange realm, could it not be that they escaped as well?

Many monsters fled through underground passages as the cataclysms rocked Oerik. Tunnels may indeed connect to the realms beneath the Solnor, as the humanoids made their own pilgramges similar to those made by the humans during the Great Migrations, only much farther. The drow could also have escaped through similar means. (Incidentally, these communities get drinking water through sloughs carefully constructed through the ocean floor, and then use a great deal of clerical magic to purify the water for drinking. I regret not informing you of this in my last letter.)

Much of this remains to be confirmed, of course. But it is not unbelevable, and your own work, as shown to me by Professor Tizoc, shows distinct possibilities.

Yours faithfuly,

the Brother of the Cruel Summer.

Suel, migrations, gates



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