Literature in the Flanaess: The Travels of Marck Polstar
Date: Sat, March 19, 2005
Topic: The Library


Fraud. Liar. Thief. Conman. Marck Polstar has been called all this and worse. Deserved? Judge for yourself. Literature in the Flanaess: The Travels of Marck Polstar looks at the travel writings of one of the most infamous figures in the World of Greyhawk. Three travelogues by Polstar are presented. Travelogues are a highly specialized type of historic writing. They rely as much on an author’s personal experiences, recollections and descriptions as upon his ability to place these in a historic context. Or in Polstar's case, a fictional context? You decide.

Literature in the Flanaess: The Travels of Marck Polstar
By: Glenn Vincent Dammerung, aka GVDammerung
Used with Permission. Do not repost without obtaining prior permission from the author.

Travelogues are a highly specialized type of historic writing. They rely as much on an author’s personal experiences, recollections and descriptions as upon his ability to place these in a historic context. Often, no such context will exist. Rather, the author will simply record events or history in an almost inadvertent manner. Travelogues are in this sense a substitute for a true history or an adjunct to a true history. This does not mean that travelogues are inherently inferior, of no use, or unreliable. It all depends upon the author and his or her personality.

It is true that travelogues are too often as much fiction as fact. It is, therefore, essential that the reader not accept any fact presented in a travelogue as more likely true or untrue. It is best for the reader to test an author in light of the reader’s own judgments and knowledge. Of course, if there is nothing else to go on, a travelogue may well be the best, and only, source of information.

Discussed below is the most famous, followed by some of the most infamous, of travelogues. All are written by Marck Polstar. To call Polstar a complete fraud and self-serving conman would go too far. However, to imagine that he has been everywhere, seen everything and done all that he claims stretches credulity. Certainly, Polstar’s later work is most suspect. Readers must, however, ultimately reach their own judgments.

The Travels of Marck Polstar
by Marck Polstar (1 Volume)
1st Edition - 556 CY

Note - The author personally autographed all 1st editions, by which they may be known as genuine.

The most famous of all travelogues is also among the most suspect. Marck Polstar, a merchant’s son from Verbobonc, recounts he and his father’s trek into the Western regions of Oerik. Specifically, he relates details of the Celestial Imperium, which is said to exist beyond the Tyurzi Mountains. Polstar meets the emperor, proves to be of service in various undertakings and returns home laden with riches. It is a fine adventure but the question remains whether any of it is true.

There is no corroborating evidence that may be had. Baklunish oral accounts of the Celestial Imperium vary. Debates about the precise nature of the Celestial Imperium seem destined to continue. For practical purposes, the Travels are thus of little use to the scholar, save as a starting point for further inquiry. Would-be adventurers, who would venture forth in Polstar’s footsteps, are even more advised to make greater researches before setting out.

Sailing to Fireland
by Marck Polstar (1 Volume)
1st Edition - 580 CY

Note - The author personally autographed all 1st editions, by which they may be known as genuine.

The eponymous and peripatetic author of The Travels of Marck Polstar returns, this time aboard ship and sailing for the mythical Fireland. Once again, the author finds himself in lordly, if yet strange, company. He has various adventures wherein he proves more capable than his hosts and the native inhabitants. He then returns home to the Flanaess laden with riches. It stretches credulity to imagine that the author has again ventured into the unknown to return crowned with success, but then stranger events have occurred.

This volume trades heavily, and successfully, on the fame of the prior Travels by the same author. It is not nearly as precise in its details, charitably perhaps because the author, by his own admission, is not an experienced sailor. The similarities are otherwise striking. The dragons, serpent-men and cowled wizards of the Travels are replaced by giants, drow and fur-clad barbarians in Fireland. The book is, if possible, even more dubious than the first.

Swamp of Death
by Marck Polstar (1 Volume)
1st Edition - 588 CY

Note - The author personally autographed all 1st editions, by which they may be known as genuine.

Once again, and finally, the author of Travels and Fireland returns. Now grown tired and old, both in years and as an author, this title is worthy of mention only because of the notoriety of the author’s prior two volumes and because the degenerate nature of Swamp of Death suggests strongly that the author’s talents may have been too much esteemed from the first. Now retired to the Yeomanry, Swamp of Death sees the author trekking into the fastness of the bogs, marshes and bayous that separate Keoland from the Hold of the Sea Princes. What transpires is amazing only in its vacuous and insipid telling.

Nearly worthless as anything other than low farce, to scholar or layman, Swamp of Death is the worst sort travelogue that gives the genre a bad name. Polstar is almost single-handedly responsible for the near ruination of this type of writing, the wide notoriety gained only exacerbating the problem. Thankfully, earlier travelogues of substantial merit are not forgotten by sages. Swamp of Death thus stands as an ironic but fitting end to the Polstar contretemps. Future authors of travelogues owe Polstar little.

Author’s End Note
The four-entry travelogue subgroup of Greyhawk Bibliographica begins with Polstar. Travelogues are by their nature less purely reliable that general or petit histories. To drive this point home, Polstar appears in the first travelogue entry. At the same time, residents of the Flanaess would doubtless regard Polstar’s adventures as fantastic. From the worst of travelogues to the best in the next installment.







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