Re: Behind the Dark Fist - Vodoni to Zalani

On 8/5/07, Matt Hoffman <manta928@?????.com > wrote:
>
> Hey Adam, I was poking around on BTM and I saw your draft of
> Valonelle. Would you mind if I wrote her somewhere into the Behind
> the Dark Fist material, or is she off limits? I'm starting to outline
> some rough NPCs for the material I've been working on, as well as
> update some older NPC drafts, and I thought Valonelle would work very
> nicely.
>
> I'd also be interested in reading up on anything else people have
> done with the Vodoni on BTM, if anybody happens to remember anything
> good that's been posted over the years. I prefer 2nd edition stuff
> for my initial drafts, but I can work with later materials if I have to.


This material has never made it off my hard drive, but consists of the bulk
of my notes for what the Vodoni spheres might look like:

Vodonikaspace:
- Teikruss (Type D/Earth) - a 'wild magic' planet, distrusted by Mongrelle
and her Breeders but too much potential power to simply quarantine or ignore
- Vodonika Inner Belt (Type A/belt/Earth)
- Khaoras (Type G/Earth) - triple moon planet, so named because of the
unique challenges it poses to any Enforcer garrison
- Sha'rvir (Type D/Water) - Vodoni humans live on islands and aboard
seagoing vessels, natives are primarily planet-bound, savage neogi enslaved
by Vulkaran
- New Kathyk (Type F/Earth) - a 'city'-world, with every square foot of land
area covered by buildings, factories or specially-planned farms
- Wrakjhann (Type D/amorphous/Earth) - primarily a big-game preserve and
magical laboratory, home to large numbers of trolls, bulettes, dragonnes and
other beasts
- The Stormgirdle (Type A/belt/Air)

Zalanispace:
- Sunring Belt (Type B/belt/Earth)
- Kurikan (Type E/Earth) - a jungle planet, with some Vodoni settlements but
primarily given over to the wild; unknown to the Vodoni, this planet has a
large native population of aranea, who have a fairly complex culture but
keep hidden from the invaders with Zalani collusion
- Zalani Prime (Type E/Earth) - the Zalani homeworld
- The Livebelt (Type C/belt/Liveworld)
- Boreas (Type D/Earth) - a planet with 'moving oceans', which forces most
land-bound life to be nomadic; the Vodoni have tried several methods to
achieve settlements here, from floating cities to flying ones to places that
move with every season

Vergonspace:
- Sirocco (Type D/Earth) - a desolate, sun-blasted desert world, with most
life resident in its Underdark - including the Vergon natives and their
Vodoni overlords
- Sceptre (Type F/Earth) - the Vergon 'homeworld', inasmuch as that race has
one; divided into dozens of competing factional states, with ettins and
goblinkin enslaved to the Vergon warlords
- Bladering Belt (Type A/belt/Earth)
- Blacksea (Type E/Water) - oceans are home to sahuagin who maintain a
fierce level of independence from both the Vodoni and the Vergon, though
more the latter than the former
- Hexahedron (Type E/regular/Earth) - shaped like two d4s placed
base-to-base; each 'face' is almost a separate world, with near-impassable
mountains in between, and controlled by a different faction warring with its
neighbors
- Anvil (Type C/Fire) - has a thick(ish) earth crust in many locations,
allowing for human habitation; life is unpleasant, regimented, but arguably
well-suited to the Vergon ethos
- Lattice (Type G/Air) - airworld core encircled with 'rings' of stone, each
a few hundred miles thick and 30,000+ miles in diameter; this leads to a LOT
of living room, and a definite 'frontier' lifestyle, Vodoni presence is
effectively stronger here than anywhere else in the sphere

I've less detail (ha!) in place on the other spheres, though I do know that
there's an artificial world in Thasiaspace called Rimegard, a
laboratory-fortress created by the Breeders out of hundreds of _Wall of
Stone_ spells lumped into islands and linked together with _Permanenced_
_Wall of Ice_ spells (the latter as a safety precaution; if anything gets
loose they _Dispel_ or simply melt the bridges in order to cut their
losses).

My notes also suggest that there aren't as many 'pure' pacifist races in the
Vodoni Empire as one might initially believe - the Salzarians are probably
complete pushovers, yeah, but the Zalani arguably have no qualms with
economic and psychological warfare, and the Kofu would be VERY capable of
fighting a nasty guerilla-warfare campaign if Vulkaran ever tried to tighten
his grip over them.

Hope this proves interesting...