03-10-2015, 06:18 AM
Havard Wrote:Great findings! Especially the MMRPG reference.
I think that in these two sources, the civilisation referenced is connected to the Sar Aigu. It could either be the Sar Aigu themselves, or other races either working as slaves for or as allies or fringe groups of the Sar Aigu civilization. Some of the description of the Sar Aigu makes it seem like they are just a handful of individual mystics coming out of the Swamps and eventually discovering the magic of the Blackmoor Peninsula, but I think it is very much possible to talk of a Sar Aigu Civilization. It is hard to give estimates for when the Sar Aigu Age was, but I think that it would have to be at leat 3000 years before the founding of Thonia (or 4000 years before the modern Blackmoor Era).......
-Havard
Yeah, Sar aigu was my first thought also. But then again they don't seem quite right. They seem too brutish to have ever had more than a tribal sort of organization and fairly low order of civilization. They also are reptiles, strictly speaking and not amphibians, though that could be easily handwaived. Sar aigu are also not extinct, but still it seems like there should be some connection.
It's the question of what happened to them that has given me some ideas. I started to think about the description in d20 TotF about how the original froglin creatures were to delicate to survive outside the swamp. So perhaps their species began to die off due to environmental changes - the ph of the water or something. Perhaps then the frog cult really arose out of that deperation. Thier wizard/alchemists began experiments in making hybreds with aligators and other fearsome but hardy swamp creatures in a miguided attempt to preserve the species. Sar aigu and perhaps gator men could well be the result. I could see these new franken creatures soon turning on their creators and being the final nail in the coffin for that civilization.
Somenting like 3500 years ago, give or take, sounds about right.
I took advantage of the GM day sale at rpgnow to download a bunch of swamp related stuff. One adventure that seems to be easily adapted is spahn's Pyramid of the dragon.