xyzzy
2009-04-10, 10:23 PM
So, I finally got the rest of the books today (yay!) and spent most of the day going through reading all the bonus material and staring wide-mouthed at the beautiful 430 spread.
And one of the last things I read was Stick Planet Travel Guide to the Southern Lands: Azure City which contained in the Laws section the following quote: "even nobles and the Lord himself is accountable to the law, a tradition established after the fall of the Ancient Empire."
A few searches of the forum and a recollection of everything I could remember from the comic produced no results; I even tried 'D&D "ancient empire"' on Google in case it was some obscure joke... nothing.
My first thought is that the AE has to precede basically the entire story so far; the only explanations for some random publication being the only thing that mentions it are that A)it's a myth that some Xeno Lovegood-like editor decided was a nice thing to believe is true or B)it's a piece of ancient history that no one really cares about any more.
The crazy editor option seems to be eliminated by the attention to accuracy in the rest of the article; the sticky note mentioning that a complete rewrite will be necessary and the editor's note that there's no "secret cabal of divine spellcasters" as a thoroughly researched fact (though one that's clearly false...) suggests that the magazine does put a strong focus on trying to be as accurate and up-to-date as possible.
And if the AE existed, what was its size/boundaries? It seems almost sure that Azure City was once part of it since one of its major legal standards dates back to it. It seems likely that the Hobgoblin City near Azure City wasn't part of the Empire since according to Redcloak's telling of history in SoD "the gods put their new races in the parts of the world that no one else wanted".
The largest city on the map in the travel guide besides Azure City is Blueriver Fort; I suspect this city served as a (the?) major mecca for human/goblin warring; we're told in the Round 4 commentary in WaXPs that the humans and goblins having been going at it for centuries, which means that all this took place well before the start of SoD (103 years ago) and even longer before the discovery of the first rift (65 years ago).
So, can we trust that this Ancient Empire even existed, and if so, what significance does it have on the overall story?
And one of the last things I read was Stick Planet Travel Guide to the Southern Lands: Azure City which contained in the Laws section the following quote: "even nobles and the Lord himself is accountable to the law, a tradition established after the fall of the Ancient Empire."
A few searches of the forum and a recollection of everything I could remember from the comic produced no results; I even tried 'D&D "ancient empire"' on Google in case it was some obscure joke... nothing.
My first thought is that the AE has to precede basically the entire story so far; the only explanations for some random publication being the only thing that mentions it are that A)it's a myth that some Xeno Lovegood-like editor decided was a nice thing to believe is true or B)it's a piece of ancient history that no one really cares about any more.
The crazy editor option seems to be eliminated by the attention to accuracy in the rest of the article; the sticky note mentioning that a complete rewrite will be necessary and the editor's note that there's no "secret cabal of divine spellcasters" as a thoroughly researched fact (though one that's clearly false...) suggests that the magazine does put a strong focus on trying to be as accurate and up-to-date as possible.
And if the AE existed, what was its size/boundaries? It seems almost sure that Azure City was once part of it since one of its major legal standards dates back to it. It seems likely that the Hobgoblin City near Azure City wasn't part of the Empire since according to Redcloak's telling of history in SoD "the gods put their new races in the parts of the world that no one else wanted".
The largest city on the map in the travel guide besides Azure City is Blueriver Fort; I suspect this city served as a (the?) major mecca for human/goblin warring; we're told in the Round 4 commentary in WaXPs that the humans and goblins having been going at it for centuries, which means that all this took place well before the start of SoD (103 years ago) and even longer before the discovery of the first rift (65 years ago).
So, can we trust that this Ancient Empire even existed, and if so, what significance does it have on the overall story?