I summon ye Planescape fans! Share with me your Arcadian knowledge!

[Oryan77]

Huh. I guess that spell worked. Welcome to my thread!

I'm trying to familiarize myself with Mt. Clangeddin on Arcadia. I understand that there is only one city in the realm and that the city has nine parts to it. The only details I can find about the city is in the Planes of Law 2e PS book. I really hate when D&D books do this. It mentions the city having 9 parts, it mentions 3 parts by name (Prieston, Forjereth, & Lowest Hall), and then it doesn't even bother to give the names of the other 6 parts of the city. Why oh why do you toy with me like that Colin McComb? At least throw me a bone and list the names of the other 6 parts. I'm sure I can figure out what the district is populated based off of the name. Instead, you do the exact opposite and mention drilling & mining, and still don't even give a full 6 examples to complete the list of districts. If you said "Drillington", "Minerville", or "Los Swindler", and then did that 6 times, I probably could figure out what the district was like and moved on with my DMing life!

Don't you know that the hardcore gamers are sticklers for legitimate fluff? If I go and make up a name now, and then find a source for Mt. Clangeddin that I didn't know existed, and it includes another name of a district, I could have a mild heart attack knowing that I just mucked up the multiverse with my own unofficial naming scheme to a gods realm! Then I will feel compelled to somehow correct that in game so my players don't find out I'm a schlub.

Does anyone know of any source that completes the list of district names for the city in Mt. Clangeddin before I have to actually use my imagination? This is D&D for christ's sake. I don't have time for being creative!

 

[Yora]

Arcadia seems to be the least developed place in the multiverse. Probably it's pretty much the definition of boredom. It's very orderly, but also a bit good, so not too oppressive. But also not so good that anyone would feel the need to improve anything. Everything is perfect as it is and should stay that way.
I didn't even know that there is a nine-part city on the plane. Or in fact anything but an endless early modern italian landscape painting.

 

[the Jester]

This thread calls for [MENTION=11697]Shemeska[/MENTION].

 

[Quickleaf]

Poofz!

Strange coincidence that I'm writing an adventure in Dwarven Mountain! Anyhow, what I've gathered is that there are bits of great lore scattered throughout the Forgotten Realms books and dwarf racial books of 2e and 3e. I don't own any of those, but I've found people who summed them up as pertains to Vergadain on the Internet. Good ideas there.

As far as official Planescape material goes, the only other sources besides Planes of Law is On Hallowed Ground, which only has this to say about the realm...

The power's (Clangeddin's) realm is called Mount Clangeddin, a conical mountain rising out of the plains of Abello (the first layer of Arcadia). But the place is so riddled with passages and traps that it's more like a termite hill. Dwarvish einheriar constantly drill in the tunnels, awaiting the call to battle. Clangeddin usually sends them to the cubes of Acheron, where they do battle with their ancient enemies, the goblins and the orcs. Other times, the petitioners head to the Lower Planes to take part in the clashes of the endless Blood War, their stirring songs and gleaming axes bringing fear and death to the hated fiends.

Most powers wouldn't send their petitioners away to die outside the realm. Truth to tell, neither does Clangeddin, he somehow binds the einheriar to the realm before they leave so that, when they fall, their spirits merge with him. No ones tumbled to how it happens, but Clangeddin's the only known deity who can make it work. His petitioners don't even know the truth; the wade courageously into combat, fully ready to die for their beloved realm.

Interestingly, Mount Clangeddin is open to outsiders, and the dwarves there seem to have a relentless desire to show just how formidable they are. The realm's full of forges, armories, and other such places of business, and all of 'em produce top-notch work.

Clangeddin's main proxies are a pair of grim-looking and scarred fighters: Thatos Bluespear (Px/male dwarf/fighter 14/LG) and Terrin Axe (Px/female dwarf/fighter 15/LG). Their looks belie their cheerful natures; both are great lovers of song and ale, and they consume as much of either as they can. But they're frightening opponents on the battlefield; chant is Terrin took down a balor by herself, and she'll tell any berk in the Abyss that she fears no fiend. Thatos is a little more soft spoken, but that just makes him all the more eerie. The two proxies travel the planes, looking for skilled folks to help train the armies of Mount Clangeddin and brave bashers to lead the troops on the Lower Planes.

EDIT: You can also do a word search on http://www.rilmani.org/psIndex.txt for other official sources; I got that Manual of the Planes 3e has info on Mount Clangeddin as well when I searched it.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=18701]Oryan77[/MENTION]
Did you resolve your question about Mt Clangeddin? I also wanted to suggest the FR book Demihuman Deities which has boat loads of info on the dwarven gods.

Coincidentally enough, I have a thread about Dwarven Mountain overs here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?356873-Vergadain-and-adventures-in-Dwarven-Mountain

 

[Shemeska]

I'm going to have to profusely apologize here (even after the effort was made to sacrifice something, burn some incense, and summon me) - Arcadia is quite literally the one plane in the Great Wheel cosmology that I've never done anything with. Never went there in a campaign, never wrote any fiction involving the plane, nothing. Which is bizarre because as written it's one of the more interesting upper planes IMO.

So sorry!

 

[Oryan77]

Did you resolve your question about Mt Clangeddin? I also wanted to suggest the FR book Demihuman Deities which has boat loads of info on the dwarven gods.

Not really. I ended up just writing my own fluff. Thanks for suggesting the Demihuman Deities book though. That is one that I am not familiar with and it contains quite a bit of good info. It had much more on Clangeddin than any other book I've seen. It just didn't give any info about Mount Clangeddin though.

If interested, here is some content that I wrote up last minute so that I had more concrete information to use at our next session while they are tromping through Mount Clangeddin. I'm by no means a writer, so be kind :
[sblock]District #1 = Drillfirth - populated by soldiers practicing drills for battle.
District #2 = Mineroth - populated by miners.
District #3 = Guestshaw - populated by guests/visitors.
District #4 = Prieston - populated by proxies & priests who can offer divine services.
District #5 = Lowest Hall - populated by the angry & bitter citizens rejected by the raiding forces who can offer unsavory and dark deeds.
District #6 = Farmford - populated by farmers growing cavern crops.
District #7 = Armorynock - populated by armories and strategists.
District #8 = Forjereth - populated by smithies.
District #9 = Residentoria - populated by residence.

The first time the PCs visit the audience chamber:

The king's audience chambers are surrounded by hundreds of lavafalls each pouring into large forges. The heat in the room is almost unbearable to those not used to such environments. The sounds of metal ringing upon metal can be heard around the room even though there is no single source. Hundreds of life-size dwarven statues litter the floor to this massive room, each in a pose as if fighting an opponent. You are forced to walk around and between them just to reach the center platform containing a single iron throne with flames bellowing from the seat. Two axes, each 50-ft tall, cross each other as they rise above the throne. Sitting on this furnace-like throne is the king of Mount Clangeddin, Gidral Two-Axe, the longest serving proxy of Clangeddin Silverbeard.

Since the king is unnamed, I assumed that Gidral Two-Axe (Clangeddin's closest proxy) could be the king of the mountain. The statues represent each former proxy to Clangeddin.

This is a scene I created in order to have Silverbeard gift some magic items to the PC's. Each PC experiences this event individually:

In an instant, time seems to come to a stop. The environment around you is at a stand-still. In the blink of an eye, your vision seems to play tricks on you as everything in your surroundings fades away into nothingness. Suddenly, shapes begin to form all around you. The sound of flames and the smell of burning coals fill your senses as lavafalls appear around the edges of this massive room.

The shapes around you solidify and animate into hundreds of dwarves in full battle gear. The ringing of metal upon metal is almost as loud as the chanting around you, as each dwarf sings and spars with another less stupendous dwarf. From the forges that bellow beneath the lavafalls, molten dwarves, both male and female emerge from the burning coals. As they rise and gain a foothold for the first time, their forms cool down until they appear as any other lesser dwarf in the cavern. As each surveys the area, you see them smirk as they lift their weapon and approach the nearest armored soldier waiting for them. Their own private battle begins until one is the victor in this sparring match. Win or lose, the lesser dwarf vanishes before your eyes and the soldier turns again to the lavafalls, waiting for his next opponent.

In the center of this mock battle, you see the gigantic twin axes crossed over the king's throne. A beam of bright light descend from the empty space above, ending at the seat of the throne as a beacon signalling for you to approach.

The PC must move through the practice grounds and avoid the combatants in order to reach the throne (make five DC15 Ref or Tumble checks or take 1d6 nonlethal damage per failed check). The items that Clangeddin wishes to grant the PC rests on the seat of the throne where the light ends.

That is how I imagined the petitioners entering Clangeddin's realm. They are tested in battle, those that prove worthy end up being trained for war, the rest end up being the commoners in the mountain (or the bitter ones that live in the Lowest Halls).

[/sblock]

Coincidentally enough, I have a thread about Dwarven Mountain overs here:

Our PC dwarf who brought everyone to Mount Clangeddin mentioned visiting the Dwarven Mountains for some reason. Maybe I'll be hitting you up on more of what you've done with your version of the mountain.

I'm going to have to profusely apologize here (even after the effort was made to sacrifice something, burn some incense, and summon me) - Arcadia is quite literally the one plane in the Great Wheel cosmology that I've never done anything with. Never went there in a campaign, never wrote any fiction involving the plane, nothing. Which is bizarre because as written it's one of the more interesting upper planes IMO.

So sorry!

No problem. I'm surprised I don't hear more planar DMs using Arcadia. I have always thought it was a really interesting plane. Early on, I actually had PS DMs telling me to avoid running an adventure there because there wasn't much to do. That's insanity! There is all kinds of stuff to do there. Just the idea of a place where everything is in perfect order makes for some great DMing material. The fact that the majority of my groups party is chaotic was even better. The lawful ways of the natives drove them nuts. The players even got a kick out of my battlemats that I created showing all of the trees in perfect alignment. Arcadia really makes it easy to introduce what law & chaos can actually mean to an extreme. Most players not familiar with PS are usually only used to dealing with good vs evil. So I think my players are getting a kick out of the focus on law vs chaos.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=18701]Oryan77[/MENTION]

I like your outline of the districts! I do wonder if the Lowest Hall is a bit unusual for a lawful good plane, seems out of place to me.

As a possible modification to that idea...Clangeddin is one of the only gods in Planescape canon who can send petitioners out to other planes and yet their spirits return to Mount Clangeddin when they "die". Normally dying off your home plane is terrifying to petitioners because that means they go to the Void rather than merge with their plane/god. Maybe a district could hide the secret to this process? Maybe some kind of petitioner phylactery-like objects which draw their souls back. It could be seen as a sacred duty to care for these objects, though the other warriors look down on those who do as a sort of "tomb guardian" under lass.

Just my two coppers

Sure, hit me up about Dwarven Mountain sometime! FYI I'm only detailing the town outside and Vergadain's Strongale hall, but in quite a bit of detail.

 

[Oryan77]

I like your outline of the districts! I do wonder if the Lowest Hall is a bit unusual for a lawful good plane, seems out of place to me.

Thanks. The only 3 districts mentioned by name in the PS Arcadia book is Prieston, Forjereth, and Lowest Hall. The Lowest Hall happens to have the most official details published out of all the districts. So I actually did not make that bit of info up. It is in mentioned in the Planes of Law Arcadia book that Clangeddin turns a blind eye to that part of the city.