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Friday 26 March 2010

Cities of Abraxas: Eibon

Eibon is built in the foothills of the Delenda Mountains, on the edge of the Akali Desert. Behind its battlements, the city rises on the swell of the three hills where it stands, its tall blockish buildings climbing in tiers. The biggest buildings are made of the reddish local stone, but this is hard to quarry and so most of the city is constructed of bricks made with lime and the crushed shells of sand-crabs which blaze like coral and diamond dust in the sun.
In the heart of the city, the temple groves stand out like lakes of greenery. Their sacred gardens are always well-watered, despite the low rainfall. Public squares can be seen on different levels of the city, connected by the steep streets with frequent steps. Cutting across the city are three old walls half fallen to ruin: the walls that separated the old quarters of the city, now ransacked for their stone and closely clustered with the poorer dwellings. In places overgrown with flowers, in others blackened and widely streaked where refuse has been thrown down, these walls stand like weathered rock ridges across the city.

On one hill, in the Byrsan quarter, can be seen a host of warlike monuments. Spiral pillars capped with bronze support the pediments of temples to Tirvecto, the local god of the desert's heart, patron deity of the Eibonites. On a lower hill is the teeming warren of the overcrowded Strangers' Quarter, given over to commerce; it is here that non-citizens have their homes. The bright cloths of the dyers' clans, stretched out on the rooftops, give this quarter the most color. Further back, against the mountainside, is the Megaran quarter with its high towers and curious obelisks like upturned cones. Here are found the temples of the universal gods, with their cylindrical minarets of iron that look like skeletal black chimneys. Above circle the sacred reptile-birds, grown fat on sacrifices.

Government: The ruler of Eibon is called the True Man. This is not a hereditary position: the True Man is that lord whose heraldic badge is worn by the majority of the city's elders. If things go badly, if the city suffers poor harvests or reversals in war, the True Man may wake to find the badges have changed, his support evaporated.

People: The Eibonites are average height, hook-nosed, swarthy brown in complexion with curly red, brown or black hair. Beards without moustaches are fashionable among men; women wear copious make-up and plait their hair up in elaborate styles.

The common beast of burden in these parts is a kind of waddling long-nosed camel (related to Macrauchenia). For warfare, the Eibonites use the massive long-necked parvum (related to Indricotherium) that grazes on the trees and shrubs of the desert fringes.

14 comments:

  1. Hi Dave !

    I remember that parvum-like riding beasts are to be seen in the Grande Plaine of the World of Dorgan : http://www.bibliotheque-des-aventuriers.com/menu/livres_en_ligne.htm
    (by the way an excellent gamebook series; I own the other books)

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  2. Thanks for the tip! I'll check 'em out and see if they were ever published in the UK.

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  3. To my knowledge, the four first ones were only translated into Italian. Each book took place in the same universe (le Monde de Dorgan) but with a different character; thus they could be played simultaneously by different people, who could ally or fight each other... You could explore quite freely any place of this world as they were not linked by numbered sections as in the "Fabled Lands". Each player had a personal objective; but the main purpose was to get powerful enough without getting corrupted by the "Coeur de Haine" (a kind of malevolent meteorite) and to destroy the malediction that had fallen on this world...
    All books were well written, so you didn't feel bored of visiting the same place with a different character. If you can read French, I advise you to test "Caithness the Elementalist"; this is one of the rare gamebooks where you can play a female hero with her own personality (and you can download it legally...)
    Thanks to the success of this series "made in France", Gildas Sagot wrote four further books which take place 50 years after the destruction of the Coeur de Haine.
    Here, as in the "Blood Sword" series, you could choose which of the four "Héritiers de Dorgan" (the heirs of the characters of the 4 first books) you wanted to play in this team of high-skilled adventurers. It seems to be that these 4 last books were never translated (it was at the time when gamebooks began to be less successful). Nevertheless, I own them all and I especially like the numbers 5 & 6 with their quasi-tolkienesque flavour.
    According to his interview on the "Bibliothèque des Aventuriers", Gildas Sagot recovered the rights on these books but I don't know why the website has not released the seven other books yet.

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  4. If I can get an electronic copy then I can run it through a translator - although really I should try to improve my French.

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  5. Hey Dave, I realize that this may not fit in with the Abraxas topic but here goes......

    www.fabledlands.com is available as a domain name. You may want to grab it before a malicious hacker takes it over again. I remember since I have purchased my first Fable Lands book at the age of 12, that the website was acquired by someone or something :') and apparently mishandled. Thought i'd mention this to you. Keep up the good work, by the way!

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  6. I meant Fabled Lands, not "Fable Lands", simple spelling mistake.

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  7. Hi Mike, we tried to get it a few weeks ago, but missed it by a few hours and it's now registered to a B T Croughs in the Netherlands - apparently until Feb 2011.

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  8. I must have been 13 or 14 when I first got mine, 14 years ago now! I still wonder why there was a 12 item carry limit now...

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  9. That does seem harsh. I blame Jamie :-)

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  10. Would there be a way to purchase the website rights from the owner? I'm sure that a years rights to a domain name is only $10-$20. It would be easily accomplished since there is no actual website yet. The 12 item limit wasn't that bad, it at least gave you a reason to purchase a living quarters. Although, I do wish that you could upgrade your buildings somehow and hire people to work for you. That could easily be accomplished via extra codewords, check boxes, and extra page sections.

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  11. Mike, hirelings and upgrading buildings are great ideas for features that we can build quite easily into the e-gamebook versions, where the reader doesn't have to manage the codewords for themselves. Possibly in the print versions too, but I'm always concerned there not to overburden the reader.

    I don't know how much Mr (or Ms) Croughs would want for fabledlands.com but I think it might be a bit more than $20. We'll just have to be a bit quicker off the mark next time it comes up for renewal.

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  12. Would the e-gamebook versions operate similar to the format used in Heart Of Ice? I believe that Heart Of Ice was an interactive PDF document. That would be a good way to do it because it would run on older computers as well and not need any additional plugins and other software to run.

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  13. What is the estimated timeline that your various projects will be released? No bother, but I feel your fans would like to know so there will be a build-up of anticipation.

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  14. As soon as we have a timeline, Mike, you'll read it here. We're talking to a number of book publishers and game publishers, as we want to be sure the e-gamebooks will have the full benefit of marketing and editorial input that a partner like that can provide. We'll be looking at all the major e-readers, though obviously the high-end ones like the iPad will support more features than, say, the Kindle.

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