Lorebuilder -- Research Interlude

After the keep, Murchad searched in Nenagh to try to hire a magic user for the party. The rules for retainers indicates that retainers should not be greater than 50% of the PC's level, so he was able to find a young, lvl 2 mage who is willing to be hired for 200gp per mission. He calls himself "Merlin the Magnificent."

While Murchad was doing that, Jack decided to search the library of the Cistercians to see if he could find out more about the world. He claims to be from far away, and finds much of Europe strange, but he also seems to know much more than a foreigner from across the Western Ocean should. It's odd.

Anyway, here's what he found:

The history of the Roman Empire looks pretty much as he knew it until the end of the book, detailing the final decades of the empire. In those chapters he saw not the expected invasions of Goths, Visigoths, Franks, Vandals, and Huns but rips in the fabric of reality and invasions of dwarves and elves and orcs and dragons. One of the final vignettes, he found particularly poignant:

The Priest, the Emperor, and the Magiclysm (A.D. 379)

Father Zosimus stood uneasily before the opulent tent in Thessalonica. The sounds of clanging metal and bawdy laughter coming from the soldiers bustling around the camp provided an odd background for the pit of anxiety in his stomach which consumed all his thoughts. From this distance, the comet didn’t look as if it had changed as much as it did from Laodicea.

Finally, a centurion emerged. “Theodosius will see you now.”

Fr. Zosimus entered the tent. There, the new emperor sat. Theodosius had only been emperor for twelve days, but he had wasted no time in dealing with the crises facing his beleaguered empire. He began to draft an edict on religious orthodoxy which he would promulgate the following year in an act of penance as an attempt to enlist divine assistance in the crisis to come. First, however, he raised more soldiers for an army intended to quell the Goths, but which would soon enough be fighting alongside them against a common foe.

“What news from Asia?” Theodosius asked with a smile which would not linger for long.

“Caesar,” Fr. Zosimus said as he bowed, “I am afraid that the comet...it...it...” “It what, Zosimus?”“It may very well portend the end of the empire.”

“Was it not you who assured me that it was a sign of divine favor for my rule and campaign against the Goths? ‘In hoc signo vinces,’ you said, reminding me of the sign to Constantine?”

“Yes, Caesar, well...it’s...not...a comet...apparently...” “What do you mean?”

“It’s hard to see from this far west, but it is not a star with a tail but rather a rip in the heavens.”

“A rip in the heavens? How is such a thing possible?”

“I don’t know, but it has begun to rip open farther, and...things...creatures... OTHERWORLDLY creatures have begun to come forth from it. Creatures from the pit of Hell itself! Not only from it, mind you, but there are also reports from regions all around that smaller rifts have opened in other places, even on the ground, and the creatures are ravaging the countryside. There’s even an army of what looks like dragon-men, as well equipped as our own legions, intent on bloodlust. In less than an hour, they destroyed seven cohorts of the Flavia Firma in Cilicia!”

“There’s nothing between them and Constantinople, then!”

“There are the remains of a few legions...Fulminata, Apollinaris...but I doubt they will fare much better.”

“Aurelius!” the emperor shouted. The centurion returned. “Ready the men and break camp. We march for Constantinople in an hour.”

***

Theodosius would successfully defend Constantinople the following week with the aid of Greek Fire, even though some of the reptile horde were resistant to it. Over time, however, the otherworldly rifts would grow in size and number before closing up. In the coming half-decade, the empire would be dismantled, and only pockets of organized human resistance and settlement would survive. The dragonborn would conquer the southern Roman Empire and Persia, and their Empire of Arkhosia would stand for over six centuries, although it would never manage to invade Europe until the Battle of Edirne in 1066. Zosimus would remain in the court of Theodosius until the collapse of the monarchy, after which he returned to his native Calabria. He would be elected pope in 417, although he would only serve for one year.

It seems that Rome resisted the invasions as we as could be expected, collapsed, and then reconstituted the Eastern Empire after the dragonborn were finally vanquished in 1066.

Jack Flynn put down the book, and said to himself, "Halley's comet appeared during the Battle of Hastings. " He decided to ask someone what year this is, as it returns every 75 years. Perhaps one of these rifts will appear again, maybe the magic user he wants to hire will know something...

He is told that the year is now 1366. The rifts began to appear in 379. The Battle of Edirne in 1066, which happened on the exact same day as what he knows to be the Battle of Hastings (which never happened in this world), was the day of the destruction of the Empire of the Dragonborn (Arkhosia) and of Bael Turath. Despite sharing the date, this landmark battle did not take place in Britain but near Adrianople (Edirne) which he knew to be an important city in Ottoman occupied Bulgaria or Greece, although you're not quite sure how that works out in this world since there are no Ottomans or Bulgarians.

Jack Flynn did some quick calculations and concludes that Halley's Comet is due again to appear this year. he spends a few might looking in the night sky for Halley's comet since 1366 is a multiple of 75 from 1066, he figures that since the rifts showed up on that appearance of Halley's Comet, they might again appear when Halley's Comet makes its reappearance. He is familiar with Edmund Halley who preceded him, he read up on some astronomy books while growing up on his plantation.

Jack certainly has a theory with evidence that he's clinging to, but Halley's Comet appeared in 375 and not 379, though, but we can chalk that up to some difficulty pinning down precise years given in ancient sources. Local lore indicates that a comet that seems to have been Halley's was seen in 1301, meaning that the next appearance isn't due for ten or twelve more years. 

He does notice a bit of a discrepancy, however, as he delves a bit deeper into historical astronomical data. The sky seems to have changed somehow in 379. Some movements of the stars and the planets (especially the planets) don't seem to be following what would be expected from his understanding of "modern" astronomy and mathematics in records after that time.

Then again, Jack isn't an astronomer...

He considers that it could be that the planets are following the geocentric model, that is they are circling the Earth on a crystal sphere, the epicycles that the planets follow in order to explain the discrepancy of the Geocentric model from what was actually happening might not be there, so the planets aren't really worlds. If that's true, he's not sure what the Moon is. It might still be a world, in order to have phases it needs to be a spheroid, if it were a flat disk, it wouldn't have phases. If Jack found himself a telescope, he might be in for a shock! Since he is going from his childhood tutoring memory, he sticks with his Halley's Comet Theory and subtracts 75 years from the current date, and he looks to see what happened in 1291, he goes around asking some sages about any unusual occurrences that might have occurred in that year and where. Particularly the appearance of new creatures that were never seen before. He might pay a visit to some noble houses, since they keep records of their family history, another stop would be to visit a church or a monastery. The Church would keep birth records, the monastery might keep books. Finally he thinks he should visit some ship ports to listen to some tales of sailors about strange occurrences at sea. Jack wants to know where some rifts might open up, based on prior such occurrences.

While the party is resting in Caiseal, there is a Cicstercian monastery there. However, they do not seem to have a telescope.

As for 1291, there is only one significant event recorded for that year. Jack knows it to be the year that the Mameluks laid siege to Acre and destroyed it, ending the Crusader States in the Holy Land. In 1291 here, the dragonborn did attack and lay siege to Acre, but Acre successfully resisted, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem exists to this day. There was no comet recorded that year.

He did find some potentially relevant accounts passed down from ancient times and kept by the monks:

Ubi primo Tribulatio incepit, in Asia notatum est coelos. Cometam primo putavit, postea aliam rem patuit. Patefacio erat in alium mundum, et per decem annos sensim occlusa erat.

"When the Tribulation first began, a rip in the heavens was observed over Asia. At first thought to be a comet, it later became clear that it was a different thing. It was an opening into another world, and it slowly closed over the course of ten years."  -Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, circa AD 515

Aliquando apparet scissio super terram. Raro hodie talia fiunt. Non est tam commune quam tempore Magiclysmus. Maxime autem scissurae tam parvae sunt ut oculis videri non possint, sed magicae -- et interdum creaturae -- omni tempore foramina perspiciuntur. Loca haec infirma in natura static esse videntur, cum soli potentissimi magi (una cum nonnullis ex altera parte creaturis) ex industria utentes illis ad industriam aut peregrinationem dominati sunt.

"From time to time, a rending appears upon the ground. It is seldom that such things happen nowadays. It is not as common as it was at the time of the Magiclysm. Now, most rendings are so small they cannot be seen with the eye, but magic -- and occasionally creatures -- seep thorough the openings all the time. These weak places seem to be static in nature, although only the most powerful magicians (along with some creatures from the other side) have mastered purposefully making use of them for energy or travel." -John Scotus Eriugena, AD 867