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The Ivory Triangle
Nowhere are the stark contrasts that define life on Athas more dramatic than within the Ivory Triangle! In the forests of Gulg live elite hunters called the Judaga Warriors, who claim the heads of their prey as trophies. Behind the walls of Nibenay (built with the blood and toil of countless slaves), decadent markets promise myriad experiences to those who have money to spend and courage to spare. Across the desolate salt flats of the Great Ivory Plain, a handful of bold merchant outposts and slave tribes struggle to exist and to exploit unwary wanderers. Amidst all, a sinister poisoner of the Tablelands plies his trade on the border between life and death.
These dangers and more lie within that region called the Ivory Triangle - the ideal setting for continuing adventures on the deadly world of Athas! This box contains: A 32-page guidebook to the city-state of Gulg; A 32-page guidebook to the city-state of Nibenay; A 96-page book detailing the merchants, raiding tribes, and lands of the Ivory Triangle; A full-color poster map of the cities of Gulg and Nibenay; A full-color poster map of the Ivory Triangle; Six reference cards including player handouts, new price lists, and encounter tables for your DARK SUN campaign; Four new monsters to add to your DARK SUN appendix of the MONSTROUS COMPENDIUM; A campaign calendar for tracking your adventure; and a short story to set the tone for your own tales
These dangers and more lie within that region called the Ivory Triangle - the ideal setting for continuing adventures on the deadly world of Athas! This box contains: A 32-page guidebook to the city-state of Gulg; A 32-page guidebook to the city-state of Nibenay; A 96-page book detailing the merchants, raiding tribes, and lands of the Ivory Triangle; A full-color poster map of the cities of Gulg and Nibenay; A full-color poster map of the Ivory Triangle; Six reference cards including player handouts, new price lists, and encounter tables for your DARK SUN campaign; Four new monsters to add to your DARK SUN appendix of the MONSTROUS COMPENDIUM; A campaign calendar for tracking your adventure; and a short story to set the tone for your own tales
160 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1993
21 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 22, 2013
I went back and forth on whether to give this two or three stars, but finally went with three because it's not actually bad, it's just not really innovative or interesting.
The big problem is that a big percentage of Ivory Triangle is repeating information from other books. There's a description of all the various merchant houses and trading that takes place in the region, which was already discussed in Dune Trader. There's a big focus on Salt View, the village of escaped slaves turned half-raiders, half-thespians that was discussed in Slave Tribes. Gulg and Nibenary are detailed each with their own 32-page booklets, but a lot of the basic information was already covered in Veiled Alliance of all places. All that plus the reused art, including some pieces that were obviously just cropped parts of other pieces of art that were used elsewhere in the book, meant that everything felt like leftovers someone was trying to pass off as a main course.
That was my initial feeling. But actually, there were enough tidbits in here that it still held my interest, even if it made me wish that those other books had had different information so that I wasn't re-reading anything.
One thing I do wonder about is the name. The Great Ivory Plain refers to the salt flats south of Gulg and Nibenay, and it's called that because of the color. That much is obvious. What's weird is why ivory is word. What Athasian creature even has ivory? I mean, Athas already has its own bears and tigers, which are mutated and psychic, so maybe there are mutated psychic elephants out there? Maybe they're out hunting braxat for their horns? Though that strikes me as having a significantly higher mortality rate than elephant hunting.
I know it's silly, but it's the title of the whole boxed set, so it was on my mind pretty much the entire time.
The population figures continue to be ludicrous. I'm supposed to believe that Gulg has 13,500 people, of whom 4,000 are in the army. That proportion of the population is 50% higher than France during World War I, which was the largest military-to-population ratio ever. And that was in a state of total war in the real world, with railroads, modern farming techniques, telegraphs, and so on. I'm supposed to believe that Gulg keeps these people around all the time on a sand-blasted hellhole of a world with an economy driven by slave-labor? I could believe it if they had an army of maybe 1,000 at the highest, and went higher during times of active war. Nibenay is 5,000-to-24,000, which is still silly but not quite as bad.
This is also the first place I've specifically seen the Dragon's Levy mentioned, and that also makes no sense. Gulg has 13,500 people and has to give the Dragon 1,000 a year? Where are all these people coming from?
There are a lot of minor sentences that really got my imagination going throughout the books, though. The City-State of Nibenay book mentioned that all the buildings in the cities must be made of stone and completely covered in carvings by law, which certainly is an amazingly evocative image. It also mentioned that the Nibenese psionics school is trying to run courier and transportation services, using their powers to telepathically send messages and psychokinetically transport objects or people for anyone who can pay their outrageous prices. I love it when fantasy settings consider the effects of the supernatural on the setting.
The Gulg book has an offhand mention that, "Elemental clerics virtually always wear the tattoos of their cult," which simultaneously implies that elemental clerics are easily recognizable among the general population and that there are multiple cults of the elements. There's also a quote about how the hunter nobility are given a ton of status and honor even though the city survives on ranching and farming, which seems to make no sense until you remember that Tokugawa Japan was ruled by a warrior nobility that never actually fought any wars. Also, in Gulg:
The section on the Crescent Forest is probably the most interesting, because it's almost all new. There's a tribe of halflings living there, having escaped from Lalali-Puy's attempts to enslave them after they wanted to return to the Ringing Mountains. Now they have to decide if they just want to stay where they are and try to found a new tribe, or if they want to return. There's some discussion of the ecology, and how the Windbreak Mountains prevent the hot winds that blow across the plains from destroying the Crescent Forest entirely, though even so it gets smaller and smaller every year.
There's a few neat things, but overall it's mostly just adequate. Though admittedly, that's actually a bonus at this point compared to the Dark Sun adventures I've been reading.
The big problem is that a big percentage of Ivory Triangle is repeating information from other books. There's a description of all the various merchant houses and trading that takes place in the region, which was already discussed in Dune Trader. There's a big focus on Salt View, the village of escaped slaves turned half-raiders, half-thespians that was discussed in Slave Tribes. Gulg and Nibenary are detailed each with their own 32-page booklets, but a lot of the basic information was already covered in Veiled Alliance of all places. All that plus the reused art, including some pieces that were obviously just cropped parts of other pieces of art that were used elsewhere in the book, meant that everything felt like leftovers someone was trying to pass off as a main course.
That was my initial feeling. But actually, there were enough tidbits in here that it still held my interest, even if it made me wish that those other books had had different information so that I wasn't re-reading anything.
One thing I do wonder about is the name. The Great Ivory Plain refers to the salt flats south of Gulg and Nibenay, and it's called that because of the color. That much is obvious. What's weird is why ivory is word. What Athasian creature even has ivory? I mean, Athas already has its own bears and tigers, which are mutated and psychic, so maybe there are mutated psychic elephants out there? Maybe they're out hunting braxat for their horns? Though that strikes me as having a significantly higher mortality rate than elephant hunting.
I know it's silly, but it's the title of the whole boxed set, so it was on my mind pretty much the entire time.
The population figures continue to be ludicrous. I'm supposed to believe that Gulg has 13,500 people, of whom 4,000 are in the army. That proportion of the population is 50% higher than France during World War I, which was the largest military-to-population ratio ever. And that was in a state of total war in the real world, with railroads, modern farming techniques, telegraphs, and so on. I'm supposed to believe that Gulg keeps these people around all the time on a sand-blasted hellhole of a world with an economy driven by slave-labor? I could believe it if they had an army of maybe 1,000 at the highest, and went higher during times of active war. Nibenay is 5,000-to-24,000, which is still silly but not quite as bad.
This is also the first place I've specifically seen the Dragon's Levy mentioned, and that also makes no sense. Gulg has 13,500 people and has to give the Dragon 1,000 a year? Where are all these people coming from?
There are a lot of minor sentences that really got my imagination going throughout the books, though. The City-State of Nibenay book mentioned that all the buildings in the cities must be made of stone and completely covered in carvings by law, which certainly is an amazingly evocative image. It also mentioned that the Nibenese psionics school is trying to run courier and transportation services, using their powers to telepathically send messages and psychokinetically transport objects or people for anyone who can pay their outrageous prices. I love it when fantasy settings consider the effects of the supernatural on the setting.
The Gulg book has an offhand mention that, "Elemental clerics virtually always wear the tattoos of their cult," which simultaneously implies that elemental clerics are easily recognizable among the general population and that there are multiple cults of the elements. There's also a quote about how the hunter nobility are given a ton of status and honor even though the city survives on ranching and farming, which seems to make no sense until you remember that Tokugawa Japan was ruled by a warrior nobility that never actually fought any wars. Also, in Gulg:
Low-level fighters are seen as soldiers of average ability and do not receive the deference or respect that rangers do. Anyone, it is believed, can hit a man with a club.Fighters just can't catch a break.
The section on the Crescent Forest is probably the most interesting, because it's almost all new. There's a tribe of halflings living there, having escaped from Lalali-Puy's attempts to enslave them after they wanted to return to the Ringing Mountains. Now they have to decide if they just want to stay where they are and try to found a new tribe, or if they want to return. There's some discussion of the ecology, and how the Windbreak Mountains prevent the hot winds that blow across the plains from destroying the Crescent Forest entirely, though even so it gets smaller and smaller every year.
There's a few neat things, but overall it's mostly just adequate. Though admittedly, that's actually a bonus at this point compared to the Dark Sun adventures I've been reading.
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June 17, 202214/32 of Dark Sun -- almost to the halfway point and starting to doubt this project and this campaign line.
Like: I still kind of like this cover and I like the idea of a supplement that covers a region rather than the supplements we've seen (and will still see) that cover a tranche of life across the region. Or put another way: I bought this book when it came out in June 1993 (happy 29-year anniversary to this book, I guess).
And that is the remit of this box set: a 32-page book on the city state of Gulg (the forest kingdom) and another for the city-state of Nibenay (the shadowy city of spires); a 96-page book on the region (merchant forts, wild tribe encampments, the ecology of the last forest in the Tyr region, and all the battlefields in this hotly contested area); and a lot of maps and sheets, including a great little player handout called "A Traveler's Guide to Gulg/Nibenay," that give the players a precis of what's going on here without giving away any secrets.
And yet, what are those secrets? Perhaps I am unfairly influenced by how some of the art here is reused both across the campaign line (i.e., from other Dark Sun books) and within these same books(!), but a lot of this material feels like a rehash.
Perhaps this seems worse now that I am going through the products chronologically and seeing, for instance, that the info on Gulg here was already in whatever adventure I read two or three adventures ago. And of course it might make sense to repeat info because not everyone buys everything. (For instance, I almost never bought adventures, and I'm sure there was some market research or maybe just some wild guesses about people who had similar purchasing habits.)
But still, I'm not particularly excited by this book EXCEPT for that notion of the last forest, and what that would mean to live in the city surrounded by the forest when everything else is a wasteland AND when that forest is shrinking every year because of the dying world. Like, if you live in hell and things aren't getting better, that's one thing--but what does it feel like if you live in a habitable world and see things steadily getting less and less habitable?
What a great premise for a fantasy and not at all a comment on our current world!
Like: I still kind of like this cover and I like the idea of a supplement that covers a region rather than the supplements we've seen (and will still see) that cover a tranche of life across the region. Or put another way: I bought this book when it came out in June 1993 (happy 29-year anniversary to this book, I guess).
And that is the remit of this box set: a 32-page book on the city state of Gulg (the forest kingdom) and another for the city-state of Nibenay (the shadowy city of spires); a 96-page book on the region (merchant forts, wild tribe encampments, the ecology of the last forest in the Tyr region, and all the battlefields in this hotly contested area); and a lot of maps and sheets, including a great little player handout called "A Traveler's Guide to Gulg/Nibenay," that give the players a precis of what's going on here without giving away any secrets.
And yet, what are those secrets? Perhaps I am unfairly influenced by how some of the art here is reused both across the campaign line (i.e., from other Dark Sun books) and within these same books(!), but a lot of this material feels like a rehash.
Perhaps this seems worse now that I am going through the products chronologically and seeing, for instance, that the info on Gulg here was already in whatever adventure I read two or three adventures ago. And of course it might make sense to repeat info because not everyone buys everything. (For instance, I almost never bought adventures, and I'm sure there was some market research or maybe just some wild guesses about people who had similar purchasing habits.)
But still, I'm not particularly excited by this book EXCEPT for that notion of the last forest, and what that would mean to live in the city surrounded by the forest when everything else is a wasteland AND when that forest is shrinking every year because of the dying world. Like, if you live in hell and things aren't getting better, that's one thing--but what does it feel like if you live in a habitable world and see things steadily getting less and less habitable?
What a great premise for a fantasy and not at all a comment on our current world!
December 3, 2022
Nice deep dive into a particular area of the Dark Sun world. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
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