The Zeai Primer

 “Eternity is a glorious word, but eternity is ice.”

― Dejan Stojanovic, The Sun Watches the Sun 

“Outside, though perhaps morning, it is still night, but a night of a thousand thrusting colors laid over the shaking stars. The shattering ice still sounds like a drumbeat.”

― Dan Simmons, The Terror

The Zeai, Under a Polar Sky

Few flourish on the fringes of the Flanaess, where jungles choke out all settlements over time, where the sun bakes the sands as hot as coals, and where the wind howls, and the very air freezes the blood should one cease moving and rest for more than a moment. Tales tell of a tall, slender folk of ebony hue that dwell on the southwest edge of the Sea of Dust, pursuing a nomadic life where the caustic dust gives way to fertile soil. Some say another human race lives under the shadow of the Hellfurnaces on that black desert's eastern border, a short, stocky people who cover their bodies with an odorous wax to protect against the caustic dust and burning sun.

Far to the north, the Uirtag tribes of the Burneal eke out a meagre existence amid the pines; and further north still, the Baklunish Guryik folk dwell in in the shadow of the Land of Black, but theirs is a coast made tolerable by the temperate currents of the Dramidj Sea.

The Zeai are not so blessed; their Icy Sea is locked in undulating ice nine months of the year. Their shores are as barren and windswept and their sea. Few trees grow here, and those that do are short, and sturdy firs. There is beauty, as well. Southerners imagine a world of white, but the snows and ice are replete with colour, as is the night sky, which glows and rolls as does the ice.

One would think theirs is a bleak existence, fraught with bitter cold, and mired under dunes of snow, but theirs is a land of plenty, blessed by vast schools of char, fatty seals, and shaggy muskoxen, all ruled over by the great white bear. In the summer, they feast on the cariboo that amass in the thousands upon their shores, on whales and fish, and the flesh and eggs of the innumerable birds that flock to that supposedly inhospitable haven. Grasses, stems, tubers, berries, and seaweed (kuanniq).

But their sustenance is limited in the months before sunrise.

The Zeai have a saying: “The great peril of our existence lies in the fact that our diet consists entirely of souls." 

A Land of Plenty

Who are they, these Zeai? Blackmoorians? Flan? No. Neither. They are those Rhizians that pressed on even as the Cruski settled upon the North Shore, until they beheld the herds of mammoth and seal and walrus and the millions of sea birds wheeling about it and the rocky cliffs of the Tusking Shore, leading up to it, and the shoals abut the Brink Isles, and found these to be good lands to rest upon, for a time.

They landed, and were immediately set upon by the Uirtag, who meant to protect their northern harvests. The Rhizians repelled them, again and again until they came no more. The Rhizians persued the Uirtag inland, it was then that they first beheld the looming menace of the Black Ice. Soon after they learned also of the City of the Gods and the Egg of Coot, and never again ventured into that country. They do not speak on why, only warning that it is now wise to do so.

In time, the Guryik rounded the Black Ice, and the Zeai marvelled at the craft upon which they navigated their northern waters. Qajaq, and umiaq, the Guryik called them, and in the teaching the Rhizians the art of their making, and on the use of the harpoon. They also taught the Rhizians that no man survives the Ice without dogs and sleds (qamitik), and the Rhizians soon learned the wisdom of these words.

Despite their newfound plenty, the Zeai remember Vatun’s teaching:

Winter is a time for culling the weak so that the strong may survive. Snow shall cover cowards and they shall be forgotten by all. The people of the north are the true survivors and will inherit the world when the Great Winter comes to cover the land. [LGG – 185]

Winter is the Time of Culling...

True to the Great God of the North, the Zeai struck the Aerdi as they settled upon their shores, and the Rovers as they too strayed too close and too long at Dogwind Bay, and into the wooded shores of the Forlorn Forest; but they saved their wrath for the Coltens, who had learned cruelty under the tutelage of the Ur-Flan Wizard Priest Kerpatis.

This is a harsh land. Only the strong survive, some say, and most believe. The Coltens did, and do.

But they were proved weak when Vlek col Vlekzed rose, and weaker still by the Stonefist. The Coltens grew to fear these men. As did the Rovers.

Not so the Zeai. Here were foes worthy of their courage, the most northerly Rhizians realized, and with their coming, the Zeai wared with them forever more.

Inspiration for campaigns in this harsh land can be found in : Beowulf and the Kalevala, in Nibelungenlied, The Last King (TV), Vikings (TV), The Eagle (film), and The 13th Warrior (film).

But also in the voyages of the voyages and explorations of the Hudson Bay Company: David Thompson and Samuel Hearne, the journals of Roald Amudson, and the writings of Farley Mowat.

Country specific resources:

There are none specific to the Zeai, but the most pertinent information would be concerning Blackmoor and the Burning Cliffs, and that can be found in:

The Greyhawk Folio, The Greyhawk setting boxed set, Greyhawk Adventures, Greyhawk Wars, From the Ashes Boxed Set, Living Greyhawk Gazetteer (pgs 34 & 154 concerning the Zeai), Dragon magazine #52,55,57,63,87,88,89,253 (these entries concern the Cruski, but can easily be applied to the Zeai).

In the Shadow of the Black Ice

Adventures in the country include:

DA1 Adventures in Blackmoor, Blackmoor

DA2 The Temple of the Frog, Blackmoor

DA3 City of the Gods, Blackmoor

DA4 The Duchy of Ten, Blackmoor

Ex Keraptis Cum Amore, Dungeon #77, Burning Cliffs

Raiders of the Black Ice, Dungeon #115, Blackmoor

The Clockwork Fortress, Dungeon #126, Blackmoor

The Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor (Zeitgist Games)

Explore Blackmoor Bay, and the Duchy of Blackmoor

Asventures concerning the Egg of Coot

Sea adventures upon the Icy Seas, White Fang Bay, and Big Seal Bay.

Explore the Land of Black Ice

Adventures in the Cold Marshes. White Dragons, Ice Trolls, Ice Toads, Winter Wolves.

Explore the Dragon Hills, the Wastes, the Burning Cliffs.

The Black Shaman and his horde from the Frost Citadel.

Adventures in nearby areas include:

WGS1 Five Shall Be One, Bandit Kingdoms

WGS2 Howl From the North

WGR5 Iuz the Evil

The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga

Fright at Tristor, Theocracy of the Pale

A Slight Diversion, OJ#9, Redspan, Bandit Kingdoms

Out of the Ashes, Dungeon #17, Bandit Kingdoms

Ghost Dance, Dungeon #32, Rovers of the Barrens

Deep Freeze, Dungeon #83, Theocracy of the Pale

Armistice, Dungeon #84, Griff Mountains

The Sharm’s Dark Song, Dungeon #87

Glacier Seas, Dungeon #87

Beyond the Light of Reason, Dungeon #96, Tenh

Raiders of the Black Ice, Dungeon #115, Blackmoor

Ill Made Graves, Dungeon #133, Jotsplat & the Icy Sea

C13 From His Cold, Dead Hands, by Carlos Lising, casl Entertainment, 2019, Jotsplat & the Icy Sea

Tomb of Zhang the Horrific, by William Dvorak, Rovers of the Barrens.

Although later retconned into the Yeomanry, B1 Into the Unknown (in the monochrome edition) {by its link with B2} was originally suggested as located in The Duchy of Tenh. That would make north Tenh an ideal location for B2 Keep on the Borderlands, as well.

Forest adventures in the Burneal. The Uritag

Adventures in the Taival Tundra; (and the outer doors of and ancient dwarven clanhold)

Forest adventures in the Burneal Forest, Bears, winter wolves and sable firs.

Mountain adventures (and possibly Underdark adventures) in the Griff mountains (alternate placement of G1-3). Dragons. Remorhaz. Yeti.

Adventures concerning Iuz.

Ruins of the Ur-Flan from the time of Keraptis.

Infiltrating the Gibbering Gate, a prison/asylum run by Jumper, one of Iuz's Boneheart (in WGR5 Iuz the Evil).

Forest adventures  in the Forlorn and Fellreev (The Fists in the Forlorn, and Bandits and ancient secrets in the Fellreev).

Adventures in the Bluff Hills: the Shadow Caverns and ruins of the Ur-Flan.

The Zeai:

Capital: Tonnsborg? (pop. 1,000?)

Population: 10,000?

Demi-humans: Unlikely

Humanoids: Considerable numbers 

Languages: Cold Tongue, Common, Flan

Resources: Walrus ivory, furs, fish

Alignments: CN, N

Religions: Kord, Llerg, Norebo, Xerbo, Vatun

(Presumed, extrapolated from the Cruski, and Blackmoor)

One must always give credit where credit is due. This Primer is made possible primarily by the Imaginings of Gary Gygax and his Old Guard, Lenard Lakofka among them, and the new old guards, Carl Sargant, James Ward, Roger E. Moore. And Erik Mona, Gary Holian, Sean Reynolds, Frederick Weining. The list is interminable.

This primer has been expanded from the original “Brink Islands” postcard found on Canonfire’s “Touring the Flanaess” index, written by “Cannibal,” and some passages from that scholarly work reside with this piece.

Special thanks to Jason Zavoda for his compiled index, “Greyhawkania,” an invaluable research tool.

 

The Art:

Eskimo-World by emi-brown

Daily-Sketch-26 by parkurtommo

Leaving-Home by nolan192

Eskimos-discover-ancient-civilisation by heavenlydeamonic

Raiders of the Black Ice Art, by Ramon Perez, from Dungeon Magazine #115, 2004

Tonnsborg map, by Robert Lanzaretti, from Raiders of the Black Ice, Dungeon Magazine, #115, 2004

Sources:

2011A Dungeon Masters Guide, 1^st Ed., 1979

9025 World of Greyhawk Folio, 1981

1015 World of Greyhawk Boxed Set, 1983

2023 Greyhawk Adventures, 1989

1064 From the Ashes Boxed Set, 1992

11743 Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, 2000

Dragon Magazine

Greyhawkania, Jason Zavoda

Anna B. Meyer’s Greyhawk Map