The History of Transoxalia, Part 1: The evidence from Titan - The Fighting Fantasy World

In this post I want to start examining the history and geography of an interesting part of Khul that I have so far not visited in my explorations of the Dark Continent - the area from Neuburg to Zagoula. Ken Beuden, in his interactive Map of Khul, calls this area Transoxalia, though it's not clear that this is where Luke Sharp intended that land to be (see my previous post on the topic). But I'm warming to the idea (it's not clear where else Transoxalia might fit, and the area is beyond a river, in this case the River Swordflow, which we can imagine having been called the 'Oxalis' in the long distant past).

Anyway, here's a map of the area I'm on about, by Steve Luxton from Titan - The Fighting Fantasy World:

 

This is a pretty key part of Khul during crucial periods in its history. Here's a summary of what we learn about the region from Titan - The Fighting Fantasy World (page references are A4/B-format). First of all Old Time (OT):

• Small towns in western Khul unite under the rule of King Klarash Silverhair in 1510 OT, the nation of Klarash growing by 1565 OT to stretch from the southern edge of Scorpion Swamp to the River Swordflow. (38/73)
• In 1542 OT, the first explorers from the kingdom of Klarash attempt to cross into the goblin-infested lands south of the River Swordflow. (38/73)
• During the reign of Klarash III (the original king's grandson), a new capital for the kingdom, Shakista, was founded (near the later Ximoran). (38/74)
• The southern goblins were eventually overcome and the city of Zagoula was founded in 1611 OT as a bulkwark against them. It quickly became a centre for learning and sorcery. (38/74)
• By the end of the 2nd millenium OT, the kingdom of Klarash extended as far south as the garrison towns of Yaziel and Hyennish. Scholars and sorcerers from Zagoula travelled across Khul seeking new knowledge. (38/75)
• In 1997 OT, adventurers from Zagoula found the Dead City, far across the Scythera Desert, and unwittingly unleashed the Forces of Chaos, changing the world of Titan for ever. (39/76)
• The Forces of Chaos that had been unleashed quickly gathered and in the spring of 1998 OT, they swept into Zagoula, destroying the city. (39/78)
• The exact movements of the chaotic armies aren't easy to explain following this, as parts of the army swept northwest to attack Kabesh at the heart of the continent, whilst another army made for the capital of Klarash, Shakista, but was stopped in the Anvil Pass through the Mountains of the Giants by a large force who had been warned of the invasion by survivors from Zagoula. The Mountains of the Giants are to the west of the lands of Klarash, and Ken Beuden, righty I think, places the Anvil Pass in the obvious narrowing of these mountains to the west of Shakista (as indicated in the map above). But why did the chaotic army that had sacked Zagoula so successfully retreat back into the centre of Khul and then attempt to attack by the Anvil Pass through the Mountains of the Giants, rather than push north from Zagoula across the River Swordflow into the heart of Klarash? (41/79)
• In any event, the armies of Chaos pushed the forces of Klarash back to Shakista. Having held back the invaders for 11 days, the defenders of Shakista were finally relieved by the armies of Brendan Bloodaxe from Arion. The Forces of Chaos were destroyed by the combined armies of Klarash and Arion, though the capital had suffered so badly that it had to be demolished. (41/82-3)

And After Chaos (AC):

• In the years after the invasion, Shakista was abandoned and the new capital, Ximoran, was built. The Klarash dynasty continued to rule from Ximoran for 60 years, but came to an end when the king died without leaving an heir. (43/87)
• Following this, the lands of the old Klarash dynasty were ruled by the Council of Seven, a council of members from the seven main towns of these lands (Anghelm, Buruna, Djiretta, Kalima, Kelther, Neuburg and Ximoran) (24/39, 43/87).
• Although Yaziel and Hyennish had survived the invasions by the chaotic forces, they were now sundered from the northern lands. (43/87)
• Zagoula never recovered from its destruction at the hands of the Forces of Chaos, and it was abandoned by all but the ghosts that haunted its chaos-tainted  ruins (43/87). Titan tells us (24/40) that Zagoula is now "a terrifying place, shunned by all but the most adventurous. Some ruined towers and battlements poke above the shifting sands, but most of the city is now underground, and its streets are now tunnels wandered by strange subterranean creatures and a great many undead souls".
• In the 'present day' from the perspective of the writers of Titan (284 AC), the lands of the Council of Seven stretch from the Coast of Sharks to the River Swordflow, where the "small walled city of Neuburg" is on the southern edge of the civilised lands. (24/39)
• South of Neuburg are wild, unsettled lands, inhabited by Goblins and tribes of "short, swarthy humans", supposedly the original inhabitants of much of this part of Khul. Titan describes them as violent and warlike, engaged in raiding for slaves and hostages, but that "swift action by organized troops from Neuburg usually keeps them from doing anything more dangerous". (24/40)

For more discussion of the recent history of Ximoran, see my previous post on the topic. A couple of interesting details are worth pointing out in this brief recap of the history of Transoxalia since later Fighting Fantasy publications contain further interesting details about them. Firstly, Titan tells us that Zagoula was destroyed by the Forces of Chaos and abandoned thereafter. It's quite possible that this illustration (probably by Alan Langford) from Titan (24/38) is a representation of its deserted ruins (especially since in the 1st edition of Titan the illustration appears right next to the description of Zagoula's ruins, and the picture fits the description, given above, perfectly), though it might be Kabesh (but it seems unlikely that someone would be riding a horse through the centre of the Wastes of Chaos in the dead heart of the continent).

Secondly, the town of Neuburg must have existed before the end of the Shakista dynasty (some time after 60 AC according to Titan, 81 AC according the The Fighting Fantasy 10th Anniversary Yearbook), because the dynasty was succeeded by the Council of Seven, and Neuburg is named as one of the seven towns/cities which make up that council. But given the complete lack of reference to Neuburg in the OT period in Titan, and the fact that it is called Neuburg (= 'new castle'), we might expect that it doesn't have a long history before this point. Lastly, some of the lands south of the River Swordflow have been described in detail in later Fighting Fantasy publications, giving us a rather more complicated picture of these wild lands than is presented in Titan. I'll return to these issues in subsequent explorations of the history of Transoxalia and the rest of southwest Khul.

Transoxalia

Say what you will about Luke Sharp's fantasy-themed FF gamebooks (I know some of you hate them!), but I don't think anyone can disagree that the man had an eye for an interesting setting. Whether it be the Dark Chasms beneath Gorak, the Turkic-inspired lands of Kazan, or the weird mix of cultures and environments that make up Zamarra, he really did a lot to add interest to the world of Titan. I'll explore these lands in more detail in later posts, but in this post I want to pick up on one intriguing little reference in the Background section to Sharp's fourth Fighting Fantasy gamebook, Fangs of Fury. As he tells you about Ostragoth's plans for the destruction of Zamarra, Astragal the wizard suggests that:

"If he succeeds here, Gorak, Kazan, Transoxalia, all of south-west Khul will fall to his power."

Very interesting. These are lands in south-west Khul which were not detailed in Titan - The Fighting Fantasy World (Luke Sharp's books having appeared after Titan was published). We know about Gorak from Chasms of Malice and Daggers of Darkness. Kazan we know from Daggers of Darkness, and of course Zamarra is the location for Fangs of Fury itself. But what about Transoxalia? It's clear from the context that it is in south-west Khul and that it is probably a land like Zamarra, Kazan and Gorak, but other than that we know nothing, as this is the only mention of it in the whole of Fighting Fantasy. I like to think that it would have been the location for Luke Sharp's next book had he kept writing them or had the Puffin range not been cancelled. But where might Transoxalia be? Let's have a look at south-west Khul and the locations of other lands we know more about.

I've marked in the areas of the maps in Chasms of Malice, Daggers of Darkness, Fangs of Fury, and Peter Darvill-Evans' Portal of Evil for reference, as these are the only FF maps we have of this part of Khul apart from the Titan map. As you can see, we know a reasonable amount about the geography of south-west Khul, and there are a number of areas we can rule out as the location of Transoxalia. Firstly, anywhere north of the River Swordflow seems unlikely, as these are the vast lands of the Council of Seven and don't really constitute south-west Khul anymore. Secondly, we can rule out anywhere east of the Cloudhigh Mountains (essentially the Wastes of Chaos and the Scythera Desert), as again these aren't in south-west Khul and anyway they aren't settled lands which anyone would care about falling under Ostragoth's rule. Thirdly, we can rule out the lands already detailed by Luke Sharp: Kazan itself (i.e. all the lands between the River Swordflow, the River Dart and the coast; Zamarra, between the Lesser Ilkhan Mountains and the sea; and Gorak, between the River Dart, the River Swordflow, the Lesser Ilkhan Mountains to the south, and extending an unknown distance to the east.

So where does that leave us? One possibility might be one or both of the islands of Soldragar and Pendragar, but as they are already named this seems unlikely. Another possibility would be the area immediately east and south-east of Gorak, though there isn't a lot of room here before bumping into the forests around Kleinkastel. Better might be the area between the River Dagger and the River Swordflow, which isn't part of Gorak (see the Background section in Chasms of Malice). It might even be that this area could include lands south of the River Dagger, east of Gorak. The area around Zagoula is unlikely, as this ruined city is clearly an emerging centre of Chaos in the region, so Astragal is hardly going to be concerned about it being conquered by Ostragoth's chaotic forces. (Exactly where Ostragoth, his army and his fleet have come from to besiege Zamarra is another interesting question which I won't go into right now, though Zagoula must be one possible candidate.) Areas south of Zagoula might be possible locations for Transoxalia, including the peninsula southwest of it and the area around Yaziel and Hyennish (which was once the southern reaches of the kingdom of Klarash according to Titan, so we could imagine it retaining vestiges of civilisation). The only other place that Transoxalia could be is in the area between the River Swordflow and Lake Mlubz - i.e. the area detailed in Portal of Evil, the new southern limits of the lands of the Council of Seven. This is the location of Transoxalia assumed by Ken Beuden in his map of Khul but locating Transoxalia here isn't altogether unproblematic since Peter Darvill-Evans never uses the name for this region, most of it is unsettled or only recently settled forest and jungle and, in any case, it is part of the Council of Seven lands rather than a separate land in its own right in danger of falling under the rule of Ostragoth.

One clue as to the location of Transoxalia might lie in its name. Like many other names in Luke Sharp's fantasy books (see my Fact of Fiction article in issue 3 of Fighting Fantazine), this name is modelled on a name from the Near East and Central Asia - in this case the name of the Central Asian region Transoxiana, the land beyond the Oxus (Amur Darya) river as far as the Jaxartes (Syr Darya) river (note the name Jaxartes, also used in Fangs of Fury). The name Transoxiana contains the Latin prefix trans- meaning "across, beyond, on the other side", so it means "(land) beyond the Oxus". If we apply the same principles to the FF name Transoxalia, then it means something like "(land) beyond the Oxal" or something to that effect. The Oxal (or similar) would then be a geographical feature such as a river, a mountain range or a plain, beyond which lies Transoxalia. Now obviously this doesn't give us a location for it, but it might help us to work out where Transoxalia might lie.

So there you have it. My personal preferred location for Transoxalia is the area between the Swordflow and the Dagger, or the area around Yaziel and Hyennish, but I'm sure some of you have other ideas, which I'd love to hear.

The Ximoran Protectorate and the Council of Seven

To my mind, one of the most interesting, yet one of the most unexplored areas of the world of Fighting Fantasy is the civilised western part of Khul which is governed by the Council of Seven, who rule from the capital of the area, Ximoran (see Titan - The Fighting Fantasy World, p. 24/39 (large/small format)). We can, following the practice of Titannica, call this area the Ximoran Protectorate. Other than some information in Titan, which I'll discuss further below, we learn almost nothing about this part of Titan other than a few crumbs of information in Scorpion Swamp by Steve Jackson (US) and a fair bit more about the area around and south of Neuburg (especially in Peter Darvill-Evans' Beneath Nightmare Castle and Portal of Evil). In this post, I'm going to explore this part of Khul and see what we can learn, and offer some suggestions of ways we might develop this area further for our own adventures and stories.

Let's start with Steve Luxton's map of Khul in Titan. Titan (pp. 24/39) suggests that the Ximoran Protectorate stretches from the River Swordflow in the south to the Coast of Sharks, with the Council of Seven made up of representatives from the seven main cities: Ximoran, Anghelm, Buruna, Djiretta, Kalima, Kelther and Neuburg. We know from Portal of Evil that the Protectorate extends some way south of Neuburg, but it is unknown whether it extends far beyond Djiretta to the area of Shantak Bay.

South of the River Swordflow lie the lands of Kazan and Gorak, which I'll talk about more in later posts (as I will also do for the lands around Neuburg), and the forests and jungles north of Lake Mlubz, which are largely unsettled. This huge expanse of territory, bounded in the east by the Mountains of the Giants, in the north and west by the sea, and in the south by the River Swordflow, looks like a land of lush river valleys, ancient forests (some fans have equated the large forest in the northwest of the land with Mithrir Forest, mentioned in Daggers of Darkness, but this is only conjecture), rolling grassy plains, and teacherous swamp (see my previous post for a reanalysis of the geography of Scorpion Swamp though). It's obvious that there are many more towns and villages in the Protectorate than are marked on the map (which only shows the main cities and the two villages which appear in Scorpion Swamp) - see the Background section of Scorpion Swamp and the map accompanying Portal of Evil for some indications of this. Otherwise we know very little about the geography of the area, though thankfully we do know more (though still not a lot) of the history of this part of Khul (see Titan, pp. 24-5/39-41, 38-41/73-83, 43/87). In outline, the kindgom of Klarash, named after the dynasty of the same name, grew up in the area, centred on its capital, Shakista (near where Ximoran later lay). At its height, Klarash extended from the north coast to Yaziel and Hyennish in the far southwest. The Spawning of Chaos in Khul almost ruined Klarash for good, but it survived the convultions which destroyed much of the rest of the continent, though it had lost its southern territories around Zagoula and Shakista had to be abandoned due to the ruin caused by the forces of Chaos. A new capital was built at Ximoran, and it looked for a short while like Klarash might return to its former glories, but then the last King of the Klarash dynasty died without leaving an heir, and the lands became ruled by the Council of Seven. Instead of a unified nation, the result was a loose confederation of lands united under a governing council and notionally under the protection of Ximoran.

Interestingly, The Fighting Fantasy 10th Anniversary Yearbook adds a few choice details to the history of the region. The Yearbook records that the last king of Klarash was called Orien, and that he died in 81AC (After Chaos), on the 20th day of Nature's Curling. Nine years later, the Yearbook records, the 'Queen of Silver' was banished from Ximoran (on the 6th day of Forests Golden in 90AC), and in 103AC the Riddling Reaver was unmasked in Ximoran on the 2nd day of Watching. These last two events are fascinating if rather enigmatic - who was the 'Queen of Silver', and what was the Riddling Reaver doing in Ximoran? It's tempting to connect all of these events, since the Yearbook considered them (and only them) important enough to record. Perhaps the Queen of Silver was Orien's dowager queen (though not of the Klarash line herself), who may have found herself in conflict with the new Council of Seven. And perhaps the Riddling Reaver saw a situation here which he could work to his own unknowable advantage. I like to think that perhaps he posed as a (false) claimant to the throne, Perkin Warbeck style, maybe even supported by the Queen of Silver, who had become seduced by him. None of this is canon of course, but it certainly makes for an interesting episode in the history of the Ximoran Protectorate.

Actually, the impression I get from the Ximoran Protectorate is of a land not dissimilar in some ways from George R. R. Martin's Seven Kingdoms from his A Song of Ice and Fire series (spoilers ahead, just in case you haven't read all the series yet). Okay, so there's no king or ice wall and frozen north, but there are lush river lands (see, for example, the area north of Ximoran, which reminds me of Martin's Trident and Riverlands), a possible pretender to the throne, fAegon style (in the form of the Riddling Reaver), and seven semi-independent sub-kingdoms and a council which is no doubt the scene of scheming and intrigue (especially if we go back to the times after the death of Orien). I'm not suggesting that Ximoran should be based on Martin's Seven Kingdoms, only that we might be able to model it partly on that. And, of course, I'm not suggesting that Martin drew his inspiration for the Seven Kingdoms from the Ximoran Protectorate, even if there are tiny bits of evidence which might, maybe suggest that Martin drew inspiration here and there from Fighting Fantasy (e.g. the deadly poison, the Tears of Lys, which we can compare with the Black Poison of Lisz from Daggers of Darkness, and the name Sansa, which is obviously close to the name of the first noble of Kharé). One further aspect of Martin's Seven Kingdoms that we might also be able to incorporate into the Ximoran Protectorate is the chivalry, gallantry, and knightly society which is such a keystone of his work. There isn't actually anywhere in Titan where knights and their courtly deeds take centre stage, and I wonder whether Ximoran might be the place for it. We do have some evidence of knights in Khul, for example the tourney in Daggers of Darkness, the knights of Zamarra (I like to think of Zamarra as an early outpost of Klarash founded by adventurer knights, now gone its own way), and the Order of Knights Errant from Dave Morris's unpublished Fighting Fantasy gamebook, The Keeper of the Seven Keys, and I can't help feeling that the Ximoran area might be the source of all this on the continent. Anyway, it's just an idea, but I think a settled land combining elements of what we know from canon FF sources, and inspiration from Arthurian legend and A Song of Ice and Fire might make the west of Khul a really rather interesting place. What do you think?

The geography of Scorpion Swamp

Over to the other side of Khul for a change, to that early Fighting Fantasy adventure location, Scorpion Swamp. Outside of the eighth FF book, the only geographic information we have on this miasmic place is the map of Khul (by Steve Luxton) and a few notes in Titan - The Fighting Fantasy World. Let's see what we can find out about it.

Scorpion Swamp, by the other Steve Jackson, was the second FF book I bought, encouraged as I was by my friends who thought the cover was crap and were worried it was rubbish inside too. It's never been an all-time favourite of mine, but I like it, as much for its old-school charm and non-linear approach (and, as we'll see, its easy mapability). There's not much information about the geography of the swamp and the lands around it in the background and the start of the adventure before you actually enter the swamp, but we know this much:

• There's a "King's highway" (sic.) with towns along its course (Background).
• Scorpion Swamp "lies far to the west of the kingdom", and you have to travel a long way to get there: "As you travel further west, the mountains around you turn to hills, the hills to plains, and the plains to damp lowlands". You eventually come to the little town of Fenmarge, on the southern edge of the swamp (para. 1).
• One of your possible benefactors in the adventure, Poomchukker, tells you that it would save weeks and weeks of time if his caravans could travel through Scorpion Swamp to the town of Willowbend on its northern edge rather than going round it. This suggests that the swamp is vast (para. 173).

In order to say anything more about the geography of the swamp as described in the book, I'm going to have to follow the advice given on pp. 21-22 and do some mapping! It's been a while since I mapped this one out, and I have no idea where my old maps are, so time to have some fun doing it again for the first time in years. Here's the result (obvious spoilers included):

That was fun! Very satisfying seeing all the clearings coming together so nicely. Not exactly a complicated layout, but I think it's effective (if not at all realistic). So what do we learn from this romp through the swamp? Well, here are some points of interest:

• It takes you a day to travel between Fenmarge and Willowbend, so the distance between them isn't great.
• The swamp is bisected by the Foulbrood River, which is about 200 metres wide and is crossed by an old stone bridge. Interestingly, the river flows west to east (see paras. 339 and 369).
• Willowbend is a bustling town with at least three inns in it. It lies north-northwest of Fenmarge.

That's about it for the geography of Scorpion Swamp from the gamebook itself. Let's have a look at what we can learn about the geography of the swamp from Titan - The Fighting Fantasy World. Here's the part of the Khul map that contains Scorpion Swamp:

Scorpion Swamp lies, like a rotten core, in the middle of the civilsed lands of western Khul. To its east are the King's Highway (sic.) and the Mountains of the Giants. The Foulbrood River runs roughly through its middle, from the northeast to the southwest. Fenmarge is at the east-southeast edge of the swamp, and Willowbend is at the west-northwest edge, and a considerable distance lies between the two towns (there's not a big difference between the two of them in a straight line compared with going around the swamp).

Clearly there are things here which don't match the original gamebook (again I'm not blaming anyone for this; in fact I'm glad it's different, otherwise this post wouldn't have to be written!). The swamp isn't in the far west of the kingdom, a long way distant from the mountains (though we can imagine a traveller coming south down the King's Highway past the mountains to the lowlands south of the swamp). Fenmarge and Willowbend are in the wrong positions relative to each other (they should be on a nearly north-south axis), and they are far too far apart considering it only takes a day to get between them (compare the distance to the size of the Inland Sea or Hachiman in the same map in Titan). And of course the orientation and direction of flow of the river are wrong! It should, according to the text in the gamebook, flow in a west-east direction.

I think it's time to revise the Khul map somewhat to bring it closer to the description in the gamebook. There's not much we can do about the direction of flow of the river, and I think we'll have to assume that in a swamp the water might be pretty stagnant and could flow in various directions. But the rest we can fix, to an extent at least. Here's my version of the same area of the map:

In this version of the map, I've changed the positions of Fenmarge and Willowbend to make them the same as the map drawn from the gamebook. I've also put them much closer together, essentially in the fringes of the swamp itself, presumably on drier promentaries. I've slightly widened the swamp in an east-west direction to account for Poomchukker's estimate of how long it takes caravan's to get round it (no doubt he was exaggerating somewhat, and I suspect he had other motives for exploring the swamp too). Finally, I've corrected the course (though not the direction) of the Foulbrood River somewhat to make it fit better with the text of the gamebook. What do you think?

Anyway, there you go. One of the curious things about the gamebook Scorpion Swamp is that it is really the only source of information we have about the civilised western lands of Khul north of Neuburg. However, it can hardly be considered to be typical of those lands! We can assume that most of the evil, nasty things in western Khul have ended up in places like this, where civilsation does not quite reach. The bustling towns of Fenmarge and Willowbend give us a better idea of what these western lands are like, but it would be nice to know more.