Bantambairn: ANS4 Enhancement

 Bantambairn Shire of the Pasocado Basin

A New Location in Anchôrome visited by Achcauhtli the Traveler, who has only now remembered to add to his journal, ANS4 Once Across Anchôrome

About

The journal of the traveler Achcauhtli known as Once Across Anchôrome was my attempt to view locations in Anchôrome how it would appear to an explorer making their way through the region. 

I really enjoyed putting the book together because it was a format I had never used before, and I got to tell a story while simultaneously adding game material and furthering the lore of Anchôrome.

Phillip “Sleyvas” Wallace has expanded so much on the continent with a whole collection of articles and books which you can find on DMsGuild, each of which is linked here on this blog. 

Sleyvas also has contributed tons of material to the lore in smaller chunks on the forums for Candlekeep, primarily in the thread Brainstorming Anchôrome.  When I saw his write up on the  Bantambairn Shire of the Pasocado Basin, I just had to ask him if I could add it here. So without further ado, here is the Bantambairn Shire from Sleyvas with only a small write up of some creatures he mentioned put together by myself (Seethyr).

Bantambairn Shire

Many have heard tales of the “short ones” who live in a section of hills and mountains from which six smaller streams converge to make the mighty Pasocada river. However, there is little documented of them, and many assume they are but primitive halflings, lacking the sophistication of their  Faerûnian brethren. In some respects, they are correct, for these people do live lives involving less technology than that of the lands to the east across the sea. However, lack of metallurgical skills does not make their lives less wondrous, and these halflings tend to focus on the power of nature and nurture rather than that of artifice. 

Nor are all of the “short ones” simply halflings, particularly in Bantambairn Shire, where a trio of forest gnomes lost in the desert were rescued by a family of halfling druids almost two centuries ago. This trio consisted of fraternal twin brothers, Jinkynn and Dinken Rubywine, a sorcerer and ranger respectively, and their childhood friend Gimdel Bellowgobbil the druid. All held reverence for Baervan Wildwanderer and had recently come to Toril from the Spirit World, where their people had been hounded by servants of Urdlen. While the rest of this gnomish population settled in a section of the Pagunki Wood that they named Goelmearra (known to outsiders as Goelmee Glen), these three gnomes sought to explore their new world. They were captured by the horned, ogrelike, hairymen known as caddaja, but were rescued before being eaten, and simply decided to make a new life amongst their halflings rescuers. 

Since then, each of the gnomes has had several lovers and each is a widower many times over, for they have outlived their former mates, either through old age or the hand of fate. Thus, they have created a small clan of their own in a relatively short time, for their halfling wives were keen on growing large families unlike most gnomish communities. The gnomes themselves find themselves elder grandparents now, surrounded by the eighth generation of their kin, and they regret not a moment of their time spent amongst them.

The three gnomes were surprised to find that the halflings of the region were broken into several small groups, but they worked together to protect the region from encroachment. The ones most commonly met live in the Ansonaong Valley in the hilly woodlands that make up the majority of the lands some refer to as “The Land of Six Rivers”. Their people have a focus on horticulture and have developed a form of artifice that revolves around blending magic and cooking. Their greatest hunters rode upon blackscaled, draconic mounts known as smoke drakes, or fumarondi, which had been tamed and used by the halfling hero Ansonaong, to forcibly take these lands from the ogres that once held it. 

The halflings that had taken in the gnomes however, lived in the mountains to the immediate east of the fertile lands of the Ansonaong Wood. Nor were the gnomes the first to interbreed with these halflings, for several dwarven members of the Sandbeard Clan had married into the halflings and drawn them into the mountains several centuries prior. In fact, it was these dwarves who gave the name of Bantambairn Shire to the region after they discovered the strange variations of hippogriff bred by the halflings that thrived here, creatures which existed in these mountains even before the Poscadari elves arrived in the surrounding plains. It was in fact the elves that gave these creatures the original names with which the halflings still refer to them.

While not particularly useful in battle, these bisundaari or “chickogriffs” as most refer to them, are extremely useful for traversing the surrounding mountainous terrain, working as service animals tilling the sections of fertile land, as well as providing milk, feathers, leather, and meat. Its foreparts resemble that of a giant chicken or rooster, and its back parts resemble that of a buffalo. 

Similarly, a smaller variation, known as yuindaari or “cheeps”, with white feathers and wool and appearing to be a mix of chicken and sheep. Unlike most hippogriffs, chickogriffs and cheeps reproduce via live birth according to their mammalian body parts. When they are first born, their beaks are much more malleable, allowing them to nurse from their mothers without harming them. Initially they are allowed to do so, but the calves are taken away from their mothers, as it allows the mother to quickly return to its herd where it feels more safe. 

The halflings then harvest its milk to personally care for and feed the young chickogriffs and cheeps in a relatively clean environment. In fact, most families keep these animals as pets when they are young, letting them live inside their homes until they grow so big as to be a nuisance. Living in caves that have been expanded into homes, there is usually a cavern larger than the rest of the living space where young calves and lambs reside. The halfling children are expected to keep this area clean, and the space usually has a tunnel for pushing excrement to dump outside the home cavern. This excrement is collected and used as fertilizer to enhance the yield of their crops.

Once the bisundaari and yuindaari grow large enough, females are released into the herd, while most males are released to live wild in the mountains. Many roosters are later hunted for their meat when they inevitably grow bold enough to start encroaching on the herds. This often also results in roosters killing other roosters for mating rights. The hunting of one’s first rogue rooster is considered a right of passage by the halflings.

It was on one such hunt with his son that Diinken Rubywine uncovered a secret hidden in these mountains for millenia. Under the cover of a powerful illusion, the gnome ranger found a glyph covered doorway with symbols that he could not interpret. It included many pictographs of avians, feathers, eggs, and hybrids of birds and animals. Eventually, the residents of this community returned to open this door, only to find a seemingly vast complex, complete with magical traps, undead guardians, and eventually a glassteel door that they could not find a way past. Magical inquiry revealed that the name of this complex was Quekuelkree, and most believe it is the source of the strange creatures in the area.  It is believed by the sages of the Short Ones to have once been inhabited by the aarakocran creator race known as the aearee.