Thoughts on Chapter 45: The Secret of the Elfgates

Paizo has left a riddle within their Pathfinder Canon Lore for Castrovel and Qabarat, I suspect purposefully for people like me love to wildly speculate on crumbs like this. Of the five magical gates located in Qabarat, four of them are aiudara - elfgates built on or after the time of the Retreat from Kyonin - while the fifth leads to the planet Akiton (or ~Shakrasse~ - Red-Queen - as the Lashunta name it. So the question: if there’s a connection between the Elven-wrought aiudara and the fifth worldgate to Akiton (and I prefer to assume there is), what is it? This is the point of speculation between my narrator Lady Vaeol and her ancient friend Taiase as part of _A Castrovel Adventure: Part 5, Chapter 45 today.

PF1E Distant Worlds specifies: “Bordered by sea, cliff, river, and fertile fields and jungles, Qabarat is both highly defensible and perfectly positioned for trade by water. This positioning as a trade nexus is only enhanced by the fact that the city contains four separate aiudara, as well as a highly guarded gate leading to and from Akiton.” (pg 13). Within my homebrew lore, I have speculated about a link between the Akiton gate and the four aiudara the Elves built, and why Qabarat has a min-nexus of gates half a world away from El, the Sovyrian Stone, and the primary worldgate connecting there to Kyonin. One of the fun things about Paizo’s Pathfinder world setting is its allusions to the Old Ones and elder gods of the Cthulhu Mythos, and that the world(s) were inhabited by things far older and far more eldritch before short-lived Human/Lashunta-kin dcame along. What if the Akiton Gate prehistorically predated Lashunta and Elven discovery? Yet perhaps the Elves needed the Akiton Gate…to connect into its power??

It’s not such a stretch. Also per the Pathfinder’s lore, the Elven hero Candlaron the Sculptor created the aiudara network, plus the Sovyrian Stone to power them. Yet the Kyonin-Sovyrian gate already existed, and was also identified as being of non-Elven origin? What if the Sovyrian Stone could only power the elfgates so far? In order to stretch the network further afield, say to Ofu-Laubu (Mesa), they needed a boost. At that point, it only made sense to make Qabarat a mini-gatehub, boosting the connection to other farflung gatesteads like Jabask…and possibly the original settlement on Forbidden Ukulam, near where Loskialua stands. Incidentally, the Elven colonization of Qabarat to control the gatesstead forms a watershed inflection point in my homebrew historical timeline for Qabarat and the Lashunta of Western Asana, including why, even after Lashunta became the city’s dominant population, why it still thinks of itself as Elven.

As I said at the beginning, it’s idle, wild speculation. Yet it does make for some good story prospects. It also leads to one last question: Who made the Akiton Worldgate, for what purpose, and will they ever come back??

References:

• Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Distant Worlds (PZO9243)
• Hellknight Hill (PZO90145): Adventure Toolbox