itmeJP Community


itmeJP Community

A new adventure in the Court of Cups

RollPlay®: Court of Swords
#1

Having watched all those 66 episodes of CoS so far, I was inspired to start my own adventure as a DM, with a group of friends, after not actively playing D&D for a few years now. To allow myself some creative freedom I decided to place it in a different time and in a court we haven’t seen on the show yet - the Court of Cups. The only information I could find on this court on the wiki was, that it is an archipelago of islands surrounded by a body of water. This plants a vision of the Carribeans - warm climate, resource trade, fueled by sea travel, as well as the peoples of the depths of the sea - tortles, tritons and the like…

I would be curious to hear, what the community, the cast and the Court of Swords DM have in mind when it comes to the vision of this fourth court.

#2

I’m about to spew a bunch of shit so at least make an attempt to follow along or not idc. Just my thoughts.

So we need to base it off of the Tarot card suit of Cups. That’s definitely not coming off the table. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suit_of_cups
A lot of the suit reads emotional and really “down to earth” interpretations.
Now this can be either good or bad; let me elaborate.

Where we are now, the party is more experienced with the viewing of material things as useless (due to souls returning to the wheel in the end). We also know that most of the time, an abundance of material possessions (rich men) are often associated with the Mara. [spoiler]The Mara hates Oblivion. The Fountain loves it. Oblivion means no possessions yada yada yada. You get the whole deal.[/spoiler] When I say down to Earth, I both literally and physically mean it. People invested with their current life, and people just fucking chilling out smokin’ opium. Down to Earth and “down to earth” ;).

ANYWAY

Because we have this new court, we can bring a more positive attitude towards life and celebration and shit like that as opposed to the negative reflection of it. Maybe the court of cups has like an ideal lifestyle or something and all like love and shit and emotion etc. can be good ish for a change. This could mean hula girls.

Ok nice what else

So I guess the Suit of Cups also has a big religious affiliation with it?
WE CAN WORK WITH THIS
OK. IDEA.

Remember how I said it’s paradise?
fuck that
listen to this: We keep the demon worshipers of material things; HOWEVER, we also mix in a bunch of cup affiliated priests. Then, we can like have the challenge of trying to decipher the Mara from the Cups and we can have a whole thing built off of that. Maybe we have like a Spanish Inquisition inspired type of deal and we have all of the cup guys go out and try to find the mara people but like their all rich priests so they end up turning against their own and may or may not kill off a few innocents or something. Then it can be like witch hunt/ Spanish inquisition inspired.

idk

Also Pirates and Kuo-toa type shit. Can’t forget those guys.
And Dragon Turtles. https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/3fbka4/dragon_turtle/

I’ve got a whole bunch of other ideas, but for now, this is what my brain could shit out. I hope you could interpret it all.

Edit: also mermaids.
edit2: spoilers

#3

If I were looking for Canonical info on the Court of Cups, I’d go to the Patreon Video of the Season Three Prep. The Cast had just gotten blown off the face of the Shu-Lin Valley (Spelling?), and they had a lengthy talk about where they wanted to set the adventure next. They eventually settled on Court of Wands, which was described as a more “Arabian Nights” setting then the rest of the world. (The cast Veto-ed Swords because they didn’t wan’t to do Undead/Necromancy war, and I don’t remember what the big draw for Coins was) I don’t remember a ton of exactly what was said when debating for the Court of Cups besides what you already know, but I do seem to remember the video being the biggest lore dump thus far, and “Pirate Adventure” being on the table at some point.

#4

It would be worth looking into the nautical history of the Indian/West Pacific oceans (and I feel like that of the Mediterranean in Greek/Roman times might be of use as well). From what I know, the large seafaring ships of the age were primarily galleys and scows (see Chinese Junk) and had very limited oceanic travel capacities, being limited mostly to coastal travel - this is part of the reason the Europeans (Portuguese) developed such a trade monopoly when they first arrived.

It would allow for the ready incorporation of African, Middle-eastern and Indian elements, as there was a thriving trade between East Africa and India for over a thousand years in various forms - this would be an awesome and heretofore unexplored segment of the CoS world, while still fitting well with Adam’s original vision and intent, IMO (cf. Great Zimbabwe and Kilwa).

Also of interest and something I was unaware before I started exploring Wikipedia in response to this post was that Western exploration was ongoing in secret as explorers disguised themselves as Muslims, traveling along trade routes by land while others were doing the same by sea (Portuguese at Sofala), seeking out places to send naval expeditionary forces. This seems like an ideal excuse to introduce the half-elves as Adam has discussed, as well as Farang efforts at incursion on a smaller scale (perhaps a Silver Farang enclave is present locally?).

I think perhaps that having a conflict between a culture like this and another with ships like those of the Vikings, which were also largely reliant on human power but combined the open ocean effectiveness of Polynesian outriggers with the size and capacity of larger ships AND allowed for fast travel up even very shallow rivers, which could make them a threat against slower vessels but more notably makes them more effective in mounting nautical attacks against coast and river towns and cities. Perhaps the Court of Cups has already dealt with this sort of thing in the past and as a result, the CoC is notable for extensive coastal fortifications and castle towns? Or it could be a new threat.

I’m really excited to hear how this develops!

1 Like
#5

Do you have a link to that patreon video (Am Patron, can’t find it)? Really looking for some more lore on CoS.

#6

I think it should be in here somewhere? I don’t really have a ton of time to check, but it should be in this one if I’m remembering right. https://www.patreon.com/posts/rollplay-court-3-11275826