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kopout
2009-06-12, 08:09 PM
Some of you may remember past community world building projects like "Smog" or "CoG". One of my mistakes with "Smog" was not keeping an active archive of the additions and retcons made to the setting as we went along, in order to prevent that this time I will set aside the first two post after this to be reserved. Another problem was the map, making it up as you go along was not a good idea so here you go, a map right of the start
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/1865/basemapp.th.jpg (http://img4.imageshack.us/i/basemapp.jpg/)
And now with out further ado the premise...dang! I had an idea but it doesn't seam that well suited to being a game setting, a good campaign but not a good game setting. My original idea had been that a world without humans, but with all the other races, got an infusion of humans in the form of a subway car full of commuters burst through from the "real" world into this world, but that would probably make a better fantasy novel than game . So unless I can come up with a better one by Monday I'm open to suggestions, consider just another part of the community world building process :smallbiggrin:

kopout
2009-06-12, 08:10 PM
The highlight reel

Crab city[s] (katang[s])
Kobolds in the walls
Evil druid cultists
Too many gods to remember
Many kinds of orcs
Psionic crab monsters
Desert humans
Indentured warforged
Magic reactor kobolds
Scattered kingdom humans
Almost extinct wizards
Espionage monks
The arcane college
Omnicidel halfling cult
Gont and Ocean Groves
Gremlins
Tether
Sunken city of Suriya

This is not a list of every thing and it is not perfect, if you want to to know everything you have to reed the thread and/or ask some one.

Races
• Dwarves
• Gnomes
• Kabouter( dwarve gnomes)
• Humans
• Halflings
• Elves
• Orcaguin (now in 4 new flavors)(Needs name)
• Imocaris(crab people)
• Tuko (gecko people)
• Warforged (elemental style)
• Kobolds
• Elf/orc crossbreed (underwater drow style, needs name)
• Naraldi's Children (yuan-ti like, needs name)
• Goblins?

Time line
20 years Before Ruin- First Rise, Dwarf/Gnome Alliance is formed, First Crab Cities are built

17 BR- Elimanishon makes the floating desert and makes himself an immortal mummy emperor

12 BR- Orcs slaughter ten thousand people in the city Xiua to make their children born amphibious

0 BR/After Ruin- Second Rise is complete, No land is left

130 AR- Suriya is created by 5 elven Houses

300 AR- One crab city is destroyed by a concentrated orc assault

612 AR- Suriya is sunk by a devil's anitmagic spell

750 AR- Another crab city is destroyed by an assault of dragons and half-giants

1000 AR- The waters begin to recede, the first search parties are sent out (none return)

1005 AR- Naraldi's Children the yuan-ti rise from the depths

1012 AR- More land is exposed, a few people have ventured into the land and given reports of huge lush jungles and forests

kopout
2009-06-12, 08:11 PM
linked threads
• Dwarves, Gnomes, Kabouter, Warforged and Katang (big topic)
• Elves and their Houses (which all need to be named and described, at least the existing ones)
• Halflings (which, incidentally, need a lot of work)
• Humans
• Orcs, Svartalfar and Imocaris (svartalfar being the elf/orc crossbreeds that live in the ruins of Suriya)
• Evadize, Naraldi, and her Children (this would be for the whole mythology of the Ruin and the Reclamation)
• Tether
• Deities/ myths and legends (of all races, all pantheons)
• Tuko and Lizarks
• ]Geography

Vadin
2009-06-12, 10:01 PM
What about a world where no one lives on the landmasses? Long ago they did, but something or someone forced every group out into the oceans and off of the land.

Now, almost a thousand years later, the first beings are going back on land.

What do they find there?

What is the land like?

What, if anything, lives on it?

Why did everyone leave?

How did they leave?

How do they stay alive on the ocean?

What sorts of groups existed before, and how have those groups changed?

What kind of magic, if any, do the people have access to?

What kind of magic, if any, is common fare?

More questions I'm sure will be generated and answered by the community.

jagadaishio
2009-06-12, 10:42 PM
The way the landmasses are set up, I can't image that any one of them would be larger than the sum of the British isles. So, building off of Vadin's idea, why not make this a water-world. A massive, global flood forced people to the sea. Some lived in flotilla colonies; some lived in domed cities beneath the waves; some, through magic or natural adaptation changed to live beneath the waves.

Now, though, a thousand years later, the waters are finally starting to recede. These islands would be the tops of the tallest mountains of the old world, and the first to crest the waves again. Some of the various people of the ocean have taken notice of this, the water-breathers donning tanks and magical amulets to survive the air, the flotillas dropping anchors and building docks for the first time in a millennium, and the mages of the bubble cities walking ashore, plans in mind to reclaim their ancient heritage.

What do you think?

Vadin
2009-06-12, 10:57 PM
That, jagadaisho, was a generation ago.

Ah, the cautious optimism!

...how they missed it.

When the first scouting parties had gone on land, none had returned. They'd left the safety of their homes without any protection- after all, the only threats were aboleths, and dragonturtles, and all those other things that lived in the water.

A few months later, one nation sent another search team out. A powerful psychic accompanied the group to relay messages of what was going on.

Below is the only log:

*It's weird...there are...plants? These shouldn't be out here.*

*Noise. Just heard a noise. Big, loud. Keeping a an eye out.*

*Is that...oh, Gliss! I thought those were just legends! I didn't think they were-*

Now, 15 years later, the societies have all calmed down enough to process what it might be. The youth in particular want to know, and none of them really think that life out there would be all that dangerous.

Heck, in the floating city Colenchor there are even rumors of a secret settlement on the land to the north!

Of course, those are just rumors. Some awfully powerful people would have had to go to a lot of trouble to start a settlement up there, and they'd have to go to even more trouble to keep it a secret. And besides, there's no reason they'd even want to live up there...right?




I'm thinking...plant things. Malboro kings. Fungus monsters. Assassin vines. Other things that grow slowly and creep in the sunlight.

But where did they come from? Well, druids know how to raise plant beasts. What do the druids know about the world that everyone else has forgotten? What's up there? Do they know? Do they want to keep people off for a reason? Is that reason related to the thousand year spike in sea levels? Or is there something else out there, something that the ever-secretive druids don't want people to find out about?

jagadaishio
2009-06-12, 11:22 PM
I like it. A foray into the unknown without the characteristic sense of optimism that you see in most settings with such a theme. Rather, a sort of grim dread about what might be in these unfamiliar lands. Yes, I like it indeed.

Now, let's start with original factions that existed in the world way back when, and then try to extrapolate what they would be like in this watery world. I would personally like to start with the dwarves. Let's say that the dwarves of the old days were much like their Tolkeinoid brethren - gruff, part Gothic, part Norse tunnel-dwellers. What did they do when some of their tunnels started flooding, the water levels approached and eventually surpassed their mountain-peak tunnel entrances, and the climate of the world steadily warmed, aided by the world-wide ocean currents?

I see three main options here.

1. Stationary alliance with gnomes. The dwarves, seeing the end of their way of life imminent, contacted the kingdoms of the gnomes, in their shallow burrows. The gnomes, in an even more risky position than the dwarves as their shallow, earthen tunnels rapidly flooded and left the gnomes migrant and homeless, were offered the shelter of the dwarven caves and access to all the same ores in exchange for a symbiotic service. The greatest of the gnome tinkers and artificers would have then waterproofed the entrances of the dwarven kingdoms, constructed massive magitech air filters, and lived there in the caves under the ocean with only the occasional clockwork submarine serving as their contact with the surface world.

2. Migratory alliance with the gnomes. Much like the above example, but with one exception: the stubborn dwarves waited for too long to ask for the gnomes' help. So their caves flooded and when almost all was lost, they asked the gnomes to work their expertise using all of the resources the dwarves had left. And so a flotilla of massive submarines was constructed. Five subs the size of entire cities, each of them serving as a veritable city state with thousands of smaller subs at its service. They would have traveled the bottom of the sea, refining metals from deep sea vents and mining the ocean floor, serving as the best source of metals in the world for the people that dwelled in the surface and the shallows - a resource they exploited to meet the needs only easily fulfilled by trading.

3. Vikings. The dwarves were too stubborn to ever ask for help. Instead, they build themselves massive ships with the alpine woods that only they still had access to and took to the high sea. To this day they survive primarily by preying upon weaker vessels and flotillas - a parasitic life, but one in which they never accepted the dishonour of another's charity. Better to steal than to be pitied.

What do you think?

Vadin
2009-06-13, 12:57 AM
I think #2 is probably the best for long-term survival. Of course, this is all about the world THEN. After this is established, we've got to figure out how it changed to NOW.

Look at this picture.
http://www.technovelgy.com/graphics/content08/crab-fort.jpg
From here (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=74118).

Look at it.

There's a city under there.

Now, imagine that three of those is how the dwarves survived.

This thing happened in two steps: the first one, cataclysmic for the underground races and very damaging for people in low lying areas. The second step was the one that took a few years (upwards of 20, methinks- slow enough that some people wouldn't realize it was happening until it was too late).

Almost 3/4 of the dwarves were wiped out in the First Rise, and roughly 1/2 the gnomes. The two races banded together to make these seafaring crabs.

While the waters were still rising they walked across the land, and once the land was gone and people fled from the shallow waters, they floated across the sea in giant cities and used the dangerous mechanical legs to attack lesser peoples who would threaten them. When not used for war, the huge legs dig at the shallower parts of the sea for minerals.

Now for another group: underwater orcs! Orcs? Underwater? Well, DUH. The orcs made a deal with some of the more powerful wizards at the time- the orcs would wipe out some key enemies, and their children would be born completely amphibious. Two whole kingdoms were utterly annihilated and a race of underwater raiders was born. Behold the origins of the sahuagin. Of course, some of them come out a little weird and have more scales than others, but they're all pretty much the same: green, evil, and orcish.
From the same source as the picture above.
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f54/cakeye/Warden02.jpg
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f54/cakeye/Warden01.jpg

So, dwarves and gnomes lived in a floating city with a Chinese Imperial inspired design, and the orcs mutated into the sahuagin.


Also, look at these pictures, specifically the second one down and last one. The second one makes me think of what happened to a group (probably some very haughty elves who put too much trust in their magic) sometime between the Second Rise and the present.
http://dougbot.com/forum/GW06.jpg

Kellus
2009-06-13, 01:55 AM
While the remaining gnomes and dwarves have formed a coalition (leading, incidentally, to the half-gnome half-dwarf hybrid race known as the kabouter) and the orcs have transcended into a new form of life suited to pillaging and raiding in the depths of the ocean, other races have found new ways to survive as well.

The halflings were unique among the peoples of the land in that they were prepared for the disaster. Two hundred years before the First Rise, a prophet was born to them, known as Talaka and The Tideseer and He Who Saw True and also The Eye That Watches Ahead. Talaka foresaw the dark times to come, and preached his dark dreams to an unbelieving race. Although ridiculed by most of the typically nomadic halfling populace, a small gathering formed around him and listened to his words portending doom and destruction across the entire planet. Two hundred years later, long after he had died, this gathering had spawned a cult that had made adequate preparations to ensure the survival of the halfling race. While this cult believed in the images and portents Talaka saw, they did not share his benign and generous personality.

All those halflings who subscribed to their beliefs were spared in their enormous flotillas of rafts along with their massive store of provisions that had been built up for two centuries. Those who didn't were lost in the rise of the oceans. Unfortunately, this means that the surviving halflings are now ruled by a zealous cult that believes the catastrophic floods were sent to cleanse the world of all impure life. They now travel the oceans in floating temples set on giant cities of rafts as the elder halfling cultists known as oceancullers plot and scheme to eradicate all other unworthy life forms that managed to survive what they call The Great Cleansing.

The cult of Talaka, known once as The Order of Eyes but now calling themselves the Seaborn Supremacy Society, sees the receding tides as a gift from Talaka (whom they now worship as a god) telling them that their faith was true and that they should now spread and conquer these new lands in his name. So while the oceancullers hide and plot in their raftborne temples and shrines, brave halfling zealots are preparing to march onto the rediscovered lands and claim them for the Order of Eyes. Rumours say that a group of rebels to the faith exist, halflings who subscribe to the old philosophies of nomad life and carefree existence. This shadow group, calling themselves the Heirs of Freedom, believe that all halflings should live free of the malicious grasp of the Society.

Meanwhile, elves are a different story entirely. Strong in magic and rich in blood, this noble aristocracy once believed themselves better than all other races. All elves can claim descendence from one of the fourteen great elf Houses, aside from the bastard-born elves that are called dokkalfar and are banished from elf lands. Unfortunately, these Houses were ruled by petty nobles who squabbled amongst themselves when they should have been saving their people. Fully half the elf population was wiped out in the First and Second Rises, including the heads and bases of power of two of the Houses. The twelve surviving Houses were forced to form a loose alliance in order to save themselves, converging in a ruling triumvirate drawn from their ranks known as the Alfheim.

Today, the elves live in great fleets of longships and galleons that stake out territory on the seas for themselves. By and large they are petty and greedy, never fully subscribing to the new government they have been forced into in order to survive this past age. Although each House can claim certain waters for themselves, all of the twelve remaining Houses (including the three Great Houses that have representatives in the Alfheim) share a common territory reserved for diplomatic envoys, peacemaking, and treaty-signing. The two destroyed Houses, known as the Ruined Houses, have given up any sort of integration into the new elf paradigm and live as raiders and pillagers, scouring the seas for the weak and stealing what they can from the unwary.

[All conjecture; any better ideas, let me know!]

Owrtho
2009-06-13, 02:02 AM
I rather miss the Smog setting. It's too bad it died out.

Anyways, don't have time to post any real fluff, but I'd suggest a deep sea, non humanoid race. Most likely first encountered the sahuagin first and soon after the other surface dwelling races. Most likely would have the capacity to travel on land (though with soem kind of penalty).

Owrtho

Vadin
2009-06-13, 02:26 AM
Dwarves and gnomes
Then: Live along the top of the sea in huge floating crab-like forts that scoop minerals from the seabed; small groups of other races live in their floating city as well.
Now: Live along the top of the sea in huge floating crab-like forts that scoop minerals from the seabed; there is a sizeable half-breed minority and about one in five humanoids aren't gnomes, dwarves, or kabouter. There used to be five cities, but two were lost. One was taken by a great sahuagin assault from the depths in the year 300, and the other was destroyed in a great assault from the giants and their red dragon allies in the year 750. No one knows how the cities were originally constructed, but a dedicated gnomish cult to Gliss the Steam God, a humanoid rabbit with rusty fur and iron whiskers, maintains the inner workings of the forts. Some non-gnomes worship Gliss, but those are few and far between.

In ancient times, Gliss was a god of summer, freedom, and fertility- hence his rabbit form. He was a patron deity for many gnomes, and it is through them he became associated with the beginnings of steam technology. In time, this is what he became to represent entirely and the other things he stood for were forgotten completely. He is now Gliss, God of Steam, and his priests oversee the inner workings of the 'divine heritage' that is their home.

Legends tell of his floating continent, Tether, that soared through the skies without casting a shadow, followed eternally by a bank of clouds beneath it so as to remain undetected. Tether is just a legend, though.

But then...where do the dragons and giants live? Surely they couldn't...no, of course not. That's the stuff of children's stories and old wives' tales.

Kellus
2009-06-13, 02:50 AM
Magic, Dead Gods, and Psychic Crab Monsters

Although Gliss, Talaka, and a handful of other gods have survived the transition into the new world after the Ruin, many of the old gods have been lost and forgotten. In particular, the orcs were especially quick to forget their deities. They who once worshipped a multitude of totem gods left all that behind them when they were struggling to survive through their pagan transmogrification. Now, a scant few orc/sahaguin explorers into the ruins of their former homes have unearthed some tomes detailing the ancient entities of power. Although they now hold no sway in the mortal realm, these dead gods can be called upon as vestiges, granting the sahaguin binders a variety of totemic powers. The orc community at large sees vestiges as their most important new weapon in staking a claim in the unearthed lands.

While most have turned away from the old gods, many have found new ways to harness the powers of creation. The gnomes and dwarves forsake magic, turning instead to the wheels of industry and technology. Meanwhile, the elves hold to the ancient arcane arts. And deep beneath the seas, something terrible and ancient stirs.

While the world above fell prey to a watery torrent of death, the Ruin awoke an ancient horror lurking beneath the depths. Once known as the enigmatic imocaris, these dread crab-like beings lurk in the dark reaches of the ocean trenches. Harnessing mighty powers of the mind, they awoke while tremors shook the deepest reaches of the planet and began to scuttle the land once more. In the thousand years since the Ruin, they have terrified the sea-sailing races, and become the bogeymen of the sahaguin. Terrible, cruel, and unknowable, these alien creatures harness psychic powers and intend to devour all life.

At least, most of them do. Some younger clutches of imocaris instead believe that their race has been given a new chance at life. None know why they were once sealed away in the deep, but these more optimistic imocaris have made peace with some of the landfolk and even live among them, teaching their psychic secrets to those that wish to learn. They fight a constant war against their ancient brethren, defending their new allies against their bloodthirsty and terrifying kin.

Vadin
2009-06-13, 03:42 AM
@Kellus: When did the imocaris appear? When the oceans rose, or 10 years ago when the waters started to fall?


The humans, the most largest of any race, were a broken people.

Unlike the elves and dwarves who were held together by ancient traditions, the humans quickly forget their pasts and held new banners. That, or they cling to tired emblems as though their very persistence will give something power.

Of course, this is what humans do, and one of the reasons they adapt so well.

After the First Rise, there was one human king who had no knowledge of ships. As waters poured into his desert, he ordered walls put up to keep out the waters and great wizards summoned.

The wizards had two tasks: give the king immortal life, and protect the desert.

These things the wizards did, and the floating kingdom of Sorra and the mummy-emperor Elimanishon were created. The walls of Sorra now sail across the seas, keeping the deserts inside. The people have changed little in the last thousand years. They wear the same robes and headscarves to keep out the sand, and they worship their divine emperor as fervently as their ancestors' ancestors did. Population control is, obviously, very very important. Undead laborers have replaced a significant portion of the commoners who once labored in great fields to harvest what crops they could from the desert.


Groups so far: Three floating dwarven crab-cities, one magically floating desert with a human kingdom and impressive walls, one secret flying continent with allied giants and dragons, an undetermined amount of sahuagin/orcs in undetermined groups, and some kind of crab things

Kellus
2009-06-13, 04:00 AM
Hey, don't forget the genocidal halfling cultists and the aristocratic elf pirate wizards! :smallwink:

I picture the imocaris as being first awakened when the oceans rose. Since then, the one faction has stalked the ocean floor eating lots of orc/sahaguin and anybody else they can find, while the other has integrated into normal society as best they can above the waves. Since they breathe water as well as air, it's not really a problem for them. They are pretty ugly, though. :smalltongue:

I LOVE the undead desert as the remnants of the human government. I imagine any other humans will be either refugees or nomads that have escaped Elimanishon's clutches.

I guess the big question in this setting is what caused the ocean rise, and what caused them to drop down again? Vadin, you posited that the new lands are covered in some kind of planty horror... thing. Here are a few ideas I had about that:

1. Deity Incarnate– A thousand years ago, a rogue group of cultists of some ancient god tried to make him manifest in the world once more. The plan backfired horribly, and the resulting explosion of unfiltered deific energy caused massive tremors that shook the world and caused the massive floods. Now, ten years ago, the god has finally managed to create an avatar of himself, and is carving out a kingdom in the world. Since he's a twisted god of fertility and uncapped growth, he needs fertile land; he's lowering the water level in order to have the space to build an army of plant-monsters. His goal? WHO KNOWS? (Dun dun DUN!)

2. Simple Natural Disaster–*Exactly what it sounds like. Pure happenstance that an earthquake or something set off the flood. This still leaves the question of where the plant horrors came from, though.

3. Curse– Some mighty spellcaster had a vendetta against the world for some reason, and put a curse on the planet hoping to... wipe out all life? Anyway, he managed to endure and over the centuries transformed himself into a blight on the once-rich lands. Now as the oceans finally settle, he can spread his taint across the entire uncovered continents, hoping to ensnare and enslave all who cross him.

4. Nightmares Made Manifest– For whatever reason that the Ruin came in the first place, it did. Over the centuries, the various races imagined in the myths and bedtime stories terrible bogeymen that stalked the ancient lands of their ancestors. And in much the way that belief empowers a god, their fears MADE these terrible monsters real. So when the water level finally sank, the explorers found exactly what they were expecting: terrifying monsters and an insidious presence that wanted them dead.

Anybody else have some ideas? Thoughts on this matter?

Also, we need a name for this world. :smalltongue:

Vadin
2009-06-13, 04:18 AM
When I said the humans were and had always been fragmented, I meant to imply that there were or could at least be other completely different human groups running around.

#1 sounds quite promising, especially if it's the fey and eladrin and plant monsters that are running around.

Evadize, once the god of the forests, has returned!

In the old times, before the Ruin, the druids were always a little too zealous in protecting nature. They rarely took the side of the farmer that killed the wolf who had killed the farmer's children. In their eyes, the wolf was always the victim. And when a tree mysteriously fell on said farmer's home? Nature's wrath, they'd say.

Nature's wrath my keester rear.

Evadize called for the druids to not only seperate themselves from the trappings of society, but to abandon civilization altogether. Wherever they were, they were to be away from non-druids. In this way the cult of the druids joined with the fey and lost favor in many groups. Childnappings and virgin sacrifice and other strange rituals were, unfortunately, not unheard of.

The Ruin was brought about when they tried to bring Evadize, against his will, to the Material Plane. To try and keep himself out, he made the waters rise so he would have no land to manifest on.

For a thousand years he and the goddess of the ocean Naraldi held the waters high and Evadize struggled to keep from manifesting.

But even gods can grow tired. With time, Evadize slowly lost his grasp and sanity. After a thousand years, Nature's Wrath is ready to return. He's diminished in power such that the waters have receded and he's manifested across all available land.

Evadize is now reduced in power from a god to a very, very powerful archmage. Strong enough to shape the world, but not strong enough to remain sane.

The druids who once swam with the nymphs and dolphins in the ocean journeyed back to land and the welcoming arms of their lost god Evadize (who they thought was punishing them for their zealotry).

How does that sound for why the land is dangerous?

MrEdwardNigma
2009-06-13, 04:19 AM
These things the wizards did, and the floating kingdom of Sorra and the mummy-emperor Elimanishon were created. The walls of Sorra now sail across the seas, keeping the deserts inside. The people have changed little in the last thousand years. They wear the same robes and headscarves to keep out the sand, and they worship their divine emperor as fervently as their ancestors' ancestors did. Population control is, obviously, very very important. Undead laborers have replaced a significant portion of the commoners who once labored in great fields to harvest what crops they could from the desert.
Why exactly did they build the walls if they were just going to have the desert placed on a sort of ship and have it sail around?

As for the underwater orcs, they got their powers by making a deal with wizards and killing their enemies? Why didn't anyone else take that deal? More importantly, if these wizards were so powerful, why didn't they kill their enemies themselves?

Kellus
2009-06-13, 04:27 AM
Why exactly did they build the walls if they were just going to have the desert placed on a sort of ship and have it sail around?

As for the underwater orcs, they got their powers by making a deal with wizards and killing their enemies? Why didn't anyone else take that deal? More importantly, if these wizards were so powerful, why didn't they kill their enemies themselves?

As I understand it, the walls were built to keep out the floods, and as the water level raised, the walls were made higher and higher until then one protected area was all that remained. The relatively small amount of land remaining was quickly stripped of food and soil as it had to service a comparatively large population, and it became a wasteland. Realizing that they needed other sources of food, the emperor had his wizards seperate his new territory from the rest of the land in order to seek out new subjects and new resources to pillage.

For the orc/sahaguin, I love the idea, but I could easily go with the idea that it was just orc totemic spellcasters to begin with that altered their own race so that they could survive. Better than the vague "a wizard did it". :smalltongue:

Vadin
2009-06-13, 04:31 AM
Why exactly did they build the walls if they were just going to have the desert placed on a sort of ship and have it sail around?

It's like New Orleans and the Netherlands. The walls keep the water out (and kept the 20 years of flooding out before the desert was floating).

As for height, think Great Wall of China in height. Really really high, but not unclimbable.

Size? About 50x50 miles, roughly ovular in shape.


As for the underwater orcs, they got their powers by making a deal with wizards and killing their enemies? Why didn't anyone else take that deal? More importantly, if these wizards were so powerful, why didn't they kill their enemies themselves?

No one else sought the deal. The orcs had an idea and a need, and the wizards had souls to sell and truly epic vendettas.

And the wizards were powerful, but powerful enough to take out a fiercely antimagic empire by themselves? No, these outcast wizards were willing to make deals with devils on behalf of the orcs, but they would have been no match for an army with hundreds of antimagic spheres.

A few hundred thousand orcs, on the other hand, is a perfect match for an army like that.


A small conclave of wizards hated an empire that hunted down any who would willfully dabble in the arcane arts. Sorcerers? The empire thought they were alright, because they were born with it- surely then it was the will of the gods (but they should still be watched...just in case). Druids and clerics? Also alright, the gods gave them power. But wizards? Horrible corrupters of the natural order, clearly.

These wizards had to find a way to destroy this empire. It was the largest government on the planet- very difficult to topple, especially when they're so fiercely anti-arcane. They couldn't do it alone, so they contacted the second largest group, every orc tribe on the planet. The orcs had a need, and the wizards had a solution.

The devils would grant a boon to all the orcs' children at the cost of a generation of orcish souls and the souls of the wizards who were brokering the deal.

The deal was struck, an empire fell, and the sahuagin were born.


Goodness I hope this all still makes sense after I get some sleep.

EDIT: Alternative totemic spellcasters is also an idea, and allows for variations in aquatic adaptations (a mammalianish race, an amphibian race, a largely unaltered race that can only breath underwater, a fishy race, etc.).

ImmortalAer
2009-06-13, 04:31 AM
For the orc/sahaguin, I love the idea, but I could easily go with the idea that it was just orc totemic spellcasters to begin with that altered their own race so that they could survive. Better than the vague "a wizard did it". :smalltongue:

For the sudden ocean explosion, maybe it really was 'a wizard did it' as a lampshade.

Ie; A wizard was looking to raise an ancient city of power out of the (then) oceanic depth, but failed to construe the full effects of his spell until it was far too late, having had shifted the worldly geology and brought the ocean with the city. And now the water is receding, but the risen 'mysterious city' isn't going back under.

/random burst in

And now back to your regularly scheduled writers.

::And the awesomeness that rolled a higher initiative than me. :smallbiggrin:

Kellus
2009-06-13, 04:39 AM
Moving on:

I love Evadize and Naraldi. Very cool mythology. And you are, of course, entirely right that there would be other groups of humans aside from Elimanishon's cruel mockery of his once-bountiful kingdom.

Such as...

The Order of What Was

"We endure. We remember."
– Motto of the Order of What Was

Founded in ancient times, the Order has existed as long as written history. Centered in a stronghold on one of the highest mountains, the Order is an esoteric line of human monk lorekeepers who preserve all knowledge for future generations. Although they do not take sides in conflict, they have watched the world fall apart for the past millenium, and there are some of them who would take a more militant stance to bring order to the realm.

When the Ruin came and Evadize was called against his will, the oceans rose to protect the world from his presence. They covered the land, but the mountains remained, spikes driving out of the sea with remnants of history remaining on them. So the Order endured, as always, and continued to watch.

The Order keeps the old gods and the old lore, and all ancient religions are remembered by them. Although they share their lore with all who come to them, they have for the most part taken a vow of nonviolence in the affairs of other mortals.

Some of the dissident members of the Order, six hundred years after the First Rise, became frustrated by the Order's lack of action and forswore their vows. They built an oceangoing spire, and sailed out in order to bring the world under one rule once more. Although weak, they are gradually unifying some of the different races and gathering power. Now that the lands are reappearing once more, they see an opportunity to establish a base of power finally, and establish a new government over all people. This group, the Fist of Justice, has spies and agents in many of the different ruling groups around the world, from the Houses of the elves to the ruling caste of the gnomes. They plan, they scheme, and they prepare to bring order back to the world. Their order.

[On a side note, this is where I think monks in the setting would come from. They'd train with one of these two groups who know the old ways and the ancient training techniques.]

Vadin
2009-06-13, 04:40 AM
I like the tendency of ancient mad wizards and a general forgetting of arcane power. But it wasn't sorcerers, clerics, or even druids who got a bad rap from all this crazy stuff- just the wizards. Spellbooks? Most cultures will view them with distaste and superstition now.

I also like and have always liked in most settings ancient cities rising from the depths.

So, what will out Reverse Atlantis be? Who will these merpeople be? What are they like? What is their city like? Are they purely aquatic, or very amphibious? Are they fishy, or unusually humanlike? Do they have magic while others have forgotten it? Have they been around for the last thousand years, or did they only rise in the last hundred?


Fist of Justice and Order of What Was? Very cool. Monks = spies is something I've loved since Magic of Incarnum came out.

Perhaps they're the ones with the secret settlement on the land to north.

Not the 'secret' settlement the druids have, with their creepy villages filled with fey and animals and happy music and freaky floating lights, a real secret settlement where they've established a base of operations and expansion into the New World.

Kellus
2009-06-13, 04:45 AM
EDIT: Alternative totemic spellcasters is also an idea, and allows for variations in aquatic adaptations (a mammalianish race, an amphibian race, a largely unaltered race that can only breath underwater, a fishy race, etc.).

Aye, I think I like this better, I'm afraid. But one thing I think we'll definitely need in this setting are going to be Affiliation feats that can only be taken at 1st level that give you benefits for allegiance to a particular organization or group. For orc/sahaguins (do you want to call them sahaguin, or come up with a new name?), these would be the different breeds as you mention. Otherwise, you could take them to declare allegiance to a particular Crab City, a particular elven House, one of the realms of men, one of the halfling orgnizations, etc. Since it's shaping up to have a lot of different factions with a lot of different goals. :smalltongue:

Thoughts?


So, what will out Reverse Atlantis be? Who will these merpeople be? What are they like? What is their city like? Are they purely aquatic, or very amphibious? Are they fishy, or unusually humanlike? Do they have magic while others have forgotten it? Have they been around for the last thousand years, or did they only rise in the last hundred?

Aye, I like this idea too. Somebody that only revealed themselves when the oceans fell again. I'm thinking maybe the servants of Naraldi? After all, she's not doing anything now that Evadize is manifest, so why shouldn't she have sent her heralds to prepare to wage war on him and send him back to the realm of gods before he can destroy the world?

Kellus
2009-06-13, 04:54 AM
Interestingly, one side effect of the desert isolation plan is that if the walls were built to keep the water out, that means that they're much like dams The land inside the walls is probably several miles BELOW sea level. It's like a bowl floating along, but the water outside is about level with the top edge of the bowl. It would be very hard to defend this land normally against people sailing on the ocean, since they could just sail in to the top of the walls and climb down. They'd be always defending the kingdom from the lower ground. :smallconfused:

Vadin
2009-06-13, 06:57 AM
I actually imagined it a little more like this:
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/3618/sorra.jpg

The desert is about level with the water, so whichever side is doing the attacking has to worry about the wall- it keeps enemies out, but keeps them in.


And yes, affiliation feats would be ideal. We can work out what system they're for later and establish what general effects each organization should grant later.


As for the city from the depths, I like where that's going. Her followers want to destroy Evadize (who has lost so much power as not to be a proper god but is instead a very, very powerful outsider), and the easiest way they see to do that is by bringing the waters back up and declaring war on everything on land.

They figure that the only reason the land is back is because things are using it- clearly, then, the obvious solution is to destroy anything and everything that prefers the continents and islands to floating cities and sea bottoms.

What kind of people are they? I'm thinking...snake-like? Slithery, slimy, from the depths, Yuan-Ti/ WoW & Monster Rancher Naga?
http://www.wow-europe.com/shared/wow-com/images/info/encyclopedia/articles/naga.jpg
Very zealous. Very angry at anyone who even thinks about establishing a permanent land-based settlement, very helpful to anyone who wants to fight the land-based menace.


And as long as we're talking about orc tribes (which we are now), how about these:

Amphibians: The ones pictured a few posts ago, largely unchanged other than some weird horns that make them look much more evil. Target underwater and topside groups.

Lizardmen: They live on, under, and around rafts. They can't breathe underwater, but they can hold their breath for a really long time. Like saltwater crocodiles. Target topside groups.

Locathah: Target underwater groups.

Kuo-Toa: Target underwater and topside groups.

Sahuagin: Target mostly underwater, occasionally topside groups.

Those, of course, aren't their names, just what they became.

Kellus
2009-06-13, 10:06 AM
I like it. The snake monsters are like her holy ordained warriors that need to cleanse the land of life. BUT it looks like then there are lots of people that want to destroy all life. So how we flip things around and have her followers (which from hereon in I shall call Slimies) just want to destroy the new twisted life found on the uncovered lands. They still aren't especially social with the old races that are poking their heads around, but mostly they just want to eradicate this new scourge and are willing to work with anybody that helps them. This would also make them fit into an exploratory party into the new lands much better. :smallsmile:

As for all of the different tribes of orcs, I like the basic premise but I'm unsure about just making (for example) five different races. I think the better idea would be to have a single race that has a small amount of customizability depending on the tribe it belongs to. For example, if it's amphibious it can breathe water as well as air, but if it's one of the lizardmen rafters, it's got the same statistics but instead can hold its breath and has some other ability to help balance them out. You see where I'm going with this. One race with five subraces, instead of five different races that all call themselves orc.

Okay, so the addition of slimies brings our races to–

• Dwarves
• Gnomes
• Kaboutin
• Humans (monks and mummies)
• Orc/Sahaguin (five different tribes)
• Elves (pirates and nobles)
• Halflings (freedom fighters and cultists)
• Imocaris (world-ending abominations and peaceful crab guys)
• Giants (maybe giantkin for halfbreeds?)
• Slimies

Questions

1. Do all the varieties of dragon live together on the floating island? That could get awkward.

2. Similarly, how many kinds of giants survived? Ocean giants would have been just fine living in the depths of course, but there are also hill giants, green giants, etc. Or do you just want a new race of giants?

3. I LOVE the new spin on the dwarves and gnomes. I do fell, though, like there should be some tension amongst them. There are three surviving crab-cities which among them hold pretty much the entire gnome and dwarf populations. My thoughts are that they would be fairly peaceful amongst themselves, but that the uncovering of their old lands and mines has provoked strife. Now the three cities are in a very polite, very fierve race to reclaim their previous territory, to have their leaders sit in the castles and thrones of old, and to be the first to mine in the mines of their ancestors again. So there's a sort of civil war that's brewing among them, since over a thousand years they've had plenty of time to develop different attitudes one crab-city to the next.

Thoughts?

EDIT: Just read what you said a little closer, and I think that's what you were originally going for with the Slimies' motivations. I originally thought that you meant they just wanted to destroy ALL life, not just the twisted unfettered growing things on the new lands. :smallredface:

Vadin
2009-06-13, 10:32 AM
I like it. The snake monsters are like her holy ordained warriors that need to cleanse the land of life. BUT it looks like then there are lots of people that want to destroy all life. So how we flip things around and have her followers (which from hereon in I shall call Slimies) just want to destroy the new twisted life found on the uncovered lands. They still aren't especially social with the old races that are poking their heads around, but mostly they just want to eradicate this new scourge and are willing to work with anybody that helps them. This would also make them fit into an exploratory party into the new lands much better. :smallsmile:

Same as the original premise, but reined in a bit to allow it to work in the setting. I like! They hate the now-crazy Evadize and his spawn and his supporters, and they'll support anyone who's out there killing him/them.

As for all of the different tribes of orcs, I like the basic premise but I'm unsure about just making (for example) five different races. I think the better idea would be to have a single race that has a small amount of customizability depending on the tribe it belongs to. For example, if it's amphibious it can breathe water as well as air, but if it's one of the lizardmen rafters, it's got the same statistics but instead can hold its breath and has some other ability to help balance them out. You see where I'm going with this. One race with five subraces, instead of five different races that all call themselves orc.

Yeah, that's kinda what I meant. I was giving the examples of the kinds of oceanic things the orcs turned into- half-frog, half-croc, srota-fishy, mostly-fish, even-more-mostly fish...or something like that.

Do all the varieties of dragon live together on the floating island? That could get awkward.

Tether is mostly mountains and a few swamps and lakes (some water basins drain off into the clouds, some don't) surrounded by forests, so red, green, and black dragons for sure.

The red and black dragons? Definitely evil. They kill things for fun (and also profit).

The green dragons? Evil and mean-spirited, but not quite as vicious about it as the reds and blacks. More aware of 'harvesting', taking most of a victims stuff so you can come back and take more later.

Reds and blacks are in it for the lulz, greens are in it for the sweet loot.

Similarly, how many kinds of giants survived? Ocean giants would have been just fine living in the depths of course, but there are also hill giants, green giants, etc. Or do you just want a new race of giants?

Storm Titans and Hill Titans are the only true giants that survived, and they rule over the dragons and giants. They're too large to ride even the elder dragons, putting them in an awkward power position- they can't go on raids themselves, but they could beat the heck out of anything on Tether.

As long as the dragons don't have any other land to live on, the titans can maintain their control. If they were to find homes in this new land, however...

As for the giants that aren't titans, they're half-giants: they aren't really 'half' anything else, they're just lesser giants/giant humanoids.

I LOVE the new spin on the dwarves and gnomes. I do fell, though, like there should be some tension amongst them. There are three surviving crab-cities which among them hold pretty much the entire gnome and dwarf populations. My thoughts are that they would be fairly peaceful amongst themselves, but that the uncovering of their old lands and mines has provoked strife. Now the three cities are in a very polite, very fierce race to reclaim their previous territory, to have their leaders sit in the castles and thrones of old, and to be the first to mine in the mines of their ancestors again. So there's a sort of civil war that's brewing among them, since over a thousand years they've had plenty of time to develop different attitudes one crab-city to the next.

Excellent source of political intrigue for the players! Now let's name some prominent gnome, dwarf, and 'other' leaders and cities and see what crops up.

Kellus
2009-06-13, 10:33 AM
Falath, The Scattered Kingdom

When the waves rose for the first time, not all were as lucky as the dwarves to have such allies as the gnomes. Not all were so lucky to have masters of arcane magic at their command, like the emperor in his desert. Not all were so lucky to have been given notice, two centuries before, of what would come like the halflings.

And the human Kingdom of Falath was never lucky.

When the Ruin came, Falath was scattered. Her lands shattered and her people massacred, most thought her done. Yet one member of her royal family survived, an infant in arms who was away from the palace when the waves broke against the walls and the walls in turn broke against the waves.

Today, the royal descendants of Falath's monarch live in hiding. Falath was never a popular Kingdom among its neighbours, being too rigid and steeped in its honour. A thousand years ago, when the surviving King came of age, he pledged that he would only reveal himself to the world once he sat once more in the throne of his family. Now, although untold centuries have gone by, his descendants keep to his pledge. Farath has no lands, no borders, but lives in secret, integrated into other nations and peoples. The knights of Falath may swear other oaths to other authorities, but their first, true loyalty is to the heir to Falath's throne, wherever he or she may be.

And now, finally, the waters recede. Falath's heir looks to the newly revealed lands as a sign from the gods that the time is right to reclaim the old kingdom. And, whoever they are, wherever they are, they don't intend to let anything stand in their way of reclaiming their throne.

Kellus
2009-06-13, 10:37 AM
Tether is mostly mountains and a few swamps and lakes (some water basins drain off into the clouds, some don't) surrounded by forests, so red, green, and black dragons for sure.

The red and black dragons? Definitely evil. They kill things for fun (and also profit).

The green dragons? Evil and mean-spirited, but not quite as vicious about it as the reds and blacks. More aware of 'harvesting', taking most of a victims stuff so you can come back and take more later.

Reds and blacks are in it for the lulz, greens are in it for the sweet loot.

Very cool. I love the fairytale feel to Tether, being a floating sky-nation full of dragons and giants.

What steers Tether? Does it simply float on the wind, or is there a caste of dragons that is charged with plotting its course? Or is the island itself ALIVE, a thinking entity that hopes one day to conquer lesser lands?

Also, and I'm just going to throw this one word out to see what comes up, but: DINOSAURS. :smallamused:

jagadaishio
2009-06-13, 11:01 AM
It could actually be a literal race to the new lands; those massive crab-cities would have to be very slow. They could have been halfway around the world when the word first reached them, and are even now, ten years later, not quite there yet. In the mean time, all of the subs and steam-ships that they've sent to the islands have either not come back, or have come back with only the vaguest of information.

I like the idea of just having optional bonus packages for the orcs. Amphibians would be the base, unmodified version. The ones that breath only air and the ones that breath only water would both be breath-holders, i.e. they would be able to hold their breath for literally hours in their non-native environs. The balancing factor would be some natural armor, making them the lizardmen and fishmen.

The way we're going with the orcs now, I think that we must be resigned to them having a net +1 LA. In return for this, natural attacks. 1d4 damage claws and 1d8 damage bite. Furthermore, in order to draw on the sahuagin concept of mutations, have some mutation feats available only at character creation and only for orcs. Or, instead, make it something where you must take the largely useless Mutation feat to gain other mutations down the road.

As for the kuo-toa and actual sahuagin, I think that the kuo-toa deviate from the orcish concept too much to be derived from them, and the actual sahuagin could be an example of EXTREMELY genetically deviant orcs. This genetic instability could have been caused when they were changed over the course of a generation into their aquatic forms. This should also make them especially susceptible to lycanthropy and polymorphing effects. That weakness could even (maybe) negate their level adjustment.

I think that one of the crab cities should be all about keeping the dwarves and gnomes pure - they have a symbiotic relationship, but half-dwarves and half-gnomes are kindly and firmly asked to leave. Now. They would also exclude any of the other races from traveling any deeper into the city than the docks. They're willing to accept their trade, but that's really the furthest that they'll go.

Another should be the opposite - all about the blending of races and cultures. They would have realized the true importance of the races working as one after this symbiotic venture, and in turn started to interbreed freely. This would have led to a large population of kabouter as well as a slowly growing population of mongrel folk. Furthermore, it's likely that they would have allied with a number of human fleets and the few halfling free flotillas, protecting them in times of war and even inviting them to live on their crab city.

The third is the city of the mechanists. There's some interbreeding, but not much. That's not what matters, though. What matters is the glorious artifice. This city would stay almost exclusively in the shallows, always mining. They would produce the most advanced clockwork and magitech items of any of the crab cities, including the warforged, a soldier, maintenance, and underwater mining race, untethered by the life support requirements of their creators. This city would also need to have heavy trade relations, trading their clockwork and steam-powered marvels for trivialities that they hadn't bothered with - like food.

Humans are, of course, insanely varied. They aren't just monks and mummies - they're also floating pontoon cities protected by vast navies and polar whalers living in massive ships made of skin and bone. They're pirates and ark-dwellers and remnants of the old orders of mages living in bubbled mage academies.

What do you think?

Kellus
2009-06-13, 11:05 AM
Wow, that sounds really good, jagadaishio. I love the spin you've put on each of the crab-cities. And the whole "literal race" is genius. :smallbiggrin:

While I agree that the orcs are probably going to be too powerful for the setting compared to, say, humans or elves, I'm going to suggest tentatively (all theoretical since we're not into stats yet) that they get just a racial HD instead of a +1 LA. Just because nobody ever likes to play with level adjustment.

And yeah, there'd be a TON of human factions that were scattered and spread across the seas. They'd also have no problem integrating into other societies, so they'd be pretty much everywhere.

Kornaki
2009-06-13, 11:06 AM
For the orcs: An orc wizard could have developed an epic spell that would make its target give birth to a Sahaguin instead of an orc. The only problem is that it required the sacrifice of a live person for each person it targets; of course you don't want to sacrifice orcs since then they can't breed. Solution: Capture a city (without saying why) and then sacrifice the population wholesale for the spell. Before this the orcs could even have been a respectable race with a civilization on par with the best of them.

With an act like this, nobody would trust/trade with the Sahaguin for hundreds of years, leading to them developing a nomadic raiding lifestyle. You can imagine the epithets people would make up for them

Vadin
2009-06-13, 11:11 AM
Tether is steered by...are you ready for this? Are you sure?

Ok...here it comes...magic.

Maybe Gliss himself steers the floating isle.

Maybe the great beast Labyrinth, Mother of Monsters decides where it goes.

Perhaps it knows where it ought to be and when, and that's all it needs.

Regardless of how it flies, it does.

There seems to be some connection with it's flight pattern with the coming of summer, but even the titans and elder wyrms aren't sure just how it knows where to go.



I was going to bring them up if you weren't.

Evadize has the druids, but what about the Thinking Man's Nature God? Who's the god of the natural world for the guy who doesn't want to bomb his neighbor for eating meat?

Enter Caina, the Ancient Lady! She's a god of a world that was, a world that lived on in nightmares and dreamscapes!

Almost every race has stories of when she walked the world, stories from when elves skittered through the treetops, dwarves huddled in caves, and men started to walk the boundless savannahs.

She took with her her beasts but left their mark on a chosen few every generation.

Her priests call their order Caina's Teeth, but everyone talks about those scaleheads and the Jaws of Life- they'll heal your son's leprosy, but first you have to leave a goat or swordfish outside their stone temple before sunrise.

Those who share Caina's mark are also warriors who wield the power of the monsters from ages past and manifest their scaled glories.

No one dares question their neutral authority on matters, as most groups are too scared to ask for their favor. Caina's Teeth are to be respected, trusted, and honored on the autumnal equinox of every year, but kept at a pleasant distance. And they like it that way. Just a little bit of worship, enough to feel like the commoners are paying respects, but not enough worship to start asking questions.

The monks know about their inner workings, however, and they know just as much about the monks.

Secret societies have to stick together, right?

Unlike those other monks, though, the Jaws lend unspoken support to the splinter group that seeks to right history and restore order. If the Jaws have any say in it, that order will include Caina's beasts walking the world again. Millennia have been spent putting together a grand ritual that will bring her beasts back to life en masse. But first, Evadize and his fey must be dealt with. He's far too...mammalian.

Kellus
2009-06-13, 11:17 AM
...remnants of the old orders of mages living in bubbled mage academies.

The Glorious College of Sonomanilon

Ever the most beautiful of human architecture, in the days before the Ruin the arcane college of Sonomanilon was the center of learning and arcane research in the world. The best wizards learned their trade there and later in their lives returned to pass on what they knew to a new generation of magicians.

Part university and part city-state, Sonomanilon bows to no normal authority. It is a magocracy, and is ruled by a council of eight elder magicians. Although originally filled by a wizard of each school of magic, in the generations since its founding the positions have become either hereditary or in some cases mere commodities to be bought from corrupt wizards.

Haughty and proud, the wizards of Sonomanilon scoffed at the waves when they first rose. Confident that their magic would protect them, they did nothing to help the rest of the world prepare, and they paid the price for their folly. Their college was destroyed, although the inhabitants endured through arcane spells. Eventually, the university was rebuilt in a massive bubble-city under the waves. Today it exists in a sad sort of mockery of what it once was. Although there is a small population of magicians that live and teach there, they get much fewer students than they ever did before. Isolated and alone beneath the ocean, Sonomanilon exists as a gloriously beautiful city, but one that hardly anyone ever sees.

That being said, it is still the repository of almost all arcane knowledge in the world. The best and brightest seek it out in order to learn the eldritch arts, and its council of mages rules as ruthlessly as ever they did.

-=-

@Kornaki– I really like that idea. I don't think the spell that did it needs to be spelled out for rules use, but I love the idea that the transmogrification of the race required an enormous amount of bloodshed. Thus, the orcs are now outcasts from other races beause of the lengths they had to go to to survive.

Vadin
2009-06-13, 11:22 AM
@jagadaisho: Yes, yes yes. Keep all of it, it's perfect.

Kellus
2009-06-13, 11:26 AM
Love Caina's mythology. A different take on the nature deity. Goddess of healing, the wild, and dinosaurs, her worshippers are respected but kept at a distance by the other races.

The Jaws of Life? Eugh. AWESOME. :smallsigh:

Also– this setting needs a name. We're starting to get the feel of it, as a sort of post-apocalyptic fantasy setting where the old ways have been destroyed and different factions are racing to reclaim the old lands... where something terrible waits for them.

Any suggestions on a title for the setting?

jagadaishio
2009-06-13, 11:45 AM
Watershed?
Both marking it as a monumental change and a literal shedding of the waters.

Landbound?
Ehhhh, even I don't really like it.

The Rise?
Of what? Of land? Of a new world order? Of the end of all things? Of the ever-eating psychic crabs?

What are your ideas?

Vadin
2009-06-13, 11:45 AM
Ramua?

And, if anyone was wondering, I have been shamelessly ripping names from old Lords of Creation games.

Ramua being the name of the setting/world, like Greyhawk, Faerun, etc.

Kellus
2009-06-13, 11:52 AM
I like Ramua as the name of the world. Watershed also seems fairly evocative.

Maybe something to do with an exodus? After all, everyone's finally moving en masse back to their homelands.

Owrtho
2009-06-13, 11:56 AM
For another thought on why the water rose, someone fumbled a roll they shouldn't have. Realy Badly (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EpicFail).
Maybe something like, the powerful wizard who was raising the city asked a helper to bring over that very fragile and valuable artifact worth more than their life, and in carrying it over the helper happened to drop it. But it didn't just fall on the deck of the ship and break, it fell over the edge into the water. Upon which the wizard asks if he really just dropped the artifact that doubles whatever you put in it into the ocean.

Owrtho

jagadaishio
2009-06-13, 12:08 PM
I would really like to refine the concept of the elves. I've been thinking it over, and I think that the fallen houses may actually be more successful than the noble houses. After all, the fallen houses would finally be stripped of the petty leadership that the noble houses typically have - the very leadership that nearly led to their demise. This could have been the start of a great egalitarian elf society.

The noble houses, on the other hand, lost almost all of their power. After all, their power was theirs not because of talent or real power but because of tradition. As such, they fell to their old petty squabbles, but without the infrastructure to support them. So, the noble houses slowly festered, eventually becoming pirates, preying upon the "lesser" but far richer and happier fallen houses. They would be embroiled in a sort of hit-and-run war to this day, the noble houses taking what is "rightfully theirs" from the fallen ones who earned it.

What do you guys think?

Kellus
2009-06-13, 12:16 PM
I would really like to refine the concept of the elves. I've been thinking it over, and I think that the fallen houses may actually be more successful than the noble houses. After all, the fallen houses would finally be stripped of the petty leadership that the noble houses typically have - the very leadership that nearly led to their demise. This could have been the start of a great egalitarian elf society.

The noble houses, on the other hand, lost almost all of their power. After all, their power was theirs not because of talent or real power but because of tradition. As such, they fell to their old petty squabbles, but without the infrastructure to support them. So, the noble houses slowly festered, eventually becoming pirates, preying upon the "lesser" but far richer and happier fallen houses. They would be embroiled in a sort of hit-and-run war to this day, the noble houses taking what is "rightfully theirs" from the fallen ones who earned it.

Actually, I really like that idea. The twelve remaning houses have fallen into chaos and petty bickering. Meanwhile, the two fallen houses went off somewhere else and made a new government that actually plays nice with the rest of the world.

I'm starting to think twelve remaining houses is too many, though. How about, say, this setup–

• 3 Greater Houses, which have a representative in the Alfheim (Incidentally, the Alfheim has fallen into chaos along with the houses, and they've become a sort of "king of thieves" group where they rule over and organize the elven pirates.

• 4 Lesser Houses that basically exist to do the bidding of the Greater Houses. They had less strength when the Ruin came, and were subjugated by the Greater Houses. Bear in mind that a resistance probably exists among them too, that wants to overthrow the yoke of the Greater Houses.

• 2 Fallen Houses that no longer even subscribe to the house setup. Instead, they founded a new country known as Haltija. Note that they also stole most of the arcane lore and artifacts from the other elves when they were banished, and now they're pretty much the only ones that remember the old ways of wizardry among the elves. The other houses have sort of given up on magic, relying on martial prowess to take what they want from other races.

Vadin
2009-06-13, 12:17 PM
That's how a few of the Noble Houses turned out. The five (two Greater and three Lesser) strongest in magic thought they could built a city on the waves- how wrong they were.

It took 100 years, but the incantations were finally perfected, all the components assembled, every preparation made, every caution taken. The words were spoken and the magic began to weave itself about their fleet. The boats twisted and warped together into a huge artificial tree city. It seemed perfect!

And until some time in the early 600's, it was! They were prosperous, and important, and full of themselves.

Without warning, after standing for centuries, it all came crashing down. Not slowly, not with warning, not with loud creaking noise so some people could notice and escape in lifeboats...nothing.

One minute it was there, and the next it was crashing beneath the waves.

The orcs that circled below it constantly made short work of what few survivors there were, and the floating tree called Suriya became the Sunken City, and five elven houses were lost.


Fourteen houses: 5 lost here, 3 Greater remaining, 4 Lesser remaining, and 2 Fallen remaining.


Of course, the numbers of Houses lost here could vary. I just want it to feel suitably...huge.

Kellus
2009-06-13, 12:21 PM
Heh. That works really well with what I came up with, and also adds up perfect for the original tally.

3 Greater + 4 Lesser + 5 Vanished (Suriya) + 2 Fallen = 14 original houses.

I do think there should be some survivors from Suriya, though. Either refugees that remember the glory of the tree-city, or survivors that somehow managed to integrate into society beneath the waves with the orcs of all people after the city fell.

Vadin
2009-06-13, 12:24 PM
Slaves? The orcs used their magic (they, unlike most other groups, haven't forgotten the Old Ways) to make the survivors into waterbreathers. Now they work fields of kelp and gather fish for their orc masters in their seafloor cities of stone.

Kornaki
2009-06-13, 12:26 PM
For another thought on why the water rose, someone fumbled a roll they shouldn't have. Realy Badly (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EpicFail).
Maybe something like, the powerful wizard who was raising the city asked a helper to bring over that very fragile and valuable artifact worth more than their life, and in carrying it over the helper happened to drop it. But it didn't just fall on the deck of the ship and break, it fell over the edge into the water. Upon which the wizard asks if he really just dropped the artifact that doubles whatever you put in it into the ocean.

Owrtho

Well, I think it should be considered whether it's common knowledge why the waters rose. The less people know about why the waters rose, the more epic of a story it should be (since you'll want the PCs doing an adventure to find out perhaps, and the bigger the secret, the more epic the adventure).

A story like this is something the PCs should just know, since it's almost there only for comedic value and there's no point in hiding it. On the other hand, a story like the god of oceans raising the seas to cover his temple where his merfolk clerics are completing the rites to allow him to manifest himself on earth, thus stealing all the worshippers of the planet for himself, and he wants to make sure none of the other deities know what's going on; that's the kind of story worth doing a quest or even a campaign to uncover

Vadin
2009-06-13, 12:28 PM
The wizard story is definitely an old wive's tale sort of the for the setting- a colloquialism shared among people who regularly interact with magical devices.

Kellus
2009-06-13, 12:31 PM
Slaves? The orcs used their magic (they, unlike most other groups, haven't forgotten the Old Ways) to make the survivors into waterbreathers. Now they work fields of kelp and gather fish for their orc masters in their seafloor cities of stone.

Lovely. If this also happened that long ago, I can also imagine that over time the unthinkable happened, and the elf slaves and the orcs started to interbreed. Exiled in shame from the orc territories, they took up residence in the ruins of Suriya and now reside in the Sunken City. They'd be true exiles, halfbreed oceangoing monstrosities, born from the blood of hated enemies. And now they desire vengeance on all elves and orcs to pay them back for the cruelty they showed them.

A sort of drow, I imagine, a dark breed of elves that hates the surface-sailing elves.

@ Owrthro & Kornaki– I agree with Kornaki's assessment. Although funny, I think that the god manifest version of the Ruin is a better fit for the mood of the setting.

EDIT @ Vadin: That's even better. Have different people believe different reasons for why the Ruin came in the first place. I imagine there'd be a lot of different myths or stories that rose up around it.

jagadaishio
2009-06-13, 12:31 PM
So, the three greater and three lesser houses: what makes them greater and lesser? Ancestral claims from an ancient, sunken world, or some kind of actual power still somehow held? If it's the first, then I would wager only the three "great" houses see those divisions anymore, the others just seeing seven noble houses. Would the houses have fallen to piracy on their fallen brethren before or after the sinking of the last great tree city? Would they have been welcome to moor and trade there, or would it have been so isolationist that not even that was allowed? If it was the first option, I can see why they would have been desperate enough to fall to piracy, having lost their one mooring point.

Kellus
2009-06-13, 12:36 PM
So, the three greater and three lesser houses: what makes them greater and lesser? Ancestral claims from an ancient, sunken world, or some kind of actual power still somehow held? If it's the first, then I would wager only the three "great" houses see those divisions anymore, the others just seeing seven noble houses. Would the houses have fallen to piracy on their fallen brethren before or after the sinking of the last great tree city? Would they have been welcome to moor and trade there, or would it have been so isolationist that not even that was allowed? If it was the first option, I can see why they would have been desperate enough to fall to piracy, having lost their one mooring point.

That's an interesting idea. I like the idea that there's no real distinction between the Greater and Lesser Houses, but just that they were the most powerful when the First Rise occurred. So since then they've desperately tried to hang on to their power from marshalling a populace of elves that don't really want to take orders from them in the first place. The result is a race that's splintered and fragmented, untrustworthy and treacherous pirates that they are.

I'd imagine that the five magical houses split themselves away when they saw what their brethren were becoming. They must have decided to build a new home for themselves where they could escape the chaos that had consumed the rest of their race. I think I like it better that a rift grew between the "noble" elves and the magical elves, rather than the one mooring point idea. In that case, it could even be the jealous noble pirate elves that sent saboteurs into Suriya in order to bring it down.

Thoughts?

jagadaishio
2009-06-13, 12:50 PM
I like the idea that the noble houses engineered the collapse of Suriya. This would really emphasize the reason that the sunken drow houses would have such contempt for the surface elves. They would probably have learned the source of their downfall through divination after the fact. Would the drow have the crab as their insignia in the way that traditional drow have the symbol of the spider and the scorpion?

Vadin
2009-06-13, 12:55 PM
A dark room on a large ship, 612 AR

"What in Baator do you mean 'it's gone'?"

"I mean, it's not there anymore, sir..."

"But...how? You were supposed to tell that genie-"

"Sir, it was a devil, we've been over this."

"I don't care, they both do what you tell them! It was just supposed to get rid of their magic so they'd stop their damn gloating!"

"Right, sir. And it did... it got rid of their magic. All their magic."

"Wait...you mean...oh Daal."

"I...I killed them..."

"Yes, sir. Yes you did."

Kellus
2009-06-13, 01:03 PM
Brilliant. I imagine Daal is one of the elven gods? :smallwink:

As for the insignia, I think we should steer clear of the crab image, since that's tied up with imocaris. How about an eel or a sea serpent?

Also, another question we should address: Vadin, you posit the existence of genies, devils, and Baator in particular. Do we want the standard cosmology in this game? The 20 Outer Planes, and so on? I'm not sure it fits the theme of the setting that well. :smallconfused:

jagadaishio
2009-06-13, 01:04 PM
A dark room on a large ship, 612 AR

"What in Baator do you mean 'it's gone'?"

"I mean, it's not there anymore, sir..."

"But...how? You were supposed to tell that genie-"

"Sir, it was a devil, we've been over this."

"I don't care, they both do what you tell them! It was just supposed to get rid of their magic so they'd stop their damn gloating!"

"Right, sir. And it did... it got rid of their magic. All their magic."

"Wait...you mean...oh Daal."

"I...I killed them..."

"Yes, sir. Yes you did."

I love it. It also sets up a nice potential precedent for elven warlocks from the noble houses.

jagadaishio
2009-06-13, 01:45 PM
Just how big are the crab cities? I know it may be good to leave it vague, but I would at least like to establish a ballpark estimate now instead of down the road. If we were to plop one down, how big across would it be? How long and wide are its legs?

Kellus
2009-06-13, 01:50 PM
I'm thinking one of the cities would probably be about a mile in diameter, the main "body" of it would be about 800 feet high, and the legs (since they need to stride through the ocean) would have to be exceptionally long. Probably several miles long, although only a small portion of them extends above the surface. For population, I'd say that between five and ten thousand people live in each city.

How's those numbers sound for you? :smallwink:

Kellus
2009-06-13, 01:53 PM
Also, how does "Exodus of Waves" sound for the campaign setting? Thoughts?

jagadaishio
2009-06-13, 02:03 PM
I like Exodus of Waves, but only if the setting were set shortly after the the last of the land was swallowed by the sea. I don't think it suits the game as taking place right now as the land appears again.

As for the crab walkers, I would instead make it a mile in radius, increase the population to at least 50,000, and since the legs only walk in the shallows, serving to swim in other areas, I would instead make them no more than the city's own height in total length. After all, the body part will be half-submerged before it will ever be able to float, and any deeper than one or two thousand feet it becomes more efficient to paddle anyway. I think the legs going 800 feet down and 800 up sounds good.

Would the one city have its own sentience, warforged style? Would they have modified theirs to be a living construct city, or just leave it the steam-powered behemoth? How good of a state of repair are the pure and mixed cities in? What do they use as fuel? Magical portals to the elemental plane of fire, bound elementals, mined coal? Should an additional percent of each city's population live alongside the cities in fleets of submarines, one part navy and one part trading fleet? Are the cities capitalist or communist? A mix? What's their style of government?

Vadin
2009-06-13, 02:11 PM
Also, another question we should address: Vadin, you posit the existence of genies, devils, and Baator in particular. Do we want the standard cosmology in this game? The 20 Outer Planes, and so on? I'm not sure it fits the theme of the setting that well. :smallconfused:

I posit that Baator, devils, and genies exist, yes. Baator (devils, some evil gods), the Golden Sands (genies, some neutral evil gods), Celestia (archons, most good and neutral gods), and the Abyss (demons, some evil gods) exist as planes.

I do not, however, posit that they are active agents in the world.

They are, instead, only seen as pawns for summoning.

The elves have the secrets of summoning extraplanar powers. They draw runes and ancient symbols to summon genies (wealth and theft), devils (subterfuge and sabotage), and demons (attacks and guards). They also have warlocks, people who make very costly deals with these beings in exchange for great power.

Owrtho
2009-06-13, 02:13 PM
Well, the idea I posted of why the water rose was more of a joke idea than anything else.

As for the idea of multiple planes, I don't think the standard ones would fit the setting, but I could see there being multiple planes. Such could be:
The plane of eternal oceans (consists of a giant saltwater ocean)
The plane of eternal lakes (consists of a giant fresh water ocean)
The elemental plane of water (for some reason the only elemental plane)
The plane of water (consists of a giant sphere of water with no bottom or land of any kind)
The plane of the ocean sky (consists of a giant sphere of water, the inside is hollow with a small sun in the center. A large mass of rock orbits the sun causing nightfall. Gravity would pull toward the outside of the sphere, making it like a large ocean).

Then of course would be the material plane.
.......(more serious)
..............^
On another topic, I could see there being a group people (most likely humans), who had lived on the ocean in floating wood cities from before the water rose. They would have made platforms that floated upon which they build houses. The platforms would be connected by bridges that could likely be taken off allowing them to rearrange the city as needed. When the rise came it had little impact on them, but prompted them to find alternative sources of wood and/or other building supplies.

Owrtho

Kellus
2009-06-13, 02:19 PM
I like your numbers. I was thinking cities that waded through the ocean proper, instead of floating or walking in the shallows. Your way maked much more sense.

Good questions. I think Vadin has some ideas for how the crab-cities work, but my thoughts on the matter:

• Regarding pure/mixed cities: I'd say that the pure gnome/dwarf city is in excellent condition, since its caretakers make sure it runs as smoothly today as it did a thousand years ago. Nothing changes there, and they've got the most stable government of the three. The mixed race city is shabbier, since it lets pretty much anyone in. I imagine that since it's such a prominent location, it's a bit of a trading hub between different races. I'd also imagine that there's a bit of an underworld to it as well, a sort of black market in steam technology.

• Regarding government: Although each of the cities is seperate one from the other, I think they need to have some common ties. I imagine the gnomes originally having different castes, such as a ruling caste, labour caste, engineer caste, and so on. In that case, there would be some sort of conclave of gnomes (with presumably a few dwarven representatives) that would nominally rule the two races. Of course, since each city is really out for itself, there'd be a leader for each city that really runs things with or without the council's help.

• Regarding fuel: there's no shortage of water to boil to make steam, so I could definitely see the portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire (assuming, again, standard cosmology). I think that'd be really neat, to have the "heart" of each city be a roiling inferno. And of course, someone on the OTHER side of the portal could always move from the Plane of Fire into the core of the crab-city... Alternatively, that could just be one of the gnomish inventions, an engine that's bound to the Plane of Fire and creates its own heat out of the aether.

• Regarding the third city: it should definitely have a different feel to it. These gnomes haven't just been sitting on their laurels, oh no. They've been modifying, tinkering, upgrading their city. I love the living construct idea, and I think it's got great potential to have the city run itself. I imagine that this city is more reclusive than the others, and although it's the most mechanically gifted, the other gnomes and dwarves resent it for not sharing its new secrets with them.

• Regarding other forces: While a certain amount of outside activity is neccessary, I think we can agree that pretty much the entire gnom and dwarf races live in the cities. Of course, they'd each also have a substantial naval force. I think the pure city would be the strongest military-wise, since it's also the most stable government inside of the city. The mixed city doesn't really need or want much of a navy, since it's surrounded all the time by trading flotillas. The third city would certainly have smaller craft that dock there, but they're less military-minded than the pure city. The third city is more concerned with innovation and creating new, interesting vehicles to explore the world. Thus, they've got much more bizaare ships and fleets, such as flying boats that flit around on alchemical dragonfly wings, or shark-based submarines that have a limited sentience and guard the city by devouring ships that come too close.

Thoughts?

[Also, I agree about the name. I'm just trying out different things, trying to find something that works. :smalltongue:]

Kellus
2009-06-13, 02:24 PM
The elves have the secrets of summoning extraplanar powers. They draw runes and ancient symbols to summon genies (wealth and theft), devils (subterfuge and sabotage), and demons (attacks and guards). They also have warlocks, people who make very costly deals with these beings in exchange for great power.

That's pretty cool. Which elves use this magic the most? The remaining noble elves, or the new elf country of Haltija?

Also, I'm starting to get a little mixed up on what all happens when? Vadin, you seem to be doing an admirable job of recording dates and stuff for various events. Any chance you could toss together a rough timeline for the world since the Ruin?

Vadin
2009-06-13, 02:38 PM
20 years Before Ruin- First Rise, Dwarf/Gnome Alliance is formed, First Crab Cities are built

17 BR- Elimanishon makes the floating desert and makes himself an immortal mummy emperor

12 BR- Orcs slaughter ten thousand people in the city Xiua to make their children born amphibious

0 BR/After Ruin- Second Rise is complete, No land is left

130 AR- Suriya is created by 5 elven Houses

300 AR- One crab city is destroyed by a concentrated orc assault

612 AR- Suriya is sunk by a devil's anitmagic spell

750 AR- Another crab city is destroyed by an assault of dragons and half-giants

1000 AR- The waters begin to recede, the first search parties are sent out (none return)

1005 AR- Naraldi's Children the yuan-ti rise from the depths

1012 AR- More land is exposed, a few people have ventured into the land and given reports of huge lush jungles and forests

Vadin
2009-06-13, 02:42 PM
That's pretty cool. Which elves use this magic the most? The remaining noble elves, or the new elf country of Haltija?

Also, I'm starting to get a little mixed up on what all happens when? Vadin, you seem to be doing an admirable job of recording dates and stuff for various events. Any chance you could toss together a rough timeline for the world since the Ruin?

The noble elves (now piratey) sacrifice hostages and the occasional infant and sometimes their souls to genies, devils, and demons in exchange for power- political, arcane, or otherwise.

Haltija hates this practice and disdains most magic, instead relying on their own sweat, blood, and hard work to get things done.

Kellus
2009-06-13, 02:48 PM
That's great. Thanks for the timeline, it's nice to have it all out there. And as we go we can add more events to it to flesh out the history of the world.

@Owrtrho– That human nation sounds really cool; you want to flesh it out a bit, come up with a name, government, current state of affairs and so on? :smallsmile:

@Vadin– Wow, I hate the noble elves already. And they're one of the more morally ambiguous groups in Ramua! :smalleek:

How's the stuff for the gnomes/dwarves look? Anything you want to change?

Also, we'll need names for the three remaining crab-cities.

jagadaishio
2009-06-13, 02:51 PM
I like the idea of the third city having a whole mess of various types of living constructs servings as its primary, or even sole, military force. I could also imagine the mixed city not only having more than the population of the other two cities combined, but also in turn having the largest, if not the best equipped, unified military force in the world.

I think the pure city would be very caste-based with a fairly rigid and intricate hierarchy. It would probably actually be quite feudal in structure, or a bit socialist. The mixed city is almost invariably going to be a democracy with some elected councils. Bureaucracy and all that. The third city I expect would be arranged in a sort of corporate structure; workers under supervisors under managers and so on. It would be a meritocracy, though, with a relatively small wealth gap between the upper managers and the better of the workers. After all, skill is skill, whether it's skill in machinery or skill in planning and leading.

I really like how you mentioned things crossing over from the elemental plane of fire. Each of the cities, in turn, would probably have had to negotiate with or go to war with the entities on the other side at some time or another. I imagine the pure city would have fought them to a ceasefire, the mixed city would have immediately sought peace, and the third city would have arranged some sort of mutually beneficial deal between the factions, in a way adding a third member to the symbiosis of the dwarves and gnomes.

Furthermore, wouldn't the flooding of the world have caused the elemental planes to unbalance? If that's the case, they could have offered the various fire elementals safety in exchange for heat. If that was the case, the core of the ship probably wouldn't even have a portal anymore. It would just have a huge population of fire elemental refugees, having fled the now nearly omnipotent water elementals.

Perhaps warforged are the result of this, the bodies that the weakened fire elementals need to wear to survive? The most powerful grandmothers and grandfathers would sit in the core of the city while their grandchildren walk about in their metal suits to keep their weak flames from being wetted or fizzling out. Just an idea.

jagadaishio
2009-06-13, 02:55 PM
Would the crab cities have had more gnomish or more dwarven names?

Vadin
2009-06-13, 03:00 PM
Gnome/dwarf stuff looks great! I wouldn't change a thing other than: they don't have a gate to the elemental plane of fire, they have a gate to the flames of the Abyss. Every plane has neutral gods on it as well, so planes aren't exactly inherently aligned as much. You can use the flames of the Abyss without using evil fire- it is, after all, just fire.


Elven lore!

Daal, the stormfather. He is the patriarchal god of the elves. Daal is Chaotic Neutral. The legend goes that he accidentally created the demons when he brought the Abyss into being.

Dalam, the devil mother. She encourages matriarchy and is the other elven racial god. Dalam is Lawful Evil. Legend says she brought Baator into being as a place to get away from her brother Daal's wild creations. The devils were her answer to Daal's wild servants.

Some Houses follow Dalam (most of the Great Houses) and are ruled by women. Other Houses follow Daal (both of the Fallen Houses and several of the Lesser Houses) and are rule by men.


EDIT: I like weak elementals being bound to the warforged, but I've never been a fan of the Elemental Planes as they stand. They seem so...contrived.

It's always seemed so much more logical that the elementals would just exist in the world as natural beings (the most natural beings, as it were).

Kellus
2009-06-13, 03:01 PM
I really like how you mentioned things crossing over from the elemental plane of fire. Each of the cities, in turn, would probably have had to negotiate with or go to war with the entities on the other side at some time or another. I imagine the pure city would have fought them to a ceasefire, the mixed city would have immediately sought peace, and the third city would have arranged some sort of mutually beneficial deal between the factions, in a way adding a third member to the symbiosis of the dwarves and gnomes.

Furthermore, wouldn't the flooding of the world have caused the elemental planes to unbalance? If that's the case, they could have offered the various fire elementals safety in exchange for heat. If that was the case, the core of the ship probably wouldn't even have a portal anymore. It would just have a huge population of fire elemental refugees, having fled the now nearly omnipotent water elementals.

Perhaps warforged are the result of this, the bodies that the weakened fire elementals need to wear to survive? The most powerful grandmothers and grandfathers would sit in the core of the city while their grandchildren walk about in their metal suits to keep their weak flames from being wetted or fizzling out. Just an idea.

Okay, first: I like your ideas for the governance and navies of the cities better. It does indeed make more sense for the mixed city to have a bigger population and bigger number of ships at its command. Of course, the pure city's navy would be a lot more rigid and precise. Also, I like the corporate structure of the third city.

I'm not an enormous fan of the warforged idea, mostly because I think they get a lot too much attention. That being said, they are indeed a cool race, so if you guys want to have 'em in there, let's do it. Alternatively, I also had an idea for a race of "living elementals" à la "living construct" that crossed over into our world after the gnomes built their engines to contact the Plane of Fire. An overtly magical race, they'd be sort of like a half-breed elemental/humanoid that can control fire. They'd mostly be refugees fleeing from the Plane of Fire after, like you said, the Inner Planes became unbalanced and the Plane of Water gained dominance.

We do, however, have a lot of races already. How many do we want in this setting?

• Humans
• Halflings
• Elves
• Gnomes
• Dwarves
• Kabouter
• Imocaris
• Orc/sahaguin (I'm tempted to just start calling them orcaguin and be done with it. :smalltongue:)
• Elf/orc aquatic crossbreed
• Warforged
• Naraldi's Children

EDIT


Would the crab cities have had more gnomish or more dwarven names?

Gnomish, definitely. Remember that the gnomes built the things, and then saved the dwarves from extinction with them. The gnomes are definitely the dominant race in this relationship.

jagadaishio
2009-06-13, 03:13 PM
I'm not so sure the gnomes would be the dominant ones. After all, they would have been working on dwarven lands and resources while building the crab cities. Plus, dwarves can be kinda... domineering. I would agree, however, that the cities would have gnomish names. After all, the gnomes built them. They probably named their creations too.

Kellus
2009-06-13, 03:16 PM
I'm not so sure the gnomes would be the dominant ones. After all, they would have been working on dwarven lands and resources while building the crab cities. Plus, dwarves can be kinda... domineering. I would agree, however, that they cities would have gnomish names. After all, the gnomes built them. They probably named their creations too.

For some reason I just imagined an enormous gnome crab-shaped city monstrosity living construct urban demigod named Beatrice. :smallfrown:

Be afraid.

On a more serious note, you might be right about the dwarves. Even though they might have been forced to ask for help from the gnomes, they're generally fairly rigid. I can see how over time the gnomes might have been forced to adapt to doing things the dwarvish way, since dwarves would never bend their pride so far as to do things the gnomish way.

jagadaishio
2009-06-13, 04:01 PM
Potential Names:

Berenmadge
Boddypen
Boddytwiss
Cobbwicket
Finwinkle
Murmottin
Olffmadge
Ranzwicket
Seedo
Seefoodle
Seemalkin
Shabiddle
Zookzig

Those were the best of fifty generated in a random gnome name generator.

Vadin
2009-06-13, 04:10 PM
Those names...are...atrocious for a giant crab city.

Goodness.

I'm out for the evening (to the mall!).

Will check later.

jagadaishio
2009-06-13, 04:19 PM
Those names...are...atrocious for a giant crab city.

Goodness.

I'm out for the evening (to the mall!).

Will check later.

*sighs*

Too true.

They must be far sillier. Names like gimblewhippet. Names that would be a proud dwarven man's beard retract right back into his face.

50cr4t3s
2009-06-13, 04:27 PM
Perhaps there should be a name for each individual crab, and the group as a whole. Something like "The Great Striders" for the name of the fleet.

just an idea.

Vadin
2009-06-13, 07:53 PM
There were five katang in the old days, but two had been lost: Bala, Kuko, and Mata remained.

At present, Doy Kabal the gnome rules over Bala. Tapat Domo the dwarf guides Kuko. The gnome Ala Bukis leads Mata.

Of course, I don't know which katang is which- that's up to you guys to assign.

jagadaishio
2009-06-13, 11:04 PM
Bala is the mixed city, Kuko the purist one, and Mata the living construct of the third city. Ala Bukis actually considers herself to be second in authority to Mata, though her orders are largely accepted absolutely among the populace. She has to convince Mata of anything, though, before the city will do it. After all, Mata is smart, willful, and stubborn.

I like the overall term of Great Striders; if they have another official name, I think that it should still translate to that in common.

How do you guys feel on the idea of warforged in Mata? Too many or too much emphasis on living constructs, or does it work?

Kellus
2009-06-14, 12:44 AM
I think that katang should be the original gnomish word for the creations, but everybody just calls them Striders in everyday use. I definitely like the names for the leaders and the katang, though.

As for the warforged, I've sort of come around to the idea. I like the new spin on the race by having the bodies as 'shells' for the fire elementals that were siphoned out of the Abyss. They'd be allies of the gnomes and dwarves, since it was through their engines that they appeared in Ramua to begin with. On the other hand, they'd probably have no real society of their own, at least not on this plane of existence.

They're probably more like explorers, really, brave individuals that came through a rift to a new dimension in order to scout it out for the rest of their race that remains behind in the Abyss. I think I like that idea better than the whole refugee from elemental war idea. Also, it's a nice counterpoint to the idea of exploring the lands that have risen from the deep, having this race that's come to a strange new world entirely: our world.

Given a bit more thought to a campaign setting title– came up with some generic things like Secrets of the Deep, What Lies Below, Beneath the Waves, or The Return of Evadize.

And of course my personal favourite, Under the Sea. :smalltongue:

Any of those appeal?

EDIT: Also, I think that with the addition of warforged we're very close to a full completement of races for the setting. That being said, do you guys want to have a PC race that lives on or comes from Tether? A smaller breed of giant, as it were?

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 01:30 AM
Tether only stays exciting if it stays incredibly mysterious, with the only people coming from it tight-lipped antagonists. As soon as you include a possible PC race from there, it loses that amazing mystique that it has. I think that any more detail put into it right now would be ruinous to the end goal; we can make it more specific later, but let's not right now.

We need some way to mesh the ideas of the warforged being extraplanar explorers with the fact that they serve as a needed workforce in order for the concept of Mata to work. Otherwise, we're left with heady tinkers and no grunts. I'm thinking a sort of non-malicious term of servitude, like the mandatory period of military service in Israel. They're freely given these bodies, or rather given them with a debt, and are then put to work paying them off. This isn't a sort of indentured servitude, however; it's set up intentionally to allow for the warforged to easily pay off their debt after only a few years.

Most, though, develop emotional and patriotic bonds with Mata, choosing to serve in the military or work force for actual pay after their term of compulsory service. A fair percent - far from the majority but fair nonetheless - instead go off to continue their explorations on their own. None end up with any sort of animosity towards Mata and its people, though. After all, they aren't forced into those bodies. They're offered them with the limits and terms of the contract clearly explained at the time of crossing.

I think that way it really emphasizes the corporate nature of Mata and refines the idea of the warforged. What would the animating mind of Mata and the non-humanoid living constructs be? I could imagine Mata being largely a mystery - an archdevil, a foetal deity, or perhaps a congregate of all of the city's dead souls? No person knows for sure any more, if they ever did. The others, though, like the shark constructs, really need some kind of explanation. After all, they've been consistently able to maintain such a large fleet of them, with ever-changing hardware...

And I'm still iffy on those campaign setting names. Mainly because the things from below aren't below now. They're starting to peak above the wave crests again. They rising and risen, not sinking and sunken. Does that make sense? I dunno.

What do you guys think?

Limos
2009-06-14, 01:39 AM
I noticed that no one here has given the Kobolds any love. Really now, a race of fiercely collectivist reptiles with a penchant for technology and no one thought to include them in an ocean punk setting?

I'm thinking giant steam ships powered by magic reactors. The reactors actually break down local magic resulting in a low grade anti magic field (possibly just gives arcane spell failure to everyone within it).

The ships would be more like battle cruisers than pirate vessels, made of ancient rusty hull plating and bristling with the first precursors of cannons. The Kobolds are intensely Xenophobic and fire on any ships that get too close. (And by too close I mean within range of the cannons) The Kobold cities and ships are the same thing, with their entire population living, toiling, and dying within the cramped warrens of steam pipes and machinery.

Generations of living cheek by jowl with the Mana reactors has given the kobolds ingrained magical resistance, as such they have no wizards or sorcerers. Maybe even divine casters have trouble with the reactors miasma of magical pollutants.

The Kobold city ships are slow moving and ill suited to piracy. Unable to raid for their materials they recycle nearly everything, it is a great crime in Kobold society to let anything fall overboard. Their food comes in the form of fish farms in the bottom galleries of the ships. Great tanks through which the bilge water filters house huge schools of fish that they harvest for food. On the upper decks they have shallow pools filled with algae, they skim off the top layers and use it to make bland and tasteless yet nutritional gunk that forms the majority of their diet.

The one thing Kobold's are willing to have contact with outsiders for is Metal, their society revolves around the usage and possession of metal. Metal means superior plating and weapons, it means power for whoever has it. Unable to magically gather any of it themselves due to their Mana reactors byproducts they will trade finished goods to other cities in exchange for raw iron ore.

There might only be three or four City-ships in the setting, each one ruled over by one powerful clan with several smaller clans forming lower social strata. Smaller Kobold vessels might house less powerful clans that broke away from the main city ships. These would probably turn to piracy using their more sophisticated weaponry and propulsion. They would target mage vessels as the Mana reactor would help suppress the mage's defenses and give them a better chance in a fight.

This would give a good reason for why the Mages would ally with the orcs. The mages are powerful but their spells fail in proximity to mana reactors and they need powerful yet mundane fighters to beat off attacks.

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 01:54 AM
The problem with that is that it gives a post-ruin reason for a pre-ruin action. The orcs would have been modified before and during the flooding, not after, in the age of kobold anti-magic piracy. But honestly? I don't think that the kobolds would have ever managed to organize enough power quickly enough to build ships like that. They wouldn't have had the resources pre-flood, and would have had even less post-flood.

Rather, I think that the only surviving kobolds would be those of the dragon-worshipping cults, taken with the dragons to wherever the dragons went after the flood, as well as a few who managed to sneak onto the Striders. And the dragons did go somewhere. After all, they sometimes come sweeping out of the clouds to raid ships, flying back into the clouds minutes later, leaving floating ruin behind.

Those that managed to sneak onto the Striders - and they would have, following their hated enemies that are the gnomes - would form tiny villages deep in the most inaccessible of the steam works. Deep behind steam ducts and bolted together metal walls would be infestations of the kobolds, living off the scraps of the dwarves and gnomes like damned common goblins.

The goblinoids, of course, are a dying breed. Enough survived the cataclysm to make, maybe, one large village and a single sustained population. But, as goblinoids tend to, they were too selfish and kept fracturing every time it looked like they had finally stabilized. These days, most of them serve on pirate vessels, maintaining a constant, but tiny, population.

Anyway, that's what I think would have happened to the kobolds.

Limos
2009-06-14, 02:04 AM
I guess that makes sense. I still want to see a giant Crab do battle with a steampunk City-ship. That would be awesome beyond words.

ImmortalAer
2009-06-14, 02:25 AM
Potential Names:

Berenmadge
Boddypen
Boddytwiss
Cobbwicket
Finwinkle
Murmottin
Olffmadge
Ranzwicket
Seedo
Seefoodle
Seemalkin
Shabiddle
Zookzig

Those were the best of fifty generated in a random gnome name generator.

Then let the resident human name generator take a shot at it?
How many names are you looking for here? I'll start with a batch of 12, either way.


Sahdron (S-AH-drr-on)
Drenhold (Dr-en-hold)
Naquis (Nah-qu-ss)
Darendur (D-A-rn-drr)
Moribold (Moe-re-bold)
Karendel (Kah-rend-L)
Sachestis (Sah-ch-ess-tis)
Kaerkin (Kay-r-ken)
Dourndor (Door-en-drr)
Asellius (A-sel-li-ss)
Shaenar (ShA-nar)
Quindol (Qu-In-dull)


Just a sample. :smalltongue:

::With phoenetics!

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 02:56 AM
Then let the resident human name generator take a shot at it?
How many names are you looking for here? I'll start with a batch of 12, either way.


Sahdron (S-AH-drr-on)
Drenhold (Dr-en-hold)
Naquis (Nah-qu-ss)
Darendur (D-A-rn-drr)
Moribold (Moe-re-bold)
Karendel (Kah-rend-L)
Sachestis (Sah-ch-ess-tis)
Kaerkin (Kay-r-ken)
Dourndor (Door-en-drr)
Asellius (A-sel-li-ss)
Shaenar (ShA-nar)
Quindol (Qu-In-dull)


Just a sample. :smalltongue:

::With phoenetics!

I was throwing out random gnomish names as potential names for the Striders. Vadin totally original-content'd my names out of the water, though. What were those human names for?

ImmortalAer
2009-06-14, 02:57 AM
I was throwing out random gnomish names as potential names for the Striders. Vadin totally original-content'd my names out of the water, though. What were those human names for?

... I meant instead of machine generated, I was imagining them myself? :smallredface:

Anyway, it does look like it was already covered, and I'm just blind. >.>

Vadin
2009-06-14, 10:25 AM
So I was talking about this with DaBull yesterday, and we came to the topic of the swamps. Let me present to you the idea of what happened to them:

When the waters rose, the swamps would have stayed largely intact. Peat moss floats, after all. And it floats while supporting cypress trees, no less!

With only a little bit of magical encouragement (and/or just some ropes pulling things close to each other), the cypress roots could have reached out to each other and brought the peat moss into one coherent and much more stable mass.

What we have, then, is a floating landmass that only very very light people can step on (and also some normal people, but if they're too heavy they'd punch through the peat moss and get tangled up in the cypress). But it's a floating landmass that can purify salt water into fresh water.

Who (so many 'W's at the beginning!) lives there? Normal lizardfolk are both too heavy and busy bening post-Ruin orcs. I propose, then, a new player race of gecko people, Tuko! They store food in huts that literally wrap around cypress trees, sleep in hammocks, and have little use for normal buildings. They're soft-skinned, light-bones, a little twitchy, very fast, and good at climbing.

Where do they live? Iskala, the Three Mile Swamp. It isn't a major player in world-politics, but it is weird and the only place to get several rare medicinal herbs. It's also one of the few places the orcs absolutely will not attack. Their shamanistic religion compels them to view it as the holy of holies, the last refuge of the world's nature spirits.

I could even see some orcs making a cult of followers that swim beneath it just to keep watch over it.


As for kobolds and goblins, yes, that sounds pretty spot-on. They're both dying breeds kept as pirate deckhands/almost-slaves or they've been holed away in the inner workings of the crab cities for years.

Some could even have a part in maintaining the cities, whether the Cults of Gliss know it or not.

What if they High Priest of Gliss on one of the ships, the leader of his cult there (probably on the multiracial and open Strider), found out about them? Now he keeps their secret safe and provides them with better food and living conditions than the kobolds on the other ships.

Heck, he might have even managed to have bought them a home where they could build a tunnel from their homes inside the machine to it. This could be their waypoint with the outside world.

For the last 100 years or so, kobolds have been integrating into society there. The youth of the Strider are fine with them, but the older members of society are less nice.

Of course, only a small amount of the kobolds are brave enough to try and live with people who, by and large, kind of hate them.

The other kobolds are still hiding, and are all wary that those other kobolds might now spill the beans, as it were, and betray their true heritage. At present, they just kind of try and avoid talking about it. If cornered, the make up some malarky about 'escaped slaves from the orcs', and that usually stops any and all questioning on the topic.

Kellus
2009-06-14, 11:51 AM
Okay, I love the swamp idea. Gecko people are awesome.

For kobolds, I'm thinking that they'd be really bitter and resentful. After all, they once were the closest servants of mighty dragons, but after the Ruin they found themselves scattered, mostly extinct, and indentured to stronger races. I'd imagine that a fair number of them would be clinging helplessly to the idea that, "the dragons will save us". So they bide their time, doing the bidding of the dwarves and the gnomes and even the humans, but in their heart they wait for the day that the dragons free them and that they can become the masters and the gnomes and dwarves the slaves.

What's even more intriguing is if this has happened before, and when the second katang was destroyed by dragons and giants they actually rescued a small population of kobolds that had been in servitude there. The free kobolds established a very small, very xenophobic community that keeps to itself on the edge of civilized waters.

As for the elementals, I like the idea of paying off the debt to the artisans that built their bodies. Fits the corporation idea of Mata very well. :smallsmile:

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 12:51 PM
Now that you mention it, the giant and dragon raid seems almost... too uncanny, doesn't it? I mean, that leg that suddenly malfunctioned and couldn't raise up to smash the rust dragon. The fact that three large hatches were for some reason open during a highest priority lockdown. It's almost as if someone was sabotaging it from the inside.

And wasn't it right after that when that rusted metal ship adorned with a massive dragon face on the bow started sailing around? I heard that tiny dragons are the ship's crew. It's not as large as a strider, but it's larger than anything else I've ever seen.

See, now THAT is a way that the kobolds could have gained the resources and power to put together a massive, heavily armored steam ship. It would be manned by a mix of kobold tinkers, kobold dragonfire adepts, and kobolds of mixed professions. The cannons that were still in prototype stage being develops in the stider now rest within the front-facing dragon's mouth and in the open mouths of the various dragons in the metal murals on either side of the ship.

It's not fast, but it's damn powerful; its front cannon can take out most ships with a single well-aimed shot. It ramming can do even more damage, as the front dragon at the top slowly transitions down to an almost bladed edge in the front. Make no mistake, the ship is dangerous and should be avoided.

This would of course be the only kobolds that actively sabotaged one of the Striders. All the others are either ignored or (rarely and recently) embraced. Most of them have gotten over it. They continue to worship their dragon gods sadly while repairing their steamwork homes, living off the scraps of others. It's a living...

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 02:04 PM
Hey, kopout, are you still watching this thread? You haven't spoken since the beginning and it's getting time that we should really start compiling the information that we've generated in the beginning.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
2009-06-14, 02:40 PM
Just read through all of this. I should get my creative juices flowing again, eh? This has sort of the same feel as CoG did, the post-natural apocalypse.

Vadin
2009-06-14, 02:50 PM
Now that you mention it, the giant and dragon raid seems almost... too uncanny, doesn't it? I mean, that leg that suddenly malfunctioned and couldn't raise up to smash the rust dragon. The fact that three large hatches were for some reason open during a highest priority lockdown. It's almost as if someone was sabotaging it from the inside.

And wasn't it right after that when that rusted metal ship adorned with a massive dragon face on the bow started sailing around? I heard that tiny dragons are the ship's crew. It's not as large as a strider, but it's larger than anything else I've ever seen.

See, now THAT is a way that the kobolds could have gained the resources and power to put together a massive, heavily armored steam ship. It would be manned by a mix of kobold tinkers, kobold dragonfire adepts, and kobolds of mixed professions. The cannons that were still in prototype stage being develops in the stider now rest within the front-facing dragon's mouth and in the open mouths of the various dragons in the metal murals on either side of the ship.

It's not fast, but it's damn powerful; its front cannon can take out most ships with a single well-aimed shot. It ramming can do even more damage, as the front dragon at the top slowly transitions down to an almost bladed edge in the front. Make no mistake, the ship is dangerous and should be avoided.

This would of course be the only kobolds that actively sabotaged one of the Striders. All the others are either ignored or (rarely and recently) embraced. Most of them have gotten over it. They continue to worship their dragon gods sadly while repairing their steamwork homes, living off the scraps of others. It's a living...

I like it!

So, we've got secret kobolds living in all three Striders, but one of them has access to the outside world via a safehouse and a friendly priesthood.

On that one katang, the kobolds have moved well away from dragon-worship. They don't have any need for crazy worship of gods that abandoned their people long ago. Gliss, on the other hand, has found them! Praise Gliss! Praise him!

On the the other two katang, the kobolds still hold true to dragon worship.

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 03:02 PM
Heh, this does remind me of Cataclysm of Green. Anyway, we've been refining a lot of the races, but we haven't put much work into humans, nor have we put more than just vague details into the halflings. Let's work on those next.

Limos
2009-06-14, 03:42 PM
I like it!

So, we've got secret kobolds living in all three Striders, but one of them has access to the outside world via a safehouse and a friendly priesthood.

On that one katang, the kobolds have moved well away from dragon-worship. They don't have any need for crazy worship of gods that abandoned their people long ago. Gliss, on the other hand, has found them! Praise Gliss! Praise him!

On the the other two katang, the kobolds still hold true to dragon worship.

Don't forget the one Kobold Dragon-ship that broke away from the Katang after betraying it during the dragon raid.

Kellus
2009-06-14, 03:48 PM
The problem with the humans is that they have no one unifying culture like most of the other races. They can be everything under the sun. So far we've got Elimanishan's undead desert island monstrosity, the two seperate orders of espionage monks, the arcane college I described a couple pages back, and one kingdom that was scattered around the world when the Ruin came. I could definitely see other races, especially the elves, dwarves, and gnomes, as being the dominant races in this setting, with humans set more as refugees and small bands of survivors as opposed to the ubiquitous everywhere race they are in most settings.

I really like the stuff for the kobolds, it seems really realistic for them. On the other hand, someone mentioned goblins a little while back. Unless there's something unique or defining about goblinoids in this setting, I'm thinking we should probably drop them. After all, the previous idea for them uses them in the same capacity as kobolds: slaves for the gnomes and dwarves. Unless someone can come up with something unique or distinguishing for them?

Also, I feel like the dwarves and gnomes are getting too intertwined. I think we need some kind of seperation between them, at least to distinguish how their differ in this new age.

Race count: 13 + goblins?

• Dwarves
• Gnomes
• Kabouter
• Humans
• Halflings
• Elves
• Orcaguin (Needs name)
• Imocaris
• Tuko
• Warforged (elemental style)
• Kobolds
• Elf/orc crossbreed (underwater drow style, needs name)
• Naraldi's Children (yuan-ti like, needs name)
• Goblins?

Kellus
2009-06-14, 03:51 PM
Don't forget the one Kobold Dragon-ship that broke away from the Katang after betraying it during the dragon raid.

Yeah. By my count, there are three gnome/dwarf striders, one that was destroyed by an orcaguin assault, and one that was sabotaged from the inside by kobold slaves leaving it defenseless against their giant/dragon allies. Then the kobolds pillaged and stole what they could from its remains and built their dragon-ship out of it. But in the three striders that remain, the kobolds still live basically as slaves, right?

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 04:15 PM
Yeah. By my count, there are three gnome/dwarf striders, one that was destroyed by an orcaguin assault, and one that was sabotaged from the inside by kobold slaves leaving it defenseless against their giant/dragon allies. Then the kobolds pillaged and stole what they could from its remains and built their dragon-ship out of it. But in the three striders that remain, the kobolds still live basically as slaves, right?

Not so much. On Mata and Kuko they're more of stowaways, living so deep in the machine that most don't even know they exist. On Bala they were originally like that, but are now starting to integrate along with the other races.

I could definitely see the Dwarves/Gnomes being the dominant races in this setting instead of humans. After all, they have the biggest, strongest, most advanced, richest, and damn near only cities in the world. The humans are probably mostly refugees on Bala, savages living on pontoon cities like like raft one mentioned before, the occasional old-school orders like the mage's college and the floating desert, and shipdwellers. Mobile ships with a dozen or more humans on it would probably be the most common form of organized human habitation.

I agree that we're not looking enough at the differences between the dwarves and the gnomes. I'll look into that a little right now.

I think that the dwarves would have become largely dominant in Kuko, putting gnomes into the already existent dwarven labour cast. It's not that more gnomes are workers than dwarves, it's just that there are way more dwarven leaders than gnome leaders there. I think that this is the reason that Kuko is more stable (and stagnant) than the other Striders. They are also undoubtedly more militaristic and traditional. They probably have antiquated systems and cultural quirks more at home underground but adapted slightly for Strider-life.

In Bala I could see their current state of acceptance as actually the middle ground between the dwarves and the gnomes, largely facilitated by the kabouter. The dwarves of this strider would still be traditional, conservative, and slow to change. Not so much as on kuko, but still retaining their natural dwarven outlook. Gnomes, in turn, would be strongly liberal, open, and chaotic, pulling Bala in the direction that it has gone. This would have (and did for quite a while) lead to much internal strife and disagreements, with brawls and infighting not uncommon. Unlike in Kuko, the gnomes had picked up some of the dwarven stubbornness. Things calmed down, though, after the kabouter population started to grow. The kabouter were raised by both dwarven and gnome parents, and were the moderate middle ground between the two. Tensions started to cool, a balance was reached, and we have Bala as it si today. The tensions still exist, but they're stable now.

Mata is a city that appeals to both dwarves and gnomes without much strife between them. It emphasizes and holds deal what both races have in common, while putting aside what they don't share. They focus on craftsmanship, income, and technology. Dwarven craftsmen working alongside gnome tinkers to create incredibly intricate things made of exquisitely, caringly, and time-consumingly crafted parts. Dwarves provide patience tempering the gnome enthusiasm (and short attention spans). There is a complex bureaucracy that appeals to dwarven sensibilities while being at once loose enough to not be too restrictive on the gnomes and complex enough to interest them in its processes. They aren't the same, but their similarities are what their cultures emphasize.

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 04:28 PM
Hey, Djinn in Tonic just recently made some new warforged feats, of which two emphasize a naturally fiery internal nature. I asked him and he says he's fine with them being posted as long as he's being given all due credit. So, thanks! Here's the feats:

Fire Within [Warforged]
Your body contains such a heat that flames do nothing but strengthen you.
Prerequisites: Blazing Soul, Base Fortitude save +8
Benefit: You gain immunity to fire. If you are subject to an attack that would deal fire damage, you instead regain 1 hit point per three points of damage the attack would normally deal (before applying fire resistance or Hardness). You get no saving throw against magical attacks that deal fire damage (although you do get saves against any other damage the attack might deal, if applicable).

Blazing Soul [Warforged]
The fires of the creation forge still burn in your body.
Benefit: You natural attacks deal an additional 1 point of fire damage. Additionally, you gain Fire Resistance 5.

Here's the source:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6289440&posted=1#post6289440

Djinn_in_Tonic
2009-06-14, 04:31 PM
I'd recommend changing the names to fit your setting's concepts though...

Maybe change Furnace Forged to Ember Heart or Elemental Soul, to emphasize the elemental nature over the mechanically created nature.

Owrtho
2009-06-14, 04:40 PM
Awhile back I mentioned an idea for a city that was made of buildings on platforms, so, now I'll try making more detailed fluff for it. (also, I kinda got lazy at the end, but oh well) (and since it doesn't say it I noticed, ocean groves are reasonably safe if your above water as long as you dont accidently step through the roots)

Gont and Ocean Groves
One the cultures least effected by the Rise, Gont had lived a peaceful and unassuming existence atop the waves. A somewhat simple culture, they lived on flat wood rafts bound by vines or rope atop which they would make houses and other buildings. They would use wood rope bridges to connect their platforms together when they wished, but often rearranged the layout of the village. They followed a nomadic lifestyle atop the waves, visiting land during some parts of the year for trade, and being out to sea during the majority. Sometimes a family or individual would take their platform and go off on their own for a while, rejoining the community later on. On the whole the population remained stable at around 60 to 70 people.

Thus it was that they were not immediately aware of the rising ocean. It was not till they returned to trade with one of the coastal town that they found it rather closer to the coast than they remembered. They soon heard that the ocean was rising, and found many of the survivors asking to come with them for awhile at least till they found another place land to stay at. Having always accepted others who asked, the villagers of Gont allowed the people to come with and spent a few days making platforms to account for the new people, aided by those who had already made platforms in anticipation of their coming (Gont followed an approximately 4 year rout and had 7 places that it would stop to trade).
After setting out again they helped the newcomers make homes atop their platforms using gathered supplies. However the issue of the rising ocean worried some of the people of Gont. Some worried that with the rising ocean there might soon be land they could go to to get new wood. Meanwhile most just tried helping the newcomers adjust to the lifestyle of living on the sea. The process was a hard one though. What had started out as a group somewhat larger than the normal population of Gont over the course of the next seven months till they came to land again decreased to slightly more than half. Many could not take the constant motion and diet, consisting mostly of small herbs and fish, and fell ill. Some decided to try taking their platform and making way to land rather than just letting the currents carry them and were never heard from again.

When they finally reached land, the village of Gont found the ocean to be even higher than in the previous town. Despite this, 15 of the 43 surviving newcomers decided they wanted to depart. However, almost 100 people of here asked to join the village of Gont. Many had already made platforms or rafts, some due to the rising sea and others in already planning to join Gont. Gont again accepted them. This time some of the more concerned villagers of Gont also sought out some druids in hopes of finding a solution to the problem wood if the ocean didn't cease to rise and covered all land (while Gont had one of their own, he was more knowledgeable on the sea and those within it than the land and things that grew upon it). While most of the druids were unconcerned, they managed to find one that would come with.

Again by the time they reached land again the number of newcomers had almost been halved. Those who remained from the original group had survived, but the new ones were down to only 62 members. When they reached the next town they found it completely flooded, and another large group asked to come with. And again things repeated themselves. Over the next 7 years, the population of Gont became almost 400. They also gained 6 druids, and a handful of spellcasters.

By this time the village was rather established, with some platform able to grow grass, allowing for some livestock, a number of stores, and a currency being introduced. However, the issue of wood had yet to be solved. Gont had begun visiting different ports as the water rose as well, yet the solution was not found till 23 years later.

After the Second Rise, many scouts went out in search of land. Gont now had a population of over 600. Meanwhile, the druids and spellcasters began experimenting with ways for plants to live on the water. As a result they had managed to make grass and some of the smaller food plants able to float upright, but had trouble with them lacking nutrients. The issue was solved by introducing aspects of jellyfish and making their roots into tendrils that caught and ate the small sea animals passing by. However, due to this, the plants became unable to be used. due to there small size it was too easy to get badly injured trying to get the food, and as such they were not used.

However, one day a scout brought back news of Iskala, and had even managed to procure three cypress saplings. These were beginning of ocean groves. Lacking the peat moss to hold nutrients and support them, they used the same method to modify the saplings as they had on their smaller plants. They further modified them as well to cause vine-like tendrils to grow rather than leaves. Given a little magical aid, over the next few weeks the first three ocean groves had reached adulthood.

The ocean groves grew similar to mangrove trees, their roots meshing together to create a kind of natural raft. They also produced air pockets in the upper roots to help keep afloat. They made a thick canopy with leafy vines hanging from the branches. However, despite their usefulness, they can be quite dangerous. Underneath they have a mass of trailing roots. These are covered in nematocysts that contain a powerful paralytic toxin. Furthermore, upon contact with something, the root instantly begins to coil around it (which causes more contact with the roots). While normal clothing is enough to block the nematocysts, one can still easily be caught in the powerful grip of the roots. Upon catching something, the roots pull up, brining the prey deeper into the roots where the central roots grow (they are only in a small clump directly under the trunk). The central roots have sharp points and when something gets to close they lunge toward it with great force that has even been known to puncture full plate armor. It then injects a fluid to speed up the decomposition of the prey allowing the roots to absorb the nutrients.

Due to this most sea creatures avoid ocean groves, and while the bigger sea monsters are unlikely to be killed, they find it to not be worth the trouble. However this has not stopped some creatures from developing an ecosystem around the ocean groves.

Originally, Gont kept all the ocean groves together, having them trail along with the rest of the village (now more a city). However, over the years, occasional trees would fraction off from the main grove, or seed would float away unnoticed and establish their own groves out in the ocean.

Edit: Also, since I forgot to say, current Gont is a more mixed city instead of pure humans like they used to be.

Owrtho

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 04:40 PM
I'd recommend changing the names to fit your setting's concepts though...

Maybe change Furnace Forged to Ember Heart or Elemental Soul, to emphasize the elemental nature over the mechanically created nature.

As long as you're cool with that I'll change the names in my post right now.

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 04:53 PM
With the establishment of Gont and the Ocean Groves, I think that we now have a satisfactory amount of detail on humans for now. I would really like to flesh out halflings a bit more now. Given the nature of the halfling cult, would it be safe to assume that they are one of the only orders in the world that has an order of paladin? Are these crusaders just as genocidal as their leadership? Do they wear heavy armor still, even though they're at sea, or do they wear lighter armors? Do any classes ever wear heavy armor anymore? How are seats on the halfling theocratic councils determined? Is the average halfling as genocidal and fanatical as their leadership? What's more common, clerics or paladins?

kopout
2009-06-14, 05:01 PM
Hey, kopout, are you still watching this thread? You haven't spoken since the beginning and it's getting time that we should really start compiling the information that we've generated in the beginning.

Yes I am, it just took off so fast.

but so far I have
Crab citys
Kobolds in the walls
Evil druid cultists
Too many gods to remember
Many kinds of orcs
Psionic crab monsters
Desert humans
Indentured warforged
Magic reactor kobolds
Scattered kingdom humans
Almost extinct wizards
Espionage monks
The arcane college
Omnicidel halfling cult
Gont and Ocean Groves


what am I missing?

kopout
2009-06-14, 06:44 PM
One of my ideas for the city we now call Mata is gremlins. I originally envisioned gremlins as the kobolds who lived in the machinery and sabotaged it but then I thought that that would be counter productive, especially if they couldn't count on the dragons to save them. So I decided to have the gremlins as a kind of Construct instead.
Gremlins(no not those gremlins)
The gremlins where originally created as repair bots for the infrastructure of the city, however some or possibly all of them went rogue and began causing new and strange problems and worst of all they made more gremlins. This time the dwarves decide to make a new kind of construct using to seek out and destroy the gremlins. Thees new constructs where mad in much the same way as warforged, and indeed an individual fire elamentel can jump between them and their warforged body,so the gremlins and the anti-gremlins fought and still fight a war within Mata. But there is a third side to this war, the Mataise Kobolds. Mata literately being the city had discovered the kobold population a while before and had kept quite about it for some time. Now through very old speakers she spoke to the kobolds, telling them that she could easily expose them and have them exterminated, but that she would not if they agreed to help her fight the gremlins. Long ago the kobold's ancestors had gotten a similar ultimatum from the chromatic dragons, and then as now the accepted. so the kobolds came to worship Mata as a deity, as the had done with the dragons, and to fight the gremlins in the name of their protector.

Mata just struck me as the perfect meeting of deus est machina ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeusEstMachina) and a form of gods being created by belief (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodsNeedPrayerBadly) because its a very big machine, it has AI, and you depend on it for survival. Throw in that the kobolds don't really know what it is and you have them worshiping it, a perfectly natural reaction given the above. I think that the dwarves living in Mata have a similar idea, after all Gliss is fine for the gnomes but a real dwarve worships a machine god that has always been a machine god, not some harvest god that got a new gig.

For setting title I would like to suggest Age of the Katang .

Kellus
2009-06-14, 07:18 PM
Okay, Gont and the ocean groves look good for some more development on humans. I'm... unsure about the gremlins right now, but it depends what you guys think. Definitely needs to be polished up a bit, but it could work. I take it from the lack of interest that nobody's really interested in goblins? :smalltongue:

Kopout, what you should really do is have links on the first three posts of the thread to the relevant posts for ease of reading so someone can jump right into a topic.

I agree, halflings need to be developed further. It would be really interesting if for the most part their religious government was a very twisted Lawful Good, and that ties in very well with paladins. Heavy armour is certainly not feasable in this setting, so I think we'd need an alternative class feature for paladins. I could see racial substitution levels for halfling paladins that removes their proficiency with medium and heavy armour, instead giving them divine bonuses to AC to represent the foresight granted by their prophet god Talaka.

As far as their government goes, there's a conclave of oceancullers that run things. They make no bones between themselves about their intentions regarding lesser species. Their crusaders, however, mostly follow the older teachings of Talaka, and are generally typically happy-go-lucky halfings. The Seaborn Supremacy Society, made up of the most zealous of the genocidal oceancullers and their followers, are slowly gaining control of the conclave and twisting the religious doctrines to suit their murderous intentions.

Meanwhile, a rebel faction of halflings, known as the Heirs of Freedom, forsake the entire religion and are trying to return the halfling race to the way they lived before the Ruin. Obviously the SSS hates these upstarts and is trying to quash the rebellion without even publicly acknowledging that the Heirs exist. The Heirs of Freedom have no real organization, and any meetings of them are run straw vote-style. Most of their meetings occur aboard Bala, with its enormous population. All members of the Heirs of Freedom are recognized by an intricate tattoo somewhere inconspicuous on their body.

The warforged feats look good, although Fire Within references the older name of the other feat as a prerequisite.

I'm working on the five different tribes of the orcaguin right now, and will post it a little later. Along with an actual name for these guys. :smallsmile:

EDIT: Age of the Katang again unfortunately doesn't reference the rise of the new lands, which is what the setting is all about. The katang were built after the Ruin. I really like the idea of Age of X, though. Any other ideas what this new age could be called?

Owrtho
2009-06-14, 07:46 PM
Actualy, I could see the idea of gremlins working fairly well, but I'd think that rather than being a type of robot that malfunctioned in mass, it would be the general term used for any creatures, robots, constructs, etc. that had begun trying to damage Mata (could even include some fire elementals that decided to go rouge).

As for the name, maybe something like Age of the Return, or Age of Returning.

Owrtho

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 07:46 PM
I think that it would be much simpler just to make gremlin the catch-all term for any sort of rogue construct existing within a katang. Be it a berserk golem, a defective dedicated wright, or a pissed off warforged saboteur, they're all gremlins. Aside from that, I think that Mata contracting the kobolds to taken on the gremlins makes perfect sense. After all, if we look at Mata as a corporate setting, EVERYTHING in the city needs to have a purpose. The gnomes, dwarves, and kabouter already have their purpose. So do the warforged and all of the other constructs. So, to keep giving the kobolds what is basically a free lease, she contracted them, gained their worship, and is at this point pretty much a demigod of artifice, constructs, industry, and protection.

I think that this setting necessitates the optional rules of the class defense bonus and armor as DR. It just makes more sense, since almost everyone is going to be largely or completely unarmored anyway.

How are the halfling councils chosen? Are they appointed or elected? Do they inherit the position from ancestors? How large are their temple-rafts? What's the normal population size for one of their communities?

EDIT: Ninja'd

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 07:50 PM
Age of Dry Ground

Age of the Arisen

Age of Landfall

The Landfall Age

Wavecrest

The Peaks (of X?)

Return of the Lost

Age of the Lost

kopout
2009-06-14, 07:52 PM
I can defiantly see gremlin as a catch-all term for internal things that start to damage their home katang. Shall I add it to the list?

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 07:57 PM
Heck, in the floating city Colenchor there are even rumors of a secret settlement on the land to the north!

Now, whose city is this city in the sea in the middle of the only land in the world? Is it a human settlement?

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 07:59 PM
I think that this setting necessitates the optional rules of the class defense bonus and armor as DR. It just makes more sense, since almost everyone is going to be largely or completely unarmored anyway.

Here's links:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm

Kellus
2009-06-14, 08:29 PM
On Class Defence Bonuses and Armor as DR

Interesting idea. There are certainly advantages and disadvantages to it.

Advantages– Helps with people not normally wearing armour in a seafaring campaign.

Disadvantages– Everybody already knows the rules for regular AC, no support material for the new system, invalidates a large amount of existing material in support books.

Conclusion: I don't think it's a good idea, just because I think we want this campaign setting to be as accessible as possible. Bear in mind that a lot of the campaign will be taking place on dry land, whether inside of a katang or on the newly discovered land that's risen out of the deep.

HOWEVER, since there will indeed be melee characters, I can easily see a feat that lets a character forsake eternally the ability to wear in armor in exchange for getting a class-based defence bonus depending on the proficiencies they would have gotten. That way, the setting allows a lot of preexisting characters to move right over, doesn't invalidate a huge amount of support for armors, but still allows someone to play a viable armorless swashbuckler-type character if they want to.

Although if it comes to that, bear in mind that there are already classes centered around using very little armor, such as monks, rogues, rangers, scouts, ninjas, swashbucklers, wizards, sorcerers, and so on. So I'm really not sure how neccessary this rule really is. After all, if someone wants to play an armorless warrior, they can just play one of those classes.

Thoughts?

EDIT: About Gremlins

I'm liking this idea more and more. Definitely a neat idea to have rogue elements, "defective pieces", so to speak, in the living city. I can totally see a gnome cursing some unseen gremlin when a machine in the city fails to start.

EDIT the SECOND: I actually really like Age of Landfall. Sounds exotic and conveys that it's a new age in the history of the world as people slowly start to recolonize the lands that were lost. How 'bout the rest of you?

EDIT the THIRD: See my comments below about class-based defence. I changed my mind, although my points above are still valid.

kopout
2009-06-14, 08:52 PM
We have established that gods are created shaped and sustained by belief (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodsNeedPrayerBadly) and the kobolds worshiped the dragons but not all of them do any more (just the dragon ship ones and the ones hiding in purist city [I forget the name]) so perhaps some of the dragons power came from kobold worship? And if so, with their supply running low (less than a few thousand dragon worshipers left)they have begun to revert to large lizards with high int and a breath attack, the line between them and wyvrens is becoming blurred. No more unlimited life span, fewer spells per day, things like that. The worst of them are now just hyped up dinosaurs, having lost the spells, the wings and most of the intelligence. Just a thought..

Kellus
2009-06-14, 09:32 PM
The New Order of Orcs

Kappas

Kappas are orcs that have embraced their new aquatic forms, becoming in the sea what they once were on land. Skilled hunters and raiders using trident and net and harpoon, they prey on the less wary and take what they want.

Mechanically– Basic orc stats with a swim speed, underwater breathing and attack bonus with selected underwater weapons. They can’t breathe normal air, and need to hold their breath when they go above water. Favoured class would be barbarian.

Norks

These are orcs that hold to the old ways and bide their time; they still think of themselves as land-based creatures, simply waiting until the time is right to strike and take back what is theirs. The name is a bastardization of the phrase ‘new orc’, which is what this tribe originally called themselves. Other orcs, who didn’t take them seriously, starting using the name in jest until it eventually over the centuries devolved into, simply, ‘nork’. Today it’s even what they call themselves. Norks are especially important to the orc race, because they can stay above the water as much as they want. They make ideal emissaries to the surface world, and there is a large delegation on the strider of Bala. Norks keep the old totems, and many are talented at the old orc art of binding.

Mechanically– Basic orc stats with a swim speed and amphibiousness. Favoured class would be binder.

Lizarks

These orcs refused to go into the oceans, and forced themselves to remain on land after the transformation. Their new physiology required a great deal of moisture, so floating swamps became some of their favourite hunting grounds. Over the centuries they’ve evolved into a scaled land-based version similar to lizardmen. They originally had a great conflict with the toku over the small amount of swampland available. Over the years, however, this evolved into a partnership as they cooperated for mutual survival in the floating peat moss tracts. Lizarks are mostly exiles from the majority of the orc race, since they’ve forsaken their kin in favour of a strange existence on the surface. Nevertheless, they still have contact with norks that visit their villages now and then. Lizarks have given up many of the old ways, including the old rituals, since they don't have any suijin to perform most of the spiritual rites.

Mechanically– Basic orc stats with breath holding, scales for natural armour, and a swim speed. Favoured class would be ranger.

Suijin

The order of orc spellcasters that transformed the race in the first place. Although they don’t know the blood magic of old, they do still keep the old faiths and worship magical totems. Suijin are revered as wise men among the orcs, being able to interact with a whole other realm, the spirit realm.

Mechanically– Basic orc stats with some kind of mystical twist. Same water breathing ability as the kappas. Favoured class is spirit shaman.

Tharks

Orcs that live to defend the orc communities from their hated enemies, the imocaris. After the Ruin, the imocaris awoke and began to devour all they could find. Ironically enough, since the orcs had fled underwater, they became the most important line of defence against the imocaris for the surface world. Tharks specialize in hunting this enemy, and have strengthened their minds against the psychic powers of the imocaris. Some have even developed a crude version of psychic abilities with which to fight back against the predators.

Mechanically– Basic orc stats with no penalties to mental scores, but with lower physical abilities than normal. The same water breathing as kappas, a natural power point reserve, and a racial bonus to Will saves. Favoured class would be psychic warrior.

Government

Norks are the natural leaders of the new order of orcs. A typical underwater tribe comprises plenty of kappas and norks, as well as some tharks to defend their lands against imocaris. A few suijin live in each tribe, and often act as spiritual guides for the rest of the orcs. This includes overseeing the ritual Kapako Walk, which is the dream quest all orc adolescents must go through before they join the ranks of the adults of the tribe. Lizarks, of couse, stay away from their kin for the most part.

Each tribe has a single leader nork, known as the Gachak of the tribe. Any nork can challenge the Gachak for leadership of the tribe in a ritual underwater fight to the death. In times of trouble, all Gachaks come together in a neutral territory for Gachakspeak, in which they plan what is best for the race as a whole. In such a case, an invitation is made to the lizarks as well, to send a representative to speak for the swamp-dwellers. The fact that lizarks can't breathe underwater usually is the cause of much laughter among the Gachaks.

-=-=-

After thinking about it, class-based defence might be for the best after all. Especially since the use of the system doesn't automatically preclude someone wearing armour if they want to. So never mind my earlier objections, I add a vote that we use this sytem (as well as the armour as DR system, which works nicely with it by giving a reason to use armour anyway). Gooooo Unearthed Arcana! :smallsmile:

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 09:48 PM
I must admit that Age of Landfall was my favourite of the ones I suggested too.

I like the idea that the dragons are weakening. It could explain why they took out that katang. They were liberating and empowering a population that reveres them in the hopes that doing so would secure a stable worship base. I don't think that they should be losing power in statistically noticeable amounts, though. Rather, I think that they should just be able to feel the slow weakening deep in their bones, and are now acting to stop it. Remember, they also took a large population of kobold worshippers to tether, so there isn't too much to worry about yet.

This, though, also gives them a vested interest in the land. After all, the main thing limiting their worshippers' population is the lack of space and resources. If they could secure one or more of the islands and guard it, imagine how quickly the kobold populations could explode there.

I like the orcs. I would tweak their culture slightly to make them just a little bit more shamanistic and animist, but I otherwise love what you've done with them, Kellus. Bravo.

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 09:53 PM
Oh, and instead of making Kappas take nonlethal damage for being above the surface, I would just require them to hold their breath. They would be able to hold is above the surface for the same amount of time that the lizarks can under the water. I think that the amount of time that they can do so should be akin to that of the lizardfolk or the seakin of Races of Destiny.

Vadin
2009-06-14, 10:16 PM
I don't have time for a full post/examination here, but what about this as the setting name:

Landfall!

I've always liked how optimistic an exclamation mark makes things sound (Which really brings out how hopeful the characters the PCs are playing shoul be), and 'Age of' is pretty common.


The direction the kobolds and dragons and warforged are going: I'm a fan.

Gnome/dwarf cultures on the different katangs: also great.

Goblins: no need for 'em here.

Lizarks: what if they allied with the tuko after the other orcs stopped associating with them? They could even be more civil than other orks, acting as 'protectors' and Big Brothers of a sort for the physically weaker tuko.

Other orks: A bit more shamanism is needed, but otherwise don't change a thing.

I mean it.

Don't.

:smallbiggrin:

Once I get to my home computer sometime tomorrow evening, I'm going to start doing the races so far in 4e terms so we can hit multiple editions (as Hourglass of Zihaja is doing).

OH. Or, setting name: Peaks of Ramua
or Rise of Ramua

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 10:31 PM
So far Peaks of Ramua, Landfall, and Age of Landfall are my favourite names.

I like the idea of the lizarks being big brother figures to the tuko. It also makes sense, considering how the orcs are supposed to revere and protect those natural grounds. Furthermore, the peat moss only rarely would support the weight of the full-grown lizarks, meaning there's no real competition for space. In fact, it could be safe to leave lizark children with the tukos until they come of age and swim along side the floating swamps. It's another of those symbiotic relationships that we keep seeing in this world.

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 10:45 PM
I would like to work on the briefly mentioned Colenchor, though. I'm wondering what race, which factions, and all of that would have established it. Is it a collection of grounded ships, trapped in a shallow sea after the tides finally receded? Or a collection of rafts with a small city built across them? Is it a gnomish tower with cannons and docks, or an artificial island build by sorcerers? What do you guys thing?

Kellus
2009-06-14, 11:26 PM
Right. More shamanism. I'll update it a little and make suijin a more important part of the culture instead of just recluses. I'll also change the kappa's above-water capacity as you mentioned, jagadaishio. Finally, I like the idea of symbiosis with the tuko better than open competition for the lizarks, so that'll go, too.

As far as the name goes, "Landfall!" sounds good to me, too.

I love the whole deal with the desperate dragons trying to save some of their worshippers in order to survive. It gives them a reason to take out the katang, and gives them some character.

Colenchor could be a whole bunch of things. Bear in mind that apart from Tether, we don't have anybody yet that's managed to escape the Ruin through flight. Maybe Colenchor could be a literal "floating city" in that it actually hovers across the ocean? Completely man-made. I like the idea of human sorcerers building this place. Maybe when things looked bad, the most talented in the innate arcane ways gathered together in order to ensure that their bloodlines could be kept pure in the dark times to come. So today it's a city that floats across the seas through arcane spells wrought a thousand years ago, and its full of inbred sorcerers with incredibly potent magic that's been refined for a millenium. What do you think? Really, I'm open to other ideas. :smalltongue:

As far as mechanics go, we're getting to the point where we really should start statting some of this stuff up. Do you guys think we should just post the stats here, or do you want to use this thread as a sort of hub that can link out to other threads based on particular topics, such as one all about halflings that can delve into their stats, culture, and the like? I'm just asking, since there's getting to be a lot of material, and jumping around on topics on one thread is going to get pretty confusing; especially to someone trying to read the information for the first time.

jagadaishio
2009-06-14, 11:34 PM
If kopout is willing, I would like him to create specialized threads for each of the different cultures for stat-development and refinement, all indexed together in his first few posts. I like the idea you have of Colenchor being an inbred flying city of sorcerers. We're really not looking to favorably on human arcanists in this setting; a slowly dying college of wizards and an inbred isolationist city of human sorcerers. I'm loving it.

But as they're referenced in the beginning, the city is currently stationary, with one of the islands being to the north of it. That doesn't really fit for a mobile, flying city. What do you think?

Kellus
2009-06-14, 11:47 PM
Ah, I didn't think of that. Tell you what; why don't you develop one of your earlier ideas for Colenchor, and I'll work on some seperate stuff for this human sorcerer city.

And yeah, human arcanists sort of got the short end of the stick. Although when you consider what happened to some of the other people, it doesn't seem quite so bad. Human peasant that was living peacefully in Emperor Elimanishan's realm? Good luck.

And yeah, if kopout could make some new threads that would be good. I'm thinking one for–

• Dwarves, Gnomes, Kabouter, Warforged and Katang (big topic)
• Elves and their Houses (which all need to be named and described, at least the existing ones)
• Halflings (which, incidentally, need a lot of work)
• Humans
• Orcs, Svartalfar and Imocaris (svartalfar being the elf/orc crossbreeds that live in the ruins of Suriya)
• Evadize, Naraldi, and her Children (this would be for the whole mythology of the Ruin and the Reclamation)
• Tether
• Deities (of all races, all pantheons)
• Tuko and Lizarks
• Geography (for actually putting these people and places on the map)

And then miscellaneous stuff can be posted here.

Or of course somebody else can make the threads, and just have links to them in the top post here. Whatever works.

-=-

Orcs have been changed slightly as mentioned earlier.

jagadaishio
2009-06-15, 12:17 AM
I'm thinking Colenchor would be a small, loosely knit settlement of pirates and explorers made of ships that have been grounded on the sandbars of the shallow sea in the center of the islands. The people of the world are unused to having to account for shallow water, which is what led to accidents of this scale. The first ship was a grand galleon called the Colenchor, a merchant vessel captured and converted by pirates. They sailed into the sea to scope out the islands and look for potential plunder opportunities. Unfortunately, the water was much to shallow for a ship of its size and it quickly ground fast on a sandbar.

Since then, dozens of other vessels have met the same fate; some have even crashed into other vessels, unable to steer fast enough in the thick early morning fogs that tend to sweep down across the waters from the isles. Wooden walkways have been built between the ships, with a small dock even leading from the closest ones to the shore. Colenchor is currently not officially ruled over by any body, making it an ideal location for pirates and outlaws of all types. It also draws adventurers, as it's the final stop before venturing into the wilds of the islands.

Colenchor is like a mix between Stormreach and Tortuga with just a splash of Swiss Family Robinson thrown in. There's pirates, con men, prostitutes, hardened explorers, naive adventurers, professional brawlers, mercenaries, and other such people prevalent here. It's as culturally open as Bala, and even more boistrous and happy, if less nice.

You guys like that concept?

jagadaishio
2009-06-15, 12:28 AM
Pictures for Colenchor:
Typical Inhabitants of Colenchor:

http://fc08.deviantart.com/fs29/i/2008/048/6/a/Pirates_by_Werdandi.jpg

The Landside Portion of Colenchor:

http://fc09.deviantart.com/fs24/f/2008/017/a/9/Pirates_Cove_by_Miggs69.jpg

Kellus
2009-06-15, 12:47 AM
I like that a lot! Great work. We really needed an influx of pirates in this setting.

What races make it up for the most part? What kind of government, if any, does it have? Nice pictures, too. :smallsmile:

I'm also working on a bit of stuff for the svartalfar, which are the half elf, half orcs that live in the ruins of Suriya. Should be up shortly.

Vadin
2009-06-15, 12:55 AM
I like that idea for Colenchor, yes. It's the place your real adventure starts, and it's where you get a more specific quest beyond 'search Ramua!', it's where a man asks you to find his lost daughter, the explorer they call the the Blue Fox. She's a month overdue and no one has heard anything from her or her crew.

Also, I'm not a fan of typing on laptops and we found a kitten while walking around at 1 in the morning.

As for human sorcerer city floating above the sky, also good, but only if they can't fly above cloud level. If they could, they could have found Tether/Tether could have more easily found them.

jagadaishio
2009-06-15, 12:59 AM
Mostly humans, elven 'nobles,' and half-elves life there long-term, though there is also a sizeable population of air-breathing orcs. There are few other races there, especially that don't just move on again after a day. There is no official government. It's anarchy with the understanding that if you piss someone off, you may well get a knife in the back or a sword in the gut. It's a ruthless, cut-throat place.

Side note: the ships are so barnacle and seaweed-covered that, even if the ocean levels rose again, these ships wouldn't. They're standing features now.

This city currently has more murders, thefts, and wealth per-capita than most other settlements in the world. It's a place where you can get rich quick only to be stabbed in a mugging the next.

Vadin
2009-06-15, 01:24 AM
Again on a laptop and unable to make a full post, but could we get a rundown of how every group so far feels about the lower oceans: pro, con, or uncaring, and why that group feels the way they do about the receding tides?

Owrtho
2009-06-15, 01:41 AM
Well, just to flesh out things some, I present the grove eel.

Grove Eels:
While most sea creatures avoided the ocean groves, early on while the magic was still strong in them a few creatures sought shelter in them and soon adapted to living safely within the dangerous roots. Among the more notable of these is the grove eel.

They average at around three to four feet long and 4 inches thick with flattened tails. Not particularly dangerous on their own, they feed on the remains of creature caught in the roots of the ocean grove. They do however have three notable features.

First are their front fins. These have adapted into claw like legs. This allows them to climb out of the water onto the upper roots of the grove which they often do to rest (they have lungs, but can't exert themselves much above water). They also can use these fins to grab onto things with a somewhat powerful grip.

Second is their strength. In the water a grove eel can pull things much larger than themselves with relative ease. They use this to pull nearby creatures into the roots of the ocean grove they live in that they may feed on it later and promote the growth of the grove. They have even been known to pull a person for miles without rest.

Third, and most valuable, is a slime like coating they produce. This coating while rather slick, is known for preventing the roots of ocean groves from reacting to things covered in it (it can also be used if one needs to extract a captured limb). For this reason it is somewhat prized for allowing one to safely retrieve things from ocean groves. However, it happens to disperse rather quickly in the water, a coating only lasting a few minutes. In doing so it clouds the water making it more difficult to see. This allows the grove eels to safely survive in the roots and also make it more difficult for creatures under the water to see them. They also have been known to use the slime to coat the upper roots making them slippery causing people to slip into the water while trying to traverse the ocean grove if not careful.

For these reasons however the grove eels have become popular among some pirates. They are often raised as pets, trained to retrieve valuables from ocean groves, and help their master get back to the ship if they fall in the water. The slime is also often collected to be either used or sold.

Some pirates however have taken up the method of using ocean groves to raid other ships. These pirates, which have come to be called such things as grove pirates or grove raiders, usually train a group of grove eels to move a grove for them. They make there base upon the grove and use fog or the cover of night to sneak up on ships and cause them to run aground on them. They then attack the ship while having trained grove eels catch fallen loot or victims to take to the roots where valuables can be retrieved from later.

Owrtho

Limos
2009-06-15, 02:10 AM
EDIT: Oops, you said the lower oceans, not the oceans themselves. Nevermind.

I would think Orcs, Humans and the like would be happy to have dry land again. Orcs mostly because it would mean more nature spirits for their shamanistic religion. The Kobolds are probably hoping to set up lairs where they can be reunited with their dragon overlords at long last and escape the Dwarf/Gnome cities.

Really I can't see why many people would be against having dry land again.

Kellus
2009-06-15, 02:56 AM
Reactions to the New Lands

Humans
Elimanishon's Desert Waste– Largely indifferent, since they've gone their own way. New lands might be a good source of new resources to claim.
Falath, the Scattered Kingdom– Hopeful about the new lands, that they will be a place where they can finally rebuild what they lost. The heir is considering coming out of hiding in order to claim his old throne.
The Glorious College of Sonomanilon– Doesn't really care. They only care about the accumulation of arcane knowledge and passing it along to new students. They are in the process of debating the virtues of moving back onto dry land so as to be more accessible.
The Order of What Was– Sees the new lands as the start of a new age in the history of the world. They plan on sending monks into the reclaimed lands to record what happens.
The Fist of Justice– Considers the new lands to be an ideal place to consolidate power and dominion over all races.
Caina's Teeth– The followers of Caina plan to use the resources of the new lands to breed her great beasts, such as the dinosaurs, back into existence again.
Gont– Gont lives like it always has, in its groves, with its rafts. They welcome newcomers but have no plans for conquest.
Colenchor– Colenchor holds all sorts of adventurers and rogues with an eye for plunder. The new lands offer a million different ways to get rich.
Halflings
The Seaborn Supremacy Society– Sees the lowering tides as a sign that the time is ripe to begin their massive culling. They plan to claim the territories for themselves, without any lesser races polluting its fertile soils first.
Heirs of Freedom– Hope to establish a base of power on the new lands from which to fight the SSS more openly without fear of retribution.
Dwarves and Gnomes
Kuko– Rigid and controlled by the dwarves for the most part, the rulers of Kuko want to plunder the new lands for the vast riches in minerals in holds. They want to enter the mines of their ancestors, and claim once more their place as masters of the earth.
Bala– The rulers of Bata realize that with everybody interested in the new lands, that's where they'll have to migrate to in order to maintain their position as trading hub of the world. Luckily, their city can move.
Mata– Mata itself is curious in a strange sort of way about the dry lands. It wishes to see them for itself. Meanwhile, the tinkers and engineers inside hope to glean some new understanding of the natural world from what they can discover, not to mention the ancient lore of the gnomes that might have been preserved.
Kaboutin– Whichever strider they hail from, the appearance of the new lands offers a chance to all kabouter of finally finding a place to call home.
Kobolds
Free Kobolds– The free kobolds on their dragon ship plan to establish themselves on the old lands and finally start increasing their population above the tiny number they've been able to sustain the last few centuries. This includes the kobolds on Bala.
Hiding Kobolds– The kobolds on Kuko and Mata hope to stowaway to the new lands inside of their striders, and there finally execute their rebellion and overthrow their cruel overlords.
Elves
Haltija– Being now mostly a flotilla, the elves of haltija fully intend to establish a permanent settlement in the new lands, far from the squabbles of the noble elves.
The Great Houses– Eager for some legitimacy to apply to their names, the great houses want to hold their ancient estates so as to maintain control of the lesser houses.
The Lesser Houses– The lesser houses for the most part view the new lands with eager eyes, hopeful that it may signal at last a change in their fortunes. Hopefully with the resources that have been uncovered, they'll be able to win back some glory from the greater houses.
Dokkalfar– Being elf bastards that are usually exiled from the houses because of their birth status, most dokkalfar have no real sense of community. That being said, they see the new lands as an opportunity for a new life and somewhere where they might be able to win some respect. The most ambitious plan to found their own house and join the Alfheim's elven dominion.
Svartalfar– The svartalfar really couldn't care less about the land. They're happy in the ocean. They just want to make sure the elves don't succeed in escaping their clutches before they can wipe out the whole lot of them.
Orcs
Kappas– Kappas are largely oblivious to the new lands. Like the svartalfar, their life is in the oceans now, and they find there everything they need to survive.
Norks– The norks view the lands as an opportunity to finally gain some leverage on the surface again. They've been waiting for this for a thousand years, and intend to find a way to claim back what's theirs by right.
Suijin– The suijin are of one mind with the norks on this. They're currently considering their lore to see if there's any way that might be feasible to reverse the spell that transformed them. Surely any such endeavour would require a massive amount of bloodshed, though...
Lizarks (+Tuko)– The lizarks are very happy about the return of the new lands, since it means more swamplands at last for them and the tuko to spread to.
Tharks– The tharks fight the imocaris wherever they go. Now that some of the imocaris are venturing onto dry land, the tharks will surely follow.
Imocaris
Integrated Imocaris– The imocaris that have managed to integrate into life above the waves are of one mind with most of the explorers. They want to see what lies in these forgotten lands, and maybe make something honourable of themselves.
Killer Imocaris– The imocaris that remain in the depths see this as a chance to devour more life than ever before. With so many people making their way to the new lands, surely this is a banquet that the Elder Gods have laid out for the chosen people to enjoy.
Naraldi's Children– Unconcerned with petty squabbles over territory, Naraldi's Children are more worried about the twisted life that covers the new lands. They inted to fight the manifestation of Evadize wherever he lurks and send Him back to the realm of gods.
Warforged– Those warforged that have managed to pay off their debts to the gnomes intend to explore this strange new dimension in order to determine whether it might be a suitable place to bring their people from the Abyss.

(Phew! Did I miss anyone?)

Kellus
2009-06-15, 03:13 AM
The Svartalfar

The svartalfar are the hideous crossbreeds of the elven slaves that were salvaged from the ruins of Suriya and the orc warriors that held their chains. Although the elves for the most part have died away, the svartalfar exist as their legacy. Fully amphibious, these creatures were for almost a hundred years held in servitude by the orcs. Finally, in the year 708 AR, a great hero of the svartalfar known in song as Drevelneth (which means "chainbreaker" in Elven) led the half-breeds in a revolt against their masters. Almost a thousand svartalfar survived the rebellion, and eventually returned to the only legacy they had: the twisted remains of Suriya that lay at the bottom of the ocean, a testament to the ego of the elves.

Although a few svartalfar attempted to make contact with the surface world, they were reviled by the elven nobles as impure, and rejected from normal society. Even humans and nomadic halflings saw in them the taint of the orcs, and the orcs' crimes in the time of the Ruin were still too fresh in the memory of man. Shunned by all, they retreated beneath the waves where they could plan and plot their second, greatest rebellion, against all the elves. The svartalfar are the most well-trained nation in the world. Every man, woman and child is taught how to fight and bear arms, and in particular how to kill elves. They have no allies, but their leaders say that they need none. They wait, and they breed, and they kill.

At least a few times every year, word reaches the elven nobles of another ship brought down by their mutant kin. Yet there's nothing they can do about it, with the svartalfar safe beneath the water. The svartalfar wish the elves to know what has happened and always leave their insignia, an eel devouring its own tail, engraved on the wreckage of their latest strike.

The svartalfar are led unquestioningly by a single dictator, the Elvelneth, (meaning elf-breaker) at a time. When she dies, a new leader is chosen by having every eligible female (the female svartalfar being larger and generally more fierce than the male) that vies for the title to compete in a massive blood-soaked underwater tourney that spans several days. At the end, only one remains to claim the title. Even though massive numbers of females die in each of these tourneys, the gender ratios remain fairly constant. Since female svartalfar are prized far beyond males, most male children are fed to eels (being the svartalfar's totem) to ensure a strong generation to come.

jagadaishio
2009-06-15, 01:00 PM
Reactions to the New Lands

Humans
Elimanishon's Desert Waste– Largely indifferent, since they've gone their own way. New lands might be a good source of new resources to claim.
Falath, the Scattered Kingdom– Hopeful about the new lands, that they will be a place where they can finally rebuild what they lost. The heir is considering coming out of hiding in order to claim his old throne.
The Glorious College of Sonomanilon– Doesn't really care. They only care about the accumulation of arcane knowledge and passing it along to new students. They are in the process of debating the virtues of moving back onto dry land so as to be more accessible.
The Order of What Was– Sees the new lands as the start of a new age in the history of the world. They plan on sending monks into the reclaimed lands to record what happens.
The Fist of Justice– Considers the new lands to be an ideal place to consolidate power and dominion over all races.
Caina's Teeth– The followers of Caina plan to use the resources of the new lands to breed her great beasts, such as the dinosaurs, back into existence again.
Gont– Gont lives like it always has, in its groves, with its rafts. They welcome newcomers but have no plans for conquest.
Colenchor– Colenchor holds all sorts of adventurers and rogues with an eye for plunder. The new lands offer a million different ways to get rich.
Halflings
The Seaborn Supremacy Society– Sees the lowering tides as a sign that the time is ripe to begin their massive culling. They plan to claim the territories for themselves, without any lesser races polluting its fertile soils first.
Heirs of Freedom– Hope to establish a base of power on the new lands from which to fight the SSS more openly without fear of retribution.
Dwarves and Gnomes
Kuko– Rigid and controlled by the dwarves for the most part, the rulers of Kuko want to plunder the new lands for the vast riches in minerals in holds. They want to enter the mines of their ancestors, and claim once more their place as masters of the earth.
Bala– The rulers of Bata realize that with everybody interested in the new lands, that's where they'll have to migrate to in order to maintain their position as trading hub of the world. Luckily, their city can move.
Mata– Mata itself is curious in a strange sort of way about the dry lands. It wishes to see them for itself. Meanwhile, the tinkers and engineers inside hope to glean some new understanding of the natural world from what they can discover, not to mention the ancient lore of the gnomes that might have been preserved.
Kaboutin– Whichever strider they hail from, the appearance of the new lands offers a chance to all kabouter of finally finding a place to call home.
Kobolds
Free Kobolds– The free kobolds on their dragon ship plan to establish themselves on the old lands and finally start increasing their population above the tiny number they've been able to sustain the last few centuries. This includes the kobolds on Bala.
Hiding Kobolds– The kobolds on Kuko and Mata hope to stowaway to the new lands inside of their striders, and there finally execute their rebellion and overthrow their cruel overlords.
Elves
Haltija– Being now mostly a flotilla, the elves of haltija fully intend to establish a permanent settlement in the new lands, far from the squabbles of the noble elves.
The Great Houses– Eager for some legitimacy to apply to their names, the great houses want to hold their ancient estates so as to maintain control of the lesser houses.
The Lesser Houses– The lesser houses for the most part view the new lands with eager eyes, hopeful that it may signal at last a change in their fortunes. Hopefully with the resources that have been uncovered, they'll be able to win back some glory from the greater houses.
Dokkalfar– Being elf bastards that are usually exiled from the houses because of their birth status, most dokkalfar have no real sense of community. That being said, they see the new lands as an opportunity for a new life and somewhere where they might be able to win some respect. The most ambitious plan to found their own house and join the Alfheim's elven dominion.
Svartalfar– The svartalfar really couldn't care less about the land. They're happy in the ocean. They just want to make sure the elves don't succeed in escaping their clutches before they can wipe out the whole lot of them.
Orcs
Kappas– Kappas are largely oblivious to the new lands. Like the svartalfar, their life is in the oceans now, and they find there everything they need to survive.
Norks– The norks view the lands as an opportunity to finally gain some leverage on the surface again. They've been waiting for this for a thousand years, and intend to find a way to claim back what's theirs by right.
Suijin– The suijin are of one mind with the norks on this. They're currently considering their lore to see if there's any way that might be feasible to reverse the spell that transformed them. Surely any such endeavour would require a massive amount of bloodshed, though...
Lizarks (+Tuko)– The lizarks are very happy about the return of the new lands, since it means more swamplands at last for them and the tuko to spread to.
Tharks– The tharks fight the imocaris wherever they go. Now that some of the imocaris are venturing onto dry land, the tharks will surely follow.
Imocaris
Integrated Imocaris– The imocaris that have managed to integrate into life above the waves are of one mind with most of the explorers. They want to see what lies in these forgotten lands, and maybe make something honourable of themselves.
Killer Imocaris– The imocaris that remain in the depths see this as a chance to devour more life than ever before. With so many people making their way to the new lands, surely this is a banquet that the Elder Gods have laid out for the chosen people to enjoy.
Naraldi's Children– Unconcerned with petty squabbles over territory, Naraldi's Children are more worried about the twisted life that covers the new lands. They inted to fight the manifestation of Evadize wherever he lurks and send Him back to the realm of gods.
Warforged– Those warforged that have managed to pay off their debts to the gnomes intend to explore this strange new dimension in order to determine whether it might be a suitable place to bring their people from the Abyss.

(Phew! Did I miss anyone?)

I agree entirely with your analysis of the humans, halflings, dwarves, and gnomes. I also agree that the kobolds on Kuko would be out for blood. However, the kobolds on Mata have grown to worship her as a god. I can't imagine them rising up like the ones on Kuko definitely will. As for the elves, I imagine only the noble houses would want back on land. It would (at least in their minds) give them back the power and holdings they once possesed, allowing them to leave their life of piracy and return to a life of grace. Remember, the noble houses are largely hated by forsaken and bastard elves, as well as all of the people that are preyed upon by their piracy.

In general, I can't imagine that many orcs would want to return. Explore, sure. Some norks may want to settle. But by and large, I really cannot imagine any of them wanting to leave the water they have grown so accustomed to. After all, they only left the land when there was no land left to be on. I can't imagine that they would leave the water now unless it looked like the world was about to become a desert world.

As for the devourer imocaris, there's far more life in the sea than on land. I doubt that they would see the land as a grand opportunity so much as a potential one. They are most likely sending scouts to see if the life is particularly easier prey. If it's not, they will probably remain plundering the plenty of the seas until nothing is left.

I definitely agree with the rest, though. The slimies will want to purge the land, and the warforged, all of whom were explorers at heart to begin with, will largely want to explore this grand new place.

Something I just thought of is that it's perpetual night on the bottom of the sea. It's the perfect environs for any sort of light-sensitive undead to live. I could imagine vampires wandering the sea bed only to swim to the surface during the night and drain entire ships in their sleep before sinking back to the bottom. Though not necessarily the most common danger of sea travel, every now and then you will come across a ship full of bodies drifting aimlessly in the sea...

Owrtho
2009-06-15, 01:10 PM
I'd be inclined to note that Gont doesn't live in the groves, they just keep one nearby for lumber purposes. Other than that looks good, though I'm bothered by calling the one type of orcs Kappas. I can't help but think of the Japanese water spirits (which these don't seem to resembal at all outside of living in the water).

Owrtho

kopout
2009-06-15, 04:00 PM
I agree entirely with your analysis of the humans, halflings, dwarves, and gnomes. I also agree that the kobolds on Kuko would be out for blood. However, the kobolds on Mata have grown to worship her as a god. I can't imagine them rising up like the ones on Kuko definitely will.

I see the Mata kobolds as treating their past as standard setting kobolds the way we treat the king Arther legend. Both because they have forgotten most of it and because one thousand years of oral history has made their account about as truthful. The kobolds on Kuko view it much as we see ancient rome or classical Greece, a wonderful golden age of prosperity. Nether is right of course, but their beliefs will affect their actions.

The dragon wrought kobolds on tether, I can see them as a sort of live stock to the dragons, not as in raised for food livestock but raised for worship. Every kobold from the day it is able to comprehend the concept is taught to worship the dragons with every fiber of its being. They are discouraged from doing anything else, the giant kin grow their food and the dragons will protect them from attacks, all they have to do, all they are allowed to do is worship the dragons. The questioning and adventurous individuals are "removed" due to their subversive nature.

for setting name I wish to vote for Landbound because I like puns

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
2009-06-15, 05:08 PM
I think more dev needs to go into the condition of the land, and into Evadize's new creations. What form do they take? Do they include the fey or not?

jagadaishio
2009-06-15, 05:45 PM
I think that the things on the land would be dinosaurs, plant monsters, forest fey, predatory birds, and things like that. I also picture some kind of primordial jungle as being the environment there. Palm trees, giant ferns, ginkgo, and various kinds of thickly growing, gnarled, rooty trees. There would be flowering vines with poisonous barbs, thick undergrowth that grows so quickly that it occasionally wraps around people's feet as they walk.

I imagine there would also be colourful birds, insects, and amphibians all around. Many would be poisonous, and as many others would have medical uses. Imagine formerly cold dwarven ruins now covered in a tangle of colourful flowers.

That's how I see the land now.

Vadin
2009-06-15, 06:21 PM
Evadize's Dangerous Things:

Plant monsters.

These are the stuff of nightmare that haunted the Old World. Malboro Kings (yes, from Final Fantasy) had a bad habit of destroying towns with armies of various other living plants. Entire forests occasionally spawned armies of treants to wipe out fortified cities.

Evadize has brought them back with a vengeance.

The fey.

See above in terms of nightmare-value in the Old World. They really did occasionally steal children to have them raised among the fey as the next generation of druids. They also started fires and did other "harmless mischief".

Animals.

Coordinated strikes from animals that work very well together but should be natural enemies can make things very, very difficult for an adventurer. This is a new development for Evadize. When he was a sane god (and not an insane demigod), he never did things like this.

Also, many templated animal like things of the feywild/shadowfell/elemental varieties.

Druids.

They are of various races and are crazy. Insane and ruthless. Out to get anyone who would establish normal society.


As for the terrain, I'm going to say you're almost spot-on there. Other natural environments besides the jungle are there, but they're all super-natural. Not magical, just very, VERY dangerously natural. Jungles, forests, a desert, a tundra, a swamp...one can find all of them, Evadize has demanded it so as to restore all of his beasts. He WILL have every biome exist! He WILL!

kopout
2009-06-15, 08:56 PM
It is done. The thread has been given diferant threads for each main topic, you should still post here though for new things that don't go in the other threads.

Also I'm still waiting for confirmation on my dragon wrought kobolds=faith cattle idea.

jagadaishio
2009-06-15, 10:13 PM
It is done. The thread has been given diferant threads for each main topic, you should still post here though for new things that don't go in the other threads.

Also I'm still waiting for confirmation on my dragon wrought kobolds=faith cattle idea.

You have my agreement. The few dragon-wroughts that are adventurers are the exiled ones.

jagadaishio
2009-06-15, 10:43 PM
I think that Colenchor would be spread out along the shores and shallows highlighted in red:

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/1865/basemapp.th.jpg (http://img504.imageshack.us/i/basemapp.jpg/)

Vadin
2009-06-16, 12:31 AM
You have my agreement. The few dragon-wroughts that are adventurers are the exiled ones.

Yes, the dragons do depend somewhat on the worship of the kobolds for their powers and existence, but not entirely. The faith gives them that extra edge that moves them from "dangerous monster" to "foe that can outsmart you at a moment's notice".

Of course, the dragons that no one remembered anymore did slowly sort of fade away.

Didn't they all get some plague? Or did they die in a raid? Or...goodness, I can't seem to remember where those unworshiped dragons went off to. Oh, well not like it matters, right?



The crafty greens are much more conscious of it than the reds and blacks. There are a few red and black cults on Tether, but the greens have at least three times as many followers and just as many dragons.

Also, there are perhaps only about 100 dragons in total. They have low birthrates already and they have a tendency to be killed in early adulthood by pesky adventurers dangerous prey.

Wealth collection also plays into a dragon's personal power. Their perceived value (perceived by themselves and others) can bring them strength or take it away.

The reds and blacks prefer to be seen as simply deadly, but the greens...they've all got quite respectable hordes, and you'd never see them doing something shameful and 'cheap' like stealing from another dragon's hoard- that's what kobolds are for, right?

Limos
2009-06-16, 12:37 AM
Are we going with full dragon worship or do the Kobolds worship Tiamat? I must have missed this part because I suggested Tiamat in the Gods and Religion thread.

She would be greatly reduced by the drastic reduction in followers, but her main population of worshippers would be on Tether or the Dragon ship.

Vadin
2009-06-16, 12:45 AM
I think we're going to leave Tiamat and other standard D&D gods out of this one for the most part. New gods are just so much cooler, you know?

Vadin
2009-06-16, 03:56 PM
I hate to doublepost, but Kellus- could you expound a little more on the imocaris?

Owrtho
2009-06-16, 04:18 PM
That would be nice. And don't make them humanoid (or monstrous humanoid) please.

Owrtho

Limos
2009-06-16, 04:25 PM
From the use of the "Elder Gods" in his description I would assume that they are Abberations on par with Illithids, though possibly not as spindly and intellectual.

Owrtho
2009-06-16, 04:32 PM
Illithids count as humanoid by my standards. They clearly follow the humanoid form even if they have some tentacles growing out of their face and some superior intellect. Also worship of elder gods doesn't make one an aberration (though that would be the preferred type in this case). Just ready Lovecraft, many stories involve human cults that worship elder gods.

Owrtho

Vadin
2009-06-16, 05:04 PM
Lizarks
Description of lizarks.
Ability Scores: +2 Strength, +2 Wisdom
Size: Medium
Speed: 6 squares, 3 swim
Vision: Low-light Vision
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Languages: Common
Skill Bonuses: +2 Intimidate, +2 Perception
Swift Charge: You gain a +2 bonus to speed when charging.
Hold Breath: You can hold your breath for up to ten minutes before requiring saving throws.
Swamp Walker: You ignore difficult terrain in swamp or marsh areas.

Resilient Scales
Lizark Racial Power
Your tough scales can slide off even the toughest of blows.
Encounter
Immediate Interrupt
Personal
Effect: When an attack with a range of melee weapon hits you, force an enemy to roll the attack again at a -2 penalty. The enemy uses the second roll, even if it’s lower.
Special: Increase the penalty to -4 at level 10, and -6 at level 20.

jagadaishio
2009-06-16, 05:07 PM
Great initiative, Vadin! And these days it is a good idea to stat things in both 4e and 3.X. Are you planning on dropping that over in the Swamp Things thread?

Vadin
2009-06-16, 05:18 PM
Great initiative, Vadin! And these days it is a good idea to stat things in both 4e and 3.X. Are you planning on dropping that over in the Swamp Things thread?

Yeah, sure. (I didn't even know we had a Swamp Things thread)

Vadin
2009-06-16, 05:37 PM
Suijin
Description of suijin.
Ability Scores: +2 Strength, +2 Intelligence
Size: Medium
Speed: 6 squares, 4 swim
Vision: Darkvision
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Languages: Common
Skill Bonuses: +2 Intimidate, +2 Arcana
Swift Charge: You gain a +2 bonus to speed when charging.
Amphibious: You can breathe equally well above and below water.
Bonus feat: You gain a bonus feat at 1st level. You must meet the feat’s prerequisites.
Supernatural Blood: You gain one Level 1 at-will from a class with the Arcane or Primal power source.

Limos
2009-06-16, 05:39 PM
Illithids count as humanoid by my standards. They clearly follow the humanoid form even if they have some tentacles growing out of their face and some superior intellect. Also worship of elder gods doesn't make one an aberration (though that would be the preferred type in this case). Just ready Lovecraft, many stories involve human cults that worship elder gods.

Owrtho

They don't just worship the Elder Gods, they do it while in the deep ocean and being omnicidal. That definately screams Eldritch abomination to me.

jagadaishio
2009-06-16, 05:44 PM
Elves (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6296633)
Katang (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=114991)
Deep Dwellers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=114997)
Humans (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6304416)
Halflings (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6304600)
Geography and Misc (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6299416)
Swamp Things (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=115033)
Gods and Legends (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6304529)
Tether (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=115030)
The Ruin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=115028)

You know. For future reference.

Owrtho
2009-06-16, 06:11 PM
I went to do that befor, then I noticed that they're already in the 2nd or 3rd post of the thread. Still good to have them here where everyone is talking about things.

Owrtho

erikun
2009-06-16, 09:42 PM
Random thoughts upon reading through (parts) of the thread.

Large-sized Shambling Mounts with an engulf ability when they hit with a slam attack.

"Clumps" of Assassin Vines, which crawl around like oozes in search for victims.

Treants which have become petrified with age, and who's abilities now affect stone along with trees.

Illithids, which have mutated into into something resembling a cross between a Grell (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm2_gallery/88268_620_65.jpg) and an octopus, equally capable in water or on land. (Although they can swim better than crawl.) In the interest of combining as many cool monsters as possible, probably giving them the abilities of an Intellect Devourer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/monsters/intellectDevourer.htm), specifically Body Thief.

Illithid Elder Brain Pools obvious wouldn't work this way, so combine them with a kraken. Seeing as Elder Brain Pools probably wouldn't eat normal food, so they'd more likely feed directly on emotions - namely fear. As such, the Brian Pool Krakens would likely swim around, terrorizing civilizations through disasters or mind-dominated slaves in order to "eat".

Bah, that's enough for now.

Owrtho
2009-06-18, 02:08 AM
So, any thoughts on the Imocaris? We have the least info on them currently it seems. Also just how do they look? We know they crab monsters (most likely aberrations), but that isn't much to go on.

Owrtho

Vadin
2009-06-19, 03:18 PM
Bump!

@Kellus: Any thoughts on the above? They were your idea, and you seemed to have a pretty cool concept going with them. Would you care to flesh out the only race that was underwater before the Rise?

jagadaishio
2009-06-19, 04:27 PM
Here's something that I've been thinking about for a while now. Do the merfolk exist in this setting? If they do, are the minor or uncommon? What was their culture like before the rise? How has it changed since then? What do you guys think, do the mer deserve a nod, or do you not want to bother with them?

puppyavenger
2009-06-19, 04:35 PM
If the Mer exist, I'd say at this point they're scattered remnants fighting off sea-orcs.

Vadin
2009-06-19, 05:07 PM
Alternatively, they were the first seaborn empire by far. And, unlike other groups, they were and remained an actual empire. They never became a major player in world events, and they never felt the need to amass huge amounts of resources that would make them valuable trading partners (their coral kingdoms need no metals).

Adventurers in the deep, however, find the mermen an invaluable resource, and the orks love to steal artifacts, weapons, and people from the merfolk.

kopout
2009-06-23, 02:36 PM
Bump. And lets all hope that this bumps the other threads as well :smallwink:

Vadin
2009-06-23, 03:06 PM
I find it very interesting how these projects do great until we begin to actually homebrew material. Once numbers start showing up, people get real antsy and find a lot of other things they really have to do.

I think these might actually work a lot better if we don't require ourselves to make a lot of material, if we just come together and say "Let's make a cool setting, and if we come up with some stat's while we're here, that's ok."

Also, a big project that would actually be quite different than past endeavors- a world where the major influencing factor isn't a near-apocalyptic event.

kopout
2009-06-23, 03:41 PM
That would be an interesting idea. Do you have and suggestions? And for this project, I've been thinking about the undead. Can they unlive just fine underwater? If so, are there any grand cites of sentient undead? Just some thoughts.

Vadin
2009-06-23, 03:51 PM
That would be an interesting idea. Do you have and suggestions? And for this project, I've been thinking about the undead. Can they unlive just fine underwater? If so, are there any grand cites of sentient undead? Just some thoughts.

At present, no, but I'm a little busy with Camp Invention this week, so I'm a bit fried. I've got a big movie night coming up Saturday, so I'll have an idea Sunday evening, I'm sure. Because yes, that's how that works. I watch a bunch of pretty ok movies or a few subpar sci-films then try and legitimize the settings and make them much cooler than they were.

Undead- can, in fact, live just fine underwater.

Grand undead cities? No, not too many. Undead coral reefs where tropical fish live among slowly walking undead armies, destined to patrol the sunken kingdoms forever, covered in coral and barnacles and anemones? Yes. I like it.

Again, not too many undead cities. That's not to say none, however. I can expect that there are at least three of them, one on good terms with the arcane academy, and the other two bastions of evil and death led by rival archliches.

kopout
2009-07-08, 02:24 PM
if no one post in this thread or the child threads but 5 tomorrow I will close it and start a new project.

Owrtho
2009-07-08, 04:03 PM
Well, not really posting bout the setting, but thought I'd mention I already started a new one here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117633). Feel free to join in it.

Owrtho

Vadin
2009-07-08, 04:33 PM
@kopout: Owrtho has started one up, so I'll hold off on throwing that other idea out here until his is finished.

jagadaishio
2009-07-09, 03:04 PM
I'm just wondering, but it seems like the setting is now pretty extensively developed. I can't imagine we can do much more before we do something. We need to playtest this setting.

Would anyone be willing to run a game in it?

jagadaishio
2009-07-11, 09:02 PM
Guess not.

AgentPaper
2009-07-11, 10:33 PM
You know what? I'll run a game. I'd love if we could do it over something like skype and gametable, or similar equivalents, but I'll give PbP another shot just for this. (My schedule is more regular now, anyways, so it should work better)

If we did it with gametable, I'd host it once a week or so, like a normal game would be, but apparently this format doesn't work for a lot of people, for whatever reason. Anyways, I'll post in the recruitment forum a bit later.

Vadin
2009-07-11, 10:53 PM
Would this be 3.5 or 4e?

AgentPaper
2009-07-11, 11:31 PM
I've taken a liking to 4E, but if everyone wants to use 3.5 I'm just as willing to use that as well. I have sourcebooks for both, at any rate.

Vadin
2009-07-11, 11:34 PM
I'd prefer a 4e game, personally, and I've got Gametable all up and ready! :smallbiggrin:

AgentPaper
2009-07-11, 11:47 PM
Nifty. I was starting to think I was the only one who has ever heard of gametable. Anyways, I've started a thread for this in the recruitment forum, so head on over (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6483209#post6483209).