Trying to expand on a world-seed, looking for any serious help

[Tempest Kitsune]

This is what I've got so far. Any serious suggestions are welcomed.

The city of Pluthook Point is a city nested on the edge. The edge of the Roiling Sea. The edge of the vast, unbroken Screaming Jungle, and the Edge of the rolling Fire Plains (so named for their frequent brushfires during the dry season). The city's main stock in trade is antiquities scrounged by hardy groups of adventurers from the jungles, or dug from buried ruins that litter the plains, and then bought up by the various trade guilds to be sold on the Western contient in the major cities.

However, something is... wrong, recently. Elementals of all types have been sighted by adventurer parties, and dragonflights of all colors and shades have been seen winging overhead, not so much as glancing at the city as they pass. Adventureres have encountered malformed, twisted creatures that seemed maddened by their own existence, Elements that should never have been joined merged grotesquely. There have been whispers of a burgeoning army led by a madman whose very grasp can bring you into his fold, while deep in the jungle some adventureres speak of a gentle, tree-like creature who holds sway over a court of intelligent undead.

The sailors that brave the Roiling Sea have brought their own tales to the taverns that line the wharves. Beasts that they have no name for, rising and doing battle with the local monstosities, or ships of brass that throw up obscuring clouds of choking hot fog in their wakes, and boats of stone piloted by dwarves of no known clan.

No gestalt campaign, homebrew classes allowed but must be vetted. No Races of the Wild, no Psionics.

[Amnestic]

You called your city 'Plothook Point'? Really? :p

[Zdrak]

The city's main stock in trade is antiquities scrounged by hardy groups of adventurers from the jungles, or dug from buried ruins that litter the plains, and then bought up by the various trade guilds to be sold on the Western contient in the major cities.Seems like such economy won't last for long, just like in the real world Gold Rushes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_rush) usually lasted a few years max. Only so many graves to loot in a given area.

I would picture this place as a rowdy frontier shantytown of tents and makeshift wooden buildings, a town where cash flows quickly, where everyone know that "tomorrow, the treasure might run out, but by God, today, we will PARTY!"

[Tempest Kitsune]

You called your city 'Plothook Point'? Really? :p

Well, why not? :biggrin:


Seems like such economy won't last for long, just like in the real world Gold Rushes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_rush) usually lasted a few years max. Only so many graves to loot in a given area.

I would picture this place as a rowdy frontier shantytown of tents and makeshift wooden buildings, a town where cash flows quickly, where everyone know that "tomorrow, the treasure might run out, but by God, today, we will PARTY!"

Hmm, you make a good point. Though there are other sources of income (rare plants, furs and spices from both the plains and the jungle, as well as the bounty of the sea), but I didn't really emphasize them, did I? *makes note* Thanks for pointing that out!

[Exirtadorri]

Deep in the jungle, in an old ruin the gate has been opened. This gate holds tge place where souls of monsters go when they die...bringing them through the gate is the broodmother. She can take any sort of life and hyper evolve it to her whim in just a few moments. She knows all as she created things that dont have patron gods. She is here because the new tomb raiding is disturbing her babies whobhave been sleeping and should have stayed that way.


(Sorry for typos.. using my phone to post)

[Tempest Kitsune]

Deep in the jungle, in an old ruin the gate has been opened. This gate holds tge place where souls of monsters go when they die...bringing them through the gate is the broodmother. She can take any sort of life and hyper evolve it to her whim in just a few moments. She knows all as she created things that dont have patron gods. She is here because the new tomb raiding is disturbing her babies whobhave been sleeping and should have stayed that way.


(Sorry for typos.. using my phone to post)

I'll put that one in the "maybe" pile.

[TroubleBrewing]

I think the Fire Plains are an interesting opportunity for a twist on the traditional. Any city located on these frequently burning lands would be underground, away from the heat. Make the Dwarves of this world live underground, in massive complexes dug beneath the plains.

'But.. But Dwarves live in the mountains!'

Not yours.

[BowStreetRunner]

The city of Pluthook Point is a city nested on the edge. The edge of the Roiling Sea. The edge of the vast, unbroken Screaming Jungle, and the Edge of the rolling Fire Plains (so named for their frequent brushfires during the dry season).

This is a nice start, but you are limiting yourself to 2 dimensions here. How about on the edge of a vast underground network of caverns. You could link this into the underplains dwarven lands TroubleBrewing suggested. Or on the edge of a vast range of floating islands in the sky, like in Dragon Hunters. You can go up or down, or even put this on the edge of the realm of faerie or something - touching another plane.


The city's main stock in trade is antiquities scrounged by hardy groups of adventurers from the jungles, or dug from buried ruins that litter the plains, and then bought up by the various trade guilds to be sold on the Western contient in the major cities.

This reminds me of the trade in relics from the 'holy land' during the middle ages. Besides the flow of relics out of the Levant, there was also a steady stream of pilgrims heading towards the area as well. This economic phenomenon saw the creation of some of the most powerful branches of the western church in history - the holy orders of knights that were created to guard it all. The Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller were both such orders.

Places similar to the Temple of Solomon (Templars) and the isle of Malta (Hospitallers) could fit well in this setting.

[Acanous]

Hm.
This area seems heavilly dependant on outside trade. I once played in a sandbox campaign where we ended up seafaring merchants who'd stop over at places like this.


Ok, so here's an idea:
The city is serviced by all manner of merchants, but given it's rowdy, adventurous draw, many of the ships that desire to make a profit deal with magcal items. (They are small and easy to transport, taking up little hold space, but are worth a good deal more than any other commodity, excluding [maybe] gemstones.)

There are different guilds which compete somewhat for trade. The Sailor's guild, the Merchant's guild and the Privateer's guild (Read: Pirate's Guild).
Guild ships sail as fleets, usually no fewer than three ships at a time. Security is heavy, scrutiny is high, and applicants to wok on a guild ship are screened, scryed, and put to work for years before earning any standing in the guild.
Adventurers seeking to plunder a guild ship earn the emnity of that guild, and possibly the others (depending on if it was a guild job or not. They may not like eachother, but NONE of them want a rogue factor)

The Sailors, of course, have the best navigators, fight well on the deck or below, and mostly crew small cutters. Before the "Boom", these people were the primary traders and fishermen, supplying the colony before it became a city.

The Merchant's guild were outsiders, brought by the lure of money. They hire adventurers as bodyguards, and crew their ships with well-paid experts. Their ships are much bigger, but pondorous. To protect from Pirates, they are equipped with heavy cannon.
Most of the time, the merchants will pay a "Fee" to the local privateers guild in order to avoid harassment. It's cheaper over time than replacing a ship and it's entire cargo every once in a while, and it saves on repairs, to boot.

The Privateer's guild started up shortly after a rise in piracy had the Governor call for outside aid. It's mostly a front, allowing the Pirates to look legitimate. They will take "Normal" jobs to pass the time, and are actually very proficient, but they will also drop those jobs if something more lucrative comes up. Trade is mostly done in stolen or black market items, with "Regular" trade done at a significant hike to embellish the front that they're regular businessmen. They also call themselves the "League of Free Merchants" depending on who you're talking to.

The thing is, all three guilds are rather corrupt. The Merchant's guild has occasionally sold the odd nonmagical item to an adventuring party they did not like, with a Magic Aura and other illusions to make it look magical. The Sailor's Guild engages in cutthroat practices with anyone non-affiliated, bordering on piracy. The Privateer's guild ARE Pirates. All three do not like eachother, but so long as there's enough gold to go around, better the devil you know than the demon you don't.

[Tempest Kitsune]

This is a nice start, but you are limiting yourself to 2 dimensions here. How about on the edge of a vast underground network of caverns. You could link this into the underplains dwarven lands TroubleBrewing suggested. Or on the edge of a vast range of floating islands in the sky, like in Dragon Hunters. You can go up or down, or even put this on the edge of the realm of faerie or something - touching another plane.



This reminds me of the trade in relics from the 'holy land' during the middle ages. Besides the flow of relics out of the Levant, there was also a steady stream of pilgrims heading towards the area as well. This economic phenomenon saw the creation of some of the most powerful branches of the western church in history - the holy orders of knights that were created to guard it all. The Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller were both such orders.

Places similar to the Temple of Solomon (Templars) and the isle of Malta (Hospitallers) could fit well in this setting.

*Is scribbling furiously*


Hm.
This area seems heavilly dependant on outside trade. I once played in a sandbox campaign where we ended up seafaring merchants who'd stop over at places like this.


Ok, so here's an idea:
The city is serviced by all manner of merchants, but given it's rowdy, adventurous draw, many of the ships that desire to make a profit deal with magcal items. (They are small and easy to transport, taking up little hold space, but are worth a good deal more than any other commodity, excluding [maybe] gemstones.)

There are different guilds which compete somewhat for trade. The Sailor's guild, the Merchant's guild and the Privateer's guild (Read: Pirate's Guild).
Guild ships sail as fleets, usually no fewer than three ships at a time. Security is heavy, scrutiny is high, and applicants to wok on a guild ship are screened, scryed, and put to work for years before earning any standing in the guild.
Adventurers seeking to plunder a guild ship earn the emnity of that guild, and possibly the others (depending on if it was a guild job or not. They may not like eachother, but NONE of them want a rogue factor)

The Sailors, of course, have the best navigators, fight well on the deck or below, and mostly crew small cutters. Before the "Boom", these people were the primary traders and fishermen, supplying the colony before it became a city.

The Merchant's guild were outsiders, brought by the lure of money. They hire adventurers as bodyguards, and crew their ships with well-paid experts. Their ships are much bigger, but pondorous. To protect from Pirates, they are equipped with heavy cannon.
Most of the time, the merchants will pay a "Fee" to the local privateers guild in order to avoid harassment. It's cheaper over time than replacing a ship and it's entire cargo every once in a while, and it saves on repairs, to boot.

The Privateer's guild started up shortly after a rise in piracy had the Governor call for outside aid. It's mostly a front, allowing the Pirates to look legitimate. They will take "Normal" jobs to pass the time, and are actually very proficient, but they will also drop those jobs if something more lucrative comes up. Trade is mostly done in stolen or black market items, with "Regular" trade done at a significant hike to embellish the front that they're regular businessmen. They also call themselves the "League of Free Merchants" depending on who you're talking to.

The thing is, all three guilds are rather corrupt. The Merchant's guild has occasionally sold the odd nonmagical item to an adventuring party they did not like, with a Magic Aura and other illusions to make it look magical. The Sailor's Guild engages in cutthroat practices with anyone non-affiliated, bordering on piracy. The Privateer's guild ARE Pirates. All three do not like eachother, but so long as there's enough gold to go around, better the devil you know than the demon you don't.

Definitely stealing this one, thanks!

[Silverbit]

With so many magic items, I'm betting a lot of wizards, artificers and sundry other magic-users are going to come to this area to study the old magic stuff first hand, instead of paying to transport it. I would expect some factions to develop, probably a group focused on careful study, so ites can be replicated, and a group that is merely out to get as many items as possible and sail away (magic pirates, anyone :smallsmile:). Also, magic users (especially sorcerers, dragon shamans (correct spelling?) and dragonfire adepts) would want to study the dragon migration. Oh, and the ruins could be temples... which would lead to some pretty angry gods.

[Xervous]

@ silverbit
thanks for the bit about angry gods and temples, it sparked the following...

(none too original, but its popular because, well, its good)

The temples are to gods, but they were not constructed specifically to please the gods. Rather, it was a desperate plea on part of the ancient civilization that the gods intervene and shut out whatever evil/hostile things that are coming through / invading / etc.

Interspersed within the hordes of gold relics are artifacts that are key to the protection of the area, whether directly through inherent power, or by currying the gods' favor to suppress whatever malefic powers are attempting to invade. Removal of these artifacts not only weakens whatever divine protection is in place, it also curses the thief (like Pirates of the Caribbean gold, except whatever curse you fancy) and perhaps anyone else who accepts it from the current possessor of the curse, and on top of that, if its stolen from the cursed person, the thief might not incur the curse (if you recognize the phrase "ONE MORE THING", you might know where the last thought is coming from)

As for the evil thing, any of the traditional things may apply...
- portal to some awful, evil place. 9 hells, abyss, far realm, whatever fits
- great evil sealed within... ooooOOOOOoooOOO
- powerful object sealed within. Removal of the godly artifacts unleashes its power, makes it detectable, so naturally everything bad that notices this power is being drawn towards it

done for now... X out

[Tempest Kitsune]

After some talking with one of my groups, I've come up with a bit more detail for three of the races of this setting (though mainly just two with a minor note about the third)

In this setting there are two types of drow. "civilized" drow, who are active traders and contemporaries of the dwarves, sharing space in vast cavern networks beneath the Burning Plains, and "wild" drow, tribes that practice various acts of sociopathy and evil upon each other and anyone unwary enough to be caught in their traps. They vie with some of the wilder orc tribes within the Screaming Jungle.

There are no Drow Nobility though. At least, none known to the civilized drow, who have adopted the Dwarven system of a meritocracy.

(Which means that if someone wants to play a good Drow, they don't get to be a special snowflake.)

[Fable Wright]

Here's an idea for you:

The thing sealed in the ruins, that powered the ancient civilization's magic item forges, that was reawakened and began to create the abominations that roam the wilderness? It's not an ancient evil, locked up by the civilization. No, it's their creator god, imprisoned by the civilization he brought to greatness.

Let me explain. Back in the height of the civilization's power, the civilization rode on the backs of their God to greatness. Through his clerics, they solved the issues of food and water, and moved to a post scarcity society. Eventually, the society moved to the point where their God wasn't doing enough for them. Clerics were not as faithful as they were before, and achieved a lower level. The demands of society kept on growing, though, out of control. The clerics decided that there was only one answer: To force their God to work for them directly, and not through them. They laid a trap, and eventually entombed the God into their most sacred pyramid, and installed a focus through which they could wield the God's power. As a result, massive power was installed in the hands of the ruling priests, and people could no longer recieve power from their God from his prison. The result was the destruction of their civilization.

Not all were destroyed, though. A group of Ur-Priests, dedicated to the imprisoned God, ascended to Lichdom so that they could work to eventually free their God. They were joined by other long-lived beings that remembered the generous God that allowed society to thrive, such as an Treant that joined their ranks and now leads their meetings.

You may be wondering what exactly this creator God did, exactly. It's simple. He created life. He wove together elementals to form the first living beings, and then guided evolution and created some of the odd lifeforms on the planet, like the Owlbear. He was Chaotic Good- he had people's best interests in mind, and wanted to do good in the world, and was unconstrained by rules. Now, as the relics that feed off his power are removed, and through the machinations of the Court, he's beginning to reawaken and reassert his power over the world- clumsily at first, creating the abominations that the players see. Of course, who knows what happened to the God during his imprisonment? Is he still the Chaotic Good deity that guided a civilization to the most advanced the world's ever seen? Or has he been corrupted by hatred?

[White_Drake]

Something to consider, you may want to not include, or lighten up on, any curses, seeing as people are much less likely to buy something if the fine print says that they have to suffer for eternity.

[Invader]

There could be an extremely prosperous adventuring outfit that takes would be heroes into the jungle looking for fame and fortune.

This sounds like it could be a settlement in Xen'Drik from Eberron. Maybe you could look in those corresponding books for more ideas?

[Serpentine]

You called your city 'Plothook Point'? Really? :pWhy not? I called a major NPC Lord Jerome Sutchensuch :smalltongue:
Seems like such economy won't last for long, just like in the real world Gold Rushes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_rush) usually lasted a few years max. Only so many graves to loot in a given area.

I would picture this place as a rowdy frontier shantytown of tents and makeshift wooden buildings, a town where cash flows quickly, where everyone know that "tomorrow, the treasure might run out, but by God, today, we will PARTY!"I propose the opposite of this: the relic-based economy does have long-term viability. There's just that much stuff out there to find. It might in reality be something like real-world fossil fuels: technically a finite resource, but there's so bloody much of it that we can't imagine running out and we trade in it as though it never will. So, although some "fields" get depleted, there's always new places to look, new depths to dig, with no sign of running out in the foreseeable future - all the artifacts*, relics, magic and mundane items really do form the foundation of the city's economy, and on a reliable basis, through sheer quantity.
Of course, that raises all sorts of other interesting questions: why is there so much to find? What was there? What was that society like? Did they have knowledge lost to the modern world, or were they fairly primitive, or is it a mix of the two? And maybe most intriguing of all, what happened to it? Do these strange goings-on have something to do with the mysteries of that ancient civilisation, or are they a purely modern phenomenon? Whichever one it is, are there people who know, or think they know, what's going on? That is, even if all this stuff is completely unrelated to the end of the civilisation, could the suspicion that it is related be causing strange cults and sects to spring up - and could these be causing even more problems?


*not in the D&D terminology sense, in the archaeological sense (although possible also in the D&D terminology sense)

[White_Drake]

If there is a great deal of things out there, it would suggest dwarf to me, just becuse dwarves build things to last. The more a race works in softer materials, the less archaeologists find. Although, with magic, this reasoning tends to go out the window. I would envision an ancient dwarven guild of runesmiths, churning out magic items for the war against (insert aforementioned elder evil here).

[BowStreetRunner]

Of course, that raises all sorts of other interesting questions: why is there so much to find?

Which reminds me of one additional fact about the Levant during the major relic-trading period...there were plenty of counterfeiters taking advantage of the trade as well. You should definitely have some unscrupulous types around who create fake artifacts and relics to sell to the unwary. Any low-level 'rubes' who show up with cash for these items should be treated to some cheap knockoff with Magic Aura (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicAura.htm) cast on it and an illusionist present at the time of sale creating the appearance of neat magical powers. Of course, when they try to activate these powers in battle for the first time...