nrg89
2013-05-23, 02:54 PM
Victimas
This is a work in progress and lots of more cultures, countries and stories will be added, but for now, let's get down to the focus of the setting.
The gods never agreed how the multi verse was to be created so in the end they created ten dragons and gave them the power of creation. They let their creative juices flow and created all kinds of planes, such as the Elemental Planes, the Prime Material Plane among others. The planes are not linked together in a Planescape fashion, but are discrete.
My setting takes place on a continent in the Material Plane. The dragons populated the continents with one race each and this continent, Victimas, is the one that was meant for humans. It is south of the equator, has a geographic look that is close to Antarctica but a climate similar to Australia. A great desert dominates the west, vast mountain ranges and forests dominate the east and to the north is a chain of very large, volcanic islands (of which mostly all are extinct).
All the other races eventually migrated to this continent, but are far less numerous. Because humans reproduce more quickly, this continent is the most populous in the world and the other continents are very far away.
Thousands of years ago, elven wizards reached the island chain to the north (crossing the oceans without magic is not a simple task). They later invaded Victimas and built a large empire on the east coast. They enslaved many humans and halflings (who had left their continent completely before the Elven invasion, with a land bridge the elves later destroyed) and later they brought dwarves to mine the minerals in the mountains. The elves endured many civil wars during their two thousand year reign, but they were never threatened by their slaves.
That is, until the Descension. A lawful good goddess chose the kindest human she could find in the east, Eve, and gave her the power of divine magic, thus matching the power of the elven magic. She was told that these powers were only to be used to prevent violence and enslavement of the innocent and weak. Eve spread the word of salvation among the humans and rallied an army behind her who drove the elves from the mainland back to the islands. The regions the elves had conquered formed the core of a new, theocratic empire, Lex Imperia. It has expanded since, now encompassing most of the east and has the largest military on the continent. It has conquered states deemed evil (and every conquered country really had evil, corrupt governments) and the most of the dwarves joined freely, but some clans live seperately but doesn't bother The Empire or do anything too despicable. Halflings never had any organisation and just adapted to the new human rulers. The Empire also gave the continent it's current name, Victimas, since it's a victim of evil that needs salvation.
The Empire is governed by clerics, and it's military also has paladins in command positions even though it's mostly clerics there as well. Divine magic has, however, been used by other gods to exert it's influence on the world later on so The Empire doesn't have a monopoly on clerics and paladins, merely having the vast majority of them.
The culture of The Empire is duty before all. Help those who are weak and fight those who abuse their strength. The clerics select career paths of people (mostly what the parents had, because it's more practical if their parents act as mentors, but high aptitude for something can shove them in another direction) and also match spouses with each other. There are relatively high taxes, but the family is tax exempt if one ore more of their children is undergoing the mandatory year of military service.
So, it's a military super power where people's destinies are chosen beforehand, but is relatively good. I wanted to create a society that is good but still raises lots of controversy among players.
Which brings me to the other empire. The elves conquered a lot of the east, but the west is mostly deserts and didn't raise any interests. A few city states emerged there throughout history, but none of them really formed a vast empire. Long after Lex Imperia formed however, one civilization called Al-Jabr found something that would change everything: a portal to a plane full of other portals, portals as far as the eye can see. They had found one of the dragons's old “portal hubs”, which they used to travel around the planes whilst they were creating it. This civilization was very learned and loved knowledge and first encountered the genies. The genies have influenced their culture a lot, especially the efreets, and the inter planar trade made Al-Jabr rich beyond imagination. They soon built colonies on the planes they conducted trade with and is now an empire of trading posts. They found out that the hub was built by the dragons fairly quickly and are constantly searching for artifacts and scrolls that once belonged to them. Because of that, they know more about magic than any other civilization, and is therefore on the same power as the more magically talented elves. In fact, most believe the world's most powerful wizard must be in Al-Jabr or one of it's colonies.
Al-Jabr despises Lex Imperias lack of economic and personal freedom and deals with everything, the most controversial being slaves. Everyone, even the slaves, can work hard and buy their freedom or power. Al-Jabr is governed by it's guilds, who formed the Guild Pact just 50 years ago. They try to enforce the law the best they can, but are of course heavily influenced by guild interests since that's where all the funding comes from.
Lex Imperia and Al-Jabr are seperated by a vast desert and the fact that they don't know who would win a war. Lex Imperia has a far larger army but Al-Jabr has far more powerful spells and magic items, not to mention magically attuned creatures as allies. They are not on friendly terms and have so far failed to establish any meaningful diplomatic relations, although both are aware of each other and the influence they both exert. Every king wants to trade with Al-Jabr, but also wants the protection from the Imperial army.
Parts I'm insecure about:
I do like Lex Imperia, even though it's a mix of stuff that's already been done before. I'm more insecure about Al-Jabr, actually, because I don't have that much experience with having a high magic city players can visit. I don't want it to turn into a Kwik-E-Mart for magic items, but I played with this setting a while ago and liked that my players thought twice about hurling away crap because they could potentially trade it up once they reached Al-Jabr (and what they kept led them right into an adventure hook).
So, am I looking for trouble? Has anyone had a place like this in their campaign but kept it from destroying the game and turn it into a Monty Haul? Can you see any ways to add stuff that prevents the game from going wild?
And the extra planar thing. I haven't played Planescape but I think I get the basics; characters can travel wherever they want from Sigil, as long as they find a key, and in some places they can travel among the planes by passing through planar borders. Should I add keys to every portal? Because that doesn't really make any difference since the hub has lots of guards in it making sure you have the right papers for the right portal. And should I take away the fact that the planes are discrete, since this gives those who control hubs way more power?
So, is Al-Jabr broken and needs fixing?
This is a work in progress and lots of more cultures, countries and stories will be added, but for now, let's get down to the focus of the setting.
The gods never agreed how the multi verse was to be created so in the end they created ten dragons and gave them the power of creation. They let their creative juices flow and created all kinds of planes, such as the Elemental Planes, the Prime Material Plane among others. The planes are not linked together in a Planescape fashion, but are discrete.
My setting takes place on a continent in the Material Plane. The dragons populated the continents with one race each and this continent, Victimas, is the one that was meant for humans. It is south of the equator, has a geographic look that is close to Antarctica but a climate similar to Australia. A great desert dominates the west, vast mountain ranges and forests dominate the east and to the north is a chain of very large, volcanic islands (of which mostly all are extinct).
All the other races eventually migrated to this continent, but are far less numerous. Because humans reproduce more quickly, this continent is the most populous in the world and the other continents are very far away.
Thousands of years ago, elven wizards reached the island chain to the north (crossing the oceans without magic is not a simple task). They later invaded Victimas and built a large empire on the east coast. They enslaved many humans and halflings (who had left their continent completely before the Elven invasion, with a land bridge the elves later destroyed) and later they brought dwarves to mine the minerals in the mountains. The elves endured many civil wars during their two thousand year reign, but they were never threatened by their slaves.
That is, until the Descension. A lawful good goddess chose the kindest human she could find in the east, Eve, and gave her the power of divine magic, thus matching the power of the elven magic. She was told that these powers were only to be used to prevent violence and enslavement of the innocent and weak. Eve spread the word of salvation among the humans and rallied an army behind her who drove the elves from the mainland back to the islands. The regions the elves had conquered formed the core of a new, theocratic empire, Lex Imperia. It has expanded since, now encompassing most of the east and has the largest military on the continent. It has conquered states deemed evil (and every conquered country really had evil, corrupt governments) and the most of the dwarves joined freely, but some clans live seperately but doesn't bother The Empire or do anything too despicable. Halflings never had any organisation and just adapted to the new human rulers. The Empire also gave the continent it's current name, Victimas, since it's a victim of evil that needs salvation.
The Empire is governed by clerics, and it's military also has paladins in command positions even though it's mostly clerics there as well. Divine magic has, however, been used by other gods to exert it's influence on the world later on so The Empire doesn't have a monopoly on clerics and paladins, merely having the vast majority of them.
The culture of The Empire is duty before all. Help those who are weak and fight those who abuse their strength. The clerics select career paths of people (mostly what the parents had, because it's more practical if their parents act as mentors, but high aptitude for something can shove them in another direction) and also match spouses with each other. There are relatively high taxes, but the family is tax exempt if one ore more of their children is undergoing the mandatory year of military service.
So, it's a military super power where people's destinies are chosen beforehand, but is relatively good. I wanted to create a society that is good but still raises lots of controversy among players.
Which brings me to the other empire. The elves conquered a lot of the east, but the west is mostly deserts and didn't raise any interests. A few city states emerged there throughout history, but none of them really formed a vast empire. Long after Lex Imperia formed however, one civilization called Al-Jabr found something that would change everything: a portal to a plane full of other portals, portals as far as the eye can see. They had found one of the dragons's old “portal hubs”, which they used to travel around the planes whilst they were creating it. This civilization was very learned and loved knowledge and first encountered the genies. The genies have influenced their culture a lot, especially the efreets, and the inter planar trade made Al-Jabr rich beyond imagination. They soon built colonies on the planes they conducted trade with and is now an empire of trading posts. They found out that the hub was built by the dragons fairly quickly and are constantly searching for artifacts and scrolls that once belonged to them. Because of that, they know more about magic than any other civilization, and is therefore on the same power as the more magically talented elves. In fact, most believe the world's most powerful wizard must be in Al-Jabr or one of it's colonies.
Al-Jabr despises Lex Imperias lack of economic and personal freedom and deals with everything, the most controversial being slaves. Everyone, even the slaves, can work hard and buy their freedom or power. Al-Jabr is governed by it's guilds, who formed the Guild Pact just 50 years ago. They try to enforce the law the best they can, but are of course heavily influenced by guild interests since that's where all the funding comes from.
Lex Imperia and Al-Jabr are seperated by a vast desert and the fact that they don't know who would win a war. Lex Imperia has a far larger army but Al-Jabr has far more powerful spells and magic items, not to mention magically attuned creatures as allies. They are not on friendly terms and have so far failed to establish any meaningful diplomatic relations, although both are aware of each other and the influence they both exert. Every king wants to trade with Al-Jabr, but also wants the protection from the Imperial army.
Parts I'm insecure about:
I do like Lex Imperia, even though it's a mix of stuff that's already been done before. I'm more insecure about Al-Jabr, actually, because I don't have that much experience with having a high magic city players can visit. I don't want it to turn into a Kwik-E-Mart for magic items, but I played with this setting a while ago and liked that my players thought twice about hurling away crap because they could potentially trade it up once they reached Al-Jabr (and what they kept led them right into an adventure hook).
So, am I looking for trouble? Has anyone had a place like this in their campaign but kept it from destroying the game and turn it into a Monty Haul? Can you see any ways to add stuff that prevents the game from going wild?
And the extra planar thing. I haven't played Planescape but I think I get the basics; characters can travel wherever they want from Sigil, as long as they find a key, and in some places they can travel among the planes by passing through planar borders. Should I add keys to every portal? Because that doesn't really make any difference since the hub has lots of guards in it making sure you have the right papers for the right portal. And should I take away the fact that the planes are discrete, since this gives those who control hubs way more power?
So, is Al-Jabr broken and needs fixing?