Rahim Khan, The Desert Juncture

[Pictogram]

Hello all! I've started Dming a group here recently and decided to try out a world I've been thinking about awhile on them. Rules set:pathfinder. IThe world is Rahim Khan and it's a shifting desert planar juncture, endless possibilities, endless turmoil. Also defined by the constant struggle for food/water basic resources ( all create water/ purify food and drink any nourishment spells are banned) I need some feedback on my setting, comments in general I guess, here is some starting info (more to come)

Rahim Khan is a world that's a shifting planar juncture, a crossroads between other existences, often blurring its space and time with other existences. This manifests in the shifting sands of the great Rahim Khan waste; a terrible and unforgiving landscape, scorched by the sun and mostly bare of accessible water and food. The inexperienced and unprepared parish, while the strong struggle to keep fighting.

Rahim Khans dunes shift randomly, a vast dune one hour will be gone in the next. This makes the traveling of the desert to be very hazardous and disorienting. If unaccounted for, the sandstorms will not only rip you to bits, but also lose you for days. The shifting of the sands is both a geological and planar happening, because at times, when the dunes shift pockets, windows if you will, open to other planes. This can manifest as something that existed here thousands of years ago, a temple rising from the past to taunt with its ancient secrets or a door to another realm entirely. These occurrences while both dangerous and curious have been the people of this realms means of survival, making an economy out of the scavenging of other worlds.

The races of the waste ( See Inhabitants of Rahim Khan) have largely become an nomadic culture, having to travel because of the chaos of the sands. Only a few areas remain stable and consistent for whatever mysterious reason. These areas have been coveted and fought over ages past by multiple factions/races/cultures, often shifting hands as often as the desert shifts.
One of the main influence and somewhat ambiguous connection to the planar disruptions is the presence of 5 powerful groups attached to 5 gemstones that seem to hold some strange influence over the plane itself. These groups, or families, have a primordial tie to the plane itself. These groups hold sway over many ancient powers in the land, almost essential laws and tools that preside over the vast waste that is Rahim Kahn. The families are:

Ruby- a militant group largely mixed of Humans and Saurians(see Inhabitants), this family holds a strong iron fist over the other four in account it's large and powerful army and house guard. This family holds strength and discipline in esteem, while frowning upon compassion seeing it as weakness. This family's main host operates out of Diya mudina, otherwise known as bloodstone city in account that it's based out of a partial sunken monolithic temple, made out of a crimson stone(This is one of the few stable areas). The ruby clan largly sells protection, takes tariffs, and kills those that oppose them. They have an uneasy partnership and economy with the other houses, as the lord over them, however they are still reliant on them for several detrimental services. Family members dress in reds, expensively either in royal clothes or ornate armor.

Sapphire- The Sapphire House is an odd duck amongst the other families; whereas they don't provide a physical services or militant power, they provide a divination ability that is unparalleled and vital to the scavenger of the wastes. This all female house can predict when and where the sands will spit out portals, they can tell how long its going to be there, and what possibly might be gained from the venture. They are also adept in long distance communication and remote sensing. This is the only house that the inhabitants aren't born into, the women of the Sapphire House are tested and trialed into the life they live. These women hold court at Heavens Tower.

Pearl-Favoring wits and intellect above all other, the Pearl House is a house of innovators and thinkers. This crafty house is one of the only contributors actually making products in Rahim Khan. This ingenious house observes, deconstructs, and then applies the planar items and things they are exposed to into making new things for their world. They take simple things from another world and make something new and functional for theirs. The Pearl House is mostly comprised of Entobians. The members of the house strive to make a lasting economy based on a steady stream of products. This house is credited for inventing the sand skiffs, protection suits, sleep safe nests, planar anchors, and much more. The Entobians have largely based themselves out of what they call the Catacombs. A labyrinth of tunnels and underground chambers, the Catacombs stretches far underground hiding away their marvelous inventions.

Emerald- The Emerald House is the most diverse and wide spread of the families. Comprised of almost every race, the other houses undermine them by calling them mutts and lowborn. The Emerald House capitalizes off common trade, passing the other families with their superior networking and information gathering abilities. The Emerald House also has monopoly and surplus off game, grain, and produce. Their means of acquiring such things still remains a mystery to the other houses. The Emerald House is based out of the Pyramid Gardens, a lush filled pyramid covered with plant life.

Topaz- The Topaz House initiates and upholds what the desert stands for: change. House Topaz is comprised of holy men, naturalists, and others that hold the waste in either high or near religious esteem. The Topaz House is also known as the "dowsers" and have an almost supernatural sense for finding water. While they provide an essential commodity for the denizens of Rahim Khan, the Topaz House often finds themselves at odds with the other families and general populace. The Topaz House believes that that shifting sands is a phenomena that needs to be revered, documented, and understood- not scavenged. While different sects of this family observes and enforces these beliefs to different extremes, one can always know they'll be somewhat hostile to "scavengers" This house is mostly comprised of the elementals.

[Creed]

Few questions. I know responses to world building can get a bit long winded, so I'll bold the main questions and leave the text underneath each to explain.


So, if you had your way, what would this setting allow you to do in your game?

By that, I mean, if you were writing a book, not DMing a game of Pathfinder, how would you chart out how the main characters navigate this area? Is it an intense political drama between the various feuding houses? Or is this story more about what happens when a plane that is cosmologically unstable but politically land-locked is exposed to the machinations of a handful of psychotic murder-hobos (also known as those little bundles of joy we call "Player Characters")? Or is this area going to a backdrop, a hub area for the characters to launch raids into various planes of existence?

While this part of fleshing the setting out is helpful, don't expect the players to go down the tracks you've laid out. In fact, expect them not too, and keep in mind what your fall-backs are if the players want to twist the setting a way you didn't anticipate.


Is this a world for the whole game, or a place inside the world?

A bit of an elaboration on question one. This is, as stated, a place that is very, very hard to actually live in for any period of time if you aren't better connected than the cowboy half of a buddy-cop movie or the Planar Heavyweight Champion of the Universe. That said, are your players starting, at Level One, in Rahim Khan? Or is this a place you expect them to get relatively soon? I draw that you've started playing, but you haven't really elaborated on where Rahim Khan sits as a locale in your game, whether it's their home or someplace they're currently visiting. How long do you expect them to stay in Rahim Khan, and what kind of adventures do you expect to take place there?

If it's someplace they've gone, expect them to want to go home. Because home is probably nicer than the planet Arrakis on crack, and probably has a better political situation than five tribes all controlling all of one resources each.

Once again, kind of a run-on from question one, but worth giving it's own little blurb just so we can get our ducks in a row.


What's your party looking like?

Pretty self explanatory. But I'm not just talking about party composition.

RPG players are, contrary to the portraits we paint in pop culture, a pretty diverse bunch of people. I spent last Fall running a game of AD&D for Art Majors at a buddy's college, and let me tell you, they loved it to death, but they focused on very different elements of my game than my usual players did. As the show-runner of your RPG sessions you have to learn what your players are interested in finding out, and adjust your game so that those questions are easier to answer. Knowing what your group is like, as a whole, will help us fill in those gaps in the setting.

A great man once said "Play-testing is watching someone play your game, seeing what they had fun with, and adding more of that, which reduces the amount of things they didn't enjoy." As DMs, we have the unique opportunity as creators to "play-test" a game on the fly, making subtle adjustments to our games since, after all, the only published product is a bunch of pieces of graph paper lying on a coffee table.



I like the concept as a high idea, but, as someone who's really interested in the nitty-gritty details of a setting, this seems rather broad, and I'd love to see the depths to which you've thought this world out. :smallbiggrin:

[Mechalich]

In addition to Creed's questions, which I think are excellent. I have one: you imply strongly that the landscape is mutable and old pieces randomly vanish and new pieces are randomly added. Does this happen to people in those places at the time? Or even animals? If it does, that matters, a lot, and if they can't why can't people leave - is there some sort of weird observation-based uncertainty principle that keeps the place stable while you're staring at it?

In some ways this setting sounds similar to trying to run a campaign in one of the Fair Folk courts of the Southern Wyld of Exalted - which means you're probably going to be awfully improvisational to make this work (not a bad thing necessarily).