Zovc
2015-08-03, 03:01 PM
Hey GiantITP!
A good friend of mine is always stuck DMing. We live really close now, and I'm hoping to give him a chance to be a player. Anyways, I've run some ideas by said friend as well as a few others and we all think we're on to something pretty cool.
I really like the aesthetic of Magic: the Gathering's recent batch of cards from the plane of Theros. Here are some cards to give you a taste of the setting, if you're interested.
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ths/13.jpghttp://magiccards.info/scans/en/ths/189.jpghttp://magiccards.info/scans/en/ths/85.jpghttp://magiccards.info/scans/en/bng/71.jpghttp://magiccards.info/scans/en/ths/126.jpghttp://magiccards.info/scans/en/ths/173.jpghttp://magiccards.info/ths/en/182.htmlhttp://magiccards.info/scans/en/ths/69.jpg
Beyond that, Greek mythology is cool. Gods, monsters, crazy stories... and their gear and garb looks really neat!
So, I've been peeking into Greek legends here and there and finding a lot of inspiration. At the same time, I'm not sure how to organize and focus and record my ideas. Still, I like what I have floating around so far, so I wanted to share it and see what you guys think. Suggestions and input specific to my setting or even just general world building are welcome!
Imagine a world shaped as a bowl. This bowl is the charted world, with terrain gently sloping downward from a circular wall of inconceivably dangerous and perilously high mountains. In the center of this circular world is a vast lake. At the bottom, in the center of this body of water is the entrance to the underworld.
The majority of the gods in this world (at least, the ones the surface-dwellers are familiar with) all house themselves where the mountains meet the sky. However, the eldest and most spiteful god lives in the underworld. This is how I explain gravity in my setting. This elder god spitefully pulls at everything, gently but sternly urging everything to return to where it originally came from.
Satyrs and tritons are cool. I want them in! So, Satyrs manage to rough it around the base of the mountains using their powerful legs. Any intelligent creature knows it's foolish to try to fight uphill against the satyrs. Because of this, they're considered to be the vanguard of the gods whether or not they actually make it up the mountains and commune with them. Tritons, on the other hand, are closer than any land-dweller to the mouth of the underworld. They're the world's first line of defense against whatever bad stuff may come out of the bottom of the world and land dwellers are skeptical that bad guys may have at some point infiltrated and/or influenced the tritons.
That's the meat of what I've thought up over the course of a week or two of thinking about this. Here are some things I'm struggling with.
How exactly do the gods interact with the world?
What goes on in the mountains? [a la Mount Olympus]
What goes on in the underworld? [a la Hades/Tartarus]
What sorts of creatures inhabit the world? [humanoid or not]
Beyond that, I'm trying to figure out "who" the gods are. I like the idea of them being quirkier interpretations of what they stand for rather than straightforward ones but that should probably be used with a bit of moderation. I like the idea of a god of war who--instead of being powerful and whatever--is just really clever and skilled.
And furthermore, I think this is something a lot of people struggle with, I'm trying to figure out how to name stuff.
Sorry, this is all over the place because I haven't really organized anything... any thoughts?!
A good friend of mine is always stuck DMing. We live really close now, and I'm hoping to give him a chance to be a player. Anyways, I've run some ideas by said friend as well as a few others and we all think we're on to something pretty cool.
I really like the aesthetic of Magic: the Gathering's recent batch of cards from the plane of Theros. Here are some cards to give you a taste of the setting, if you're interested.
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ths/13.jpghttp://magiccards.info/scans/en/ths/189.jpghttp://magiccards.info/scans/en/ths/85.jpghttp://magiccards.info/scans/en/bng/71.jpghttp://magiccards.info/scans/en/ths/126.jpghttp://magiccards.info/scans/en/ths/173.jpghttp://magiccards.info/ths/en/182.htmlhttp://magiccards.info/scans/en/ths/69.jpg
Beyond that, Greek mythology is cool. Gods, monsters, crazy stories... and their gear and garb looks really neat!
So, I've been peeking into Greek legends here and there and finding a lot of inspiration. At the same time, I'm not sure how to organize and focus and record my ideas. Still, I like what I have floating around so far, so I wanted to share it and see what you guys think. Suggestions and input specific to my setting or even just general world building are welcome!
Imagine a world shaped as a bowl. This bowl is the charted world, with terrain gently sloping downward from a circular wall of inconceivably dangerous and perilously high mountains. In the center of this circular world is a vast lake. At the bottom, in the center of this body of water is the entrance to the underworld.
The majority of the gods in this world (at least, the ones the surface-dwellers are familiar with) all house themselves where the mountains meet the sky. However, the eldest and most spiteful god lives in the underworld. This is how I explain gravity in my setting. This elder god spitefully pulls at everything, gently but sternly urging everything to return to where it originally came from.
Satyrs and tritons are cool. I want them in! So, Satyrs manage to rough it around the base of the mountains using their powerful legs. Any intelligent creature knows it's foolish to try to fight uphill against the satyrs. Because of this, they're considered to be the vanguard of the gods whether or not they actually make it up the mountains and commune with them. Tritons, on the other hand, are closer than any land-dweller to the mouth of the underworld. They're the world's first line of defense against whatever bad stuff may come out of the bottom of the world and land dwellers are skeptical that bad guys may have at some point infiltrated and/or influenced the tritons.
That's the meat of what I've thought up over the course of a week or two of thinking about this. Here are some things I'm struggling with.
How exactly do the gods interact with the world?
What goes on in the mountains? [a la Mount Olympus]
What goes on in the underworld? [a la Hades/Tartarus]
What sorts of creatures inhabit the world? [humanoid or not]
Beyond that, I'm trying to figure out "who" the gods are. I like the idea of them being quirkier interpretations of what they stand for rather than straightforward ones but that should probably be used with a bit of moderation. I like the idea of a god of war who--instead of being powerful and whatever--is just really clever and skilled.
And furthermore, I think this is something a lot of people struggle with, I'm trying to figure out how to name stuff.
Sorry, this is all over the place because I haven't really organized anything... any thoughts?!