The TechnoGnome
2016-05-08, 05:13 AM
So I'm building my own setting, inspired by and loosely following Burlew's New World (http://www.giantitp.com/Gaming.html) guidelines, but I've hit a snag on what kind of geography I want for my world.
To give a (very) brief summary of the history of the setting, basically a bunch of races fled across the ocean on giant ships from the forces of an evil God known only as 'the Nameless One' with the help of their own gods, and arrived in the area to find the ruins of an ancient empire, and several other races attempting to pick up the pieces. They fought for a while, but eventually most people on both sides decided that they both were in kind of a crappy situation, and made peace in order to help rebuild together, eventually resulting in four separate nations based on the different methods and ideas of the groups in question. At the time of the game, the nations are rather well established, and now are planning on either expanding into the wilderness around them, or at the very least plundering the ruins of the dead empire that no one's managed to get to yet.
Now, my main issue is that I want my game to have kind of a theme of progress and exploration, but I don't know how I want to do that, and the setting may end up deciding that for me if I'm not careful. Up until this point, I had operated on the assumption that I would be putting the setting on one major continent, with the empires mostly hugging the coasts and wanting to expand inwards. But as is, I also kinda want one of the nations to retain the 'seafaring' aspect that brought their ancestors to the land, and basically focus on sea trade and travel... Which seems a little out of place if everyone is on one continent that more the size of Australia than Asia, with no real desire (and maybe even a fear) of traveling away from it. Plus, if all the ships came from the same distant continent, logically they would all be hugging the same coastline on one side, which feels like it may be a bit too crowded.
Therefore, I've been debating instead putting the setting on an island chain, like the Carribean or Hawaii. It would more emphasize sea travel while tying in more with the whole 'exploration' aspect of the theme. Only thing is, I'm worried that would put the focus too much on sea travel, and not give enough space to both have the kingdoms and their towns and such, and enough wilderness to actually explore and put some tribal holdouts in.
I've also though of a compromise, with either one major continent that has a large inland sea and tiny islands of their own, or a smaller continent (or unusually large island like Japan or Madagascar) with smaller islands dotting the area around it. Though that may have issues of its own, not the least of which is deciding who or what gets the 'mainland' and what gets the islands.
Ideas and opinions are appreciated, as I am having a hard time deciding what to do myself. The only other person I've asked so far likes the archipelago idea, with atolls and sandbars to fight on, but he may just like the idea for the novelty of it, which is admittedly one potential argument in favor, but I also don't want to do something that will be that central to the setting just because it would be different, as it comes off a bit tacky to me to do that. If needed, I can elaborate on the setting more as well, but it's all a work in progress, so I may not have all the answer you would want just yet.
To give a (very) brief summary of the history of the setting, basically a bunch of races fled across the ocean on giant ships from the forces of an evil God known only as 'the Nameless One' with the help of their own gods, and arrived in the area to find the ruins of an ancient empire, and several other races attempting to pick up the pieces. They fought for a while, but eventually most people on both sides decided that they both were in kind of a crappy situation, and made peace in order to help rebuild together, eventually resulting in four separate nations based on the different methods and ideas of the groups in question. At the time of the game, the nations are rather well established, and now are planning on either expanding into the wilderness around them, or at the very least plundering the ruins of the dead empire that no one's managed to get to yet.
Now, my main issue is that I want my game to have kind of a theme of progress and exploration, but I don't know how I want to do that, and the setting may end up deciding that for me if I'm not careful. Up until this point, I had operated on the assumption that I would be putting the setting on one major continent, with the empires mostly hugging the coasts and wanting to expand inwards. But as is, I also kinda want one of the nations to retain the 'seafaring' aspect that brought their ancestors to the land, and basically focus on sea trade and travel... Which seems a little out of place if everyone is on one continent that more the size of Australia than Asia, with no real desire (and maybe even a fear) of traveling away from it. Plus, if all the ships came from the same distant continent, logically they would all be hugging the same coastline on one side, which feels like it may be a bit too crowded.
Therefore, I've been debating instead putting the setting on an island chain, like the Carribean or Hawaii. It would more emphasize sea travel while tying in more with the whole 'exploration' aspect of the theme. Only thing is, I'm worried that would put the focus too much on sea travel, and not give enough space to both have the kingdoms and their towns and such, and enough wilderness to actually explore and put some tribal holdouts in.
I've also though of a compromise, with either one major continent that has a large inland sea and tiny islands of their own, or a smaller continent (or unusually large island like Japan or Madagascar) with smaller islands dotting the area around it. Though that may have issues of its own, not the least of which is deciding who or what gets the 'mainland' and what gets the islands.
Ideas and opinions are appreciated, as I am having a hard time deciding what to do myself. The only other person I've asked so far likes the archipelago idea, with atolls and sandbars to fight on, but he may just like the idea for the novelty of it, which is admittedly one potential argument in favor, but I also don't want to do something that will be that central to the setting just because it would be different, as it comes off a bit tacky to me to do that. If needed, I can elaborate on the setting more as well, but it's all a work in progress, so I may not have all the answer you would want just yet.