Introducing Gaolpeaks [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Elder Inheritor

2016-12-06, 08:10 AM

Gaolpeaks is a 4th edition campaign setting made by a friend of mine who is deceased as of January 8th of 2015. I played D&D with him and was interested in continuing his legacy, almost as much as just playing in his worlds again. All of his material has been given to me by his widow; she insists he wanted me to spread it around and tell people how great it was, since he spent so much time on it and took a lot of pride in it.

Thus, I've made an account on here, and I've even started up a thread in the LFG section of this forum to see if I can't nab a DM who'll run this style of game for me. Of course, I expect all GMs have their own twists, but I want to be able to use the same character with the same homebrew and houserules. If you wish to discuss anything about this content, please PM me and I can make a discussion thread.

Let's begin with the name: Gaolpeaks. It is the name that was decided upon to describe a specific sort of mixture of Castlevania (mostly Symphony of the Night), Dragon Age (mostly Origins), and Fable (mostly The Lost Chapters).

This whole set of 'brew was designed in a thought web, starting with fundamental topics, branching out to general themes, and then splitting into individual ideas; I plan on revealing the setting the same way. Gaolpeaks, as a setting, was first built using eleven fundamental topics (however flawed or flawless an idea it may have been):
1. Geography.
2. Ecology.
3. Magic.
4. Civilization.
5. Alignment.
6. Favor.
7. Trade.
8. Lore.
9. Artifacts.
10. Action.
11. Suspense.

I'll delve into each of these as I go, pointing out connections where I notice them. If you notice any connections I miss, PM me.

Elder Inheritor

2016-12-06, 08:20 AM

Part I: Geography

I'll get a picture of each half of the map when I can and upload it here. In the meantime, I'll give a description.

The map is displayed as a 2D globe, with two pictures. The first details two continents. The second details three continents.

The first continent on the first picture is about the size of Australia, with a massive gulf in its southern portion. The name of that continent is Tareland, pronounced tare(as in "fair")-land. There are three kingdoms there that war with each other off and on during power struggles, and a fourth that is neutral. The names of each of those kingdoms have been lost. The people have been unoriginal in calling themselves "The Lost People", to the point of Tareland being referred to as The Lost People rather than by its name when one isn't referring to a map. The eastern-most kingdom is penned in and currently at half its original size, while the northern and western kingdoms are half again as large as they originally were. The neutral kingdom willfully yielded a large area of its land, in favor of fortifying the land it required to become self-sufficient. The non-neutral kingdoms must get most of their necessary supplies from the neutral one, though they are individually rich from luxury goods and powerful militaries. If I were to label the types of governments, I'd say the neutral was Switzerland with goods instead of banking, and the rest were the surrounding European states.

The second continent displayed in the first picture appears much like the Central America and South America, looking like it simply ended before it could add in North America. The gulf in Tareland is on the side facing towards the gaping west coast of our "Central-South Americas" continent, which is named Denglace, pronounced den-glace(as in "grace"). Armed and armored fighting styles from all over the world originated in the schools of the northern Sunland region, whereas unarmed and unarmored fighting styles originated in the southern Droughtfree region. There are dozens of provinces situated randomly throughout both regions, some even completely encompassed by others. Each small region has a unique symbol, denoting its owner's power (some of the smaller provinces have some powerful owners) and connection to the emporer of both regions, which vie politically for token favor and approval from the royal ruling class. While basically using the hierarchical castes of feudal Japan, the Sunland and Droughtfree regions are more like the western European feudal system and the European-American industrial revolution system, respectively, with their methods of government control and influence. Sunland is more rigid, ceremonial, and traditional, while also maintaining the self-determined classiest way of upholding excellent social values ever (political position is determined by mental and physical harmony in combat, while mental and physical harmony in combat is typically taught by gifted generals that take interest in the youth at the start of each year). The Droughtfree region, however, is all about progress and development, usually doing everything possible to enforce safety and health, but ultimately “sacrificing what must be sacrificed” in order to invent and supposedly improve everything that exists or has yet to exist. Sunland has government in everyday activitt, whereas Droughtfree sticks with the laizzes-faire (hands-off) capitalistic approach to life.

The first continent in the second picture is not dissimilar to the shape of Russia, if it were chopped away from its current position and made its own separate, gigantic island. It's called Yeylvis, and is one ludicrously huge country, again much like Russia. However, if you wanted to see communism, this isn't for you. This is more like if the healthy bits of Las Vegas were dilated and misshapen, from a city into an entire continent. Then alter it and make it more focused on regular work instead of gambling. Shiny, fancy, comfy, and generally boring. Now to spice things up, make it lead fashion, cooking, painting, sculpting, and gaming, as well as most other forms of art and entertainment, besides gambling.

Skip to the second continent, called Ouroboros. This is shaped like a thick ring of highlands, with a ring of plains inside separated by more water, and natural land bridges everywhere between the two bands. Saltwater seas between the bridges are calm, docile, and perfect for getting seafood. Saltwater outside the rings throws tsunamis at the cliffs year-round, but Ouroboros has never, not once, seen a hurricane. Life here is a mixture of mountainous parts of Nepal and jungley parts of Vietnam, depending on where you go. Government is lacking here, due to how isolated each community is from the rest. The general rule in Ouroboros looks to be “live and let live”.

The third continent on the second picture is labeled as Qulfrid. I believe it's pronounced keh-yool-freed, though I may be wrong. It has the kingdoms Faroy, Shelbin, Halar, Ronia, and Tebrim. Essentially, Faroy is France, Shelbin is Ireland and Scotland mixed together, Halar is Italy, Ronia is Bosnia and the surrounding countries, and Tebrim is India. This area of land always has standing military everywhere to protect from monsters and criminals, has trade and commerce between its kingdoms more than three quarters of the time, and just as often has issues trying to maintain the peace, with the last quarter of the time being free-for-all-war where anyone can potentially be taken as a prisoner of war.
• Faroy never wins but also never loses, maintaining minimal casualties on its own side and costing heavy losses to any invaders.
• Shelbin's military motto seems to be “throw more men at the problem until it goes away". When it works, it tramples. When it doesn't, walls of bodies provide cover for the retreat.
• Halar has a balanced military that has sway over the largest area of land and is best at fending monsters away from cities and keeping crime low within the cities.
• Ronia has only been to war twice. Both times, it dominated the entire continent and even branched out to conquer bits of other continents, until the ruling class pulled all the military back to their native turf. For some reason, the conquered territories did better under Ronia's rule than when left at their own wiles.
• Tebrim destroys things. It manufactures more siege weaponry and trains more beasts of war than any other kingdom in the world. It does not typically take over an area; when Tebrim comes around, it breaks all the walls and houses (and rarely, the peope) and leaves. The reason it does this is because it absolutely cripples a warring faction to the point they have to sign a peace treaty, which typically is mutually beneficial and not slanted towards Tebrim over the signing nation.