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View Full Version : Degrees: The 190 Designs of Everything



ChrisMcDee
2007-07-18, 06:38 AM
So everything has to be created. Those who created existence itself were known by many names to those like you or me. The Gods, The Creators, little is known so far as details go. There were more than one of them and they are responsible for our existence, the rest seems a bit trivial.

The first design was a horrible failure. The designers quarreled over everything and before they knew it existence was crammed with an impossible mess of a thousand different ideas all trying to coexist. In a short amount of time everyone had something to complain about so it was agreed that a fresh start was in order. Despite most everyone's best efforts a design just couldn't be agreed upon. What was agreed was that it would be best if everyone just made their own designs and kept them seperate. Of course keeping them seperated didn't last long and that's how we have got where we are today.

Travelling through Degrees isn't all that difficult, at least for someone from the Tenth like myself. Sure it has its risks but so does everything. A lot of numbers got thrown around at first but I'm happy with what they're all saying now. One-Hundred-and-Ninty. That sounds about right.

- B.S. Nyson, The One-Hundred and Ninety Degrees: A Guide

For a little while now I've been working on the idea of a campaign setting based around a giant loop of different worlds, each one being created by a different God after their attempt at creating one existence failed. These are similar to parallel dimensions or planes and there are ways for individuals to move from one to another. Each of these make up a Degree and there are 190 of them known.

My inspiration for each Degree came from thinking of the God that created it. Individually these gods aren't quite the perfect beings you might think. I think of the process of creating a world as being similar to when you first open up the level editor for a PC game. Some of the Gods were focused and created these gigantic Degrees filled with life and others had shorter attention spans, instead seeing how big a mountain of burning rock they could build before hitting "Save" and quitting out.

When I last mentioned this here some months back somebody told me 190 was too many. By my count 182 of the Degrees now have their brief descriptions :smallwink:

For now this small blurb is all I want for the majority of the Degrees. I want the DM to be able to interpret them as he sees fit and to see many of them get fleshed out through actual play rather than through me sitting here at the PC.

Seeing as there are just eight Degrees left I thought I'd treat the wonderful inhabitants of this forum with the opportunity to add their own worlds in there. Use the existing Degrees as a guide to the tone of the setting and contribute away!

The wiki is HERE (http://degrees.pbwiki.com)and the list of Degrees is on the front page. If you want to create a page for more detail on the Degree then use one of the existing Degree pages as a template, such as this one, this one or this one. If you like the look of one of the existing Degrees that doesn't already have a page then feel free to flesh it out!

Look forward to seeing what you guys can come up with :smallsmile:

Wiki Here (http://degrees.pbwiki.com)
Password: December21

ChrisMcDee
2007-07-19, 05:15 PM
No takers? :smallfrown:

BRC
2007-07-19, 05:27 PM
This is epic on a scale too big to comprehend

Mike_Lemmer
2007-07-19, 05:34 PM
So, it's like linking every custom map in a WC3 database and sending the armies across to battle each other?

ChrisMcDee
2007-07-19, 05:42 PM
Well inter-degree travel isn't overly common for the most part. You have the odd crusade marching its way through them but not really armies hopping around on a regular basis.

Also, incase it wasn't clear in the first post it's generally only possible to travel one degree "up" or "down". The process itself has risks too, generally it's only safe to move one Degree before stopping and having a rest day.

I'd liken it more to a bunch of half thought-out and never finished campaign settings (you know we all have a pile of them tucked away) linked together, rather than Warcraft maps :smallsmile:

Kurald Galain
2007-07-19, 05:47 PM
Recommended literature:

* Nine Princes in Amber, by Roger Zelazny

* Virtual Mode, by Piers Anthony

* The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, by Robert Heinlein


All fantasy novels that deal with similar world-walking.

DracoDei
2007-07-19, 05:49 PM
So it requires planar travel spells of at least a simple type, rather than being a matter of just traveling in the normal 3 dimensions across a difficult physical barrier?

BRC
2007-07-19, 05:52 PM
Lina - This Degree is little more than an endless sea of thick, sticky, black substance. A few helpful locals push their rafts around this sea, aiding travllers and charging a toll. The black substance burns exceptionally well when removed from the Degree.

Geeze, don't tell halliburton

ChrisMcDee
2007-07-19, 06:33 PM
Geeze, don't tell halliburton
I assume this is some sort of plagirism, I'm afraid I'm ignorant to it and can't take credit, as that Degree was entered by someone else. Has a rip-off merchant been in my wiki :smallwink:?

The most common method of moving to another Degree is by being in the right place and doing the right thing, often with a specific device. At the moment it's very vague as I'm not certain how I want it to work. I don't want it to be something you can reliably just learn, though. Moving to another Degree should be a plot device rather than a character ability :smallsmile:.

DracoDei
2007-07-19, 06:39 PM
Has a rip-off merchant been in my wiki :smallwink:?

In short: No.

Yakk
2007-07-19, 08:40 PM
The Forge: A huge geo magical factory that builds....

(The Unreachable-ish)
The Void: A nothing so strong that anything that contacts it dissipates.

Mobius: A world with a very non-orientable topology. Turning 360 degrees around does not leave you stationary.

The Forest: The trees go up and down forever. You fall at a max of 100' per round (3d6 damage if you hit something). Greenish, dappled light filters in.

The House: The entire universe is a single House. It goes on forever. The roof is on top. Resources run out, and peoples move on to other parts of the infinite House, but that takes centuries.

(Estalinox-ish)
The Jigsaw: A world of constantly changing tubes and chambers. The people have learned how to maintain some routes and chambers against change. Things get stranger the deeper you go. The walls aren't rock, and things grow from them, but no known tool can damage them.

BRC
2007-07-19, 08:45 PM
I assume this is some sort of plagirism, I'm afraid I'm ignorant to it and can't take credit, as that Degree was entered by someone else. Has a rip-off merchant been in my wiki :smallwink:?

The most common method of moving to another Degree is by being in the right place and doing the right thing, often with a specific device. At the moment it's very vague as I'm not certain how I want it to work. I don't want it to be something you can reliably just learn, though. Moving to another Degree should be a plot device rather than a character ability :smallsmile:.
I was talking about the fact that the degree sounded like it was an ocean of oil.

CthulhuM
2007-07-19, 10:43 PM
I was talking about the fact that the degree sounded like it was an ocean of oil.

Which Halliburton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halliburton) would, of course, love to get its hands on.

Actually on topic: this list of various bizarre world ideas could actually be a really handy thing to have around even for someone not using your campaign setting - a perfect source for dreamscapes or other world-hopping adventures. Anyway, my two cents:

Uksudar: An apparently endless, and lifeless, desert, whose sands can be reshaped by focused thought. Most of the degree's inhabitants live underground in vast chambers and cities made of reshaped sand, with wells digging deep to tap oceans trapped far beneath the surface.

thehothead
2007-07-20, 02:09 AM
Iouw

This degree is identical to any sphrical ones, with one exception, it's inside out.
A nutrient rich sticky substance coating the ground-ceiling allows the seeds of trees to be shot against gravity in hope that they stick. It is VERY dangerous to travel here, seeing as you only get caught by a tree half the time. Nobody is sure what exactly causes the day and night cycle.

ChrisMcDee
2007-07-20, 05:15 AM
Aah, it all makes sense now. I'd just never heard of Halliburton before:smallredface: Shows how much interest I pay during the business news.

Some of these are sounding good, Guys, put them in the wiki :smallsmile: