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  1. - Top - End - #1
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    Default The Western Reaches - Sorcerers and Barbarians of the Great Wilds

    I had been tinkering and hammering away at the world for my campaigns for nearly a decade with constant revisions and refinements. But recently I noticed that I hadn't really had any new inspirations for well over a year and the world no longer seems to excite me, so I think that it's now well past time to leave it behind and create something completely new from scratch.

    Last winter I've been reading most material that has ever been published about the northeastern part of the Forgotten Realms. And while the region is full of really great and evocative ideas, I ultimately found the actual content very muc lacking. It feels to me like a really nicely done concept work, but to run great campaigns in that region, you still have to create most content yourself. And when you go to that length, why not just create a whole world for yourself? But now that I decided to start work on a new setting and thinking about great ideas I could use, all those underdeveloped concept keep comig back to my mind. The Red Wizards of Thay, the Witches of Rasemen, the Shadowmasters of Telflamm, the barbarian tribes and demon- haunted ruins of Narfell, and the merchant cities of Impiltur are all very evocative stuff that I really want to overhaul and repackage into something new for my campaign.
    I want to color these elements with a strong dose of Conan the Cimmerian, Elric of Melnibone, and Frank Frazetta paintings. Traces of such a style exist in the early 1st edition sources, but they largely disappeared in the restylings of 2nd and 3rd edition. I am primarily taking ideas from the Grey Box, Bloodstone Lands, and Dreams of the Red Wizards. Also in the style of Frazetta and 80s pulp fantasy, I want to evoke the blend of classical fantasy worlds and alien planets. No sci-fi technology, but wildlife and vegetation that doesn't resemble Europe of North America at all. I also want to focus on Indian and Iranian cultural elements as inspiration, instead of the typical medieval, Roman, or East-Asian ones that are most commonly used.

    The Heartlands
    The Heartlands of civilization consists of three main regions. The Grasslands, the Coast, and the Southlands. While the Southlands are a relatively unified kingdom under the rule of a single powerful monarch and the Coast consists of half a dozen city states allied to defend their indepence, the Grasslands are a great plain divided between three (formerly four) god-kings whose bitter rivalry has gripped the region in near constant warfare since its original conquest. 400 years ago all these lands were part of the Serpentmen Empire, but even back then it had been long past its old glory days, it's northern borders driven back into the deep jungles beyond the Southlands. Once the serpentmen had been defeated, the shaman kings of the barbarian conquerors soon declared themselves living gods and turned against each other for supremacy. If one of them were ever to defeat the others and conquer their lands, the cities of the Coast and the kingdom of the Southlands would stand little chance to resist a new emperor in the North. As long as their fighting continues, their neighbors are relatively safe, and all of them do their best to make sure it stays that way.


    The Western Reaches
    The fighting between the god-kings keeps quieting down and flaring up again at undetermined intervals, alternating between a few years of relative peace and fierce battles. The last 30 years have been particularly violent, leading to increased tyranny of the despotic god-kings, and as people have done for many centuries, large numbers fled the war-torn Grasslands to hide in the wild forests and hills beyond it's borders.
    The western border of the Grasslands is made up by a low but rugged mountain range, and beyond it lies a seemingly endless expanse of forests that continues for thousands of miles before it reaches the sea. The woods in the foothills on the western side of the mountains are known as the Westen Reaches by the new settlers from the Grasslands.
    The last two generations of settlers were not the first people to come to this land. Other Grasslanders have found a new home for themselves almost two centuries ago, and before them several tribes of the Woodlanders have followed the river that runs south paralel to the mountains from their homeland further north.
    These days, the people of the Western Reaches fall into three overall groups. The Newcomers, the Old Folk, and the Woodlanders. While the Old Folk have known no other life than the sparsely populated forests on the edge of the wilderness and have learned the lessons of survival from their Woodlander neighbors, most of the Newcomers grew up in civilized cities and market towns among the great grain fields of the Grasslands and are determined to rebuild the lives that they have left behind in their new home. Competition for hunting grounds is often fierce, and the clearing of farmland by the Newcomers is often worrying to their nighbors who are much more knowledgeable to how the forests react to such disruptions. Peace with the Woodlanders has not always been easy for the Old Folk, and the Newcomers having little care for longstanding agreements is sure to cause new trouble down the line.
    The Western Reaches have never been highly populated and even with the arrival of the Newcomers, it's still mostly open wilderness. Some of the early Newcomers manged to find homes in various settlements of the Old Folk, but there soon appeared a need for new defensible settlements. Countless small strongholds have been established in the wilderness within the last generation. A large number of them where soon after abandoned or burned down by raidors, and many of them rebuild a few years later by new arrivials who thought they would have more luck. While most of the Newcomers are simple farmers who left their old homes with only a few tools and the odd animal, others used to be to wealthy merchants or great landowners who choose to escape with their riches before they would be looted by approaching plundering armies. These wealthy settlers brought with them considerable amounts of gold and silver, which in turn drew many mercenaries from far and wide into their service. Many of these mercenaries are deserted soldiers from the god-kings' armies, but there are also numerous Old Folk and Woodlander warriors working for whoever is offering good pay. There are even some more adventerious types who have come to look for work in the Western Reaches from much more distant lands.


    The Western Reaches Campaign
    The plan for the campaign is for the Western Reaches to be a sandbox in which the PCs can seek their fortune. But instead of being a hexcrawl about exploring great ancient ruins and plundering their treasures, the focus is on the numerous small strongholds and frontier settlements. The PCs can offer their service to any landlord from any of the three population groups, but ultimately the goal is to take charge of a strongold for themselves. As defenders of a stronghold, their goal is to secure resources in the wilderness that can be used to strengthen its fortifications and increase the odds of surviving through the winter. While there are some great dangerous monsters in the wilderness that could threaten a stronghold or at least its farmers, miners, and hunters, the main threat comes from other strongholds that are competing over the same valuable resources. The key to success is to to stop or slow down potential enemies before they can threaten the stronghold and to make smart alliances with various nighbors.
    While set in a wilderness region like my earlier campaigns, the focus with this one is more on the small courts of minor frontier domains. The map showing the locations of caves and ruins in the landscape is less important than the map of relationships between lords, elders, priests, and merchants.
    Last edited by Yora; 2022-10-25 at 07:17 AM.
    We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.

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  2. - Top - End - #2
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    Default Re: The Western Reaches - Sorcerers and Barbarians of the Great Wilds

    Spotting geography here, the most reasonable comp that comes to for your divide between the Grasslands and the Western Reaches would be the terminus of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe at the Carpathians in Romania. Now, the geography of Europe is such that there's more steppe (the Pannorian Steppe centered in Hungary) to the west, but you can easily finesse that by not having a giant basin in the region and just having continuous forest instead.

    I want to evoke the blend of classical fantasy worlds and alien planets. No sci-fi technology, but wildlife and vegetation that doesn't resemble Europe of North America at all.
    The easiest way to do this, IMO, is to borrow from Deep Time. This has the advantage of allowing the use of real animal behavior and actual paleoart rather than having to try to make up everything yourself (I mean, obviously throw in some favored fantastical creatures). For an exotic forested environment, my suggestion would be going back to the Oligocene or Eocene, prior to the major proliferation of grasslands across Earth in the late Miocene. The fauna will still be mammalian, which is helpful in avoiding problems like no viable domestic animals and so forth, but it will be quite different. My suggestion would be Oligocene South America, which had a fauna full of weird native ungulates, xenarthans, and saber-toothed marsupials, plus plenty of fun herptiles and birds in a forested context.

    As defenders of a stronghold, their goal is to secure resources in the wilderness that can be used to strengthen its fortifications and increase the odds of surviving through the winter. While there are some great dangerous monsters in the wilderness that could threaten a stronghold or at least its farmers, miners, and hunters, the main threat comes from other strongholds that are competing over the same valuable resources.
    I think the trick to this is you need to scatter critical resources so that the defensible stronghold location - which is probably too strong to be taken in the sort of lightning raids the limited transportation of a highly forested region mandates - is forced to disperse works to many different work sites for resource extraction. So, things like mines, clay and peat deposits, animal nursery sites, natural pasturage in scattered grassland pockets, and resource critical plants (ex. plants that produce lacquer). The map would presumably have a series of central strongholds (a star), surrounded by various resource dots in a blob, with each stronghold trying to control the largest blob. Because there's no road network and transport rely on water, trails, and perhaps animal paths, those blobs could take on some pretty gnarly shapes.
    Now publishing a webnovel travelogue.

    Resvier: a P6 homebrew setting

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    Default Re: The Western Reaches - Sorcerers and Barbarians of the Great Wilds

    Here's the layout for better reference:



    I am a huge fan of Permian wildlife. Early synapsids like gorgonops and dicynadon seem like great alternatives for the niches of carnivora and pigs. Pleistocene animals are also great. They look like real animals with bodies that look like they could really exist (because they did), but not animals that most people have ever seen before. If you put dinosaurs into a setting, everyone recognizes them as dinosaurs. But creatures from earlier and later seem much more alien.
    We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.

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    Default Re: The Western Reaches - Sorcerers and Barbarians of the Great Wilds

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    I am a huge fan of Permian wildlife. Early synapsids like gorgonops and dicynadon seem like great alternatives for the niches of carnivora and pigs. Pleistocene animals are also great. They look like real animals with bodies that look like they could really exist (because they did), but not animals that most people have ever seen before. If you put dinosaurs into a setting, everyone recognizes them as dinosaurs. But creatures from earlier and later seem much more alien.
    The Permian's a fun period, the problematic aspect for setting design is that there were no flowering plants then, which not only means the flora was exotic, but the sources of basically every non-timber vegetation product in use have to have their sources reconceptualized - which is a lot, impacting everything from agriculture, to basketry, to rope, to textiles, and more. Basically, a 'modern' flora goes back as far as the Eocene, anything further than that and it gets really weird.


    Based on your map, I might suggest bending the mouth of that major river northwestward so it doesn't flow through the Coast region. As long as a water route exists, that's going to be the primary access point and the Western Regions will operate as a frontier of the coast rather than a more isolated zone controlled independently by natives and settlers. Doing this would also provide a direction for settlement as the people to try expand their way downriver towards the sea in the knowledge that the person who does so will be able to connect a sea route for trade and win vast power and wealth as a consequence. With, of course, those who want the Western Reaches to remain independent trying to stop that.
    Now publishing a webnovel travelogue.

    Resvier: a P6 homebrew setting

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    Default Re: The Western Reaches - Sorcerers and Barbarians of the Great Wilds

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    most of the Newcomers grew up in civilized cities and market towns among the great grain fields of the Grasslands and are determined to rebuild the lives that they have left behind in their new home. (…) While most of the Newcomers are simple farmers who left their old homes with only a few tools and the odd animal, others used to be (…) great landowners
    Huh. I'm not sure I follow.
    1. If there's constant war everywhere, how does large scale agriculture remain viable?
    2. Simple farmers and the owners of latifundia both imply a rural background. But then, you say most Newcomers come from urban(ised) areas.

    These wealthy settlers brought with them considerable amounts of gold and silver, which in turn drew many mercenaries from far and wide into their service. Many of these mercenaries are deserted soldiers from the god-kings' armies, but there are also numerous Old Folk and Woodlander warriors working for whoever is offering good pay.
    Hm. So the Woodlanders have money-based economy? Do they mine precious metals, then?


    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    Here's the layout for better reference:

    [IMG]http://spriggans-den.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/mlmap2.png[IMG]
    A map! I like maps. (But now I'm wondering what the deal with the Highlands, Northlands and Plains is.)

    I am a huge fan of Permian wildlife. Early synapsids like gorgonops and dicynadon seem like great alternatives for the niches of carnivora and pigs. Pleistocene animals are also great. They look like real animals with bodies that look like they could really exist (because they did), but not animals that most people have ever seen before. If you put dinosaurs into a setting, everyone recognizes them as dinosaurs. But creatures from earlier and later seem much more alien.
    That's nice stuff indeed and a sound reasoning (even though I do like dinosaurs). (Shameless self-plug time: I even made a pair of homebrewn gorgonopsid creatures (the playable, upright, sdapient stratogorgops and the oversized, bred for serving as a warmount ypogorgops), because gorgonopsids are cool.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Mechalich View Post
    The Permian's a fun period, the problematic aspect for setting design is that there were no flowering plants then, which not only means the flora was exotic, but the sources of basically every non-timber vegetation product in use have to have their sources reconceptualized - which is a lot, impacting everything from agriculture, to basketry, to rope, to textiles, and more. Basically, a 'modern' flora goes back as far as the Eocene, anything further than that and it gets really weird.
    I don't think that's neccessarily an issue. I mean, if Permian and Pleistocene fauna gets mixed up with fantasy critters anyhow, such inconsistencies become quite easy to overlook.

    Based on your map, I might suggest bending the mouth of that major river northwestward so it doesn't flow through the Coast region. As long as a water route exists, that's going to be the primary access point and the Western Regions will operate as a frontier of the coast rather than a more isolated zone controlled independently by natives and settlers.
    That's a pretty good point. The trajectory of the river as is would at least neccessitate explaining the Coast–Reaches relationships and why the latter region is encroached on primarily from towards the east, rather than the south.

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    Default Re: The Western Reaches - Sorcerers and Barbarians of the Great Wilds

    It's really only just inspirations for fantasy visuals, not historical reenactment. As long as it looks plausible but alien it's great.

    The Grasslands and Southlands are Bronze Age river nations like Egypt, Babylonia, Akkadia, with the Coast being more Mycenean and Minoan. The farmers in the Grasslands mostly work on very organized plantations owned by the God-Kings and regional nobles. While technically rural, they still live in centralized civilized states, in contrast to the Woodlanders and Plains people which are really just every village for themselves under local chiefs.

    Warfare between the God-Kings is mostly on the lower river that runs through the Grasslands where their three territories come together and control over the river mouth would be hugely advantageous to all of them. The issue for all the towns and plantations in the rest of the Grasslands is that the war means always more taxes, more conscription, rising prices for goods, and increasingly ruthless templars crushing any disobedience. The people who have crossed the mountains into the Western Reaches are mostly from the area right on the eastern side of the range. (And right now I am having the idea that there would be two general factions Newcomers, which used to live under different God-Kings.) Mercenary deserters would be from the main battle region, but they have no choice but to run really far away to avoid the templars of their God-Kings finding them. (And I guess even though they deserted their respective armies, the two groups of mercenaries still wouldn't like each other after having fought battles for years.)
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    Default Re: The Western Reaches - Sorcerers and Barbarians of the Great Wilds

    Gods, Demons, and Magic
    The common understanding of the world shared by most people believes that there is a single universal divine force that is both everywhere and within everything and also the source from which everything originally came and maintains their existence. There is nothing in the natural physical world that exist as truly separate from the Divine, and as such people do not distinguish things as being either natural or supernatural. Instead, a distinction is commonly made between events and phenomenons that are either mundane or magical in nature.
    Most things that people experience in everyday life are considered mundane. They are things that happen the same way every time in completely predictable patterns, and they are without intent, purpose, or meaning. They simple are as they are, and always have been and always will be. In contrast to that, anything that exists or happens that is magical in nature is the result of some guiding will. Magical things never happen without reason or at random, but always because something or someone made them happen. Nearly everything unpredictable or extraordinary that happens in the surrounding world and is beyond the control of ordinary people or animals is considered to have some divine or magical agency behind it. The most important ones that people regularly experience are changes in the weather and the changing of the seasons, but also outbreaks of plagues and any other disasters.

    The Gods
    While most religious doctrine holds that all of existence is part of a single universal divine force simply known as the Divine, the ability to perceive and grasp all of creation at once is clearly far beyond mortal comprehension. The closest that mortal people could ever come to understand the universal Divine is in its countless individual facets. These different aspects of the Divine, which might very well be infinite in number, are worshiped by people across the world as gods. The idea that any given deity is only a small part of a greater whole, or a reflection of the Divine from different perspective is generally only truly considered by priests, mystics, and some sages, however. In the eyes of most common lay worshipers, the gods are all widely treated as being distinctly different beings which have descended from or were created by the Divine.
    Since the Divine is a universal force that exists everywhere and within everything, the number of different gods with each their own unique traits and aspects are potentially limitless. As such, there is no single acknowledged or even commonly accepted pantheon of gods. Instead, every temple anywhere in the world has its own unique cult that worships a varying number of gods that the priests and worshipers believe to have the ability and interest to give them guidance and protection for the particular unique needs and challenges of their villages and tribes. No two temples practice exactly the same religion, but while the names, depictions, and myths of their gods may be slightly different, most people recognize many of the deities that are worshiped in neighboring communities as being essentially the same beings. While every temple to the sea god on the coasts of the Grasslands and the Southlands is different, they are understood to be dedicated to the same deity and sailors typically make prayers and offerings in the sea god temple of every port they visit. But at the same time it is not exactly uncommon for temples to worship three or four gods that are known nearly all over the known world, but also another one or two gods that are prayed to in no other temples at all. And these obscure highly local gods can very well be the most important deity revered at such a temple.

    Rituals and Holy Places
    The cults that worship the gods in different temples are typically led by a chief priests and a varying number of junior priests and acolytes. Temple priests do not normally have any magical abilities of their own. Instead, their role is primarily to be religious teachers and to perform rituals to plead to the gods for guidance and aid. The hands of the gods are typically very hard to see directly at work in the physical world, as they only rarely reveal themselves directly through vague visions and never send lesser divine messengers to their worshipers to declare their will. As such, the direct effects of any performed rituals are often nearly impossible to tell and widely open to interpretation.
    Many temples are build directly on holy sites that are believed to have existed long before they were discovered by mortals and are the creations of gods. These are often magic springs or oracles, but can also be caves, mountains, or even ancient trees with unique magical powers. Direct access to these holy places within or beneath a temple is typically tightly controlled by the chief priest, who also guards the secret to manifesting their powers, which is only shared with one or two junior priests designated to be successors to the position. Manifesting the power of a holy site is typically a short and simple rite that works very similar to casting a spell. But the effects of the power are determined entirely by the holy site and completely independent of the abilities of the priest. They can also only be used at the holy site. Outside of the temple, priests can not access their power at all.

    Mystics
    While temple priests call on the gods to perform miracles for the benefit of their community or manifest the powers of a holy place, there is a small number of rare holy men and women who have the ability to directly draw on the magical powers of the Divine Source themselves. These cleric characters are widely known as mystics and greatly revered as being blessed by or close to the gods. While most mystics are devoted followers of the teachings and values of certain temples and cults, they typically have a somewhat ambiguous relationship with the priestly hierarchies. To most of them, the source of their magical powers is their ability to truly see and understand the Divine as a single whole and not a collection of separate gods. To them, all gods are partial and incomplete reflections of a vastly greater truth, and some even consider the possibility that specific gods only exist as mortal believes and have no actual presence as individual beings. This can make mystics quite unpopular with the powerful priests or great temples in particular, and many have found that most people mistake their revelations as worship of a new god that is more powerful than any others, so they don't typically try teaching to the masses.
    However, their ability to cast spells similar to the powers of holy places has many people see them as being holy themselves, with powers given to them by a god, which makes them greatly revered in most places they travel through.

    Demons
    Not all things that are not mundane are necessarily divine in origin. There also exists another place known as the Underworld which has its own magical forces and is the origin of a wide range of magical creatures collectively called demons. In the eyes of most people, all magical creatures are demons, including basilisks, manticores, shapeshifters, and vampires.

    Sorcerers
    The same energies that create the magic powers of demons can also be accessed and mastered by mortals to cast spells. These people are called sorcerers and are widely considered evil and dangerous for their dealings with demons. Most sorcerers try to hide their feared arts from other people and do not advertise their magical knowledge and powers in public. Instead they usually present themselves as ordinary sages, nobles, merchants, or even priests. Only the most powerful sorcerers can typically afford to let their magical abilities be openly known, as they are strong and dangerous enough that nobody would risk going against them directly, but they could be found nearly everywhere with few of their neighbors, allies, and rivals suspecting anything.
    While many sorcerers gain their magical knowledge directly from demons, many others have doubts that magic power actually comes from the Underworld. People treat everything magical that isn't divine as demonic, and all demons are believed to come from the Underworld. But there seems to be little evidence that the magical energies of spells are somehow drawn from the Underworld and not simply from the energies that exist everywhere in the natural world as well.

    Druids
    The druids of the barbarian tribes of Woodlands and Plains practice a form of magic that blurs the distinction between Divine power and sorcery even more. Like mystics, druids believe that their magical powers come from an energy that is inherent to all things in the natural environment around them, and that comprehension of the presence of the Divine Source in all things is what gives them access to the ability to cast spells. But druids don't see magical creatures as being in any way distinctively different from the mundane creatures of the natural world. Many druids are frequently in contact with demons to exchange magical knowledge and make pacts for their services just the way that sorcerers do.
    It is quite likely that there is no true separation of the Divine Source and demon sorcery, and that the differences in spells known to mystics, druids, and sorcerers are merely a result of the different approaches to connect with magical energies being more conductive to creating different types of effects.
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    Default Re: The Western Reaches - Sorcerers and Barbarians of the Great Wilds

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    It's really only just inspirations for fantasy visuals, not historical reenactment. As long as it looks plausible but alien it's great.

    The Grasslands and Southlands are Bronze Age river nations like Egypt, Babylonia, Akkadia, with the Coast being more Mycenean and Minoan. The farmers in the Grasslands mostly work on very organized plantations owned by the God-Kings and regional nobles. While technically rural, they still live in centralized civilized states, in contrast to the Woodlanders and Plains people which are really just every village for themselves under local chiefs.

    Warfare between the God-Kings is mostly on the lower river that runs through the Grasslands where their three territories come together and control over the river mouth would be hugely advantageous to all of them. The issue for all the towns and plantations in the rest of the Grasslands is that the war means always more taxes, more conscription, rising prices for goods, and increasingly ruthless templars crushing any disobedience.
    Ah, I see! That makes sense. (But now I'm wondering: the God-Kings control regimented and reasonably organized polities and fight for tangible benefits (i.e. the control of an area with strategic significance) rather than just the heck of it; what keeps them from expanding into the Plains? There is no bothersome natural barrier that way and the local politics or lack thereof would hamper the locals' ability to mount the sort of defense that would make a military power think twice. Is it just… Not worth it, in terms of new resources gained?)

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    Default Re: The Western Reaches - Sorcerers and Barbarians of the Great Wilds

    If they wanted to they could try to conquer the Plains barbarians. But what for? That would require diverting troops away from their borders with their enemies who always wait for an opportunity to take away their land that has actual value.
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    Default Re: The Western Reaches - Sorcerers and Barbarians of the Great Wilds

    To increase their resource pool, obviously. If they have to manpower to police their own hinterland like that, rolling through some villagers wouldn't be a huge effort and it would yield a long term advantage over rivals who can't expand with comparable ease. But yeah, if the Plains have nothing to offer, that's indeed a waste of time.

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