My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

[Scalenex]

Unrelated question. Going way back to contemplating magical locations and landmarks. I saw an old He-Man cartoon where they had a small kingdom that was famous for it's giant produce.

Apart from the Rule of Cool, is there any benefit to a magic apple tree that grows apples ten times larger than normal that would not be better served by a magic apple tree that produces ten times as many normal sized apples as it logically should?

Either way an area that is magically augmented at growing food stuffs could support larger populations or populations of larger things.

 

[Warden]

Unrelated question. Going way back to contemplating magical locations and landmarks. I saw an old He-Man cartoon where they had a small kingdom that was famous for it's giant produce.

Apart from the Rule of Cool, is there any benefit to a magic apple tree that grows apples ten times larger than normal that would not be better served by a magic apple tree that produces ten times as many normal sized apples as it logically should?

Either way an area that is magically augmented at growing food stuffs could support larger populations or populations of larger things.

That is an interesting idea.

China sustained a huge population thanks to rice; while it was labor intensive it allowed for large and dense population centers. Magical foodstuffs could likely do the same thing

 

[Scalenex]

That is an interesting idea.

China sustained a huge population thanks to rice; while it was labor intensive it allowed for large and dense population centers.

Indeed, and the labor intensive nature plus the cyclical nature of rice farming led to Ancient China developing some of the world's first true bureaucracy in order to organize and manage their irrigation systems.

I like the idea of that the means of food production shapes the government system.

This segues into something I've been pondering. Scarterra has mostly middle ages technology (with the addition of magic). I'm mostly sure I want Scarterra to have agriculture far above this, like just shy of 1700 level. but there is a tiny voice in my head telling me I should not.

Potatoes are native to South America, but they are a cultural staple of many European country's cuisine and have been for centuries, though medieval people did not eat potatoes.

Scarterra is smaller than Earth and it's easier to circumnavigate by ship. Also, some intelligent creatures fly. It would only take one Johnny Appleseed dragon to spread all staple crops to every continent. Or teams of human adventurers could go looking for new crops, or benevolent spirits can do it. So my thought is that all of Scarterra would have access to all major crops: wheat, corn, rice, barley, etc, etc and that every nation can grow whatever crop best suits their climate and soil. Thus, I could have a nation based on Middle Ages Britain where they eat corn, potatoes and rice.

I cannot think of a logical reason why I should change my mind, but a small nagging voice in the back of my head is telling me I should change my mind.


West Colassia resembles Europe in climate and zoology. The north looks like Scotland and Scandanvia, the south looks like Mediterranean Europe. The non-magical animals are pretty similar to medieval Europe. It's got brown bears, mane-less lions. Given that I'm an un-PC Eurocentric, I have spent far more time developing West Colassia than the other land masses.

East Colassia resembles Africa. It even has an equivalent to the Sahara desert. It's got zebras, maned lions, hyenas. I have developed East Colassia less than West Colassia but I think I have enough background that I could run an RPG campaign in East Colassia if I wanted to.

Umera is going to have tigers and pandas and the like. It's basically my East Asia stand in. I've given Umera far less development than West and East Colassia. So far I only have three nation concepts, Nishi and Azuma which are based on Japanese translations of West and East. Apseldia is a port city-state to the north and it's more or less culturally tied to the Colassias. I do not have enough material on Umera to run a campaign in Umera yet.

I'm not 100% sure what I want Khemarok and Penarchia to look like. I have given these lands have even less development than Umera. This has been subject change before and could easily be changed against but Khemarok is probably going to look a lot like Australia. Fertile coasts, dry interior, marsupials. Northern Penarchia is going to have some islands that resemble Polynesia because Mondert is in Northern Penarchia and is loosely based on Polynesia. Southern Penarchia could be anything. The current front runner is it's going to resemble the Indian subcontinent and/or southeast Asia. So lots of mountains and hills, lots of jungle.

The only fluff I've written is "The terrain is rugged, there are lots of small mostly human kingdoms and they fight a lot." It's like the Border Baronies only bigger and with more coastline. Right now the map is just a blob, but I plan to redraw it to look like Greece but bigger. Lots of peninsulas, isthmus, and islands. One of the islands (or small cluster of islands) is going to be the home of the enigmatic Sea Elves. I think a lot of jungle and mountains could create a lot of very different groups of civilizations and monsters living in relative close proximity to each other.


Back when I created Scarterra for a 3.5 edition and used a different. West Colassia was going to have humans (and demihumans) that resemble Native Americans). East Colassia was going to resemble Caucasions. Umera was going to be peopled by people that physically resemble Africans and Penarchia was going to be populated by people who physically resembled Asians.

I scrapped that in favor of elemental based "races." Inland people usually manifest earthy traits, coast people usually manifest watery traits, people in warm climates usually manifest fiery traits and people in cold climates usually manifest airy traits. And lots of people have mixed elemental traits. I brainstormed this on page 9 of this thread and the more or less finished product is here. Some pictures I can google. Some simpler things I can draw myself.

Even though Umera is probably going to have lots of rice farming, Samurai style armor and weapons, and all sorts of Asian cultural aspects, they are not going to look very much like real world Asians. They are going to have the same mix of elemental traits that every other human has. Rice takes a lot of water and a warm climate so most Umerans are probably going to have heavy earth and water influence, moderate fire influence, and minor air influence. Now that I think about it, not many Scarterrans manifest air traits heavily because my colder lands are sparsely populated.

If I could afford the services of a professional artist who has a background in fantasy, the first thing I would commission would be four large multi-generational family exemplifying the four elemental traits. Multiple males and females with small children, adolescents, young adults, middle aged adults and elderly people.

If I was swimming in money, I'd commission families in every hybrid combination too.

One, I think it communicate the point I'm going for. Two, since I'm not great at envisioning, drawing, or describing faces I'm pretty sure some of the finished product would not look like what I'm expecting them to look like. I'm pretty sure if I saw the product of a competent artist I would go back and change some things in my elemental racial descriptions.

 

[pendrake]

I cannot think of a logical reason why I should change my mind, but a small nagging voice in the back of my head is telling me I should change my mind.

The little nagging voice is probably saying something like: if any of the food crops grow anywhere it could wreck the “flavour” of the land you are going for. FREX, if you are trying for an India analog continent, cattle ranching doesn’t fit—it wrecks the flavour. A China analog does feel like China without rice paddies as far as the eye can see.

If you carry-on anyway (and break with the analogs) the little nagging voice is saying, now you have to figure out in detail the economics and food production and soils and weather patterns and growing seasons of everywhere!!

Or it won’t make sense.

Aaaaaacck ! [panic mode activate]

 

[Scalenex]

Exciting announcement

I have begun outlining my first Scarterran novel. It's going to be based on heavily on the Hero's Journey, and it least for now I'm going to call it The Cobbler's Journey until and unless I come up with a better title.

Right now I'm working on Nilen's background before becoming a ragtag adventurer.

I remembered someone made a comment about the Avengers. All of them have dead, missing, or alienated parents. None of them have biological siblings. None of them have pets. None of them have close friends that they are not connected to through work. It's not unique to the Avengers. Lots of fictional heroes have minimal personal ties.

It's kind of convenient for telling adventure stories, but it's not always realistic. I want to break from the cliches and Nilen is going to be a person who is eventually able to channel magic through his faith in Mera, goddess of family and community. I don't want Nilen to be a lonely orphan with very few friends.

A lot of heroes go to great lengths to keep their family away from their dangerous lives. That's fine for superheroes but Nilen is intended to be an Everyman before he becomes a great hero. A normal person who is faced with unexpected danger will probably turn to his family for aid and Nilen starts out a normal person, or you know, a gnormal gnome.

To move the story along, I need a plausible reason for Nilen to stick to a bunch of ragtag adventuring strangers instead of looking to his family. How do I do this?

Nilen is going to have brothers and sisters who are cobblers. I'm not sure if one or both of his parents are alive but at least one of them is going to be a cobbler. Nilen's home village is so flush with skilled cobblers that Nilen opts to move 20-50 miles away in order to shoe feet elsewhere.

So Nilen is going to have a loving supportive family, but they are not going to be nearby. Then of course the problem why bother developing his family if they aren't going to participate in the story.

Well, if I want Nilen the cobbler to have useful knowledge about something that is not shoe-related, I can include a quick flash back to him hearing a useful tidbit of knowledge he learned from Cousin Orvor the ranger or Aunt Folceli who ran an apothecary. I think it will build character if he mentally looks to his family for guidance in times of stress.

I plan to sketch out Nilen's family tree going back to his grandparents. I'm still not sure whether or not I want to give Nilen a family name or if family names are going to be the sole province of nobles.

And it would also given Nilen something to bond over with my as of yet unnamed Spirit Loa who also turns to his family for aid in times of need though the Loa focuses on dead family members and draws on their skills in a more literal manner. I can imagine a brief moment of awkward silence when Nilen spouts a proverb his father taught him and the Loa says "my great great great grandfather said something similar to me."

I've also decided that Nilen has light brown skin, dark black slightly wavy slightly shiny hair, dark green eyes and an average build by gnome standards. In other words, I aimed to give him a roughly 50/50 mix of earthy and watery traits. I'm not a gnome woman, but I think Nilen would be considered fairly attractive by the standards of gnomish beauty.

I'm still not 100% sure how I want his nose to look. Nearly every other fantasy world with gnomes gives gnomes large bulbous nose. I'm not sure if I want to stick to that norm with Scarterran gnomes or not. A human with 50/50 earthy and watery traits would probably have a Roman nose. If they were unlucky they'd get a full Penguin from Batman nose.


And now back to foodstuff crops

The little nagging voice is probably saying something like: if any of the food crops grow anywhere it could wreck the “flavour” of the land you are going for. FREX, if you are trying for an India analog continent, cattle ranching doesn’t fit—it wrecks the flavour. A China analog does feel like China without rice paddies as far as the eye can see.

If you carry-on anyway (and break with the analogs) the little nagging voice is saying, now you have to figure out in detail the economics and food production and soils and weather patterns and growing seasons of everywhere!!

Or it won’t make sense.

Aaaaaacck ! [panic mode activate]

I actually like figuring out fictional economics systems. I'm not sure how I feel about pondering soil, but figuring out weather patterns and growing seasons is useful for other than things than realistic crop selection.

And I don't have to figure out the weather patterns of everywhere. I just need to figure out the weather patterns of everywhere my stories take place. I like the cultural stuff I came up with for Mondert, but most of my stories are are set in West Colassia. I could easily have a Mondarian travel to West Colassia and I can highlight aspects of Mondarian culture that I wish to highlight but I don't have to cover their climate and soil if the readers never see the climate and soil.

A large portion of The Cobbler's Journey is likely to involve Nilen and his companions traveling overland through the Border Baronies region. That means I already need to figure out what the weather patterns and seasons are going to be like. It would not be that much of a stretch to do some quick research on soil patterns and average rainfall to figure out real world crops would likely grow best in the places they visit.

I was talking with two of my friends who happen to be players in my little RPG. I brought up the question on whether it would negatively impact the setting if every culture had access to all the food crops. One friend brought up "Why do you have to use any real world crops."

I guess instead of growing wheat, rice, and corn, they could grow glorsnock, hockla, and verk. Instead of herding cattle, they could could herd nerfs like they did on Alderaan. that's tempting, but it's a lot of work to come up with this stuff. AND based on my fleeting attempts to write sci-fiction in my high school and college days, every time I invented a new plant or animal I would basically describe them. "Oh it's like a ______ but with _____."

Dikrids are like dragonflies but they have eight lengths and four body segments instead of six!

Hoshkas are kind of like hippos but they are lizards and they mostly stick to land. Appotanians like to kill and eat them because they taste like pigs and make good bacon. Hoshkas nearly went extinct before the Appotanians popularized environmentalism.

So I can invent new crop plants and animals but it's not something I necessarily want to do. At some point I'll need to create some new crops for Scaraqua and maybe Scarcaverna.

I got some good input on this thread on another forum. Especially the stuff from user named Yanagi. He did a good job setting up a baseline for what to use for an undersea equivalent of staple crops, vegetables and livestock. Ideally, Merpeople would want livestock that can eat seaweed and other plants that the Mer cannot digest themselves.

 

[Scalenex]

A Youtube Video sparks a major epiphany for me

I've been watching a lot of world building and fantasy writing youtube videos and this awesome video came up in my feed.

If you don't want to sit through the whole video it covers hard world building versus soft world building. Until this video I had not thought consciously about hard world building versus soft world building. I thought of hard magic systems versus soft magic systems but this is totally different.

I built Scarterra as a hard world. I consider myself a creative and empathetic person but I am ruled by logic. When I figure out how the economy and bureaucracy of Swynfaredia works I feel a sense of accomplishment. When I figure out what the cultural norms of the Karakhai are I feel a sense of accomplishment. I am proud of nearly every aspect of ScarAquaTerra that I come up with, but whenever I write something about the Fair Folk I feel like I made a metaphorical turd.

I really like everything Studio Ghibli has made. (I haven't seen Howl's moving castle, but I plan to rectify this soon). I really like Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Princess Mononoke, I really like Spirited Away. I could watch it over and over again.

On the Western side, I like every version of Alice and Wonderland I've seen. I liked Labrynth, the Spiderwick Chronicles, Epic, Coraline and Stardust, especially the last two which I could watch over and over again.

The video states that neither hard world building nor soft world building is better than the other. Maybe they are right but in some ways soft world building. The video is probably right, but I believe two things. My brain is hardwired to do hard world building when I create my own material and when it comes to reading other people's material, soft world building moves me in a way that hard world building does not.

I think that soft world building and faerie tales go hand in hand.

This is what my heart wants but I'm not sure if I have the writing chops to do this. It's really hard to do both. I am familiar with two IPs that manage to toe the line between soft world building and hard world building. Harry Potter and Star Wars. Maybe Artemis Fowl has a foot in both world styles but I believe that it leans very heavily towards a soft world. Apparently according to the comment section of the Youtube video, Avatar: the Last Airbender also splits the difference very nicely. I have never seen this show though I heard good things about it. Perhaps I should binge watch it sooner rather than later.

In my opinion, both Harry Potter and Star Wars start out strong and gradually get weaker the longer the franchise goes on. I think the first three Harry Potter books and movies are by far the strongest and they gradually get weaker starting with Goblet of Fire. Rowling story clarifications since publishing Deathly Hallows have not strengthened her universe. The Crimes of Grindewald series has lost much of the magic the original series have.

I would say the original Star Wars trilogy was lightning in a bottle. The prequels struggled balancing the hard world and soft world elements and the Disney sequels couldn't hack it.

I would say the first book of the Artemis Fowl series was a masterpiece and book two was 90% as good. Book three was 90% as good book two and so on and so forth.

Bottom line, fantasy settings that successfully combine hard world building and soft world are hard to maintain.

For me, perfection would be a Scarterra where the Material Plane uses a hard world building system with complex and understandable rules and interlocking systems that make sense to the reader and draw them in wanting more. AND Scarterra would have a Fae Realm, Astral Plane, and Aetherial Plane that embody soft world building principles that are driven by emotion. In my perfect world the Material Plane would interact seamlessly with these three related planes into a coherent whole.

Note that Void and the Elemental Plane are planes too but they are largely governed by understandable hard magic principles.

Perfection is the enemy of the good. I don't want to spend twenty years fine tuning Scarterra without finishing a story that people want to actually read. Scarterra as it's written so far does not actually need a Fae Realm and it does not actually need an Astral Plane. I can cut them out entirely if I choose and not derail much of what I already wrote. The only real thing I need for the Aetherial Plane is 29 words.

"This is the afterlife where most souls go. This is also where the Nine's spirits hang out and relax while they are waiting for missions in the Material Plane."


So there you go. Plan A is to successfully merge a hard material plane with three soft outer planes.

Plan B is to sweep the soft planes under the rug if it becomes too difficult.



On a related note. There are high magic fantasy settings like Harry Potter and Forgotten Realms and that are low magic fantasy settings like Conan the Barbarian and Game of Thrones. My plan is to make Scarterra a Medium Magic fantasy setting. Maybe I'm kidding myself and I will have to concede that Scarterra is actually a High Magic setting, but in the mean time I'm going to to try to stick to the middle path because that's who I am. I am a fence straddler.

 

[Warden]

We must be on the same youtube algorithm, I just saw that video a few days ago.

Perfection is the enemy of the good. I don't want to spend twenty years fine tuning Scarterra without finishing a story that people want to actually read.

I think this is a perfect solution, and is exactly the trap worldbuilders fall into (guilty as charged )

You have 35 forum pages of information alone, and am sure you have a TON more when factoring all the spoilers. You have more than enough to get started. No rear or D&D adventurer is ever going to see all that detail unless they REALLY want to get into it, but getting started is HARD

 

[Scalenex]

@Warden, you've dipped your toe in the exciting world of world of building.

What's your take on soft and hard world building. I'm betting with your passion for real world anthropology you gravitate towards hard world building.

Is there room for soft and hard world aspects together?

 

[Scalenex]

Nilen's family

There are four tiers of joining World Anvil, and the family tree programs costs extra. I may splurge for it because Nilen's family tree is a little messy. I used this name generator

Admittedly, everything is made up off the top of my head, but I roll dice to guestimate. I use high, low or medium numbers to figure out if a family lives a long life or dies young and whether they have lots of kids or few kids than I fill in the blank.

Nilen's father, Ronyer's, side of the family is going to be very earthy and very salt of the earth in personality. Nilen's mother Galpine's side of the family is going to be about half earthy half watery. By genetic randomness (and to highlight Nilen's special connection to Mera), Nilen got more watery traits than his siblings. Nilen's maternal side of the family is going to be a bit more creative and adventurous.

Father's Side of the Family

Nilen's oldest living relative is Grandpa Validix and may be the oldest gnome for many miles around. Sadly Grandma Minoa died very young. I’m not sure if died during child birth is realistic or clichéd, but Validix and Minoa only had one child. Validix was a romantic sort and refused to remarry after the love of his life death.

Valdix was and is a farmer. Valdix is not as spry as he used to be but his mind is sharp as ever. Very much a poster child of earthy traits. He has dark brown skin that’s very craggy with pronounced wrinkles and smile lines. He still has his hair but his flat top of straight black hair has since turned white as snow. If Nilen can find a solution to a problem via an old folksy proverb "As Grandpa Valdix would say...insert folksy wisdom here."

Valdix's younger brother is Nilen's Great Uncle Raskis. He taught Ronyer the art of shoe making and Ronyer taught Nilen though Raskis popped in and helped Nilen sometimes. Raskis never married or had children.

Great Aunt Priza was Valdix's younger sister. She lived to a ripe old age but died recently. Priza's funeral was the last time Nilen saw most of his family. Priza had four adult children, three of them are still around. These are Nilen's cousin's once removed. The fourth has been missing for years presumed dead. I might this cousin's death connected to one of the villains Nilen faces in A Cobbler's Journey. Or maybe the cousin died doing something reckless and foolish and Nilen uses that cousin's death as his main excuse when Nilen goes through his "the hero initially refuses the call to adventure" bit.

Great Aunt Myxi was Valdix’s youngest sibling, never made it to adulthood. Died in a tragic accident. Nilen's parents are sentimental sorts so they named their first born girl Myxi in her honor.

Great Aunt Jomila Like her older brother Valdix, Jomila has a lot of earthy wisdom. She taught Nilen everything he knows about herbal remedies and which wild plants are edible and which are poisonous. She had somewhat of an adventurous streak in her youth and spent a lot of time in the woods. Besides his own parents, Nilen was probably closer to Jomila than any other relative.

She had five children but only three are still around. They tend to live large and dangerous. At least as large and dangerous as rural gnomes can be. Cousin Faeniana is considered the prettiest gnome girl in the village and is an insufferable flirt or at least was in her prime. It’s rumored that not all of her children are her husband’s. Cousin Gralen is an accomplished hunter, the unofficial head of the militia, and is the tallest and strongest gnome in the village. Gralen talks big but he is reluctant to leave the village because he is well aware that "the biggest and strongest gnome" will probably get laughed at by most human soldiers and athletes. He’s married and has one or two small children I’ll come up with something for cousin Farpos (M) later. The dice suggest he has few or zero kids, so I’ll probably make him single.

Mother's Side of the Family


Nilen's maternal grandparents didn't die young but they didn't exactly live to a ripe old age either. There names were Gahim and Sonove. In their honor, Nilen's parents named two of their children Gahim and Sonove. Gahim and Sonove were simple famers because not every family member needs an exotic backstory.

Great Uncle Yaner is Nilen's oldest relative on his mother's side of the family. Yaner is also Nilen's most watery relative. Yaner and Nilen are not exactly close relationship wise but Nilen looks a lot like him. A farmer by trade, Yaner loves to fish and is the best angler in his village as are Yaner's three surviving sons who are Nilen's cousins once removed. These cousins once removed physically resemble Nilen more than his actual brothers do.

Aunt Ariyas joined the Stewards. If I need to include the Stewards of Korus in my story to advance the plot or give Nilen some knowledge of how the Stewards operate, I now have an in. I could also use her as a segue for an info dump on Korus if I need a thinly veiled excuse for dumping setting info on the reader.

I could have Aunt Ariyas be a teacher of herbalism instead of or in addition to Great Aunt Jomila, but I’m leaning towards Ariyas being a relative who is so busy with her priestly duties that Nilen barely ever sees her. The Stewards of Korus do not require vows of celibacy or chastity but many choose to be child-less given that they are married to their job. Ariyas is going to be child-less. I don't like checking diversity boxes just because but If I feel obligated to add an LGBT character I could use Aunt Ariyas. Of all the factions in my world, the Stewards of Korus are the most accepting of LGBTs because Korus is a metaphysical bridge between manythings: good and evil, law and chaos, nature and civilization, the material and spirit world, and the masculine and feminine.

I’m thinking Aunt Lilyas can be the nerd of the family. If I need Nilen to know some obscure fact to advance the plot "I remember Aunt Lilyas saying _____" There is not a whole lot of books around a rural gnomish village so Lilyas eagerly listened to every elder’s folk story, every traveling minstrel’s legend, and every traveling peddler’s stories. She probably annoys the rest of the family with her head in the clouds all the time but Nilen like’s her stories. The dice say Lilyas is not very fertile but she is not child-less, so one or two kids, three at most. I might make her the baby of her family and thus her kids are not full adults yet. I haven't figure out if these cousins take after their spacey mother or their more down to earth father.

Aunt Wolnove is a farmer’s wife with four children, three made it to adulthood. Because not ever family member needs some exotic backstory or weird personality trait or an excuse to teach Nilen some obscure lore that will help Nilen at a critical point in his adventure. Aunt Wolnove and her brood are boring gnome farmers.

Aunt Ragani has three children. I like the idea that Aunt Ragani and Nilen’s cousins via Aunt Ragani are all animal lovers. Maybe they raise goats and breed dogs and/or ponies. If Nilen needs a piece of animal lore he can remember something Aunt Ragani probably taught him this lore.

The dice tell me Uncle Lanpos is virile. I haven’t come up with any other unique character traits for him, but if he has a lot of kids maybe it’s because he just likes carnality. I still remember an old period play I saw. “I plan to bring a lot of Catholics into this world. It’s my contribution to the Church! heh heh” I could do something like that with Mera. I’ll probably make him a farmer and thus most if not all of these cousins would be farmers too. Farmers like to have big family. Uncle Lampos has seven children and he's not stopping yet. His wife is pretty close to popping out number eight. If Nilen needs to recall a dirty joke or a bawdy song than he probably learned it from Uncle Lanpos.


Nilen's going to be the youngest of five children or maybe he's just the youngest boy. He is the only one of his family not named in honor of deceased relative. His sisters are named Myxi and Sonove. His brother are named Sabar and Gahim. At least two of his older siblings are also cobblers. Given that Nilen trained as a cobbler and never really liked farming much he opted to leave his home village to seek work making shoes for humans, so he wasn't competing directly with his family for shoe making.

As of yet I have not come up with any pertinent details on Nilen’s siblings. Nilen may be emotionally close to siblings, unlike his many uncles and aunts, it’s unlikely he learned any special knowledge from his siblings that will help him on his adventure.

 

[Scalenex]

I upgraded my World Anvil account. I can now construct relationship webs and family trees. I'm working on Nilen's family.

I'm a little bothered that this program assumes nothing. I just put in Nilen's parents and siblings.

If I give two characters the same mother and father and mark their gender it won't auto-fill "These characters are brother and sister." I have to add in a relationship for each brother sister pairing manually.

It's possible there is a feature I'm not seeing.

It means making a relationship tree for three generations of Nilen's family somewhat tedious. I am now less enthusiastic about plotting out the family trees of Swynfaredia's noble houses for umpteen generations.

 

[Scalenex]

What's in a Name

So I had two questions rattling around my bread that I was able to solve brainstorming at a friends fall while he had meatballs and noodles and I had a meatball sandwich.

Question 1: On Scarterra should commoners have surnames or should only nobles have surnames?

Question 2: I want to give the Nine different personalities in Scarterra and Scaraqua. Would giving the Nine separate names be a good idea to show character or would giving every god two names just piss off readers and players by giving them one more thing to keep track.

So my friend who shared his family's surplus meatball wealth me with me started with a metaphysical idea.

Commoners usually have one name, and nobles usually have two names. This establishes a trend of lots of names being tied to status. Surely the gods would have lots of names.

So he suggested the Nine have three names a first name, a last name, a middle name, and a secret name or True Name if you will.

So the first name is what everyone calls the deity in casual conversation. The last name is something that's not really secret lore, but it's normally something that only theologians and nerds remembers. On each god or goddesses equivalent of Christmas and/or Easter maybe the priest uses the deity's first and last name once during the most formal part of the service.

The middle name is something normally only ranking priests are taught and they work hard to keep it secret. To use an internet metaphor it's sort of like tagging something online. It sort of puts your prayer to the deity in the head of the queue making it harder to ignore.

The True Name or secret name is the deity's name in the native tongue of the gods. This is a closely guarded secret. Knowledge of this won't let a mortal bind a god or enslave a god or anything that extreme, but it will force a deity to respond directly to prayer. I'll figure out the details later, but the True Name would be a McGuffin for a difficult and dangerous quest so the reward for knowing a True Name should be high.

But going back to first names. In my original drafts I was going to name the goddess Nami, Phyra. I could make her last name Phyra, so her full name be Nami Phyra.

My friend suggested a simple way to show a cultural difference with names. Much like how most Western cultures have names versus Eastern cultures. So in Scarterra the Chaotic Neutral goddess of weather is addressed as Nami Phyra, or simply "Nami" for short. In Scaraqua the Chaotic Neutral goddess of ocean currents is addressed as Phyra Nami, or simply "Phyra" for short.

So that's my plan. I'm still going to come up with alternative names for all the Nine but at least this links thinks a bit closer so characters in world and readers don't have to work quite as hard to keep track of what name means what. Also, when I get around to naming Scaraquan nobles I can always put their family name first to reinforce this cultural shift.

This loops back to question 1. If names are a sign of status, I probably should make surnames for commoners a relatively rare thing. Only cultures that are especially egalitarian (like Apseldia) or extremely family oriented (like Mondert) or extremely arrogant (like the Dark Elves) would commonly have surnames for non-nobles.

Gnomes are family oriented, but their culture generally prizes humility, so they probably shouldn't have family surnames be common. Ergo, Nilen does not have a surname or than "Nilen the Cobbler."

 

[Scalenex]

Calendars Revisted

1836 years just feels like too short of a time-span.

How many locations do you want to have where there are, ancient lost cities, old mysterious temples, towers that have toppled over sideways, and so forth?

It takes a hundred years for one Empire to build One cathedral.

18360 years seems like a safer bet... add a zero.

Upon further reflection, I agree that 1836 is too short. I do not agree that 18360 is an appropriate amount of time.

After the last Demon Lord died, the new humans and all the survivors from the Second Age did not have smooth sailing. There were still thousands of rogue demons and assorted undead running around everywhere.

Food was scarce because pretty much all the farms were razed and many of the wilderness areas were defoilated. Most structures and the like were destroyed so the mortals had to rebuild civilization from scratch. They had the advantage of spirits telling them the basics of agriculture, writing, and whatnot but they still had to rebuild civilization from the ground up while fending off random demon and undead attacks.

When the first humans emerged, the Nine seeded at least four clusters of humans. I don't know if these four groups numbered in the dozens or tens of thousands but they had to build their population up from whatever they started with in a world with lots of danger and relatively little food.

During this time all humans were barbarians. Eventually barbarian tribes became chiefdoms which became nations. As the emerging kingdoms tamed the wilderness and kept the monsters at bay, they began fighting each other more. I don't know if this period should last a thousand years, ten thousand years, or a hundred thousand years.

I do like a calendar between 1000 and 2000 years. So I'm sticking with 1836 as the base line, at least for West Colassia. 1836 years ago, the vampire lord known as Vladimir was destroyed.

Vladimir and his brothers and sisters were pretty thoroughly corrupt but most of them at least hated Void Demons. So the vampires helped remove the last pockets of Void Demon resistance. Vladimir valued order and he wanted a strong civilization for the same reason a rancher wants a stable safe ranch for his cattle.

It just so happens that the lands Vladimir conquered developed organized farms, libraries, craft subculture, all the stuff that makes fantasy medieval culture great. 90+% of Vladimir's army and 99+% of his subjects were living humans. The free humans who opposed Vladimir had to adopt their technology and organizational structure just to compete, so in a way the vampires accelerated the spread of civilization. Also the death of Vladimir gave disparate cultures a common point to establish as their base calendar year.

The exact details of his death are shrouded in legend, but all the Nine either disliked or outright hated Vladimir. The spirits of the Nine all agree on the exact date of Vladimir's destruction.

It was still many generations before Vladimir's childer were all destroyed or driven into hiding. It was during this time that Drosst concocted ruse to pretend to be a vampire pretending to be a human.

If the muses inspire me or my fans demand it, I can always write a prequel later covering the fall of Vladimir's empire in detail but it really gets around to these things.

1) The more land Vladimir conquered, the more his lieutenants and minions fought among themselves.
2) The human kingdoms were small, fractured and constantly at each other's throats. Vladimir eventually convinced them all to unify against them.
3) The priesthoods of the Nine were fractured and constantly each other's throats. Vladimir eventually convinced them all to unify against them.
4) The other non-Valdimir vampire bloodlines were small fractured and constantly at each other's throats...you get the idea.


And conveniently there are no human nations around today that predate Vladimir's death. There are some that trace their origins immediately to Vladimir's death, but none that can credibly claim to come before it.

The Mereshnari barbarian tribe claims their culture predates Vladimir's reign but they didn't keep accurate historical records and they live in tents so they don't have any ancient structures predating it. If and when I get around to developing other relatively cultured human barbarian tribes, I probably will create more tribes that can theoretically claim truly ancient cultures predating all human civilizations, but I'll save that for later.

The Dwarfs of Meckelorn predate Vladimir's reign but the humans don't give them much credence. When the vampires were conquering everything the dwarfs heroically entered their underground fortresses and locked the doors behind them. The elven kingdoms were not much better.

Most nations are going to have their own calendars setting year 1 as the date their kingdom was founded, but I don't want to personally keep track of umpteen calendars, so 1836 years after the death of Vladimir is going to be my baseline until and unless I come up with something better.


I'll figure out a seminal event that the southern lands mark their calendars on later. Scarqua is going to mark year 1 as the founding of Oshamni Empire, or at least that's what the Oshamni Empire is going to do.

 

[Scolenex]

So the first name is what everyone calls the deity in casual conversation. The last name is something that's not really secret lore, but it's normally something that only theologians and nerds remembers. On each god or goddesses equivalent of Christmas and/or Easter maybe the priest uses the deity's first and last name once during the most formal part of the service.

Gee Scalenex, please share these second godly names with us!

 

[Scalenex]

Gee Scalenex, please share these second godly names with us!

If you insist loyal fan.

Phidas Resona

In Scaraqua, he would be called Resona Phidas, or more commonly just Resona.

Latin for mask is "Persona"

I based Phidas off of greedy Midas so I thought I’d pick something other than wealth to get his second name.


Hallisan Mangcha

In Scaraqua, he would be called Mangcha Hallisan, or more commonly just Mangcha.

Korean for Hammer is mangchi

I based Hallisan after Pallas Athena so I thought I’d pick something more masculine, but not directly martial.


Khemra Chapentay

In Scaraqua, he would be called Chapentay Khemra, or more commonly just Chaptentay. Also, Khemra is gender swapped between Scarterra and Scaraqua.

Based on Latin and Japanese for “wisdom” mangled together

Khemra is already based on Egypt and the sun, so I focus on her knowledge side.


Maylar Bellusk

Latin for "war" is "Bellum"

In Scaraqua, she would be called Bellusk Maylar, or more commonly just Bellusk. Also, Maylar is gender swapped between Scarterra and Scaraqua.

Didn’t do anything complicated.


Nami Kontona

Japanese for "chaos" is "Konton"

In Scaraqua, she would be called Kontona Nami, or more commonly just Kontona.

Nami is based on tsunami so I wanted something that wasn’t weather based


Zarthus Dalgari
Korean for Moon is dal, Greek is fengári

Zarthus is based on Zoro so I’d focus on his softer lunar side


Mera Enosha

Greek for unity is enótita

In Scaraqua, she would be called Enosha Mera, or more commonly just Enosha.

Mera is already based on Latin for “sea” so I’d give her second name based on her other values, especially since it would give her too much power in Scaraqua to make her the goddess of the sea.


Greymoria Taedi (Tay-dee)

In Scaraqua, she would be called Taedi Greymoria, or more commonly just Taedi.

Greek for darkness is skotádi
I wanted to name her for something other than magic.


Korus Mubete

In Scaraqua, she would be called Mubete Korus, or more commonly just Mubete. Also, Mubete is gender swapped compared to Korus.

Japanese for “all” is subete and Korean for “all” is Modu.

Korus was initially a male version of Gaia. I thought about using the Latin name for Gaia but that’s actually Terra, and that’s being used. And I’m not sure if his primary name in Scaraqua should be based on earth.


None of the Scaraquan names are set in stone yet. I'm still mildly dissatisfied with Khemra Chapotay. If the regular Scarterran name is three syllables, I made sure that the Scaraquan name be limited to two syllables.

 

[pendrake]

Khemra Chapotay.

Khemra Chapotay -or- Commander Chakotay


No one will ever get that mixed up.

 

[Scalenex]

Khemra Chapotay -or- Commander Chakotay


No one will ever get that mixed up.

That's why a voice in the back of my head was telling me that's a bad name. How about Khemra Heekma (based on the Arabic word for wisdom).

 

[Scalenex]

Science versus SCIENCE! Magical energy

Creating a game system (or a hard magic system for a novel) requires trade-offs between simplicity of use, realism and the Rule of Cool.

The full rules for invocation are here.

In the name of simplicity I did not want to come up with an extensive spell list. D&D has like 100 spells which can be summarized by "I want to damage that guy/those guys."

Invocation has one spell. Casters roll Stamina + Invocation to cast a spell. If a caster rolls four successes, he can do 10 dice of damage with a touch attack, 9 dice of damage to one target with a ray, 8 dice of damage to all targets in a 30 foot line, or 6 dice of damage to all targets in a ten foot radius.

Rays. touch attacks, and lines require an attack roll to hit. This could mean an attack misses and does no damage at all, but an especially accurate to-hit roll adds bonus damage. Radius attacks never miss. Play testing seems to suggest that rays are the more efficient way to kill your enemies, but if your goal is to shock and awe weak willed enemies into fleeing or surrendering wide area effects work.0

In the name of the Rule of Cool, I let the caster shoot any energy type he wants: fire, lightning, cold, or sonic.

Realism says that Sonic attacks are loud, fire ignites things, lightning can start fires and is conductive, cold attacks smother heat.

Because it's very easy for a spell caster to change her energy type, I created very few monsters with resistance or vulnerability against specific energy types. Energy type isn't that big deal. I did think it was funny when I sent an ice monster against the PCs, Aranil's player (who always chooses fire unless they are near something combustible) though the monster might be protected against fire and switched to lightning. It's not immune to lightning, but it was vulnerable to fire and Aranil outsmarted himself opting not to use it.


Scaraqua complicates things. I would prefer for simplicity that Scaraqua and Scarterra use the same list of spells and casting rules. A spell that lets a Scarterran talk to land animals would let a Scaraquan talk to fish. A spell that lets a Scarterran grow gills and flippers would let a Scaraquan grow lungs and feet.

Underwater, energy type matters a lot, at least according to realism. Fire might not work at all, or it might make attacks come off as steam which is in many cases more damaging to organic flesh but less damaging to inorganic targets than ordinary fire.

Cold (or scientifically speaking an absence of heat) is absorbed by water faster than it's absorbed by air. By the time ranged cold attack reached it's target, the damage impact might be diminished but it's would realistically create ice. Ice could constrain limbs impeding movement or smother gills causing suffocation. Causing secondary effects not seen by the other energy types.

According to Google (and Justice League Throne of Atlantis) sound travels roughly four times faster underwater. Real world sea life can be killed or grievously injured by noise pollution. That's part of the reason blast fishing is so successful and damaging. And it's also why when Cyborg and Blue Beetle are fighting Atlantean villains they should focus on their sonic cannons. In theory magic sonic attacks are the clearly superior form of attack underwater.

Water conducts electricity. I don't know how to abstract real world physics into dice based mechanics. A 9 dice single target lightning bolt on land could theoretically zap everyone in the vicinity for 9 dice of damage or it might be diluted into dealing five dice of damage to everyone in the vicinity. Or I could just say
"it's magic so it only affects the one target just like it would on land."

Should I handwave things with "it's magic so don't worry about the secondary effects, there are none." or should I adapt my system to allow more nuance and complexity?


So far in play testing, I only really have Aranil as a test subject (though I put in an NPC invoker villain once). Aranil is an archer and an invoker. He is generally only moderately more effective using invocation magic versus using invocation spells. On average, he does about the same damage with two invocation attacks as he does shooting three arrows. Maybe it's the whimsical dice gods but invocation seems to either be amazingly effectively or useless with very little in between. Archery attacks tend to provide moderate results consistently.

Now that he has a magic bow, his player said he is not likely to use invocation much any more.

Conventional archery does not work underwater. That means invocation is probably more popular among Scaraquans than Scarterrans. If I let Scaraquans harness secondary effects strategically smiting huge armies with electricity, immobilizing opponents with ice, or obliterating single targets with sonic blasts that's a game changer. Invocation moves from being a useful weapon to being the useful weapon.

 

[Scalenex]

I had a very mahrlect dream that woke me up. Sometimes this leads to me coming up with something good. Usually not.

I wish I could lucid dream. The second I think "this makes no sense at all!" is the second I wake up.

Anyway, I enjoy the Hunger Games, both the movies and the novels. I have never read Divergent, but many reviewers I trust say it's garbage and some say it's a pathetic attempt at monetizing someone else idea.

"Brought to you by someone who read The Hunger Games and thought 'I bet if I change this story slightly, I can make a lot of money."

In this dream, apparently I was metaphorically making Divergent for Harry Potter. Because it was a dream and dream logic was in charge. Whatever I wrote immediately turned into a high budget movie. It was almost a shot for shot remake of the first Harry Potter, but the magic castle was alive and the kids were basically living in the stomach of a castle dragon. The walls breathed in and out. It looked cool, but it was dumb as heck. In the dream I knew I was being a hack but I couldn't stop.

I like urban fantasy and modern fantasy, every thing I come up with while awake is a knock off of something White Wolf publishing did first and better. Apparently if I brainstorm this while sleeping I subconsciously try to rip off JK Rowling.

Maybe it's because I had young adult fiction on my mind. The last few days I was camping with my aunt and cousins. I had no Internet, but lots of time to think and I was around teenagers and children, something that is not normal for me. So I natural pondered "should I try to write young adult fiction." Then poof, mahrlect up dreams. I do like young adult fiction.

Maybe it's because I'm a fan of Jack Black, but I actually liked The House with the Clock in the Walls. That's the closest thing to a Harry Potter Divergent knock-off. I didn't like it a lot, I just found it moderately entertaining. I enjoyed the movie on half-price Tuesday but I didn't like it enough to pay full price to see it or to buy a copy. And it didn't make enough money or critical splash to get a sequel.

One issue with young adult supernatural fiction is that the young adult characters need to be the stars of the show. This frequently means the adults are either absent or incompetent. House with the Clock in the Walls is on the whole not as good as Harry Potter but at the very least there was a decent explanation for why the little kid had to fight against the Big Bad Evil Wizard. Because you know, normally adult guardians try to put themselves between kids and danger. Even I do this, and I find my little cousins very annoying much of the time, but I want to make sure they live.

In Clock magic is a personal expression as much as it is a science. In such a magic system, the fresh view point of an eccentric child has power. And to be fair, it's not like the adults twiddled their thumbs while their nephew fought the big necromancer. The adults took point, you know like normal adults do when kids are in danger.

It was me thinking "Where are the adult wizards?" that woke me from dream.

Maybe I can work in a castle/dragon hybrid with pulsating breathing walls somewhere...

Given the rules I already put in place in Scarterra/Scaraqua that might be a little too fantastic but it would work in the Fae Realm or Aetherial Realm where the rules are less rigid.

 

[Scalenex]

Barony of the Dead

Time to revisit the Barony of the Dead. Because I'm 90% sure this is where Nilen the heroic cobbler and his ragtag companions are going to face the climax of their first story.

Spoiler: Recap of stuff on page 15

The Barony of the Dead
Tentative Geographic Assignment: Spot 13
Basic Concept: The Barony of the dead is mostly empty ruins that are watched carefully by priests and holy warriors lest the ancient necromantic evils rise again here.

History:

Long ago someone started carving rock tombs in a rugged valley. Over time the tombs spread out into the valley floor, small mausoleums, cenotaphs, dolmens, obelisks, and other markers were added. Hundreds of tombs in at least twelve different styles were created. No one knows if it began as a Valley of Kings, or in the aftermath of a large battle.

Today, the dead rest uneasy in this desolate place. Many of the living have gone to explore the silent city, many fewer have returned. There may be a single necromancer who guards his realm vigorously. There might be as many as three who refight battles long since finished over and over. Some visitors report a strange Count who has hosted them in a castle overlooking the valley floor. Others have reported the castle deserted.

Government Style: People don’t really live here. The Keepers of Khemra, Masks of Phidas, and Guardians of Hallisan have an uneasy alliance to occupy these ruins and provide a first line of defense if something dark rises. So far no ancient evils seems to be bubbling up from the ruins, but outside forces have tried to meddle in the area fairly regularly requiring the three local holy orders to put them down violently.

Most of the priests and holy warriors guarding the area are human, but the Order of the Stone (a dwarven religious knightly order dedicated to protecting pilgrims to and from the Great Stone of Meckelorn) delivers most of the locals’ provisions. In theory the Order of the Stone is bound by treaty to help fight if any ancient evil stuff goes down but in reality, it’s unlikely they would be able to arrive in time.

Character of the Realm: Quiet, foreboding. Still as a mausoleum. The guardians are generally humorless and stoic. A few locals overcompensate with awkward forced joviality.

Religion: The Keepers, Masks, and Guardians literally rule here. Visiting priests and theurgists are permitted as long as they are not affiliated with Maylar or Greymoria.

Challenges: The holy orders are guarding against an ancient evil that they don’t fully understand. They don’t even know why the site is tainted. That means when and if a problem comes they won’t be able to predict what form the will take.

The realm is not self-sufficient. If their supply caravans are cut off for whatever reason, it’s unlikely the defenders would last much longer than six months.

So I'm going to expand the history of the Barony of the Dead. Note, the TRUE history of the Barony of the Dead is not common knowledge. Even if the characters don't know the history, I need to know the history.

I'm going to go backwards.

Modern Times: The area is suffused with a mild but wide reaching ambient necromantic magic auras There a lot of mysterious runes. The legendary vampire Vladimir the Conqueror built a secret base here, and no one knows why. Because Vladimir the Conqueror was so scary, the area attracts power hungry necromancers and it's under constant guard by armed wings of various priesthoods.

Many fear that the key to resurrecting Vladimir lies in these ruins.

The Time of Vladimir the Conqueror: Vladimir the Vampire Lord literally tried to take over the world, but he never made a serious attempt to conquer the Borderlands region. The Borderlanders say it was because there people were so rugged and unyielding that it was too much effort to conquer. That might have been true, but Vladimir built a secret base in the Borderlands that was only discovered decades after Vladimir's destruction.

Malthius the lich created the first vampires intending to create powerful free-willed undead to battle the Void Demon hordes (nevermind that the Void Demon hordes were beaten centuries ago). Malthius selecting the strongest warriors he could find. Malthius believed that apart from himself, no mortal spell caster could avoid corruption after becoming undead. Malthius was very adamant that spell-casters should never become vampires. He also wanted to keep the number of vampires small.

After Malthius reputed death, the surviving vampires were not beholden to Malthius' rules. Vladimir had the bright idea of creating new vampires en masse. He turned a lot of spell-casters into vampires. But Vladimir didn't want to be too reliant on the magic of his lieutenants. He wanted to be able to cast magic himself.

When it comes to magic, Vladimir, had to work twice as hard to get half as much. I'm not sure if this an aspect of all vmpires or just Vladimir but arcane magic is hard to awaken in an undead body than a living body. If a living person becomes a mage and then a vampire, their magic is grandfathered in and they can keep progressing advancing only slightly slower than they did before. But Vladimir basically had to train for well over a century to master basic magic that a living human could have learned inside five years.

Almost by sheer dumb luck, Vladimir discovered that magic was easier for vampires to use in what is now known as the Barony of the Dead. He basically used this as a training facility for himself and his most trusted lieutenants and his magical tutors who he eventually killed to keep his magical handicap silent. Vladimir used a lot of magical items to augment his mediocre magical abilities and bluff that he was a powerful wizard. He never personally wielded magic above the three dot level.


The Dawn of the Third Age: A small group of elf warriors and theurgists loyal to Khemra and Korus were already occupying the area when the first humans arrived here. Along with some allied spirits they were able to clear out the land now known as the Barony of the Dead of remnants of the Void Demon army and their Faceless lackeys. Ironically, this region was one of the most undead-free locations in all of Scarterra at the time.

Maybe the ambient necromantic energy caused a decline in the fertility, but more likely he elves here were too focused on their duties to put much thought and effort into marrying and having children. The small elf tribe that survived the Second Unmaking and settled here gradually declined. Within three generations, they were extinct.

They did impress their pro-Korus and pro-Khemra values on the local humans. There may or may not be descendants of these barbarian peoples somewhere else in the Borderlands in modern times. They could be roaming around somewhere else, or they could have assimilated into a civilized nation (mostly likely Kantoc) I'm open to suggestions.

Bottom line is that the locals forgot that this area was a hot spot for necromantic activity.


Second Unmaking: The Demon Lord known as the Harbinger marched through the Border Baronies on his way to attack the eleven nation of Disteria, but his army didn't stay. Those in the area who kept their head down had a good chance of surviving.

A lot of mortals fleeing the devastation of the Second Unmaking sought shelter in the Borderlands, but the area known as the Barony of the Dead today had enough of a necromantic aura to attract a lot of masterless Faceless, so no one really found shelter in this specific spot of the Borderlands.

The Demon Lord known as the Extinguisher tried to harness as many magic nodes as it could to magically block out the sun and kill all photosynthetic plant life thus starving most animal life.

The Extinguisher's plot was foiled by an alliance of Korus' and Khemra's core followers, it only managed to blot out the sun for a fairly short period of time (though enough to cause a modest famine). I'm not sure if the Extinguisher itself was slain here or if only one of the Extinguisher's main lieutenants was slain here. Either way the Extinguisher's meddling turned the magic node from a general all-purpose magic node into a Void tainted node.

Korus and Khemra left enough spirits and holy warriors here to occupy the area after the Extinguisher was slain and they fought some minor skirmishes as expeditionary Void Demon forces were attracted to the magic node.


Second Age History: Much like with humans today, the Borderland region in the Second Age was composed of many fiercely independent tiny elven kingdoms. Eventually the dwarves of the Second Age aggressively tried to conquer or establish puppet states in the Borderlands. This forced the elves of the Borderlands to form a alliance against dwarf hegemony. I don't know what name they would have used, but I'll stick with "elf Border Barons" just for simplicity.

The region now known as the Barony of the Dead was known as Uldreya, a realm ruled by the arcane warlord Uldreyin. By all accounts, Uldreyin was a bully and a tyrant, but the other elf Border Barons because he was good at killing dwarfs. They even looked the other way when he regularly deployed undead minions (as long as the undead minions were from dwarfs).

Eventually it was discovered that Uldreyin was a lich and that he regularly zombified the corpses of elves. The other elf Border Baronies "accidentally" leaked a bunch of tactically valuable information to the dwarves and providing other behind the scenes aid to make it easy for the dwarves to destroy Uldreya.

By this point, the Second Age Dwarves and the elf Border Baronies were both fairly sick of their constant war. As a compromise they installed a gnome as king of Uldreya and after some haggling signed the Treaty of Uldreya and ended their war. At least in theory. They fought a cloak and dagger cold war until the dawn of the Second Unmaking, but Uldreya remained a neutral area where the rival sides could talk in peace.

(I don't know if the gnomes would have renamed Uldreya or kept the old name as a reminder of the evils that happened before).


First Unmaking: The Border Baronies region in general was ground zero for the First Unmaking. The Border Baronies is a water logged network of valleys in the world's largest mountain range. Before the First Unmaking, the mountains didn't exist at all. Whatever the dragons built here was probably crushed and buried.

Given that the Border Baronies region is less mountainous than the rest of the mountain range, it's likely that the earth elemental advance was checked in part by water, fire, and air elementals here.

That's why the region known as the Barony of the Dead had such a powerful magical node. Because the site marks the convergence of powerful elemental forces. Water and earth at the very least if not all four.


First Age: I'm not sure if it's necessary to develop back this far. In the Age of Dragons this area could have been anything, a settlement, a farm, pasture land, a mine. The base terrain was probably gently rolling hills.

It is unlikely that any written accounts of this area survived and it would have looked nothing like it does today.


Anyway, that's the backstory. In my story The Cobbler's Journey. The villain is going to try to use the power of the Barony of the Dead to summon some undead. I don't know if I prefer a large number of relatively weak undead or a small number of very powerful undead. It's not going to be enough to destroy the world, but it is going to be enough undead to kill hundreds, maybe thousands of people and certainly cause trouble for Nilen and company.

For what it's worth, the undead could have been initially created by Vladimir himself which sounds scary but most people don't realize that Vladimir was a medicore necromancer.

Villain A is going to be a cackling necromancer that wants undead minions just because that's what cackling necromancers do.

Villain B is going to be a Border Barony that wants to add undead minions to his army as part of a scheme of conquest and is manipulating Villain A.



Going back to the vampires. Malthius used the Blood Stone to create the first vampires. He sought powerful warriors of great virtue, but given how skewed Malthius world view was, he wasn't great at spotting virtue. Even if he did pick someone virtuous, the curse of vampirism can corrupt almost anyone.

I don't know if Malthius created 20 vampires, or 12, or 9, or 8, or 6 or whatever. The first vampires are the True Vampires. Only five True Vampires survived Malthius death (though I'm open to upping the roster to six or seven if someone suggests a very cool idea for a True Vampire).

Among things they can walk in the sun (they don't like the sun but it won't kill them). The True Vampires developed powers and abilities that were natural extensions of what they were already good at and the True Vampires passed these abilities on to vampires they created. Vladimir created more vampires than all the other vampires combined. Even many scholars of the undead are not aware that Vladimir isn't the first and only True Vampire.

All the True Vampires were phenomenal warriors.

Vralic was a master ranger in life. Vampire's Vralic creates gain ability to command lesser beasts, shape change into beasts, and enhanced stealth.

Ralark was tough as nails and iron willed in life. All vampires have supernatural enhanced resilience. Ralark has extra resilience. Ralark has never created a vampire offspring. Unless I decide to write a novel about Ralark's first vampire childe or a player in a game I'm running really wants to play an angsty vegetarian vampire.

Lorshellis was the only female warrior I have so far, at least of the True Vampires that survived. She was a powerful mounted warrior in life. Her vampire descendants have the ability to conjure spirit horses that are empathically bonded to their creator and completely obedient.

Dalak was a very inspirational warrior and a had a silver tongue. His vampire descendants have powerful abilities to charm or even mind control mortals.

Vladimir was a bit of a jack of trades in life, and covetous of what others had. He was more focused on strategy and less on actual fighting than the other vampires. Right now I'm thinking that Vladimir's vampire offspring have more powers than the other vampires but weaker powers. Essentially Vladimir's vampires have control over wild beasts, horses, mortal minds, and resilience but they are not nearly as good at these tricks as the other vampire bloodlines.

So while a Vralic vampire can turn into five or six different animals and literally meld with shadows, a Vladimir vampire is limited to a bat or a wolf and can maybe darken ambient shadows a little bit. While a Dalek vampire can break the minds of people with a Willpower of 7 theoretically, Vladimir vampires have to stick to mind whammying people with Willpower 3 or less. Vladimir vampires can establish an empathetic link with a horse but they cannot conjure horses out of thin air.

Rallark had no vampire offspring.

Vralic had a modest amount of vampire offspring. Vralic was told a prophecy that the only way he can have a nice afterlife is he dies in a one-on-one duel. He only turns mortals who challenge him to personal combat and manage to survive two or three minutes at a bare minimum. This is how Vralic attracts people to duel him, they want to become vampires. If Vralic's vampire childer creation childer he will usually try to hunt them down and kill them and then kill the parent. He tells every vampire he turns this.

He only Lorshellis has few vampire offspring. Lorshellis tries to turn good people who can do more good than evil as vampires but has slipped up more than once. She has never authorized any of her vampire childer to make their own childer but many are doing this anyway and Lorshellis has been hunting these rogue grand childer so much, she does almost nothing else and their numbers are still growing.

Dalak has few vampire offspring. He only turns mortals who are infernalists of great cunning. Everyone is gunning for infernalists, so Dalak doesn't have to enforce population control. Natural selection does this.

Vladimir is the only vampire that turned people into vampires fairly indiscriminately and at least at first, he encouraged his childer to spread vampirism as they saw fit. That means the Vladimir brand vampire is essentially the "default" vampire of Scarterra.

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

Exciting announcement

I have begun outlining my first Scarterran novel. It's going to be based on heavily on the Hero's Journey, and it least for now I'm going to call it The Cobbler's Journey until and unless I come up with a better title.

Right now I'm working on Nilen's background before becoming a ragtag adventurer.

I remembered someone made a comment about the Avengers. All of them have dead, missing, or alienated parents. None of them have biological siblings. None of them have pets. None of them have close friends that they are not connected to through work. It's not unique to the Avengers. Lots of fictional heroes have minimal personal ties.

It's kind of convenient for telling adventure stories, but it's not always realistic. I want to break from the cliches and Nilen is going to be a person who is eventually able to channel magic through his faith in Mera, goddess of family and community. I don't want Nilen to be a lonely orphan with very few friends.

A lot of heroes go to great lengths to keep their family away from their dangerous lives. That's fine for superheroes but Nilen is intended to be an Everyman before he becomes a great hero. A normal person who is faced with unexpected danger will probably turn to his family for aid and Nilen starts out a normal person, or you know, a gnormal gnome.

To move the story along, I need a plausible reason for Nilen to stick to a bunch of ragtag adventuring strangers instead of looking to his family. How do I do this?

Nilen is going to have brothers and sisters who are cobblers. I'm not sure if one or both of his parents are alive but at least one of them is going to be a cobbler. Nilen's home village is so flush with skilled cobblers that Nilen opts to move 20-50 miles away in order to shoe feet elsewhere.

So Nilen is going to have a loving supportive family, but they are not going to be nearby. Then of course the problem why bother developing his family if they aren't going to participate in the story.

Well, if I want Nilen the cobbler to have useful knowledge about something that is not shoe-related, I can include a quick flash back to him hearing a useful tidbit of knowledge he learned from Cousin Orvor the ranger or Aunt Folceli who ran an apothecary. I think it will build character if he mentally looks to his family for guidance in times of stress.

I plan to sketch out Nilen's family tree going back to his grandparents. I'm still not sure whether or not I want to give Nilen a family name or if family names are going to be the sole province of nobles.

And it would also given Nilen something to bond over with my as of yet unnamed Spirit Loa who also turns to his family for aid in times of need though the Loa focuses on dead family members and draws on their skills in a more literal manner. I can imagine a brief moment of awkward silence when Nilen spouts a proverb his father taught him and the Loa says "my great great great grandfather said something similar to me."

I've also decided that Nilen has light brown skin, dark black slightly wavy slightly shiny hair, dark green eyes and an average build by gnome standards. In other words, I aimed to give him a roughly 50/50 mix of earthy and watery traits. I'm not a gnome woman, but I think Nilen would be considered fairly attractive by the standards of gnomish beauty.

I'm still not 100% sure how I want his nose to look. Nearly every other fantasy world with gnomes gives gnomes large bulbous nose. I'm not sure if I want to stick to that norm with Scarterran gnomes or not. A human with 50/50 earthy and watery traits would probably have a Roman nose. If they were unlucky they'd get a full Penguin from Batman nose.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

For a long time I’ve been working on my first Escalonia novel, called The Jungle Conflict until I can think of a better title for it. I’m about midway through I think, but I’m following my instinct a lot of the time and it’s telling me I’ve still got a long way to go before it could be considered finished. My protagonist is a young Lizardkin called Thrax, who comes from a family of woodworkers based in the capital of the Redcrest tribe. I wanted to write a story with a cold-blooded protagonist because, apart from the various Short Story Contest entries here and GW’s scraps of Army Book fiction, I don’t think anyone has ever written a story with a cold-blooded protagonist. I want to be the first to do so, because reptiles are underrated.

Your Gnome character seems to be similar to Thrax in some ways, in that he isn’t one of these orphan protagonists and he has a loving family to support him, though Thrax hasn’t a single ounce of magic in his body (very few Escalonian individuals do as Escalonia’s a low magic setting) and he’s a poor fighter. He just can’t seem to get the hang of combat in the way that other Lizardkin males of his age can, and he feels a need to prove himself in this field in order to be seen as a valuable asset to his tribe, though he takes little notice of his own adept skill at woodworking which lies right under his snout.