My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

[pendrake]

That suppose, a random lair in the wilderness is not a bad idea.

That was an interesting “double” take on why medieval-ish kingdoms would not lay claim to treasure troves found within their borders.

Would the Orc chieftain demand a cut, if he found out there was a treasure-dungeon in his patrol area?

(You should replace your double post with a reworked Key for one of those dungeon maps.)

 

[Scalenex]

(You should replace your double post with a reworked Key for one of those dungeon maps.)

I didn't bother to rework a key for a dungeon map because that's not my style, but I did change my double post into a summary of my last RPG session and a preview of the next session.

But speaking of maps. I recently upped my map squares from 250 x 250 to 400 x 400. That changes the total surface area of ScarAquaTerra to 48,000,000 square miles to 122,880,000 square miles. Even if I make most of the new land wilderness, I need to come up with new nations and peoples.

Crowd sourcing the micro-nations of the Border Baronies was awesome. I'm open to suggestions for new nations else.

West Colassia

West Colassia is where the PCs are. I'm not changing Fumaya or their immediate neighbors. To their west is the dwarfs Meckelorn, the Border Baronies and the dwarfs of Stahlheim. To the west of that is the horse loving nation of Kantoc. To the east of Fumaya is the Wood Elves of Loren and east of that is the scheming nation of Uskala. To the north is barbarians, mostly orcs. To the south of Fumaya is the sorcerer run nation of Swynfaredia.

I always envisioned the core meta plot of West Colassia is that there is a cold war between the three rival super powers of Kantoc, Uskala, and Swynfaredia with the other groups as buffers and pawns. I don't want to make these three super powers triple in size.

I want to add more medium sized nations like Fumaya that are tenaciously clinging to life. Originally I was going to have the Elven Empire lost all their West Colassian colonies. Now that West Colassia has more room, I can give them a few tiny coastal holdings in the south.

I also want to add more barbarian tribes. I don't want to make every iota of the wilderness the sole province of goblins, kobolds, and orcs. What are some interesting concepts for fantasy human barbarians that would fit the West Colassia scheme? What about other humanoids or races that could be regional anomalies. Keeping in mind that any barbarian needs to be to able to compete with the monsters and every other humanoid in the wilderness.

East Colassia

I covered East Colassian in depth on page 10. You got some small independent human nations clustered near the coastline. These independent nations (and one friendly barbarian tribe) formed a military alliance to fend off the dark elves and gnoll barbarians that are mutual threats to all the humans.

I could just make the nations of the Colassian Confederacy (and the elf nation of Kahdisteria) bigger. I wouldn't have to change any of the fluff I wrote. But I like the idea of expanding outward and not just up.

What if there were tribal or national powers that refused to join the Confederacy and refused to knuckle under to the Dark Elves. What would they look like?

More Elves?

I have three Dwarf nations and three Elf nations. Now that the world is getting a lot bigger, I can stick in MORE dwarf and elf nations.

Starting with the elves, the three Elven Nations that exist today are the result of three separate strategies for surviving the Second Unmaking.

The grey elves of the Elven Empire are the descendants of the elves who survived the Second Unmaking because they had the most favorable defensible geography in the entire world.

The wood elves of Loren are the descendants of elves who survived the Second Unmaking by making pacts with satyrs, pegasi, centaurs, and other magical forest creatures.

The dark elves of Kahdisteria are the descendants of elves who survived the Second Unmaking by pledging themselves to the goddess Greymoria. Most of the Nine tried to save mortals indiscriminately but Greymoria put almost all her divine efforts to shielding her chosen elves.

In theory a fourth elven nation or tribe (or a fifth or sixth) would have employed a different survival strategy. Loren, the Elven Empire, and Kahdisteria are major military and economic powers with an imprint on the whole world. Any Fourth elven nation would probably be a lot smaller. A regional power at best. Maybe a declining a regional power.

I'm to suggestions for interesting elven nations. They would need to answer three questions.
1) How did they survive the Second Unmaking?
2) Why did they not get taken over by humans or some other faster reproducing human race?
3) Why did they not assimilate into one of the three larger Elven Nations?

Given that they reproduce a lot slower than humans (and orcs, gnolls, goblins, and kobolds) would an elven tribe of nomads be feasible?


More Dwarves?
Meckelorn literally marks the spot where the first dwarves emerged from the mountain stones. All dwarves outside of Meckelorn have direct ancestral ties to the nation of Meckelorn.

After the Second Unmaking, Meckelorn was the only place with living dwarves. Stahlheim and Mondert are breakaway nations that formed early in the Third Age. I could rewrite history to say that the Second Unmaking didn't kill all the Dwarves outside of Meckelorn. There could have been a small band of Dwarves that survived by staying mobile and descended into barbarism.

Short version.
-Meckelorn is a highly militaristic, highly isolationist nation.
-Stahlheim is a moderately militaristic, very mercantile nation with tiny elements of isolationism.
-Mondert is a sea faring, agrarian nation that is not isolationist at all (apart from the fact that the geographically hard to get to).

As I envision it now.
30% of Dwarves live in Meckelorn, 50% of Dwarves live in Stahlheim, 15% of Dwarves live in Mondert, and 5% are expatriates living abroad (most of these dwarves intend to go back home after they made their fortunes).

I could easily turn it to this.
25% Meckelorn, 40% Stahlheim, 15% Mondert, 5% expatriate and 15% in dwarven microstates, overseas colonies of the major powers, or oddball tribes of dwarf barbarians.

Dwarf nomads have to deal with the problem that elves do. They breed a slower than other nomadic humanoids.

Assuming that any dwarf micro-states would logically be located in hilly or mountainous terrain. Dwarves thrive in such terrain and most other humanoids do not like such terrain.

-In East Colassia, most of the mountains are right next door to the dark elves. They would probably be a conquered nation or tributary state of the dark elves unless they had amazing defense. In the far south of the mountains, said hypothetical dwarves would be close enough to the Colassian Confederacy that could defend themselves (with help) though it would be hard.

-The Elven Empire has a lot of mountainous terrain. MAYBE they could have a small dwarf vassal state. It's a little weird that dwarves would bow to an elf monarch but the Elven Empire includes millions of human subjects and has about 3000 cyclopes under their banner, so stranger things have happened.

-Umera is my ersatz Asia continent. The main mountain range in Umera bisects the continent, so any dwarf micro state is going to by default, be a buffer zone nation between very powerful human nations.

-Penarchia is probably the easiest place to put in a dwarf micro state. None of the human nations are much bigger and stronger than Fumaya, it's mostly human micro states. A dwarf micro state could easily fit into the geopolitical landscape. You got two dozen feuding nation states here, there is no reason one of them cannot be dwarven. The main difficulty is there needs to be a good explanation for how and why dwarves settled that far from Meckelorn. Meckelorn and the continent of Penarchia are basically as far apart as any two places in the world can be.


More Kenku?

According to gnomish lore, Gnomes were ordered by Mera herself to not form their nation but to make themselves indispensible to every nation on Scarterra. Lately, some gnomes think they should abandon this no-homeland thing, but most don't.

Kenku, are not forbidden by a goddess from forming their own nation...as far as they know. Unlike dwarves, orcs, kobolds, elves, gnomes, dragons, aranea, etc, the kenku do not possess a universal creation myth. They don't know who created them or why.

The kenku population is widely dispersed because they think they can make more money this way. Most large cities have a kenku district ("typically called a nest"). There are a few kenku only villages along major trade routes, but they have no large nation, but there is no divine mandate or magical prohibition stopping them from forming a kenku only nation.

I could stick a small Kenku kingdom somewhere.
-Where should a Kenku Homeland exist?
-How and why did they found this nation?
-Given that kenku value the acquisition of wealth above all else, and people in general like to invade and rob wealthy people, how do the kenku defend themselves militarily?
-Given that kenku value the acquisition of wealth above all else, how do the kenku create a stable government that doesn't eat itself with Byzantine politics and every kenku is trying to one up their fellows?

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is one of my favorite sci fi shows, and I really like the depth they added to the Ferengi, but I always wondered how the Ferengi society actually functions (same with the Klingons but that's neither here nor there).

 

[pendrake]

-Where should a Kenku Homeland exist?

Up high at altitude where Kenku can fly (or at least breathe) and lesser races (all the others) do poorly.

-How and why did they found this nation?

Kenku share an ability with Condor, they can breathe thin air (how) and explore high altitudes for secure Eryies; They wanted a safe place (why) to accumulate wealth and guard it well.

-Given that kenku value the acquisition of wealth above all else, and people in general like to invade and rob wealthy people, how do the kenku defend themselves militarily?

Their great repository of wealth is high in a mountain fastness, up so high that invaders have a hard time breathing the thin air. It is hard for outsiders to find much less survive there.

-Given that kenku value the acquisition of wealth above all else, how do the kenku create a stable government that doesn't eat itself with Byzantine politics and every kenku is trying to one up their fellows?

Like the Ferengi, they have Rules of Aquisition. Unlike the Ferengi, many of their rules focus on how to avoid screwing or ruining their fellow Kenku. ...Birds of the Feather gotta stick together!... Financially screwing over alliances of elfs, dwarfs, and men however, is fair game.

 

[Scalenex]

Your last post is nice, I wish I could like it twice!

Up high at altitude where Kenku can fly (or at least breathe) and lesser races (all the others) do poorly.

Kenku cannot fly (without magic), and many of the vague contradictory legends they do have about their origins involve them losing their ability to fly. Lots of stories talk about how the Nine (or some other great power) took away Kenku's ability to fly as punishment for their greed. One allegory tale says that a kenku tried to carry so much gold that the gold pulled him to the ground.

Some kenku claim that the ancient kenku willingly gave up their power of flight in exchange for their (self proclaimed) superior intellects.

Whatever the case, kenku's hollow bones and amazing long distance vision demonstrate that kenku probably flew at some point in the distant past. I certainly like the idea of kenku being better at handling high altitudes than humans and demi-humans.

I also figure kenku magic users would commonly focus on paths of magic that allow them to fly via magic. They might even get a difficulty break. A kenku wizard casting Partial Polymorph could probably turn his arms into working wings much easier than a human wizard could.

Kenku share an ability with Condor, they can breathe thin air (how) and explore high altitudes for secure Eryies; They wanted a safe place (why) to accumulate wealth and guard it well.

I could call their nation The Eryie, but George R. Martin might sue me. I need to come up with a new name that is equally pretentious and lofty sounding.

Kenku could also view high altitude as a sign of high status. Rich kenku would try to live on hills and towers. The poorest kenku may have to live and work in cellars.

I like the idea that traveling kenku merchants dream of earning a place in the great Eryie.

Like the Ferengi, they have Rules of Aquisition. Unlike the Ferengi, many of their rules focus on how to avoid screwing or ruining their fellow Kenku. ...Birds of the Feather gotta stick together!... Financially screwing over alliances of elfs, dwarfs, and men however, is fair game.

That is so obvious that I feel silly for not coming up with it, though I did sort of do it indirectly with kenku being opposed to regent dealers using kenku eggs as potion ingredients, even if they don't know or like the kenku whose eggs were stolen. Most egg thieves sell their stolen goods at least a hundred miles away from the raided nest but that doesn't stop kenku from hating them.

 

[pendrake]

The wood elves of Loren are the descendants of elves who survived the Second Unmaking by making pacts with satyrs, pegasi, centaurs, and other magical forest creatures.

The Sea Elves of Nerymer** are the descendants of Elves from a distant island colony who survived the Second Unmaking by making pacts with Seals, SeaLions, Mermaids, Sea Serpents and other magical sea creatures.
(But not Kraken...those things are just malevolently evil.)
(**Placeholder name, insert a better one?)

[...] New elven nations [...] would need to answer three questions.
1) How did they survive the Second Unmaking?
2) Why did they not get taken over by humans or some other faster reproducing human race?
3) Why did they not assimilate into one of the three larger Elven Nations?

1) They were a colony based on an Island that survived the tumult. Also, much of their population was at sea in ships.
2) It took the humans awhile to redevelop Seafaring and thus pose a threat.
3) They were located well South of the Equator and thought (may to this ?? day think) they are the only Elves who survived the second Unmaking.

 

[Scalenex]

The Sea Elves of Nerymer** are the descendants of Elves from a distant island colony who survived the Second Unmaking by making pacts with Seals, SeaLions, Mermaids, Sea Serpents and other magical sea creatures.
(But not Kraken...those things are just malevolently evil.)
(**Placeholder name, insert a better one?)

This is pretty good. I am assuming these Sea Elves are still surface dwellers, they just like boats. They'd probably have better ties with Scaraquans than any other Terran group. This is rich in cross over story possibilities. I like the idea of putting the island south of Khemarok.

1) They were a colony based on an Island that survived the tumult. Also, much of their population was at sea in ships.
2) It took the humans awhile to redevelop Seafaring and thus pose a threat.
3) They were located well South of the Equator and thought (may to this ?? day think) they are the only Elves who survived the second Unmaking.

This is also good. They probably thought they were the only surviving elves for a very long time, but in modern times, this isolation wouldn't last forever. I like the idea that the Nerymer Elves are "newly discovered."

In recent decades. Both the Imperial Elves and Dark Elves have been making a concerted effort to expand their reach to has many far flung islands as possible. Eventually their explorers would find these elves.

Both these nations are hundreds of times bigger than the Sea Elves' nation, but the Sea Elves would be far away. If I put the Sea Elves' nation south of Khemarok that makes Nerymere roughly equidistant from the Imperial Elves' and Dark Elves' respective capitals, but this would favor the Imperial Elves. While it's far away from the capital, the Imperial Elves have a lot of closer island colonies that could serve as forward naval bases than the Dark Elves. If I put the Sea Elves' south of Penarchia, that means it's roughly equally difficult for both major sea faring Elf nations to reach them.

This would make the Sea Elves relatively easy for the Penarchian humans reach, but what are they going to do? The Penarchians are too busy warring on each other to sail to sea monster infested water to pick on some elves.

The Dark Elves and Imperial Elves would be aware of these "new" elves. The Wood Elves of Loren probably wouldn't be aware of them. One of my PCs is a Wood Elf noble who wants to redeem his house's besmirched honor and prestige. Maybe he would be interested in establishing ties with the Sea Elves.

I wonder what a good adventure I could do centered on Nerymere? Half the adventure or more would just be getting there because it's a long sea voyage to get there.

 

[pendrake]

This is pretty good. I am assuming these Sea Elves are still surface dwellers, they just like boats.

Yes.
That is correct. They are likely good friends with at least one Mermish Kingdom though. Trading partners with others. (A pair of Mermish Kingdoms is separated by hostile sharkmen, Dire currents, Deep-Sea Monsters, or some other intractable problem. But the Sea-Elves can sail over it on the surface.)

...wonder what a good adventure I could do centered on Nerymere? Half the adventure or more would just be getting there because it's a long sea voyage to get there...

Adventure hook: a storm tossed ship is fetched up on shore. It is of a type unknown in Northern Waters. One survivor. The PCs are hired / tasked / bribed into finding out where it came from. The survivor speaks an unknown dialect of Elvish....

Both these nations are hundreds of times bigger than the Sea Elves' nation, but the Sea Elves would be far away. [...] If I put the Sea Elves' south of Penarchia, that means it's roughly equally difficult for both major sea faring Elf nations to reach them.

Maybe make the Dark and Imperial Elves a bit less capable as sea-faring nations? I am picturing it like this:

Dark Elves: Galleys and Heavy Battle Barges. Slow, ponderous, vessels with war machines and fighting towers. Meant for coastal work. They are a coast hugging navy.

Imperial Elves: numerous fleet, but few Large Vessels. Mostly, cutters, rams, corvettes, sloops.

Sea-Elves: Big fast catamaran and even tri-hulled ships. Tall masts, lots of sails, Galleons, proper frigates, Stone throwing Steam-cannons (powered by elementals) their ships are fast and dangerous. Could even give them Sky Galleons (but they only work over water — not over land.)

 

[Scalenex]

Yes.
That is correct. They are likely good friends with at least one Mermish Kingdom though. Trading partners with others. (A pair of Mermish Kingdoms is separated by hostile sharkmen, Dire currents, Deep-Sea Monsters, or some other intractable problem. But the Sea-Elves can sail over it on the surface.)

Works for me, I think I will go even farther. They could be a batch of Scarterrans that worship the Nine by their Scaraquan names and personalities.

Adventure hook: a storm tossed ship is fetched up on shore. It is of a type unknown in Northern Waters. One survivor. The PCs are hired / tasked / bribed into finding out where it came from. The survivor speaks an unknown dialect of Elvish....

Sounds good. If I can talk the players into a sea adventure. This is what I will do.

I have two friends I'd like to join the game, but conflicting schedules make it difficult to meet regularly. If schedules change, and either of them start playing, they might be open to sea adventures. Both those players like sea adventures.

Maybe make the Dark and Imperial Elves a bit less capable as sea-faring nations? I am picturing it like this:

Dark Elves: Galleys and Heavy Battle Barges. Slow, ponderous, vessels with war machines and fighting towers. Meant for coastal work. They are a coast hugging navy.

Imperial Elves: numerous fleet, but few Large Vessels. Mostly, cutters, rams, corvettes, sloops.

Sea-Elves: Big fast catamaran and even tri-hulled ships. Tall masts, lots of sails, Galleons, proper frigates, Stone throwing Steam-cannons (powered by elementals) their ships are fast and dangerous. Could even give them Sky Galleons (but they only work over water — not over land.)

All these are viable. My first thought was that the Sea Elves could engage in combined arms fights with Scaraquans supporting them from below the surface.

Spoiler: Shadiversity Video on Merfolk versus Humans

Skip to 10:10 if only want to see Merfolk versus humans on boats.

So I guess the Sea Elves would have better sailors, better ships, better magic (at least more specialized magic), and friendly sea monsters.

Put this altogether, and the major elf powers probably don't want to go to war with the Sea War. The major elf powers would still win, but their losses would be so great it would be a bitter victory indeed.

The Imperial Elves and the Dark Elves are probably planning to use the Carrot and not the Stick to get the Sea Elves on their side. The Imperial Elves and Dark Elves are in the middle of a long Cold War at sea. If the Cold War turns hot, the Sea Elves could tip the balance either way.

It would take extremely big bribes indeed to win over the Sea Elves, the Sea Elves have almost nothing in common with the Imperial or Dark Elves.

I haven't fleshed out my Scaraquan nations but the Sea Elves' island is going to be in cold waters, barely warmer than polar waters. That means this region of Scaraqua is likely to be the region where barbarians, exiles, and petty kings hang out. The Sea Elves' undersea buddies are probably not major power players. If Water Rome stops decides they want to expand to the south, the Sea Elves are going to find themselves with a powerful enemy.

I'm not sure if Scarterrans could effectively fight Scaraquans for control of the surface of the sea without magic. Though with magic, Scaraquans would be extremely vulnerable to Invocation magic.

With the way I have Invocation (magical energy attacks) magic, it's highly variable. Aranil's player jokes that he is either really awesome or really useless. Assuming he (or someone like him) can target opponents below the water, Scaraquans would be in serious trouble.

Concussive explosions tend to hit fish very hard over a wide area (that's why blast fishing is a thing) making fireballs dangerous even if they don't cause burns. Now I could say that magical lightning doesn't behave the same as real lightning, but if it does behave the same, lightning would have huge areas of effect. I haven't decided if I should let Invocation allow for sonic attacks. Again, sonic blasts are stronger under water. Then there is cold attacks. Turning water to ice would suffocate and or immobilize sea creatures.

 

[Scalenex]

I recently watched a lot of Youtube Videos on early 20th century history. Stuff we take for granted. Phones and radios.

Lets talk long range communication in Scarterra.

Letters and Messengers

In the real medieval world (and historical areas before the medieval world), the way a postal system worked was basically that you find someone going to the place you want to send a letter and ask them to take your letter with them. In fact, I've had NPCs who are friendly to the PCs to ask them to do this.

If the message is secret or you just want to ensure privacy, letters can be sealed with wax. It's possible without magic to break a wax seal then make a counterfeit seal, so this is not perfect. I suppose just as there could be magic spells to help someone surreptitiously read a sealed message, I suppose I could invent magic spells that protect a document from being read by unintended recipients.

Note that Scarterra has a higher literacy rate than medieval Earth. This is largely because The goddess Khemra desires universal literacy and her priesthood has a lot of influence with many governments. While Khemra has enemies, most of these enemies are indifferent to the cause of literacy. I haven't figure out the specifics in terms of demographics, just that it's not that unusual to have a commoner that can read. Most villages have at least one wise man or wise woman who is literate.

I have not figured out how common literacy is for Scaraquans. Khemra is not nearly as influential under the sea. More importantly, Scaraquans would need some kind of fantasy workaround because traditional ink and paper would not be useable underwater. Maybe this workaround is easy, so literacy would be fairly common. Maybe it's difficult and expensive, so only the very wealthy would be literate.

Now if a person really needs to get a message to someone, the fastest way to send a message is to dispatch a trusted servant on a swift horse. As opposed to using a magic spell to protect the privacy of your message is to physically hand it to the person it's intended. To mangle a Game of Thrones quote. "Put it in the hands of the lord. Not his wife, not his master of arms, the lord's hands and no one else."

One tactic for overland messages that was done in the real world from ancient times all the way to the 19th century with the Pony Express was to have waylay stations with fresh horses. The messenger rides at a break neck pace from one station to the next. Then the message is passed to a fresh rider and a fresh horse for the next leg of the journey and so forth and so on. The Ancient Incans had a similar system with runners on foot.

Any nation that is organized enough can pull this off. Kantoc probably has an awesome system like this because horsemanship is big in their culture, but this kind of delivery system is possible in any civilized land where the Prince has the wealth and organization to pull this off, but this system of message delivery would be difficult across national borders.

All the Nine's priesthoods have an international presence. Most of them could probably pull something like this off. The best suited would be Nami's priesthood. Nami's priests and priestesses are nicknamed Rovers because they are on the road a lot. Trust varies from priesthood to priesthood. Most Scarterrans would rather use a slow delivery from a priesthood they like than a fast delivery from a priesthood they distrust.

On a secular level, kenku are widely dispersed across nations, highly literate, well organized and motivated by a love coin. For a price, they can get your message across national borders pretty quick, but you cannot be 100% sure the sneaks won't read your message before delivering it.

Exotic Messengers

Game of Thrones has messages sent by raven. This was pretty much the province of nobles and Maesters (doctors/scholars) because a raven can be trained to fly from point A to point B. This is one way, so some unlucky servant in point B has to put the raven in a cage and carry the raven by hand all the way back to point B. A rare few prized ravens were trained to fly in circuits from A to B and back, or A to B to C and back.

Dungeons and Dragons has a low level spell similar to raven mail that is called Animal Messenger, though it has a lot of limitations on it. The biggest is that if the message recipient isn't expecting a squirrel to delivery a small note, the recipient will probably shoo away the vermin. I could go full Harry Potter and create a breed of quasi magical creature like hyper intelligent owls that is trained to do nothing but deliver messages.


I have spells that summon spirits to provide basic household tasks. It would be pretty easy to have them deliver a message to someone else in your castle, but the spell only lasts half a day at best, so sending long distance messages is in not the cards. It's two dot spell to create a spirit horse to ride for half a day. I suppose I could make a four or five dot spell to conjure a messenger spirit that can travel great distances quickly.


Elementals are pretty easy to temporarily bind with spells, a wind elemental would in theory be a great messenger for Scarterrans and a water elemental would be a great messenger for Scaraquans. The problem is that elementals are so alien that it would be very hard to get the message to the right person because all organic life looks alike to an elemental. A message intended for a king might be delivered to his horse. If the message sender is making general proclamations instead of specific missives for specific people, an elemental could deliver a message to prominent landmarks...maybe


My world has Pegasi in it. My stick is that Pegasi are close enough to horses that they are relatively easy to tame and train. It's not common, but everyone has heard at least one legend about a great hero that rode a Pegasus.

They do not breed in captivity though, so while many nations can boast two or three Pegasus riders, no one besides the Wood Elves (who have pacts with magical forest creatures) can field an entire cavalry unit of Pegasi riders.

It occurred to me that in a large battle, a single Pegasus rider is not likely to turn the battle and is likely to be pin cushioned with arrows and magical spells. A Pegasus rider would make a great messenger. That might actually be pretty boring. "I used to be a great knight, now I'm a glorified messenger boy!"

Pegasi are not the only intelligent flying creature and they are not the only flying creature capable of carrying a human rider. They are just the one most likely to cooperate with humans and demi humans. In theory you could talk a dragon into flying a message for you. Even if it's a young dragon, when a dragon speaks, everyone listens. I am likely to revise the size of dragons downwards again, with the biggest, strongest and oldest dragons approaching the size of an elephant, if even that big. Even with their size capped, dragons are the single most powerful creatures in ScarAquaTerra, and they know this. They might pass messages for a good friend, but few dragons would consent to being on permanent messenger duty.

Transmuter wizards with ●●●●● could fly overland great distances though said wizards are likely to be almost as arrogant as dragons and charge a high price to be treated like glorified messengers. Transmuter Wizards with ●●●● could turn into birds.

Theurgists with the Animal ●●●● can turn into large clumsy birds and those with Animal ●●●●● can turn into small fast birds. Most, but not all, divine casters with high levels of Animal are somewhat hostile to civilization though this would be a type of messenger mostly for barbarian tribes. Theurgists with Augmentation ●●●●● can fly, but not as fast or long as arcane transmuter. A wide variety of theurgists specialize in Augmentation, but they would probably be nearly as arrogant as Fifth Circle wizards.

Magical Messages

Dungeons and Dragons 3rd ed has the spell sending. 4th level Cleric spell, 5th level Wizard spell. The caster spends ten minutes casting to send a 25 word message to anyone they already met or know well. The recipient then can send a 25 word reply. Do you know what a wizard who cast 5th level spells can also cast? Teleport. Why send a 25 word message when you can send yourself.

I do not want to include a spell similar to Sending. Maybe I can create a rare and expensive magical item that works as a telephone. They would come in sets of two to ten and can only talk to each other. I like the idea of making this easier for Scaraquans than Scarterrans. Karakhai and other sea creatures can send basic messages to each other short distances through the water via electrical impulses. This magic would be the exaggerated version of this. Based on magical SCIENCE, Water is an easier carrier for messages than air. The downside is it would be relatively easy for a Scaraquan mage (or even just a Scaraquan capable of electrical senses) to intercept messages.

So unless someone comes up with something better, I think is is a magic set up that a Scaraquan could create for a materials cost of around ~2000 gold pieces minimum cost and a Scarterran would need around ~10,000 gold pieces minimum cost to create something similar (though the Scarterran phone system would be a lot harder to intercept).

Though maybe even this extremely limited version of phones would have huge impact on the world.

Sea Travel and Purification Magic

D&D 3.5 has a 0th level cleric spell purify food/drink. This spell can turned spoiled or tainted food or water into drinkable water. I think this is intended so dungeon explorers can get drinkable water from a muddy puddle. That way adventurers don't have to carry huge quantities of water with them while explorers. Water is heavy.

D&D just says it makes water to safe to drink. That doesn't mean the water tastes good. It could taste lousy, but be healthy or it could be sparkling clean and refreshing. it's left vague. It's also left vague whether Purify Food/Drink would work to desalinate water.

Anyway. In my setting, Purification ●● magic allows a caster to purify food and water, clean soiled clothes, sober up drunk people, slow serious poisons, and remove temporary magical affects that afflict die penalties.

I haven't decided if I should let Purification magic work as magical desalination in my world. Purification is most commonly studied divine magic in my world, with all Mera, Phidas, and Khemra casters having a special aptitude it. It would not be particularly difficult for a ship's captain to hire someone with Purification ●●. A theurgist is not going to have the magical chops to provide fresh water to an entire town, but it would be pretty achievable for a novice theurgist to provide fresh water to a sailing ship with a couple dozen crewmen.

I don't know enough about pre-industrial sailing ships to know how much cargo space would be freed up if they could count on 50-100 gallons of free fresh water a day.

Divination ● can always find True North. In theory more advanced Divination magic could provide more difficult feats of navigation.

Weather ● can provide accurate weather forecasts and Weather ●●●● can alter the weather directly. This is something any sailor would cherish. Weather magic is the least common divine magic in Scarterra. The high level powers are basically the sole province of Nami's Rovers and Nami's Rovers generally believe that weather control magic should be used sparingly and only in times of great need. For a mere mortal to command the skies and winds is insulting to the goddess.

An arcane caster can command the winds to a limited extant, but only for short bursts.

What other magical methods could make sea travel easier?

Easier sea travel means easier long distance communication BUT given that my world has Karakhai, Kraken, aquatic dragons, and Sea Giants, any gains to sea travel from helpful magic would probably be cancelled out by the literal sea monsters.




Anyway, per usual, I'd like to hear what you all think and what implications of magically aided travel and message delivery I'm overlooking.

 

[pendrake]

...I don't know enough about pre-industrial sailing ships to know how much cargo space would be freed up if they could count on 50-100 gallons of free fresh water a day.

I found a really interesting blog entry on the webpage belonging to the USS Constitution Museum. (Later I’ll add a link to it in this post from a different device. CONSTITUTION Comestibles Link)

100 gallons of water is enough for 1 Man for a six month voyage. Constitution had a crew of 475 and carried about 48600 gallons of water. (47500 gallons plus a reserve).

Figure a 50 gallon water barrel takes a volume close to a (more familiar) 55 gallon oil drum.

Considering a small medieval merchie:

It has (for example) a crew of 30, six months at sea, roughly two barrels per Man. 60 barrels total in the hold. Each barrel weighs about 450 pounds. That is 135 tons of water. 140 if my guess about the empty weight of the barrels is off.

9Jan2020-link was added

 

[pendrake]

What other magical methods could make sea travel easier?

Speak with Dolphins has got to be a one ● Spell. Being able to communicate with porpoises might be a generic inherent ability of many undersea races. But if not, the Spell suffices.

Either way, Porpoises have a Purpose: messenger. Communicating with them is necessary to assign them their destination or the recipient. They are swift, they are smart, they are ubiquitous in all seas and not suspicious or conspicuous. Hire a whole pod (as messenger plus guards) for a really important message.

 

[pendrake]

Do you know what a wizard who cast 5th level spells can also cast? Why send a 25 word message when you can send yourself?

I guess because you don’t want to bother teleporting back?

Maybe have a two ●● spell that can teleport a Raven? Or messenger bird of choice. But, the Minor Teleport Creature covers the first 399 Miles and the Raven covers the last mile (and being a Raven he can find or hunt down the particular recipient). There is a parchment message tied to his ankle. The Raven flies back at normal speed or waits for a reply (in which case the recipient casts Minor Teleport to send him back).

I do not want to include a spell similar to Sending. Maybe I can create a rare and expensive magical item that works as a telephone...

Crystal Balls and Palantirs. This wheel has been invented. Twice. But all it needs is a better name than Scalantirs.

This might be ^ the goto method for Mer-Kingdom to Mer-Kingdom comms. Giant translucent pearls might do, as material component. Enchant with a succession of appropriate spells and Bob’s your Mer-uncle. Most of them are made so that they only work if both are underwater.

 

[pendrake]

Now if a person really needs to get a message to someone, the fastest [most secure] way to send a message is to dispatch a trusted servant on a swift horse. As opposed to using a magic spell...

The fastest way to send messages is signal towers of some type.

• Discworld had its Klacks towers.
• Pern had their Drum signal heights.
• 18th Century France (Bonaparte) had heliograph towers.
• Middle Earth had the signal fires between Rohan/Gondor.
• Semaphore towers are a thing.
• Towers with signal flag masts could work.

But all of those depend on codes for security and have some susceptibility to interception.

Some sort of messenger service involving post riders is slower but more secure assuming each rider is well armed and an able fighter.

The Kenku probably have some sort of cross-borders signal heights communications system which they’d use for their own purposes. You already established the notion they like being located on high places. That would be a natural follow-on. Also, they are bound to have a better bird to carry messages than ravens. Zephyr birds, silver condors, or lesser phoenixes or something.

 

[pendrake]

Based on magical SCIENCE, Water is an easier carrier for messages than air.

Say Whut .....?

That makes

This SCIENCE! is gonna need explaining.

Water diffuses electricity, absorbs light, blocks most EMR, absorbs neutrons, limits sound propagation but sound is about the best bet for medium distances (whale song is evidence of this).

 

[Aginor]

Why send a 25 word message when you can send yourself.

As Pendrake said: you don't have to teleport back.

Divination ● can always find True North. In theory more advanced Divination magic could provide more difficult feats of navigation.

If there is a simple spell that lets you know a direction (absolute, ignoring curvature. Or just the direction on the surface) toward one point, and you have a map that has those points marked, that would be perfect. Cast it twice and you have perfect navigation.
Or maybe a magical lighthouse.

Edit: if certain wizards were the only capable navigators that could be interesting. It could create something like the navigators in the Dune universe. You need them so every ship has to have one, defend him, and pay him good money.

The fastest way to send messages is signal towers of some type.

That was my idea, too!
Signal towers rock, whether they work magically or via light/flags or something, those are great.

They could even telegraph maybe.

And if you think about it: if there is minimal weather control and the ability to sense stuff like that... a wizard could paint the sky. Or use an electricity spell to telegraph. Or even act as an arc converter.
Even simple magic can create stuff that people on 19th century real Earth used machines for.

Say Whut .....?

That makes

This SCIENCE! is gonna need explaining.

Water diffuses electricity, absorbs light, blocks most EMR, absorbs neutrons, limits sound propagation but sound is about the best bet for medium distances (whale song is evidence of this).

I think he was referring mainly to sound, you are right that water is basically inferior to air for everything else.


As for the writing under water:
I think wax tablets will work decently under water, and for the more permanent stuff they could use stone.
So basically Roman style.

 

[pendrake]

If there is a simple spell that lets you know a direction (absolute, ignoring curvature. Or just the direction on the surface) toward one point, and you have a map that has those points marked, that would be perfect.

I had some Navigation Questions.

Previously you had mentioned having two reference points. And that Latitude is easier to determine than Longitude.

I have thought about it and I have concluded that ScarAquaTerra cannot have a pole star. Reason: the view to such a Star would be blocked. Do you concur with that?

How is latitude determined on Sphere World Earth? Is it totally dependent on the curvature of the surface? Is it measuring the angle to Polaris? (The higher the latitude, the larger the angle between the horizon and the North Star ?)

So, problems: No North Star. No curvature to measure (by checking the angle) along the North-South axis. It’s always the same angle.

Cast it twice and you have perfect navigation.
Or maybe a magical lighthouse.

How does casting the direction spell twice help over casting it once?

How would that magical lighthouse spell effect work? Not sure what that entails?

 

[Aginor]

I have thought about it and I have concluded that ScarAquaTerra cannot have a pole star. Reason: the view to such a Star would be blocked. Do you concur with that?

Yes. If it is exactly along the rotation axis it could never be seen.
However if there is a star that is almost above the pole (so it still has an apparent movement but one that looks like a small circle) then it might work. It could not always be seen but often enough to be of help I think.

How is latitude determined on Sphere World Earth? Is it totally dependent on the curvature of the surface? Is it measuring the angle to Polaris? (The higher the latitude, the larger the angle between the horizon and the North Star ?)

Latitude can be determined in a few ways. The easiest one is: keep the sun in view and measure its distance to the horizon. When it reaches its apex then it is noon. And that angle is directly correlated with your latitude.
If your latitude is 44 degrees north, the solar altitude at solar noon during an equinox will be 90 minus 44, or 46 degrees.

Star navigation is easier (as long as you can see Polaris):
At the Equator (0° of latitude), the North Star is on the horizon, making an angle of 0°. For any point between the Equator and the North Pole, latitude is obtained simply by measuring the altitude of Polaris: at 30°N the star is 30° above the horizon, at 63°N, it is 63° above the horizon, and so on.
This works all night while the one with the sun only works precisely at noon. So if the skies are somewhat clear you would do both, so you would get your latitude two or three times a day, and make a good guess for the rest of the day based on wind direction, course, and your speed (called dead reckoning).
Navigation without a compass is certainly not an easy feat.

Star navigation without Polaris works as well, but it is a lot harder. You need to use something similar to the cross bearing method (below) on at least two known stars.

How does casting the direction spell twice help over casting it once?

Two points is always better because it gives you a point.
If you can only see one known point you know a line you are on. If you have directions to two points you point (where the two lines cross). That's important because judging distances is hard.
You basically build a triangle. The technique is called cross bearing.

How would that magical lighthouse spell effect work? Not sure what that entails?

What I meant is something akin to a non directional beacon for air navigation. It works like a lighthouse, but (possibly) over the horizon.
And with the above method you could get the bearing to both light houses and so get an exact position.



Edit: oh, and of course dead reckoning helps. But it is prone to error.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_reckoning

Edit: forgot this little gem (this is for time, which helps with the longitude)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_distance_(navigation)

Edit: sorry this post is a bit of a mess, I edited a few things in that I forgot to mention as I am not sure how familiar y'all are with navigation.

 

[Scalenex]

Considering a small medieval merchie:

It has (for example) a crew of 30, six months at sea, roughly two barrels per Man. 60 barrels total in the hold. Each barrel weighs about 450 pounds. That is 135 tons of water. 140 if my guess about the empty weight of the barrels is off.

So I guess a spell-caster that can create fresh water is convenient to have but not essential. It was also pointed out to me by a player that a theurgist that is making fresh water is not using his allotment of mana points to do other stuff. A warship would probably prefer a spell-caster who can cast heal spells or smite the enemy as opposed to one who can keep their fresh water stocked.

I guess, if a ship doesn't face any special danger, a theurgist can at the end of the day purify some water if his mana wasn't needed for anything more urgent. The above example might be able to get by with packing 90-100 tons of water on board when they take off.

Maybe have a two ● spell that can teleport a Raven? Or messenger bird of choice. But, the Minor Teleport Creature covers the first 399 Miles and the Raven covers the last mile (and being a Raven he can find or hunt down the particular recipient). There is a parchment message tied to his ankle. The Raven flies back at normal speed or waits for a reply (in which case the recipient casts Minor Teleport to send him back).

Not a fan of this idea. It's just a little too wonky and fantastic for my tastes. It would raise questions of "why can't we teleport other things?"

Speak with Dolphins has got to be a one ● Spell. Being able to communicate with porpoises might be a generic inherent ability of many undersea races. But if not, the Spell suffices.

Either way, Porpoises have a Purpose: messenger. Communicating with them is necessary to assign them their destination or the recipient. They are swift, they are smart, they are ubiquitous in all seas and not suspicious or conspicuous. Hire a whole pod (as messenger plus guards) for a really important message.

Divine spell casters can talk to ANY animal or animal-intelligence magical beast with the lore Animal ●. Dolphins being much more intelligent than most other animals would make better messengers than most other animals.

I haven't figured out how Arcane casters can talk to animals. I suppose they could Divination to overcome language barriers telepathically, or Transmutation to change their own method of speaking. It would probably be a Second Circle spells, unless they wanted to hyper-specialize in a "talk to dolphin spell."

Despite dolphin's relative high intelligence, dolphin messages would be relatively simplistic. A dolphin might be able to say "Many enemy ships coming!" but they probably wouldn't be able to relay "Three dreadnaughts and 17 schooners are coming, sailing under the colors of the orc pirate Commodore Greenbeard!"

Crystal Balls and Palantirs. This wheel has been invented. Twice. But all it needs is a better name than Scalantirs.

This might be ^ the goto method for Mer-Kingdom to Mer-Kingdom comms. Giant translucent pearls might do, as material component. Enchant with a succession of appropriate spells and Bob’s your Mer-uncle. Most of them are made so that they only work if both are underwater.

Scalantirs is is . Actually I like the idea of crystal balls as a scrying tool not a communication tool. Maybe it's a little corny, but I like the idea of sea-shell phones.

The fastest way to send messages is signal towers of some type.

• Discworld had its Klacks towers.
• Pern had their Drum signal heights.
• 18th Century France (Bonaparte) had heliograph towers.
• Middle Earth had the signal fires between Rohan/Gondor.
• Semaphore towers are a thing.
• Towers with signal flag masts could work.

But all of those depend on codes for security and have some susceptibility to interception.

That was my idea, too!
Signal towers rock, whether they work magically or via light/flags or something, those are great.

Signal towers, signal fires, and signal flags are very utilitarian, but they tend to be limited to military commands.

"Enemy Approaching"
"Reinforcements Approaching"
"Retreat"
"Hold"
"Advance"

Stuff like that.

I suppose relatively simple magic could enhance this such as magic to change the color of fire. For instances, if the Colassian Confederacy could use different colored signal fires to modify "Enemy Approaching" to "Gnolls Approaching" or "Elves Approaching."

The Kenku probably have some sort of cross-borders signal heights communications system which they’d use for their own purposes. You already established the notion they like being located on high places. That would be a natural follow-on. Also, they are bound to have a better bird to carry messages than ravens. Zephyr birds, silver condors, or lesser phoenixes or something.

They probably would have the most sophisticated system of signal flags and signal fires though princes may try to limit them if they get nervous about kenku trading communications across national borders. Though, like with gnomes, a prince that decides to single out kenku for oppression is likely to suffer.

If the kenku get pissed at a prince, they are going to use their spy network and assorted bribes to dig up all the prince's dirty laundry they can find and feed it to the prince's rivals. If they are pushed by an entire nation, they are going to hook up the nation's rivals with favorable trade deals. This is a little less effective since this conflicts with the kenku's natural greed, and it's not that hard to switch to non-kenku merchants.

Given that the Kenku are corvids themselves, they seem like the MOST likely to use ravens to help them and probably the best suited to training them.

This magic would be the exaggerated version of this. Based on magical SCIENCE, Water is an easier carrier for messages than air.

Say Whut .....?

That makes

This SCIENCE! is gonna need explaining.

I am basing much of the Karkahai over White Wolf's Rokea (weresharks) book. So the writers of Rokea really leaned into the idea that many real world sharks use electroreception to find prey and avoid danger. Rokea are fully sapient, but they cannot really talk underwater, so Rokea send electrical pulses to communicate with other weresharks as well as spirits, both enemies and allies. They call this electrical neo-telepathic communication "the Sending." The Sending can allow detailed communication within a couple hundred yards and very simple messages over a two or three miles. With the right Gift (aka magic), Rokea can send their broadcast a couple hundred miles in the water. Outside the water, a Rokea can only project the Sending about 50 yards at most.

I'm basing my entire metaphysics on the Rokea book's interpretation of Sending.

As for the writing under water:
I think wax tablets will work decently under water, and for the more permanent stuff they could use stone.
So basically Roman style.

Good idea though it'd be a little heavy to carry these around, so that would make literacy a thing for merfolk who have permanent palaces with room for bulky libraries. I guess wax and clay tablets would be what poor people write on. Scaraquan alchemy could make water proof paper and ink that can write on it. Maybe like a gold piece for a piece of this super paper.

Edit: if certain wizards were the only capable navigators that could be interesting. It could create something like the navigators in the Dune universe. You need them so every ship has to have one, defend him, and pay him good money.

That's a good motiff for a high fantasy, but I'm aiming for a medium-low fantasy world. I don't want to make wizards required for sailing.

Along those lines...

They could even telegraph maybe.

And if you think about it: if there is minimal weather control and the ability to sense stuff like that... a wizard could paint the sky. Or use an electricity spell to telegraph. Or even act as an arc converter.
Even simple magic can create stuff that people on 19th century real Earth used machines for.

A part of me does like settings where a little bit of magic helps creates a steam punk setting. But my players are pretty anti-steam punk as a genre, at least for RPGs, and I am inclined to agree.

I'd happily play a Steam Punk game, but I don't want to take on the responsibility of running a steam punk game. I certainly don't feel like creating a steam punk world from scratch. If I change my mind and decide to run a steam punk game, I think I would like to buy some Eberron books. The Eberron setting looks cool, but
on the whole, my ego demands that I use my settings rather than than use a published setting.

Cast it twice and you have perfect navigation.
Or maybe a magical lighthouse.

How does casting the direction spell twice help over casting it once?

How would that magical lighthouse spell effect work? Not sure what that entails?

Took the words out of my mouth--er keyboard--.

[A bunch of science]

It is time for the salmon to spawn. Thus begins their 1000-mile journey back to the exact stream in which they were born. So how do we find our way home? Nobody knows! Narrator: Experts are unsure whether salmon navigate by memory, sense of smell, or by detecting variations in earth's magnetic field.

Hermes: Okay, everybody do one of those three things!

That's basically my lazy solution. There are three or four ways a Scarterran could navigate, but I'm not sure what method they use, so if a PC or NPC needs to navigate from point A to point B, I have the players make an Intelligence + Survival or Intelligence + Sailing roll to "do one of those three things.". Difficulty varies between 4 and 9 depending on how well they know the terrain, what tools they have, and what the weather is like. Aranil, the only player character to sink a lot of points into Survival grew up in the forests east of Fumaya that are very similar to Fumaya's forests. I tend to keep the difficult for his Survival rolls pretty low. If the players ever visit the deserts of East Colassia, the difficulty of his Survival roll will be much harder.

One success means the characters get where they want to go...eventually. Three successes gets them there pretty quickly by the most direct route. Five successes lets them find a short cut or pick up some bonus along the way such as stumbling onto a deposit of easy regents or something similar.

While I love to hand wave hard science away, I need to come up with some alternate methods for Scaraquans to navigate without magic since they cannot easily use the sun and stars.

 

[Aginor]

I need to come up with some alternate methods for Scaraquans to navigate without magic since they cannot easily use the sun and stars.

One possibility could be smell.
The currents in the oceans (like the jet streams high up in the air) carry all kinds of particles with them.
Someone who has a map of the ocean (like this real life one https://www.oceanblueproject.org/up...r/ocean-currents-map-with-logo.png?1551134414 ) could use the smell of the ocean (and of course the general direction the water moves) to navigate.
They also have it a bit easier since for them the water isn't just a homogeneous surface (because they can often dive down and see the ground and how it looks like. Using landmarks and dead reckoning works.
And then of course they could just go to the surface, stick their heads out of the water, and use the sun/stars or whatever to navigate, like the surface dwellers do.

 

[pendrake]

So I guess a spell-caster that can create fresh water is convenient to have but not essential. It was also pointed out to me by a player that a theurgist that is making fresh water is not using his allotment of mana points to do other stuff. A warship would probably prefer a spell-caster who can cast heal spells or smite the enemy as opposed to one who can keep their fresh water stocked.

I guess, if a ship doesn't face any special danger, a theurgist can at the end of the day purify some water if his mana wasn't needed for anything more urgent. The above example might be able to get by with packing 90-100 tons of water on board when they [set sail]

100 gallons of water will supply 1 man for 180 Days (6 months). Therefore...

100 gallons of water will supply 30 men for 6 Days.

Not sure where the 90-100 gallons per casting comes from? But, casting Purify Water every five days should keep the example ship supplied indefinitely. But having a 100 ton reserve is nothing but wise. One Spell-Caster / Hedgewizard for every 30 men in the crew could keep that reserve topped off easily.