[Proposal] The Transitive Isles

covaithe · Aug 23, 2008

Yes, island control rituals sounds like fun.

As for why the islands move, I think those are all great theories, but I don't see why we have to choose. We can leave them all as in-game theories, and the "actual" cause as mysteriously unspecified. I can see them being endlessly debated over pints in the Hanged Man, or researched by crackpot artificers who end up nearly blowing up Daunton with their recklessly explosive experiments, or dwarves speculatively mining for Dauntonium and running into Things Which Should Not Be Disturbed, or...

Binder Fred · Aug 24, 2008

What about underwater races/civilisations though? Would they know/suspect if there's a bottom or not, for example? I was also thinking of underwater adventures/exploration (via apparatus(ses) of kwalish maybe? Airy helmets/rings, powered by residum/dauntonim?). Some of my better roleplay experiences happened underwater you see.

Garyh, glad you like the Stretching Sea! How would you see it working?

Binder Fred, still thinking on the boat isles...

garyh · Aug 24, 2008

I was thinking the Transitive Seas in general could be the result of the dreams / nightmares / thoughts / anger / whims of Poseeydus, whatever the pseudo-physical description is..

Graf · Aug 25, 2008

Binder Fred said:
What about underwater races/civilisations though? Would they know/suspect if there's a bottom or not, for example? I was also thinking of underwater adventures/exploration (via apparatus(ses) of kwalish maybe? Airy helmets/rings, powered by residum/dauntonim?). Some of my better roleplay experiences happened underwater you see.

Garyh, glad you like the Stretching Sea! How would you see it working?

Binder Fred, still thinking on the boat isles...

Personally I'm really keen on the Depths being a universal transitive plane, a sort of underdark/etherial plane that you can reach if you're willing to dive deep enough.

At the very deepest segements are things (or portals to places where things like) like the avanc (from the Scar) or the Cthulhoid menace that slew the five live.

But there can be levels between the two.

[d]--[/d]
I think theories about the seas are great. I love all of these and definitely want to include them.

Graf · Aug 25, 2008

Binder Fred said:
What about underwater races/civilisations though? Would they know/suspect if there's a bottom or not, for example? I was also thinking of underwater adventures/exploration (via apparatus(ses) of kwalish maybe? Airy helmets/rings, powered by residum/dauntonim?). Some of my better roleplay experiences happened underwater you see.

Garyh, glad you like the Stretching Sea! How would you see it working?

Binder Fred, still thinking on the boat isles...

Personally I'm really keen on the Depths being a universal transitive plane, a sort of underdark/etherial plane that you can reach if you're willing to dive deep enough.

At the very deepest segements are things (or portals to places where things like) like the avanc (from the Scar) or the Cthulhoid menace that slew the five live.

But there can be levels between the two.

[d]--[/d]
I think theories about the seas are great. I love all of these and definitely want to include them.

Binder Fred · Aug 26, 2008

Graf said:
Personally I'm really keen on the Depths being a universal transitive plane, a sort of underdark/etherial plane that you can reach if you're willing to dive deep enough.

To my mind that sounds a lot like option II, the Floating Sea, with a murkier, thicker-textured "ethereal" at the bottom instead of the elemental plane of water. We can establish in the lore that "No one has ever seen the bottom of the Sea -- some saying that there *is* no bottom at all"... Does that work for you guys?

As for the Boat Isles, the obvious first choice/possibility is to have small versions of the Crawling Sea islands patter about in the relatively shallow sea surrounding each main island. We'd expect these isles to rise up as they go into shallower waters and sink/shrink as they crawl into deeper waters (sometimes disapearing entirely beneath the waves). They would always wander relatively close to the main islands (as they need the footing), jumping from one island to the next when the big guys transit close to each other.

The other possibility is of course floating, and there you have several possibilties : buyancy (air pockets, hull-shapes, etc), antigrav/limited flight propulsion (giant geodes of magical crystals / mystical engines of various types) or elemental repulsion (the island *can't* sink, being made of a substance water *hates* and simply won't let into itself (such as, say, frozen flames) or islands made of an elemental being itself (sand, mud or ash floating "sand bars" or more classical Rock or "single crystal" elemental islands (perfect purple fluorite pyramids, calcite rhombohedrons or pyrite cubes floating about... hum, the various types could have broken/been abraded off the sides of the columns forming the main isles...)). I rather like that last personnaly, (the elemental isles concept, not entirely sure about the single crystal ones as yet : the visuals seem off somehow...). Certainly I'd use both the "sand bar" islands AND the crawling islands described above. Meshes rather well with the elemental columns of option II... Those sand bars, being basically abraded off magical beings, might be the only known emplacement of *residium* "placer deposits"! What do you think?

Binder Fred, when it rains...

Graf · Aug 26, 2008

Binder Fred said:
To my mind that sounds a lot like option II, the Floating Sea, with a murkier, thicker-textured "ethereal" at the bottom instead of the elemental plane of water. We can establish in the lore that "No one has ever seen the bottom of the Sea -- some saying that there *is* no bottom at all"... Does that work for you guys?

As for the Boat Isles, the obvious first choice/possibility is to have small versions of the Crawling Sea islands patter about in the relatively shallow sea surrounding each main island. We'd expect these isles to rise up as they go into shallower waters and sink/shrink as they crawl into deeper waters (sometimes disapearing entirely beneath the waves). They would always wander relatively close to the main islands (as they need the footing), jumping from one island to the next when the big guys transit close to each other.

The other possibility is of course floating, and there you have several possibilties : buyancy (air pockets, hull-shapes, etc), antigrav/limited flight propulsion (giant geodes of magical crystals / mystical engines of various types) or elemental repulsion (the island *can't* sink, being made of a substance water *hates* and simply won't let into itself (such as, say, frozen flames) or islands made of an elemental being itself (sand, mud or ash floating "sand bars" or more classical Rock or "single crystal" elemental islands (perfect purple fluorite pyramids, calcite rhombohedrons or pyrite cubes floating about... hum, the various types could have broken/been abraded off the sides of the columns forming the main isles...)). I rather like that last personnaly, (the elemental isles concept, not entirely sure about the single crystal ones as yet : the visuals seem off somehow...). Certainly I'd use both the "sand bar" islands AND the crawling islands described above. Meshes rather well with the elemental columns of option II... Those sand bars, being basically abraded off magical beings, might be the only known emplacement of *residium* "placer deposits"! What do you think?

Binder Fred, when it rains...

I think that I like the idea of sunken cities, as well as the shifting seas being
1. apparently different in different places
2. hard to evaluate in an objective fashion

So some places it seems like the "floating seas" (i.e. great columns that go down for as far as anyone has dared to try to go); others have shallower near oceans. People who go down sometimes find rock, and sometimes find great sumerged cities (and suken isles) or immense creatures* whose backs are made of stone and whose blood is lava; other places you can't get down very fall before you "fall" into strange elemental realms of water, or worse.

*It's said that druids, dark cults and worse can sometimes manipulate these to do their bidding.

As someone else suggested I think the best idea is to make all of those different ideas "theories".
So there are different schools of thought and different theories, and most of those theoreticians don't actually go down and search themselves but would pay adventurers for properly done exploratory work.

[d]--[/d]

I like the depths as a concept because it
1. fits tightly with the "recent arc of Daunton"
2. It's an alternative to the overused underdark that still allows a "high level zone" to be close to the starting area
3. Something, like an evil race, coming out of the depths, could threaten all of the shifting seas at once, setting up a larger epic framework for an adventure (if we wanted to do that later)
4. Is scary, and underwater is really really scary. There's something primal and horrific about floating out in the water and looking down and there's just darkness below. Personally I wouldn't want to define it concretely and loose that.

Graf · Aug 26, 2008

garyh said:
My theme was this:
Imperium - Greek-flavored, and as Ata presented them.
Daunton - Variations on the Roman equivelents.
Hraka - A rough, debased form of the Imperial versions.
Bacarte - A motley mix of all influences.

I'm no Tolkien, but I think it works. Thoughts?

Sorry for my slow response on this... I like the names. I'm struggling to get them into this stupid chart.

I think we have plenty of names for now.

Here's my take:

I'd like gender to be somewhat flexible...
Bacarte is really culturally similar to Daunton in religious terms... they're very close to each other, and I see the hobgoblins as being very interested in avoiding overt trouble.

On the second point I took your names for Daunton and made them the "savage" names.
Shifters, savage humanoids will use then.

Is there supposed to be a connection with Hzaka and the Imperium... are they survivors from the sundering minor?
(just curious about your thought process...)

[d]--[/d]
Added a section on life and death to try to foreground our "raising" position. The text is poor...

Graf · Aug 26, 2008

garyh, I changed Neptari to Netari.... I couldn't get past the similarity to Neptune (which would be fine if it were the Imperium and the Imperium were based on the roman names but... anyway, changed it)

OK, so we need to fold Binder Fred's second set of ideas in, but with the completion of

Languages
Nova Imperium
a new region: Mykonos' Sanctuary

We're basically done. I mean... people need to weigh in on the current version of the regional benefits (which I'm looking forward to like having my toenails pulled with pliers) and it desperately needs to be proofread.... but....

Anyway. Except for incorporating Binder Fred's stuff we're done.

covaithe · Aug 26, 2008

Do you think we're ready for a "yes, let's use that setting / no, let's keep talking about other settings" vote now? I'm thinking yes, but I haven't taken a look at your setting todo list recently.