Official Kulan Q&A Thread

If you have a question you want to ask me about World of Kulan, feel free to ask it here. I'll also try to compile previously asked questions w/my answers here from my various threads.

I will be checking this thread on a regular basis, so come back often and ask tons of questions.

Cheers!

Knightfall

Questions from my Lands of Harqual thread...

the Jester said:

Originally posted on the World of Kulan Yahoo Group
Hey, I took a look at your rough diagram of your cosmology and had a question or two...

First of all, is the plane of twilight the same (or roughly the same) as the plane of shadows?

Does it also replace the astral plane?

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The Plane of Twilight (now called the Shadowstar Sea) is like combining the Plane of Shadows and the Astral Plane. I haven't worked out all the logistics yet but basically you have to cross into the Shadowstar Sea before being able to cross into the Upper or Lower Planes.

It is my main Transitive Plane connecting to the Ethereal, the Elemental Planes, and the Upper and Lower Planes, but not directly to the Prime Material Plane. In order to get to the Shadowstar Sea you have to pass first through the Ethereal to the Deep Ethereal or to one of the Elemental Planes. Then you make the journey to the Shadowstar Sea. (No silver cords when traveling through the Shadowstar Sea.)

Anyway, The Shadowstar Sea is halfway between Astral and Shadow in look and feel - not horribly dark and gloomy yet not highly radiant either. Of course, the closer you are to the Upper Planes the brighter and more wide open it is and the closer to the lower planes the gloomer and closed off it is.

Spells that would require the Astral Plane or Plane of Shadow work through the Shadowstar Sea. However, these spells, in reality, pass through the ethereal. Thus,shadow walk doesn't take you all the way to the Shadowstar Sea but basically functions the same way. Astral and Shadow spells only ever take you as far as the Deep Ethereal unless your goal is to travel to that plane (i.e. astral projection) and beyond.

Hmm... some of these spells might need to go up a level in my campaign. Either that or I might need to create Greater version of certain spells (i.e. shadow walk, greater). I have things to think about... hmm.

In my cosmology, the Githyanki are native to the Shadowstar Sea as are all astral and shadow-based creatures (i.e. astral dreadnaught, shadow mastiff, etc.)

the Jester said:

Originally posted on the World of Kulan Yahoo Group
Do you use the energy planes?

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Nope. Postive and Negative power and creatures comes from the Shadowstar Sea as well. Positive towards the Upper Planes and Negative towards the Lower Planes. This fact makes it hard to travel to the Outer Planes by almost any means. You have to be well prepared to survive either way.

Once on the Outer Planes it functions as a slight modified Great Wheel, as per the Planescape cosmology. Permanent gates and portals to the Outer Planes from Kulan are very rare and very well and heavily guarded. Gates and portals to the Elemental Planes are more common.

Note that while the Elemental Planes are not touching in the diagram, I am planning on updating it to include the Quasi and Para-Elemental Planes in my cosmology.

Also, my cosmology uses the following alternate planes and demiplanes from D&D Manual of the Planes: Region of Dreams, The Plane of Mirrors (expanded), Spirit World, Temporal Energy Plane (called the Temperal Prime, IMC), Plane of Faerie, Far Realm, The Obseratorium, Common Ground, plus a new demiplane I call the Plane of Serenity (a fey plane that broke off from Faerie).

Also, see the link below for how I'm working Spelljammer into my cosmology.

the Jester said:

Hmm, must've missed Mor's End. Details?

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Mor's End was the EN World City Project that went on in the Rogues Gallery forum for many months. It sort of died after the initial push to create the city including government, guilds, locales, military, NPCs, etc.

el-remmen said:

Have you considered setting up a wiki for all of this?

There are a few different free ones available now. (see sig)

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Do you mean Mor's End, specifically, or the World of Kulan, over all? If you mean the latter then see here.

el-remmen said:

Kulan.

And cool. I will have to spend some time with that when I get a chance.

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The Wiki is in its beginning stages, but i try to add more to it when I can. Most of my Kulan stuff gets posted here, on EN World, or at my World of Kulan Yahoo Group, before it goes onto the Wiki.

the Jester said:

Good stuff, as always, KF!

A question for you- I seem to recall, early in the 3e era, a comment by a designer that demigods should give access to two domains, lesser gods to three, intermediate to four and greater to five. Now, I don't think any books really follow this- and I don't recall where I saw this (maybe Deities & Demigods?). Does this rule/guideline ring a bell? (Obviously, you're not following it- I'm just trying to figure out if I am hallucinating this, or if it's actually something I did hear or read somewhere...)

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I seem to remember a rule like that from somewhere, but you're right, I don't follow that rule. For Kulan, most lesser and demigods have around four domains, and then it goes up from there (Intermediate: 5; Greater: 6+). However, there isn't a set number of domains for Kulan deities.

Questions from World of Kulan Maps....

Clay_More said:

Is Kulan a sort of online Campaign Setting, seems that more than just Knightfall knows about it?

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Kulan isn't an online campaign setting beyond the fact that I am a prolific world designer who likes to share his creation with others. I do know of one guy, blackshirt5, who really liked the world premise I posted on page three (and 4) of the Homebrew Worlds- What is in YOUR World? thread.

Wisdom Penalty said:

this is a great thread, knightfall. i especially love the most recent (world) map - though im not sure if one of your other uploads already had it. i was wondering if you have a web site with all the maps? also, i cant read the scale (at least on the world map) - could you tell me what it is? i have thought of dropping valus into eberron but i think id have to change the scale, and also am not sure if the climate would mesh. have you given any thought to those issues? thanks!

Click to expand...

I did have another upload of this map, but I changed that one to be without regional names. I don't have my maps on my website, but I do have them on my World of Kulan Yahoo Group. However, the maps there, in the photos section, are smaller as I want to save space in the files section for campaign material.

The scale on the World of Kulan map goes up by 250 miles for each increment. Thus the total miles on the scale bar is 2000 miles. Thus, World of Kulan's circumference is "roughly" 22,000 miles. (I didn't measure exactly so, I can't say for certain the "exact" circumference.) This means, Kulan is slightly smaller than Earth (24,902 mi.), but I'm not sure by how much.

Tellerian Hawke said:

(Moderator, please delete this post, I sent text msg instead.)

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We're not secretaries.

Sorry, wasn't trying to be demanding or rude. I just didn't know what to do, since I couldn't delete it myself. I got used to being my own moderator on my campaign threads, and being able to delete my own stuff

Tellerian Hawke said:

Sorry, wasn't trying to be demanding or rude. I just didn't know what to do, since I couldn't delete it myself. I got used to being my own moderator on my campaign threads, and being able to delete my own stuff

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Yet, Morrus is right. Besides, for the World of Kulan forum, I have moderator status. If a post needs to be deleted (or moved), I can do it.You don't need to ask anyone else.