A Work Intensive Approach to World Creation

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Now, some of you may remember this from before the "Great Board Crash of '06" complete with the diagrams and fun stuff. I can't remember everything I said there, but seeing as I have an entire world to create for a group of new players (Only 2 out of the 7 people have ever played before two weeks ago) I figured I'd show how I did it.

Now, many will disagree with the advice and steps I'm about to put down, many will say it's overly complicated, and that's fine. This is a game with lots of lattitude within the framework, and this style is just as valid as any other.

Let's get started.

First thing is first...
What books will be in use? What are open to the GM, what's open to the players?

Players
Now, let's not get into multiple templates and stuff like that at first. Let's stick with some basics and do this, as I have newbies:

• Heroe Builder's Guidebook-Laugh all you want, for newbies to the game, this book is incredibly valualbe.
• Player's Handbook-Now, I've decided that races, classes, spells, everything, is as it is in the Player's Handbook. No modifications. This is to make it easier on the new players, and cut down on my work.
• Expanded Psionic Handbook-No races. Psion and Psychic Warrior classes only.
• Arcane/Divine Strife, Expanded-Spells & Feats only.

ME! Me me me me!
Now, I get a bonus. I'm an experienced GM and player both, and, well, I have to put this crap together and make it work.

• Dungeon Master's Guide-Duh! I kind of need this.
• Monster Manual 1, 2, 3-Here's my critters and threats. I'll take all three, and wedge them in as I see fit later.
• Crimson Contracts-What can I say, I like this book, I co-wrote it.
• Arcane/Divine Strife, Expanded-More spells, feats, etc. Plus, well, I co-wrote them.
• Psionics Handbook, Expanded-I'll need it too.
• Dieties and Demigods-Yeah, I know lots of people hate this thing, but I'm being lazy in assigning Gods to races and areas today.
• Manual of the Planes-More work for me. How do the planes interact?
• African Adventures-Lovely book for diseases and primitiveness
• Lesser Mysteries-Scar magic, totem magic, ect. I think I'll make savage tribes savages.

Why decide on these? I have about 20-30 books, and over 200 PDF's. Best to limit myself right now to initial material.

Now for the Next Part
Where.

This is more than just "In a forest" or "In a city", but I actually go to this...

What colour is the sun? Is it a large red sun, the size of a basketball in the sky, that gazes down balefully upon the world without providing much heat? A tiny white dwarf that bathes the world in energy? Is it a typical yellow?

Well, for this one, I chose a young yellow, because I'm lazy. Naw, I chose it for familiarity to the players. A dying red sun gives the mental picture of an ancient world, now dying and crumbling to ruin. A long history and vast swaths of the area useless, huge icecaps and shallow seas bordered by vast cliffs (The continental shelves) where many races make thier homes. A white or blue dwarf brings in alien mindset, of alienist wizards, twisted races, and storms that batter the coasts.

So yellow it is.

Now, where is our planet? Third? Fourth? Fifth? Second?

Why would this make a difference? Venus and Mars are brilliant in the night sky.

Plus, it puts our climate figure. Second-Tropical World, Third, temperate world, fourth- cold world, Fifth- Ice world. Or maybe not, depending on other factors.

I chose fourth. Now, I name the two inner planets that can be seen: Hillyar and Besecomb. Naw, too different. How about: Heironeous and Nerull.

Heironeous can be seen in the pre-dawn morning sky as a tiny green dot. From roughly a half hour prior to false dawn, to 15 minutes after dawn, Heironeous can be seen in the night sky. To coincide, this is the primary worshipping time, and when worshippers of good regain thier "spells per day" bit.

Nerull can be seen just prior to sunset, during twilight, but disappears over the horizon about a half hour after dark. It as a dark red, and sometimes has an umber halo around it. Halo days are known as portents of evil.

Now, moons. How many?

Well, I want to make it easy on myself, so only 1. That way tides and the like are easier to figure. I make it roughly the same as ours, but it's bluish green with cloud strata on it. It's rumored that elves and dragons originally came from the moon. (True) The moon I name Hillyar because, well, I like that name.

So, we whip out a spreadsheet. Hillyar whips around the world once every 25 days, and has typical phases of Full, New, quarter, half, 3/4, with the full moon and new moon only lasting 2 days each. The world orbits the sun once every 300 days, giving it a total 12 months, 25 days each, based on a lunar calendar. The first day of the full moon marks the end of the month, the second day marks the beginning of the month.

Winter, Fall, Spring and Summer Solstices are 2 days each.

Asteriod belt? This would be where debris could have caused a calamity in the past. Naw. Wait, yes. This world existed until 15,000 years ago, where it mysteriously broke up. That coincides with when the elves and dragons arrived using ethereal travel. The elves ran into the goblins and orcs ala "Elf-Quest" and lost all thier high magic.

How many planets support life? None.

The suns name?

Simple: Pelor

The Planes
How do they interact? Can you get to an alternate reality from the campaign world?

No. We'll use the "crystal sphere" approach ala-spelljammer. Each world is in its own planar bubble, and never shall the twain meet. Otherwise, all are standard.

The World
OK, we have a single "moon of many colours" AKA Hillyar, a dawnstar and an evening star, a sun, and seasons/calendar, we can decide.

Let's go with temperate, 25% again as large as Terra, and make the divide 60% water 40% earth, giving us more land mass.

Protocontinent, or seperate continents? Let's go with seperated in antiquity. Way way back in antiquity. Why? Pangea broke up due to tidal stresses on the protocontinent in the subsurface magma, as well as Hillyar's pull on the iron core.

Earth standard gravity. We could adjust this if we wanted, just slightly changing jump distances and falling damage by the % above earth normal. BUT, be warned, if you dick with your gravity setting, the repercussions can be massive. Imagine human base strength, not at 10, but at 16. Not good.

Seasons are standard. Now, logic says that each season is 75 days (75*4=300) but that's not how autumn and spring really work on our wonderful world. Let's make winter and summer 100 days each, with spring and fall being 50 days each. Spring and Autumn soltices are on the 24th and 25th day respectively, with the Winter Solstice being on day 51, and the Summer Solstice being on Day 49.

That makes the Winter Solstice "New Years Day"

Temperate climate. Jungles/Deserts near the equator, forests in the middle, tundra up top. That's a generalization. Putting a Rain Forest in the northern section is not unfeasable (See: Olympia Rain Forest, USA, Washington State) but we're talking generics.

Let's go with 5 continents, 3 subcontinents, 11 oceans. No, strike that. 3 Oceans, 6 seas. Yes, there's a difference.

Hmmm, we need names for the Oceans... Time to whip out the Scrabble tiles, or just make something up. Let's try to do better than I did when I was 13, and NOT name an Ocean "Pacificum"... Oh, better decide on the ocean temperature baseline. In one setting, I put the temperature average of the oceans at 63 degrees. This means that the survivors of the Titanic could have swam home. Remember, salt-water freezes at a lower temperature than clear-water. Let's go with... 49 degrees.

Glastree-The largest and deepest, it's home to the colder water loving creatures. It's 5 degrees colder than average, and 55 feet higher. IIRC, the average sea levels for the different oceans on earth vary up to 60 feet +/- zero depending on lattitude.
Vastree-Second largest, it is the shallowest of the oceans, and thus, somewhat warmer. (3 degrees above standard)
Wee-Jas The Arctic Ocean, surrounding the Arctic Continent of the same name.

Continents and Sub-Continents
Well, we've got 5 and 3. Remember, Eurasia gobbles up a lot. Out of the nine continents, only 5 landmasses (N/S America, Eurasia, Africa, Australia) exist in ours, so technically, we could have more. Better bump it up to 8 continents and seperate a few with huge mountian ranges. That should work.

Naming continents after Gods works well, as well as after explorers. Americas are named after Americo Vespucci (sp?) who did the mapping and exploring of the Americas. So this gives you a grounding of history.

For us, we'll make some up, insert the explorers in history, and use Gods in addition. We'll decide who was settled first, where people went next, and decide if different races originally settled different continents. Perhaps there is some schizm between the races because the races found were brought to the primary continent as slaves, but we'll cover that in races.

Beltrain: Primary PC starting continent, should span from near-arctic to Tropical. At one point an ice-bridge connected Beltrain to Wee-Jas
Vershint: Unknown to PC's civilizations. Wait, you know what, in a world with flying creatures, dragons, magic, psionics, etc, let's rule that all continents know of each other's existance. This one is a southern hemisphere continent.
Halstian: At one point an ice bridge existed between Wee-Jas and Halstian.
Wee-Jas: Well, we know this is the arctic continent. Let's add a "temperate" spur off of it.
Jelvian: A southern hemisphere continent.

Subcontinents: These are the ones that are too small to be actual continents, according to us anyway...

Frelaim: Off the coast of Jelvian and Vershint, this subcontinent is largely unexplored, with only aboriginal tribes populating it. It was only discovered 50 years ago.
Pulmen: Pulmen almost made continent status, but not quite. It was the first sub-continent discovered and settled, almost 2000 years ago.
Yirve: North of Frelaim, this sub-continent was discovered 500 years ago, and is somewhat settled, however, the interior remains largely unexplored, and there are two aboriginal races there: Gnolls and Lizardmen.

So we have our oceans, and our (sub)continents, let's name the seas, and wrap this bad boy up with a map! Whaddya say?

Ehlonna Sea: This sea was the first crossed by the races, over the Ehlonna Ice Bridge. During the trek, Ehlonna kept the people fed by manna and warm by providing seals to skin. Legend has it that a human nation sunk to the bottom of the sea when the ice bridge thawed over 10,000 years ago.
Enn Sea: Eh, named after ENWorld, this sea is very shallow, and contains multiple islands (Think Gulf of Mexico shallow) The reefs and currents have resulted in more than one ship going down, and many sailors think that it is cursed.
Kordian Sea: This sea is known for it's reefs, and is home to Sea Giants as well as mer-people.
Erythnul Sea: This sea spawns many typhoons and hurricanes, as well as frequent waterspouts that rain wreckage and mud down on northern Yirve. It is the treacherous nature of this sea that prevented the discovery of Yirve for eons.
Obad-Hai Sea: This small sea is the primary passage between the Glastree and Wee-Jas Oceans, and is a primary shipping lane. It's narrow arms are often full of pirates.
Palun Sea: This inland sea has only a narrow strip of land seperating it from thye Obad-Hai Sea, and lately the land itself has been groaning in pain on the Palun Strip.


OK, let's map this bad boy... You'll need the profantasy viewer to check this out, since I whipped it up on CC2.

Next up, let's look at the races...

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

OK, which shall we address first? The Nature of the Gods, the Races, or magic?

Better go with Gods...

Gods
Now, we can use one of several templates, but let us look at what is fun.

Aloof and uncaring is typical, and honestly, not much fun.
Petty, meddling, vain, and childish, ala Greek/Roman myth! That's always fun, AND prevents the rise of "One True Church" and "One Kingdom!" While Rome stretched over much of the known world, they are a special case, and we're not going to allow a republic or democracy to exist on our world.

Let's go with Vain, meddling, Petty, vengeful, and childish. Our gods may often walk among the mortals in disguise, may take sides during a war by providing divine intervention.

To what level? Let's go with the Xena and Hercules models. Intricate, but childish plotting, powerful beings that really aren't very all knowing and wise.

Hmmm, Elhonna led the races across the land bridge to Wee-Jas herself! Obad-Hai wanted the races to remain, and this caused the initial schism. While in the PHB he's a rival, what if it's a little more than that, each side accusing the others of heresy?

Wee-Jas corrupted the peoples that Elhonna led to the continent, forcing Elhonna to lead some to Vershint, and a mighty mortal named St. Cuthbert led the others to Halstain?

Works for me.

Now, see, in deciding how the Gods interact, you can also start history. Halstain is named for St. Cuthbert's unspoken love to a woman who died during the retreat.

Those who worshipped Wee-Jas became corrupted and twisted, resulting in Orcs, Goblins, and kobolds! There's some racail data.

So, we decide which Gods we want to use (obviously, I'm dealing with PHB gods) and what level of interference they have.

Now, we'll also make it so that the PHB Gods are worshipped on all the continents, but the starting continent Beltrain is thier primary continent (And coincedently, where the PC's get to start!)

What's next? Ahhhh, magic...
On Magic
Here's where you have to make some decisions...

• Power level

This is the most important decision you can make. Logically, everything has to fit together. You need to address this right after, or right before, the Gods. I did right after for a reason, see, I have a vision, and that will show up in a moment, but first, power level...

OK, let's put it where magic items are uncommon, but not rare. Most villages have a low level cleric and wizard, or at least a mid-level adept. This extends life expectancy as well as lowers the child-death rate and death due to child-birth, farm accidents, infections, etc.

Dragons are rare, but not unheard of. Each dragon claims several hundred square miles as it's territory, so you aren't going to encounter flocks of them around the watering hole.

Artifacts exist, and now is where we decide where they are...

Open up a spreadsheet, and enter in the name of each one. Now, for your columns, enter the following:
Name
Location
Last Owner
Previous Owner
Previous Owner
Previous Owner
Last Known Location
Previous Location
Previous Location
Previous Location
Time Lost
Creator
Method of Creation
Method of Destruction
Powers
Curses
Bad Things

Now, we get to fill those out, but not right now. We'll do that later.

Who knows how long we'll be using this campaign. With my luck, it'll last like Shtar, and I'll be DMing the goddamn thing 25 years later!

OK, now, what should be the levels of the wizards/clerics/adepts?

How about this... 1d4+1 level. That's for your small thorps and hamlets.
Potions aren't falling out of everyone's spice racks, but aren't completely unknown either.

Since the Gods exist, it would not be uncommon for a shrine or small church to possess at least a few (1d8) potions of curing and a couple (1d4) potions of cure disease.

The level of magic covers the spectrum, but unless you are in a metropolis or large city, you won't see guards packing magical weapons and wearing magical armor.

Let's keep sorcerers and wizards standard, but RIGHT HERE, let's add a little common sense...

Power Words only take up a single damn page. Let us fix that now.

And now, onto:

• Where did Magic Come From?

You know who always gets a bad rap? Vecna. Seriously, what did he do? Well, in our setting, let's have that he did a Promethus.

Vecna stole magic from the Gods and brought it to Mortals. Kas accepted Nerull's coin and killed him, but Vecna's power flowed outward and everyone learned magic.

We need a fable, and Vecna and Kas work...

Vecna held the power of the Gods, and used it to challenge thier power, to rise to godhood himself without supping on ambrosia. In a fit of cunning, Nerull offered the Vampire King Kas, who helped Vecna steal magic, the ability to walk in the daylight if he was to slay Vecna, and Nerull himself would help Kas.

However, when Kas seemed on the verge of defeat, Nerull abandoned the Vampire King, and Kas was seared by the light of Pelor. Vecna, having lost a hand and an eye to Kas' blade, felt pity for his friend and embraced him as the sunlight consumed him, crying out:

"Why, my brother, why did you betray me?"
"It was Nerull, he promised me the ability to walk within the day." Kas gasped, and died. Vecna stood, the ashes of his friend falling from his arms, and raised his hands, cursing Nerull and Pelor both. His rage was such that Pelor smote him for his insolence, sundering and rending his body.

However, Vecna's power flowed out onto the breezes, and those who had gathered to watch chased after the glittering motes of pure magic, catching them to look at and hold. Magic spread on the winds to everyone, even though Nerull and Pelor both chased after the motes with jars, hoping to capture the magic again, and while Pelor and Nerull were gone, Vecna's soul snuck up Nerull's moonbeam ladder and ascended the heavens.

And now we have a fable! I know, stupid, right? Well, right there we have some history.

Fables and tales are a lot of work, but something I recommend. Having those fables and those little folk-tales may seem like nobody would notice, but some role-players really enjoy hearing it, and having the party facing a Lich who has a small sparkling mote in a glass ball gives it a sense of history. This guy was there, he SAW Vecna, Kas, and Nerull go at it. Or at least, someone was, and this Lich has a piece of history. Is it an artifact? What happens if you bust the glass bubble and let the mote go free?

Where it came from should have a fable attached.

Oh, crap, you know what, I forgot to talk about what we're going to need to have.

Folders.

Yup. Three ring binders, spiral notebooks or college ruled log books.
Graph paper.
Pencils, normal and coloured.
Pens, multiple colours.
Highlighters.

Now, take the spirals or log books, and label them with the following:

• Magic
• Human
• Half-orc
• Halfling
• Gnome
• Half Elf
• Elf
• Dwarf
• Humaniod
• Gods

That will do for now.

So, inscribe your basic "true" fable on where magic came from in the magic book.

Now, as far as magic power level goes, do we want to build in a nerf on the cleric? I say, as the Gods are petty and cruel, for this world, we do.

All clerics/Paladins MUST choose a god.
Spells 1-3 level can be taken from any domain.
Spells 4-6 can be taken from the primary and secondary domains.
7-9 are from the PRIMARY domain ONLY!

Let's go even further, with adjusting the magic.

All sorcerers and wizards must be specialized.

That puts the breaks on spells.

Now, this isn't necessary for every world, but it does make a quick, easy, and common sense way to deal with magical power level.

OK, now for the fun one...

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Races

RACES​

Yup, the core races.

Now, you need to decide something right now, as the GM. How many racial templates can be layered onto a creature before it become unique? How common are half-fiends? How common are half-dragons? I don't mean some creature you slapped the template onto to make a twisted and unique version, I mean as a whole?

In other words, can the races interbreed regardless of genetics?

For our world, let's place a maximum of 1 template, and let's add another book to our stack.

Unearthed Arcana

We'll add that book in, for the "bloodlines" section. That will take care of that.

Anyway, we need to decide each race.

First up, we need to decide Gods. Well, I'm using Dieties and Demigods, so that makes it a LOT easier.

But, since Wee-Jas is obviously becoming the "Continent of EEEE-VAL!" (think of Mermaid Man yelling it ) why not do something a bit different.

On Wee-Jas, the Drow won the war. So surface elves from Wee-Jas are drow. Not all worship Lolth, since Wee-Jas helped out, so we'll have to open our "Elf" notebook and add in a drow section...

When Lolth made her play against Corellon Larethian a few centuries after the Elves arrived on the world, in most places her worshippers were destroyed in a genocidal purge, or forced into the barren places of the world. However, on the continent of Wee-Jas, the god Wee-Jas strengthened the hands of those drow who promised to worship him, Nerull, or Lolth, and with the assistance of a trio of Gods instead of a single Goddess, the Drow managed to purge or force into the bad lands all of the elves.

There, now we have surface dwelling drow.

Still, we need to decide origins of each species.

• [*]Elves

Elves claim to have been the first created, placed in a paradise where they would dwell, immortal, for all eternity. Thier god, who wished to have living, breathing beauty to mach that of the stars, took falling stars and crafted the first elves from them (true) in order to have someone whose beauty matched his own in the universe (false, he created them out of a desire for worship and obediance and to pettily demonstrate how powerful he was to) However, dragons came from beyond the stars (False! The elven god created the Dragon Gods to pull his chariot, and the dragons to act as a scourge on the lazy, unworshipping wretches who populated the moon!) and began warrring with the elves. After nearly a century, however, a barrage of falling stars foretold that the Elven God Corellon Larethian was tired of the fighting, and although the elves and dragons both were warned that the God was tired of it, a comet that foretold that Bahumat and Tiamat both wished the fighting to end was ignored also. (False! Bahumat and Tiamat broke loose of Corellon's stables and escaped, and the comets were the two dragon gods escaping. The meteor shower was him throwing a fit!)

Bahumat, Tiamat, and Corellon Larethian forced the elves and the dragons for paradise (True. All three were jealous of how much worship the human gods were getting, so they decided that it was hardship and mortality that made people worship gods, so BOOT! Out of paradise they went!), made them mortal and prone to age, sickness, injury, and yes, even death. When the elves and dragons arrived on earth, the elves attempted to continue the war, but the dragons spread thier wings and left, having been robbed of thier immortality and near-godhood, and tormented forever by the sound of music from gold and gems, a song that would always be elusively incomplete no matter how much they gathered.

The elves, haughty and distainful of the "vermin" they met, attempted to enslave the humans and dwarves, and war burned the world. However, the elves retained enough magic to escape and to use the forests to hide them.

For several hundred years, the elves avoided the humans, and pleaded with thier gods to allow them to return to thier "paradise" and to dwell there once again. However, after 2,000 years, no elves even remembered that paradise, and while they still told tales of having once lived in "paradise" they had fully adpated to the world.


OK, now, we do this for EACH race. Where they came from, origin fables and truths,

Hey, I warned you, this would be work intensive.

Just think, we haven't even gotten to DURING the campaign yet.

Human
Origin Tale:
Humans were fashioned from dust left over from the making of the universe, and having been made of bits of all the planes and all the stars, they have a constant curiosity to search for new things, and are able to quickly adapt.
Truth
Pelor made them on the 7th day, after animals and monsters. Unfortunately, he was a little tipsy from the celebration and kept dropping bunches of them, resulting in there being multiple different batches made in his oven, as well as being scattered everywhere.
Half-orc
Origin Tale:
Experimentation by the elves to produce the ultimate warrior produced the half orc. (True)
Halfling
Origin Tale:
Originally crated by Fharlaghn, the god lost a bet and had to give Yondalla five thousand children. However, when Fharlaghn saw the size of the children, he cursed them with wanderlust. (True)
Gnome
Origin Fable:
When Garl Glittergold decided it was time to create his children, he took a gem and crafted it into the first two gnomes. (False)
Truth:
Garl Glittergold created his people from riverbank mud when Pelor wasn't looking, and taught them to burrow and hide until there were enough of them that Pelor couldn't justify destroying them, even though Garl Glittergold was not supposed to be a god of people, but instead, just God of gems and minerals.
Half Elf
Origin Fable
Corellon was overcome by a human woman's beuaty and gave her a child.
Truth:
Corellon has a bad habit of getting hammered and picking up human barmaids.
Dwarf
Moradin made the first dwarves, and baked them too long, resulting in warped creatures. He chucked these onto the ground (they became goblins) and tried again, but didn't cook them long enough. He threw these away also (They became kobolds), and tried again, this time he got dwarves. However, the kobolds and goblins have NEVER forgotten that Moradin threw them away.
Humaniods
Origin Tale (Orcs)
Grummush created them despite Pelor telling him that he could not, and when the others drew lots for where their people would live, there were no lots left for Grummush's people, so he took his spear and blasted sections of the world, calling out: My people will live HERE, and HERE, and HERE!
Truth:
Orcs were created in two ways: By Wee-Jas corrupting humans. These orcs are often more ambitious and warlike.
However, in the beginning, Pelor was pretty hammered when he made humans, and made them of different skin and hair and eye colours, and several batches were orcs. He kept dropping them on the world by accident.

Grummush is Corellon's half-brother, fathered by Pelor upon Yollanda, and hates Corellon with a passion. Grummush takes in those races without gods, and his clerics preach strength over everything else.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

The Classes

OK, now it's time to take on Classes.

I know... BOO! HISS!

There are times to modify them, but if you are going to modify them, it should be easily accessable to the players, as well as understandable.

So, go to the SRD homepage (http://www.wizards.com/d20 IIRC) and grab the sheet that says: Classes.

Now, open it up, and make your changes. Print out a copy for each player, paste or tape it to the first pages of thier notebook, and use your highlighter to highlight the changes.

We're not going to do anything major, just some minor tweaks. OK, that's not true, the spell casters are about to get HAMMERED!

Barbarian:
None yet. That'll be regional, and mostly for Charisma. Barbarians were looked down on by civilized people.

Bard
Must belong to a bardic college. Think of it as a mage guild.

Cleric:
Gets diety's favored weapon as a free weapon proficency.
Can cast level 1-3 spells from all domains.
Must choose a primary domain from the favored domains. THIS is the domain that thier domain powers come from. The cleric may cast spells level 1-9 from this domain.
Must choose two secondary domains from the other listed associated domains. They may use up to level 6 domain powers within this domain, and may cast spells level 1-6 from this domain.

Druid:
Must belong to a druidic "coven"

Fighter:
None, yet.

Monk:
Must belong to an order.
First off, let's add some orders: Fire, Wind, Water, Air, North, South, East, West, Wind, Dragon, Sun, Moon, River.

Let's make them the following:
Lawful Good
Order of the North Wind
Monestary of the Water Dragon
Spring Moon Order

Lawful Neutral
Order of the Sun's Fire
Monestary of the Moon Wind
Followers of the River Turtle

Lawful Evil
Order of the Eastern Wind
Monastery of the Thunder Dragon
Order the Fiery River

There. Hmmm, each should have some benifits, we'll do that later.

Paladin
Each paladin MUST choose a god.
The paladin must be of the same alignment as the God.
True Neutral Paladins must chose one of the following: Smite Evil, Smite Good, Smite Lawful, Smite Chaotic
Lawful and Chaotic Nuetral paladins replace smite evil with smite chaos and smite law respectively.

Ranger
No changes

Rogue
No changes, although belonging to a guild is recommended

Sorcerer
Must specialize, however, they only have to choose 1 opposing school.

Wizard
Must specialize, however, they only have to choose 1 opposing school.

HOWEVER, for both wizards and sorcerers, they gain a +1 to thier spell DC if facing off against a wizard whose forbidden spell categories is thier specialized one.



OK, that covers classes. Make sure you annotate EVERYTHING you change.

 

[Vrecknidj]

It's been a long time since I've done this kind of work (I think the last time was about 6 years ago). Nice to see someone else put down the steps in the process. I'm sure mine were a little different, and the order was a little different, but it's amazing how similar they are.

Thanks for putting this out there. I hope some people who are thinking about DMing read it and it gives them the incentive to jump in.

Dave

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

It's been a long time since I've done this kind of work (I think the last time was about 6 years ago). Nice to see someone else put down the steps in the process. I'm sure mine were a little different, and the order was a little different, but it's amazing how similar they are.

Thanks for putting this out there. I hope some people who are thinking about DMing read it and it gives them the incentive to jump in.

Dave

Thanks. We'll just have to see how many people get any uses out of this.

Now, on Hocus Pocus, On With The Show...

OK, now for a fun part.

The kingdoms.

We're only going to need a few to start out with, but we'll need them all the same.

Now, if you take a look at our CC2 map, click on "tools" then "sheets" then "sheets"

If you look, we have "Common" and "Names" CLick the right hand box on Names, and that hides the names from the map.

Now, click Add and add the following sheets
Mountains
Water Bodies
Forest/Jungles
Settlements
Roads
Borders.

Now, highlight Names, and click "Move Down" until the names are all the way at the bottom.

Click on the left hand box for Mountains, that will allow us to add some mountains.

Remember how we talked about more than just the obvious continents? Now, we all how mountain ranges are forged naturally, right? Cool, we're on the same page. So, let's make us some continental divides!

Click tools>sheets>sheets. Then Add. Then Continental Ranges. Now, click Move Up and move it above Mountains.

And off we go to make our HUGE mountain ranges. Our Alps, Himilayas, and Rockies.

This is where we need to decide just how geologically active our planet is. I'm chosing Terran standard. If it is less active, that means the plates move less, making it so that the mountain ranges will be lower and "softer" (Think Appalachian) while more active ones mean higher and sharper, with more volacanos.

But Earth normal is what we're using. We're looking at a thick range, that drops into the sea.

Speaking of Sea, go to tools>sheets>sheets, and Add a sheet called Ocean Depth. We'll do that soon. Remember, Sea Elves and the like exist on the shallow end of the continental shelf dropoff.

Go back and click tools>sheets>sheets and click the left hand box on Continental Ranges. Now, see where Baltrain has that smaller section that drops to the south? There's our divide.

Click click click.

Done. Well, the first thin line.

Let's add, oh, 5 major mountains that we'll name, and add in 2 volcanoes that are active, and 4 that are inactive. We'll scatter them amid the next three layers of mountains.

OK, done.

We'll do this continental divide first. We need it.

Now, real quick, we'll do some ocean depths. This will place where the continental shelves are. Once we're done, go tools>sheets>sheets and click on the far right box of Ocean Depths, this will hide it while we work. When we want to check it out again, we uncheck that box, and take a quick look at it.

Notice I made the inner section of that "gulf"-like area of Beltrain where the label "Glastree Ocean" was very shallow.

OK, done there...

Now, onto Kingdoms.

A coastal kingdom is always the best, and in a temperate area. Just below the mountain range, on the eastern edge, is where we will add out kingdom.

Now, the mountain range just screams: "YAR! THERE BE DWARVES HERE!" doesn't it? Plus, mountain ranges can be a bit lonesome, with few roads, and fewer passes. It's also a place where orc tribes would lair, giving us a reason to have a percentage of half-orcs within the population.

Now, we need to decide WHY this is a frontier kingdom.

The divide is the easiest reason, but with ships available, why didn't they just go via boat? OK, fairly easy. Where the divide drops into the sea, there are many islands and reefs that prevent easy ship travel. The mountain range is high and steep, with huge cliffs that plunge hundreds of feet to the ground.

Let's click on tools>sheets>sheets and click on Borders. We'll make a quick section of the kingdom. Click click click click. Done. Now to Hide it again.

We need a major water route, and the logical choice is: The river. So we'll put a river down that coincides with our border. A river fed by the mountian glaciers.

Time to break out the Monster Manual.

A red dragon lairs in the dormant volcano. There are many orc, goblin, kobold, and hill giant tribes within the mountains.

So, lets put in the mountains:

Red Dragons (7)
Ettins
Orcs
Goblins
Kobolds
Ogres
Hill Giants
Rocs (2)
Wargs
Winter Wolves
Wyverns

OK, now, to flesh it out.

Red Dragons: There are 3 mated pairs of red dragons, and a single male. The male is quite young (Young Adult age category) and lairs in the dormant volcano just a few hundred miles from the shore. The three mated pairs lair further west. Each dragon claims several hundred square miles as thier own ranges, and have at least 100 mile "no-fly zones" between each hunting ground.

Ettins: The Ettins are primarily solitary, as they argue with themselves enough as it is. However, there are mated pair here and there, and a clan of them that is ruled over by an Ettin with a major Demon bloodline as well as being a half-dragon (red). This Ettin is a 7th level Adept, and is plotting on uniting several of the goblin and kobold tribes and throwing them at the kingdom in a few years, but not quite yet.

Orcs: The Orcs of the mountain chain come in two styles: Aboveground and belowground. The ones above ground are worshippers of Wee-Jas, and look more humanistic than the below ground ones. The orcs of the surface are brutal savages looked down on by the orcs of the below ground, which are actually on par, civilization-wise with the kingdom.

Goblins: While the hills aren't swarming with goblins, there is still a large number of them. The biggest thing keeping them from growing into vast numbers is the fact that the solitary young male red dragon thinks they are delicious. Thier numbers have become vastly depleted, only subterranian tribes retaining many numbers. Blues (from the Expanded Psionics Handbook) are the ruling class or the underground goblins, and have been all but wiped out from the aboveground goblins.

Kobolds: There are many kobolds out there, nobody is sure how many. These kobolds are greyish in colour, allowing them to blend into the rocks, and they live in Anasazi-like cliff dwellings. This allows them to avoid thier natural enemy: Ogres, who find Kobold quite delicious.

Ogres: Solitary and mean-spirited bullies, the ogres don't band together for any length of time, disliking even those they chose to mate with. They hunt down kobolds, finding them quite delicious. Ogres often try to take possession of narrow, high roads, or tight passes, in order to extort money, food, and shiney things from passerbys.

Hill Giants: There aren't many hill giant tribes, only two (Tribe of the Crushing Heel, Tribe of the Squashed Wyvern) with any real numbers (more than 8 giants) or power. Both of these tribes lair in hilly valleys within the mountian range. These valleys have been badly despoiled, and the giants have to forage a long way. The solitary hill giants are relatively unintelligent, depending on brute force, and they avoid any large numbers of travellers.

Rocs: These two huge birds exist further to the west than the kingdom, in the massive mountian, but have been seen at least once every decade.

Wargs: The hills and lower mountains have several large packs of Wargs. In recent years the amount has rapidly expanded. The kingdom has a bounty of 25 g.p. for each warg-skin brought in.

Winter Wolves: Normally, these wolves do not come down from the hieghts, but within the last several years some of the smaller Winter Wolves have come down and taken over the leadership of Warg packs. There are four of these packs total, one of which is led by a half-fiend Winter wolf whose wings are obscenely flesh coloured, tattered, and too small to provide flight. The kingdom has a bounty of 100 g.p. on this wolf in particular.

Wyverns: There are several flights of Wyverns in the mountains. For the most part they keep to the peaks, subsisting off of deer and other wild animals. In the last 10 years, the fights between the Wyverns and the Young Adult red dragon have been the focus of many tavern tales. The Wyverns hate the Red Dragon, who finds them irritating pests.

There, that's the mountains that border the kingdom. I'll add the islands and the reefs off the coast, and upload the map.

 

[Buttercup]

Keep going, I'm reading along! I'm pretty sure I copied the old thread into a Word document, so if you want it, I can try to find it.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Keep going, I'm reading along! I'm pretty sure I copied the old thread into a Word document, so if you want it, I can try to find it.

For the love of the Gods, FIND IT!

Email the Word doc to ralts at hotmail.com and I'll paste in here. I've had quite a few requests to rewrite it.

I'm gonna cruise and let some ideas perk a little bit longer.

I've got a feeling what I'm going to end up, when this is done, is an OGL setting rather than instructions on how to GM. LOL

 

[Enkhidu]

I find this fascinating because I find this method similar to my own, though I place less importance on geography and more on religion and politics.

I'm curious as to how granular this gets before you get to a point where you can call it "done," Tim.

 

[Buttercup]

For the love of the Gods, FIND IT!

Email the Word doc to ralts at hotmail.com and I'll paste in here. I've had quite a few requests to rewrite it.

I'm gonna cruise and let some ideas perk a little bit longer.

I've got a feeling what I'm going to end up, when this is done, is an OGL setting rather than instructions on how to GM. LOL

It's on the way.