Communal World Building

[CroBob]

As a forum game, and a quick source for ideas for the procrastinating fantasy game GM, I propose we create a world, one short contibution at a time. It's simple, name a place, person, or thing, supply a short description (about one paragraph), and make it applicable to no specific gaming system. Besides that, the only rules are that you cannot supply the same sort of thing (person, place, or thing) as the poster above you, it should be able to fit the fantasy genre, and it should be the same world as all the posts are about.

Go!

 

[Electric Wizard]

Tolno

The town of Tolno is a rough, hot and dusty place, but it's one of the trading posts left along the Izabella Coast. It lies at the mouth of the River Farrago, and is built on the ruin of Ortalam, a much greater city that thrived under a previous civilization.

There are ways to make gold in Tolno outside of honest commerce. Although the riches of Ortalam were looted an age ago, there are monster-haunted ruins in the nearby hills that adventurers still mine. Tolno is also gaining a reputation as a haven for slavers. The unpopular but well-guarded Governor Inoculo enforces colonial law only when he finds it convenient, and is ambivalent concerning slavery. In fact, Inoculo has finally purchased mining rights to nearby ruins from local gnoll tribes, and is seeking a sturdy band of slaves to help clear them out.

 

[DanotheSlender]

In the southeast, upon the rolling plains and foothills of the djard mountains dwell the beastriding Ol'Turin. Last decendants of a once mighty empire of nomadic tribes. Lead by their shamanic council of wise ones they travel across the lands trading information from the lands they visit as well as hides and trade goods they obtain in their travels. Among them the youngest son of the council leader, Radjhik, about to embark on his quest for manhood. His goal to find ancient lost relics from the Ol'Turin dynasty, the spear of light, the eye of fire and the ring of the plains. Ancient artifacts who's loss signaled the fall of his people. In the thousand years since the fall of the Ol'turin only whispers of their continued existance have floated on the winds, but in the seventeenth year of Radjhiks young life word of a northern warlord, commanding with flame and uncanny insight into the defences of all in his path to glory, has come south. The Eye of Fire, stories around the fires in the long hall rise from the elders, shamen consult with spirits and the stars for portents of the relics return. Armed with his fathers spear, his mothers blade and the spirit pouch from the hands of the eldest, Radjhik embarks northward on the back of his companion beast, for glory or death...

 

[Gilladian]

In the Djard mountains, just north of the home of the Ol'Turin dwell two races - locked in war. They are the dwarves of Ontokoth, which is both the name of the God who created them, and the city-state in which they dwell, and the orcs of the Broken-fang and Bloody Scimitar tribes. The dwarves are reputed to be carved of the very stone of the mountains, raised to life by Ontokoth's breath; as no one has ever seen a female dwarf, some human scholars believe this is literally true... others are certain that female dwarves are simply indistinguishable from their male counterparts by mere human eyes. Dwarves ignore questions on the issue. They are ruled by King Herru III, who is a mighty warrior in his own right.

The Djard mountains are great, snow-tipped peaks, rich with seams of coal and iron, heavily forested and teeming with game. The dwarves and the orcs battle over the caves and caverns, food and mineral resources, and have done so for at least the past thousand years, as other empires have come, conquered, fallen and faded from memory.

 

[Electric Wizard]

Lady Dwarves

Male and female dwarves of the Djard Mountains still live separately, according to Ontokoth's Third Decree. Female dwarves are completely hairless, and dwell deeper beneath the mountains than their men. They are seldom seen by surface dwellers, but they are by no means reclusive. While male dwarves gather in large cities, the women live in fortified towns connected by a tunnel network. They trade extensively with deep gnomes and minotaurs and wage wars against drow and troglodytes. Their holds are a welcome sight for those forced to traverse the Underworld. Many Underworld denizens believe there are no male dwarves, and that the women are impregnated by the spirits of the mountains. The women, of course, dismiss questions on the issue.

Dwarf men and women meet in huge caverns twice a year to trade, celebrate and mate in the Skelgrum festivals. Girls conceived during these festivals stay with the women, while the boys are taken to live with the men.

 

[Nellisir]

There's always this thread too: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?318447-Let%92s-Make-a-Hexcrawl-Setting

 

[Electric Wizard]

Bump?

Gunga's Crossing

Over the ages, attempts to build bridges across the Farrago River have proven futile. The banks are marshy, and they shift so frequently that conventional charts may become useless after a single season. And then there's the man-eating hippos and crocodiles that ply the slow, muddy waters.

Gunga, a retired half-orc adventurer, is determined against all odds to build a grand bridge across these troubling waters. He is building it just south of Tolno. He hopes it will facilitate ruins miners, and that its gatehouses will provide a safe haven against gnoll raiders. Everyone in Tolno scoffed when he set out to build it, but he has made amazing progress thanks to a team of dwarf engineers from Ontokoth and a steady stream of labor from migrant Ol'Turin. If he completes and maintains the bridge, Gunga will be a hero indeed.

But Gunga has a dark secret in store for the bridge's completion. He plans to sacrifice two humans to the dark goddess Baphome and seal their bodies within the keystones to ensure that the bridge never falls.

 

[Tonguez]

The goddess Baphome is depicted variously as a giant orc female riding a hippo or as a huge corpulent six breasted orc with a hippopotamus head. She is the Orc goddess of fertility, childbirth and abundance and is regarded by many Orcs as the literal mother of their race. The Orcs claim that she use to dwell somewhere in the Djard mountains where her breast milk flowed forth to form the various rivers that arise there, including the source of the Farrago. Now however her physical form is lost and only her 'Hak' (power) remains flowing through the rivers and made manifest in the various hippo that infest their waters.

Further rumour and legend claims that the dwarfs have Baphome bound somewhere deep beneath the mountain caverns and much of the war between the orcs and the dwarfs has been due to orc attempts to free their mother goddess.

 

[Electric Wizard]

Eye of Fire

Although Ol'Turin lore asserts that the Eye of Fire is a literal eye, many outsiders believe the artifact is actually a gemstone. It seems the Ol'Turin were right, because the half-orc warlord Vran the Wise was born with it in his left eye socket. Vran hid it for most of his life beneath a leather eye patch, learning its secrets in solitude along the rugged northern Izabella Coast. When he learned the full extent of its powers, he rejoined society and became a great leader. When he uncovers his patch and speaks certain command words, he can use any fire within six miles as his eyes.

Ol'Turin legends claim that gouging out the Eye of Fire and using it to replace one of your own will transfer its amazing power to you.

 

[Evenglare]

Land of the Falls.

There is a rather large part of the world that has evolved over time to accomidate waterfalls. Hundreds of thousands of them from the unique pairing of cliffs, and into entertwined tree leaves and branches made by the elves that direct the flow of these waterfalls. The lands becomes misty when entered. This is the home to those that are known as the mist elves.