Ralts Bloodthorne
First Post
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:
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.
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...
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...
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