A Work Intensive Approach to World Creation

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Here's the SRD artifacts spreadsheet. Currently blank, but we'll be filling in some stuff soon.

Still, let us look at something with artifacts.

I say, give them each primary powers, secondary powers, ego (as per intelligent weapon), curses, then "dooms".

We do that, and artifacts are something to be feared.

What's a good set of curses for the Eye of Vecna?

Possessors face becomes rotten as per a lich, with a horrid stench that is able to be scented up to 60' away.
Possessors Charisma drops by 6

Bad things: Possessor sees horrible things while sleeping through the eye.
Possessor takes a -1 per month to all Sense Motive checks.

Dooms
Possessor begins to slowly rot away, as per leprosy, and begins to dream of the hand of Vecna.
Possessor will turn into a lich in 5d10 years.


Now the thing is scary to boot.

 

[Roudi]

Fiat Lux
Latin for "Let There Be Light"​

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Fiat Lux
​

So it is written, so it is named.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

OK, there's a sister thread to this now: Fiat Lux Campaign Setting so we can show the work we've done so far.

In addition, I've added a small mountain range the cuts off a desert from the rest of our strip, as well as extending the forest and adding plains, mesa, and other stuff.

I'll post the map in a bit, but if you are following this thread, you can see the results of our work for the world itself, the races, the gods, the classes.

We'll probably expand on the Gods section later, but right now, we'll jsut keep moving ahead.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

OK, I figure pretty soon I'll add in the region specific PrC's, as well as some oddball weaponry. But right here, I'm going to detail on the DMG PrC's.

After the following kingdoms, I'll start doing a little game mechanics additions, such as the penalties for the pathetic armor, where the guilds come from, how to enter PrC's, and such.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

OK, I finished the interior valley. New to the lands we have:

Nine Kingdoms Desert: This is a harsh, arid land. The people within the desert break down into Three classes:

• Citymen: These people live within the desert cities, wear robes and other heat dispersing gear. The Citymen worship the Four Unnamed Ones, these gods cover Heat/Fire/Sun; Death/Night/Darkness; War, Storms, Fighting; and Birth/Dawn/Water. Cityment are considered soft and womanly by the other two.
• Townmen: These people live in the little towns and villages at the oasises. These people are a mixture of hardiness and traders. For the most part, town populations are fluid, mainly consisting of merchants.
• Bedouins: These are the roaming nomads of the desert. Hardy and superstitious, the Bedouins prize water above all. Each tribe has a shaman capable of turning a corpse into water to scavenge it. The Bedouins consider everyone not a bedouin to be weak and womanly, and fit only to provide the Bedouins with water and treasure.

Stilyagi Kingdom
A kingdom roughly 400 years old, the Stilyagi Kingdom's major economic force is the growth of wheat, corn, barley, and hops in the main farmland in the center of the kingdom. THis area is heavily irrigated, full of fields, orchards, and slave farms.

The Stilyagi Kingdom uses slavery, but any slave who can run away and keep from being caught for one month is considered free, and is gifted with 25 gp, new clothing, new shoes, and a handful of salt. This is to commemorate that their king who managed to unite the cities and farms in to a kingdom 400 years ago started as an orchard slave, who gathered an army and created the kingdom.

The Stilyagi kingdom has a massive percentage of half-elves and half-orcs, 45% and 35% respectively. The nobility is primarily half elves, half orcs, and humans.

Mrintwo Khanate
Despite the fact that the Khanate is made up of some of the most fertile grassland in the Middle Kingdom (What many people call the region between the mountain chains) this land is inhabitated by roving clans of fierce horsemen.

The Khanate is studded with ancient and strange ruins, mostly overgrown, that the horsemen all avoid. The single structure in evidence is the huge fortress near the badlands, where the aged, infirm, and young reside. Quite a few times invanding armies concentrated on the fortress, and allowed the roving horsemen to slaughter their flanks.

No army that has invaded has ever returned.

Mranx
COnsisting of only five aboveground settlements, Mranx is a dwarven kingdom where much of the metalwork that services the Middle Kingdom originates from. Each of the aboveground settlements house the visibile merchants and dwarven populations of at least 3, and as many as 6, dwarven clans.

THe roads within Mranx are carefully fitted cobblestones, serviced by humans and half-elves.

The current head Clan is the Blackstone Clan, lead by Erikk Blackstone, a wise beyond his years young dwarf.

Llenetree Empire and Llenetree Rebellion
An ancient elven kingdom, founded before the majority of elves arrived (This was a batch of elves dropped here by the Elven All Father) this kingdom has been here for 5,000 years. However, in recent years civil war has torn at the Empire, with half-elf, half-orc, and human war-slaves rebelling against their elven overlords.

This put the Llenetree Empire in the bad position of having nearly 80% of their military, the more experienced part, rebelling against them. Unlike the Llenetree Empire, the Rebellion merely forced their elven masters to leave the Rebellion area, while the Empire slaughtered all human, half-elf, and half-orc slaves.

THis has led to some serious bad blood between the two sundered nations, and the fact that the Mranx dwarves and the desert caliphs of Nine Desert Kingdoms are supplying the rebels with weaponry, armor, and "advisors" has made it so that there has been a stalemate going on as far as borders for over 20 years.

Strenfjord Kingdom
A fairly new kingdom, founded by refugees from the Llenetree war, this kingdom has only been in existance for the last 50 years, but is a young and vigorous kingdom. The discovery of gold viens in the rocks in the river has let them purchase many things that their military and nobility need, as well as build a lot of public works.

Strenfjord has a lot of large statuary, huge public buildings, and is the source of the first public library in the world. Sages from all over come to the public library, and agents for the library scour the Middle Kingdoms for books and scrolls of interest.

Rumor has it the the Great Library of Strenfjord even employs assassins to "convince" reluctant owners to let the Great Library copy or purchase books.

While most governments are content to merely stick with the tried and true arcane/divine magics, Strenfjord has a vast government program devoted entirely to testing children at the ages of 5, 10, 15, and 20 for psionics. Psionically gifted children are often housed in government schools to hone their skills, their entire room and board paid for by the government.

5 years ago Llenetree tried their hand against Strenfjord and got nearly wiped out, discovering that psionics were indeed a valid resource. Since then, most kingdoms have stopped scoffing at psionics and have begun their own programs to identify psychics.

Unknown to most kingdoms, agents of the Great Library also look for psionically gifted children, often purchasing the child, or relocating the entire family.

Any psionically active person who enters Strenfjord who applies for citizenship recieves a land grant if they serve the crown for a period of 1 year.

(More data soon)

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Lolinian Kingdom
Although no cities appear on the map, the Lolinian Kingdom is recognised by the entirety of the lands of the Middle Kingdom. The single road through is maintained primarily by kobolds, goblins, half-orcs, orcs, and ogres.

Sixty years ago, the three cities that act as the terminus of the Great Highway were each visited by a lone kobold, dressed in fine silks and jeweled like nobility. Each kobold strode directly to the courthouse of the city, and handed a scrolltube to the clerks. Once this was done, the kobold vanished in a puff of shadows.

The scroll set the borders for the Lolinian Kingdom, as well as naming it. It also detailed that each caravan would be taxed by animal and axle, not the goods it carried. It also stated that the population of the woods, be they monster or humaniod or demihuman were under the protection of the "High King of the Forest" and any incursion into those lands would be considered an act of war.

Strenfjord and Deenerian both figured it would better to be safe than sorry, and with the sudden cessetation of troll, ogre, and other monster depredations along the border, they recognised the kingdom.

The elves of Lelenetree however, scoffed at the idea of a humaniod kingdom, and while they refused to officially recognise it, although they stopped the raiding.

Less than six months later, caravans carrying exotic woodworks, spices, rare preserved meats, silverworks, and iron goods, exited after work crews cut aside the brush at the border. As borderguards watched, the caravans exited, and work parties of orcs and hobgoblins quickly set the cobbles of a major highway under the watchful eye of an ogre.

Strenfjord and Deenerian both welcomed the caravans, levying only the normal taxes upon them, and allowed the caravans to sell their goods. Both Strenfjord and Deenerian allowed the caravans to purchase warehouses and shops, as well as hostels for their caravan personnel to stop into. Lelenetree however, chose to slap massive taxes on the caravans, and only allowed the caravans to sell their goods at horribly depreciated prices. Still, the caravans arrived like clockwork every three months.

However, 25 years ago, particularly greedy and unprincipled elven noble chose to imprison the caravan members, and seize the goods. After a week, they released the caravan members and chased them across the border with whips.

For three months, nothing happened. And those who travelled the Great Highway spoke of an eerie feeling of watching eyes. Then a large force of hundreds of orcs, hobgoblins, scores of ogres, thousands of kobolds and goblins, swept over the Lelenetree city. They only slew those who directly fought them, content to chase away the elves with whips and snarling wargs.

THe elven noble, however, was captured, held down, and molten silver poured into his ear.

The elves responded by sending over 2000 troops into the forest. They marched into the forest, and were never seen again. Two months later, a caravan exited the forest, acting as if nothing happened.

Since that time, the forest kingdom has been inviolate.

Inside the forest, there is a fairly large kingdom. With Ogre Magi's, blues, and kobold sorcerers acting as the nobility, the orcs, kobolds, hobgoblins, trolls, and goblins acting as the commoners.

There are no cities, per-se, only tribes who live in harmony with the forest. Each tribe is led by a druid shaman, and they stay on the move. There are a few locations, mostly in caverns, where the work to produce the trade items take place.

There are a few small "towns" scattered here and there, most of which are either in caves or high up in trees.

The Great Shadowed Woodlands
Rumored to be haunted by nearly everyone, tales tell of a great calamity that befell a mighty kingdom in centuries past. There are a few scattered ruins here and there, some of elvish make, others of unknown make.

These ruins of unknown make have strange doors, multistory buildings, and bits and pieces of powerful arcane are found within them.

The highway leading through the woods has been there since the woods were discovered, however, since travel began upon it, and the two ruins occupied and repaired, debris is often found on the road, and sometimes decades or centuries old trees are found in the middle of the road, seemingly sprung up overnight.

Many loggers and cobblestone layers make good money working for a year or two on the highway to keep it clear. However, the work is dangerous, and many people die in "accidents' such as treefalls, rockslides, or just plain vanish.

There is a high preponderance of nymphs, satyrs, and dryads that prey on the clearing teams, or on caravans that rest for the night away from the road. There are also many small fey-folk, but as the elves learned, these fey are not friendly.

The wood is also full of orgrillians and ettins. Orgrillians to the north of the road, ettins to the south, and more than one convoy has found themselves caught between dozens of Orgrillians and dozens of ettins battling it out with clubs and stones.

Rumors persist of a huge pipe organ, with four rows of keys, somewhere in the strange ruins found in the northern part of the woods.

Pheastus Kingdom
A kingdom primarily of humans, the Pheastus Kingdom often sends logging parties to the edge of the Shadowed Woodlands to log the mighty trees there. Sadly, the logging parties have a high fatality rate. One sage has estimated that five loggers die for every two trees harvested. Still, logging continues near the great cities that border the forest.

The single city that the great road comes out to does not send out logging parties, the baron in charge of the city having noticed that the more logging that takes place, the more "fiercely" the wood tries to destroy the road.

All of the cities that border the Great Shadowed Woodlands are walled, and offer suffer attacks by Orgrillians in the North, and Ettins in the south.

The Pheastus Kingdom is ruled over by the Council of Barons, who elects one of their number every 25 years. Each baron rules over one of the walled cities, and many times makes war upon the one of the other cities.

To the South is the "Desolate Barony" where the noble family was slain through assassination one night, and the gates were opened to another baron's armies. What was meant to be merely a capture of a city turned into a week long orgy of rape, massacres, and looting. THousands were killed, and virtually everyone within the city was massacred. Thrown on bonfires, used for target practice, slaughtered for enjoyment. The invading baron's troops became drunk on the bloodshed, becoming more and more savage.

Then a fog descended over the city, and strange howls and babbling roars could be heard within. When the fog lifted, the walls were bare, and the colors leached out of all the buildings. The gates were open, but no movement could be seen inside. None of the invading army, or the original inhabitants came out of the walls, and over the summer the entire forest of the hills to the north turned blighted and diseased. Many travellers have entered the hills, searching for the invading barons camp, and have never returned.

The city that the baron had invaded from was right next to the Great Shadowed Woodlands, and those who survived the destruction of the walled city spoke of trees that moved on their own, ettins ravening through the populace, ghost sweeping across the population.

In a single week, the city was gone, and the forest had moved in a leaque. When it was logged back to the original border, ony scattered and moss covered stones were in evidence.

(more to follow)

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Vellexa Empire
Another civilization bordering the Great Shadowed Woodlands, the Emperor of Vellexa has forbidden logging of the woodlands. Only the occassional four or five Orgrillians, or maybe some of the trolls from the Woodland attack his kingdom.

Vellexa is currently in the midst of a Golden Age. Philosophers, mathmaticians, sages, and artisans abound. The discovery of both iron and mithril, both of which easily mined, as well as a pocket of gold and gems, all fused in sandstone, has created a massive influx of tax revenue, allowing the government to subsidise it's golden age with government funds.

Vellexa is roughly 200 years old, and is strong, energetic, but not expansionist or isolationist. The Emporer is only 25 years old, and is wise beyond his years, as well as a philosopher in his own right.

The military of Vellexa is strong, and used during times of natural disaster or during harvest season only. The military is well trained, well equipped, and competantly led.

Schooling in reading, writing, mathmatics, and science is free for the first 5 years of schooling, giving a high literacy rate, encouraged by the churches, as well as a wealth of scribes, mathmeticians, and learned sages.

Vellexa is currently envied by neighboring kingdoms for their strong economy, happy citizenry, and seemingly bottomless treasury. The slight bluish tint to the gold and silver discovered in Vellexa is being seen in more and more coins, and slaves often run to Vellexa, where slavery is illegal, and the punishment for attempting to recover a slave is a public whipping and to be expelled back across the nearest border completely naked.

The population of Vellexa is currently heavily mixed, with even orcish, goblin and kobold sages being found here and there.

Kingdom Deventua-Ullem
An old kingdom, roughly 500 years old, the Kingdom of Deventua-Ullem is finding itself in its latter days. Civil unrest, corrupt nobility and government, incompetant administrators, and excessive taxation combined with handouts to those not working, mean that this kingdom is finding itself in its autumn years.

The current nobility is so heavily inbred, only one in five children are even near normal intellect, and the current king is unable to much more than repeat carefully taught platitudes that were taught with painstaking patience to a mentally retarded person with the intellect of a three year old. The current king is chinless, with buck teath from thumbsucking (which he often does on the throne), and unable to even dress himself.

The citizens are left to their own devices. Those without jobs are paid 1 sp a day, paid weekly at offices. Daily each citizen can get a cabbage, a loaf of bread, and two onions, and some citizens go to other wards within the cities and draw it numerous times.

The few who do work (less than 20% of the population) are paid exhorbiant wages for incompetant or little work. Once Deventua-Ullem produced some of the finest armor and weaponry in the Middle Kingdom, but now armor produced by Deventua-Ullem is known to kill a wearer due to shoddy design, materials, and construction. (Any armor purchased from Phaestus is considered to have 2 less to the armor bonus, 10% higher spellcaster failure, -2 skill check in addition to standard, weigh 110% of normal, and -5 ft to speed, while costing 125% of list price. In addition, the armor inflicts an additional +1 hip to damage done to the wearer, as burrs and spurs inside the armor, as well as substandard padding, inflict more damage upon the wearer when the wearer is engaged in combat. In addition, upon ANY type of reflex save, the wearer will take 1d4 points of damage)

The nobility wastes its time on parties, self congradulation, and vices, piling more slaves on top of any task needing done. Slaves within Phaestus are known to pass out from exhaustion after ten minutes of work, and the nobility, having never done any type of labor themselves, and the slaves are paid for their work, are able to take days off for illness and be paid, and are well fed.

The military never leaves its barracks, gets free wine and concubines/catamites, and hasn't trained in 5 years for anything. Many soldiers don't have anything more than wooden swords and crappy leather armor. It's not unknown for the generals to pay off opponents rather than actually fight them, and then lie to the crown about the pitched and horrendous battle.

None of the neighbors of the Kingdom of Deventua-Ullem wants to invade it, realizing that the drain on their kingdom to take it over would be horrendous, as the last three generations of the Kingdom Deventua-Ullem hasn't done anything of worse, and less than .05% of the populace can read, and of that percentage, less than 5% can count to eleven without removing their boots.

Shadtree Dominon
Entirely broken down into military districts, the Shadtree dominion is ruled over the a council of generals, and a ruler who carries the title of Tyrant without shame. Every man and woman is part of the military, and children are enrolled in military schools at the age of three, where they learn reading, counting, physical training, weapon use, armor use, and shield use.

The economy is carefully controlled by the Military Council, and retired soldiers make up the entirety of the beuracracy (not hard, since everyone has been in the military) as well as the legal system.

The Shadtree dominion follows a warrior god, who as little as 100 years ago ordered the successful and prosperious kingdom to become a warrior nation. The God's followers did not question the move, and consulted the new additions to the Holy Text for the way to mold their society.

A kingdom of sages, artisans, and peaceful thinkers transformed itself into a heavy duty war machine within a generation, with most of the industries nationalized and under the control of the government. While its neighbors were nervous, and tensions were high, Shadtree Kingdom, which had become the Shadtree Dominion, never invaded its neighbors. For the last four generations, their military has grown in power, and the Military Council often hires adventurers to search out lost items of war.

Recently, there has been lines added to the holy text of Thargum the Mighty, creating a navy and marine force, as well as a war-mage force. This has turned the highly efficient nation into building a huge naval force in the last three years, going from a handful of trireme ships to dozens of warships, multiple drydock facilities, and the training of marines.

Neighboring kingdoms are once again becoming concerned, since their war-god has taught harbormasters and shipbuilders how to build highly effective warships through visions and dreams.

What the ultimate goal of the war-god is, is beyond mortal knowledge.

(more soon)

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Temblax Theocracy
Formerly, this kingdom was part of Shadtree dominion, but fifty years ago, the War-God himself seperated the two kingdoms. The Temblax Theocracy, despite its name and origins, is ruled over by a joint council of clerics, merchants, and commoners. It is divided as follows:

• 
  The "Light of Thargum", who is personally selected by the war-god himself, and rules as a semi-divine being.
• The Council of Lords: Containing high ranking clerics, powerful merchant families, and those who were made nobles by Thargum himself. Fifty two men and women sit on this council.
• House of the Commons: Contains 120 members, from the various commoner districts of the various towns and cities. Two votes in the House of Commons overrides one vote on the Council of Lords, allowing the House of Commons to overturn laws and treaties of the Council of Lords.
• Meeting of Races: This contains five members of the following races: Half-elves, humans, halflings, dwarves, half-orcs, and gnomes. Any law, treaty, or decision made by the House of the Commons, the Council of Lords, must be voted into existance by 3 out of five votes by each of the racial representative. If the votes cannot be procured, the tabled propostion dies.

Beyond that is the fact that each city is ruled over by a handful of nobles, and each city is cut into multiple commons districts. This is where the members of the government are drawn from.

Bribery, sponsorship, and piety make up how the government works. It can take months or years for a new law to be passed. Two years ago a noble spoke out on the floor of the Council of Lords against how the government worked. At the end of his speech, blood spurted from his eyes and nose, and he fell to the tile dead, the mark of Thargum appearing on the tile as the blood slowly flowed into the sigil. Dead silence reigned for a few moemnts, then the nobles body burst into flame. When the flames died, the noble was standing there alive, with wide eyes. Since then, the noble has been a stalwart defender of the way the government works, claiming that it is all in Thargum's vision, and that the people are the arbiters of Thargum's will. Since then, nobody has complained about how the government works.

The general populace is educated at the temples of Thargum in reading, writing, and basic math skills. Every year, two of the pupils of the last year students (education takes four years) are chosen by Thargum himself to journey to Vellexa and enroll in the huge universities found there. Gold bars, bearing Thargum's sigil, appears on the desks of the enrollment clerk, along with an image of the students.

Last year, a clerk in Vellexa tried to shave the gold bars, and was torn apart by wild boars while walking down the street, the boars charging out from alleyways and doorways, and vanishing back into the same.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Now that the Middle Kingdom has been detailed, we could call it time to create the rest of the world, or we could pause quickly and create a few adventures.

The Middle Kingdom has its own share of strife and ruins to explore. With decaying kingdoms, ruins abound, and plenty of room for political intrique, I like the idea of figuring out a few adventures.

Since we have a pair of mountian range passes that are in desperate need of clearing, we can choose one of them to start out with. Personally, having written up the description of the "spiders" for the western-most pass, perhaps the middle pass that leads to the Walled Jungle might be the place to start.

Or perhaps a foray into Jungula, where orcs and goblins and kobolds have moved into the ruins.