Fantasy Arms Race, Round Two

[Ciaran]

Good ideas from Zarathustran. Ziggurats are an interesting idea; while the Cresians probably use wood for most building purposes, their brush with fire may well mean that they start to use non-flammable substances, such as brick, for particularly importand buildings. On the other hand, if you want interesting Cresian architecture, consider the possibility of using wood shape or variants thereof on living wood. Imagine towers and domes constructed entirely of living trees that have been woven and melded together by magic...

As to the Jongans, despite conditioning and interbreeding with their conquerers, are likely, given their isolation, to keep their own culture and traditions to a large extent. Their old god (the Burning Smith?), though technically now subordinate to the Dog-Mother and the Field-Father, will still be the primary deity there, and they doubtless pass on tales of the might of their ancestors. Rebellions of one sort or another are likely to be a recurrent problem in the Jongan islands, and sooner or later they may cut their ties entirely if the Cresian Empire finds itself sufficiently imperiled from other directions that it's unable to maintain its hold.

- Eric

 

[s/LaSH]

Here's a couple of my more esoteric thoughts:

First, the humanoid question. Why haven't we seen any fantastic races so far? Perhaps because they don't exist yet. After all, many of the creatures out there are explicitly designed to kill stuff. Perhaps the next few millenia will spawn such creatures as weapons? (We've already seen the Beastmen and the scurvy sea dogs, arr, but precious little in the way of additional creatures. I think they're not here yet. Dragons and outsiders, of course, being the exceptions.) Anyway, orcs, gnolls and elves could well appear in coming centuries.

Second, the level of available magic. During the Jongan Wars, magic advanced to roughly the third level. I anticipate fourth, perhaps fifth level magics in this next scenario, but no more. The more powerful spells and abilities are likely to be divinely granted, if such a thing ever occurs. By the same regard, I'm not seeing classes getting past levels around six to eight; the training infrastructure simply hasn't been invented. Maybe ten or twelve for champions and national heroes, but these are the mavericks who nobody can really imitate. (Plus they have a nasty habit of getting eaten by dragons. Or desk jobs.)

Third, the divine question. What role do the gods play in all this? This is a Big, Important Question for the future of this setting. I see four main possibilities:
- One, the gods don't really exist - they're sources created by humans to justify their strange powers.
- Two, the gods do exist, but they're given form and power by their worshippers, like a group-mind phenomenon.
- Three, the gods do exist, as survivors of some ancient paradigm, or abstract forces given shape in recent millenia by great cosmic conjunctions; they haven't had much contact with each other, and as their pet civilisations expand into the world they discover new gods - and rivals.
- Four, the gods do exist, and are all one big family pantheon-style. Not necessarily a happy family, however; factions and sibling rivalry could instigate open warfare between branches of that family (namely different civilisations). On the other hand, the gods might be playing at war for entertainment, and are all best friends in 'real life' up on Olympus.
You could mix these up, of course. That's always fun. But I think I've itemised the divine possibilities.

Fourth, naming issues. We need names for the Cresian capitol, and the beastmen (and by corelation the scurvy sea dogs, arr). I propose naming the capitol The Heavenbloom, because of its divine/naturalist focus. (If that's too longwinded, you could try just the Bloom or the Rose, which I imagine the roadmap would resemble anyway). The beastmen? I could imagine calling them the Wyr, although that doesn't sound quite in synch with the way Cresia sounds... You could try The Delta as a group name, because delta is the mathematical symbol for a change, and it implies their powerful role in the original delta of the Cresian realm. (The scurvy sea dogs, arr, become the Sea Delta.)

Whaddaya think?

Fifth, national specialities. We're going to want several archetypes, right? The technologists are a given (they're the designated opponent in the upcoming round, after all). The other two neighbours of Cresia? So far, we've had suggestions of a fire cult of refugees (although I think Cresia expanded over the Cave People's realm a while back, right?), a psionic nation, an undead-oriented nation, a biomancer nation, and a humanoid nation... I think that's the list, right? Can we combine and/or cull any of this? (For example, psi seems to be out, at least for now; but a general magocracy could be an acceptable amalgam. And one should probably have the ability to field beasts of various types.

What precise aspects are we examining in this confrontation?

 

[Bob Aberton]

I don't care much about the cultural details too much, but some things dealing with naval/maritime developements:

I would hope they have invented sails by now. I would imagine that in their battles with the Jongans they encountered some difficulty with their dolphin skiffs, for example:

-Tow-ropes breaking in the middle of battle; perhaps another ship ran over them, perhaps they just got too stretched. A broken tow rope would leave a dolphin skiff or whale ship dead in the water.

-Vulnerability of the tow animals. Charm a tow animal, sic it on its own vessel, you've got the makings of a disaster.

-Tow animals tiring out. You can't drive a wagon twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, but you can sail a ship for years on end.

-Unsafe in bad weather. As above, a broken tow rope would leave a whaleship dead in the water during a storm, with disastrous consequences. Also, the tow animal might get panicked by having a multi-ton ship being thrown around in the water near it.

With their woodshaping skills, I see them discovering sails, developing them, and becoming a prime naval power.

A hull, deck and mast could be woodshaped out of one piece of wood - making it many times over as strong as a conventional vessel.

Masts could be made taller, and taller still - ships could begin setting topsails above their mainsails, then topgallants, royals, skysails, ringtails...

The complex arrangement of ropes could be handled by a small crew of mages memorizing nothing but Animate Rope...

 

[F5]

Re: No psionics; monuments; lingering Jongan cultural influence

I also think it'd be cool if the Jongan island, though assimilated, retained some sort of cultural identity/lingering independence.
-z

That's why I suggested that Dr. Strangemonkey's scribe's "guild" (agreed...not the most accurate name for it) might start an Academy of sorts...and Arcane magic wouldn't be the only thing they'd teach there. They'd teach the Jongan history, and way of life (to whatever extent was permitted by the Cresian authority). Actually, we might see Jongan become the Lingua Franca of magical study, instead of draconic. That's kind of funky...

As for the Cresian cities, Ciaran kind of beat me to the punch, but with wood shape easily available, buildings crafted out of living plants is a definite possibility. We've already seen something like this with the shoreline tree forts. I see the Cresian cities as blending in with the environment. Almost imperceptibly, the hedge-rows lining walls give way to buildings formed from those same hedges. Living ziggurats, or maybe buildings with a stone core, but walls woven from Shaped tree limbs, sound really cool. Even permanent stone structures could be covered with ivy and creepers, so they blend in. A newcomer to a Cresian city might not realize just when he's passed from the fields into the city proper. The heart of the city, the temples and whatnot, would be enclosed and protected by huge earthworks, but the rest of the city could be a sprawling metropolis of living structures.

Oh, here's a wicked thought... the High Druid wood shapes his home, or his temple from a single great tree. Then Awakens it. Funky...

Last, about the suggestion of the Rebels hiding out in the Hill People's caves...yeah, I figured Cresia would have expanded over the old Hill People territiry long ago, but the caves are still there. Assuming they go deep enough, it's possible some of the Hill People may have been able to hide out in them. Of course, 500 or so years of living in what would essentially be the Underdark would take its' toll...they might not even be recognizable as human anymore. How 'bout we say they devovle into Grimlocks? There was a suggestion way back when that they might become the first Dwarves; that could be cool, too. Or not, just a thought. Regardless, the caves make a good hiding place for our Jongan/Cresian seperatist rebels, if we decide to keep them around.

[edit] how about Deeproot for the name of the Cresian capital city? I like Heavenbloom, but I like that better for the main temple complex of the Field Father. Kind of like a druidic Vatican. Yes? No?

 

[Tonguez]

Why the continued insistence on psionics? Most players don't even have the Psionics Handbook. Again, I vote that we leave psionics out of this.

Because the original premise of this exercise was to investigate how a DnD Fantasy Arms race might develop given the presence of Magic.

See this (from the original post):
wondering how a D&D fantasy army would be trained and equipped. With all the critters they have to face, and high level NPCs they'd have to fight, we have to wonder how they manage.So what I plan to do is run an arms race.

We're going to start with a few basic tactics of primitive people in a fantasy world, and slowly develop counter-tactics and counter-counter-tactics, plus new technologies and magic to combat current tactics. I need a lot of people to help out so we'll have a wide base of ideas to pick from, with the ultimate result that we'll have a very diverse battlefield.

I realise that this has developed into something of a exercise in 'Setting creation' but the original intent was to experiment with how DnD Armies would develop IMHO Psionics is a part of the DnD landscape and so should be investigated too.

Also I think that the Cressians are sufficiently advanced to start incoporating multiple elements

Originally posted by s/LaSH
Here's a couple of my more esoteric thoughts:

First, the humanoid question. Why haven't we seen any fantastic races so far? Perhaps because they don't exist yet. After all, many of the creatures out there are explicitly designed to kill stuff. Perhaps the next few millenia will spawn such creatures as weapons?

Second, the level of available magic. During the Jongan Wars, magic advanced to roughly the third level. I anticipate fourth, perhaps fifth level magics in this next scenario, but no more. The more powerful spells and abilities are likely to be divinely granted, if such a thing ever occurs. By the same regard, I'm not seeing classes getting past levels around six to eight; the training infrastructure simply hasn't been invented.

I agree we do need to see how Humanoid armies are going to effect the DnD landscape hence my suggestion of adding Minotaurs and giants. We have already seen how the Beastmen gave Cressians an advantage, now lets see what other beasties can do. As a guide I'd suggest limiting things to say CR 6 at the most - Werewolf is CR 3 and Minotaur CR 4 iirc. A Dire wolf is CR 3 and as for Dragons a young Red is CR 6 (NB A Hill Giant is CR 7 but a troll CR 5 and an Ogre a measly CR 2)

As for characters a CR 6 Druid (ie Level 6 Human Druid) can wildshape 2/day and knows spells up to Level 3 a CR 6 Bard can use Suggestion

Anyway the point is we can use CR/Class level as a rough gauge of the general 'power level' we can expect in our civilisations

I'd say because we are talking 'Macrolevel spells' rather than individual we could possiblty allow Spells up to Level 5 with anything more powerful needing adjudication

Third, the divine question. What role do the gods play in all this? This is a Big, Important Question for the future of this setting. I see four main possibilities:

The Dog Mother seems to have been a manifestation of the original 'wolf spirit' that the Plainsfolk contact all those Millenia ago. Since then that 'disembodies spirit' has gained a physical form and function.

The Field Father seems to have spontaneously arisen from the efforts of the Rose Druids in developing their Briar roads and so seems to have gained form from the development of the Druidism.

A similar thing probably occured with the Forge God of the Jongans

Thus it seems to me at least that
Two, the gods do exist, but they're given form and power by their worshippers, like a group-mind phenomenon. has been the process by which things have occured and I see no point to deviate from this.

So each culture brings its own gods and conception of those gods who are really primordial 'forces/spirits' who have acquired form and function according to the needs of their followers. When they meet it is the interaction of followers that will likely determine their relationship (eg the Jongan Forge god is now a rebelious son of the Field father)

Anyway - just some thoughts

 

[s/LaSH]

The Psionics Question:

When do psionics get developed? Are there already races that employ this power, or will it be developed later?

Psionics is a power unrelated to gods or arcane power. It's also more flexible in application because of the power point mechanic. This all leads me to believe that psionics will be developed only later on, as a sort of third option - perhaps even as a battlefield technology. After all, what's more effective on the battlefield - a caster who can throw fireballs until they only have low-level slots left, like a sorcerer, or a caster who can run up walls, project inertial barriers, and throw fireballs using all their reserve energy?

(Note - I don't have the PsiHB, but the SRD appears to list everything needed for further discussion, assuming we ever get up to the development of psionics.)

 

[ajanders]

The Land of the Rose

First of all, I suppose I should apologize for the psionics crack. I just saw a reference about Herodotus, Dragon Kings, and crystalline constructions being fallacious and I said to myself "How could we make those come true?"
It made perfect sense to me, at least.
Now about those Cresians...while I don't know how precisely we've defined their climate, but they might not worry about storing agricultural products in mass quantities. Particularly if we assume they aren't urbanizing the in the same fashion as we did in the real world, it might be that they just stagger their growth to maturity times in such a fashion that something's always ripe and in season: the apple tree in the front yard will be ripe in about two months: until then, we have grapes, after that, we have pears...or something. Given their distaste for fire, I imagine they wouldn't be doing much with food preservation other than drying in a mundane sense.
So not necessarily a big need for granaries.
Also, unless they revere mountains or need to keep an eye on the sky, they're unlikely to build big ziggurat/temple structures. Even if they do need observation towers, they'll probably just put them in the Cresian equivalent of a redwood tree. Heck, if someone awakened the tree, it could do the observing for them.

Caveat: if they find themselves no longer able to tolerate the changes they make in their environment, look to see them develop something along the lines of an arcology: concentrating themselves in one very unnatural area in order to free the rest of the wilderness from themselves. But I think that's very far in the future.

 

[Tonguez]

Rangerwicket are we still playing?

BUMP

 

[Ciaran]

Time to beat on a dead horse some more...

Because the original premise of this exercise was to investigate how a DnD Fantasy Arms race might develop given the presence of Magic.

See this (from the original post):
wondering how a D&D fantasy army would be trained and equipped. With all the critters they have to face, and high level NPCs they'd have to fight, we have to wonder how they manage.So what I plan to do is run an arms race.

We're going to start with a few basic tactics of primitive people in a fantasy world, and slowly develop counter-tactics and counter-counter-tactics, plus new technologies and magic to combat current tactics. I need a lot of people to help out so we'll have a wide base of ideas to pick from, with the ultimate result that we'll have a very diverse battlefield.

I realise that this has developed into something of a exercise in 'Setting creation' but the original intent was to experiment with how DnD Armies would develop IMHO Psionics is a part of the DnD landscape and so should be investigated too.

Psionics is neither magic nor technology.

The concept of "psionics" originated in early 20th century science fiction. Parapsychology held out the hope that powers such as telepathy and clairvoyance might be scientifically explained, and science fiction authors of all stripes, from pulp authors like E.E. "Doc" Smith to hard-science types like Asimov and Clarke, introduced mental powers into their stories.

In the 60s and 70s, a new subgenre of fantasy developed out of science fiction: a sort of "future fantasy" in which the setting was a future world, either Earth or a distant world settled by humanity, that had fallen into barbarism and decay and whose "magic" was actually the relics of a lost scientific age. Pioneered by such authors as Andre Norton, C.J. Cherryh and Marion Zimmer Bradley, this genre made liberal use of "psionic" powers as a substitute or underpinning for magic. But this was not in addition to "real" magic; in this sort of pseudo-scientific setting, magic and psionics were the same thing.

Then came D&D. Back in the old days, gamers threw any old thing together to create their worlds. Being fans of classic fantasy and futuristic fantasy, Gary Gygax and the other founders of D&D had no compunctions about combining magic and psionics. Then again, they also threw in machine guns and spaceships, neither of which can reasonably be called "fantasy" elements of a game.

As far as I'm concerned, psionics have even less place in a fantasy game as, say, laser guns. And at least lasers are in the core rules! (DMG, p. 164) Psionics are a substitute or alternate explanation for magic, and IMO the two have no place in the same setting.

- Eric

PS: RangerWickett, where are you? We need ya!

 

[GladiusNP]

3rd Phase

Was just curious to see if the thread was being moved into the 3rd round. If so, could someone please throw me a link? Just was interested in reading how things continue to develop. Thanks.