Island-based Civilization Ideas - Need Help!

[Steverooo]

Since it seems that you don't mind things that are a bit silly,

Island of the Octopods: They look like Octopi, but they walk on land, and dwell on a desert island, wearing armor, and wielding weapons. The worst crime, here (punishable by death), is the theft of water!

 

[Pseudonym]

Island of the Octopods: They look like Octopi, but they walk on land, and dwell on a desert island, wearing armor, and wielding weapons. The worst crime, here (punishable by death), is the theft of water!

Forgive the threadjack, but Planet of the Octopods (though not that exact name) was a series of Star Frontier adventures, with the illustration depicting what you describe to a T.

 

[Steverooo]

Forgive the threadjack, but Planet of the Octopods (though not that exact name) was a series of Star Frontier adventures, with the illustration depicting what you describe to a T.

And Steve Jackson did a set of Cardboard Heroes for them, too... It's all been posted, here, before!

Volturnus, Planet of Mystery!

 

[DaveStebbins]

I wanted to give an alien feel to islanders which were going to invade the mainland, so I considered that on a volcanic island, they would be metal-poor. This led to shell armor and obsidian swords. The swords were created by priests of the local war god, who granted them spells to shape the obsidian into sword blades, and make it less fragile. The stats were exactly the same as a regular sword, but seeing advancing warriors in shell armor carring black-glass swords really freaked out the players. I considered further that since the war-god priests controlled the weapons, the entire society had become a hierarchy ruled with an iron hand by the priests. That was about as far as I took it for that adventure, or at least it's as far as my memory will take me back.

-Dave

 

[DrNilesCrane]

Since it seems that you don't mind things that are a bit silly,

Island of the Octopods: They look like Octopi, but they walk on land, and dwell on a desert island, wearing armor, and wielding weapons. The worst crime, here (punishable by death), is the theft of water!

I definitely won't be using anything silly - wouldn't fit the tone of the campaign at all - but even a silly idea might be adaptable. For example, with a salt water sea, the commodity of fresh water could be valuable in certain areas / situations.

Really what I'm looking are one or two sentence summaries of civilizations & cultures. The island / naval aspect could be very secondary or ignored for the purposes of this brainstorming, if that makes it easier, and I want to avoid any obvious cliches (my players are well read and it would push the suspension of disbelief too much).

For example, the metal poor island is a nifty idea as is the culture (war god, priests, etc.) and more in line with what I'm looking for. (I'm already using a lot of the obvious sources - Isle of Dread, for instance - but definitely want to have an abundence of ideas as I'm expecting the party will learn or hear about dozens of places. I want to give them plenty of choices and really let them take the lead in deciding where to go).

Thanks again and keep the ideas coming!

 

[Gilladian]

What about a culture of nomadic sea folk who live on the backs of giant sea tortoises? They control the tortoises by feeding them some sort of plant that makes the tortoises amenable to their commands (ie enslaved). These folk drift apart much of the year as they fish and harvest plants from the sea, but once every year they band together before monsoon season to exchange kin, share stories and otherwise prepare for the storms.

They would be expert fishermen, know the surrounding seas like the backs of their hands, and probably have very unusual marriage/family customs. They'd be metal-poor, but rich in crafts and oral lore. They might be evil, enslavers of sea creatures, or they might simply be neutral, not putting any thought into the moral wrongness of their culture's actions.

 

[smilinggm]

One word "FREEPORT"

 

[DrNilesCrane]

What about a culture of nomadic sea folk who live on the backs of giant sea tortoises? They control the tortoises by feeding them some sort of plant that makes the tortoises amenable to their commands (ie enslaved). These folk drift apart much of the year as they fish and harvest plants from the sea, but once every year they band together before monsoon season to exchange kin, share stories and otherwise prepare for the storms.

They would be expert fishermen, know the surrounding seas like the backs of their hands, and probably have very unusual marriage/family customs. They'd be metal-poor, but rich in crafts and oral lore. They might be evil, enslavers of sea creatures, or they might simply be neutral, not putting any thought into the moral wrongness of their culture's actions.

Very interesting idea - definitely more in line of what I'm looking for! Thank you!

 

[Turanil]

If you could grab a copy of Beyond Countless Doorways, the so-called planes would in fact fit better as islands for many of them.

 

[The Edge]

This is great, its just what I needed too.

heres one im thinking of that you could borrow from mine. A Zartan (giant turtle, Equipment Guide) that has two civilisations liveing on it at once, one on top, and an aquatic one bellow. The aquatic race would have thier city kind of attached to the bottom of the zartan.

from there you can change loads of things.
-what are the aquatic race?
-what are the land based race?
-are the aquatic race friendly/hostile?
-is there special customs,rumours,politics,agreements,laws. maybe the players might cause trouble acidentaly and be forced to fix it.

oh...the time got to go.