Setting Proposal: A Tail of Woe

[Daniel Knight]

Okay… this is an example of why leaving something to the last minute is a bad idea.

Fantastic, I thought to myself, I have an hour before work to go down to the local net café, print (my printer at home is buggered) all the sheets out and send them off. This is a good thing as the Post Office also closes in an hour. Please also keep in mind today’s the last day to send.

So I get there and ask for a computer with Word. The gentleman sits me down, and I immediately try to log into Hotmail so I can download my work and print them up.

Error.

What the?

Error.

“Damn.” I say, “Erm, excuse me, but I can’t seem to connect to Hotmail.”

“Oh yeah, sorry about that but the server is down. I’ve loaded Word up for you though!”

“Gee thanks. Erm, would you know where the nearest Net Café is?”

“Yeah… round the corner.”

So I pick myself up and go around the corner. I jump onto a computer and try again. Hotmail loads. Woohoo! I try to download the file.

Error.

Argh!

“Excuse me, but I can’t seem to download this file to print!”

“Yeah, they do that. No downloading onto these computers.”

Arraaaaaagh! So it’s now 4:20pm here. Post Office closes at 5:00 and I have no time to get to a café and print one out. In short, I’ve failed because I stupidly left it to the last minute. So, for your perusal, I offer you a setting proposal that never got sent off. Enjoy.

 

[Daniel Knight]

B R A K A S H A

A world of thick and steamy jungles, where the very land trodden lives and breathes.

Who are the heroes?
The heroes of Brakasha are bred for survival. Coming from all walks (and sometimes flights) of life, they fight for what they believe in an effort to bring about change in their unforgiving world. They are dreamers with a desire rooted deep within their chests to explore the far reaches of the globe. They are defenders of the populace, idealists, and seekers of treasure. In every sense of the word, they are heroes.

What do they do?
Depending on their origins, our heroes use their unique knowledge and training to industriously achieve their goals. For example, a dwarven fighter from one of the larger soil cities may have very little understanding of the dangerous environments beyond the city walls, yet might hold his own against the corrupt local guard with his knowledge of the sewer system winding its way through the tree roots beneath. Or a paladin of Thrix the Wyrm, while having very little knowledge of the cities, would instead help those in need trekking through the mid levels of the jungles.

Threats, Conflicts, Villains
Other then the constant threat of the deadly and vicious creatures living in the leafy folds of Brakasha’s heart, the heroes must also beware of the many treacherous environments that consume the landscape. From the depths of the steam filled canyons of Groomph, to the heights of the treetop city-states on the floating Trishka Islands – there are plenty of environments to cause the heroes harm. Inhabiting many of the areas of danger, are of course, the villains. People and creatures of such disposition to make even the most hardened heroes skin crawl, they fight hard and they fight dirty. Whether they’re a master gem-thief based in one of the frost cities of the north, or a beast summoner of the Trench Caverns there are certainly many adversaries for the heroes to lock horns with.

Nature of magic
There are no gods on Brakasha in the traditional sense, with divine magic instead springing forth from the thousands of spirits populating it. They may inhabit a cluster of trees, a tranquil lake, or even a town in which a priest lives, harbouring their own desires, motives, ethos, and rituals associated with their worship. Also worshiped are beings that have reached a godlike status like that of the Pharaohs, becoming every bit as much a “god” as we are used to. These divine vessels can originate from the player races such as humans or elves, but can also evolve from beasts such as giant lizards or great cats desiring nothing but to feed. Arcane magic oozes from the life force spewed from the world itself. With so many creatures living in close proximity to one another under so much vegetation, it should come as no surprise that there is an abundant amount of excess energy. The harnessing of this flow can be performed by anyone who is willing to undertake the difficult and often life altering rituals. Wizards, Sorcerers and Psions are viewed with some level of awe, as they are ostensibly capable of doing anything.

What's new? What's different?
Mapping the way between the tree cities are huge wooden roads suspended far above the ground lit with Star Gems at night. Meanwhile far below rest the ruins of many unexplored regions littered with ancient ruins, untamed creatures, and plenty of danger. There’s something for everyone. Let’s face it… it’s a jungle out there!


Copyright (C) Daniel Knight
July, 2002

 

[Yuan-Ti]

Man, this is gonna be great when everyone starts posting their ideas!

Thanks for sharing, DK!

 

[Plane Sailing]

Daniel - bad luck, and commiserations. I like your entry-that-would-have-been. If I understand it correctly, the point is that *everything* takes place up in giant trees - living, breeding, building, everything.

It reminds me of the start of the Brian Aldiss novel "Hothouse" in general terms, although clearly not derivative of that.

Great idea and bad luck.

 

[Green Knight]

Great submission! I'm sorry to hear you couldn't send it in.

I had a similar experience, but fortunately had a much happier ending than you.

Last night I went to my brother's house to print out my submission, as my printer's out of ink. Unfortunately, when I got there I found out that his computer doesn't have Word Perfect. He lived to damn far away for me to go home and e-mail my submission to him, and nobody could be bothered to go to my room and read my submission to me over the mail (The computer it's on doesn't have internet access, so it couldn't have been e-mailed to me within being retyped into the other computer and e-mailed through it).

Having no other choice, I had to retype my submission on his computer from memory! Stayed up til 4 am writing and re-writing it, but thankfully, I got it done. Though I almost screwed up in another way, as I had forgotten to sign the Submission Agreement form. Fortunately I caught that mistake before I dropped my submission off at the post office.

Man, this is gonna be great when everyone starts posting their ideas!

Agreed. Can't wait til saturday.

 

[Raist]

Congratulations Daniel, it's an excellent setting.
If all submissions are as good as yours, mine doesn't stand a chance (I never thought I could win, but now I've got a proof)

 

[Arken]

Looks like a great setting...almost exactly the same as my submission in fact ...except mine wasn't in the jungle.

I have no idea if that's a good thing (I put in something that someone else thought was good enough to submit) or a bad thing (people are submitting the same thing as me)...

Either way it's a shame you couldn't send it in especially because it so well written...

 

[Vaxalon]

Daniel, I don't mean any disrespect, but I hope all of the submissions are like yours... if so, I'm a shoe-in for the ten-pager.

The heroes ... fight for what they believe in an effort to bring about change in their unforgiving world. They are dreamers with a desire rooted deep within their chests to explore the far reaches of the globe. They are defenders of the populace, idealists, and seekers of treasure. In every sense of the word, they are heroes.

This is pretty standard. Can you imagine any game world where this would not be true?

Depending on their origins, our heroes use their unique knowledge and training to industriously achieve their goals.

Again, is there any game world where this would not be true?

It's pretty hard to put something in this slot which isn't cliche... I have a feeling that the people who DO put something of substance here will have the advantage.

... vicious creatures ... treacherous environments ... villains....

They asked, "who are the villains?" and you said, "There are villains." You spent a lot of space saying that they were there, and not enough saying who they were.

There are no gods on Brakasha in the traditional sense, with divine magic instead springing forth from the thousands of spirits populating it. ... Also worshiped are beings that have reached a godlike status like that of the Pharaohs, becoming every bit as much a “god” as we are used to.

This, on the other hand, is new and interesting. You've taken a very human, very typical way of looking at the gods, and brought it into DnD where it has rarely shown up in the past.

Arcane magic oozes from the life force spewed from the world itself.

An interesting take, with implications that you didn't go into that would make for an interesting world.

What's new? What's different?
...between the tree cities are huge wooden roads suspended far above the ground lit with Star Gems at night. ... ruins ... untamed creatures ... danger.

The suspended roads are new and interesting, but ruins, creatures, and danger are pretty standard fare.

All in all, you have a few ideas that are fresh, but it looks like you spent half or more of the document talking about things that really don't need saying. A submission that spends more time on what makes that world special will, I think, do better.

Again, please don't take what I'm saying amiss. This one is probably better than 90% of the submissions they'll get... but don't sweat not having gotten it in. In my opinion, it would have gotten a second glance, but in the end it would have had no chance of making the cut.

It's an interesting world, but not star material.

 

[Tom Cashel]

...and where was the TAIL?

I was expecting a clever pun.

 

[Oni]

Hurm.....Your model of divine magic is most similar to the model of divine magic I used. I'm wondering now how common a thread that will be in the submissions they have received.