The Ravings of Demented Rabbits

Worldbuilding, Again

Some of you may remember this post from a time ago, in which I discuss D&D worlds and the building thereof. As I am in a creative brainstorming mood, and as I need a break from beating my head against a certain part of Weye for a moment, allow me to ramble.

Coming up with unique countries that aren't direct representations of Earth stuff is pretty hard. Just saying. So most of this stuff needs to be preliminary until I can figure out how to put my own spin on it.

There's a spot in the east, a couple islands and some coastline, that I always sort of earmarked as "Put some wizard artificer types here", and I sure don't want to use gnomes, so let's not do that, but it does occur to me that I always thought Al-Qadim was really cool, I have a ton of sourcebooks for it, and Sha'irs and Clockwork Mages are about what I want out of the thing. So the whole elemental theme could be pretty cool. I am unsure what route to take with this. Using actual genies could be neat, but seems wildly overpowered. Genasi could also be cool, but are sort of bland. Ditto for spirit folk. Also, in order to keep these guys from ruling the world, it would be best if they had a sort of enclaves at war feel, or they're so damn advanced they just don't care, and it's all political intrigue all day in fantastic clockwork cities. Only we want clockwork cities anyway, because that's cool. On the downside, that whole elemental thing has been so DONE.

Maybe some sort of combination of Nethrese enclaves, clockwork mages, Mafia/yakuza clans, and wizard's guilds. Unified island kingdom that hasn't really had any threats forever and a day, and hangs out and trades with guys for stupid amounts of cash because omg mechanics. Maybe a sort of lawful-neutral guild-run society where everybody and their plant life has a guild, and the guilds have some sort of council, and it all looks a lot like Star Wars except without the Jedi. They can do the trade enclave thing on the mainland, too, only the whole wizard enclave thing has been so done to death.

In any case. The swamps up near Kitilumia/Sanagos might better be populated by Bullywugs for the sake of variety. They have the right kind of flavor stock. Kind of like chicken, only with summoning added. Also, way too many reptiles going on.

The northlands really want a sort of Norse/Finnish feel to them, which has so totally been done, but that's because it's so totally cool. We don't want ALL the baggage from that, just the whole idea of going off and raiding dudes, rocky farms, trees and snow-covered mountains, and Bad Things Coming Out Of Them At Night. Such as, for instance, gibberlings, or grimlocks, or quaggoths. And in the trees we can have tribes of kenku, because that's a great spot for them. We can also split whoever these Norse guys are into two distinct groups - one the more traditional Viking type, the other more of a nomadic, fur-wearing, "we done herded us some reindeers" type that the Viking types kind of look down on and feel a bit sorry for. Maybe not reindeers. Rothe or something, perhaps, but you get the idea. Makes there be a whole lot of friggin' nomads in this world, but oh well. Also, pretty probable these guys end up being either bugbears or hobgoblins, or some kind of non-lycanthrope wolf-type race. Hengeyokai could fit, but maybe not, as they'd sort of blend into the Kenku.

Am still wildly unsure as to what to do about the vast majority of the center land, which is obviously human, only with no clear conception on how to make them cool. I've been sort of building them up in my mind as sort of Saxon/Frankish/Woohoo Charlemagne types, sort of blending more and more into civilization as you get further south, but more on the level of Celtic hill forts rather than medieval castles or Roman forts.

A few things we can do about this. Firstly, if we're going to do the whole elected kings/witan/warrior bands thing, why don't we ramp up the duty and honor thing and make them sort of the Anglo-Saxon equivilent of samurai. Maybe not katana/wakizashi, etc, but that sort of thing. Elected kingship gives us cool opportunities, too. If we're going to be all Bernard Cornwall about the thing, we may as well emphasize shield walls and such, too.

Secondly, what say there aren't any horses in the whole place. Like, anywhere in the world. There are various ways various folks make up for this, of course. Your lizard-types can ride other lizards or dinosaurs, the Sanagosi probably don't ride in the first place, the wizards wouldn't stoop that low, and the Vikings are on boats half the time anyway. There should be some kind of mounted element to these people, probably, but I'm not sure what it is.

Since we're already overboard on strong, god-king and wizard-ruled states, we may as well ditch that element, and leave out any kind of strong church flavor for these particular humans. There'll be those aasimar healers and such, and maybe some monastary type things, the people may be devoted, but dispense with the strong churches. Also, some inter-religious strife by competing missionaries of the Vikings, Ssithilos, Sanagos, and Aasimar could be fun, and give each particular kingdom some flavor.

As I say, probably a blend between Celts, Saxons, and Charlemagne, here. Probably have some kind of overking in the south trying to impose his rule on everyone else and failing, sort of like the not-awesome Charlemagne, which also sets up some good tensions with the petty republics and tyrannies of the Free Cities. South probably has a lot more motte and bailey type action going on, versus the hilly (and much more heavily attacked) north, which is all Celtic-style hill forts of earth and stone. The whole elected king/council of warriors thing is probably lots stronger in the North, too, with the whole thing being a polite fiction in the South, and probably a good plot point for whoever the overking is as he tries to establish hereditary autocracy.

All that having been said, these guys are still super bland compared to everyone else. That may be a good thing, because it's always nice to have something familiar, but if I'm going to go whole hog on this being unique thing, well.

Maybe two other things we can do here. If we're going for the whole warrior honor culture thing, it's a good spot to import the concept of wandering duelist kensai-types, as well as warrior brotherhoods/orders that are probably a lot closer to Aztec jaguar/eagle knights than the Templars. Probably at least a few of these, some tied to religion (the hobgoblin wolf god probably has a big one), some tied to wizards, though the wizard ones are probably less. On that same note, as much as it pains me to say it, the aasimar monastic healers make a good fit with the monk class. Considering the whole healing in a dangerous world aspect, they'd probably be all up into martial arts. Must think on this. Some sort of cleric class that got some monk abilities could actually be sort of cool. Also, with the exception of the universally loved because they take care of our sick kids aasimar, the warrior brotherhoods may or may not be pretty suspect as agents of the overking up north.

There are two islands south of Great Ssithilos. I'm guessing our snakey friends probably suck as sailors, so these don't need to be all that influenced by them. One of them can be some kind of conglomerate pirate base. It's a bit far from anywhere, but it can raid the south coast good, and there needs to be that one spot for exiles that's a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

I have no idea what to use the other, larger island for, and I similarly have no idea what to do along the whole east coast without making the wizard thing ridiculous, and on the second of those two big islands up there. I could reserve one island to be more or less uninhabited, full of who the hell knows what creatures (because that plot's always fun), but one of them is country-sized. Humans influenced by the wizard people? Some blend of Peretoi Zuluism and wizards? zomg teh wizards we hates them we hates them? Must think on this.

A word on probable economies, while I'm thinking on it:

Sanagos: Best minerals in the world, probable source of some ridiculous amount of the world's gem supplies.
Free Cities: Mercenaries for everyone else, plus they're in the best spot to trade with literally everybody.
Saxon Humans: Probably the breadbasket of the whole Middle Sea area, and export food to everyone.
Peretoi: Nomadic herders and hunters, though what they herd is anyone's guess.
Vikings: Small-time farming, supplemented by raiding the Saxons.
Ssithilos: Huge spice plantations, exotic pets, and given that string of volcanic mountains, the other gemstones that Sanagos doesn't supply. Or maybe they do all the gems, Sanagos does most of the iron mining and such, as they're in the position for that.
Pirates: Piracy. Yearg.
Wizards: Selling awesome clockwork shit, which incidentally is a great way to introduce some new magic stuff.

Also, with scant exceptions, like Sanagos and what used to be Kitilumia, I really lack history for this whole world. It's pretty probable that Great Ssithilos has pretty much been there in one form or another since Way Back In the Day, Egypt-style, and clearly the wizards got to their own ossified state somehow, which will have to be thought on. The Saxons and Vikings, being probably semi-literate, are probably in that situation where they know stuff happened before them, but it's legendary, which gives me some fun DMing opportunities. The lizardfolk either had a big ass war with Ssithilos, gradually grew via escapes, or both, sort of like what one hears the Carribean was like back in the days of slavery, except literally tooth and claw rebellions all the time.

In any event I think we're leaning towards young world worldbuilding, rather than back in the day there were tons of huge empires 40,000 years ago woohoo old world worldbuilding, which is ok.

I think we've pretty much established at this point that a lot of the stuff in the PHB items list just isn't there, starting with horses (but riding dinos is cooler), and lots of weapons like polearms and crossbows. Armor probably maxes out around banded mail or breastplates, though the possibility always exists of really freaking heavy Mycenaean type platemail. Similarly, things like the larger sailing ships are pretty much Sir Not Appearing In This Setting, but that's probably quite ok.

I've really got to come up with a good way to do Ssithilos-type names. Which brings up the thought that if northern humans are Germanic, and the southern ones are more Greco-Sumerian, that same blend probably holds true for the eastern ones - Greco-Roman, Greco-Sumerian, something like that. There's a chance for some really interesting blends between that culture and whatever the wizard one ends up being. More urbanized, some guilds and magic. They need issues and something to do with themselves, though. Trade isn't it so it's probably farming, and something's got to be done to keep it all not generic European.

Some kind of Indian-style caste system would be neat for the wizards.

Yes, this is what info dumps straight from my brain look like.

Oh yeah, religion. Two guiding principles:

1. I'd rather have evil guys in the church of the good god than an evil church. Better drama, and besides the Thugees and those five guys that worship Satan because it's like, so DARK, men, how many societies really run around doing evil god worship anyway?

2. So damn tired of generic polytheism. So so very much. Monotheism for a whole world would be boring, however.

So, ok. We seem to be coming up with three styles of god, here:

- Immortal gods that went, created races, and actually live with their worshippers (or not);
- Mortals who did awesome stuff and became gods;
- People who worship magic, essentially.

So of the first type, probably the Viking wolf god and the Aasimar healing god are this, along with Great Ssithilos.

Of the second type, Sanagos is the prime example, and there's probably some major lizardfolk hero who led his folk to freedom, wields a two-handed sword, and shoots lightning from his eyes and fireballs from his tail. Probably there can be a couple more of these, especially for the humans, once I decide what they are.

Of the third type, primitives like the Aischroi definitely do ACTUALLY worship it, and the wizards probably have some sort of deistic belief in how magic is like the Force, and seriously if I'm not careful these guys are going to turn out very Star Wars. Pretty probable that most wizards share this sort of deism, which probably makes them very unpopular with the clerics.

I've got the Peretoi down as being sort of nature/spirit worshippers, which I guess is a sort of fourth kind of religion. Probably the kenku do this too. The nomadic herder hobgoblins might do it too, which could be interesting.

Of our new-to-be-created gods, the wolf god is probably sort of an Odin/Athena type, wise, kicks ass in battle, wanders hither and thither in the land, showing up at random guy's battles and either winning them, or just beating up dudes. The Aasimar healing god is sort of turning out to be a Jesus Christ figure, if Christ was a little more Second Amendment and a little less turn the other cheek. I'm willing to bet that the wizard nation doesn't even do temples at all, except if any foreign devils get enclaves.

(it occurs to me that, while boring, the wizard guys could be yet more humans, though it would be cooler if they weren't, really)

Posted by Dwip at March 16, 2008 9:21 PM