Since I finally appear to have found a way to do this that is not ridiculous, here's the proper way to get one's textures to stop checkerboarding in the BF2 editor:

1. Go to the Texture tool in the terrain editor.

2. Go over and pick the texture you want, and select it's layer over on the left.

3. Change your LowDetailMap to 0 in the tweak bar.

4. Go over to the editor bar on the right, and hit Set Low Detail Texture, select the default one, and generate.

Do this for each texture layer.

----------------------

Now, having said that, I'm going to heap scorn upon the BF2 editor for a bit, because Jesus Christ, this is bad. It's so bad I'm not even sure where to begin. It's so bad, it makes the BFV editor and its attendent issues (and I refer you here for some of them) look great. The Oblivion editor, whatever its faults, and there are faults to that editor, pretty much glows and walks on water by comparison. It's so bad, I am unable to recall an editor in my entire life which I have thought was worse.

Yeah, it's really that bad.

To give it some credit, at least we're not fucking around with RFA files like in the days of yore, or Oblivion's BSA files, and we're using straight .zip files. On the other hand, we're still using RAW files for heightmaps, and we're using them in such a way that apparently only Photoshop and a couple of fan-made utilities can even look at the things, much less attempt to edit them. For all the trouble you're going through here you might as well just use greyscale bitmaps or .tif files or something and have done, but no. This inability to function makes terrain editing a lot harder, as I'm sure you can understand.

That aside, when they don't inexplicably fail, the terrain editing tools are actually quite good for the most part. Certainly the Oblivion CS does a lot worse.

Placing objects, too, is pretty much shit, both because it's inexplicably hard to find the object you want, considering how many objects this game really doesn't have, because attempting to use the rotate tool requires some kind of arcane PhD, and did I mention the complete lack of objects? Like, oh, wow, we were totally too lazy to clone a Chinese city set. So, uh, no Chinese urban maps for you. Sorry. Oh, and forget trying to align anything properly.

The really criminal part of this editor, though, is how it takes pretty much every task imaginable, and adds about ten steps to it. And if you deviate from any of these, you are done. In all sorts of really simple ways it's very easy to fuck up your map irrevocably. Take texturing, for instance. Back in the day, you popped open your terrain editor, selected a texture, and went for it. BF2 is smarter than that. Here you need to select a texture, select your low detail texture, make sure it's in the right texture layer, and then do all that happy stuff I posted at the beginning, or else you wind up with a checkerboard. And all of that happy stuff I posted at the beginning? So far as I can tell, you have to do it exactly like that, meaning the inclusion of those settings is meaningless and pretty much only exists to fuck you. And it's basically like that for every single thing in the whole editor. Roads? You don't wanna know about roads.

I haven't gotten that far, and I may not ever considering the level of pain involved, but I'm told that pathmapping for bots involves some amount of work with either 3DSMax or Gmax, which I'm sure is a whole new level of insanity.

It's a real abortion of a system.

I have much work to do.

Via Flash Gordon:

Friends don't let friends dress like...well, any of these people, really. But Dr. Zharkoff, what were you thinking?

This is just awesome.

Which is my reading list for my current assignment. Which I should probably save because I'm sure I'll want it later.

As continued from...the post below. That aside, I really must start categorizing my posts again.

Basically because it's about time I need to start referring to this stuff, a brief reference for various things I've actually decided on (or close enough), followed by some actual crunch in the form of races.

Races:
Aischroi (kulloi/deinoi) - Two subraces, one region.
Humans (humans) - With no subraces, but four different regions (Sanagos, Free Cities, Kingdom, Northlander)
Ossith (lizardfolk) - Slaves of the Ssithil. One region.
Peretoi - slightly changed human nomads. One region.
Ssithil (yuan-ti) - The inhabitants of Great Ssithilos. One region.
Vargrans (hobgoblins) - The inhabitants of the northlands. Two regions.

Gods:
Sanagos - In Healer/Watcher/Traveller/Ruler guises. Worshipped in Sanagos.
Nestos - "The Hidden Lord". Ascended Ssithil (or human) deity of magic. Free Cities, wizards in human lands.
Ashakaros - Guider/Protector God of humans. Worshipped in human lands.
Garrack - "The Red-Tooth". Ascended Ossith hunter deity.
Spirits - Peretoi spirit worship.
Vargra - Vargran wolf-god. Athena-like
Great Ssithilos - Creator of Ssithil.

Languages:
All languages have written form as well unless noted.

Aischroi (no written)
Sanagosi
Kitilumian (ancient, precursor of Sanagosi, western languages)
WESTERN HUMAN LANGUAGE (name after the main kingdom)
Ssithil
Peretoi (no written)
Vargran

Which is 12 languages, counting written variants. May be cool to have spoken-only Ossith/firenewt dialects of Ssithil. Also ancient Ssithil and Vargran.

===========
RACE STATS
===========

Humans - As per PHB.

Aischroi (Kulloi)
+2 Dex/Str, -2 Int/Wis/Cha
Darkvision 60'
Scaled hide (+2 AC)
Clawed (1d4/1d4 natural)
Favored Class: Barbarian
Level adjustment: +1

Aischroi (Deinoi)
+2 Cha/Int, -2 Str/Con
Darkvision 60'
+2 Spot/Search/Decipher Script
Decipher Script/Use Magic Device always class skills
Magical Affinity: Can use 1 0-level arcane as a Su ability Cha mod times
per day as per sorc
Favored Class: Sorcerer
Level Adjustment: +1

Peratoi
+2 Con, -2 Int
Low-light vision
+2 Survival, Spot
Weapon familiarity: Peretoi broadspear (1d8, 20 ft range, can set for charge)
Favored Class: Scout (Complete Adventurer 10)

Vargrans
+2 Dex/-2 Cha
Low-light vision
+4 Move Silently
+2 Intimidate
Favored Class: Fighter

Ssithil
+2 Dex, +2 Cha
+2 Hide
+2 saves vs poison
+2 saves vs enchantment
As sorc of equal level: 1/day - animal trance, charm lizardfolk
detect poison, speak with serpents at will
Favored Class: Wizard

Ossith
+2 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int
+4 Swim, +2 Hide, +2 Move Silently
-2 penalty to saves vs enchantment
Weapon familiarity: atl-atl
Natural weapons: 2 claws (1d4) and bite (1d4)
Favored class: Barbarian

Half-X
Possibility exists for half-human, half-Aischroi, Peretoi, Vargran children. Instead of creating a bunch of weak-ass half-elf types (because half-elves have never not sucked), how about we treat them instead like humans, except they gain any one stat bonus (to a single stat) or racial power (or set, in the case of skills) of their parent other race, in place of the human feat. They keep human skill bonuses and multiclassing, however.

This SEEMS balanced enough to me.

I can't make an aasimar that I don't hate, so instead of that, we'll create a Chosen of Ashakaros feat which simulates some of that functionality, like a bonus to Heal and either a low-level lay on hands ability, a shield other ability (lose 1 AC and transfer to any ally in X feet?), or a flat Cha or Wis bonus, pickable at first level only.

In addition, Sanagosi humans at the least will have a series of Tainted Bloodline feats that allow various (small) stat bonuses or low-light vision. The low-light vision one will have a darkvision upgrade.

Ssithil will have access to a whole bunch of feats from Serpent Kingdoms as racial feats.

Peretoi could probably also use the Tainted Bloodline series, come to think of it.

Everyone else but the Vargrans are ok as-is. I am unsure as to what to give them for feats, but some kind of Chosen of Vargra feat giving limited wolf shifting could be cool, at least until they run into somebody with the Wolf Toss feat.

In addition, there will be regions, the feats of which I am unsure of as of yet.

For class notes:

Ranger - replace with scout, or a modified version of same.

Wizards/Sorcerers - A fairly interesting idea from Tigana was mages lopping off two fingers to get more attuned with magic. This fits the flavor for human wizards a whole lot. Some sort of feat that gives magical bonuses and may be required to get past, I dunno, 2nd level spells, perhaps. Alternately/also look into planar power sources from Pathfinder.

Clerics - A big one. Two ways of doing this. Either keep things mostly how they are, or create a series of classes with new powers and spell lists. One is simpler, one is by far and away cooler than the other, but needs severe fucking with spelllists, which sucks so much.

A few ideas.

Ashakaros - A mix of healing/combat/protection. The most like a traditional cleric.

Garrack - Very druidic, focus on hiding, hunting, etc.

Great Ssithilos - Priests are wizards, and don't actual gain power.

Nestos - Does he even HAVE clerics? Perhaps not. Maybe something like arcane devotee PrC or something.

Peretoi - Probably a more or less straight port of the OA shaman class.

Sanagos/Healer - Pure, unarmored, focuses mostly on healing, with some abjuration thrown in. Alternately, let all Sanagosi clerics draw from the same spell list, and give individual powers based on aspect.

Sanagos/Watcher - Combat and divination stuff.

Sanagos/Traveller - Probably some druid stuff in here, and things like fly, etc. A few combat things, very mixed bag.

Sanagos/Ruler - Enchantment-type stuff, with a bit of abjuration, and things like Shout.

Vargra - The priest presented in HR1 Vikings is a good start. A focus on personal combat, battle rage, and maybe wolf-shifting. This could be wildly cool.

In which we return to the world I keep jotting notes for, previously detailed in posts here and here.

This time with two maps:

Overview showing the whole continent, with my rough notes on who or what is going where. Note the awesome CC3 graphics, about which I shall perhaps discourse on another time.

Regional map showing the whole continent, this time roughly broken down by races and regions. Eventually, this will become the basis for a Forgotten Realms-style region list, or perhaps something stuck directly into the racial rules when I get there?

Let's go over each of those and talk about them some.

Black: Uninhabited

Which is probably off by a little bit, but at the least uninhabited by PC races, since I know those mountains in the northwest are going to have at least semi-sentient monsters in them. Too, I've been writing most of them off as "will develop later," which is going to start biting me in the ass, since I need to, you know, develop them at some point. But not yet.

Also, while I've got a lot of swamps, I don't really have a ton of forests, at least not big, big ones like you ought to find in a world at this stage of development. Some of that will fill in later, when I get down to actually designing individual kingdoms (and I really DO need to finish up my demographics rules), but I could probably fill some of that vast wilderness in the north with some more trees. I don't necessarily want to add new races and such, since the 10 or so I've got is probably more than enough, but things could get a bit more interesting, terrain-wise. I should probably go to the level of detail of adding trees to the actual mountains, to show that they're forested, most of them.

While we're on this terrain note, at 30 miles to the hex, even the Middle Sea is pretty small by our standards (the Mediterranean is something like 4 times the size). This means shipbuilding is probably way way way less advanced than your typical D&D world, and mostly oar-driven biremes and triremes, longboats in the Vikingesque north. Maybe those eastern wizard types have actual, you know, sailing ships, which makes them awesome. We'll see.

Also note that black-covered island down south I still haven't figured out what to do with.

Somewhere in here, I need to move all the larger off-shore islands much further off the shore (so that getting to the wizards is an actual chore, and not "I leap on the boat and sail 20 minutes", among other things.

Red: Empire of Great Ssithilos

Our yuan-ti kingdom. Who won't be called that when I get done with them, but Ssithilans or some other name. I think I'll also ignore most of their stats as presented and give them a few minor powers or stat increases, plus a "bonus feat" they can use to pick either one of the awesome yuan-ti feats from Serpent Kingdoms, or the precursor powers thereof.

They rule over lizardfolk (who I'll talk about in a bit) slaves, and something akin to firenewts (see Monsters of Faerun). Towards the rest of the world (mostly human), they're probably pretty amiable in a sort of ancient Chinese "Greetings, you ignorant barbarian, please buy our stuff, then leave" sort of way. Wouldn't want humans as slaves much, because the ones they've got are just flat out better, but they could still use them for various things, like cannon fodder.

We've previously discussed that the whole place will be sort of like China meets the Aztecs in the Old South, or maybe something akin to sticking Ancient Egypt in a jungle and removing the god king part. Settlement is mostly riverine, with large plantations on the big, navigable rivers. Cities probably mostly coastal, with a couple that break the pattern. Lots of lizardfolk working the land for various crops, fishing, hunting the big ass dinosaurs in the jungles, and such on yuan-ti run plantations. In the mountains, all those volcanoes are probably a great source of gems, and the firenewts are well-equipped to go in and mine them.

We've previously established that the whole place is ruled nominally by Great Ssithilos, who really is a god, but who's been sleeping in his capital city for the last however long. I will need to establish history as to why this is. Government is by the Twelve Hooded Lords, whoever they may be, but probably some sort of temple bureaucracy plus satraps of the various parts of the country. Probably elects itself. Probably a lot of Politburo-style intrigue, too. If there's any kind of wizard's school, they probably have a seat too.

Lower levels of government are probably pretty non-existant outside of the cities, since each plantation owner pretty much calls his own shots as long as he's obedient to the Twelve.

Society is pretty insular, and the model I'm thinking of here is China, except without the treaty ports. Foreigners are pretty much free to come and go (if they pay taxes), and for the most part, Great Ssithilos is big enough, rich enough, and on the surface powerful enough that they just don't care about anyone else.

They also have a big running issue with slave rebellions, and I imagine a big part of the foreign trade is hiring mercenaries to go fight them, since actual yuan-ti are pretty thin on the ground.

Oh yes, and Great Ssithilos is the original source for like, all the dinosaurs, and the yuan-ti are good at controlling some of them. Triceratopses with howdahs, that sort of thing.

Orange: Lizardfolk enclaves

Which for the most part will probably be called "Blerk swamp" or just "Lizardfolk tribes" rather than given actual country names.

As a race, lizardfolk are going to need to get widely scaled back so as to be playable. Will look into this, but lesser stat bonuses, lesser natural AC, etc seem like a good starting point. Probably penalty versus enchantments, since the yuan-ti roll that way.

As places, these are all refugee slaves combined with some native lizardfolk. Tribal structure, with chiefs and shamans of the lizardfolk god, who's portrayed as an ex-slave yuan-ti asskicker. As areas, they're dirt poor (wet dirt at that), and the lizards mostly live by raiding and hunting hadrosaurs and such. Probably some major league rituals around taking all the males of the tribe and bringing one down.

The southeastern enclave is pretty isolated, and might actual be a real civilization with some actual organization. Maybe not.

There's an enclave up near the Plains of Black Ash that has the potential to be interesting. Probably lots more civilized than the others, they've got enough Kitilumian influence to use arcane magic, and they're probably more traders/pirates/ruin looters than anything, and they just live in the swamp 'cause they're amphibians.

The enclave in the northwest is surrounded by the main human kingdom, which has some potential. I have the urge to play these guys mostly straight, hunters/raiders like the others, except mostly raiders, and what's more they're actually good at it, and have good steel weapons from the humans.

Dark Red: Peretoi

Who I have previously described as mostly human Zulu types. Tribal based, they do a lot of hunting and raiding and suchlike, mostly with each other, and they also facilitate trade with various people. Great Ssithilos has at one time or another probably brought whole tribes to go fight for them. Signature weapon is some sort of spear, probably a Zulu-esque short hafted, broad-bladed spear that does a d8 damage and has a 20' range increment, plus can be set against a charge. Exotic weapon that they get for free, like dwarf weapons.

I'm thinking some kind of animistic spirit-based religion, with a dash of Celtic druidism thrown in (mostly the inviolate nature of druids, and their roles as peacemakers and such). I've marked out some "Cairn Hills", so I bet they bury their dead with some amount of ritual at holy cairns or holy necropolises, which can be ancient ruins too, and in one form or another they're probably responsible for a ton of undead, incorporeal or otherwise.

One future idea is to have an actual Peretoi kingdom in the southeast, near all those civilized types. Kinda crappy as kingdoms go, but we'll think on it.

Yellow: Kitilumia

Where the aischroi live. I've described these guys in a lot of detail in previous posts. Demonic-blooded, sorcerous guys ruling over brutal, dimwitted ones. All of them deformed humans, living precariously in the demon-infested ruins of what used to be one of the great civilizations in small groups, living on a mostly meat diet, sometimes trading a little bit with the other, more advanced civilizations around them.

Blue: Sanagos

Which is a human city-state described in excessive detail in previous posts. Theocratic kingdom ruled by the Chosen of Sanagos, who is a Dalai Lama type figure. Best metalworkers in the world, which is their edge in trade, plus they sponser groups that loot the ruins of ancient Kitilumia, get killed by demons, or both at the same time.

Light Blue Undefined kingdoms

Being that area of the map I have no good ideas for whatsoever.

Brown Arabic/genie clockwork wizards/sha'irs?

I've sort of elaborated on how this civilization might work in the second post - guild-driven, highly regimented sort of place, which is at not-quite-Tokugawa-Japan levels of insularity from the outside world. This is riddled with problems, since clockwork has been done, the whole thing feels a lot like what I know of Eberron, and I'm unsure about how to make any game revolving around it fun without having it be self-contained. So we'll think on that, too.

Light Brown Pirates! Yearg!

Or maybe coastal fisher yuan-ti, but that's kind of boring and pirates aren't, so. Plus we need somewhere for all the scum and villains to go. Plenty of lizardfolk, yuan-ti, humans, you name it. Will probably develop this more if I ever need it for anything.

Magenta Seven Free Cities

Which may not end up being called that, exactly. I'm thinking a collection of human city-states, independent of the Brown Kingdom over west of them, who squabble with each other a lot, but unite every time the King comes to fuck with them. Pretty Italian Rennaisance stuff, in other words. Probably have a couple republics, a few tyrranies, stuff like that. These guys are some of the major traders, being smack in the middle of things as they are. In addition, lots of condotierri mercenaries, lots of whom stick around to fight in the penninsula (and sometimes take over ruling), many others of whom go off to work in Great Ssithilos to make their fortune.

As southern humans, I've got these guys pegged as being sort of Greco-Sumerian as far as culture goes, with lots more emphasis on the Greek part than the Sumerian part here.

Brown Major Human Kingdom

Which is pretty much how I described it. Used to be a much stronger human kingdom, but lost parts to civil war, invasions, and what have you. They'd honestly like it back, and the king works to do so when he has the chance, aided by knights and the like. Sort of a Greco-Sumerian take on the classic human kingdom, of which we need the one. Probably fairly Crusaderish, and hate the hobgoblin tribes of the north an awful lot, which gets them in trouble, as we shall see.

These folks are the major breadbasket of the continent, and sell grain all over the place.

Purple Saxonesque human/hobgoblin mixture

Probably some sort of ex-Danelaw type of situation, where the Viking hobgoblins came to stay, then actually broke free of the homeland and set up a mixed sort of society, much like how lots of 6th century Europe must have looked between Romans and barbarians. We're going for the whole decentralized, witan/weak king thing here, and there are probably several actual kingdoms. The crusaders in the south piss them off, and they get raided by the hobgoblins in the north. Lots of hill forts and the like.

Purplish-Blue Viking Hobgoblins

As described previously. They've got some kind of wolf-god thing going, and those mountains definitely have gibberlings, and things like hags. Since the north is pretty crappy, they mostly raid the south. Very individual thanes and such sort of deal, although maybe some titular kings of varying levels of power.

Bluish Finnish Hobgoblins

Who definitely herd rothe. Very freaked out by the gibberlings and the hags and the kenku. The whole north is going to have that semi-horror movie Beowulf feel to it. These guys also get looked down on by the more civilized Vikingesque hobgoblins. All very tribal and such. I sure do have a lot of nomads in this world. Pretty good chance of them having a slightly more wise and paternal deity than the wolf god. Sort of a paternal protector type that saves them from all those big nasty forest spirits. Again, OA shaman to the rescue?

Green Kenku

Who I really haven't detailed at all, except so far as they exist. May well end up not being a PC race, like the gibberlings aren't going to be.

Deities

Sanagos - Has Traveler/Healer/Warrior/Ruler aspects, which is about like having 4 gods in one. Runs on clerics.
Ssithilos - Currently fast asleep, but still has temple bureaucracy of either wizards or clerics. Perhaps Dark Sun templars? That could be wildly cool.
Hobgoblin Wolf God - clerics
Hobgoblin Protector God - shamans?
Peretoi - shamans
Aischroi - no deities, but sorcs run things
Human Healing God - aasimar clerics, paladins, etc. Have talked about this in previous posts.
Lizardfolk god - probably clerics

The possibility of ancient Kitilumian gods and any other unexplored area's gods are unexamined, though the Kitilumians probably skipped out on gods entirely, they were arrogant enough.

Core Classes

Barbarian - really, this guy is really designed as a berserker for the lizardfolk and hobgoblins. Humans worshipping the wolf god probably take this class, too. Likely does not need any modification to use.

Bard - arcane magic is wildly problematic considering how many people flat out despise the stuff in this world. As some kind of skald class, might work out ok for the hobgoblins, etc. One or another of the books probably has powers for this. Must look into it.

Cleric - Would like to take this class out, at least as-is, and replace with something more akin to how, say, Aquerra does things. Each class with a different set of BAB, saves, armor restrictions, powers, etc. 2nd edition specialty priests, essentially.

Druid - Probably take this out. None of these gods are particularly nature-oriented in that fashion.

Fighter - Can go completely unchanged. Everyone has fighters.

Monk - Ah...no. Just no. There are some concepts here that might work well enough with the aasimar healing god, but on the whole, maybe not. OTOH, I do want a sort of Confucian feel to the aasimar healing god. This may not be the way to do it however.

Paladin - With the exception of the turn undead and the mount stuff, these guys work ok for that aasimar god. In slightly different form, these also work ok for Sanagos, except oriented towards demons. Pretty good chance of scrapping these and just going with fighters/divine champion PrCs, however.

Ranger - About half of me thinks it would be a great idea to scrap rangers as a class idea, and go with the Complete Adventurer Scout class instead, which skips some weird magic, and the whole "animal companions are annoying" thing. Not many people are that nature oriented, too.

Rogue - like fighters, everyone has these. Unchanged.

Sorcerer - Check into the Pathfinder RPG rules for demon binding here, as the source is demonic and not draconic. Of the races/regions, aischroi are big sorc users, and there's a fair smattering of humans and peretoi near Kitilumia, too. Outside of that, probably rare. In pretty much all societies, they're going to be reviled, or at the very least distrusted, with the exception of Great Ssithilos, where nobody cares.

Wizard - In general, not many of these. Outlawed flat out in Sanagos, at the very least distrusted most everywhere else, except Great Ssithilos, where you get a lot of wizards, some of whom are actual Transmuters and Enchanters. I could see a lot of the illusion school going to the lizardfolk clerics, and abjuration to the Sanagosi and hobgoblin protector god shamans. Necromancy either as a school or as individuals to the peretoi?

I can see the hobgoblins having some sort of runecasters, depending on how cool that can be made to be.

Languages

Not many of these, at least compared to the main game. Each race has one, plus abyssal, plus ancient versions of Kitilumian and Ssithan if not others. There Is No Common. Also a whole set of written languages, all of which cost extra language slots to write. Literacy is not free!

Technology

Slightly lower than the high middle ages presupposed by D&D. See if I can dig out my Dark Ages tech list from somewhere, which I think is buried in my Player's Options book somewhere, which is tragic as that is in Oregon. In any case, things like pikes and crossbows are probably gone, as is plate mail, as are a few other things. I'm not sure about imposing regional restrictions on equipment, but I will at least have regional suggestions.

Ships are going to suck, as previously mentioned. Not a lot of riding going on, except some dinosaurs in the south. Are there rules for controlling howdah-carrying animals somewhere? Not a lot of riding going on in the north, I'm thinking, which is perfectly ok. Horses are dead. Bye horses.

This sure was long. It's gonna get longer.