Building a Fantasy Sandbox: Step 15: Part 5 - Can't Let Sean Have All the Fun

Sean's recent fervor of creativity has opened up some fun discussions about our setting and the lands contained within! It also got me off my ass and onto naming the last of my "solo" islands, as detailed below:




The isle of Lapus lies uninhabited, as it has for generations, yet it is still an overwhelming presence to the inhabitants of the region. The island is most known for the Spine of Chasnor, the chain of mountains that run down the middle of it, most notable among them, The Heart of Chasnor (or Naythariruh to the Lizardmen), an active volcano at the island's center.

The volcano is constantly ejecting magma from its crater in the center, usually in a slow steady flow, but sometimes erupting violently. This heated rock slowly works its way down the mountains, expanding and building up the island. Spectacular lava falls often accompany the violent eruptions as the massive amounts of lava do not cool before they reach the island's edge. These eruptions can also be felt on (the Main Island) and cause shipping lanes to shift as hot ash and smoke are tossed into the air. Luckily, prevailing winds carry most of the ash away from the other islands, though there have been times in which ash fell from the sky to cover other nearby landmasses.

Scholars are at a loss as to where Naythariruh gets its seemingly unending supply of magma, as there is not much rock underneath the isle itself. Speculation runs the gamut from a portal connected to the Elemental Plane of Fire to it being the actual heart of a god, the magma its life's blood. That is not the island's only mystery however.

Cradled in the center of the Spine of Chasnor rests the ruins of an ancient city, mostly collapsed and much buried beneath obsidian. Little beyond several thousand stone formations remain, though a detailed study of the ruin has not been possible, due to constant fear of a violent eruption. What little could be obtained from the few expeditions there have reported back a great feeling of unease, hallucinations of blurry humanoid figures spotted in the distance through the thick heated air, and a seemingly uncoincidental increase in the intensity of tremors and lava flow from the Heart of Chasnor the deeper expeditions got into the ruins. Those expeditions that last reported they had reached the heart of the ruins never made it back, after particularly violent eruptions occurred soon after those reports. The ruins are named JanderOst, after one group found those two words harshly carved into the side of one foundation, the only written word or symbol thus far discovered within.

Building a Fantasy Sandbox: Step 15: Part 4 - Sean's on a roll!

There's no stopping Sean, as he's on a roll, here we have another island named to check off Step 15. This time, the isle of woods low on the map:



The southern-most is fairly unremarkable, save for it's population of Fangbeast and rumors of crazed humanoids. With easier access to food, water and lumber, residents of the island cluster rarely venture onto the South Island. The people of Forest's Edge (The southern-most hamlet, at the end of the road near the woods on the main island) use the island as a Coming of Age rite for their young hunters (both male and female). The young hunters are tasked with slaying a Fangbeast, all the while avoiding the other dangers that lurk in the woods. If they succeed, they are welcomed back into the village as a true hunter. Those that fail often don't return, and those that do return are integrated into another aspect of the village, though this is often leads them to leave and find their place in life elsewhere.

Design and Development: Alignment, Part 2

Does the game even need a hard coded alignment? After listening to thoughts back and forth, I'm thinking, no.

Just because there isn't a hard "stat" that states what a PC or monster's alignment is doesn't mean they can't act within an alignment. It's just saying that nothing needs to conform itself to a hard coded moral line.

So if you eliminate alignment from the game, how does it affect it?
It doesn't really, if you look at it.

Mechanically there isn't much in LL or the AEC that is really dependent on alignment. The original LL with it's straight Law/Neutral/Chaos lines never had spells that just hurt Chaotic creatures. It did, in fact, have spells that affected "evil" creatures, but told the DM to make a judgment call on what was considered evil. There was mention that if spells were cast that seemed to go against a cleric's alignment, he might fall from a god's favor, but still, that was up to the DM's call. So, why not do that with everything?

If we eliminated alignment (as a hard coded "stat") from Deminar, would it really affect the game?

Building a Fantasy Sandbox: Step 15: Part 3 - Not Just Me Naming These Things

So, my co-developer on the Deminar project, Sean, has submitted his first named isle. This one for the Desert isle, below is his transcript:



The Lost Desert. Most of the other islands in this region of islands are forestry, and none of the other ones are desert. This little piece of desert seems to have gotten itself lost and wandered into a Green area. It happened a while ago, so the name of the region where it came from is unknown.

The Temple in the desert was once dedicated to the God(dess) of (Emptiness?Nothing?Void?I can't think of a good title for the Aspect...I guess I just named that God - Gidara). It contains a vast number of chambers that are open to the desert, but isolated from the other chambers but for a small door just large enough to crawl through. When it was still on the surface, you could sit in a chamber and stare off into the vast nothingness of the desert and contemplate the empty spaces - yet, you could eventually see that even in the nothing that is the desert, there are features and things to see. In Nothing, There is Something (how's that for a Koan?).

In the Post-cataclysmic times, the Temple has fallen out of use by that sect, and rumors of a Darker God's minions moving in have yet to be confirmed...

The temple was purposely built in an area pretty devoid of spectacular features. That said, to the south of the temple is a flat section of desert, which would have continued beyond the borders of the island, that consists of crusty, salty sand, the remains of a body of water that occupied that space prior to the desert forming. The locals call it the Bone Flats, for its white color, as well as the bones of creatures that have wandered there and died of dehydration (and possibly by the hand/paw of a creature that lives there)

Design and Development: Alignment, Part 1

With the De&De of the Paladin temporarily on hold (not because it stalled mind, but because we actually came up with a really great idea that needs further elaboration), I've decided to raise a brand new De&De, this one relating to alignment.

In LL and Basic before it, your alignment was restricted to just Lawful, Chaotic, or Neutral. There was no axis of Good and Evil, those were traits that came up as actions, not because of alignment. Despite this, there was still spells like Detect Evil, leaving much of what was "evil" up to the DM to determine.

The AEC, with its 1st Ed. Lite approach, adds the optional usage of Good and Evil, creating the nine choice alignment system most people playing later editions are familiar with.

The question is, what do we use for Deminar?

When it was designed for 3rd edition, Deminar had all nine alignments, these factored into classes, the gods, cosmology, etc. like was par for the course for later settings.

Personally, I dislike alignments entirely, I feel that it can restrict a player, labeling how he would act morally. This should be something that comes up through play, not because it's something they wrote on their character sheet. However, that only works with more advanced players, so I understand having alignment present as something to remember how a character should act. A place for the DM to point to and say, "Well, remember, your character is lawful, so he probably won't steal from the helpless old lady."

Due to its inclusion in many a spell and even class/species, I don't think Deminar should do away with alignment. But it still begs the question of which alignment system we should use.

Much of Deminar's cosmology revolves around all nine alignments, major gods are tied to alignments like Lawful Good, not just Lawful, as are their domains. Each intelligent species was originally tied to one of the nine alignments (not saying each species had to be that alignment, but that each species was predisposed towards a certain alignment due to their creation). Certain classes had certain abilities based on their alignment, etc.

Now, you don't have to have an alignment such as Lawful Good to have a God of that moral compass, it can infer that he is generally good, but without such a label. However, dropping the Good/Evil alignment tracks break up some of the explanation and symmetry that exists within the setting.

On the other hand, not having Good and Evil as alignment choices is true to the source materiel, and indeed, could alienate fans of the system from picking up our books for adding what they think is a restrictive idea. As the AEC says itself:

"People familiar with other "advanced" games will notice that the standard alignment system does not account for "good" and "evil." This is because these concepts are left to interpretation. This is a philosophy more in line with classic pulp fantasy and science fiction. In this way of thinking, the "highest philosophy" is the conflict between law and chaos, with the balance of neutrality between. In this philosophical universe, concepts of good and evil are merely a means to attain the goals of any one of these greater spheres of thought. In this game, then, "evil" and "good" are much more situational than doctrines of behavior. Evil will often be associated with chaos, and good with law, but this need not always be the case."

Which I think makes sense for the steam pulp setting we're going for. But again, see above about the pros of the full nine alignment system.

So, what to do?

Building a Fantasy Sandbox: Step 15: Part 2 - Another Island down!

The next island on my checklist is in the top right of the map, seen here:



This one is slightly different then the first I did as it doesn't have any settlements, instead it is one of our "wild" or "lair" isles, ideal for the adventurers to go exploring.

After a particularly scholarly lizardman determined that this isle was once joined with (The main island, named to be determined), he named it Seberus, meaning Little Brethren in their tongue. Seberus separated sometime after the island rose from the cursed earth below, but long before humans settled permanently in the region. The great Aldernai peaks block much of the island from view from the (main isle) and from them issues forth the Ehrophase and Serophase rivers. These two waterways drain down from the mountains and disappear into the Ukridian hills. On the opposite side of the island lies the deciduous forest known as the Nagana Woods, home to all manner of wild beast. The most striking feature of Seberus, however, is not natural at all, but instead a decrepit and rotting tower. Known simply as The Spire, this ancient ruin predates the cataclysm that caused the islands to rise. Though some study has been conducted on the outside of the tower and its surrounding area, few have ventured deep within, as those few brave souls who did, have never returned.

Musing: Dwarves

In the LL game I'm currently running our Dwarves speak with Russian accents. This came about because I wanted to change up the "standard" accents that the races are known to have and try something a little different.

Several jokes about "In Soviet Dwarfholds, Stone mines you!" later and it sort of fell into place. The end result was a sorta offhand mention that Dwarves in our game are probably communist. This doesn't come up too often in the game itself (not as much as it should IMHO), but it got me thinking.

The ideal behind the "dwarven communism" actually works quite well in Deminar.

The dwarves in Deminar are fighting a never ending battle with the goblins across the floating isles and have been doing so since they first rose into the sky. Their underground homelands have grown sparse, as many islands don't have mountain chains on them and few have sufficient area underground to support both species.

Because of this, everything the dwarves do is for the greater dwarven community in which they live. Everything is dedicated to helping the dwarves hold and expand their territory. There is no personal honor, there is only honor for your community as a whole. A great dwarven general is held in the same regard as one who mines ore to help make weapons. Dwarves do not have an economy in any traditional sense, everything produced is given to the community as a whole and no one dwarf "owns" any one thing.

Because of this, when dwarves do interact with other species (especially humans), they have a hard time understanding how they work. The idea of a nobility and social class is alien to them, as is the need to pay for goods ("why can't the hungry beggar eat what was grown by the farmer?").

Also, because of this, most dwarven adventurers are considered traitors to their community. Leaving their station to explore the world is turning your back on the fight and many can never return to any dwarven community (especially their own!). Exceptions do exist, of course, those traveling to find ancient dwarven relics to help turn the tide in their on going battle or those out to find new lands to settle, for example, are still helping the greater good and are not considered traitorous.

Even those that choose exile to become adventurers still hold onto the mindset they were raised with. They don't see a need for someone in the party to lead them, assume that all supplies carried by everyone is to be shared with whoever in the group needs is, including any loot found in the dungeons themselves. This includes coin, even if they don't understand the need for it, they're not stupid and understand its usage.

Design and Development: Paladins, Part 1

The Paladin was always an interesting class for me. On one hand, I understand what they were going with, as the Wiki entry for Paladin shows. They are the holiest and most chivalrous of knights and because of that, certain powers are bestowed upon them.

Now, in the real world, these knights mostly came from Christianity, and, because of that, they represented a relatively Good and Lawful god, because Christianity is monotheistic and they have no Chaotic or Evil gods.

However, in most D&D worlds, those gods exist, and worshipers of them are generally tolerated throughout the land. Worshiping or paying homage to a Chaotic god doesn't mean you're instantly evil and ostracized. So, the question is, why do the Lawful Good gods have Paladins, but the neutral and chaotic (and also evil if said alignment is used) do not?

Now, in our earlier Deminar project we turned Paladins into "Holy Knights," bestowing a variety of powers that were offshoots of the classic paladins based on what god the Holy Knight followed.

The question is, do we want to do that in this LL/AEC version of Deminar? If we do, the idea is to keep things as simple as possible, classes should be easy to follow, as they are in all AEC, so we can't make so many options based on each individual god or something like that. Someone who wants to play a Thief and someone who wants to play a "revised" version of a Paladin (or Holy Knight if we stick to that name) should be able to make it through character creation at roughly the same time.

So, if we do make the class more mutable to allow for the worship of different gods (or, to boil it down, different alignments) then we may need to tweak some abilities. For this post, I'm just going to list them, and after reading some discussion and making my own ideals, I'll post a follow up a few days later.

The abilities/features of a Paladin:

Should a paladin knowingly act in a chaotic way, only confession and paying penance to a cleric of 7th level or higher will remove the mark of the sin. However, committing an evil act is unforgivable, and a paladin immediately loses all special class abilities and becomes an ordinary fighter of equal level, with the lowest possible experience points.

Paladins may only have (1) magical suit of armor, (1) magical shield, (4) magical weapons (not counting magical arrows or quarrels), and (4) miscellaneous magical items. Paladins may only keep small amounts of money, and pay 10% of all earnings to a church. Any excess items or money found must be donated to the paladin's church or another worthy church of similar alignment and moral code.

Note that paladins may only ever hire lawful henchman.

Paladins will adventure with chaotic characters, but they will cease to do so with characters who commit evil acts.

They may "Lay on Hands" once per day to heal 2 hp per level to a wounded being.

They may cure disease 1 time per day, per every 5 levels.

Paladins are immune to disease.

They may detect evil to 60', as the spell, when concentrating.

They radiate protection from evil in a 10' radius at all times.

Paladins receive +2 to all saving throws.

At 3rd level paladins are able to turn undead as a cleric 2 levels lower.

A paladin may summon a special war horse, but only one time each 10 years. The horse has AC 5, HD 5+5, and movement of 180' (60').

Paladins gain the ability to cast clerical spells. However, they may not use cleric spell scrolls. Paladins do not attract followers.

Building a Fantasy Sandbox: Step 15: Part 1 - We're Still Working!

Wow, it has been over a month since we capped off Step 12, the last of our mapping steps and while I've posted a bunch of thoughts on how the world works, I think it's time to get back to the matter at hand. Doing the actual development!

Firstly, we skip Step 14:

Step 14: Decide to place miscellaneous locales. (anything that doesn't fit a above.

Because, we don't have anything that doesn't really fit the above categories, our first cluster of islands are as mapped as they're going to be (pending dungeons). So we can move on!

Step 15: Name your geography (don't forget islands)

Don't forget islands he says! I'm sure we'll remember them.

We now move away from the drawing and into the thinking, there are a lot of things to name and we're splitting the islands between us, to lessen the burden.
First on my list, the island in the south with the big mountain as its prominent feature.


Or the one I so crudely am pointing.
So, running some random names through my brain and picking out all the things I need to name, I came up with this:

The Isle of Iscarion is named after its most prominent feature, the great mountain known as Mt. Iscarion. Beside it, sits the Little Sisters, smaller mountains, dwarfed by Iscarion's majestic size.
The isle is home to one town, known as Calder's Promise, named so after land rights were promised to Sir Tobias Calder by the Lords of (whatever our capital is called) centuries ago, if he were to defeat gnoll raiders. He did so, though at the cost of his life. However, his descendents were given the land and named it Calder's Promise, after the great warrior.
Calder's Promise sits on the shores of Lake Maséy, which gathers water that runs off the mountains and sends it, via the spellbinding Endless Falls, over the edge of the isle and into a fine mist far below. The water travels to these falls via the Tamlen river, which split into the East and West Tamlen halfway through their journey.
On the other side of Lake Maséy are the Bereneise Hills, lands that have not been claimed by the people of Calder's Promise and are still home to the wilds of Iscarion.

One down, six islands (including that big boy!) to go!

Musing: The Planes, Part IV: The Ethereal Plane

The Ethereal Plane is a bit of a mystery among those who study planar lore. From the most curious scholar on Deminar to the god's themselves, no one is quite sure what to make of it.

The Ethereal Plane exists in the same planar location as the Prime Material, just on a different level. It even looks much like Deminar, only everything is muted in color with more grays and browns prominent then any other. Where there is a floating island in Demiar, there's probably one on the Ethereal Plane, where there's a twisted canyon on the broken earth below, a copy exists in the same spot on the Ethereal. It's not an exact "echo," there are some places that don't exist on the Ethereal that have a place in Deminar and, more strangely, there are parts in the Ethereal that look how places in Deminar did millennium before, rather then how they do now.

However, there are "echoes" of living things in the Ethereal, every deer doesn't have a copy waiting for it, and you won't run into your twin if you pop over for a visit. Even trees and plants don't echo themselves on the plane, though they still exist there, a sickly rubbery version that barely soaks up nutrients form a muted dull sun.

There are creatures that exist, or, due to the shared location nature between it and the Prime Material, partially exist on the Ethereal Plane. Mostly these are unintelligent creatures, though the Phase Tiger exists partially on that plane. The biggest "population" that interacts with the Prime Material plane however are the incorporeal undead. Ghosts and Wraiths exist there and, on occasion and through a strong sense of will, can project themselves into Deminar.

The moniker of echo also applies to some of the structures that appear in the Ethereal. It seems anything with a strong emotional resonance with a large group of people will appear as a slightly twisted reflection in the Ethereal. Towns that were brutally razed and burned down may appear as ever burning buildings, a castle that is home to a benevolent and much loved noble may appear, taller and more opulent, upon the Plane. Even natural places, like an elven wood, may appear, though often the "trees" that show up on the Ethereal aren't real trees, just unliving reflections of them. These places can stand long after their originals are gone in Deminar, depending how strongly they meant to people and how many people were affected by them. As time wears on, however, and people forget about such places, they will simply disappear off the Ethereal.

Mortals from Deminar can enter the Ethereal if they choose to, through planar portals and gates. Also, due to the Planes sharing space, there are places where the thin gossamer veil that separates the two grows weak and one can invertible stumble into the Ethereal without meaning to. And, unfortunately, it is not always a two way street. Many have become trapped in the Ethereal, prey to the beings that inhabit it or constantly looking for a way back to Deminar. Those who visit would find the Plane slightly cold, but holding a consistent temperature no matter where they go, even in the presence of fire or lava (though those things would still burn flesh). The dull gray sky and surroundings often bring a sense of melancholy and depression to those that walk among it, but these are not supernatural factors, just a general morose that all beings get when deprived of color and sunlight.

The Plane is confounding and aggravating to the Gods for it is the one plane they cannot interact with. No God may visit the plane, not emissaries from the god of Death may retrieve the souls that exist there as ghosts, no Outsider of any kind, formed of soulstuff can enter the Ethereal and the Gods haven't a clue why and the fact that mortals can do it, angers them to no end.

Musing: The Planes, Part III: Questions and Answers

My talk about the planes brought up a few questions by one of my faithful readers who wanted more information about how I perceive that the planes work, so, I figured, for a fun post, let's do a Q&A:

Q. Given the needed propulsion, would it be possible to, say, write my name on the sky?

I'm assuming he means on the planar edge of the prime material, or, for that matter, any planar border and the answer is no.

The Domains of the gods in the Astral Plane have little to no border between them and the Astral Sea they float in, as one floats through the Astral and comes up a Domain, it begins to dominant their relative horizon until eventually you fall into that Domain and are no longer in the Astral. It's a smooth transition, there is no "pop" or cue that signifies you're in a Domain, it's much like leaving Earth's atmosphere and entering space. Scientists settled on a "line" that separates the two, but it's not a physical separation you feel, it's just an imaginary line they all agreed upon. The same is true for the separation of Domains and the Astral, so there is no physical line to write on, anymore then you could do so on the Kármán line.

The Prime Material Plane is separated from the Astral by the Elemental Planes, these planes form a sort of shell around it, one part to have all the building blocks of Deminar readily available and one part to make it difficult for something from the Astral to wander into the Prime Material. Whatever constructed the Prime Materiel as a source of mortal life wanted to make sure it wasn't easily destroyed by beings from Beyond, and thus the Elemental Planes serve as a good barrier. And while you enter an Elemental Plane the same as you would a Domain from the Astral, you have to travel through a lot of Elemental to get to the Prime Material, and many planes are almost impossibly large, near infinite, so strolling across them from one "end" to the other is no simple journey.

The barrier between the Elemental and Prime is an actual barrier however, to stop all the Elemental stuff from constantly seeping in, but this is a Planar Barrier and is more metaphysical then physical. It exists, there is "something" there, but it's not like a hard shell or crystal sphere, it's just something stopping you from entering the Elemental Planes and stop them from entering the Prime Material.

There are holes in this Barrier, one into each of the six Elementals that allowed all that building material into the Prime to build Deminar in the first place. Some of these breaches are visible, the one into the Elemental Plane of Fire is the "Sun" which all of Deminar sees, the two "moons" are simply light reflected off the Elemental Planes of Earth and Water. There are breaches into Air, Positive, and Negative too, but those are not visible from Deminar's surfaces (thought there are claim that islands floating around the north pole of Deminar can see a radiant light show brilliance at night sometimes, possible a window in the the Elemental Plane of Positive Energy. These breaches are like that which separates the Astral from Domains, in that someone from Deminar could, in theory, fly into them and enter an Elemental Plane. However, much like earth's magnetic field, the Planar Barrier that separates the Prime from the Elementals gives off an energy that, even at its breaches still holds back stuff from tumbling into the Prime, though I wouldn't recommend getting close to the breach of the Elemental Plane of Fire without some sunscreen, cause the heat given off from it can still be felt (and indeed is felt all the way to the surfaces of Deminar)

The separation between the Prime and Ethereal is gossamer thin, which is why ghosts and such can still be seen if you know how to look, but, you can't simply pass through it, as the two planes exist in the exact same spot. Though, given the right circumstances, the veil could be thin enough that people from the Prime Material could suddenly find themselves in the Ethereal, it would make for a good adventure start at the very least.

As for what separates the Astral and the "Nothing" or Shadow Plane, well, no one, divine or otherwise, as been to the "edge" of the Astral Sea, so no one knows.

Q. Could I make an awesome shot and launch something into another plane through the sun, or a moon?

See the above discussion about the "length" of the Elemental Planes, something could eventually reach the edge and wind up in the Astral Plane, but that would have to be a helluva throw, and you have to hope nothing blocks it along the way (or it's not vaporized, crushed, dissipated, or any of the other dangerous things that can happen in those planes)

Q. Do jerk beings on other planes throw their trash into Deminar?

Well the Domains don't have trash, things on those planes (planar creatures included) are made from "soulstuff" and revert back to soulstuff upon being destroyed or "killed." This then gets recycled back into the Domain to be used again as needed. Though if the thing is destroyed in another Domain, say some Angels "killed" while attacking our version of Hell, the place they fall gets the "soulstuff" instead of the original owner, which is why gods are hesitant to send armies invading other Domains, it's just a good way to make a different Domain stronger. If they did have some other form of "trash" that was not soulstuff convertible, they'd have to get it through all the barriers talked about above to get to the Prime Material. One can circumvent that by opening up Planar Gates and Portals, but it's not worth the energy or effort to do so, so you probably won't find a lot of divine trash in Deminar.