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.