Gnonai
2013-01-26, 02:16 AM
WARNING: MANY WALL OF TEXT AHEAD!
I've been working on basically building an entirely new world from the ground up for a group of friends that have been wanting to play for awhile.
We generally play old school 2nd edition with added players option, which I believe would be called 2.5? But I've been seriously contemplating the possibility of learning 3.5 and just converting everything to that, since I have PDFs of everything I could ever need, and it's become obvious in the very short time that I've looked through these forums that it's highly preferred, and a usually what the people I discuss it with talk about.
But in the mean time, I've drawn on inspiration for many different sources, including Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, and many others. I have a strong desire to flesh things out decently before starting, but won't mind adding things as I go. What I would really like is any and all suggestions, be them concerning races and their culture, names, or abilities, the overall world, the story I have plotted, or anything other thoughts that occur. Without further Adieu, the ideas I've conceived over the past couple days.
Playable Races:
Byaro (Bear Men)-
Byaro will be a very nomadic, savage, tribal race that are particularly vicious in physical combat. They are very disliked by civilized races, and are locked in an age old war with the Myaro (Minotaur Men).
Elves-
Avian (Winged Elf)
Bronze (Furion Elf)
Dark (Drow Elf)
Sun (High Elf)
Wood (Nature)
Elves in Sinoph will be rare and between. I'm thinking that some form of a disaster will have ravaged the Drow elves and the High elves together, creating a blighted, plague filled place where their homelands used to be, and scattering the survivors to the winds. Drow Elves will have also lived above ground in gigantic cities before the disaster, and may be in the process of rebuilding, while High Elves die out from far too endangered numbers.
Winged elves will be very reclusive, living in tribes in high altitudes such as mountains.
Furion Elves are vengeful, unconventional elves that excel in melee combat, roaming the land and doing their own thing. They generally don't congregate, and are strongly associated with the Sands of Time, even existing an Order of Bronze Elves that ensure it's continued balance.
Gaio (Dwarves)-
Earthen Gaio (Stone Dwarf)
Mountain Gaio (Normal Dwarf)
I'm thinking that the Dwarves will be something of their normal selves, but with the twist that they're also good engineers in place of the Gnomes who they have long since learned from and then eradicated.
Goliathtoruu (Half-Giant)-
No real ideas here, just a thought.
Human
Stereotypical humans.
Half-Dragon
Half Dragons are fairly rare, although not unheard of. Mostly just humans with dragon-like abilities, like toned down breath weapons and wings.
Iliad (Lesser Illithid)
The same as Illithid, but just toned down to be conceivable as a player race.
Jem (Crystal Men)
I was contemplating the possibility of a gigantic forest that runs rich with magic that warps many natural things into gems of the same shape, or something to that effect. The Crystal men would live there, possibly having some psionic based abilities. I have no idea what kind of society they would have though.
Minotaur (Myaro)
Nature loving creatures, they are basically my equivalent to colonial times Native Americans. They are constantly fighting the Byaro (Bear Men).
Kecko (Lizard Men)
I think I'll make them a desert dwelling race, as it makes sense, but have their race be more sophisticated than normal, with perhaps Egyptian influences on their culture.
Ogre-
Ogr (Intelligent)
Ogre (Brute)
I wanted to make some changes to the conventional Ogre. Ideally, there would be two races of them. The Ogr would be the ruling class, Probably somewhat smaller (maybe two headed as the common stereotype goes?), and have them enslave the Ogre. Ogres, while disliked, would probably be acceptable in civilization unlike most fantasy I've read.
Oro (Brown Orc)
I think of these as a very Shamanistic and in tune with nature variety of Orcs. They would probably live among other Orcs, but less war-mongering and more wise, possibly even accepted as a civilized race.
Satyr
Probably just conventional trickster half-goat men. I don't know how I'd handle them exactly.
Skellingtons (Skeleton People)
I was thinking they would be a race of sentient Undead that live in the Blighted homeland of the Drow and High Elves, and live in the desolate cities. Perhaps give them innate illusions to hide their true but misunderstood forms from the other races.
Tiefling (Half Demons)
Run of the mill, backstabbing, conniving murderers.
I'm very open to any other suggestions for races, if anyone could point me in the direction that I could find them.
History:
The Universe's history remains a mystery to all, but a residual energy of unprecedented power exist that gave shape and form to the stars and moons and planets. Sinoph is a world where that magic mutated further, giving birth first to a Triumvirate, of Gods and Dragons and Daemen. The Gods often quarreled, as each of them had different moralities and different dominions of power. But they ruled supreme. The Dragons were jealous of this power, and while they had many differences, formed a conclave that subtlety tricked the Daemen into rebelling. The Daemen were much like the common concept of an Angel, and were individually subservient to whichever God laid claim to them. Many were unhappy, and eventually were talked into an alliance with the Dragons (that never filled their end of the bargain), and rebelled. The Gods warped these Daemen as punishment for their transgression, turning them wholly violent and evil. What remained of the untwisted Daemen came quickly under attack by their fallen brothers, and so they entered a deal with the Gods, offering up their immortality in return for protection. Agreeing to this, the Gods banished the evil ones, and the remainder evolved into the first mortal races. Other races came about through natural means of evolution.
That is about as far as I've come concerning the history of the entire world.
Geography:
This is gonna be the tough part for me. I'm not very good at envisioning landmasses that look natural and mapping them out, but I would like to eventually create a world map and have an idea of what goes where.
So far, I've only really been able to come up with the starting area of the campaign, Barsabein.
It's a 100 mile round island, isolated far from all other landmasses. It is completely walled in by gigantic, nigh impassable mountains, blanketed in snow, and icy harsh conditions. The islands is covered by ancient icy pillars, containing unidentifiable runes inside, which are secretly the power source of an intense magic, that is completely changing the natural climate of the land. The pillars are protected by an Ice Elemental dubbed Htho by the locals. The continent is encroached by Snow Orcs, Icetalon Raptors, Yetis, and Frost Rocs. The island is in actuality a place where a wizard has created a complex system in which the souls that die there are used an energy source to keep the Drudge in an eternal slumber. The locals include the many adventurers who came in search of the treasure, and who founded a city named Elysium in the middle of the gigantic Island.
But so far, that's all I've got. Definitely needs a ton more thought.
Storyline:
Forgive any typos or if anything seems incoherent, I'm getting to be very tired. It's the basic premise that I want to follow, but it needs some more details.
The adventure begins in a foreign land, a frozen arctic tundra surrounded on all sides by mountains, full of harsh conditions and lethal monsters. Many adventurers are drawn there from all across the world by a challenge from the wizard who rules over the land, who claims that there is a treasure of untold value hidden somewhere on the island, and he is offering it to whoever finds it, at the cost that nobody may leave the island until it is found. Many adventurers of the many races, including the monster races, have gone in search of the treasure for longer than anyone can remember, and even founded towns there.
But none have found the treasure, and none have ever left, and most have become content with the fate of living in the snow.
Our player characters find themselves thrown into the midst of this island, and band together in search of the treasure. After some long questing, the players uncover the truth, that there is no treasure, and it's some form of a sick game. They travel to the edge of the island, where the Wizard's tower resides, and enter. Facing some forms of traps and monsterous minions, and ultimately come acrossed him in the midst of an intense spell that leaves him in a deep state of focus, they will be forced to slay him to open the way to the exit off the island. At one point in the tower they discover a room full of keys, and and one person becomes incredibly compelled to take a very specific, odd looking key, and hold onto it. Exiting through a portal in his tower, they arrive in the normal world.
Then, after an unspecificed amount of a time and adventuring, a voice calls out to the group and makes promises of great power and reward, in return for his rescue. They then embark on a quest to find the necessary items to reforge the aforementioned key, in order to unlock the Labrinyth in which he is trapped. Undergoing countless dangers, the Player Characters will save him. He then turns out to be a living mechanical construct bearing a striking resemblance to an Angel, named Uzzir, and then it is revealed that he is evil and he spares their lives as a reward, sending them away magically. He then begins to assemble his army of mixed Mechanical and Undead soldiers, an army that comes to be refererred to as Drudge, and burst from beneath the arctic island, utilizing the mysterious Ice pillars encompassing the island as a means of forging new robots, and begins to lead a conquest across the world. The players then, must convince the races of the Sinoph to form a coalition against him, or perish. This will lead the way to many quest, and not all of the races will be capable of cooperating, leading to many interesting choices.
Should they attempt to call out for the assistance of the Gods, they receive no answer, as Uzzir has spent his imprisonment creating a device of intense power that specifically targets all of them and forces them into a deep slumber. Uzzir also appears from time to time, leaving destruction in his wake and even doing personal wrongs to the Players, but never outright killing them.
With as many races recruited as possible and various choices made, It is still a losing battle and, desperate, the players last resort is an ancient legend of a flying technological citadel beyond the known world. So they embark to find it, and upon reaching it stumble across another mechanical angel, Amaliphiea, who is a counterbalance of good to her twin's evil. She agrees to help them to put a stop to her brother's warpath. She further goes on to explain that they were both the twin children of an ancient, long forgotten and powerful wizard. As they accidently got caught in the midst of a failed experiment, both were killed brutally, but he managed to sacrifice himself in a powerful magic and capture the essence of both of their souls and fill them inside some of his own mechanical constructs. The two, having lost their father, wandered the world for hundreds of years, and ultimately became estranged. Uzzir eventually became warped and twisted, obsessed with establishing the world full of machines, and was imprisoned by an evil God inside the Labyrinth when his goals started getting uncomfortably near fruitation, while Amaliphiea established the citadel as a place of rapid technological advancement, far from the mortal races.
Fighting back the Drudge, the coalition eventually manages to push them back to the tundra with Amaliphiea's help. It is then that the wizard appears again, revealing himself to be the wizard of old, who had created the island as a means of keeping Uzzir dormant in his prison by using the Pillars to reap the souls of all who died there, having reincarnated after a very long time and realizing what his son had become. Rushing into the final battle, the Wizard requires the aid of the Players to repurpose the pillars, which culminates in the players being sent away a safe distance, and the pillars detonating in a blast of magical energy that completely obliterates the entire island, being visible from halfway across the world. Everything on the Island is presumed dead. Eventually, Uzzir catches up with the Players, severely damaged and completely hellbent on revenge. In a final showdown, even in his weakened state he proves to be a previously unmatched enemy. Upon his defeat, his soul visibly leaves his body, assuming the form of a Ghost, and suddenly his sister and father appear in their own Ghostly forms. After a monologue, the three fade away to an unknown realm, and the players are left with the Citadel and it's intense wealth as their reward, with all things resuming their normal ways, and all the races warring once again.
I've been working on basically building an entirely new world from the ground up for a group of friends that have been wanting to play for awhile.
We generally play old school 2nd edition with added players option, which I believe would be called 2.5? But I've been seriously contemplating the possibility of learning 3.5 and just converting everything to that, since I have PDFs of everything I could ever need, and it's become obvious in the very short time that I've looked through these forums that it's highly preferred, and a usually what the people I discuss it with talk about.
But in the mean time, I've drawn on inspiration for many different sources, including Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, and many others. I have a strong desire to flesh things out decently before starting, but won't mind adding things as I go. What I would really like is any and all suggestions, be them concerning races and their culture, names, or abilities, the overall world, the story I have plotted, or anything other thoughts that occur. Without further Adieu, the ideas I've conceived over the past couple days.
Playable Races:
Byaro (Bear Men)-
Byaro will be a very nomadic, savage, tribal race that are particularly vicious in physical combat. They are very disliked by civilized races, and are locked in an age old war with the Myaro (Minotaur Men).
Elves-
Avian (Winged Elf)
Bronze (Furion Elf)
Dark (Drow Elf)
Sun (High Elf)
Wood (Nature)
Elves in Sinoph will be rare and between. I'm thinking that some form of a disaster will have ravaged the Drow elves and the High elves together, creating a blighted, plague filled place where their homelands used to be, and scattering the survivors to the winds. Drow Elves will have also lived above ground in gigantic cities before the disaster, and may be in the process of rebuilding, while High Elves die out from far too endangered numbers.
Winged elves will be very reclusive, living in tribes in high altitudes such as mountains.
Furion Elves are vengeful, unconventional elves that excel in melee combat, roaming the land and doing their own thing. They generally don't congregate, and are strongly associated with the Sands of Time, even existing an Order of Bronze Elves that ensure it's continued balance.
Gaio (Dwarves)-
Earthen Gaio (Stone Dwarf)
Mountain Gaio (Normal Dwarf)
I'm thinking that the Dwarves will be something of their normal selves, but with the twist that they're also good engineers in place of the Gnomes who they have long since learned from and then eradicated.
Goliathtoruu (Half-Giant)-
No real ideas here, just a thought.
Human
Stereotypical humans.
Half-Dragon
Half Dragons are fairly rare, although not unheard of. Mostly just humans with dragon-like abilities, like toned down breath weapons and wings.
Iliad (Lesser Illithid)
The same as Illithid, but just toned down to be conceivable as a player race.
Jem (Crystal Men)
I was contemplating the possibility of a gigantic forest that runs rich with magic that warps many natural things into gems of the same shape, or something to that effect. The Crystal men would live there, possibly having some psionic based abilities. I have no idea what kind of society they would have though.
Minotaur (Myaro)
Nature loving creatures, they are basically my equivalent to colonial times Native Americans. They are constantly fighting the Byaro (Bear Men).
Kecko (Lizard Men)
I think I'll make them a desert dwelling race, as it makes sense, but have their race be more sophisticated than normal, with perhaps Egyptian influences on their culture.
Ogre-
Ogr (Intelligent)
Ogre (Brute)
I wanted to make some changes to the conventional Ogre. Ideally, there would be two races of them. The Ogr would be the ruling class, Probably somewhat smaller (maybe two headed as the common stereotype goes?), and have them enslave the Ogre. Ogres, while disliked, would probably be acceptable in civilization unlike most fantasy I've read.
Oro (Brown Orc)
I think of these as a very Shamanistic and in tune with nature variety of Orcs. They would probably live among other Orcs, but less war-mongering and more wise, possibly even accepted as a civilized race.
Satyr
Probably just conventional trickster half-goat men. I don't know how I'd handle them exactly.
Skellingtons (Skeleton People)
I was thinking they would be a race of sentient Undead that live in the Blighted homeland of the Drow and High Elves, and live in the desolate cities. Perhaps give them innate illusions to hide their true but misunderstood forms from the other races.
Tiefling (Half Demons)
Run of the mill, backstabbing, conniving murderers.
I'm very open to any other suggestions for races, if anyone could point me in the direction that I could find them.
History:
The Universe's history remains a mystery to all, but a residual energy of unprecedented power exist that gave shape and form to the stars and moons and planets. Sinoph is a world where that magic mutated further, giving birth first to a Triumvirate, of Gods and Dragons and Daemen. The Gods often quarreled, as each of them had different moralities and different dominions of power. But they ruled supreme. The Dragons were jealous of this power, and while they had many differences, formed a conclave that subtlety tricked the Daemen into rebelling. The Daemen were much like the common concept of an Angel, and were individually subservient to whichever God laid claim to them. Many were unhappy, and eventually were talked into an alliance with the Dragons (that never filled their end of the bargain), and rebelled. The Gods warped these Daemen as punishment for their transgression, turning them wholly violent and evil. What remained of the untwisted Daemen came quickly under attack by their fallen brothers, and so they entered a deal with the Gods, offering up their immortality in return for protection. Agreeing to this, the Gods banished the evil ones, and the remainder evolved into the first mortal races. Other races came about through natural means of evolution.
That is about as far as I've come concerning the history of the entire world.
Geography:
This is gonna be the tough part for me. I'm not very good at envisioning landmasses that look natural and mapping them out, but I would like to eventually create a world map and have an idea of what goes where.
So far, I've only really been able to come up with the starting area of the campaign, Barsabein.
It's a 100 mile round island, isolated far from all other landmasses. It is completely walled in by gigantic, nigh impassable mountains, blanketed in snow, and icy harsh conditions. The islands is covered by ancient icy pillars, containing unidentifiable runes inside, which are secretly the power source of an intense magic, that is completely changing the natural climate of the land. The pillars are protected by an Ice Elemental dubbed Htho by the locals. The continent is encroached by Snow Orcs, Icetalon Raptors, Yetis, and Frost Rocs. The island is in actuality a place where a wizard has created a complex system in which the souls that die there are used an energy source to keep the Drudge in an eternal slumber. The locals include the many adventurers who came in search of the treasure, and who founded a city named Elysium in the middle of the gigantic Island.
But so far, that's all I've got. Definitely needs a ton more thought.
Storyline:
Forgive any typos or if anything seems incoherent, I'm getting to be very tired. It's the basic premise that I want to follow, but it needs some more details.
The adventure begins in a foreign land, a frozen arctic tundra surrounded on all sides by mountains, full of harsh conditions and lethal monsters. Many adventurers are drawn there from all across the world by a challenge from the wizard who rules over the land, who claims that there is a treasure of untold value hidden somewhere on the island, and he is offering it to whoever finds it, at the cost that nobody may leave the island until it is found. Many adventurers of the many races, including the monster races, have gone in search of the treasure for longer than anyone can remember, and even founded towns there.
But none have found the treasure, and none have ever left, and most have become content with the fate of living in the snow.
Our player characters find themselves thrown into the midst of this island, and band together in search of the treasure. After some long questing, the players uncover the truth, that there is no treasure, and it's some form of a sick game. They travel to the edge of the island, where the Wizard's tower resides, and enter. Facing some forms of traps and monsterous minions, and ultimately come acrossed him in the midst of an intense spell that leaves him in a deep state of focus, they will be forced to slay him to open the way to the exit off the island. At one point in the tower they discover a room full of keys, and and one person becomes incredibly compelled to take a very specific, odd looking key, and hold onto it. Exiting through a portal in his tower, they arrive in the normal world.
Then, after an unspecificed amount of a time and adventuring, a voice calls out to the group and makes promises of great power and reward, in return for his rescue. They then embark on a quest to find the necessary items to reforge the aforementioned key, in order to unlock the Labrinyth in which he is trapped. Undergoing countless dangers, the Player Characters will save him. He then turns out to be a living mechanical construct bearing a striking resemblance to an Angel, named Uzzir, and then it is revealed that he is evil and he spares their lives as a reward, sending them away magically. He then begins to assemble his army of mixed Mechanical and Undead soldiers, an army that comes to be refererred to as Drudge, and burst from beneath the arctic island, utilizing the mysterious Ice pillars encompassing the island as a means of forging new robots, and begins to lead a conquest across the world. The players then, must convince the races of the Sinoph to form a coalition against him, or perish. This will lead the way to many quest, and not all of the races will be capable of cooperating, leading to many interesting choices.
Should they attempt to call out for the assistance of the Gods, they receive no answer, as Uzzir has spent his imprisonment creating a device of intense power that specifically targets all of them and forces them into a deep slumber. Uzzir also appears from time to time, leaving destruction in his wake and even doing personal wrongs to the Players, but never outright killing them.
With as many races recruited as possible and various choices made, It is still a losing battle and, desperate, the players last resort is an ancient legend of a flying technological citadel beyond the known world. So they embark to find it, and upon reaching it stumble across another mechanical angel, Amaliphiea, who is a counterbalance of good to her twin's evil. She agrees to help them to put a stop to her brother's warpath. She further goes on to explain that they were both the twin children of an ancient, long forgotten and powerful wizard. As they accidently got caught in the midst of a failed experiment, both were killed brutally, but he managed to sacrifice himself in a powerful magic and capture the essence of both of their souls and fill them inside some of his own mechanical constructs. The two, having lost their father, wandered the world for hundreds of years, and ultimately became estranged. Uzzir eventually became warped and twisted, obsessed with establishing the world full of machines, and was imprisoned by an evil God inside the Labyrinth when his goals started getting uncomfortably near fruitation, while Amaliphiea established the citadel as a place of rapid technological advancement, far from the mortal races.
Fighting back the Drudge, the coalition eventually manages to push them back to the tundra with Amaliphiea's help. It is then that the wizard appears again, revealing himself to be the wizard of old, who had created the island as a means of keeping Uzzir dormant in his prison by using the Pillars to reap the souls of all who died there, having reincarnated after a very long time and realizing what his son had become. Rushing into the final battle, the Wizard requires the aid of the Players to repurpose the pillars, which culminates in the players being sent away a safe distance, and the pillars detonating in a blast of magical energy that completely obliterates the entire island, being visible from halfway across the world. Everything on the Island is presumed dead. Eventually, Uzzir catches up with the Players, severely damaged and completely hellbent on revenge. In a final showdown, even in his weakened state he proves to be a previously unmatched enemy. Upon his defeat, his soul visibly leaves his body, assuming the form of a Ghost, and suddenly his sister and father appear in their own Ghostly forms. After a monologue, the three fade away to an unknown realm, and the players are left with the Citadel and it's intense wealth as their reward, with all things resuming their normal ways, and all the races warring once again.