A complete N00bz first try at world-building...

[Wyntonian]

This is a little off-topic, but I've decided to allow Binders in this campaign world. They'll be less Lovecraftian "Dealers with tortured souls beyond the reach of gods." and more ancestor-worshiping people who can summon and ask the favor of the spirits of their ancestors. This is mostly because of the Soleh, as they're fairly ancestor-focused, and the Vallheim could do the same thing and call it be a different name. I plan to go through and systematically refluff all the basic vestiges from the ToM, and include some online ones for flavor. Just wanted to have that cleared up.

[SamBurke]

Yup. Followed, tracked, already knew. ;). I'm just awesome and stalker-y that way. Saw your thread about bindings.

[Wyntonian]

Wow, well done. I'm having a bit of trouble finding any reliable or motivating stuff on Hawaiian history, so I'll move on to vestiges, dwarves or Urgals.

[SamBurke]

Dwarves would be my pick. My only fiat is: no CLICHES. None. We need to find some way to re-fluff them or something, but it shouldn't be standard Tolkien Dwarves.

[Wyntonian]

Well for one thing, I'm making them all entirely, 100%, no-holds-or-beards-barred hairless. Yes, even those hairs. Not that it should ever come up, but still. I'm giving them a bunch of crunch-based bonuses to using spears (can wield regular old spears in one hand, consider shortspears a light weapon) and removing weapon familiarity with Ugroshes and waraxes. If you're in a state of constant war with something 4 feet taller than you, a weapon on a stick makes sense.
I plan for them to be fairly mountain-man style trappers, hunters and such, selling fur to the Vallheimers and Soleh, a little. If you had no hair, you'd want to steal an animal's fur too. They're not very dense, population-wise, which breaks the trope of "every dwarf ever lives in/under this same mountain with all the rest.", although they do have a couple of cities.
They usually live in groups of 5-25, in small, semi-isolated farms in the wooded northern part of the Appalachian mountains, with a half-underground cabin (helps with insulation) or two, some outbuildings, a truck garden, some small animal pens and sheds. They train at least one person out of five for combat, using throwing spears, atl-atls, and other weapons on sticks to help them shake their disadvantage of being shorter than everyone else. They have fairly strong prejudices against magic, binding and those that use either, mostly because they simply don't understand it and have no desire to. During the wars that drove the First People over the river, they remained steadfastly neutral, refusing to participate, which is a trait they continue to possess. It is not uncommon for a Dwarf settlement to have a gnome or two present, as some escape both the slavers and Urgal-inhabited territory to the south to reach a promise of freedom, although most live in the few dwarf cities. They are frequently hired on as smiths, which is a trade the dwarves have a bit of trouble learning, but the gnomes practice with skill and pride.

That's about all I have figured out for now, but there might be more. I believe I broke about four tropes there (no beards, no axes, no big cities-under-mountains, and not great smiths), but that wasn't my goal. I just created a part of a world and that's how it fell into place.

[Wyntonian]

Having kidnapped borrowed Tome of Battle from my friend, I've decided to make the classes within (except crusader) available to players, but in a very limited way. The classes with essentially be story-based PrC's, with few crunch-based requirements but unavailable to a player who just comes up with "Hurr then I learn blade magic that nobody else knows durr". Learning such a complex and disciplined style of combat is possible only from a master of the art, only present among the First People west of the Fogbound River. I plan to use the default story given in the ToB as a guide, and have the temple/monastery be set in the Rocky Mountains. This makes being a martial adept possible, but by no means common or easy. This probably won't come up in play, but it's an option.

[SamBurke]

Ok, cool. I like the trope-breaking, by the way.

And, too, very good on re-working those complex classes. I think this world is developing a feel of its own.

[Wyntonian]

Yeah, I thought they might over-power the other classes if they were too easily available. Maybe I'll let players trade in levels of fighter, paladin, or ranger for levels of a martial adept class, if they make it across 1. the river. 2. the uncooperative and non-too-friendly, if not openly hostile First People, 3. A bunch of centaur-peopled plains and 4. the Rocky Mountains. A bit of a challenge there. What shall we do next? what else should we have before I post this as a semi-completed setting? I'd like to do a couple of religions, the Vestiges, the Urgals and the Carribean before I post the completed entirety. Oh and i'd like something to call this setting as a whole.

[SamBurke]

Btw, nice avvie. Who did it?

As to names, it depends on how you want the world to feel, really. Epic? Re-history? Magical? Dark and hopeless? Like the real world? You get the idea. If you know what you want to try and communicate with your world, you can communicate it even better with a perfectly chosen name.

[Wyntonian]

I'd like to have a name that wouldn't seem too horribly out-of-place on any map in the real world, if maybe not entirely normal for our time period. I'm thinking something that a common person could pronounce easily, and is fairly simple. Think about where you live. I live in a town called Corvallis. simple, easy to pronounce, etc. State's called Oregon, and it's easy enough to say. (Pro tip: it sounds like "Or a gun"). Any normal civilization doesn't give their land a name that's too hard to say, conveys a negative feeling or clashes with their own speech patterns. Because there's about eight languages people can learn east of the Fogbound River (Dwarf, Gnome, Urgal, Tala, Soleh, Sunshani, and Peranti, plus a Trade Language that most people can speak with a level of fluency), that last bit will be somewhat difficult.

TL;DR version: The name should be easy to say, kinda short (about 3 syllables, 4 max), and not carry any major connotations, especially negative.

[SamBurke]

Hm. So you're looking for an American-sounding name, something like "Ironcastle" (only significantly better)?

[Wyntonian]

Yeah, American-sounding is good. Ironcastle is a little more place-specific, like what you'd expect a single town or, say castle to be called. I'm looking for something a little more general, like along the lines of Anitca. That's not quite right, but Patria sounds better. (behind the curtain hint: It's latin for homeland). What do you think?

[SamBurke]

Ya, I take Latin. Patria/ae could work. "Patriae" would probably sound too Latin, though. Patria works. Although, the letter "P" is a very odd one... Hm.

[Wyntonian]

What's odd about it? I feel like although it isn't that common in English, the letter P isn't so uncommon it's weird to say, and there's enough different languages it would blend in with most of them, aside from maybe Dwarven and Urgal. But I'm curious what your thoughts are on this.

[SamBurke]

The issue with me is just that it's one of those Inherently Funny letters, that just sounds a little bit humorous. Also, "ia" personally reminds me of dinosaurs, etc. But that might just be me.

Another thought (from Latin): Vinco. Means "victory", although I'm not sure about how that C works.

All in all, Patria is fine, it just has a certain sound.

[Wyntonian]

I think I'll use it was a working title, and change it up if something better comes along. For future reference, never discuss the naming of places with history majors or poets. or both, especially not both. Moving on, then. I guess that all that's really left is Urgals, and maybe a little more on Soleh. I'm tempted to take over for Arachnos on that, because he's kinda gone. What do you think about ancestor-worshiping, highly religious Scottish/Welsh/Irish kilted badasses? With some binders thrown in for fun, and because I want to sneak some video game references in there. What else really needs to be done before I can complete this?

[SamBurke]

I like it. Scottish? Awesome. Kilted? Hoh yeah. Badass? Well, duh. The rest of it just comes naturally.

Honestly, only the Urgals.

Question Crunch-wise: would we need a gore attack or something like that? And would they be playable as PCs?

[Wyntonian]

Lessee... a gore attack, or maybe a natural armor bonus, but not much of one. Or I could take an Orc, give them a 1d6 gore attack and call it a day. I think Half-Urgals might be a possibility, but a very rare one. A player would really have to go to town on an awesome backstory before I'd ok one. And there'd be a lot of drawbacks, mostly social. Mostly, I just want a political and social structure for them.

[SamBurke]

Ok. The one issue is that they seem like they'd be similar to the Soleh. My thought is: let them take the role traditionally assigned to Dwarves. The ultimate irony, no?

[Wyntonian]

2 Things:

1. How would that make them like Soleh?

2. You mean being bearded, beer swilling, semi-racist hard-rock miners? I was leaning more towards a dichotomy with them and the dwarves like American mountian men and Native Americans, but substantially more open in their conflicts. But I suppose we could work in threads of both. Actually, if we could blend those decently, it sounds good.

[Wyntonian]

One of the more interesting, fluffy parts of this project is creating the religions. Soleh is started, but that's about it. I'd like to have a fairly interesting pantheon/religious system, such that players might still follow a deity in a world without clerics. Also, and this is the big one, I am dead-set that nobody is able to prove the existence of their deity. This is completely non-negotiable. A binder might summon the spirit of an ancestor or other spirit, but not a full-fledged deity with a divine rank. (not a fan of that system, by the way.) I'd like to have maybe three belief systems, perhaps one Christianity-esque one with a single, omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent, everywhere and everything divine creator, and believe that there is only one face to
The other might have what appears at first to be a massively large, varied pantheon, but under closer inspection is a variety of modes of worship of the immensely varied aspects of a single deity. These people would consider all gods and spirits from any belief system to be an aspect or trait of a deity that is literally the sum of all things. For example, they might consider Allah, Satan, Buddha, Jesus, Zeus and Vishnu (only using real-world names for the sake of the metaphor, not for the game) to be different faces of the divine, but choose to worship Thor for aid in battle, Aphrodite for aid in romance, and Thoth for knowledge and study. Thoughts?

[SamBurke]

I think it could work... there are plenty of gods already set up... how do you propose to make them even more interesting, so interesting in fact that Min-Maxers will worship them? (Or am I misunderstanding what you want?)

[Wyntonian]

Sorry, minmaxers? I assume that's like a roll player, or optimizer. But yeah, I plan to manage diplomacy, intimidate and bluff through role playing, and being able to say "I follow your faith" or at least understanding it would be beneficial in most of those situations. As for the gods...I'll figure it out, I guess.

[Wyntonian]

I'll post what I have crunch-wise on urgals now, and do the fluff later. Here's a quick rundown. And yes, I jacked the Urgals/Kull thing from Paolini. Good artists borrow, great artists steal and all that.

The Urgal race is effectively split. Those Urgals who stand over eight feet tall and known as Kull, and have a much higher level of prestige and status in their tribes, frequently serving as war leaders, shaman-priests and wise men. They generally have little trouble finding multiple mates, and form the upper castes of Urgal society. Those under eight feet are simply Urgals, and have the following statistics. (yes, i intend them to be a player race like half-orcs)

Ability modifiers: +2 STR, -2 CHA. I know this looks like a dwarf, but I'll be giving dwarves +2 Str, -2 Dex, like a gold dwarf. Also, there's no reason someone should be less intelligent simply because they live in the woods.

A gore attack, dealing 1d6+str bonus damage, as a natural attack.

Darkvision, just because.

Bonus feat at first level.

The clear drawback of peasants running for their torches and pitchforks when they see you. Kinda a bummer. But it comes with the territory.

Favored class: I'm not a fan of this mechanic, but let's just say fighter. (The remixed one)

Am I missing anything big? Does this work as an LA+0 race?

[SamBurke]

Shouldn't they have another +2? Perhaps CON?

[Wyntonian]

....that sounds just a little bit unbalanced. especially for an LA+0 race. that's two big bonuses for one little drawback. plus a natural attack, plus darkvision... I could give them a +2 racial to fortitude saves, maybe.

[SamBurke]

Just saying. Most races get a +2, a +2, and a -2, as well as bonuses to this and that.

[Eldest]

You could try naming it Columbia. Just a thought.
Hawai'i was ruled by a rather nice monarchy, the US wasn't that keen on anexing them, then sugar plantation owners all staged a rebellion against the queen, set up their own goverment, and asked to be annexed. What I know of Hawaiian history. Hope that helps. (this was sometime in the 1800s, if it matters).

[Wyntonian]

Thanks Eldest, that does help a bit. If you know anything interesting about pre-american politics, please PM me. And I suppose I could give them a wisdom bonus. It fits with them being perceptive and just a little bit animalistic. Plus, they're the only player race than can be druids, aside from some backstory-related exceptions.

[Eldest]

Ok, but what sort of history are you trying to get? I read the thing of the First People, and it seems good (although it's missing something I can't figure out). But do you want just an info dump of American History Tidbits, or something in particular?