Worldbuilding Talk Thread

[Shyftir]

So has anybody else checked out the 13th Age core book? It is some fantastic world building. I love the Icons approach, by creating these big movers and shakers in the world they create so many opportunities for conflict. I'm considering adapting the concept to my own project...

[Yora]

Is it similar to the Sorcerer Kings in Dark Sun?

The big bad Zhentarim and Red Wizards and the big good Harpers in Forgotten Realms are usually not that well recieved from a setting design point of view.

[akma]

Here's a really cool statement about worldbuilding I just read: "Worlds are verbs."

Sometimes I want to specifically emphasize that nothing is heppening, that something is unchanging, perheps eternal.

And not everything heppens at the present - kingdom X may live in peace and prosperity, but it could change all of the sudden. It could be entiraly because of events heppening outside of it, and making kingdom X static will emphasize that.

I made a lof of static decisions about the present - no active full scale wars, no invasions from other worlds, etc. All of those could heppen at any moment: outsiders might be planing a giant invasion right now, kingdoms A and B might be arming themselves for the inevitable war, etc. Each will heppen only if I'll want to run an adventure based on it.

So has anybody else checked out the 13th Age core book? It is some fantastic world building. I love the Icons approach, by creating these big movers and shakers in the world they create so many opportunities for conflict. I'm considering adapting the concept to my own project...

This is the first time I'm hearing about the book, but I have a different approach - I focus more on the big things - places, organizations, etc.

idk? Actiony? Still static?

Still pretty static.


What about adventures in the history of your setting, instead of the present? Has any of you thought about that?
In my wilderness of thirst setting, the world before humans were exiled by indestructable shapeshifters was completly diffrent - many powerfull, connected human kingdoms, with strong magic, infrastructure and armies, dealing with each other, instead of isolated far apart cities, dealing with survival and internel conflicts.

In my expanding world setting, there was an ancient massive war between a few gods to determine what heppens to those who die. Players could be in that war, perheps changing the outcome.

[Yora]

Most d20 games have powerful NPCs who shape the world behind the scenes. 13th Age brings them forward, making these thirteen powerful NPCs into icons the PCs will aid or oppose over the course of each campaign. Inventing your character’s relationship to the mighty icons who rule or shape the world is key to engaging your character with the game world. RPGs about vampires have clans, RPGs about pagan highlanders have cults, and 13th Age has icons.

Sounds almost exactly like the most common complaint about the Forgotten Realms.

[akma]

Most d20 games have powerful NPCs who shape the world behind the scenes. 13th Age brings them forward, making these thirteen powerful NPCs into icons the PCs will aid or oppose over the course of each campaign. Inventing your character’s relationship to the mighty icons who rule or shape the world is key to engaging your character with the game world. RPGs about vampires have clans, RPGs about pagan highlanders have cults, and 13th Age has icons.

Sounds almost exactly like the most common complaint about the Forgotten Realms.

When it's phrased like that, it makes the PCs sound like secondary characters.

[Tzi]

When it's phrased like that, it makes the PCs sound like secondary characters.

That is a situation that can be awful to be in. As I played a campaign were that was the situation. Heck I wouldn't even say we were secondary characters, maybe less so. I had one were I was still just some duke or counts errand runner at level 15.... as a wizard. ... which happens when ALL of the NPC's happen to be Epic level characters. Even that farming peasant happens to also be a PIT LORD!

Still pretty static.

What about adventures in the history of your setting, instead of the present? Has any of you thought about that?
In my wilderness of thirst setting, the world before humans were exiled by indestructable shapeshifters was completly diffrent - many powerfull, connected human kingdoms, with strong magic, infrastructure and armies, dealing with each other, instead of isolated far apart cities, dealing with survival and internel conflicts.

In my expanding world setting, there was an ancient massive war between a few gods to determine what heppens to those who die. Players could be in that war, perheps changing the outcome.

Well for historical conflicts, the Elves gathered humans (The Azaren claims captured and enslaved) to engineer the Tyr race and then made a deal with ethereal beings, constructing them adamentine bodies and bringing them into the material plane in exchange for them terraforming the then dying world back to life..... which had the side effect of wiping out humans and any other race that might have lived there. For the Azaren this sets up a brooding hatred, a blood feud, between themselves and anything Elvish in origin as they are the descendants of humans who both fought those ethereal terraformers and were driven from the world eons ago by them.

Right now the continent of Athasis is the most densely populated with almost entirely Tyr nations who have been warring practically the day after the last elves died. The Tyr have been gripped by three massive "lineage wars," among the various Tyr over living space, farm land or much more abstract ideas of superior genetics and bloodlines or ideology. A lot of the conflict holding over from the last Elves whom for 2 centuries ruled all the Tyr via a council. The council dissolved within 70 years of the first Tyr colony being built however over disagreements on how the Tyr aught to live and conduct themselves. Some feeling that the purpose of the Tyr was to carry on Elvish legacy and civilization where the Elves were doomed to extinction. Others felt many Elven customs could not be strictly upheld because it was too impractical for survival. Eventually this formed the first major ideological lines among Tyr ethnic groups that were forming as groups of Tyr scattered across Athasis to colonize. These conflicts hold over to the present though have been forced to set aside with contact with the Azaren being mostly hostile. Hinterland settlements falling under their rule, and pioneers finding themselves to be dinner for blood sucking moon people XD. The Tyr were able to make a brief alliance among themselves and with some Azaren to stop a fairly large scale invasion that burned across Athasis. The Azaren that made the alliance with the Tyr did so out of fear that some of their kin had descended into a frenzied madness, that they had become like a locust swarm who would devour everything leading to their races mass starvation.

[QED - Iltazyara]

I suppose I might as well try my hand at describing something like that; "Down the plains of Maray flows the heart of the land, the river upon which the nation thrives" I think you're try to be... Too descriptive? The idea is to evoke interest, a catchphrase or one liner, rather than a documentary.

Another one for me would be "Though exiled we stand free, proud, and amongst all the other races of our world". I'm less sure about this one, but it's easy to read and implies far more than it says.

I always try to work poems (no matter how terrible they may be), stories, legends and myths in somehow. Gods are a wonderful way of doing this; but you have your Azaran for this Tzi, make more little stories of the creatures from the moon. Split them up into four or five two sentence paragraphs and it makes things a lot easier to read.

People will read a tidbit, a story, but ignore a wall of vital text. I know I enjoyed reading all the little story sidebars back when I first got my Faerún campaign setting book for 3.0

[TheWombatOfDoom]

That's one area I've always had difficulty with - fictional pantheons and religions and such. I'm always hard pressed to develop my own...and so my settings are usually lacking in that aspect.

Anyone have any advice on how I could go about making them? I just...I don't know. Creating a believable cosmic power is difficult in itself. I don't really want to give them the personality a mortal might, such as how the Gods are portrayed in OotS. And anything else...seems...hard to imagine...

[QED - Iltazyara]

I think a lot of people have a misconception about gods as a whole, unknowable great beings that aren't like mortals isn't all that old of a concept. The Greco-Roman pantheon was very much based on mortal personalities, somewhat extreme forms, but very much mortal and understandable.

Anyway, when building my pantheon I looked at Concepts first, God of the Oceans, God of the Sun, these are obvious ones. But what about a god of dreams, what could be interesting about that?

My choices for my goddess of dreams were simple; she is a twin, twinned to the goddess of foresight and prophecy first and foremost. Then she is the creator goddess of goblins, whose varied racial forms were spawned from her nightmares and fever dreams. I got both of those from writing down "goddess of dreams" somewhere, you need to look for connections between concepts that are understandable.
In this case I took the connection between "dreams" and "prophecy", then the idea of bringing nightmares to life. Goblins fit the mold as they have such a varied design, but it could have been anything.

If you are set on making them seem like something completely unlike a mortal you somewhat need to give up on giving them a set personality. Instead maybe give them a goal, an objective, with their actions towards that goal being the only inclination on how they think.

I feel that trying to make a god without a mortal personality forces you to give them no personality at all, as as humans understanding that concept is... Very difficult. We humanise things by instinct.

Edit: I hope what I'm saying makes some sense, I tend to speak far more authoritatively than I should, just due to the way in which I speak.

[Shyftir]

When it's phrased like that, it makes the PCs sound like secondary characters.

Well, I would agree but the system (called the Archmage System) links all the characters to said Icons. Also they are specifically pointed out to be creating an uneasy balance of power and thus work through agents. (Where the players come in.)

Also, say what you want, but comparisons to FR are, to me, pretty positive. I mean FR is the most successful RPG campaign world ever created. It has spawned more novels, comics, tie-in games etc. than any other.

[Eldan]

There was one suggestion for religion from someone in the playground, might even have been Yora, that I thought was pretty damn great:

Clerics, especially of evil deities, are mainly there to appease those deities so they don't cause too much mayhem and estruction. That creates a nice, socially acceptable role for priests of some deities.

When I read that, I was all "why didn't I think of that!" You can create a lot around that idea and it is pretty close to some mythologies.

Really, I wonder why D&D never seems to do that. You don't sacrifice a virgin to the Lord of Blood for personal power, though you might get some of that too. You sacrifice a virgin so he he won't send a plague.

[Tzi]

There was one suggestion for religion from someone in the playground, might even have been Yora, that I thought was pretty damn great:

Clerics, especially of evil deities, are mainly there to appease those deities so they don't cause too much mayhem and estruction. That creates a nice, socially acceptable role for priests of some deities.

When I read that, I was all "why didn't I think of that!" You can create a lot around that idea and it is pretty close to some mythologies.

Really, I wonder why D&D never seems to do that. You don't sacrifice a virgin to the Lord of Blood for personal power, though you might get some of that too. You sacrifice a virgin so he he won't send a plague.

I've always found that to be the best way to handle evil deities. Mainly because yeah, "Worship this horrible being and then be tormented by it for all eternity," F'ing sucks. Who would sign up for that? Knowing its LITERALLY going to go down that way.

Of course evil deities can go lots of ways. I had one that basically promised to usher in world peace, unite all nations, end hunger, war, and plague, however he also planned to convert all of humanity into a single army to wage war on countless worlds. Actually he was 1 part Immortal God Emperor aspirant and 1 part Anti-Christ. Of course the party decided to kill this God before it could be born via killing it's mother.

So while they saved countless worlds they did doom mankind to an existence of war, famine, disunity and disease. I thought it would have been a tougher call for the party. XD

[Weltall_BR]

That's one area I've always had difficulty with - fictional pantheons and religions and such. I'm always hard pressed to develop my own...and so my settings are usually lacking in that aspect.

Anyone have any advice on how I could go about making them? I just...I don't know. Creating a believable cosmic power is difficult in itself. I don't really want to give them the personality a mortal might, such as how the Gods are portrayed in OotS. And anything else...seems...hard to imagine...

Be sure: no matter how insanely crazy a religion might seem humankind has already worshipped something weirder at some point in history. Consider this: religions have been coined to explain what could not be explained (which was a lot 10,000 years ago). What does your religion explain?

[Eldan]

I've always found that to be the best way to handle evil deities. Mainly because yeah, "Worship this horrible being and then be tormented by it for all eternity," F'ing sucks. Who would sign up for that? Knowing its LITERALLY going to go down that way.

To be fair, very few deities operate that way even in D&D standard. Most of the evil ones offer power or pleasure of some kind in the afterlife. At least to the worthy worshippers. THe rest might be the torture victims or soldiers of the more worthy ones.

[Tzi]

Sooo, Question? How do people deal with Dragons?

Personally I've come up with this.
Ecology of Dragons:

Spoiler

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1. Dragon Patriarch: Fully grown, adult male dragons. Typically with 3 or more reproducing Queens and a territorial range of 25-100 miles depending on age. Usually found with a substantial horde proving his superiority to other male dragons and would be challengers and to attract more females into the "Flight." He aggressively defends the territory he has, seeks to expand it, fights other males and kills younger males (Even those of his own bloodline).

2. Heirophants: Younger male dragons, sometimes with 1-2 mates rarely three. Typically none that can reproduce as a queen could. Typically these are former underlings Xena's of a Queen who could not overthrow their mother. Typically only capable of producing Kobold worker's and Soldiers.

3. Queens: Large or huge sized Matriarchs of an individual colony. Capable of producing Kobold drones, Tetzylwyrms, Wyvrns and other mutations of Dragon that act as workers, scouts and warriors for the colony respectively. She also produces Fertile but immature Xena's which can grow to become Queens. Queens send out soldiers to kill other queens.

4. Xena's: Female lieutenant and daughter of Queens, they serve under her until they feel confident they could stage a rebellion, or see an opportunity to leave. Said females will seek out a Heirophant if they choose to leave as they would be mate-less and vulnerable. Otherwise she commands hordes of Kobolds, Tetzylwyrms and Wyvrns and sometimes while under a Queens command can breed odd strains of Kobolds, including those that can cast crude magic.

5. Wyvyrn: Typically a sign that not only is there a queen but a very mature one, well protected, and likely she has 4-7 Xena's under her and is one of several queens. Wyvyrns are typically warriors for a given colony.

6. Tetzylwyrms: Colony defenders, usually a sign that at least One Queen exists and has definitely found a Heirophant strong enough to at least avoid death or kill his father or the nearest Patriarch to him.

7. Kobolds: The standard worker unit of a colony. Kobolds are usually only a mild nuisances, however they are a sign of a Queens presence or a would be Queen at the least. The Arrival of Kobolds typically means a colony is being founded or is expanding. Kobolds are aggressive but fairly weak.

Wyvyrn, Tetzylwyrms, Kobolds are all universally female, and sterile. Their life-cycles vary but most live 1-5 years. A Male, typically lives 250 years and a female can live 500, though some Males also match the females for age. Dragons rarely die of natural causes outside of captivity.

Dragons come in multiple "Flights." Often defined by scale/feather/skin color. As some breeds of dragon are amphibious or avian in nature. Most dragon Flights have specific colors though rare ones have metallic colors.

[Yora]

I have five dragons. Black, bronze, green, red, and silver. They come in young, adult, old, and ancient. They only get 1 bite and 2 claw attacks, and 1 tail slap if they are Large or bigger.
That should about cover all needs for dragon stats ever and is way less of a hazzle than the 120 standard dragons of Pathfinder, that still have some assembly required.

[Eldan]

I changed one thing about dragon ecology.

Dragons never die and they never stop to grow. They get larger and larger, but as they grow, there is less food available to them and so, they switch to living purely off the magical energy of the land. They become increasingly passive, as they have no need to move or hunt and their defences become stronger. THe oldest dragons never move at all or are unable to. The oldest two dragons in the world have attached themselves fully to a ley line and become mountains. Thinking, breathing, occasionally angry, magical mountains.

This also explains the war between dwarves and kobolds: kobolds are a dragon mountain's natural defence against miners.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

I have TONS of thoughts on all this stuff about Dragons (and Eldan, I have a very similar concepts in one of my settings) but I'm out all day for a wedding. Monday I shall return!

[Eldan]

Two more things, now that I remember:

All dragons are the same species. Their colour is determined by environmental variables. I've gone with a lot of stuff there, from treatment of the egg to astrology to ley lines.

Also, no planar dragons. I liked the idea Planescape had that dragons don't venture into the planes, that they are inherently creatures of the prime, with their magic connected to the land. Their magic is their life, so their life is in the land they live in.

[Morgarion]

So Eldan, if your dragons don't die, why would they need to worry about food? Or is their immortality a result of being able to draw sustenance from the magical energy inherent in the land?

[Eldan]

I should say they don't die of age. All dragons can be killed with weapons or magic or by disease. But only young dragons need to eat, the more powerful their magic becomes, the less they need and the more they are sustained by magic.

[Yora]

I am now seriously considering dropping dragons completely or reducing them to a single type of creature without any spells. I've been working on my setting for over three years, and a dragon showed up in any kind of role only once, and I completely dropped that idea long ago.

[Tzi]

I am now seriously considering dropping dragons completely or reducing them to a single type of creature without any spells. I've been working on my setting for over three years, and a dragon showed up in any kind of role only once, and I completely dropped that idea long ago.

Same boat, well, mainly I just never know what to do with a gajillion types of dragons.

So I just decided a short cut was to TECHNICALLY have them be the same species but flights are part of a complex biological and social structure. Where like Dragons form Flights that contain several colonies ruled by Queens who then birth Kobolds, Tetzylwyrms, Wyvyrns ect.... depending on the colony needs and all those other dragonoids are just like sterile worker drones who serve the Queen. Ect, basically making them like Naked Mole Rats or Ants. I'm considering a mechanic to were Queens with big enough colonies grow in intelligence and mental and magical ability as the colony imbues her with a sort of collective intelligence and she can say upgrade a Kobold drone into maybe a spellcaster? ect.

Basically I just decided to make all dragons ONE species.

[Yora]

I think a big issue with dragons is, that they have so few appearances in RPGs. Even in Dungeons & Dragons, which has plenty of dungeons, but barely any dragons.
You have plenty of winged lizards like drakes and wyverns, those are easy. They are monsters like any others, though maybe more on the beefy side of what PCs usually encounter.

But I suspect it was D&D that created the image of dragons as those hyper-intelligent masters of arcane magic, and those are a real source of trouble for GMs. If you are going to have a dragon, then you want a real dragon! Not a very young medium size dragon or a small wyrmling. A large size adault dragon is the bare minimum, but for the real deal, it would have to be at least huge. And then you're already at CR 13 with an Intelligence of 14. And the number of PCs that ever gets to 9th level and beyond is not that large.
Even then, you want the dragon to be a mastermind. But he's also sitting in his cave in the mountains far from civilization, so he won't really show up much in a political intrue camapaign set in a a palace.

The D&D dragon is a cool concept but one without any real application.

Planescape and Dark Sun don't really have any dragons. Eberron has them, but they live on another continent. Forgotten Realms does have dragons, but the only way I see them having a role is with the Cult of the Dragon. Whose existence wasn't really aknowledged in 3rd Edition at all.
And when you look at video games, the most you get are Skyrim and Dragon Age, which are supposedly all about dragons, but those dragons are just fire-breathing flying lizards. They are still animals. Baldur's Gate 2 has one dragon who talks, but he stays in his cave all the time and sends you on a fetch quest. Then there is Smaug in the Hobbit, who really just shows up for one scene in which he talks (I think, it's been a while) and in a cutscene of which the main characters are not aware.
Without any precedent on how to include a dragon in a fantasy adventure story, it's hard to come up with ways they can have a relevant role in a campaign world.

Here's some alternative dragons I made today.

[Eldan]

There's always two ways to introduce dragons into political intrigue: the dragon king/emperor/president (it worked great in Shadowrun) who rules over a city state of humanoid servants or the polymorphed dragon who plays the human political game for fun.

[Yora]

Yes, but then he's just another human with the ability to change into a dragon for the final boss battle.
It works, but it's not very dragonish.

[Eldan]

I wasn't thinking of it like that, really. A courtier who's deep into every intrigue, but if you beat him, he shrugs, turns into a dragon and flies away to find some other court. He doesn't take it personal, he's amazed that some monkeys put up a good fight for this round.

[Tzi]

Maybe the Dragon can psychically/magically dominate the minds of others? Maybe said dragon has begun to influence affairs up top in a way that efficiently produces results it likes, or simply its bored with immortality and thinks of it as a fun game.

[QED - Iltazyara]

I think I rather agree with Yora on this, dragons are iconic, but how iconic they are makes them difficult to work with.

They have their place, but as powerful as they are they will either end up at the top, or drop down to the medieval knight type of dragons. Which in of itself is hardly a bad thing, makes for good adventures, but doesn't pull up to the mastermind image D&D puts forth for them.

I'm following how Eberron did dragons myself, letting them have their own land, intrigues and plots sequestered from the rest of the world. They are important and have dealings with/an effect on the rest of the world, but they aren't something you'd know about unless they wanted you to know.

The style of doing dragons as all one species which breeds different types out reminds me of the Pern series of books, which I might go back over for inspiration for my dragons at some point.

[Tzi]

I think I rather agree with Yora on this, dragons are iconic, but how iconic they are makes them difficult to work with.

They have their place, but as powerful as they are they will either end up at the top, or drop down to the medieval knight type of dragons. Which in of itself is hardly a bad thing, makes for good adventures, but doesn't pull up to the mastermind image D&D puts forth for them.

I'm following how Eberron did dragons myself, letting them have their own land, intrigues and plots sequestered from the rest of the world. They are important and have dealings with/an effect on the rest of the world, but they aren't something you'd know about unless they wanted you to know.

The style of doing dragons as all one species which breeds different types out reminds me of the Pern series of books, which I might go back over for inspiration for my dragons at some point.

One Idea I had is that maybe Dragon Queens with a big enough colony develop a lot of powers of mental domination, so they can manipulate other races even when they themselves are not very strong. Like a queen might be just a large sided dragon but might have a colony big enough to allow her too enthrall or influence thoughts.