Let's build a setting (sword & planet): Bright Moon

[Xuc Xac]

I'm going to cut and paste the intro rules from DuctTapeKatar's Shale thread, because it's the most recent and most succinct version yet. Apologies if I accidentally leave in something specific to Shale while editing it for this thread. (Go check that Shale thread out if you haven't read it yet. It's a good one.)

Spoiler: What's Sword & Planet?

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Sword & Planet is a genre of science fantasy. It's like "Sword & Sorcery in Space" or, more often, on another planet. The sci-fi component is very soft and is basically magic: think of the laser swords and psychic powers of Star Wars. The best example is the Barsoom series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs and the most famous example is probably Flash Gordon. Barsoom was a major inspiration for the old AD&D 2E setting "Dark Sun". The original idea for this thread was inspired by inverting Dark Sun from "city states in a scorched desert" to "islands in a vast ocean".

BASIC RULES: PLEASE READ
- Do not contradict previous posts. Modifying said posts is acceptable, but don't modify it to death.
- Here and Now (to a degree) rule: If it does not affect the present day of the setting, it does not really need to be included. Additionally, let's keep to one world. There are other worlds out there and they are clearly visible, but they are currently out of reach. Don't waste time detailing the size, weight, and color of the dragons on the border of the map where it says "Here be dragons".
- Balloon Corp. Rule: No absolutes (EX: total monopolies, only one definitive "best" of something, etc.)

NEW RULE: EVERY ANSWER BRINGS MORE QUESTIONS
- You may post one item at a time.
- Each posted item must answer one question asked by a previous post.
- You must end each post with two new questions about the setting (at least one of them shouldn't be directly related to the item just posted)

THEMES:
- The ocean is vast and people are tiny. In a city on a civilized island, you're relatively safe, but in the deep jungles of a strange island or at sea, you're at the mercy of nature. Navigation, hunting, fishing, and careful provisioning are vital to survival.
- The ocean is very important, but it's not "home": it's an alien world. PCs will be sailors and may swim and dive, but there are no mermaids or submarines. The depths are as unknown and as out-of-reach as the stars.
- Trade networks can reach far and wide, but all the nodes are small. There are many island states, but no empires.
- Strange magic/science: If a mystic psychic craftsman can make a bronze flintlock-style pistol covered in glowing green runes that generates a scorching ray by snapping two crystals together, is that a magic item or a piece of technology that exploits the unique properties of naturally occurring sun crystals? The answer is "yes".
- Islands of mystery: The world is a big place and the population isn't as big as it used to be. There are ancient ruins and lost civilizations everywhere.


Bright Moon
The world is not a planet, but a moon: slightly smaller than the Earth, and with a warm wet atmosphere. The sky is dominated by the great planet around which it orbits, a massive blue and white gas-giant. When the giant is full, the night is a second day of silvery blue light. When it's not full, it still glows slightly with its own soft light like lavender moonlight. Other moons, the world's siblings, can be seen moving across the giant's face. Some of them sparkle with their own small lights--cities, perhaps--when they pass close during the night.

Beneath the sky, the ocean is vast, deep, and turquoise. There are countless scattered islands and archipelagos filled with jungles, swamps, and ancient ruins. Lands of danger and monsters but between the islands is the ocean and the ocean is full of other creatures far larger than any on land. The Five Peoples travel the oceans on sailing canoes and by hitching rides on the great nautiluses--giant tentacled creatures with sleek hull-shaped shells and diaphanous sail membranes that ply the trade-winds on their migration routes across vast distances.

Questions:
#1: Who are the Five Peoples? (Feel free to answer this one partially if you don't have ideas for five)
#2: How do Navigators find their way?
#3: What are the most common religions?
#4: What do people typically wear while in a city (as opposed to their traveling/sailing garb) and what are the clothes made of?
#5: What weapon would an inexperienced adventurer pick up before leaving home (i.e. what's the most common idea of a sidearm)?
#6: What are the most popular dishes travelers eat in a new port and what provisions do they usually carry when traveling?
#7: What's the one thing most people would try to take with them if they had to abandon ship suddenly and could only save one item?

[Gaslampgenie]

#1: The Great Tide

The panetoid follows an eccentric orbit around the gas giant and makes a full revolution once every 4 months. At periapsis ( the point in orbit closest to the gas giant) the gravity differential on the two sides of the panetoid create a massive tidal wave that surges across the great expanse of ocean, often temporarily submerging the islands in the greatest affected hemisphere.


I'm not used to dealing in sword & planet, I hope this condition isn't too limiting

[Xuc Xac]

Questions:
#1: Who are the Five Peoples? (Feel free to answer this one partially if you don't have ideas for five)
#2: How do Navigators find their way?

#1: The Great Tide

That doesn't answer a question. Please read the rules in the OP. I added some extra starting questions to get things moving.

[PopeLinus1]

Each of the five peoples worship a variation of the same Pantheon, containing around three dozen gods. The pantheons go by different names, but theologically they are almost identical. The Pantheon has a lot of deity’s for things like tide, fishing, and of course gods of Sea Monsters. Each god is said to have had a demigod, and each demigod created one of the islands on the surface.

[Wasp]

#6: What are the most popular dishes travelers eat in a new port and what provisions do they usually carry when traveling?

The popular foods vary between cultures and depend on the resources available on an island or archipelago but at least with plant-based foods mostly only the so called “green” flora is eaten for nourishment, while plants with blueish leaves – the “blue” flora - are often only used as spices in small amounts as people cannot survive only eating those. They are not in general poisonous but at least very difficult to digest for most people.

# What kinds of pets do people hold?

# Are there religious beliefs and rules regarding the preparation and consumption of foods?

[Tvtyrant]

# What kinds of pets do people hold?

Parrots are ubiquitous as they are believed to house the spirits of beloved ancestors. Each parrot brought into a household is given the name of a dead ancestor and are given offerings in the ancestors place. Cats are forbidden due to their aggression against parrots, dogs are tolerates.

#What traits are assigned each gender?

#How do they deal with dead bodies?

[Wampyr]

#1: Who are the Five Peoples? (Feel free to answer this one partially if you don't have ideas for five)

Only doing one out of the five.

The first of the Five Peoples call themselves the Kohkbo (Coke-Bow) They are easily distinguishable from the other Five Peoples due to the deep red hue of their hair, bronze skin, and bleach-white face tattoos.

On the night of their birth a Kohkbo child is taken beneath the stars and their face is tattooed from brow ridge to upper lip with the positions of the stars on that night. Large circles are used to represent the other moons, while dots are used to show the stars, and a large ring represents the gas-giant. When the giant is full the child’s tattoo is a simply a solid white band all the way around their head,

The Kohkbo crop their hair short and keep their beards below their tattoos to optimally display their markings. Men typically grow the hair on their chins out long and braid it with rings and seashells and other odd ornaments, some men of higher class even dye their beards a dark shade of green.

The Kohkbo women are known for their strength and athleticism. They often shave all of their hair, burning their flesh so that it does not come back in. This assists with speed when they are swimming. Some of the Kohkbo women call themselves Fish-Lungs and dive into ruined cities swallowed by the sea.


# What kind of creatures dwell beneath the waves that a sailor would be afraid of?

# What are some of the things that the Fish-Lungs have found in the ruins?

[Xuc Xac]

#How do they deal with dead bodies?

There are three generally accepted methods of disposing of dead bodies: Air, Fire, and Water.

Air funeral is the most common. Every community of any significant size will have a temple area featuring a raised square platform of stones. These altars are taller than a person and as wide as a house. Bodies of the deceased are placed on top of the altar platform exposed to the sky to be devoured by birds and insects. After a mourning period of several weeks, a friend or family member of the deceased will climb the altar to retrieve the skeletal remains. Most peoples place the bones in a specially prepared bag of cloth or leather and bury them under the floor of a family dwelling. Some maintain family or community crypts where the polished and painted skulls are displayed together and the bones are stored separately.

Fire funeral is reserved for heroes, esteemed leaders, or highly respected enemies. The body is disemboweled and then baked in a stone oven built specifically for the purpose. The body is baked until the flesh is easily removed from the bones. The bones are cleaned and dried and the flesh is cremated in the oven. This cremation is considered to return the deceased's flesh (and, by extension, spirit) to the gods more quickly, as opposed to the lingering presence of an air burial.

Water funeral is reserved for criminals, sorcerers, and those who primarily made their living from the sea, such as fishermen. The deceased body in a water funeral is wrapped in a fishing net or locked in a wooden box or basket with narrow openings for small fish and crabs to enter and then the body is submerged in a lagoon or fish pond to be devoured and skeletonized as in an air funeral. Those who die during a sea voyage are usually dragged in the sea in a net and many small bones are lost, but special care is always taken to keep the skull. Fishers are disposed of this way because it is seen as a fitting way to repay the sea for all it has provided them. This sense of paying off a debt for taking something from the sea is also why criminals are disposed of this way. No one is quite sure why sorcerers are given water burials. Some suggest it is a holdover from a time when witchcraft was a crime; some suggest it is because magic was originally a gift (or stolen) from the sea so the debt must be repaid by all who use it. After a period of mourning, the skeletal remains are recovered and returned to the community. They are treated as equals to the bones of those given air funerals and any shame from a crime is carried away with the flesh. In life, flesh may be unequal, but in death, all bones are equal.


Questions
# What is the standard protocol for greeting strangers?

# What are the important land animals that the people have domesticated or tamed?

[PopeLinus1]

Standard way of meeeting strangers.

They say their middle names when meeting strangers, and bestow gifts on strangers they have heard good things about.


#what kind of law rules civilization
#how often do new kingdoms last.

[Wasp]

# What are the important land animals that the people have domesticated or tamed?
One of the most important semi-domesticated animals are the Skurri. They look like austrich-sized dinosaurs with long necks, tails and colourful feathers all over their body, walking on their hind legs. Over the day male Skurri are sent in herds to the edges of forests where they graze on the undergrowth. They are fast growing and their meat is delicious - if a little fiery. Skurri Queens are highly aggressive and intelligent. Their presence can enrage the otherwise tame male Skurri into attacking anything nearby. Which is why male and female Skurri are strictly separated outside mating.

# Are the 5 people all humans?
# What stories may a grandmother tell the kids when it's dark and their parents are away?

[Xuc Xac]

# Are the 5 people all humans?

None of them are technically human, but 3 of them can pass as human superficially. They appear to be humans with unusual coloration. One could pass as human in a dark alley wearing a trenchcoat. One is definitely not humanoid: the Kamakoa are headless, have large faces on their chests, and have prehensile feet.

Questions
# In the planetary romance stories of the early 20th century (such as Burroughs' Barsoom novels), technology was based on rays. Antigravity was a levitation ray. Healing was a ray. Guns used explosive radium bullets. Radio waves and radioactivity were the new hotness in science at the time the stories were written. In the 1950s, everything was "atomic". More recently, everything is "nano". The main technology buzzword among the Five Peoples is "crystal resonance". What does that mean?

# Are there any riding or draft beasts used by the Five Peoples?

[Xuc Xac]

# What are some of the things that the Fish-Lungs have found in the ruins?

One of the most common types of lost undersea ruin features towers with tall narrow corridors. The towers are made of some kind of glazed bricks. Corals and algae grow on the mortar between bricks, but not on the glossy faces of the bricks. Most of the interior furnishings have vanished but several kinds of glass or crystal objects can be found in the sand and muck that coats the floors.

The two most common types of artifacts are oblong glass lozenges the size of a thumb and sharp crystal rectangles ranging in size from the palm of a hand to a small table. The lozenges come in many colors both opaque and translucent and are often used as ornaments incorporated in jewelry. The crystalline rectangles are usually either colorless or black. The clear ones are used as window panes or cut into smaller sections by skilled crafters to make flat lenses for goggles or other devices. The opaque rectangles are usually cut and knapped into blades for knives or heads for arrows, spears, and harpoons. The crystal blades can be nearly as sharp as obsidian but much more resistant to breaking or chipping.

# What forms of currency are usually used when trading?

# What are very wealthy people usually expected to do with their wealth (i.e. Are there concepts like noblesse oblige or conspicuous consumption)?