Treskri, an original world [WIP, PEACH] - help needed

Zireael · 10-01-2012, 12:49 PM

Treskri is heavily inspired by Greek, Roman and Celtic mythology.
Other inspirations include: Drowtales, Crusader Kings 1 & 2,

***

The world is a vast underground of a planet. There is no known way to reach the surface and the inhabitants aren't aware of the fact that it is underground. Therefore, they measure 'depth' as the distance from the planet's core - that is, the Lower World is the furthest from the core and the coldest, while the Higher World is the closest to the core and the hottest.

Because the planet's core fluctuates and flashes, they can measure time without using magic. Their year has 12 months and every month has 4 weeks 8 days each.

The world itself, beyond the cities inhabited by elves and other races (that is, dwarves and short folk), is very dangerous. Death is very common; however, the deities often grant resurrection or rather, reincarnation.

There are, so far, three known cities in the world.

Magic is pretty rare in the world, with clerical magic present a little more than arcane magic. Arcane magic uses crystals as foci, but both types of magic require that the caster be in the deity's favor.

The deities have much influence over the world - they have their servants and offspring and heroes. There is a creator deity, 8 greater deities - that is why 8 is the holy number - and some lesser deities. Heroes might also eventually become deities.

Most noble houses trace their descent from one of the deities, which is their patron, and they assume the deity's colors as their own. The colors and the coats of arms are some of the most important things in the world.

The First and the Second Era are purely legendary times; timekeeping starts in the Third Era, approximately 800 years ago.

***

The world runs on homebrewed mechanics, which started as an easier version of D&D. They feature stamina points and deity favor points and Action Points and point buy character creation (20 points at start) and Difficulty Checks and eight attributes - Strength, Stamina, Dexterity, Reflex, Intelligence, Willpower, Intuition and Perception.

There are seven base classes (three martial - rogue, ranger and fighter; four casters - bard, mage, druid and cleric) and everything else is rolled into advancement paths (roughly the equivalent of PrCs). Many PrCs don't exist, though, since there is no concept of caster level.
There are no monks and no paladins, since they don't fit the world concept.
I had an aristocrat class ready, but I can't find it right now in the notes.

Feats and special qualities and special attacks were first rolled into a single category called 'advantages' and then largely reworked.

***

I think this suffices for the most important information. I will, of course, write more here, should someone ask for it. However, I am now focused not only on developing the world (in Polish, since it's my mother tongue), but also on writing a story set in it (also in Polish).

That is why I am not willing to translate everything I have noted down over the course of the last year - the fact that I am starting another year at uni notwithstanding.

OOC: The reason the world is set underground is because I wanted 3-dimensional movement and changing gravity. Some of my friends made me drop the idea, saying it is unmanageable.

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More info:
A link to the wikidot (in Polish) detailing the world: here

A link to a Google-Translated version here

***
I need feedback of any sort, so, comment please!

Zireael · 10-07-2012, 07:41 AM

I need input and tips, especially when it comes to geography. Does an underground world have climate zones?

Spelluck · 10-08-2012, 05:16 PM

An underworld could have climate zones... In a way, you've already partly defined it with measuring that the higher zones are warmer then the colder zones.

The next question would really be, how much water does your world have? Does the water heat up closer to the core? As the water heats up, do the natural warm air flow cause it to flow down tunnels to lower levels? Is there a cold ridge in a cavern that causes the warm air to condense and rain? A simplified version of this can get a good deal of weather up to the coldest areas.

I don't think you'd have snow, but ice and sleet would probably be common. the further up you get.

Zireael · 10-09-2012, 01:45 PM

Water. Something both myself and my friends forgot about.

We solved the soil/earth problem by saying plants derive nutrition from rocks themselves, but completely forgot about water. Granted, elves do not sleep nor defecate, but they need to eat and drink. As all other races do.

As for climate zones, I don't mean the horizontal splits already present, but vertical. Would there be colder/warmer areas on the same depth? Or would they all be uniform when it comes to temperature?

Iceforge · 10-10-2012, 01:49 PM

There could be different climate zones, specially in the "lower" levels.

Why do the creatures live on the inside of this hollow planet? Well, perhaps their planet is tidal locked (might be wrong term, pardon me if it is), where the planet does not rotate along its own axis while orbiting the systems sun, in which case part of it will be permanently exposed to the sun and warmer (heat which will move through the surface and into the "lower" levels), other parts will be in permanent shadow and covered in ice (and thus colder "lower" levels)
It could also explain why they are not aware of the surface; Anybody who ever found a way there would have died pretty quickly due to the insane heat or cold they found out there.

Iceforge · 10-10-2012, 01:52 PM

And about the water; I am not sure if you mean the world is reverse gravity (people walking on the other side of the surface, their feet pointing towards the surface) or if the surface makes a roof, but taking my other suggestion, water could come in from cracks in a steady supply where gletchers on the surface drift to far towards the hot side and melt down, which would make either water fall up from the ground and then splash down like geysers (reverse gravity) or rain down from the celling

Once the water is there, whatever from geysers or rain, it moves to where-ever you need it to be through systems of channels and rivers and such, actually makes for some interesting twists you could do, as whichever race(s) populate the "water circle" would hold quite a lot of power, as they can construct dams and such to disconnect other areas from having any water supply

Yora · 10-11-2012, 03:33 AM

I don't think you need an open sky to have soils and a water cycle. You could have huge underground lakes that sit close to lava channels that make them boil. The steam would rise up through cracks and passages and gather in colder caves high above. And then the water would run down through other passages as underground rivers. And all soil on earth started from chemically dissolved minerals and is constantly recreated by rotting plants and dead animals. First you start with primitive lichens and algea that can feed on minerals, and as these plants die and decompose, you get the soil for larger plants to grow on.

Admitedly, this doesn't actually happen on earth at any significant scale, but for a fantasy world it would be good enough.
Or there might even be a surface where steam from the underground caves rises to the sky to form clouds, and it's the rainwater that comes down through the underground rivers. As long as there are no toxic chemicals that would poison the water, the surface could be completely inhospitable.

The energy from the sun can easily be replaced with heat from the planets core. But light does not. Any creature that evolved naturally in that environment would be able to see in some way that does not require normal vision. Since there could be glowing plants, animals that live near those plants might also very likely develop normal sight, as it is very useful. But they still would need to be able to find their way and escape predators when away from the glowing plants.

Zireael · 10-11-2012, 05:03 AM

Replying to some of your questions: no, the world isn't reverse gravity, the "surface" is the roof.

I never specified why the inhabitants aren't aware of the aboveground. Just that they aren't and that the way out there was never found (although I implied the aboveground is inhospitable).

Underground rivers and lakes are a good solution.

Zireael · 10-17-2012, 10:02 AM

Any ideas for kitchen/cuisine, i.e. what they eat?

Yora · 10-17-2012, 10:31 AM

Rule of thumb: People get most of their food from sources that get the most energy and nutrition from the least amount of time and work and is sufficiently reliable to be available every season.

Big animals are great if you can kill them without great danger to yourself and they are easy to find. That's a lot of meat for relatively low work.
Fish are also a good idea, but those would probably be available in large enough numbers to surive feeding villages in very large underground lakes submerged caves. If they go extinct after a year or two, they don't make a good long term food source. While there is not a lot of meat on a small fish, they often live in great swarms, at least in rivers and oceans, that can be caught with nets, bringing in a lot of food with a relatively low amount of work.
While wood and grass is inedible for humans, mushrooms make good food for people and they can grow without light, which makes them good primary food sources for underground worlds. Not sure if humans would get sick from eating them every day in large quantities, but in an entirely underground world, their digestion would have adapted to it and they would be perfectly fine.

Zireael · 10-21-2012, 10:13 AM

Quote:

While wood and grass is inedible for humans,

Do you think they could be edible for other races? I made dwarven cuisine contain coal - could they eat, I don't know, metals too?

Zireael · 10-26-2012, 08:41 AM

Here is the development history of the world.

Zireael · 11-01-2012, 11:54 AM

Any questions you'd like to get answers to?

Zireael · 11-05-2012, 02:52 PM

I just had an idea. What if there was a legend for every year and every year had a name?

I'm hesitating to do it since it might look like a ripoff of Forgotten Realms...

vither999 · 11-13-2012, 06:44 AM

So, wait, gravity: is it still pointing towards the core? So the inhabitants will perceive the Higher World being beneath the Lower World?

If you were talking about variable gravity, it's actually not that difficult to think about if you do it properly for the players, but it requires a lot more effort in terms of the DM. For example, consider a cylinder, with either the gravity constantly pulling them away from the center or towards the center. Both of these can be demonstrated with maps, but your measurements will probably be difficult to fit into a 5ft by 5ft grid.

From experience, my players had a lot of fun with this mechanic when I included it (gravity constantly pulling towards the outside of cylinder and shooting across the middle of the cylinder). It's complex, and you'll probably want to have some visual aids to clarify what you mean, but not difficult to grasp.

Zireael · 11-18-2012, 06:44 AM

Well, I was forced to "invert" gravity - not towards the core, but outwards, so that Lower World is below the Higher World.

I also believe that variable gravity is not that hard to roleplay, but my friends were adamant that this is a lot of bookkeeping and hard to imagine and all that just for the rule of cool, so they made drop it.

****

I added a summary in English and the first few parts of the story set in the world, also in English, on my site.

(I'd give you links, but I'm not sure if I can do it on gitp...)

Zireael · 11-23-2012, 02:07 PM

Any questions?

Zireael · 11-25-2012, 06:32 AM

I need help especially when it comes to the following:
- the initial population, so that the noble houses do not die out (note, there is no incest taboo)
- animals that might live in the world
- detailing history
- detailing culture
- detailing religion

vither999 · 11-25-2012, 07:57 AM

Population:

Spoiler

Animals:

Spoiler

For history, culture, and religion:

Spoiler

Zireael · 11-26-2012, 03:28 AM

Population - on another forum, we arrived at the consensus that 16 men and 16 women are enough for a starting population of a house, provided there is enough marriages between houses.

Population after 10 generations would be ~500 nobles per house.

Animals - thanks. I kinda forgot fish and lizards. Blind troglodytes aren't a bad idea either.

Coats of arms - already thought of. Look up Zireael07 on deviantart com - that's my profile. Some coats are w/mantles, but the generator was quite poor and I shifted to a different one. Not to mention all the mantles looked very similar.

vither999 · 11-26-2012, 01:09 PM

Dunno about the population thing. I mean, check out this on genetic diversity. Inbreeding would also really hinder that. ~shrug~ Your call.

Your deviantArt stuff is alright, but in my opinion you've gone a little overboard on the ermine: and doesn't that also mean you need to have stoats in your world?

Zireael · 11-27-2012, 05:27 AM

I used ermine because I can't have lots of houses using silver and/or gold. It's bad enough that I already have a house with a silver-and-gold scheme (Mian Lan) and another with a gold-and-silver scheme (Uasal Lan) ...

Do you think stoats could live there?

vither999 · 11-28-2012, 03:02 PM

Yeah, but you're also forgetting all the colors. Generally you can break down the tinctures into three categories: colours, metals, and furs. It's bad to put furs on furs, metals on metals, and colours on colours, but it's alright in very specific situations. Gules is very popular, as is sable.

Yeah, overall you're not very balanced when it comes to colours: you've got way too much gold and silver, no blue, and no purple. Also not enough black and red. If you're trying to use more metals because it's underground, I wouldn't: most often things were painted on or carved, or they used symbolic representation (see the tinctures page on wikipedia to see the patterns).

I doubt stoats would be able to survive: they're a type of weasel, so they generally rely upon mice, rabbits, and other small mammals, which in turn rely upon having a lot of grass and other chlorophyll plants. You could have them, if you've got that lower level of the food chain.

Zireael · 11-29-2012, 06:23 AM

I know about tinctures, furs, and metals, a friend directed me to a long article on heraldry in Polish. :)

Colors are tied to the patron deity of a house. I.e. War Queen's color is blood red, so her house uses red-and-black scheme; Noble Queen's color is gold and her house goes with gold-and-silver; Life-Giver's color is silver, and the house has silver-and-gold.
I gave the Dibeartach Lan silver-and-black to avoid black-and-brown, which would probably be too dark, and now I've got a problem when making a CoA for Bhais Lan, who are associated with death (black-and-silver?)

I don't have a deity associated with purple or blue. Technically, the Water Prince would count for blue, but the element deities are not powerful enough to warrant a house. Maybe I'll consider a house for all four element deities, and then the color scheme might be blue-and-something.

I've been thinking of making a house for the deity of magic, but the fact magic is supposed to be rare kept me from doing it.

vither999 · 11-29-2012, 10:12 AM

Ah, neat. That's the other thing, they've got regional variants: we may have the same terminology but different rules. >.< Now all we need is someone who has read articles on dutch heraldry to come wandering in, and we can get well and truly confused.

It might be better to tie symbols to the houses, and then wrap a colour scheme around that? That's more in-line with actual heraldry, anyway: very few families managed to be the only one with a colour scheme.

Black and brown isn't that bad, though brown isn't used that much in heraldry, for the reasons you stated. For death you could go black and purple: that'd be pretty neat, and hold by with the whole "evil" thing.

Instead of making the elemental deities have houses (they ARE suppposed to be primal forces of nature, after all), you could have a "secret" house for magic, and give it blue as a colour. Even if it's rare, people would eventually find each other: maybe they're too nervous about coming out about it to practice it openly, and use heraldry to subtly tell each other who's a mage.

Are individual families inside the houses going to have coats of arms?

Zireael · 11-29-2012, 02:21 PM

Quote:

Are individual families inside the houses going to have coats of arms?

That's something I haven't yet considered. At first, I thought houses will be rather small, a single family (if with a tangled tree). Now that a house is expected to consist of ~500 people by the time the story starts, individual families are something I have to think of.
And giving them individual CoAs (quartering the main CoA or adding a personal symbol) will probably be the way to tell branch 1 of say, Cogadh Lan, from branch 2 or 3 or 4 or whatever.

Zireael · 12-03-2012, 05:48 AM

An issue I've been thinking about - I have the houses and the lineages discernible by hair and eye color. Should I add varied skin color, too? The Bhais Lan would get ivory skin, the Cogadh Lan - probably red, the Mian Lan would probably have pearl skin etc. etc.

Zireael · 12-07-2012, 03:18 AM

Made a brown-and-black CoA for the Dibeartach Lan, to be seen on my DA account.

Zireael · 12-15-2012, 03:13 PM

Any comments? Tomorrow I'll try working on some of the CoAs...

Here are the deities (bold means he/she has a house under her/his patronage) and the associated colors.

War Queen - color: bloodred
Lord of Magic - color : not decided yet. Someone suggested purple.
Lord of Nature aka Lord of Trees - color: green
Noble Queen - color: gold
Life-Giver- color: silver
Lord of Death - color: black

Minor deities:
Outcast - color: brown/gray
Dark Lady (Dark Ruler? I'm not sure which one is a better translation) - color: navy
Beastlord - color: not decided yet
Lady of the Light - color: white
Lord of the Dark - color: gray

The Four (function as a single minor deity): -> the elemental deities
Red Prince - color: red
Blue Prince - color: blue
Brown Prince - color: brown
Silver Prince - color: silver

I haven't yet decided on the divine patron of one of the other houses (Traidi Lan, which means full of tradition). The Noble Queen and the Life-Giver both have a single house + the Mian Lan (the undecided offshoot of the Uasal Lan) under their patronage, so I might be forced to:
a) make the Elf Queen their patron
b) invent a new deity
c) make some other deity their patron

Additionally, a good solution to the Mian Lan [full of desire] venerating two deities at once would be to invent a minor deity of sexuality...

Zireael · 12-19-2012, 10:20 AM

Any solutions to the problems? Any colors associated with air?