Original thread here: https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/94186729Fantasy worldbuilding thread based on an old map I drew a long time ago, continued.We decided on a sword and sorcery theme. Please stay consistent with the genre and tech level (no Napoleonic autism).
Last thread left off while fleshing out the northwestern area, Ganaroth. This is the generic medieval starting area, but should still come across as fantasy instead of a direct Europe sendup. Summaries from last thread:KINGDOMS1. Wyverndale — Generic starting area. Snowcapped peaks, blue meadows, cold streams, mining towns, etc. River port of Wyvernmeet, seaport of Wyvernport. 2. Northern Vales — Rugged isolated upcountry with clans, incest, weird customs, and ancient stone-piled cairns.3. Freefields — Dysfunctional autonomous peasant collective with town councils instead of lords. A breakaway state led by a radical demagogue has taken over its south.4. Everwatch — Tough, wary guardians against the northern ice barbarians of Evernight Reach.5. Central city in the northern bay, and the biggest city in northern Ganaroth as a whole. However it controls only a narrow peninsula and lacks farmland.6. Truethrone — Ancient capital of the westermen kings; its current king believes this makes him the rightful High King of the realm, but he controls only a tiny city-state and thus has no power to pursue this claim. Home to an ancient library and university.7. Seahold — Long coastal fisher-kingdom that preserves the ancient traditions of sea worship from the westerners’ seafaring days. Its nobles gain psychic powers from consuming the poison of magical sea urchins.8, 9, 10. 8 and 10 are halves of a kingdom that used to be one. Between them is the Warscar, a strip of land ravaged by their constant conflict.11. A militaristic kingdom that emerged as the dominant power in the Hundred Fiefs and began snowballing land, but recently expended much of its might on a pyrrhic campaign to reach the coast and now stands on perilous footing.12. The Hundred Fiefs — A patchwork of countless small fiefdoms that constantly fight each other. A large area meant to make it easy for Game Masters to insert any particular realm they want to invent.
(pic: moodboard + lore from last thread for the Ganaroth region)>>9472360613. Summerfield — Summery pleasant forest land of loggers, with ties to the fey. 14. Highcourt — Royal heartland containing the capital, a southern port that is the largest city in the south, along with many fair coastal palaces.15. Riverrealm — Breadbasket sandwiched between rivers, with high population and expansionist ambitions.16. Neverthaw — High-altitude alpine realm that guards the Glacierpass, the route into the Wild North and through it the East.17. Cragmont — Pretender “kingdom”, a tract of land ravaged by the ambitious bandit warlord Hruln Halfgiant from his Cragfort.18. The Steadings — Montana-like pastureland with cattle-raiding knights and rancher-lords.19. Reign-in-Exile — Humble forest court-in-exile of a usurped prince. 20. Fendrelen — Fiefdom of the mysterious sylvan warlord Fendrelen Nightstag, who is allied with the usurped prince.21. Calador — A dazzling yet ruthless chivalric kingdom home to the Iron Unicorns, knights who put horned iron helmets on their horses.22. Rovinghaven — Pirate haven in a remote corner of the rugged coast.23. Witchvale — A remote heathen conclave ruled by witches.
A lot of the history and specifics remain to be fleshed out. Areas 8, 10, and 11 have no details or names. Capital city lacks a name. And everywhere else is only vaguely sketched out.
anons last time were insistent on lindworms/wingless dragons, I was skeptical but this is pretty cool and would fit the setting.I could imagine this as a dragon vs. an aelfborn warrior, since we suggested that the aelfborn / feytouched humans tend to go into battle with only togas, loincloths or other light clothing (reminiscent of picts/celts/etc)
Dwarves generally come in five varieties:>Red Dwarves: red haired dwarves that once lived in the Icecrags. Red of hair and temper. Served as the proud martial people of their race.>Black Dwarves: dark haired dwarves that once lived in the Desolation. Black of hair, black of heart. They were commoners in the old Empire.>Golden Dwarves: blonde dwarves that were once the proud nobility of the underworld. Gold of hair, bravest of hearts. Now dilapidated exiles on the surface. >Troll Dwarves: ferocious dwarves that have the features of both dwarf and troll. They were used as heavy armor during the twilight of their empire.>Tin Dwarves: dorfen rune smiths. This caste died off when the dwarves were exiled from their underground home.Dwarves are a grim, dour race. They know they're dying as a people, even with dwarven warriors reclaiming lost halls in the icecrags.
>>94728336troll dwarves sound interesting, any more details? could they be like giant, hulking dwarves?in thread 1 we brainstormed different ways to make dwarves interesting. One person suggested making them living stone, I suggested making them blind mole-people, but we didn't ultimately decide on anything. I kind of like your idea of color-coded dwarves though. How could that be amped up? Could they have literal metallic hearts? This would tie in with the idea of dragons having glowing metal cores.
>>94728600I think the reason dwarves have fallen out of fashion in RPGs is lack of identity. The problem could be summed up as: dwarves and gnomes overlap a lot (small size, craftsmanship/technology, earth elemental connection), and the culture has mostly decided that gnomes are more interesting. All that's left for dwarves is being a tough fighter race, but being short makes them an unsatisfying choice for that role.It's no longer clear what they stand for, and fresh ideas are needed
some lore: Kingdom 16a wintry, alpine chivalric realm that guards the mountain pass into the Wild North.
Cat folk are foreigners to the continent, only visiting the southeast where they engage in mercantile trade. Unlike the west where the only visitors are vikings looking for some extra loot or frumentarii sizing up a new conquest, these things prefer to set up footholds in new markets.
>>94728644My campaign heavily features dwarves, more than any other race in fact. Widespread clan-based societies that functions as guilds. There's guilds for bookkeeping, smithing, woodcutting, carpentry, etc. And within all of them there are sub-clans, cousins if you may, that handle specific jobs.Since everything is connected in some way they are able to work together but because of greed they are in constant conflict trying to get the upper hand in their dealings with each other.They are found here and there away from their capital trying to kickstart new industries or setup trade with other factions.
rare sealion
Personally I liked the divide between biological, geological and botanical life. I think we should further build upon that concept and weave it into the creation myth of life on Ganalon.
>>94735029can we think of a way to make the catfolk interesting and weird? maybe they are shapeshifters who change between different animal features with the zodiac (which could tie into them being merchants who cross the seas with star-based navigation)? Or maybe they only gain their animal traits via magic masks or enchanted jewelry? or could they dye their fur and shave it into swirls to create a dramatic, peacock-like appearance? or could they instead be a person with a pet cat, and they are a single mind that exists simultaneously in two bodies, the cat and the human? Something to make them memorable.>>94735356I remember that, I liked it although I think the stone creatures should be their own weird-looking things instead of simply familiar animals made of rock and crystal. Can you think of some kind of myth that describes the origin of this tripartite life order? I get the mental image of some ancient shrine surrounded by an ancient stone monolith, an ancient tree, and an ancient rune-carved giant, representing the orders of life...
>>94735443What's wrong with having normal races? This thing feels really snowflakey.
>>94735470literally zero point to worldbuilding if you're not bringing something new to the table is there? especially important for catfolk due to being furrybait.Share your own ideas if you have something better. With the ideas above I was aiming for the type of weird, lurid stuff you find in Conan stories and other sword and sorcery.
Any ideas for the capital city of the Ganaroth region? What is it like? It's a southern location so presumably warmer weather, coastal river port, and looks like it sits directly across a bay from the "Desolations", whatever they are.One of the placenames brainstormed in last thread was "the fair city of Melbelyra". Could that be used for the capital? Some other possible names:Cor ElyrraSortorozaRelrelonRadiant Lespar The fair city of Melbelyra (already mentioned)Foreignhome
An anon in last thread created this character, which I thought was interesting and worth reposting>The Kingdom of Calador emerged from the chaos of the Magi Wars as a true contender for the north. ...While Rolf Koester can trace his ancestry to the Knights of the Grassy Vale, he did away with the prancing horse and embraced the unicorn as his sigil. Unicorns are, after all, savage animals.(This was his pic for Rolf Koester.)Another anon added that the knights of Calador see the unicorn as a symbol of male virility, and I suggested that their knights could be called the "Iron Unicorns" because their horses wear helmets with metal unicorn horns to gore enemies with.
>>94723588These threads always suck.
>>94737096They don't until people like you show up
>>94737096I agree
Where is Mpreg island?
>>94740426in the far north. fat blubbery pale freakish hermaphrodites who live in caves carved into ice floes.>>94737230Yeah but we're seeing why these threads never go anywhere, people like saying broad things about broad open spaces on the map but no one cares enough to fill in the details>>94737096Doesn't have to. Read the kingdoms list or look at the moodbard >>94723638 and add a character, place or piece of lore.
>>94723588>average civ 3 map setup
>>94742783If this were Civ 3 the entire map would be covered in cities already.
>>94743681My country in red. Just spam as many cities as possible to take over all the land even if they suck and can't produce anything.
>>94743684OK, this is your shitty spawn location. Ocean peninsula in middle of nowhere. Lots of open plains but they are dry arid and virtually unfarmable. Over the ocean, nothing but tundra to the north and desert to the south. Where you dropping your cities and what's the plan
>>94743918Massive amounts of overcrowded hovels to box out rivals by denying them turf, while fighting herds of barbarians that spawn in the wilderness- which itself necessitates constant expansion to combat the never-ending barbarian threat (always play on raging barbarians).
>>94743930I wasn't personally crazy about this idea, but according to another anon the barbarians hordes of those plains happen to be centaur mongols. Sorry to inform you. This may be rough
>>94735443>can we think of a way to make the catfolk interesting and weird?Catfolk males are massive hulks, ogres mixed with lions in appearance. They laze inside their boats and almost never leave, to the point many think they're left "at home." If you enter their boats figuring all the women are out, they will get up, eat you, and go back to sleeping, reading, playing cup-and-ball, etc. Part of the reason the males don't leave their boats is that they don't want to get ambushed and killed by another male, who would then steal all their shit and their wives too. The other male would also kill their children, so womenfolk try to keep the boat safe from other males (not wanting their babies murdered).The womenfolk - smaller, runty - run around with their kits, trading for lots of meat (especially weird meat) and bartering various interesting baubles back and forth. They'll have magic trinkets, mostly the shit kind, and they'll pay through the nose for anything suitably impressive.Kits look like ordinary kittens or cats, can survive as stray cats do, and grow into adults independent of their mothers; sometimes they sneak out of her bag as she carries them and she doesn't notice until it's too late. Boy catfolk that get lost tend to go through sudden, large growth spurts and become dangers to the community as random rats and birds can no longer sate their massive appetites.
>>94749171OK, fair enough. If these are exotic traders can we at least add fur dying and shaving from above? I can imagine them shaving their fur in patterned swirls...What about displacer beast catpeople? Also, what if displacer beast fur is used to make a fabric called "shadowsheen"? What if instead of just displacer beasts, there are a whole variety of creatures with magic fur or feathers that create mirages when the sun glints off them? I could see colorful tropical displacer birds
>>94750120I can imagine an anthro displacer beast spy and assassin called Dammezen Nightpard who sells his services to the warring sultans or whatever of the Arid East...What if the catfolk are commonly called "pards"? That's an old timey medieval word for big cats, could help them fit in a little better
the other major cat themed D&D creatures are rakshasas...imagine the "Court of Cats", where a rakshasa and his servants have taken residence in a hollowed-out ruin in Fallen Jalakra and play as court and king, tying up human slaves by the neck like housecats.
>>94750120>OK, fair enough. If these are exotic traders can we at least add fur dying and shaving from above? I can imagine them shaving their fur in patterned swirls...I tried the fur dying thing, I just couldn't get it to work; bright colors end up looking silly, dark colors ugly. These versions are pixelated so you can try painting over the skin tones very easily if you want to give it a shot.
>>94750196idk, something ilke this?
>>94750511ah, here's the masterstroke that makes this work, she has to dye her tufts
>ZOMG THESE THINGS SHOULD HAVE BLUE DYE ON THEM FOR NO FUCKING REASON BECAUSE IT NEEDS TO BE DIFFERENT. Its not even cool/interesting and it doesnt even make sense within whatever world this is trying to be. So fucking what? The cat people have some blue die on there face. Did they call it macaroni too?
>>94751024>ZOMG THESE THINGS SHOULD HAVE BLUE DYE ON THEM FOR NO FUCKING REASON BECAUSE IT NEEDS TO BE DIFFERENT.
Here are some creature names say what they are if you want---nightfearsgillhorrorsquollsquarrsharrenquarnsgweensroiksrattlesphinxessulphurhorn phoenixrhunicornshendioneyevoresgadcamelwhisper eater
>>94723606>1. Wyverndale — Generic starting area. Snowcapped peaks, blue meadows, cold streams, mining towns, etc. River port of Wyvernmeet, seaport of Wyvernport.King Gelrick has ruled here since he was six - or, really, his mother has. He's currently a gangly young man of seventeen, tall and thin thanks to a recent growth spurt. His mother was the beloved wife of the previous king, a "giantstock" woman from a powerful clan among the Northern Vales, married off as tribute/hostage after starting a fight they couldn't finish.While Queen Mother Eimhir s a foreigner, and a woman, she's an adroit hand at politics and has maneuvered herself into near-complete control over the royal court. Her son is just barely a man and largely trusts his mother in all matters of state (particularly since many of the highest advisors are her handpicked cronies).
>>94756532Cool.I suggested the neighboring realm, Everwatch (the one that guards against the northern barbarians) has a queen as well — a harsh, fur-mantled military woman/valkyrie type. Having two female rulers in neighbor kingdoms is an interesting situation. Do they like or hate each other? Hate is probably more dramatic. The Lady of Everguard is probably a harsh, no-nonsense type who hates the Queen Mother's clever politics. Maybe she even believes the rumors about the Queen Mother being a heathen witch, given that she's from the backward Vales. But is there a way this could be made more interesting? How did Gelrick's father die? What if his father was actually a great friend to Everwatch and died in battle defending it? So the Lady Hildegard (this was the placeholder name for the queen) actually was very close to Gelrick's father and owes Wyverndale a debt, yet detests the Queen Mother.Hags and witchcraft were discussed as a big theme for the northern area, so the female leadership thing could even relate to some ancient primitive matriarchal tradition. Today, female leadership is more accepted here than elsewhere, yet the people have a complicated relationship to it and see it as a primitive vestige associated with witchcraft and older times.
Since Wyverndale is intended as a good "starting area", less centralized leadership is probably good so that players can go from town to town with things feeling relatively self-contained. A weak young king could help with that.Wyverns in D&D are known for having poisonous barbs on their tails, so why not give Gelrick's troops, such as they are, wyvern-themed ballistas and crossbows with poisonous bolts? He could have a personal contingent of bolters called the "Wyvernguard" or something.Where is his seat? Perhaps "Wyvernwing Castle"? Where could the wyvern insignia and theming of Wyverndale have come from? Are there just a lot of wyverns there? If so, perhaps Gelrick has a runt/pygmy wyvern as a pet? (Perhaps a pseudodragon in D&D terms.) Actually, could Gelrick's line be descended from a famous wyvernhunter who set himself up as king after hunting down and driving away the beasts from the area? "Rechard Wyvernhunter"?Alternately, given that we're focusing on lindworms and wingless dragons, could the winged wyvern be a fictional, legendary symbol (or a historical memory from the lands to the west, which the settlers left long ago)?----For a starting area, it would be good to have a few dungeon ideas. Any thoughts on Wyverndale dungeons? I can see mining in the mountains along its northern border, so abandoned/haunted/infested mines are an obvious one. If wyverns are real perhaps also a roost/mountaintop spire where a few remaining wyverns live, perhaps with a blind aged overgrown wyvern patriarch who can no longer fly.
>>94762328>Alternately, given that we're focusing on lindworms and wingless dragons, could the winged wyvern be a fictional, legendary symbol (or a historical memory from the lands to the west, which the settlers left long ago)?Maybe the full-on wyvern is a mythical thing, but there's a local "pygmy wyvern" type species (or whole clade, like the RL pterosaur/bird/bat divide). Hawk-ish size, can be used in hunting, semi-domesticated by the locals, common in the local forests. A fearless species by nature that will sometimes just go absolutely ham on humans even though we're 20x their size. Associated with courage, virtue, and nobility; in legends, they attack criminals and bandits who try to flee and hide in the forest. Symbol of the royal house, and the king has one as a pet/hunting companion.Making literally everything about wyverns feels like a bit much, though.> For a starting area, it would be good to have a few dungeon ideas. Any thoughts on Wyverndale dungeons? I can see mining in the mountains along its northern border, so abandoned/haunted/infested mines are an obvious one. If wyverns are real perhaps also a roost/mountaintop spire where a few remaining wyverns live, perhaps with a blind aged overgrown wyvern patriarch who can no longer fly.Looking at the prehistory of the region, ideas:- Old fey fortifications, homes, castles, etc. Entrances divorced from the physical space itself. Emptied of the original inhabitants - they probably just moved out a long time ago for this or that reason - but clogged with the fey equivalents of pests.- Tombs of the prehistoric giantstock/waifs. Probably different styles, referencing different cultures. Elaborate artistic etchings on cave walls and strange magics for the waifs. Undead and traps for the giantstock tribal lords, buried with loot, weapons, and their honor guard.
>>94762860>Maybe the full-on wyvern is a mythical thing, but there's a local "pygmy wyvern" type species (or whole clade, like the RL pterosaur/bird/bat divide). Hawk-ish size, can be used in hunting, semi-domesticated by the locals, common in the local forests.That's good. I could think of a few explanations:- Something wiped out all the winged dragons of Ganalon, leaving only the small, dumb, bird-like varieties. Similar to what happened to dinosaurs, but more targeted. What wiped out the dragons? A plague, a concentrated hunting effort by humans, giants or some other rival, a curse that caused their "fire to die", a prophecy that made them all leave and take flight to somewhere else, etc.- Winged dragons are not native to Ganalon, but the settlers from the West brought these small mini-wyverns along as pets. They have become an invasive pest species that quickly found a dominant role in the Ganalonian ecosystem, but retain a cultural prestige among the westermen due to their association with the ancestral western homelands.- They do come from the west, but were not brought by the settlers; instead, they migrate across the ocean seasonally, like birds.>Tombs of the prehistoric giantstock/waifs. Elaborate artistic etchings on cave walls and strange magics for the waifs. This is neat. I could easily see the people descended from the northern arctic-dwellers as having a culture of fire worship due to their cold environment. What about "Runefire Cairn"?>Probably different styles, referencing different cultures.I like when D&D worlds have layers of history. You should be able to learn everything you need to by delving the dungeons, without needing to read a lore book. Can we think of a sample "starting dungeon" that combines several of the main themes of the setting (or at least region)? Maybe a ritual site that was used by fey, giants, and humans in turn? Though to be fair, we may not have a strong enough grasp of the setting's main themes to do this yet.
>>94762860Great wyvern pic btw.Also, if people are feeling stifled by the overly filled in map, here's a cleaned up version with some of the unnecessary names taken out. Most of the names are placeholders; feel mostly free to revise/add/replace as you will.
Ever heard of King Rygelon Dragonheart? He was a knight who won a kingdom by slaying a dragon. He kept the dragon's hot metallic core as a trophy. As the decades drew on, the core's heat never waned, but the same was not true of the king himself. In middle age he found his body weakening, more prone to agues, fits, and the cold climate of the north. Filled with mad ideas by his alchemists and desirous of immortality, he had the core implanted in his own chest. His death was neither simple nor easy, and in the end his own surgeons had to put him down, for instead of simply burning to death, he had become a half-living wraith of flame.
