Something new at WFM
Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 9:30 pm
I just want to draw your attention to something new I am trying to do over at World Forge Magazine.
Here is the intro thread for what is now about 20 threads I just started in a new section Orleron has made for me. The purpose of this section, which houses two new forums, is to allow me to ask people to help with developing a new world setting.
Anyone with access there, please come and contribute. If you don't have access there, you are missing out on some good stuff, plus you are missing out on all this really naff stuff of mine. You ought to think about joining
Here is the intro thread for what is now about 20 threads I just started in a new section Orleron has made for me. The purpose of this section, which houses two new forums, is to allow me to ask people to help with developing a new world setting.
Anyone with access there, please come and contribute. If you don't have access there, you are missing out on some good stuff, plus you are missing out on all this really naff stuff of mine. You ought to think about joining
Fifty wrote:Intro
As those of you who read my Soutama setting know, it was just a small part of one country in a much larger world. The rest of the world was only ever half formed in the back of my mind though. One thing I always did know, however, is that just as Soutama was a fantasy version of Nagasaki and Japan circa 1600, there is, on the other side of this loosely imagined world, a fantasy Caribbean, circa 1600.
Due to the upcoming NWN2, I've been playing with the idea of creating a Pirate Island PW. Whether I ever actually create this PW or not (probably not, I do not have time), I have been brainstorming ideas for how to integrate this island into said world in a cool way. I've got my creative juices flowing, and I always enjoy that, and whether I eventually channel those juices into a PW, I'm going to enjoy the creative flow now. The whole world, not just these two small parts of it, is now coming alive in my head.
Trouble is, solo brainstorming is rarely as effective as team brainstorming. I've come up with some cool ideas, and even a couple that have affected my whole world, and now I'd like to develop them further. I don't expect I'll come up with anything as original and different as Eberron, but what I would like to do is use WFM and the subscribers as a resource to help me develop the ideas I have so far into a more coherent, but also a more well-rounded world. Therefore, instead of writing articles and presenting a finished article, what I would like to do is start threads about the world and get people to contribute their ideas and help me evolve the world as a group effort. Only later will there be finished pieces.
To give you a brief idea of how I am thinking, let me brief you...
100+ years ago, humans, halflings and dwarves were living in their version of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Their horizons were not that huge and they had little awareness of the Far East, and none at all of their world's version of America. Then, abruptly, huge floating fortresses started appearing in the sky. They were massively wide across at their highest levels, and the tops could not be seen. They tapered to a point at the bottom, making them look somewhat like inverted mountains. At first people were afraid, but as years went by, these floating mountains never interacted with the people of <Europe> and they carried on their lives as before. Except... They started to become more curious about the world out there, and exploration boomed...
Thus, humans, dwarves and halflings have made landfall on the coast of another continent. Once they reach the <Rockies> they will find huge craters gouged out of the ground, incredibly deep, and looking suspiciously like one of the flying fortresses would fit into them if they decided to land there...
The <European> nations compete for land here...
blah blah blah. You get the point.
Elves fly around in sky fortresses. Some fortresses stay in the sunlight, some stay in the moonlight. A few elves, wood elves, still live in the forests near the craters. Drow fly around in just one fortress - the biggest one, and their fortress flies higher than any of the others. Occasionally it descends to bring mayhem and death... Have the elves got enough sky keeps, or do they want to repeat their work on European mountains?
Halfings are the Dutch, recently having freed themselves of their Spanish human masters.
Dwarves are.. well, I don't know really, that is one of the things I'd like to evolve.
Gnomes are from the elven continent. I suspect they now live in the craters of the fortresses, but I am not sure yet.
Orcs used to live in the Caribbean area but human and halfling diseases killed most of them. Half-orcs seem better immune. Two half-orcs breeding will have 1/4 chance of an orc baby, 1/4 human baby, and 1/2 half-orc baby. Human and Orc babies tend not to survive, but half-orcs have many offspring, thus they are almost a recognised, if reviled, race themselves.
And all of these people are thrown into the melting pot that is my Caribbean...
I'll be posting threads about a whole bunch of these things soon, and I ask you to give me feedback, suggestions, criticism.
I'm really very keen for any big ideas, or small ideas - anything that would add to the world and make it interesting and different. I also don't want to be different just for the sake of being different - I want things to seem like they make sense, so if it seems like I am just doing something for the sake of it, or it seems contrived or awkward, tell me, and we can try to think of something better.