My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

Well it's my game system, so Purify Water is as effective as I say, no more less. Nothing is set in stone either. Throughout play-testing my game I've adjusted spells and abilities up or down if they are too weak or too strong.

I have yet to decide to if the spell cleanses one gallon of water per success, ten gallons of water per success, or fifty gallons of water per success. The 90 to 100 gallon figure assumes I make the spell cleanse ten gallons of salt water per success, since an average acolyte is going to average two success per roll and be able to likely to be able to have the mana to cast the spell five or six times a day.

I do know that Purify Water takes two mana to cast because it's a two dot effect. Just for simplicity, one dot effects always cost one mana, and five dots effects cost five mana. That way the players (or myself) never has to pause the game to look up in the rules how much a spell costs to use.

A nobody acolyte with Willpower ●●●● who can barely cast the spell and has zero other tricks in his repertoire is going to have 18 mana available in his max pool and on average recharge 15 mana points a day.

The formula is a divine casters maximum mana pool equals
(Characters Willpower + the sum of all dots of divine magic) x 3

In theory, if a single character had maximum Willpower and five dots in all 13 divine spheres (which would be absurd), that's 225 mana.

Neshik who is among the most powerful divine casters in the small nation of Fumaya and has 51 points of mana and a rare and slow charging magical gem that holds 20 reserve points.

Every day at sunrise (or sunset if so inclined) the character rolls Charisma + Theology to pray for more mana or Wits + Enigmas to meditate for more mana, accruing 5 mana per success rolled. On average he recovers 15-20 points a day or he can put 3-4 points into his magic gem.

In theory the maximum for this is ten dice which would net the user an average of 50 mana point recovery a day. Neshik (who is a very heroic character) has seven dice for this roll, that means he averages about 18 mana points of recovery a day, so Neshik could probably cast the Purify Water spell 9 times a day without cutting into his reserves.

The average low ranking theurgist most likely to hire himself off to a ship's crew (or be assigned this irksome task by a superior) would probably have four or five dice for this averaging about 10-12 mana points of recovery per day. Which would mean if he did nothing else, he could cast the spell five to six times a day and averaging 20 gallons per spell or about 100 gallons a day.

Telescopes in D&D cost a whopping 1000 gold pieces making them the most expensive non-magical piece of gear an adventurer can buy. Now D&D has ludicrously high treasure inflation with high level adventurers routinely throwing down 50,000-100,000 gold pieces to buy advanced magic weapons. In my world, I don't have treasure piles that big. A low level magic sword costs 500 gold, not 2000, and the best magic swords cost 25,000 gold not 200,000. I can make telescopes cheaper too. Even then, telescopes would probably cost as much as a fully trained war horse. Not cheap. But I suppose compared to the cost of a system of fully manned watched towers, the cost of the telescopes isn't that big of a deal.

True, that's why I'm reconsidering my cylinder world. Though I haven't committed yet.

Dolphin couriers is a good idea. Hard to intercept.

It's be a relatively straight forward task for a skilled alchemist to make waterproof paper.

 

Oh yeah, signal towers are quite capable.
Flag semaphore (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_semaphore ) was regularly used at a speed of 20 words per minute, according to "The Boat Book" (US Navy, 1920).

Yes. And actually I haven't figured out yet if that makes things easier or harder as it is fundamentally different to the things I am used to.
A bit of both most likely.

 

We have to address more than that. To figure out what constitutes ethical treatment of elementals, we have to figure out what elementals want and need.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Elementals Conference

I have not included this yet, but I've mentioned in my setting that wild elementals pop up in sites that are saturated with magical energy.

Right now the PCs are systematically looting an cleared dungeon, but the site where the fought Guldur the Lich had a lot of magic spells cast by both side. So I will have some elementals pop up while the PCs are looting the place. Probably earth elementals or hybrid earth elementals since the chamber they fought Guldur in is deep underground.

My current thought is that wild elementals tend to take on the emotional resonance of the magic that spawns them. They were spawned by a magical battle so the elementals will probably be belligerent.

So far I got the four classics Earth, Fire, Water, and Air.

I got hybrid elementals. Hybrid elementals tend to be stronger than the classic elementals because they usually embody the strongest traits of both component elementals. An ooze elemental is going to have an earth elemental's robustness combined with a water elemental's high Dexterity.

Fire-Air: Lightning
Fire-Water: Steam
Fire-Earth: Magma
Water-Air: Hail
Water-Earth: Ooze
Earth-Air: Dust

I got inverted elements, also nicknamed undead elementals. Regular and hybrid elementals either act randomly or mimic the emotions of the magic that spawned them. Inverted elementals are irreparably tainted by the Void, so they are ALWAYS in a murderous mood. Back in the Second Unmaking, some Demon Lords included inverted elementals in their armies, but even for powerful infernalist mages, commanding inverted elementals is like herding cats.

Inverted Fire: Ash. They freeze creatures to death by stealing their heat.
Inverted Water: Salt. They sicken and kill creatures by dehydrating them.
Inverted Earth: Dust. They like to break things and only attack the living if they try to protect their possessions.
Inverted Air: Vacuum. They take the breathable air away, making them the hardest to fight.

In theory, there is enough water and earth around and Guldur had a busy forge (fire) and there is breathable air so I could justify almost any elemental here. I'll probably run with Ooze Elementals since the dungeon room they fought Guldur in had a lot of mud and water puddles deep underground.

Right now elementals serve three roles.
1) Magical pawn/power source
2) Gimmicky monster encounter
3) Random Monster encounter that could be used as a deus ex machina

There is a fourth role I have ambitions for
4) Mind blowing conspiracy/mystery.

So recap of relevant grand history.

The Nine became the gods of the world when they overthrew and slew Turoch. Turoch and the Nine used the elemental plane to enable life itself to exist in the world.

In Cosmology. The Material plane is a cylinder of land, sea, fire, and air. The core of the cylinder is the elemental plane. In theory an infinite forever self replenishing realm of all four elements.

Beyond the Cylinder is the Void where undead draw their power and demons are spawned. Above the Cylinder is Ethereal Realm where the Nine dwell with the souls of the honored dead.

So the Nine embody the nine D&D alignments thus imprinting the trichotomy of Good, Neutrality, and Evil and the trichotomy of Chaos, Neutrality, and Law on the world.

Magical scholars and theologians agree that creation as we understand it is composed of varying quantities of water, earth, fire, and air. Most assume that the elements are an impersonal force and elementals are mindless entities.

Most are ignorant. The Nine are unaware of this. Mortals don't know this. Any mortal that postulates this would be called a crackpot. Turoch may or may not have known.

The elemental plane has a conscious awareness.

To use a metaphor. Think of a human body. Human bodies are home to millions of tiny microscopic organisms. These microscopic organisms do not care when their host human is happy or sad. They do not notice when their human falls in love or grieves a loss. For all we know, the microbes living inside us live rich dramatic lives that we don't notice.

I haven't figured out if the elemental plane is to going to be one conscious mind, four conscious minds (one for Fire, Earth, Air, and Water) or a massive hive mind.

I have some general thoughts.

Alien but Theoretically Relatable

The first is that I want the elemental mind(s) to be very alien to human sensibilities, but I want them to make sense internally.

They don't see things as good or evil. They don't see things as lawful or chaotic. They will frame things in elemental terms.

"You are acting very Fiery right now!"

In short, I want them to have blue and orange morality which always intrigued me but is very hard to write.

Growing and Evolving

The second thing is that the grand elemental consciousness was very primitive when the world was young, not much more sentient than an insect. Every since the First Unmaking destabilized the Elemental Realm thousands of years ago, the Elemental Plane has been becoming more advanced and more self aware.

As the grand consciousness of the Elemental Plane grows, the actions of "wild" elementals are slowly becoming less random. But the thing is that wild elementals are changing their behavior very slowly. Given that elementals are largely taken for granted, no one is noticing the behavioral changes.



The hard part is trying to figure out what elementals want and what they would strive for. Elementals do not reproduce, at least not in a way analogous to life as we know it. Elementals do not eat, at least not in a way analogous to life as we know it.

Elementals pop up in the material plane in the wake of magical events for a few minutes, a few hours, a few months at most. Then they disappear into the material plane. I have yet to decide if the elementals are eternal beings that spend 99% of their time outside of the Material Plane or if they literally are born and die in these very short life cycles, like a Meseeks.

If elementals are immortal and indestructible, they would find being harnessed to a magical construct for a few decades annoying. If elementals are short-lived and mortal, they would probably find being harnessed to a magical construct invigorating because it extends their life, or torturous because it extends their life (like Meseeks).



I have a lot of different ways to go. Take Fire Elementals.

-Fire elementals maybe want to give everyone hugs. They want to share light and warmth and they are unaware of the damage and destruction they cause.
-The bigger a fire elemental it gets, the more intelligent it gets. A giant forest fire has the intellect of a super genius but is acutely aware that it's going to run out of fuel and die and is terrified of this. A small fire is too weak minded and ignorant to realize it's impending mortality.
-Fire elementals long to be part of the elemental plane. The material plane is cold and unwelcoming. When summoned to the material plane, fire elementals burn stuff because they are lashing out at this cold and harsh place.
-Fire elementals find the elemental plane boring and revel in chances to visit the material plane, experimenting with the way fire reacts to different things.
-Fire elementals require fuel (which is sort of earthy, especially wood) and oxygen (which is part of air). Air and Earth are friends. Water is Evil.
-Fire elementals desire to go home to the elemental planes. Water is a friend because it snuffs them out of the material plane and sends them home.

I don't need to go deep into all the earth elementals motivations but one clear trait of earth is that it usually doesn't move. Earth elementals could relish the opportunity to move, or they could hate it. I can just imagine them as the grumpy old man of elementals saying "Hey you get off my lawn!" to anything making vibrations near them.

My Holy Grail of fluff is to figure out what the giant consciousness of the Elemental Plane actually wants and then figure out how lesser elementals express this. Do all elementals subtly advance the Elemental Plane's goals or is the Elemental Plane a schizophrenic mess with any elementals operating at cross purposes?

 

Obviously you need a SCIENCE! lesson.

There's a heretical false science notion that 2/3 of the human body is made up of water. That is clearly false. Human bodies maintain a core temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 37 degrees Celsius.

This wouldn't happen without the spiritual essence of fire. Fire requires oxygen, humans require oxygen. Humans breathe to feed their inner fires. Fire needs fuel. Most fuel comes from the earth. Humans eat to feed their inner fires. Humans drink water to make sure their inner fires doesn't utterly kill them.

As mentioned in the Parts of the Soul post, all living creatures have Heart's Fire keeping them alive. Living things need all four elements but they mostly need fire. The Void is anti-life. That's why the Void is cold.

This is grade school stuff. Hate to be patronizing.

That said, fire elementals have more trouble manifesting in their pure form than the other three elementals. They probably relish the rare opportunity to truly be themselves. A fire elemental might enjoy being a lighthouse fire

Earth elementals are probably the most common elemental seen in Scarterra because of the whole Terra thing.

-During the First Unmaking, most of the fighting was Earth versus Water. Nowadays earth elementals could avoid water like the plague because it's sort of their nemesis or they could rush sources of water to try in vain to smother it.

-Earth may be opposed to Air in theory, and in the rare instances you have air and earth elementals in the same area, but earth and air cannot really hurt each other much.

There was an animistic legend I did love. A shaman wanted to create more lasting settlements. He needed to learn the secret of building lasting structures from stone. The stone said he would share his secret if the shaman helped him fly. "We don't get to fly, the closest thing we have is when we roll off cliffs and crash into the ground (which is how we reproduce). Eventually the shaman figured out that stone arrowheads shot from bows was the closet thing he could give stones to flying.

Going along this motiff, earth elementals may climb to high cliffs and jump off them...for fun. Falling is new and falling cannot really hurt them.


-An earth elementals in the Material plane could appreciate stillness and quiet, lashing out at any living creature disturbing their tranquility.

-Earth elementals might relish the opportunity to move and do the equivalent of running and jumping and playing. They could love noise. The fact that they might break valuable objects or injure living people is lost on them.

-Any elemental could have a love of art. What an elemental aesthetics appreciates us probably do not fit the aesthetics of human. Earth elementals have more opportunity to make changes on the environment than others. They could stack rocks, arrange soil into interesting patterns, or break apart rocks and structures to observe the cracked remains.

-An earth elemental on the ocean floor of Scaraqua could find the existence surrounded by water as torture and lash out at every living creature in reach. An earth elemental on the ocean floor could instead revel in the novelty of being surrounded by water and enjoy wading around the sea floor.

-I don't see an earth elemental bothered by the element of fire. A fire elemental has enough primal connection to the elemental pane that a fire and earth elemental could hurt each other, but an earth elemental can wade through normal fire with no damage at all. I cannot imagine most earth elementals would be bothered or pleased about being hot or cold, unless you get to magma heat levels, but at that point you have a magma elemental which is a different species.

 

Good reasoning even though elementals and most spirits are technically corporeal. Okay, so elementals officially live mayfly lives. That means any magical item that uses an elemental as a power battery is going to be unnatural. The elemental might relish continued existence or it might be feel like an elderly Meeseeks.

I will consider this. If elementals have mood swings, this still doesn't dodge the fact that I need to figure out what elementals want.

Since Nami is the weather goddess, if elementals influence the weather Nami might be the first of the Nine to realize that the elemental plane is growing a consciousness. Nami is also the goddess of free will. If Nami found out that elementals were developing a will, she would probably keep her mouth shut because her eight siblings would probably want to put a kibash on self aware elementals.

 

Interesting thought, because the Elemental Plane is what puts the material in the Material Plane.

In theory if the Elemental Plane destroyed the Material Plane, the Elemental Plane would suddenly be butting up against the Void directly.

The Void and the Elemental Plane might reach a new equilibrium with the Void destroying at exactly the same rate that the Elemental Plane creates. More likely the Void would consume the Elemental Plane and leave a true void of Nothing behind.

I suppose another alternative is that the Material Plane would still be in tact, but elementals would scourge the surface of most life...again.

That could work. The First Unmaking and Second weren't random. It was precipitated by dragons' hubris. During a period of constant national wars, A Dragon Queen tried to harness the power of the Elemental Plane to control all fresh water on Scarterras and hold the other Dragon kingdoms hostage. The magical feedback caused the Elemental Plane to stir into conscious and by accident unleashed millions of rogue wild elementals. Normally elementals die after after several hours, a few weeks at the most. This elemental upheaval lasted decades.

The Second Unmaking was precipitated by elves' hubris. During a period of constant national wars, a Elven King sent an expedition to the Void for a portion of Turoch's body to forge a weapon. The Nine became gods by forging a weapon or tool out of a portion of Turoch's corpse. The King thought he could become the Tenth if he could pull this feat. Instead he accidentally knocked a huge hole in the Barrier which allowed millions of demons to spill forth from the Void.

Whether or not a Third Unmaking involves a conscious Elemental Plane or it involves something else, it should probably have it's flash point occur as the result of a human monarch doing something selfish and short-sighted for political gain.

One of the reasons humans have such a short lifespan compared to elves and dragons is that the Nine hoped that the short life span would prevent any single human from living long enough to gain the power to destroy the world.

If I want to combine a misguided malevolence of the Elemental Plane with human hubris, I suppose I could have the Elemental Plane start recruiting. These humans (or demihumans) would almost certainly wield some impressive elemental based powers, but they probably go insane pretty quick as the Elemental Plane's alien outlook would break them. I suppose over time Elementalists could gradually become more stable and functional as the Elemental Plane grows in sophistication.

In order to not figuratively (or literally) burn up. An elementalist human would have to develop a lifestyle and outlook that is in sync with the elemental power coursing through them.

I will ponder this and consider what an Elementalist philosophy would look like. Somewhere half way between the incomprehensible alien mindset of the Elemental Plane and the relatively intuitive system of D&D alignments. The goal is to create very weird, but ultimately comprehensible.

That could work in somewhere. Right now might notion is that elementals mimic the emotions of the spell-casters who accidentally spawned them, but they could be gradually becoming more destructive.

Elementals spawned on the site of a magical battle are likely to be violent. Elementals spawned on the site of a circus that uses a lot of magic to perform their act are likely to be playful.

So when Neshik spent two weeks making healing potions he could have left behind a earth elementals that compulsively stacks rocks.

The hard part is figuring out what elementals would do in an area where magic is routine. Since they derive their emotional energy from a wide variety of people doing a wide variety of tasks, the elementals would probably be hard to pigeonhole. I imagine elementals are a frequent nuisance around wizard schools or theurgist training monasteries. To an apprentice wizard or theurgist, "go banish that elemental." is probably viewed similarly to "go shovel the horse stables."

I remember my university brought in puppies during Final Exams week to de-stress the students. They had to start rotating puppies out because the puppies were picking up on the humans' stress and getting stressed out themselves!

A large magic school with 100+ students (of which Scarterra has one, small schools with 12-20 students at any given time are the norm) would probably be best to stagger final examinations. If 100 students are dealing with Final Exam jitters at the same time, the elementals that followed in the wake of their practical magic exams would probably turn the school grounds into a smoking crater.

Along those lines, most magical schools, coven headquarters, priestly training monasteries, and the like would best be located far from large population centers. Fumaya has a training monastery for the priesthood and it's on a small island.

A belligerent elemental of any type could be very dangerous. A playful or curious elemental would usually be less dangerous unless it was a fire elemental. Unattended fires are probably taboo around magic schools. They would probably be fairly cold buildings.

 

Should I make a Scarsubterra?
(And does it need it a better name than "Scarsubterra"?)

Inspiration from Forgotten Realms

Scarsubterra would almost certainly be similar to the Underdark of Forgotten Realms. Forgotten Realms is the "official" D&D setting. Most D&D games I've witnessed are home brew settings that are 95% compliant with Forgotten Realms, the other 5% is whatever the DM likes.

My players and most of my potential players and audience are pretty familiar with Forgotten Realms, but I don't want to adhere to it too closely. Among other things I don't like Drow much.

The basic tenets of the Forgotten Realms Underdark are
1-It's underground and surprisingly vast
2-There is generally a lot of magic (partially to explain how things survive)
3-A disproportionate number of the denizens are evil because evil was driven underground long ago, except for the Myconids. If you can assure them you aren't a cop, they'll hook you up.

A for point 1, I know there is going to be some livable area underground but it's not necessarily surprisingly vast. Goblins, kobolds, and dwarves do like the underground, but right now, all three of these underground loving rely on drawing resources from the surface world. If I made Scarscubterra it's own separate realm, I could have tribes of goblins, kobolds, and dwarves that never venture above ground.

As for point 2, my world is less magical than Forgotten Realms, but it still has lots of magic. I can add other things, but Life Stones and the Elemental Plane can both be used to justify SCIENCE! explanations for "How do these large societies survive here?"


Point 3 has the most story potential. Void Demons are the most evil and dangerous creatures in my setting, but Void Demons don't come from underground, they come from the polar Near Void. There is nothing to stop a Void Demon from going underground, but I'd prefer not to make Void Demons the main problem below.

Fortunately I have lots of other options for underground evils.

Greymoria gets miffed that few mortals love her so she creates new races. Then the new races turn from her and Greymoria casts them out. She has to cast them out somewhere, it might as well be underground.

Phidas could try to build a power base of worshipers underground too. Maylar might get in on the fun, but he's content to "test" mortals in Scarterra or be the Mother of Sharks in Scaraqua. I'm not sure Maylar would have more than peripheral involvement in Scarsubterra.


I could have the Nine collectively ban enemies underground. The Nine basically have one true collective enemy Void Demons. I don't want to put too many Void Demons underground but they do have two potential groups of beings that are not necessarily enemies, but there are persona non grata.

Before the Divine Rebellion, the Nine were not the ONLY servants of Turoch, They were the strongest of Turoch's servants. Some of Turoch's lesser servants joined the Nine. Some of Turoch's lesser servants died during the Divine Rebellion. Some of Turoch's servants played Swiss. The Nine don't really like these guys but they have better things to do than wipe them out. The could suggest these guys go live underground.

Who were these lesser servants of Turoch? Well two working theories are that these creatures became the ancestors of the aberration-type monsters (beholders, aboleths, illithids) and/or some of these became the ancestors of the Fair Folk.


Not every exiled group living underground needs to have earned the ire of the gods. The losing side of a mortal driven war could be literally driven underground. That is sort of what happened to goblins and kobolds, especially goblins. No one likes them, and they are not particularly powerful so they have to live in places no one else wants to go. Frequently, that place is underground. But I could justify subterranean humans or demi-humans too (although Drow are done to death).


Inspiration from Hollow Earth

There are other sources I can pull inspiration from. Hollow Earth is a scientific theory (essentially that the Earth is mostly hollow), but it had a huge impact on early science fiction adventures. Hollow Earth sometimes has ferocious dinosaurs, magma monsters, lizard people, Morlocks, underground human kingdoms with beautiful princesses, etc.

One thing that Hollow Earth frequently portrays in fiction is an underground proxy sun that enables life in Hollow Earth.

I kind of have something similar. The Elemental Plane exists in the Core of the Earth. Despite it's relatively small (apparent) size, it holds near infinite elemental power.

Since the elemental energy of fire, according to SCIENCE! is what enables photosynthesis and the Elemental plane can also bring in fresh oxygen, Scarsubterra could maintain life almost as rich as Scarterra and Scaraqua.



Inspiration from Faerie Tales

A lot of Faerie tales have the Fair Folk living underground. The most obvious examples I can come up with are the 1986 movie Labrynth and the Artemis Fowl series. Even then there is some hints elsewhere. A lot of trolls and goblins are creatures of the underground. Mushrooms are involved in Fae lore a lot and mushrooms are considered part of underground lore. When Alice first enters Wonderland she falls a long distance. In the Disney movies they call it Underland.

My current idea is to make the Fae Realm a parallel universe, but I could make it a physical place underground.

I'm actually going to buy a digital copy of Labrynth, I've only seen small clips of it.

The Nine Underground

In Scarterra: the Nine are pretty much evenly matched in influence and power.

In Scaraqua: Mera, Greymoria, and Korus are the main powers. Maylar is medium powerful, and the other five have fairly minor influence.

Assuming the Nine are roughly equal in power and they are not infinite beings, the major powers underground would be Hallisan, Phidas, Khemra, and Nami, with Maylar as a medium power and Mera, Greymoria, and Korus would be bit players.


Unless I decide that the love and worship of mortals makes the Nine stronger and not just makes them feel good. If that's the case, then the three chaotic gods, and the three evil gods would be slowly weakening relative to their peers. I'm not sure if i want to make the Nine's power worship dependent, but that is a pondering for another day.

 

Pretty much the situation in my campaigns.
As interesting and fun worldbuilding is (also the reason why I immensely enjoy this thread ), I prefer spending my time on writing stories instead of building a world. Most of the world will never be visited (or even known about) by my players as they are not _that_ invested in the world. I am pretty sure none of them can name more than two kingdoms, two deities, or more than ten races/monsters. I would be a bit sad if I made up 60 pages of info about a world and nobody reads it. Or we only play a few sessions in it and nobody ever sees even a quarter of the cool stuff.
(And then there is all the plot/world holes I would surely build in. )

That's what I like about Faerûn. It is generic enough that if you know The Lord of the Rings or similar fantasy you basically know how to act within the world. And it is fairly consistent within itself.

Btw. in case you didn't know (I didn't) the 5th edition tuned down magic a bit. Magical items in particular are a lot less numerous and harder to obtain.


Anyway, back to your Underdark:
I think while it wouldn't hurt your world, your world also probably doesn't need it. At least not like the one in Faerûn.
I have to read through your last post again and think a bit more about it.

 

It didn't live up to the hype of the cult following in my opinion. It's a fascinating movie from a technical perspective because this was pre-CGI. Every set piece was constructed and every weird creature had at team of puppeteers behind them. The story was a little weak.

Though this movie sparked brainstorming. Along with a lot of other fantasy lore I've been reading or watching, I am now sorely tempted to considerably rework goblins fit into my fantasy world. Maybe I want to go more old school European folklore on goblins (scheming, treasure hungry, enigmatic magical beings that live in mysterious underground realms) and use less of D&D/Warhammer lore where goblins are basically pathetic runty orcs that rely on large numbers of expendable troops.

I am world building a whole bunch of stuff that will probably never come up in my game, but I can use it for a different game or some fiction writing. But mostly, I do extensive world building because I like doing this for its own sake.

So far, my players have been doing a good job. At the very least, if I say "She's a priestess of Greymoria." My players (well Neshik and Aranil's players') at least know "Greymoria is a somewhat childish Neutral Evil patroness of magic, undead, and monsters."

Sure I wrote multiple pages of information on how Greymoria's priesthood is set up, what her basic values are, and historical myths where Greymoria is prominent that the players don't know or care about, but at least they have the basics of my setting down. And, since Neshik's player decided to play a high ranking priest of Khemra, at the very reach he read all the fluff I wrote about Khemra and he draws on the lore I created for Khemra in game without me prompting him. The fact that his player cannot rattle off the inner workings of the other eight priesthoods is not a problem. His character only has two dots of Theology, so his character doesn't know that much more about the other priesthoods than the player. That's fine. If need to spoonfeed setting knowledge to a players I can ask any player to roll Intelligence + Arcana, Intelligence + History, Intelligence + Politics, or Intelligence + Theology to see if their characters know the relevant lore, and then I tell them. If you want your character to know random facts, you need to max out their Intelligence.

The players can dive as deep into my lore as they choose, or not.

I've skimmed the core rule books but that's it. My point of reference in 2nd edition and 3.5 ed, two games I played extensively both as a DM and as a player.

I realize I don't have to have an Underdark here, but this whole thread is about doing things I don't really have to do.

Is "Underearth" is better than "Scarsubterra"? Yes. But not by enough.

That is sort of assumed. Especially if the Underdark is a separate Realm with a capital "R". Even an underground realm with a small "r" should be mysterious and unknown.

No one in Scaraqua has a complete map of Scarterra. No one in Scarterra has a complete map of Scaraqua. Much less, you are not going to find many sages who can accurately provide political information about the rival factions in other realms.

"Umm, Sharks and Squids?"

I like the way you think.

I think the way you think.

Not sure we are in sync for this one....

I don't like the nymphomaniac, spider worshiping ebon skinned freaks of official D&D lore. I prefer the Dark Elves of Warhammer fantasy, but I toned them a down a lot for my setting. My Dark Elves are ruthless evil monsters, but they are pragmatic evil monsters. They don't bathe in the blood of their enemies, they don't casually work slaves to death, and they don't practice torture for fun. They do evil acts when they profit from these evil acts, they don't perform evil for the Lulz.

Easy to do. I created full stats for aboleths and beholders for my game system. I have written extensive lore for beholders and wrote a few paragraphs of minor adaptations of Forgotten Realms canon lore for aboleths.

Illithids/Mind Flayers remain in my "Maybe File" of monsters. I haven't written any lore for Mind Flayers yet, so there is no effort wasted.

Good thinking, but I always figured Myconids were created mainly to be comic relief, so it's hard to picture them being serious movers and shakers.

Your suggestion could easily be better, but I cannot really see how this is simpler.

It's simpler to create an alternate plane or existence than to put faeries underground?

The reason why I questioned making the Fae Realm a parallel is I realized that the Fae World has sort of become the odd man out among other planes.

The Elemental Plane is below Scarterra. The Aetherial Plane is above Scarterra. The Void is beyond Scarterra. The Astral Plane is around Scarterra. Conversely the Fae Plane doesn't really fit into clear spatial reasoning (though 21st century fantasy/sci-fi audiences are well accustomed to parallel universes though this would confuse ancient and medieval theologians).

Well reasoned, I'll think about it. I guess it really doesn't matter if a plane is above, below, or parallel to the Material Plane. The only thing that needs to be concrete is what the PCs and NPCs can do about the train.

-Travel to the Aetherial Realm with magic is possible, but it's very hard. A mortal needs specialized ●●●●● level magic combined with expensive spell components and lengthy set up. Alternatively a mortal needs to perform so many heroic deeds that one of the Nine's most powerful minions is impressed enough to pen a portal for mortals. I toyed with the idea of letting mortals open temporary passage to the Nine's private regions of the Aetherial Realm without casting spells but setting up extremely lengthy, expensive, and time consuming religious rituals that have to be performed perfectly to the tiniest detail.

While not easy to bring in spirits from the Aetherial Realm to the mortal plane, it's considerably easier to bring Aetherial spirits to the Material Plane. Even ●● magic can pull off this meet (though the spirits summoned at low levels are very weak).

Some spirits are powerful enough to cross over to the material plane without help, but they usually can only manifest during specific circumstances. Spirits cannot pop up anywhere they want in the material plane, they have to manifest around people or places that resonate with their True Name in some way. Neshik's allied spirit of the dawn and can only enter the Material Plane, at dawn. She can only materialize near Neshik or around Khemra temples and shrines.


-It is impossible for mortals to travel to the elemental plane. But it is pretty easy for a mortal to call the Elemental Plane into the Material Plane. If a spell-caster uses ● to summon a patch of fog or light a campfire, she is technically tapping into the Elemental Plane itself. A conjurer with ●●● magic can summon elementals provided she sets up a lot of props and regents first. To "poof" enslaved elementals into the Material plane spontaneously on the fly takes ●●●●● magic.


-I have not made up my mind if there is a short cut to the Void or Near Void. I'm leaning towards "no". Mortals (or undead spell-casters) cannot poof themselves to the Void. They have to travel there. Void Demons escape the Near Void towards the north or south pole then swim or fly hundreds of miles to get to a populated area. They don't have short cuts either. MAYBE I'll let mortal and undead infernalist spell-casters be able to mystically open short cuts to let Void Demons "fast travel" some how. I haven't figured out what infernalists can or cannot do.

All I know is that infernalists are mortals or undead who conspire directly with Void Demons, something not even Greymoria or Maylar would do. Phidas for his part, is terrified because Turoch's last words were supposedly "I'm coming back, and I'm killing you first, Phidas!" That's why even Phidas' rivals are okay with Phidas being the primary of the Barrier to the Void.

The video game, X-Men, Rise of the Apocalypse had mediocre reviews, but I loved the promo "There is an evil so powerful, even evil fears it." That's what the Void represents.


-The Astral Plane doesn't have much depth. As of right now the only official thing PCs and NPCs can do with it is utilize extra dimensional pockets. D&D has a staple magical item, the Bag of Holding. A Bag of Holding looks like an ordinary bag but it has a ludicrously large carrying capacity. In my metaphysics, Bags of Holding store items in pockets of the Astral Plane.

If and when I add psionics to my world, the Astral Plane will become very important, but as of now it's a "Realm of Hand Wave-y justifications for magic spells."

Originally I was assuming that all elementals are equally smart (or equally dumb) or that the bigger elementals are smarter than the smaller elementals.

Void Demons operate on the principle that Bigger is Better. The bigger a Void Demon gets, not only does it get stronger but it also gets smarter and has more sophisticated powers. The eight Demon Lords were larger than the mightiest dragons. In the "present" day, the largest demons that are capable of escaping the Void are Death Demons which are roughly 10-12 feet tall.

Your rational for making smaller elementals more intelligent is very intriguing. Especially tiny magical items with a mind of their own.

Again, I'm not sure I like Myconids as much as you do.

It is a good idea to create separate Hollow Earths as opposed to one giant Ueber Realm. Among other things, it makes world building more practical. I could compartmentalize Hollow Earths the way we crowd sourced concepts for the Border Baronies earlier.

It's easier for planning RPG sessions at least. I thought the players would eventually get tired of Fumaya, but the they seem to like putting roots down. Neshik's player at least, wants to pay back all the NPCs that helped them out earlier and cement their friendships/alliances. I don't have to figure out what the Underdark looks like in the whole world, just Fumaya.

Unless Fumaya was destined to be sock shaped country above a sock shaped Hollow Earth, Fumaya is probably going to hover over 3-5 separate Hollow Earths and these Hollow Earths would extend below other nations too.


The terrain charts @pendrake and @Nazqua came up with would be great for a Warhammer/Scarterra crossover but it's not a great fit for my RPG which focuses on individuals.

Since I don't use a grid map in battles, terrain doesn't matter much, apart from maybe setting up a scene.

I've played a lot of RPGs and I've read RPG books for games I'll probably never play. Usually a combat "round" is about five seconds, and that is what I'm currently using. In D&D 2nd edition, a combat round was a full minute.

"You mean I can only swing my sword once per minute?"

No, 2nd edition assumes that during combat the characters are constantly moving around, advancing and backing off, circling each other, making feints, etc. The single attack a character makes per round represents the best opening that character can find.

5 second combat rounds is simpler, but I'm not sure if it's better. Svetlana has especially repetitive combat rounds.

Round 1 "I swing my axe at the nearest skeleton."

Round 2 "I swing my axe at the two nearest skeletons."

Round 6 "I have a wound penalty now, so I'm swinging my axe at one skeleton."

Round 9 "I'm healed now, and they turned away from me to target Neshik, so I'm attcking the three nearest skeletons."

With five second combat rounds, it's not practical to incorporate the terrain much. I'm thinking of extending combat rounds to a full minute but I would need to rework how defensive actions work. With longer combat rounds, it would be easier for Svetlana's player to say, "I parkour off a stalagmite to pounce on a skeleton from above crushing it the weight of an large fully armored half-orc."

Shadow Run, a game I never played but I read about extensively allows characters two actions per round, maximum of one attack. That might be a reasonable system to adapt.

But that's a tangent I should probably bring up with my players and not you guys.


Along those lines, initially I wanted to incorporate weapon reach into my combat rules. Under certain circumstances, longer weapons are a great advantage, but if the opponents close to extreme close range, having a longer weapon becomes a liability. It was irksome to keep track of.

Aranil's player pointed out that since our game focuses on small scale skirmishes, an opponent with a long weapon is going to be constantly trying to move into positions where his weapon reach is an advantage and an opponent with a shorter weapon is going to be constantly trying to close the difference. At the end of the day, it can be settled with simple opposed Dexterity + Melee rolls rather than make a roll for each positioning attempt.

 

Specific Game Question. Incorporating a Riddle

(Skip the first 58 seconds to dodge the paid ad)

Spoiler: Spoiler tag just in case my players read this thread

The riddle is that Neshik does not know who is or where he came from.

So at character creation, Neshik's player built his character loaded with Merits and Flaws. He was intrigued by Favored Souls (a 2 point Merit) and was enamored by Eclipsed Touch (a 5 point Merit which requires Favored Soul). Neshik's player also gave Neshik the Amnesia Flaw. He doesn't remember his childhood. His memories start with "My name is Neshik, I'm a adult gnome, I am Eclipse Touched, I am amazingly good at healing magic, moderately good at enchanting items, skilled at alchemy, and skilled herbalism." That's it. He has basic knowledge but doesn't know his origins.

Favored Souls are divine spell casters who are born with their powers rather than train into them (conventional theurgists). Favored Souls have two advantages over conventional theurgists.

1) A theurgist who violates her deity's basic precepts can have her magic weakened as a warning to behave. Favored Souls do not suffer from this. No matter a Favored Soul does, the Nine cannot take away what was given.
2) Favored Souls pay the same experience costs to gain new magic power just like theurgists, but they can develop new powers with less down time spent training. They just sort of wake up with new powers if they want it hard enough.

Eclipsed Touched is a five point Merit, because Favored Souls among the priesthood of Khemra are VERY rare. Compared to other Keepers of Khemra, Eclipsed Touched are fast-tracked to promotions in the temple hierarchy, freedom of movement, and Eclipse Touched can freely propose amendments to the Keepers' traditions and laws (which is normally very hard to do in the hidebound group that is the Keepers). The latter of which means the other Keepers are going to really lick their boots.

I mentioned a while back that there is a nine-year zodiac based on the Nine. Each of the Nine has an uptick in Favored Soul births during their zodiac year, but Khemra's favored souls are normally ONLY born during this time. Neshik is the soul exception. I haven't decided when to make his birthday, but I'm probably going to make him born during Mera's zodiac year, because Neshik has a bunch of Mera-ish traits. Kind, generous, modest, gregarious, adept at healing, and gnomes are arguably Mera's favored people.

A lot of Favored Souls are the half-spirit children of couplings between humanoids and spirits. Khemra has forbidden these couplings among her spirit minions. It's not forbidden on punishment of death or anything like that. It didn't occur to Khemra that one of her spirit minions would break this rule. Neshik's father was a low ranking gnome Keeper in the nation of Khemarok. Neshik's mother was a Healing Spirit of Khemra associated with the dawn. We'll name her Dawn until I come up with something better.

Khemra did not punish the forbidden lovers (unless you count taking their son away as punishment, which I guess most people would consider a punishmnet). Neshik was raised in an isolated Khemra monastery by surrogate parents then Neshik was put in a magical sleep for about two hundred years. He woke up not having aged a day from his magical sleep unknowing that his biological gnome father and surrogate human parents are long dead.

Favored Souls, Eclipsed included, usually have a spirit guide. Reluctantly Khemra allowed Dawn to be Neshik's spirit guide provided he not tell her son who she really is.

But there is no point in having this backstory if the players never discover this!

So far Dawn showed up recently in my RPG for the first time. She appeared as a nameless generic Khemra spirit of the Dawn at the end of the PC's dungeon adventure. Dawn healed the rarified wound Neshik received and gave them magically enchanted fire gems. Neshik's fire gem serves as an emergency battery of mana. Neshik's companions got fire gems that let their favored melee weapons become flaming magic weapons for a couple minutes a day.

So I need to hint at Neshik's origin without being too obvious about it. As long as the mystery is solved BEFORE my game is retired, the longer it takes Neshik to solve this riddle, the bigger the payoff probably will be.

First Hint (already given): There is a Khemra spirit specifically interested in Neshik that has advanced healing powers and is moderately good at enchanting items.

Second Hint (upcoming): The next time Neshik takes shelter with Keepers, other Keepers are going to comment that fire gems are rare and Neshik's fire gem is "the largest such gem I've ever seen!". Maybe mention in passing the superstition that fire gems are formed by Khemra's tears and Khemra rarely cries. (the gems are actually formed from Dawn's tears).


I plan to have Dawn show up again multiple times. Whenever Khemra needs to send a spirit to Neshik for whatever reason, it will probably be Dawn. She's not going to be giving away treasure each time, but she can provide healing magic or advice. She could also just provide words of encouragement and little else.

I could also use Dawn as a very lazy storytelling device. If Dawn asks Neshik and his companions to do a specific quest on behalf of Khemra, the players will probably say "Yes."

In theory I could even use Dawn as a damsel in distress if one of Khemra's enemies tried to threaten her. It's much rarer than enslaving an elemental in a magical item, but spirits can also be bound to magical items against their will. Dawn is a healing spirit first and foremost, so she could be used as the power source for a magical item of healing.


Potential Hint: Dawn's sole appearance to the party was to give them treasure. One thing a DM advice video once suggested was to have a deity reward a player with a physical enhancement instead of treasure. Assuming the PCs impress Khemra enough to justify a second round of divine rewards, Dawn could cure Neshik of his Infirmity Flaw (which means he has nine health levels instead of the usual ten). This seems maternal to me.

For fairness Dawn would need to give the other PCs something, but it would probably be something less intimate. Alternatively, if everyone got a physical enhancement, the other PCs would have painful transitions to their new stronger bodies and Neshik would have a pleasant transition. Though the players could assume it's because Neshik is especially favored by Khemra and the other PCs are not.


Potential Hint: Neshik already knows that Eclipse Touched gnomes are rare. He could find out from a friendly Keeper scholar that all Eclipse Touched gnomes in the past were from the nation of Khemarok. Neshik was born there (though he didn't stay there long) and there might be archival evidence that he could follow for clues.

This would be a little dry on the storytelling front though. Basically a long series of Neshik's player making Intelligence + Investigation rolls in a library for weeks while Aranil and Svetlana grow very bored. I suppose if Neshik pulled his rank, he could order an underling to comb the Khemarok archives for birth records of gnomes for weeks on end.

Spoiler: Neshik could talk to an oracle, most oracles speak in riddles

I'm open to more hints and reveals. To be an oracle, a divine spell-caster needs to get ●●●●● of Divination magic or be born an oracle. People who are born as oracles have the level five power of Divination (ask your deity a question, get a cryptic answer), but they lack the 1 through 4 powers. Some oracles have zero magical powers apart from their single Divination power. Some spirits are oracles too, but spirit oracles are much rarer than mortal oracles.

None of Khemra's oracles will reveal Neshik's true origin though I suppose if Neshik's player decided to sink 50 experience points (for reference, the characters get about 7 or 8 experience points a session) to raise his humble Divination ● to a mighty Divination ●●●●● I could let him ask Khemra and get an honest (but cryptic answer. Presumably if he's worked that hard to become an oracle, he's earned it.

I do not expect Neshik's player to do that. He expressed some interest in picking up Divination ●●● because that lets him thwart invisibility magic (and Etch and his minions loved invisibility magic which was irksome to the players). He wants to raise his Hearth Wisdom skill to ●●●●● so he can make potions better and hunt regent better. And Hearth Wisdom is good for Purification and Plant magic which he also wants to raise to ●●● (both are currently ●). He wants to raise Neshik's Strength and Stamina so he can wear heavier armor. He wants to raise his Magic Crafts from ●●● to ●●●● so he can make his own permanent magic items (especially armor). That's well over 50 experience points all combined.


Okay, so Neshik probably isn't going to be able to magic the riddle of his secret origins by himself, and Khemra's Oracles are not going to tell him. He COULD find out with the Oracle of one of the rest of the Nine.

Nami always has her nose in Khemra's business. Nami knows ALL about Neshik's backstory, but while she kind of wants to embarass Khemra, she's not going to tell Neshik outright. She wants to watch him struggle with it first. What sort of cryptic hint would a Nami oracle give? Should a Nami oracle provide hints without being asked? Nami doesn't tell all her minions everything, but Nami doesn't have to use a full on oracle. She can tell a generic Rover or Nami spirit to spill the beans in whatever direct or enigmatic fashion she desires.


Hallisan and Phidas are close enough to Khemra that their Oracles might be able to convey that Neshik has woken up from about 200 years of magical sleep on Khemra's orders. They wouldn't know why this happened.


Zarthus and Maylar are close enough to Nami to know that their oracles could know that Nami has taken special interest in Neshik. They don't know why.


Neshik is not important enough to draw the attention of Korus, Mera, or Greymoria. Oracles of these three deities would not be able to find out anything about Neshik's mysterious past unless Neshik did some amazing service to Korus, Mera, or Greymoria or very large monetary donation.

Given Greymoria's interest in the SCIENCE! of magical power, a Greymoria oracle might be able to tell Neshik is half-spirit.
Korus might have enough of a nature sense for a Korus Oracle to deduce that Neshik is a Rip Van Winkle.
A Mera oracle might be able to tell that Neshik was born during Mera's zodiac year.

What are some hints that I could use that would be helpful but not too obvious?

Any thoughts on what would be good ways to feed Neshik's players riddles on the subject?

If Neshik asks Dawn "Are you my mother?" what should her response be? What should Khemra do if Neshik figures this out? Khemra is fairly hidebound and loves rules but she is not malicious or cruel, and she does like to reward mortals and spirits who serve her well.