My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

I am still experimenting with Midjourney. I think it's slightly better than Nightcafe but it is not perfect. It is not able to replace commissioned artists anytime soon. I think the key is to be open to get something you didn't ask for. I wanted to AI an earthy woman wearing a ceremonial Mera comb and none of the results had a comb in them but they did turn out absolutely gorgeous. So I used one of them as a portrait for Emerande the vampire.



If I want something specific, I need to use a commissioned artist. I also have about a hundred "portraits" from Hero Forge which lets you design your own miniatures, but you can a take of a hypothetical miniature without buying it.

Here is Emerande in Hero Forge form.





Back to commissions, I got a preliminary sketch of an armored tengku. I'll showcase the finished product eventually but I don't know if "eventually" will be tomorrow or in two weeks. My artist has a day job and works on my commissions on the side.

I am currently shopping around for another fantasy artist with a style I like that is currently accepting commissions. Not having much luck right now. The ones I like most aren't taking commissions.


Art wise, if I find a good monster artist, I might want to commission an alternate chimera or two. The garden variety Chimera is a lion, goat, and a western dragon but I'd really like to make a Tiger, water buffalo, and an Asian dragon. If I got a good working relationship with a monster artist, I would probably make more monsters.


If I find a good fantasy portrait maker, I may want to nail down what Scarterran gnomes look like, or maybe I'll ask Zeta Gardner to make some gnomes after he is done with various tengku.


Scarterran elves and dwarves look very similar to "classic" versions of these races, other than having elemental ethnic colorations, so it is not super important for me to pay for commissions on them though it might be fun to commission some Mondarian dwarves because they are very different from most other dwarves, but the completionist soul in me would want me to have a male and female for all four dwarf subcultures and that is eight portraits which is expensive.


If I find a fantasy artist that puts a lot of detail into clothing, I am thinking of commissioning the clerical vestments of my major religious groups. The problem is, I'm not 100% sure what I want for them yet outside of very broad things, the Masks have masks, Mera clerics wear a lot of blue, Khemra clerics look vaguely Egyptian, etc.


I kind of want to distinguish Scarterran kobolds from D&D kobolds but I'm not 100% what I want to do run with yet other than I want Scarterran kobolds to have pronounced noses because their superpower is their crazy sense of smell.

That is not a high priority in the short term because kobolds aren't a big story driver of my active RPG campaign or the stories I am slowly working on though my favorite player said if we stared a new campaign, he is tempted to play a kobold PC. I also have a vague idea for a buddy cop novel with a human Lantern and a kobold Mask reluctantly working together against a common foe. I did scroll through 100+ kobold illustrations on Deviant Art and none of them jumped out at me as "that's the artist I want".


The holy grail of my art Wish List is to commission art work of the Nine themselves. I really take the Nine seriously, so I am prone to be super picky. Ideally I would want to find an artist who specializes in drawing gods and goddesses or I need to find an artist that is a true fan of Scarterra and actually understands the concepts of each of the Nine.


And now to shift gears.


D&D and Pathfinder (which is basically a legal clone of D&D) and more than a few other things use a 10-based coinage system.

one gold piece is worth ten silver pieces and one silver piece is worth 100 copper pieces.

For the games I've been running myself for my friends, I have run with this for Scarterra just out of simplicity, but the thought occurred to me if I published this myself, I should maybe do something more original.

I notice George R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series never spells out the exchange rate in mathematical term but I guess from implication that a gold coin is worth at least twenty silver coins. A copper can buy a fair bit in Westeros. Many commoners have not even seen a gold coin.

I did some research, 20 ounces of silver being worth an ounce of gold seems like the historical norm. In the 20th and 21st century, gold is worth a lot more than this relative to silver, but that is because gold is used in computers and other technology. Same thing with the relative price of copper since copper is in lots of electrical things.

The price of silver seemed to peak in 1600s to 1700s when silver was very fashionable: cutlery, plates, belt buckles, etc. At that point, an ounce of gold was worth 14 ounces of silver.

For a medieval setting, 20 silver pieces per gold piece would be historically accurate and set Scarterra apart, but I'm pretty sure if I did this and managed to publish a Scarterra RPG book, lots of playing groups would just end up house ruling that a gold piece is worth ten silver pieces.

Therefore I'm leaning towards keeping the 1 gp = 10 sp = 100 cp scale even though a voice in my head tells me not to. Even though gold has never had a 10:1 ratio with silver in the real world, I can justify this by tweaking the gold supply or by pointing out that silver has more industrial uses in Scarterran than gold does. Some creatures are vulnerable to silver weapons, but nothing is vulnerable to gold weapons. A gold weapon is just a waste of money.


I'm also pondering alternate currency systems for Scarnoctis, Fae Home, Scaraqua and maybe the Aetherial Realm (though I'm not sure I want the Aetherial Realm to be a valid adventure setting or not).

The Fair Folk can make fake gold and silver very easily. "Faerie gold" can be exposed by putting the counterfeit money in contact with a tiny ingot of cold iron, and most Scarterran merchants carry an ingot of cold iron for this very reason. The Fair Folk cannot handle cold iron without suffering pain or discomfort, so they cannot police counterfeit gold in their own realm so they need to trade in something other precious metals.

I'm thinking of maybe giving them an ability to reshape reagents into solid form, either crystals or jade, and they would trade in that. Since Scarterran mortals like reagents, some Scarterrans would be willing to take "Faerie money".

I'm still pondering systems for the other realms.

 

I updated my cats article with a complete set of elemental breeds of cats. Midjourney seems fairly good at making specific animals and especially good at making cats. I got exactly what I wanted on the first try.


Earthy cats tend to be larger than other cats. They are usually much more mellow than other cats, They tend to have brown, dusty, roan, or black fur. Earthy cats often make good house pets as they are less independent and more mellow than most other cats.


Fiery cats are very spirited and aggressive and have great endurance. They tend to have reddish orangish fur. As they get older, their fur is streaked with dark greys. They make lousy pets but great mousers. They also tend to depopulate birds from areas they live in.



Watery cats are intelligent and inquisitive embodying the curious cat to a "t", Unlike others cats, they have little issue with water and are not shy about swimming. They tend to have light blue or vaguely greenish fur which is often softer and silkier than other cats.



Airy cats are very fast and they are very skittish embodying the scaredy cat archetype. They are a bit flighty and have low attention spans. They also are the most prone to wander of any cat. They tend to have white, golden, or silvery coats.

EDIT: Here is a Fae or spirit pretending to be a cat.



It took multiple tries for me to make a serviceable purple cow, but now I have something to hold a spot open when I'm writing something and don't have art immediately handy where I want to put art.

 

And here is tengku #6. I haven't named her yet. It is a female tengku in full plate.

 

Zeta Gardner, aka Nalebunny, is awesome. I just asked for a female tengku wearing full plate with a morningstar and a shield.

He came up with the fake feathers, the bronze coating on the armor (because ordinary steel grey would be a bit visually boring against a character that is mostly pitch black).

The flower icon on the shield is both to designate that the relatively androgynous tengku is female and add a splash of color.

These are things I would not have thought of doing that made the end result better.

Diana Rahfoth also made good art for me, but I have to very specific about what I want her to make and then she will do what I said exactly, and she is so busy I have to schedule her precisely and she will say, I'll start on Day X and finish on Day Y and she precisely keeps her word. Nalebunny is done when he gets around to it.

I'm scouring Deviant Art for a third reasonably priced artist that is taking commissions. Maybe someone with a monster-y focus so I can flesh out some of Scarterra's (or Scaraqua's!) weirder denizens. Diana has some damn good fantasy monsters in her portfolio, but admittedly she is a bit on the expensive side. If I find an artist with a good eye for fantasy clothing, I might showcase regional styles, and/or peg down different clerical vestments.

Nalebunny is currently working on a human warrior and a tengku merchant haggling over a purchase. I plan to use that art as the default cover art for my all my commerce or market place articles. But it will also establish the size and body type differential of tengku relative to humans and reinforce the Scarterran stereotype that tengku are commonly associated with mercantile professions.

That's technically a "scene" not a portrait, so it will cost extra but I'm sure it will be worth it.

Then he's going to move on to some cannibals though maybe another untainted tengku or two.

 

Fun with Midjourney AI

Hallisan eagle spirit



Blue Bird of Paradise Mera Spirit



Watch Dog Statue



Mera Comb

 

Fun with Midjourney AI Art 2


Alchemists Fire


torch spirits


creating a disguise without magic
Not AI, after trying to make a medieval fantasy makeup kit with AI and failing, I realized museums had real examples of this.



bone shaping


A generic hearth fire I put in multiple articles, cooking, inns, hospitality, etc



life stones

 

A dash of heraldry

Time to flag @Warden

So quick recap of Swynfaredian lore. The nation of Swynfaredian was founded by four dragons who all had many half-dragon/half-human children who became the new nobility.

All the Swynfaredian heraldry is based on dragons, because only the descendants of dragons are permitted to hold land titles.

Worldspinner is a good heraldry tool, but they don't have a gazillion variations of dragons. So after much trial and error and playing with special features I created my first bit of heraldry with Midjourney.

Not perfect, but damn good. Fremiss the Vibrant was a red dragon with prominent horns and a squat but strong lion-like body. Here is a workable House Fremiss Banner. It took many failed attempts and many edits to get this, but I checked and saw my monthly allowance of image generations is much higher than I initially thought, I am on the $8/month plan btw.



House Fremiss is umm, fertile. In the early years of Swynfaredia, House Fremiss had nearly twice as many true born children as the second most prolific house and they had more than four times the number of bastards.

It is said that rulers want to have an heir and a spare. Fremiss tended to have an heir and four or five spares. House Fremiss had more fratricide and inter-house warfare than the other major houses.

During each of the three nationwide civil wars, House Fremiss ended up on both sides of the wars (and the house fought itself in between the major wars) and this eventually resulted in what I creatively called Fremiss-A, Fremiss-B, and Fremiss-C. But if I want Scarterra to be close to publishable, I need to give them better names. Perhaps hyphenated with the leader of the breakaway faction.

By an astonishing coincidence these breakaway house leaders' names were Lord Angharad, Lady Bryallan, and Lady Caedwin.

Out of superstition, the three Fremiss Houses have stopped naming their babies with "D" names, because they don't want to see their house power diluted again.

Partially as a dig against them, the other three founding houses have increased the number of "D" names they give their children.

The lesser houses and wannabe houses have largely stopped using "D" names because they wouldn't mind intermarrying with Fremiss nobles and figure this act won't burn their bridges with other major houses either.

At some point, I need to figure out to make three variants of the Fremiss banner, but for now I'm going to peg down the other major houses first. And also, House Gareth and Gruffyl which are minor houses but are directly involved in the PC's business.

Fremiss-Angharad nobles lean towards cloak and dagger scheming. They are kind of elitist dicks towards the commoners and they own many mines staffed primarily by goblin slaves. They aren't the only Swynfaredian house with goblin slaves, but they have the dragon's share of them.

Fremiss-Bryallan nobles lean towards military discipline and being nice to commoners.

Fremiss-Caedwin nobles lean towards reform and being nice to the commoners.

Fremiss-Bryallan views being nice to commoners as letting them advance meritocratically if they are skilled and brave and bread and circuses entertainments.

Fremiss-Caedwin views being nice to commoners as giving more opportunities to sorcerers from so called "mongrel bloodlines" and lowering their taxes. They also want to incorporate kobolds as full citizens of Swynfaredia and emancipate all goblin slaves.



Note that Fremiss the Vibrant himself was a ruthless but reform-minded political schemer who valued military excellence and espoused treating commoners well, so all three houses all believe they are Fremiss' "true successors".

 

Spooktober 2023 is drawing to a close. There are 27 prompts, and I needed 13 entries to get the badge and I did 15. I might push to 16 or 17 with last minute entries, but I'm not going to go crazy with it. I save my crazy for the December, Worldember Contest.

CROW Eknok, tengku merchant, (using one of my tengku illustrations but otherwise unremarkable)

SPECTER "King" Stubleb , fleshing out a C-list from an earlier adventurer, a ghost goblin chieftain with some zombie minions from his former tribe.

HELPLES (blank)

STALK Zakarel, Part-Time Hunter, Part Time Fisherman, Part-Time Military Scout (fleshing out a minor character because I like his HF portrait).

DRY salt elementals (RPG stats, not super exciting, dry in more ways than one)

DESPAIR (blank)

INCORPOREAL (blank)

THUNDER (blank)

SHARP Mace of the Wyrm Slayer (already posted on L-O, but I'm still proud of it)


CLAW Gruffyl the half dragon (the founding ancestor of House Gruffyl, a major source of villains in my RPG campaign)


CRYPTIC (blank)


HARVEST Lartup, merchant of murder (I've commissioned a portrait of this cannibal bird, but it's not ready yet).


SUMMONING Into the Weeds: Conjuring Twisted Elementals (another RPG stat heavy article)

APPARITION (blank)

EERIE (blank)

MOON The moon and disguises (originally a minor fluff article, but a friend pointed out this can explain why metamorphs aren't running Scarterra, and there are a lot of other fun implications of this that I will explore later.

VOID Seasonal Variations in the Barrier (it was very nice of the World Anvil team to make a prompt called "Void" when the Void is a big part of my cosmology.

FADE (blank)

CLOCK (blank)

PALE (blank)

NAUSEA (blank)

SHIVER Winter Demon RPG Stats (stats, not fluff)

FATE Prophecy from Greymoria Oracle to Kormatin (a major ongoing part of my active RPG campaign, long overdue to be put on World Anvil)


SLITHER Wurms and Wyrms, how dragons are tied to wurms (an idea I was pondering a while after watching several videos on Conan lore, where societal degeneracy leads to mutation over and over again).

HOPELESS (blank)

EPITAPH (blank)

DROWN Rusalka Ghosts (I'm pretty proud on this one, though I'm largely repackaging old work, I found some good open source art for it).

 

Fumayan, Heraldry, House Linijka

@Warden

I'm not married to any of this, if someone has a better idea, I'm open to suggestions be they minor tweaks or major revamps.

The King of Fumaya is also the Duke of Linijka. He's got five other dukes under him via feudalism but the king gets most of his income from his own duchy, as the Duchy of Linijka is the richest duchy in the nation.

As Duke of Linijka, King Henryk has three counts under him but is personally the Count of South Lake, which is coincidentally, the richest and most populous county.

They are similar on purpose. Let me know if you think they are too similar. I'm not married to anything, I can tweak anything.

Nation of Fumaya

Fumaya Royal Family


Duchy of Linijka



Count of North Lake (mostly fishing villages and a bit of farmland)



South Lake, the King's personal demense, home of the capital and some rich clay quarries, and a good reagent production


West River, moistly farmland, a little bit of dwarf cultural infusion


East River (mix of farmland and woodland, a little bit of Wood elf cultural infusion)

 

It was pointed out to me, that heraldry is often more about distinguishing oneself than it is about showing allegiance.

I think I need to make the Linijka counties more distinct from each other in color and design, and maybe put a small version of Linijka Griffin at the bottom or in corner to show allegiance but not the main visual point. Anyway, speaking of visuals, I got some great new art of a tengku and a human haggling.



I plan to make liberal use of this picture, putting it as the header on most of my economic articles.

 

I could use some constructive feedback on Scarterra's website

Here is my Scarterra link again for reference.

So I've been doing World Anvil's informal Worldember homework. This week's assignment is to look over the main page and figure out what can improved.

As the core members of my small fanbase, I'm open to what you thing could improve the curb appeal of my Scarterra website.

I think the table of contents is well constructed. But maybe it could be better. Note the people actually play in my RPG campaign usually use the search function to find articles with a key word search. Or I will link them articles during game play (since 90% of the time, we are playing via Discord so I direct links).

I could rewrite the intro blurb on my homepage.

I could replace the header art. Probably use the same symbol as a base but get an artist to make it fancier. I have attempted to modify it with AI art programs but it has not turned out very well. AI frequently gives people the wrong number of fingers or animals the wrong number of toes. The symbol is ruined if it doesn't have nine spokes.

I could put the symbol of the Nine carved onto a rock wall, or on a silver pendant, or on a stained glass window, or on a medieval style tapestry, or branded on leather or something. One stylistic alternative would be to replace the arrow fletching ends with a miniature version of the Nine's individual symbols.


I could change the color scheme of the site to something less dark.

(with some effort) I could change the general layout of homepage. I could add more pictures this way too.

(with some effort) I could make some primer articles. I'm planning a primer article on how the Nine defeated Turoch and established the divine status quo. I can do other primers too if there is demand for it.

 

Worldember 2023 Preparations

December is World Anvil's Worldember event where they encourage crazy binge writing.

The normal goal is 10,000 words, with expanded 25,000 and 50,000 goals. I usually write more than 30,000 words on a normal month, so 50,000 isn't a giant stretch. The last few Worldembers I chased the top list and ended up around 9 or 10. I don't know if I'll be chasing the top ranking. Other than the #1 and #2 spots, the top ten posters don't win many new fans. If I want to improve Scarterra's reach I need to focus on the mini-contests and make very polished, visually appealing entries.

That's my goal, to try to win more followers and fans with quality pieces and to try to win one of the mini-contests. I've got an honorable mention before but I haven't won any categories. So I'm going to enter as many category contests as I'm alived.

I have a big list of things to write about. I'm open to more suggestions from you guys and of course I'll go where the muses direct me.

I have two long-term goals that I will try to direct at least some of my Worldember writing towards. I'm working on an RPG book that I have a pipe dream about publishing if I can add some art and clean it up, and I want to make four or five tentpole articles for my Scarterra wiki that do a good job showcasing Scarterra in broad strokes that I can use to metaphorically or literally sell Scarterra to people who stumble onto my site.

Things I plan to Expand on for my current RPG campaigns
-Fleshing out Fumayan Counties
-Fleshing out Swynfaredian duchies
-Undead plants
-Expanding the Gruffyl family tree
-Fleshing out the Gorisinod matriarch and their main investigator, Reese
-How poison detection jewelry works

Things I plan to work on for my long-term plans to make an RPG book
-More magical items
-Articles fleshing out Scarterran economics so my incomes and costs for items makes sense and mesh together
-More beasts and monsters
-Crafting a narrative version of the Scarterran creation story
-Fleshing out Scarterran clothes and fashion (so I can give direction to artists later)
-Why lunar months and seven-day weeks break clash with the annual calendar.

Things I want to expand for fun but are not immediately useful

-Why names that start with "D" are politically charged in Swynfaredia
-Full moon declaration events
-At least one short story or novelette
-Expanded dragon lore
-Localized kobold groups
-Figure out how camazotz and kalazotz fit in outside of West Colassia.
-How tengku adjust their approach for various races
-Different feast customs
-Minority mortal races of Scaraqua
-Minority mortal races of Scarnoctis
-Gratuitous family tree building
-Developing provinces/ethnic divisions for Codenya
-Flesh out Kantoc as a potential adventure setting
-Flesh out Uskala as a potential adventure setting
-Flesh out Penarchia as a (large) potential adventure setting
Satyr "shoes"
Non-Scarterra Stuff
-Filling the Lustria map with more pins. Maybe a few more Lustrian flora and fauna too.
-Adding geographic locations and characters to Westhammer

 

I'm not going to update this thread every single time I write something for Worldember, but I have entered this one of the mini-contest, so I would be open for some feedback.

Why names that start with "D" are politically charged in Swynfaredia

EDIT: And now this one.

Poison Detection Jewelry

 

Zeta Gardener finished his portrait of Noggra the tengku ranger. I cannot make up my mind which one I like better.




In unrelated news, I wrote an article about satyr footwear.

 

I put a lot of effort into this article and I submitted it to the Conditions category contest.


Crown Time Drain

 

As of the writing of this post, I have 20th place on the Worldemeber board ,and I have 18,179 words.

Each year I have written more than the previous year but stayed at or near 10th place because competition gets fiercer.

I only need to hit 50,000 to get my badge but I figure I'll hit 70,000 at least. 100,000 if I want to hit what I got last year.

I'm trying to focus on quality over quantity to an extant. Along those lines here are the Grey Forest Gilgren Kobolds. I wasn't sure if I was going to enter something in the ethnicity category, but I thought I'd go for it since I was planning on making some new kobold groups.

My buddy said that he does not want the current campaign to end anytime soon, but for the next campaign he was thinking of playing a kobold bounty hunter. Plus I have half baked idea in my head for a novella involving a kobold protagonist. I thought I should create a few kobold groups that are more prone to working with humans than the kobold norm.

I plan to create a few more small communities of kobolds integrated with human or demihuman society. I also plan to create a few more small communities of kalazotz integrated with humans and/or demihuman beyond the pre-existing dwarf aligned kalazotz.

 

I'm trying to get articles out as fast as feasible. If I cannot find appropriate art quickly, I created a place holder.



But when I need to relax my brain, I will play a Youtube video while running image prompts through Midjourney. I got a very good result here for the Duchy of Crescent Rock.

I am creating a lot of duchies and counties to add granular definition to my two most important countries of Fumaya and Swynfaredia. Instead of Generic County #4 and names like that I am running with the notion that many places are named after their most unique and distinctive landmark. Hence Duchy of Crescent Rock.

My place articles are pretty simple.

-What does the terrain and climate look like?
-Who is in charge?
-What resources does this place have?
-What resources does this place lack?

And that is about it.

 

I had a lot more fun developing the vassals of the Duchy of Crescent Rock.

I had very luck creating a mutinous goblin slave miner with Midjourney AI.



Here is the sidebar for the Duchy of Crescent Rock. One of the main villains of my active campaign Torches in the Twilight is the Count of Turquoise Hills, but the whole region has adventure hooks in it.

National Territory
Location under
Old Talama Region
Included Locations

• County of Dusk's Glory
• County of Ferrous Valley
• Klarica County
• Moonstone County
• Turquoise Hills County

Ruling/Owning Rank
Duke of Crescent Rock
Owning Organization
House Kovenoth

I am especially proud of Klarica County. I didn't realize until half-way through but a large lead mine has many exciting implications in a fantasy world.

It just so happens that the sorcerer nobles controlling the lead mine are rumored to be harboring a secret undead army, and a giant hole in the ground that is poisonous to living being and immune to magical scrying is a perfect place to hide them.

I also spun off three articles based on Tapukeah Nicola, a saint-like historical figure who revolutionized medicine in Scarterra and now her name and legacy are attached to ethically dubious things. I got a result with the AI creating her portrait.



Tapukeah Nicola

Tapukeah Nicola Memorial Temple

Order of Nicola

I did a key word search, Scarterra currently has 16 "Order of _____", maybe I need to come up with a few more varied naming conventions.

EDIT: I created a new title, Tapukeah, which is the Scarterran equivalent of a saint because I didn't think "priestess" was cool enough. There are many priests and priestesses but only a few Tapukeah.