ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
A thread for a fantasy conworld meant to be collaborative. Meant to be used for DND due to me finding difficulty coming up with a setting which doesn't basically require an alternate ruleset. Ideas which just occured to me include the material realm as a whole being split into 2 planets one inhabited by mammalian folk and the other inhabited by reptilian and amphibious folk. Also seen are two distinct spirit realms one upper and one lower which have nearly merged with the material realm on the second planet. But the world is in its formative stages now so you can post anything really.
Re: ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
A map of part of the world.
Re: ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
And an incomplete map of states in the current era.
Re: ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
you know what? why not. i'm game. since there's no rules i'll assume there are no rules, which is my favourite ruleset. I'm taking over this bit.
and calling it "the evil isles". what? we're playing D&D here, so evil is an actual, tangible, metaphysical reality. so why not someone takes ownership of the concept? let's explore how such a cliche as "the evil empire" could actually make some sense.
History
once upon a time, in a far far away realm (the northernmost island of the yellow bit I've highlighted) a magical portal was magically opened to this strange plane where only mammals have evolved sentience. There came to pass through events forgotten that a number of people from the other side, crossed the portal and settled the lands around it. These people, who called themselves the bla'ar [bə.læˈʔæ:ʁ], were larger and stronger than the local humanoids (in D&D terms let's call them Dragonkin) and, because of their "monstruous" appearance, for thus did the local ape-people see them, quickly earn themselves the monicker of evil.
Of course the bla'ar had their own languages and cultures, their own concepts of morality for which they had their own words, and so took it as a fact in a Mertonian move that, in this strange land, evil meant what they were and what they were were evil: so they embraced it as their "niche", so to speak, without quite understanding, at least at first, that this concept of 'evil' in fact meant what it means. One of the first things they noticed about their new role was that if they attempted to deal with the apes as equals they would systematically get cheated: upon further investigation, which involved taking prisoners and having lengthy conversations with them for the most part, they realized that the locals saw nothing unbecoming in tricking, cheating, lying, and even raiding the lands of those who were evil, because they expected the evil ones to do the same to them. after extensive discussions amongst themselves, they decided that the best strategy to deal with this situation was to make the best of it. thus through the sourcing of dead bodies from various human settlements nearby, scary gallows and crosses with skeletons were installed throughout the roads anyone would take to arrive at their core territories. human envoys were dispatched to learn which symbols were most associated with fear and danger. the symbols, called 'satanic' and associated with 'evil gods' were painted and sculpted at the most visible places.
Bla'ar philosophers throughout the years debated enlessly about the concrete meaning of being 'evil', but the concept was most strongly adopted by businessmen, traders and politicians. Turned out, being 'evil' really had many concrete advantages! Though they would face crusades and jihads from time to time, where surrounding groups would try to cleanse their evil presence, it turned out that all they had to do to keep those crusades to a minimum was to secure the support of key politicians, chieftains and court officials in the various political institutions that surrounded them. This was relatively easy to do with coins and precious metals, which the humanoids valued highly, and the coins were not that hard to come by: they were almost expected to carry out raids on trade routes, and their geographical position and superior abilities at sea (including having a tail and needing to take a breath once every 10 minutes) meant that this was relatively easy to do. Once confronted with a bunch of large, armed and crocodilesque raiders, most sailors would give up their loot.
For various reasons relating to their biology, the bla'ar don't need as much food as humanoids, and they best thrive eating meat: as such, agriculture never became important, and they make up their diet by fishing and the breeding of various insect species, much more efficient than the husbandry of large and inefficient mammals that the humans carried out. This leaves most of their workforce relatively free and, as such, most bla'ar pursue more specialized occupations. most common amongst these are raider, pirate, assasin, spy, terrorist, monster and various other crafts. these are ever in demand in the complicated geopolitical world of the humans, and allow the bla'ar to make a relatively comfortable living with relatively litle work. let us examine, for example, the trade of the monster through one of their practitioners: a middle-aged male called Rommel.
Rommel is the head of a small household in one of the islands, and throughout the years has made a small reputation for himself in his trade. Today he has a meeting with a prospective customer: an innkeeper.
"you see, business is really dying down this year: the road from Butterdale to the great city of Monckeg sees so few travelers that if things keep going this way, i'll end up loosing my livelyhood", says the inkeep
"and how might I be of assistence?" Rommer asks, trying his best to put on a tough and mysterious air. he even hisses from time to time, as he was taught to by his father: it's all part of the performance, you see.
"well, my cousin who runs the Pink Owlbear Inn over in Hamschestershire used to be in such a problem, but then some adventurers started coming by his inn, and he said they're so full of money they'll pay one full silver coin for a beer and a bed! I think I need some adventurers to come by my inn, and..."
"say no more", Rommer says, again trying to sound threatening. "That'll be twelve guineas up front, and seven a year from now. I will not forget your face or your scent, innkeeper".
Rommer knows he can't tell one human's smell from the next, but the innkeeper doesn't have to know this. The innkeeper pays, and the job begins. First, Rommer gets together with a couple of confederates he has in his customer's region. He keeps a number of contacts in the various regions he operates. He always pays upfront, and this time he decides to go for the theatrical approach: he hires a few of the local bards to spread the tale that a monster is terrorizing the village of Butterdale. Subsequently he swims to butterdate, making sure the local farmers notice him from time to time, and arrives at the small village by night. he finds the local graveyard and waits for a week or two (feeding off the local fish, which is convenient) until there is a funeral. because that night looks like it'll be a still, windless one he decides on an old and reliable strategy he learned as a young adult: the night after the memorial he unearths the corpse and proceeds to hang it off a local tree, make a tremendous noise and burn special powders he brought from home which generate a strange, greenish smoke. the smoke will give the whole scene an eerie quality, and the noises are, for the most part, just shouting.
When the villagers predictably arrive at the tree from which the young dead woman has been hung Rommer begins making noises to scare them. They're a complicated performance passed onto him by his father, and originally developped by his great-grandather, including "ooohs" and "aaaaahs" and "i will never forgive you, mother", as well as other sounds which, as far as he understands, scare humans. when his audience -made out mostly of farmers, mind you-is sufficiently terrified he shouts a great roar and pulls a rope attached to the corpse's hand, which scares the villagers enough to make them flee. After checking thoroughly that the villagers have fled, he proceeds to devour the small corpse, pick up all of his gear so that no evidence of his little theatrics will be found, and leaves the small hamlet through the river, never to return.
what the local authorities will presently experience is as follows: first, reports from farmers that strange figures lurk in the marshes. then, strange tales about monsters near Butterdale and, finally, when they send someone to investigate, the tale about emtpy graves and girl risen from the dead from the townsfolk. Of course, they'll promptly put out a bounty for the capture of this monster, many adventurers will answer the heroic call of adventure and glory, and the innkeeper will have his business booming for a couple of months.
On his way back, Rommer decides to go and collect the second payment from an old but not dissimilar customer, this time a purveyor of climbing supplies from a mountain town.
"so, how's business been these last months?"
"oh, it's been booming! not only am I sold out of climbing supplies, i've also right out of flint and steel! here's your four guineas", the shopkeeper says
"I seem to remember it was five, merchant" he says. It's quite difficult to hist just the right tone in this part of a job: you must sound at the same time trustworthy and reliable yet threatening and monstruous. he must have done the voice quite well, because the customer doesn't haggle and simply pays out.
after a total of a month, Rommer is back in his home with his wife and kids, a few golden coins richer. he considers whether to take a vacation for half a year or so, but his lovely wife mentions she's just laid a new clutch of eggs. oh, well, more mouths to feed, more work to do. He writes a letter to one of his scouts in the distant southern country, which should be nice and warm this time of year: maybe the next job, he'll try to burn sulfur dust: a cousin recently mentioned that humans get very scared at the smell of sulfur, for some reason: apparently they associate it with something called "hell". he'll never understand the little apes, but he's glad they scare as easily as they do. he offers a little prayer to his father, who inherited him a decent and relativey safe craft: he'd hate to have to go on the pirate ships, that's a dangerous and often thankless job. he falls alseep that night curled up with his wife, as she sings him a song while she knits one of his kids a nice sweater. life's good, he thinks, and finally falls asleep.
- evil_isles.JPG (60.84 KiB) Viewed 3726 times
History
once upon a time, in a far far away realm (the northernmost island of the yellow bit I've highlighted) a magical portal was magically opened to this strange plane where only mammals have evolved sentience. There came to pass through events forgotten that a number of people from the other side, crossed the portal and settled the lands around it. These people, who called themselves the bla'ar [bə.læˈʔæ:ʁ], were larger and stronger than the local humanoids (in D&D terms let's call them Dragonkin) and, because of their "monstruous" appearance, for thus did the local ape-people see them, quickly earn themselves the monicker of evil.
Of course the bla'ar had their own languages and cultures, their own concepts of morality for which they had their own words, and so took it as a fact in a Mertonian move that, in this strange land, evil meant what they were and what they were were evil: so they embraced it as their "niche", so to speak, without quite understanding, at least at first, that this concept of 'evil' in fact meant what it means. One of the first things they noticed about their new role was that if they attempted to deal with the apes as equals they would systematically get cheated: upon further investigation, which involved taking prisoners and having lengthy conversations with them for the most part, they realized that the locals saw nothing unbecoming in tricking, cheating, lying, and even raiding the lands of those who were evil, because they expected the evil ones to do the same to them. after extensive discussions amongst themselves, they decided that the best strategy to deal with this situation was to make the best of it. thus through the sourcing of dead bodies from various human settlements nearby, scary gallows and crosses with skeletons were installed throughout the roads anyone would take to arrive at their core territories. human envoys were dispatched to learn which symbols were most associated with fear and danger. the symbols, called 'satanic' and associated with 'evil gods' were painted and sculpted at the most visible places.
Bla'ar philosophers throughout the years debated enlessly about the concrete meaning of being 'evil', but the concept was most strongly adopted by businessmen, traders and politicians. Turned out, being 'evil' really had many concrete advantages! Though they would face crusades and jihads from time to time, where surrounding groups would try to cleanse their evil presence, it turned out that all they had to do to keep those crusades to a minimum was to secure the support of key politicians, chieftains and court officials in the various political institutions that surrounded them. This was relatively easy to do with coins and precious metals, which the humanoids valued highly, and the coins were not that hard to come by: they were almost expected to carry out raids on trade routes, and their geographical position and superior abilities at sea (including having a tail and needing to take a breath once every 10 minutes) meant that this was relatively easy to do. Once confronted with a bunch of large, armed and crocodilesque raiders, most sailors would give up their loot.
For various reasons relating to their biology, the bla'ar don't need as much food as humanoids, and they best thrive eating meat: as such, agriculture never became important, and they make up their diet by fishing and the breeding of various insect species, much more efficient than the husbandry of large and inefficient mammals that the humans carried out. This leaves most of their workforce relatively free and, as such, most bla'ar pursue more specialized occupations. most common amongst these are raider, pirate, assasin, spy, terrorist, monster and various other crafts. these are ever in demand in the complicated geopolitical world of the humans, and allow the bla'ar to make a relatively comfortable living with relatively litle work. let us examine, for example, the trade of the monster through one of their practitioners: a middle-aged male called Rommel.
Rommel is the head of a small household in one of the islands, and throughout the years has made a small reputation for himself in his trade. Today he has a meeting with a prospective customer: an innkeeper.
"you see, business is really dying down this year: the road from Butterdale to the great city of Monckeg sees so few travelers that if things keep going this way, i'll end up loosing my livelyhood", says the inkeep
"and how might I be of assistence?" Rommer asks, trying his best to put on a tough and mysterious air. he even hisses from time to time, as he was taught to by his father: it's all part of the performance, you see.
"well, my cousin who runs the Pink Owlbear Inn over in Hamschestershire used to be in such a problem, but then some adventurers started coming by his inn, and he said they're so full of money they'll pay one full silver coin for a beer and a bed! I think I need some adventurers to come by my inn, and..."
"say no more", Rommer says, again trying to sound threatening. "That'll be twelve guineas up front, and seven a year from now. I will not forget your face or your scent, innkeeper".
Rommer knows he can't tell one human's smell from the next, but the innkeeper doesn't have to know this. The innkeeper pays, and the job begins. First, Rommer gets together with a couple of confederates he has in his customer's region. He keeps a number of contacts in the various regions he operates. He always pays upfront, and this time he decides to go for the theatrical approach: he hires a few of the local bards to spread the tale that a monster is terrorizing the village of Butterdale. Subsequently he swims to butterdate, making sure the local farmers notice him from time to time, and arrives at the small village by night. he finds the local graveyard and waits for a week or two (feeding off the local fish, which is convenient) until there is a funeral. because that night looks like it'll be a still, windless one he decides on an old and reliable strategy he learned as a young adult: the night after the memorial he unearths the corpse and proceeds to hang it off a local tree, make a tremendous noise and burn special powders he brought from home which generate a strange, greenish smoke. the smoke will give the whole scene an eerie quality, and the noises are, for the most part, just shouting.
When the villagers predictably arrive at the tree from which the young dead woman has been hung Rommer begins making noises to scare them. They're a complicated performance passed onto him by his father, and originally developped by his great-grandather, including "ooohs" and "aaaaahs" and "i will never forgive you, mother", as well as other sounds which, as far as he understands, scare humans. when his audience -made out mostly of farmers, mind you-is sufficiently terrified he shouts a great roar and pulls a rope attached to the corpse's hand, which scares the villagers enough to make them flee. After checking thoroughly that the villagers have fled, he proceeds to devour the small corpse, pick up all of his gear so that no evidence of his little theatrics will be found, and leaves the small hamlet through the river, never to return.
what the local authorities will presently experience is as follows: first, reports from farmers that strange figures lurk in the marshes. then, strange tales about monsters near Butterdale and, finally, when they send someone to investigate, the tale about emtpy graves and girl risen from the dead from the townsfolk. Of course, they'll promptly put out a bounty for the capture of this monster, many adventurers will answer the heroic call of adventure and glory, and the innkeeper will have his business booming for a couple of months.
On his way back, Rommer decides to go and collect the second payment from an old but not dissimilar customer, this time a purveyor of climbing supplies from a mountain town.
"so, how's business been these last months?"
"oh, it's been booming! not only am I sold out of climbing supplies, i've also right out of flint and steel! here's your four guineas", the shopkeeper says
"I seem to remember it was five, merchant" he says. It's quite difficult to hist just the right tone in this part of a job: you must sound at the same time trustworthy and reliable yet threatening and monstruous. he must have done the voice quite well, because the customer doesn't haggle and simply pays out.
after a total of a month, Rommer is back in his home with his wife and kids, a few golden coins richer. he considers whether to take a vacation for half a year or so, but his lovely wife mentions she's just laid a new clutch of eggs. oh, well, more mouths to feed, more work to do. He writes a letter to one of his scouts in the distant southern country, which should be nice and warm this time of year: maybe the next job, he'll try to burn sulfur dust: a cousin recently mentioned that humans get very scared at the smell of sulfur, for some reason: apparently they associate it with something called "hell". he'll never understand the little apes, but he's glad they scare as easily as they do. he offers a little prayer to his father, who inherited him a decent and relativey safe craft: he'd hate to have to go on the pirate ships, that's a dangerous and often thankless job. he falls alseep that night curled up with his wife, as she sings him a song while she knits one of his kids a nice sweater. life's good, he thinks, and finally falls asleep.
Re: ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
Last revision i realised i needed somewhere other than extra dimensions to place my evil foes of my nation.
Re: ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
National and ethnic divisions in the world.
Light Blue: Original worshippers of the goddess of fire and perhaps slightly elven they rule a noble mageocracy (due to their goddesses affinity)
Light Red: Adoptees of the goddess of fire. They speak a distinct branch of the Talathic languages named after the ethnonym *Tala. From these people a princess who united the golden warring tribes was born by forging a magic sword only sons of her lineage were able to use.
Golden: Worshippers of the god of heroism as well as six other gods including the goddess of fire. They speak related Talathic languages and are very much honourable and good.
Dark Green: Wood elves
Cyan: Moon elves
Light Green: Kitsune folk of the rather exotic isles
Dark Blue: Raiding folk who also worship the god of heroism
Pink: Worshippers of a yet unknown god who are directly next to are evil empire
Yellow-Green (Chartreuse): Torco's "Evil" Dragonborn i moved them because they were getting in the way.
Re: ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
Example evil empire traits (mostly done by worship of a now evil god)
-Barbarism
-Unnecessary retribution
-Human sacrifice
-Slavery
-Evil tattoos given at birth which make it hard not to serve your god
-Barbarism
-Unnecessary retribution
-Human sacrifice
-Slavery
-Evil tattoos given at birth which make it hard not to serve your god
Re: ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
[EDIT: removed, see next post]
Last edited by bradrn on Thu Jun 08, 2023 6:42 am, edited 2 times in total.
Re: ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
Before I noticed your post, I wrote something in my previous comment scoffing at the idea of an ‘evil empire’, but… you know what, this is actually seriously interesting. I’d like to see where this goes!
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Re: ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
me: is protanomalous, straight and malefoxcatdog wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 9:09 pm
National and ethnic divisions in the world.
Light Blue: Original worshippers of the goddess of fire and perhaps slightly elven they rule a noble mageocracy (due to their goddesses affinity)
Light Red: Adoptees of the goddess of fire. They speak a distinct branch of the Talathic languages named after the ethnonym *Tala. From these people a princess who united the golden warring tribes was born by forging a magic sword only sons of her lineage were able to use.
Golden: Worshippers of the god of heroism as well as six other gods including the goddess of fire. They speak related Talathic languages and are very much honourable and good.
Dark Green: Wood elves
Cyan: Moon elves
Light Green: Kitsune folk of the rather exotic isles
Dark Blue: Raiding folk who also worship the god of heroism
Pink: Worshippers of a yet unknown god who are directly next to are evil empire
Yellow-Green (Chartreuse): Torco's "Evil" Dragonborn i moved them because they were getting in the way.
you: i have moved your evil empire to the place marked in chartreuse
me: you know they call me the lord of
@bradrn: why thank you!
Re: ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
I’m red–green colourblind too, so don’t ask me for help…
Conlangs: Scratchpad | Texts | antilanguage
Software: See http://bradrn.com/projects.html
Other: Ergativity for Novices
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Software: See http://bradrn.com/projects.html
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Re: ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
we must call in adventurers to help!
Re: ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
I believe the justification for this world being split in too is that in ancient times the great dragons and titans warred for domination of the world. It threatened to destroy the world so the gods intervened and split it in two. Later the titans died out for some unknown reason so dragons recolonised the world but the races of this world had already began to take form from the titans. Later portals opened between the worlds which resulted in mainly flow of races from the second world (where the spirit realms and material realms are nearly merged) to our world.
Re: ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
Also the campaigns.
Original
A priestess (cleric) of the fire goddess sees a vision from the god of heroism (let's call him Anar for now). He inspires her to craft a magic sword (a very powerful one) to unite the other tribes through this will probably happen off campaign and forge a mighty empire.
New One
Evil forces in the east have stolen the sword and no king exists to reclaim it. Players control the long lost heir as they travel to that kingdom and then slay an evil and powerful dragon which is terrorising the the folk of the land.
Original
A priestess (cleric) of the fire goddess sees a vision from the god of heroism (let's call him Anar for now). He inspires her to craft a magic sword (a very powerful one) to unite the other tribes through this will probably happen off campaign and forge a mighty empire.
New One
Evil forces in the east have stolen the sword and no king exists to reclaim it. Players control the long lost heir as they travel to that kingdom and then slay an evil and powerful dragon which is terrorising the the folk of the land.
-
Moose-tache
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Re: ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
I'm trying to make a geological map of the continent, and I am utterly baffled by the large mountainous peninsula to the northeast. foxcatdog, did you have any particular explanation in mind when creating that part of the map?
I did it. I made the world's worst book review blog.
Re: ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
Where did you see it was mountainous?Moose-tache wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 2:45 am I'm trying to make a geological map of the continent, and I am utterly baffled by the large mountainous peninsula to the northeast.
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Moose-tache
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Re: ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
I'm assuming the orange blobs are mountains? Whether they are tall or squat, I'm really struggling to map out a tectonic history that would create a shape like that.
I did it. I made the world's worst book review blog.
Re: ZBB Collaborative Fantasy Conworld Thread
Yeah, I suspect it’s the good ol’ ‘mountain ranges created by someone who has no clue about geology’ syndrome. (Or, more charitably, ‘doesn’t care about geology’.) I guess it reminds me a bit of eastern Siberia, but then again it doesn’t really.Moose-tache wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 3:11 am I'm assuming the orange blobs are mountains? Whether they are tall or squat, I'm really struggling to map out a tectonic history that would create a shape like that.
That being said, I’d also be hesitant to assume those are mountains… foxcatdog hasn’t given any kind of legend — or scale, for that matter.
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