Remjin
May 7th, '07, 12:41 PM
Hello everyone,
As I've mentioned in other threads, I've slowly been working on my own fantasy world, bit by bit, idea by idea, over the years... not being incredibly creative, but knowing what I like, I've probably got enough stuff to create one realm. A single society with a culture, military structure, and several areas and cities of note that I think is interesting and able to be fleshed out quite well.
The basic premise surrounds a version of dwarves. I've always liked having a stout and hardy people as a player race, I've just never liked a lot of the visuals that go with dwarves... fat bellied, big bearded, excessively short and grumpy just struck me as... well... a bit too cartoony to me. I like to play with a bit less of that, realizing this is still fantasy, of course...
So I thought that a people that are very similar, minus the ridiculous height, beard, and need for large bellies might be in order. The underground thing is a bit overdone, and visualizing them more like the Mul race from the Dark Sun setting. (Shorter than humans, but still somewhat normal in height, but very stocky and hardy race... without a necessity for beards). I've always liked the heavy infantry aspect with all the armor, shields, and pragmatic approaches. Making heavy use of that within phalanx like they often do in fantasy literature gives them a connection to the spartans of old as well...
Going with that, I've always liked the idea of ridiculously heavy cavalry... Rhino-like creatures with heavy barding and heavily armored men charging into enemy ranks and all that...
Retaining some things, and with their use of heavy armors, etc. Metallurgy and even stonework would certainly be within their realms of expertise. I imagine a roman/greek sort of flavor to the society, also yoinking some of the ideas from the fortress from the Lord of the Rings movies and having a very interesting city idea in addition to this, etc.
I've wrote gobs on two cities, military structure and elements, political structure, cultural ideas, societal concepts, and even the fringe elements that kind of society might create. I've written on climate, terrain types that would exist within the lands, and various other elements. This is turning into quite a big idea that came from a small one, expanding quite a bit over the last couple of years.
Now, my question here is, would something like this make a good supplemental book to someone? Not that I'd probably publish this, but I was thinking about all the supplemental books out there, especially in the fantasy setting, and while you usually have a book or two about a couple of famous cities and generalized overview books of entire worlds, there doesn't seem to be anything in the middle. Heck, I'm considering buying World's Biggest City or whatever its called, just to see what they've done with that.
I wonder why I haven't seen any supplements that simply define one area of the world, readily inserted into your campaign world if you like it... or are there already those out there that have done it, and I just don't know about it?
And, if you've done the same, what sort of ideas have you had? I intend to eventually finish a nicely put together world, I have an overall scheme I'm trying to follow, bringing historical societies and fantasy beginnings together into a mish-mash of hopefully interesting concepts to define a world... and I'd love to hear of others and what they've come up with.
As I've mentioned in other threads, I've slowly been working on my own fantasy world, bit by bit, idea by idea, over the years... not being incredibly creative, but knowing what I like, I've probably got enough stuff to create one realm. A single society with a culture, military structure, and several areas and cities of note that I think is interesting and able to be fleshed out quite well.
The basic premise surrounds a version of dwarves. I've always liked having a stout and hardy people as a player race, I've just never liked a lot of the visuals that go with dwarves... fat bellied, big bearded, excessively short and grumpy just struck me as... well... a bit too cartoony to me. I like to play with a bit less of that, realizing this is still fantasy, of course...
So I thought that a people that are very similar, minus the ridiculous height, beard, and need for large bellies might be in order. The underground thing is a bit overdone, and visualizing them more like the Mul race from the Dark Sun setting. (Shorter than humans, but still somewhat normal in height, but very stocky and hardy race... without a necessity for beards). I've always liked the heavy infantry aspect with all the armor, shields, and pragmatic approaches. Making heavy use of that within phalanx like they often do in fantasy literature gives them a connection to the spartans of old as well...
Going with that, I've always liked the idea of ridiculously heavy cavalry... Rhino-like creatures with heavy barding and heavily armored men charging into enemy ranks and all that...
Retaining some things, and with their use of heavy armors, etc. Metallurgy and even stonework would certainly be within their realms of expertise. I imagine a roman/greek sort of flavor to the society, also yoinking some of the ideas from the fortress from the Lord of the Rings movies and having a very interesting city idea in addition to this, etc.
I've wrote gobs on two cities, military structure and elements, political structure, cultural ideas, societal concepts, and even the fringe elements that kind of society might create. I've written on climate, terrain types that would exist within the lands, and various other elements. This is turning into quite a big idea that came from a small one, expanding quite a bit over the last couple of years.
Now, my question here is, would something like this make a good supplemental book to someone? Not that I'd probably publish this, but I was thinking about all the supplemental books out there, especially in the fantasy setting, and while you usually have a book or two about a couple of famous cities and generalized overview books of entire worlds, there doesn't seem to be anything in the middle. Heck, I'm considering buying World's Biggest City or whatever its called, just to see what they've done with that.
I wonder why I haven't seen any supplements that simply define one area of the world, readily inserted into your campaign world if you like it... or are there already those out there that have done it, and I just don't know about it?
And, if you've done the same, what sort of ideas have you had? I intend to eventually finish a nicely put together world, I have an overall scheme I'm trying to follow, bringing historical societies and fantasy beginnings together into a mish-mash of hopefully interesting concepts to define a world... and I'd love to hear of others and what they've come up with.