Remjin Posted May 7, 2007 Report Share Posted May 7, 2007 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted May 8, 2007 Report Share Posted May 8, 2007 Re: A new culture/race/realm, a good supplement? The D&D Gazeteer's did just that - defined one kingdom/area at a time. The concept was cool. But the idea of needing 14 supplements to complete a world seems cumbersome. Forgotten Realms, 2E, also had something similar. I have Cormyr and The Aunorauch. Not sure if more were planned along that line, or printed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Remjin Posted May 8, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 8, 2007 Re: A new culture/race/realm, a good supplement? The D&D Gazeteer's did just that - defined one kingdom/area at a time. The concept was cool. But the idea of needing 14 supplements to complete a world seems cumbersome. Forgotten Realms, 2E, also had something similar. I have Cormyr and The Aunorauch. Not sure if more were planned along that line, or printed. Ah, cool, so it has been done. Worth looking back at? I totally forgot about Cormyr, though I never saw Aunorauch. I like the idea of the plug and play aspect of realms and such. It wouldn't be that different from splat books focused on dwarves or elves or otherwise, in my eye... that way, if you like one thing, you can use it, but skip the ones you don't like. Rather than the idea of having to buy all of them to make one realm, the idea that you could insert any one realm in where you felt like it. =) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CourtFool Posted May 8, 2007 Report Share Posted May 8, 2007 Look, ma, Roman Vikings I like the idea of a 'realm' splatbook. The problem I see is maintaining a balance between vagueness so it fits anywhere and making it interesting. Cities might be easier. Just my own preference, but I have never been fond of Dwarves or their more human like stout relatives. Another problem…appealing to a large enough base. Although I guess that does not matter if you do not care about publishing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Remjin Posted May 8, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 8, 2007 Re: Look, ma, Roman Vikings I like the idea of a 'realm' splatbook. The problem I see is maintaining a balance between vagueness so it fits anywhere and making it interesting. Cities might be easier. Just my own preference, but I have never been fond of Dwarves or their more human like stout relatives. Another problem…appealing to a large enough base. Although I guess that does not matter if you do not care about publishing. Yeah, that would be an issue, wouldn't it? Well, if certain things are generalized, and things like cities and other notables are much more specific, it might work quite well.. this allowing the actual geography to be determined by the end-user and all that. Its one of those things where I'm making it because I like doing it... but I wouldn't mind some inspiration for other areas. I want to make it so that it has some of the usual tropes of fantasy so that people who might play it can immerse themselves somewhat quickly, but not as generic as others.... The whole dwarfish thing is really closer to how Warmachine has some of their "races," in which they are basically human, but tend towards a certain side of humanity, though I know I described it less so above... overall, I'm not a huge fan of wildly varying races, but I do like a couple. For some reason, I find having one short race nice... and had planned on using something akin to halflings in the current edition of D&D, but I'm having some trouble really nailing down a type of culture for them. I've come up with a few different ideas on how such a diminutive species would develop to survive, but nothing that's really made me get excited about it yet... *shrug* I guess I like slightly short, stout people since I'm one of them... though not as stout as others I've met. As I figure it, if I can put together a middle european type race as described above, and I can put together an asian style one, and perhaps an african, arabian, and even a native american one... that should cover a lot of areas pretty well, allowing me to create smaller cultures to disperse through the regions and reflecting some of the gradual changes between geographical areas where cultures tend to mix more between larger ones. *shrug* I've yet to finish a world at all, so its all just as well, its just an idea... In a sense, this is a way for me to take all the things that I find cool in various other worlds and adapt them into one world containing many interesting elements... to me, at least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilFleischmann Posted May 8, 2007 Report Share Posted May 8, 2007 Re: A new culture/race/realm, a good supplement? IIRC, there is a third-party d20 setting called "Sovereign Stone" (Larry Elmore's name on it for credibility*). In which dawrves are horse-riding barbarians, sort of like Mongols, only shorter. * And the illustration on the cover of HERO's 4th Edition Fantasy HERO (or was it one of the FH Companions?) also appears in the Sovereign Stone book. It's the guy with a lance on a horse in the snow, facing a big horned ogre (or troll, or something). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Remjin Posted May 9, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 9, 2007 Re: A new culture/race/realm, a good supplement? IIRC, there is a third-party d20 setting called "Sovereign Stone" (Larry Elmore's name on it for credibility*). In which dawrves are horse-riding barbarians, sort of like Mongols, only shorter. * And the illustration on the cover of HERO's 4th Edition Fantasy HERO (or was it one of the FH Companions?) also appears in the Sovereign Stone book. It's the guy with a lance on a horse in the snow, facing a big horned ogre (or troll, or something). Yeah, but like I stated, I'm not a fan of typical dwarves. =) I just like some of the principles behind them, but I dislike the visuals immensely. That is an interesting tidbit, though, thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CourtFool Posted May 9, 2007 Report Share Posted May 9, 2007 Re: A new culture/race/realm, a good supplement? Funny you should mention Halflings. If I dislike Dwarves, I hate Halflings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Remjin Posted May 9, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 9, 2007 Re: A new culture/race/realm, a good supplement? I can understand that. I invariably always get a olayer who loves one of the short races... be they gnome, halfling, kender or worse.. so I usually include one to meet all the above's needs. And, I do admit to some fondness. I definately donlt like elves. That might get me smacked around here, but I think the entire concept and all the elf love is... nevermind, I'll stop that rant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Jogger Posted June 4, 2007 Report Share Posted June 4, 2007 Re: A new culture/race/realm, a good supplement? I have a soft spot for Kobolds. They're literally the underdogs of the fantasy world. They have do everything that all the races do except do it with the combined minuses of all the other races combined, except they are surprisingly devious with traps and exceptional tactics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheQuestionMan Posted June 4, 2007 Report Share Posted June 4, 2007 Re: A new culture/race/realm, a good supplement? Kingdoms of Kalamar by Kenzer & Co. http://www.kenzerco.com/index.php?cPath=25_28&osCsid=f1edbce9bce81f97c27e40b504384b62 Kingdoms of Kalamar TSR Archive http://home.flash.net/~brenfrow/kk/kk.htm I found their racial supplements to be great resources and the Dwarves of Tellene free pdf is definitely needs a look through. QM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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