The Campaign Builder's Guild

Everybody loves guns! Well, by relatively new I meant 'last hundred years or so'; this isn't radically new technology and other similar stuff (for clearing rockslides and so on) probably existed before then. We're probably talking early flintlock level here. In the Upper Caverns, they're a status symbol, and are probably comparatively widely used in duels and so on - and there's the space for deploying musketry. Once you get further down, you usually want to avoid detection, and there's often not the space for muskets to be of use, so anyone wise prefers quieter weapons - small crossbows are probably the weapon of choice. Down here, pistols become a last-ditch weapon or more usually a prestige symbol.

Quote from: Ghostman
If firearms are a recent invention and mass production isn't possible, how can there be so many gunslingers? It seems that there wouldn't be enough guns to go around.

This is a good point, and one that I swear I'd covered in the original post - initially, although obviously it got lost somewhere in between typing and posting, there was a sentence there explaining that they might not specifically carry a gun but the archetype is there. That said, lack of mass production is not necessarily a barrier to wide distribution - guns are probably a prestige symbol, and knowledge of how to construct them - at least comparatively rubbish ones - is widespread amongst craftspeople, so acquiring one isn't THAT difficult.

QuoteWhat sources of light are there that let you actually see those views? Phosphorescent fungi? Holes in the cavern ceiling letting in beams of sunlight? Magical faerie-lights?

Phosphorescent fungi, largely. Most of the species present here don't need light, although the Pale People (read: humans) obviously do.

Quote
Are the cities made from remnants of older, now ruined and engulfed cities? Or does the people have an authentic architecture?

A mixture of both. Most older cities, and some newer cities, are built on ancient remains which probably predate most of the species that now inhabit them. Modern architecture is a mix of pragmatism - build from what you can find - and imitation of the styles of the ruins, which means lots of gothic archways and sharp, flat walls with no curves.

QuoteAre there any great water sources, like lakes and rivers and perhaps even an ocean?

Yes, there is a vast underground lake, the source of many rivers (some of them dammed by enterprising folk): this marks one of the effective borders of the world, although it is occasionally crossed and trade has been conducted with people from caverns on the other side. At the bottom of the Rift (a great crack, the rim of which is home to a number of cities and effectively marks the border of the 'civilised' territory of the Upper Caverns since the Rift is frequently used for downward travel) is another great body of water. Bad things live in the world's water - some of them sentient.

QuoteI think this question brings up; how vast is the inhabitable world?

This is unclear. How far down it is possible to go, nobody knows. The Upper Caverns are quite well-defined: they cover a comparatively small area, although they are not all contiguous and some of them can only be reached by venturing into the Lower Caverns.

The Tungi

The word 'Tungi' (from Undé túŋ, 'wild', 'mad') refers to a large and diverse group of different societies characterised by nomadic or semi-nomadic wilderness lifestyles outside major settlements. Despite their general classification and dismissal as 'Tungi' by city-dwellers, they are in no way a monolithic group, and many individuals called Tungi would balk tremendously at being given the same name as others.

Upper Tribes

The tribes of the Upper Caverns, or 'societies' as they generally prefer to be called, are multi-ethnic (and indeed multi-special) by origin and consist of a mixture of the descendants of outcasts from the cities (typically criminals) and people who have for one reason or another voluntarily chosen the Tungi life. There are a few of these societies in the Upper Caverns, and they provide large numbers of mercenaries and guides for expeditions and caravans. Among these societies, it is generally considered a mark of great personal courage to descend far into the Lower Caverns; young men are encouraged to do so as part of a coming-of-age ceremony in many groups. Generally societies are ruled over by the strongest member and are quite egalitarian; choices are largely made in council rather than by autocratic decree, and the position of leader is usually an unofficial recognition of an individual's strength and proficiency rather than an official position with its own inherent authority. Linguistically, the Upper Tribes are a mixture; each tribe has its own pidgin (or creole where the tribe has been established long enough) used for internal communication, drawing from a wide variety of languages and reflecting the diverse backgrounds of their members.

The societies are occasionally a problem for travellers: although individuals are unlikely to face anything more serious than a payment for passing through a given society's caverns, caravans are often too juicy a target for them to resist and attacks on traders are not uncommon. To attempt to avert this, a practice of paying societies off has taken hold amongst the merchants of many cities. Some societies are also given to raiding small settlements or the outskirts of larger cities, although there are few cities without walls and forces of guards large enough to make this a risk not worth taking. About fourteen years ago, however, the Black Blood Society successfully raided Puttulangu, which sits on the edge of the Rift, by climbing up the Rift from a lower cavern and attacking from the city's blind side; as a result, cities have become considerably more defensive and some have taken to actively hunting down local societies. In addition to this considerable source of income, many tribespeople work as guides or mercenaries, and in day-to-day life, the tribes hunt local game.

Lower Tribes

The Lower Tribes are considerably less similar to one another than the Upper Tribes. Some are simply societies which have been forced down, for one reason or another, further into the caverns; or indeed similar groups which have been formed by outcasts from the smaller settlements down here. If life in the Upper Caverns is hard, life in the Lower Caverns is next to impossible: the deeper one goes, the more poisonous or murderous the local wildlife. Despite superficial similarities the lifestyle of these groups is considerably different from that of their higher brethren, and depends primarily on raiding, extremely dangerous hunting, and oftentimes cannibalism. Other, less diverse groups also exist down here, sometimes with more sinister purposes. Ghouls - sentient humanoid carrion-eaters - form small packs, raiding graveyards and sites of battles and occasionally, when driven to it, killing in order to feed. A nomadic group of cultists who worship an entity known as the Mouth Below wander, begging and stealing from more civilised folk and occasionally kidnapping new members. All of the Lower Tribes are an active threat to anyone attempting to travel through the wilderness: should they detect you, it will most likely be your end. Many members of the Upper Tribes call those below 'dark-lovers' or 'listeners-to-the-dark' - the implication being that these people have been too long and too deep in the wilderness for their sanity to remain intact.

We all know what is likely to happen, but nevermind.

The Listening Dark

Beneath the surface of a parched, dead world, life clings to existence. From the edge of the Great Abyss to the mysterious Wasteland, vast caverns and tunnel-complexes form a twilight country, a land rich with resources and teeming with life - albeit life which is not generally of a friendly disposition. The rusting deposits of long-dead civilisations lie forgotten, crumbling in the midst of giant mushroom forests, strange, snuffling figures shamble from cave to cave in the mists of the Steamlands. In the upper caverns there are great city-states, ruled over by Thinking Peoples: the enigmatic Talasht, the reptilian Sistu, the inscrutable Kannee and the pale, decaying Speaking Dead. These cosmopolitan points of light attract others, less inclined to the construction of cities: Klikliks, Ghouls, Bakka-een and the omnipresent Pale People are all to be found in abundance here, alongside more exotic travellers from far-off lands - if they are wise, with a gun prominently displayed on their hip. In the wilderness, full of life, beauty, and danger, a more wild sort of person lives: the endless Tungi tribes, the outcasts of society, surviving on what they can catch before it catches them and occasionally making more civilised money acting as guides and interpreters for expeditions into the lower darkness. Few things are certain in this umbral land - other than one: the Dark is always listening, and whispering, and you would be wisest not to heed its advice.

Themes

The Listening Dark is, as you have probably already guessed, an Underdark setting - but not of the usual sort. This world has no habitable surface - what exists up there is harsh, unending desert, and if the shock from the brightness of the sun did not kill you, the endless heat and lack of water certainly would. The world beneath, however, remains tremendously habitable - that is for those species which can cope without the sun. Despite the danger posed by the many forms of native wildlife, many peoples have adapted to this home - indeed, many of them have always lived here. There are inspirations from both traditional fantasy settings and from the Wild West.

• Gunslingers. The vast majority of characters in this setting are likely to fit into this archetype one way or another. Gunslingers earn a living as mercenaries - either within a company, in which case they typically act as the core of a city-state's military forces in a given war, or individually, in which case they are more likely to earn a living as caravan guards, explorers, or in some other similarly violent occupation. Mass production is not present and is effectively prevented by vested interests; guns are individually made and are a relatively new technology.
• Ancient and Arcane Technologies. There are many things left over from the caverns' more glorious past, often hidden away in great troves in forgotten tombs and crumbling temples deep within the lower caverns. These range from curiosities and artworks to things with much more potency... things which many an interested individual would literally kill to acquire.
• Things From Beyond. There are things older than cities, older, perhaps, than the caverns themselves; things which are whispered about in dark corners of marketplaces and which inspire wild scribblings on the walls of sanatoriums. These are things best left undisturbed in the deepest caverns, things which only the most unwise of men would meddle with.
• Dubious morality. Slavery is a given in the society of the great cities, although slavery as the modern Western mind typically pictures it - i.e. lines of naked workers, picking cotton and in a powerless and generally miserable state - is not necessarily the image that it is best to draw on: many slaves rise to positions of considerable authority. Many societies here practise cannibalism, or at the very least prey on other sentient species - they are the least likely to be poisonous, after all.
• The Occult and Terrible. Mages are barely tolerated by society. They draw on forces which are beyond the experience of any wise man, and only survive due to their usefulness - until the near-inevitable madness takes them and they end up confined to a sanatorium. Many mages are slaves, forced into their profession In contrast, necromancers - those who speak with the dead and bind spirits to themselves - are, although perhaps looked at askance, far more widely accepted. The Speaking Dead are a common phenomenon: a powerful religio-political entity in the upper caverns whose purposes and ways are unclear but who have been readily welcomed into the cosmopolitan markets of other cities.

• Vast panoramas. Everybody loves a broad, beautiful view, and the Dark is full of them - albeit tinged with unpiercable shadows and full of things which would like to kill you.
• Points of light. The cities are safe enough - or at least have their own, unique dangers. Outside, the wilderness is filled with wildlife, both sentient and otherwise, which will happily hunt you and kill you and eat you alive.
  
• The Dark listens. And it could drive you mad, the great, yearning, claustrophobic emptiness of it, with its half-caught whispers always in your head.

Quote from: LordVreeg The Khemani have pretty long and convoluted nursery rhymes.
Not to mention the ability to scare the crap out of the kids..and nurse.

Have you seen the original Brothers Grimm stories? :P

Introduction

In the dark and colossal dockyard of El, at the edge of everything, straddling the void between existences, seven great ships were built. Their purpose? Perhaps to take another step away from nature, from mortality, another step on the ladder to transcendence; perhaps as transports for some great journey that they knew was to come; perhaps just because they could. Seven rings, seven eye-rims of metal around seven burning pupils, each a god-corpse decomposing in a colossal thermonuclear reaction. It was a mere eyeblink later - a few thousand years, give or take - that the Old Ones, at the height of their power, having destroyed or subjugated everything that presented the merest hint of a threat to their hegemony, experienced something they had long believed themselves above: epidemic. Beginning at the heart of the empire, where it slaughtered the royal family and most of their court, the Divine Flux raged across the universe, killing those whom brutal civil war had not yet taken. A mere fifty or sixty years after the disease had emerged, the Old Ones had been utterly destroyed.

Their end plunged the universe back into a dark age of technology. The Old Ones' slaves - largely humans, chosen for their almost-unique susceptibility to their powers of control - had little or no idea what had occurred: many terrible things had come to pass, and at the end, their gods, their benevolent rulers, were gone from the world. The slaves were suddenly free. Human society had to undergo a massive reconfiguration. Kingdoms and empires rose and fell. Almost the only constant was a class of slaves; perhaps proving humanity's inability to change too much at once. Where once they were the lowest of the slaves, humanity has largely established itself as the dominant oxygen-breathing species.

It has been almost three-thousand years since the collapse of the Old Ones' empire. Only one of the great ships survived - one last ring, suspended in space. The interior is a great, fecund garden, a true second Eden for humanity. Some of the new human societies - the more successful - scavenge and partially replicate technology from the dark and dangerous tunnels beneath the surface, but in the ignorant belief that they are simply accepting gifts from the old gods, or perhaps, at best, that they are tomb-raiding. Others have simply reverted to hunting and gathering. None have any grasp of the original purpose of their world.

But for all the paradisical nature of the world's surface, things, terrible things, are once more stirring. Word has reached the Great Cities of a new and rising Empire in the far east of Kheman, an Empire proclaimed and ruled by a man who is half-god and his hundred semi-deific children. From their hiding places in the far reaches of reality, the enemies of the Old Ones are taking their first timid steps back into what was once theirs. Scavengers return from underground routes once considered safe missing many members of their party, grim and muttering only amongst themselves of footsteps in the darkness and a high, terrible laughter. And in Marat, the dead will not stay in their graves...

The Eye of Heaven

Come closer, little Manling,
Into the darkness. There
That's better. I see you
More clearly now than before.
Let me tell you a story,
Or stories; of Darkness,
of Dead Gods and Old Ones,
of Scavengers, of the
Great Cities of the East,
of Ships-that-Fly, of Sorcerers,
of Tick-Tock Men and Spirits,
of Ghosts and Darrows, of
Wyrms and lonely nights
When even the firelight seems dim
In the indescribable blackness of space.
Of your Brothers and Sisters, of
Wonders and Mysteries beyond
The ken of Man. Perhaps you
Will learn a little. Perhaps
not. Your kind are quick
To judge a story, and slow
to learn from it. So harken
unto my words, the
Watcher-in-the-Dark,
for it is Truth
I speak.

- Old Khemani Nursery Rhyme, Anon.

Seven-thousand years ago the world began,
In fire and flame it began, and the Gods made it.
For four-thousand years they ruled us,
Kindly and benevolent masters.
Three-thousand years ago, the Gods ascended to the Above, as was foretold.
The world ended, and was born anew. We were alone.
They are not dead; they are simply Beyond.

- Excerpt from the Meri TÉman (the Song of Timon)

The Eye! The Eye of Heaven! In the Great Darknesse it is as a Ring; and one Fiery Pupil is unto it! If thou readst this, o Childe, think not of me; avert thy gaze from this Manuscripte, for this way lieth only the great Madnesse. Beware the Watcher!

- Excerpt from the last papers of Ilanu TÉ-SÌŒakho, famed occultist, after his confinement in the Rukhat Tower Asylum

D is the normal d sound, dd is [ð], the soft 'th' in 'the'.

Yeah, the <f> actually comes from the invention of the printing press - Welsh has in terms of occurrence far more 'v' sounds than English, so the number of 'v' pieces of movable type far exceeded what was actually available - whereas there were 'f's aplenty, apparently!

QuoteI've come across a few things with the Maginogion. I haven't really gone fully into that part of the world yet though. I've gone back and forth with the Romans influences. I'm not certain I want attacks from Rome (or a Rome Analogue) to be something that happens frequently. My current setting map includes only the two islands, and for the most part I planned on the setting being confined to that. There is a vague awareness of there being other places, but they would only factor in on a case-by-case basis. But, if it really is that important to Welsh Myth, I might have to.

As far as correcting the Welsh and Irish, I don't think it really matters that much, Since it is Irish and Welsh inspired, and not actually Ireland and Wales. That said, if you feel so inclined, you are welcome to correct. I just reserve the right to take artistic license.[/quote]Glasconaí[/i] would be Glaschonaí, because of initial mutation, and I would say gwlad wen for 'white country' if that was what you were going for, although these days glwad wyn is equally correct and I have to admit the latter sounds a bit better. I'd also decide which out of <v> (the accurate Old Welsh spelling) and <f> (the modern Welsh spelling) you want to use for the 'v' sound. It's the aesthetics that matter, though, as you say.

QuoteDo you think that I should not use names of actual Welsh towns?

Llanwrst[/i], since I think it's a corrupted form of Llanrwst, meaning 'place of Saint Gorst'. Still, you could just come up with another historical character called 'Gorst' to justify it.

I have to say, I really like the feel you've got going on here, although it's slightly more difficult to be captured by the mood when the place names (at least the Welsh ones) are places you visit frequently, or in one memorable case (Maesteg) the extremely dull terminus of your train journey home. :P I'm looking forward to more of the Welsh-themed stuff; although I appreciate you're more familiar with Irish legends. I'd link you to an online version of the Mabinogi, but I'm sure someone did that a couple of pages back. This is a useful page if you haven't found it yet.

Roman themes, incidentally, are quite important to Welsh mythology - unsurprising considering how much the two cultures syncretised in post-Roman Britain: to give an example, Welsh borrowed words as apparently fundamental to normal speech as braich, 'arm', originally from Latin bracchium. Are you planning to incorporate Roman themes at all?

Also a serious question - would you like me to correct your Welsh and Irish (the latter to the extent of my little ability)? I'm not sure it matters that much since, after all, names just add flavour to a setting, but the other's there if you'd like.

Quote from: PhoenixTown Drunkard - Wensleydale (Should we really call it this? It makes it sound like less of award...)

I would be fine with being called town drunkard. :P Certainly I accept this nomination.

Quote from: Tillumnidying + all inclusive = a society of long lived race banding together in the face of collective adversity. drows, elves and what ever race have the same life span burying the hatchet...perhaps literally, this being the west afterall, and are now living together in a more or less uneasy peace. Some might genuingly want to share the time they have left with others that they can relate to, due to life span. Another group might try to use the combined knowledge of the varius race to prevent thier race dying out soon (soon being relative for a long lived race). and some might simple don't like the arrangement but tolerates it, some even trying to sabotage it. bonus point if it's ambigious which race belongs to which group.

That works, actually. Races banding together to stop themselves dying out. This would probably be a feature of areas in the human-dominant regions... hmm.

Since these brainstorms seem all the rage recently, I thought I'd make one instead of jumping straight into yet ANOTHER homebrew thread. So the basic themes of this setting:

Kitchen sink. Modified clichés - which players will feel comfortable in, but which are different enough to be interesting - will run rife. Everything that I can include will be included (including all those horrible 3.5 forms of magic, other than possibly Vancian if I can avoid it)

Fantasy? More like the WILD WILD WEST! I like guns, you like guns, why not include guns? :P I was thinking these could be developed by some technological race (possibly dwarves) and mass-produced by humans, or vice versa (how DO you spell that?), but this can be decided later.

Dying races. Only they're not going across the sea to the everlasting isles. They're actually dying. I'm not yet certain what the dominant race is going to be - probably humans, in which case in most places other races will be a rarity.

All-inclusive society. This place will have places that are all-inclusive - drow, elves, orcs, gnolls, and so on. But these will not be everywhere.

Lots o' magic. Not necessarily POWERFUL magic - in fact there will be very few great mages in this setting - but lots of different types.

Airships. Because everyone likes airships.

Adventurers. Stigmatised or worshipped, stereotyped or deified, hated or loved, 'adventurer' is everyone's favourite career choice here.

Gods. Gods are everywhere. There are hundreds of them, thousands possibly, and whilst an individual may not worship one god, he will probably recognise his or her existence. Every society has their own gods, but gods, like humans, have restrictions. They are omniscient and omnipotent only within consecrated areas, such as churches, and have limited power even within their areas of influence. Their only recourse is to work through their worshippers.

Quote from: Cataclysmic CrowJust a thought based on your Star Wars quote: how far in the future is this? And since it seems to be based on our world only with some additions, do people still watch Star Wars :p (now going from episode I to XX)

Also, again, love the Tsochari... possibly the best thing WOTC ever made :D[/quote]How do you play Warpball? [/quote]Does the recreation area follow a set of enforced laws in any way or are you aiming for some kind of hedonistic paradise?[/quote]In general, how is order maintained on the ship when it is maintained?[/quote]Alabar is neat; also cool to have him be the last of a race of kraken. Do you propose that Earth's oceans saw visits from them at some point since we have myths etc? I like them better confined to their own planet to be frank, but it would explain the myths. Maybe a freak teleportation accident or a species of highly developed intergalactic jesters dropped a kraken there at one point.[/quote]Did Alabar escape or was he always located in the Water Tank? Seems odd since that water was probably meant for drinking.[/quote]You also mention that you can walk on the outside of the ship. Has the outside seen any kind of development? Colonization by space mushrooms or some such?[/quote]You have mentioned the hyin several times: what are they other than the most peaceful alien species?[/quote]Do you have any immaterial or non-carbon-based races? [/quote]I think that was all for now.[/quote]

Thanks a lot :D