The Campaign Builder's Guild

Most melee weapons are way simpler and cheaper to make than firearms, especially when you don't have access to mass production techniques. A good sword would probably run you the equivalent of 100-200 dollars, where as a good pistol or rifle (not just a crappy flint or wheel lock, or a blunderbuss) would be more in the range of 500-1000. A firearm requires more technical skill to make, and also runs out of ammunition. Bullets, unless you have a musket, are pretty expensive. It's the old Economy vs Functionality argument.

Mm... You might want to make it more than 13 years in the future, maybe fifty, or at least sometime before we could really just mine ice from asteroids and whatnot. Another thought is that the water table dropped, right after we ran out of oil. All that space had to be filled with something, and sea water is as good a candidate as any. Sink holes formed, fresh water would have to be rationed, and civilization begins downward spiral.

One thing I would play with would be craft myths and legends around many of the things we take for granted, like the internet, cars, airplanes, electricity, indoor plumbing, running water, rebar. Also try to figure out what would survive the collapse, here's a couple to think about: gunpowder, revolvers, rifling, bicycles, smithing, concrete, cement, steel and steam power.

Maybe there are a couple different types of charge, and each charge can only fire specific kinds of bullets. For instance Dragon's blood, congealed and powdered will fire gold and gem bullets, a Caul from a demon might only fire human bone fragments, and Basilisk venom and Phoenix tears mixed will only blast away living tissue.

Battle Royale for rich whiny 20-somethings. I wanna watch!

You know, it might be kinda neat to focus on what's grown up from the ground, per se, than to focus on the wasteland aspect of the post-apoc genre. Dessicated wastelands are pretty much the genre staple, because it's what Americans fear. I'd really like to see an apocalypse that is set in an overgrown jungle or something.  Also, how exactly did civilization fall due to a water shortage? I can believe that America would explode, but your scenario with North Korea being the last man standing doesn't quite work, because they would die of thirst, disease, and starvation just as fast as the Europeans, Chinese, and Russians. Even given that the population doubled, there are too many options, like refitting oil-tankers to store ice and water, using dew traps, desalinization plants, water creation/electricity plants (kinda like those hydro-electric cars), Canada's snow. It's easy to underestimate just how much water there is on this planet and exactly how little of it our population actually uses.

It really leaves me quite puzzled, where did all of this water go? If all this water just disappeared, sea-level would drop, the Icecaps would melt, because of all the CO2 being sent up into the atmosphere from the mass die-off of plants unable to get water, and things would eventually return to normal in about 50-100 years, once the water tables rebalanced.  

Micronesia is an interesting spot to pick, since  there are hundreds of small islands, exotic diseases, and play with the environs that we already know and love there.

Looks fun! Here's a couple of thoughts:

Maybe a Retro character class? Maybe something like: Free Bird!: +5 Starpower, -5 mojo, +10 Jazz once a concert when you totally go solo, riding roughshod over all of your bandmates. There also needs to be a class with More Cowbell! as an ability.

What about the crunch for special instruments and sets?

Maybe a Metal stat? Kinda self explanatory.

Also, Grim and Giggly need different stat boosts.

My experience with Sex in role playing has been mostly kept to the bedroom, but in terms of design-space in a world, yeah it's about as basic as it gets. You need to think about how your world views sex because for most races, it's the way they reproduce (except for the odd few who manage it asexually or through advanced magic/technology). I've never run any campaigns that would have been particularly complemented by sex; I've actually found it more useful as a gag prop, more than anything. Granted most of the people I played with at the time were adolescent males, but it seemed to always end up as "Oh you're sleeping with that hooker? Roll a fort save to not catch the crotch rot," kind of joke.

One thing that does need to happen more in settings that are refulgent with species is interracial sex, and the results, half-breeds. Traditional DnD seems to think that humans only really breed with elves and orcs. Or they seem to think that anything can and should breed together (Oh Forgotten Realms...) and your players end up some half giant, half dragon, half golem, half troll, half vampire, half elemental, half elf, half drow genetic nightmares made flesh. I also think how well you as a storyteller handle sex should be a deciding factor how much is present in your story.

How sex relates to politics is well documented, although it seems to fade a bit as you get to more modern political systems (Well, beyond good PR). However, it is a very powerful tool to be used to set up very interesting situations in games or in stories. A prince is searching for a princess to marry and holds a grand ball to meet all the potential girls. Perhaps the players/characters are escorting a princess, and assassins attack, revealing a conspiracy that intended to meet, using said ball as cover, to depose the prince. Perhaps a jealous ex is hunting down his object of obsession and the characters get involved when 'great big huge tracts of land' come into play.

As a player, you can have a lot of fun with sex in the game, particularly if you're playing a shapeshifter. A friend of mine in an eberron game used to play a changeling barbarian who would use her bust and form as a way to get bonuses on diplomacy checks. It actually took our gnomish wizard a few sessions to realize what our comrade was doing, although he did enjoy the view both before and after the revelation.

Just make sure that you write down your on the fly creations. I forgot a couple times, and it did screw up my campaigns on occasion. However, I find it a lot more effective to do spontaneous world building like that; off the cuff comments came make the whole world seem that much more realistic. Actually, a couple of friends and I built a world like that, just randomly. Picked up some stock stats we had lying around, then ran with it. It was one of the most enjoyable games I've ever experienced.

@ SamuraiChicken: Hey! Thanks for commenting and thanks for the info! Your thoughts have really helped me visualize what it would be like to live in Orrery. Likewise, I'm pretty sure that there's a picture in the 11th post, granted it isn't accurate, but it's close enough.

Flying creatures would handle movement outside of gravity wells very differently. They could still generate thrust, but it would be in the opposite direction of the wingflap. Likewise, as long as there is air to push against, they could control their flight somewhat. It would not be as precise as in a gravity fold, despite requiring more flaps per second to generate the same amount of thrust. Inertia would be kept, except for what is bled off by wind resistance. Most flying creatures and their riders would have to be trained for 0-g flight, but it would be possible.

The Deeps are intentionally vague at this point. I've yet to work on them in any real fashion mostly because they mostly play a very background role in the setting. It's something for epic levels, really.  

I'm glad you're excited for the Church of the Divine Law and the flayers, as they are the next two things I'm working on. Flayers first then the church. The tribal mindflayers inhabit a highly contested piece of Orrery known as the Dawnland which the 6 major powers are currently fighting over with themselves and the natives. I'm looking at the indigenous tribes of the Phillipines a lot with the mind flayers, but that's all the spoilers I'll give out now. Here's something new that I'm polishing up.
[ic=The Three Gateways of Cvilization]

Moran Hallowbeck is a well respected Phaethusian political philosopher from the late colonial period about fifty years ago. His particular preoccupation was studying how civilization formed, and as he analyzed the reports of cultures in the colonies, he began consolidate what would become known as the Codex Civilus. His primary theory was the idea that there were certain technologies that had to be discovered for a real civilization to exist.

The first gateway technology is precise timekeeping. Until a group of peoples is capable of measuring how long it takes for something to occur, they cannot create schedules. They cannot govern over a large scale. The only real social organization capable without measured time is a loose tribal confederation that barely rates the term civilization. One of the interesting things about timekeeping was that it basically only developed on orbitals with at least one moon, with the one exception being the Dendrosentients of Belsarius and their highly regular pulse cycle. There were instances on orbitals where agriculture was developed of the growing periods for certain crops was used as a rudimentary timepiece, however there is no known example of a society developing a way to measure time from this. Hallowbeck theorized that once the idea of 'moonrise to moonset to moonrise' is established, timekeeping becomes widespread, it allows for schedules, it allows for more forward planning, for the idea of rates, and it allowed for peoples to build a more structured society. It allowed or agriculture to spread easier, with measurable growth cycles and a calendar to figure how to plant.

The next gateway is Skycraft technology. It takes a certain level of organization, basic thaumaturgical knowledge, and resource base to enter this gate. On some shelves, some basic summonings are more difficult, or suffer from interference from the basic fabric that the orbital rests in. A number of civilizations couldn't manage to get off of their orbital due to the lack of certain magics. Also, it requires a knowledge of astronomy that  Once a civilization achieves the ability to transverse the orbital system, it gains the ability to spread out, have access to greater resources, and trade with other cultures beyond the civilization's limited experience. It also makes it entirely more likely that it will have to go to war to protect itself, subjugate the native populations, or to drive of other colonial powers. There is no record of a culture developing Skycraft technology before developing timekeeping. A few of the peoples had developed the ability to get to their moons, but it was generally a very crude and dangerous set of methods used. The Telemachans actually developed workable skycraft before they managed to design an alphabet.

In his final chapter, Hallowbeck suggested that the next gateway would be 'deepcraft' technology, a way to build or create a ship that could actually navigate the deeps. It would be a step on par with the growth provided by Skycraft technology. However, many scholars have tried and failed to make this leap. The problem is that the deeps are a very hostile environment. The leviathans of the black waters are alien, impossible things, some of which cannot even enter the Orrery because they'd die from the lack of crushing pressure. Likewise, no-one knows exactly what lies beyond the bubble Orrery inhabits, and consequently no one can really say what deepcraft technology would allow.  It's also rather impractical, as there is a lot of space still available within the orbital system, so there is no need to grow. [/ic]

What would the effects of the low gravity be on civilization? Would they build taller? Use lots of gliders to get around? Flight would be easier, and would make a fun campaign piece play with. You could use all of those impractical designs for flying machines and have fun with them.

What tech level are you going for? High tech could be fun; I wonder if you could use a gas giant as a power source, like a wind turbine or something. Likewise, low tech could allow some fun stuff. It would allow you to play with the whole Avatar thing, but better written (Fern Gully much?). Maybe a mixture? Colonial space opera?

I have to say that you seem more interested in the astronomy aspect of this setting, so far, rather than the people inhabiting it. I find it's more compelling get a basic gist of what the setting looks like, then really focus on the civilizations that the players are going to interact with. I'd really like to see some culture stuff bandied around. Granted, that's the stuff I can comment the best on, since my science background is limited to what I dimly recall of high school physics and wikipedia.

I have to concur; anything too rules-heavy will make the game slow down way too much. I get the sense that this world is meant to be slightly imbalanced, so I might suggest the system Dungeons and Discourse found here uses. Take a gander. It's worth looking at.

I was thinking about it, however, what I wanted was basically a last resort sort of thing combined with a certain level of cosmic horror and dark survivalism. Taint is really there to allow the players to sucker punch  the Bosses that might be a little too powerful for them normally, or when they are starving/sick/otherwise indisposed. Setting-wise and gestalt-wise, it's there as a massive glowing neon sign saying "Yes, the Universe is out to get you. What tipped you off?" just in case the rest of the setting didn't kill you first. It also plays up the Lovecraftian motif of psychological and spiritual wounds that never quite heal or fester over time, generally from meddling with things beyond mortal understanding.

Realistically speaking, most casters who played in this world stayed away from Taint magic like the plague, unless there was absolutely no choice. However, the party still got tainted. They got directly exposed to the Revenant and basically had their spirits blackened beyond all recognition (which is the real reason that I brought Taint into this world). Ah, fun times for all. They actually had a lot of fun with Taint as it was, and had a lot of fun after being hopelessly contaminated. Go figure. I can't find any of my notes for this setting, but I do remember the Tainted caster being able to use someone else (fort save DC 10+ PrC lvl to negate, as I recall) as a vessel for Taint, and the Tainted Warrior dealt taint damage with a special attack. I also think the Redeemed caster had the ability to assume taint from somebody else, and then slowly dissipate it.

Good luck with your journey into the wilds!

Quote from: Light DragonHow does Purity City handle conversions considering that they take "other people's" coinage?

Oddly enough, it doesn't really. The Merchant's Guild usually just melts down the coin for the metal if they don't officially recognize it, which actually gives them a large boost in wealth given some metals are common on one shard, and stupidly rare on others; for instance, copper is practically unknown on Belsarius, and is worth more per pound than platinum, but is so common in Idjkun that it's cut into just about all of their coins. Given a half-decent smelter and a pile Idjkun currency, a merchant could make a killing or two selling copper to Belsarius. For the more common currencies, they just store them until such a time that they need it. They keep a weather eye on what the prices for each commodity on each orbital are, and consequently just use those as a rough starting point. They don't 'exchange' currency. There are no standardized exchange rates. The only country with the beginnings of an 'exchange rate' is the pirate nation of Idjkun, since they steal everybody's currency they are trying to figure out what each currency is worth of each other. Most countries just use foreign currency for the worth of the metal, much like in medieval Europe.

This seems like a really interesting take on the whole celtic folklore world. I can see that you really did enjoy Susannah Clark's vision of Faerie; I keep expecting to see a dot on your map marked 'Lost Hope'. Or 'Pity Me'. Your faeries seem really quite intriguing, and I'd love to see more developed with them. I'm interested in the role magic would play in this world. Is it something that is beyond human comprehension, that toys with them like a cat with a mouse before it kills them? Or is it a mysterious force that slithers in the secret corners of the world, before pouncing out suddenly, only to blink out of existence before you can truly get a grasp of it? Is it a furtive, silent song that only the destined can hear, a song that calls them onward to a mysterious, subtle realm?

Is magic the supernatural enemy, a hidden natural power that some creatures and people use, or an ephemeral pulse in the night that one cannot quite quantify?