The Campaign Builder's Guild

Following Luminous Crayon's and Steerpike's setting primer idea for Jade Stage and CE, here's a short summary for Arga. This is probably the third or fourth reboot attempt at a world I've been tinkering with for the better part of a decade. I should hopefully have a world map up soon, because who doesn't love world maps.

Arga World Synopsis

The World is Young and Fierce – The forge that made the world still glows, warm and red, an ember drifting in the black cosmos. The seas still churn and the mountains still reach for the clouds. The jagged stone of the earth has yet to feel the long, smooth kiss of the wind; the shores the susurrating caress of the tides. The Five Moons streak across the star-strewn skies, tails of gold, stone, fire, iron, and ice trailing in their wake.

Unlike other worlds with eons of history, thousand-year empires, established kingdoms and written histories, Arga is a world wet from birth – the bastard gods battle across the shining heavens for the scraps of creations while the mortal folk forge their destinies across the sundered earth and savage seas below. 

Yet there are things that belie Arga's youth. From the cold void, the first gods gathered the scraps and shards of dead worlds, drifting lonely in the dark, and, like so many colors of clay, shaped the world into being. Folktales speak of massifs built from the ruins of impossible cities, of moors littered with spires of iron and gold sharp enough to cut a man in two, of roaming atolls dripping with madness, and of labyrinth-heaths that stretch as far as the eye can see.

Hidden deep within the crevices and corners of those dead and desiccated worlds were things better left to the void, Mortal and Immortal alike. Like roaches, rats, and leeches, they huddle in the dark places of Arga, scurrying, gnawing, and sucking. Most exist only to feed, while a terrible few plan and plot, seeking their own dark glory on this new world...

A Land Unknown – Arga, being a young world, is little known. Maps are rare and impossibly valuable things – and rarely correct. The Mortal cities are connected more by stars in the sky than by lines on parchment. Arga is a realm of myths and rumors, hearsay and sailor's talk. The truth of the world is for the players to discover, unearth, and, if they dare, to define.

The immediate action in Arga takes place on just a sliver of the world. Jagged and violent, a dozen different lands and innumerable islands jut from the Thirteen Seas. Ice and rime bind the North. Fetid, fecund winds blow from the South. To the West lies an ocean without end, and to the East sit the rumored shores of unknown realms, outlandish and odd.

Mortals, Immortals, and Those Between –The spark of creation flows through the veins of all creatures, but in some, it is stronger. Arga is a fledgling world, and as such, the ravages of time have had little chance to separate the wheat from the chaff – so to speak. That which divides the Mortal that walk the face of Arga and the cosmic immortals from whence they come is tenuous at best. Will the players be the great sorcerer-kings of future legends? A fountainhead of divinity? The Mortal who defied an Immortal? A usurper god?

The Mortal Kin of Arga are as young and fierce as the world itself. The Anthos, petty and inspired. The Vor, savage and spiritual. The Automach, orphaned and lost. The Nurn, furtive and inquisitive. The Myrmec, simple and noble. The Dura, obstinate and callous. The Ergos, shunned and aloof. There are myriad other races of varying sentience and number, such as the rare but intelligent Sphynx-cats, the numerous but dull Gul, the massive but sleepy Gants, the wise and venerable Acipense, or the cruel and violent Mur. 

Alongside, above, below, and within the Mortal Kin of Arga exist the immortals. Inscrutable, temperamental, and fey, the Immortals range from petty house-spirits to the ancient beings that forged Arga itself. The Immortals are the recipients of worship and scorn, veneration and vilification. To name and number the Immortals would be an exercise in madness and futility.   

In addition to the Mortals and Immortals are Those Between, the Others, the Strange. Too bizarre to define, the rules set forth at creation do not define Those Between. Believed to be the survivors of other times and planes of existence, they are unique beings in transition between inscrutable realms. Some of the Others who have made themselves knowable are the dreadful Moth-King, the entropic Moon-Mountain, and the deranging Chromatic.

General Themes

Exploration – The world is new and unknown, it is for the players to discover and, more importantly, to define.

Greek-punk – The thematic tone of Arga is what I like to call Greek-punk. It is a world of bronze and spears and ships. Tyrants rule over fiercely independent city-states. Wars are won and lost on the whims and predilections of heroic individuals. Innate magic is rare and decidedly subtle and subdued. The Immortals meddle and plot.

Yet there is room for anachronism and the curious. Crude crossbows, bombards, and hand-cannons are present in parts of Arga. The acamancers of the great cities debate and develop advanced pseudo-sciences and math-based thaumaturgy. Astromancers scribe the stars and the Five Moons. Aethemancers filter out from the world. Locks, canals, lighthouses, citadels, and other engineering marvels often define the city-states, built by the minds of engineer-savants and the dumb brawn of golems of brass and cogs. Tinkerers hawk baubles and trinkets made of tiny gears and well-crafted lies. Massive arks ply the seas, cities upon the deep.

The Urbane and the Wild – Arga is, at times, an empty and lonely world. While the great city-states of the Anthos bustle and hum, the spaces in between are vast and unknown. 

The Sea – The Thirteen Seas of Arga connect the world. Travel overland is slow and routes are close to non-existent. The seas are the lifeblood of the world. Trade ships ply the waves, shipping everything from dried fish to gold to cloth. Anglers plumb the depths for hauls of increasing size, and danger, to feed the multitude mouths of the great port-cities. Navies crash upon each other in storms of arrows and spears and splinters, seeking ownership of narrow straights and lucrative trade lanes.

Nevertheless, the seas are realms of danger as well. Raiders and corsairs strike from mist-shrouded islands, plundering coastlines and fat merchants. The slime-white Mur sack sleepy fishing villages, dragging the inhabitants to the depths for vile purposes. All manner of extraordinary sea creatures rise from the abyss, swallowing entire ships in fanciful gulps. Arga is the Sea, and the Sea is Arga.

Out from the ether to give a well deserved congrats!

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Quote from: Hoers
This trend of forcing the generic fantasy setting tropes into the game is unfortunate, but not really surprising. I wonder if it's just that game companies feel like they need to do that to appeal to a larger RPG-playing audience, or if it's someone on the staff who just really loves elves and dwarves no matter how appropriate they are?

But I really feel like we should have progressed past this point by now. To use Planescape: Torment as an example; that is a game that came out 18 (WHAT?) years ago and for party members you could have a sassy floating skull, a half-demon lady (which by now has its own NSFW thread on Reddit), an animated suit of armor, a full-demon lady (which by now also has its own NSFW thread on Reddit), a weird psychic warrior-monk, a mage engulfed in fire, AND A MECHANICAL CUBE CREATURE.

I mean, BGII's companions weren't amazingly original by any means, but they were memorable. If you're going to be an awesome-unique world-saver, then your companions should also be awesome-unique right?

Hello CBG, this is Leetz' quarterly annual appearance. Because I'm busy and cheap, I've finally gotten around to giving Pillars of Eternity a shot and oh boy I really have no idea what to think. I've read it's been really well received, but, try as I may, I just... I just can't. Now, I love love love BGII and BGI ain't a beauty but hey she's alright. Thinking about BGII brings back so many feels that sometimes I wish I could suffer a severe cranial injury just to experience BGII for the first time again. And Planescape: Torment - oh yes. Yes please. Icewind Dale I and II? They're the perfect games when you're drinking beer in your sweatpants and don't want to deal with dialogue and just crush it.

But Pillars... I want to love it, but I can barely bring myself to like it.

First, combat is an over-complicated mess where attributes mean nothing and everything at the same time. Barbarians and Wizards seem to have the same optimal stat lines. Combat is incredibly convoluted and over in a heartbeat even if you play in Slow Mode. Characters drop like flies before you even know they're dead or the party's combat AI wipes the floor for you in a hot second. For whatever reason, I could understand THACO, wand saves, and rounds as a 13 year-old, but for the life of me, I can't understand the combat system at this game and I'm 30.

Second, the setting. Ugh, the setting. I love it, then I cringe at it. They seem as if they really want to make a different kind of fantasy setting, but at the same time are inexplicably able to let go of the Gygax-Tolkien cliches. The God-like are cool (but I don't get why people aren't freaking the eff out around them), the aumana are neat, as are the orlan. Even with that being said, the 'amauna are Hawaiian' and 'hey look we have Inuit dwarves' feels like picking remarkably low-hanging fruit. Furthermore, elves and dwarves actually feel the like the odd races out for once and  are totally unnecessary in an otherwise weird and interesting world.

Third, the impossibly long-winded dialogue options, which are usually adequately written, but holy hell do they drag on sometimes. I'm sure some gamers like to wander through dialogue trees but this guys got things to do OK? And with XP being gifted more heavily on interactions and quests than on killing monsters (which is a good idea in theory!), I find myself blindly clicking to finish a tree in hopes of XP. Now, I would be totally down this if the dialogue was like Planescape: Torment - philosophical, to-the-point, interesting, bizarre, engaging. But the dialogue here is so pedestrian. "Why did you leave your homeland?" oh, let me tell you... but only after I've been with you for so long because I'm coy and a proper gentleman.

All in all, I feel like this game was a massive opportunity missed, yet I still have a little hope for the Numenera spin-off of Torment only because it looks so weird (relatively). Pillars is like they tried to muddle together middling fantasy novel writing, a stats-boner combat system, and a vein of world building that considers itself progressive by using Hawaiian, Welsh, and Inuit naming schemes while still adhering to the stereotypes that exist about each of these respective cultures and the cliches that exist in mainstream fantasy.

*Exhale*

I guess this game really bothered me a lot.

I have been more than fortunate in my life. I was born white, male, healthy, middle class, hetero. I have never had to deal with any substantial obstacle in my life. My whiteness, my straightness, my middle-class-ness have paved an easy path that I was not always aware of.

Now, at the very least, I know that I know nothing. For that, I have to thank numerous professors, teachers, classmates, and friends that have lived lives much more difficult than mine. I cannot express my gratitude to these people. I won't name you, but I hope that you know who you are, and how much you've challenged my perceptions of the world, and, at the end of the day, made me a better person.

I know little about being any shade other than white, about being anything other than hetero. I wasn't raised in a religious home by any stretch of the imagination, but that is no substitute for dealing with the shit and suspicion piled upon faiths other than Christian here in these United States of America.

I know nothing about the struggle for basic healthcare and reproductive rights because I am a man. I can buy condoms at a gas station. I can blow my load and disappear. Birth control is not our responsibility, nor, ultimately, are children: that is the sad, terrible fact.
I personally know nothing of the sexual violence that quietly, malevolently, pervades and perverts our society. Yet, I have known beautiful human beings, women and men alike, that have not been so lucky, that have suffered the most vile and indescribable violence against their bodies and against their souls.

I have worked my fair share of shitty jobs, but I have never had to support a family on minimum wage, or struggle to find a job because of my past, my color, or where I come from. I've had my run-in with the law, but I was not Tasered, nor beaten, nor shot. I was assured that it was no big deal and I would be out in the morning.

I realize that this is just a forum, an ephemeral, quick thing. Yet, for what it's worth, for those not born white, male, healthy, middle class, hetero, for those not born in alignment with our new, great America, you have an ally in me.

I love how the first bullet point on the store page is "Shipping is free within Finland!"

Are you sure those are adventure modules or simply the greatest death metal bands I've never heard of?

Or have Zelda go full Boudicca and lead a massive army against Gannon!

Ok.

I grew up on the northern coast of Lake Michigan. Just being sassy.

But seriously, lake-effect weather will be a big part of your world. Lots of clouds, very wet, relatively mild seasons.

The inhabitants of the coast exist upon an economy of catering to inland tourists, who pay way too much for fish that's not even that good. The locals say that there are 9 months of winter and 3 months of tourists. During the long, dark, cold winters, the locals drink copious amounts of alcohol, partake in winter sports, and play a strange card game called euchre. During this time of the year, the beverage of choice is Pabts Blue Ribbon, a sub-par local-ish beer ironically adopted by fashionable inlanders, and Hot Damn, a sweet, spicy, cinnamon-flavored liquor.

During the short, beautiful summers, the locals are normally working their fingers to the bone, accommodating tourists, seducing inlanders, and spending the long, bright evenings on boats and beaches. During this time of the year, the locals also drink copious amounts of alcohol, again being mostly Pabst Blue Ribbon and Jim Beam bourbon.

Spring and fall are also brutal seasons, being composed primarily of rain and a never-ending front of clouds and wind. During these times of the year, locals also drink copious amounts of alcohol. In the fall, it is mostly Pabst Blue Ribbon and a foreign, herbal aperitif called, in its native land, Jaegermeister. In the spring, it is gin and tonic, which is ironic because there is no malaria to be had.

Sports are of the utmost importance to the folk of the Greak Lakes, which changes according to the season. There is also a legend among the lake folk that speaks of the Green Flash, a mystical spirit that appears for a split second when the sun sets over the lakes. The lake folk are a strange folk indeed.

[ic=Gliese 832 c, 2376CE]Till took a final drag of his cigarette and flicked what remained towards the ground. He looked at the smoldering butt and silently laughed two puffs of smoke from his nose; that such a gross little thing would take him so far from Home. 16.87 light years and 26 real years, 11 reals month, 2 real weeks, and a few real days. All that distance, all that time, and about 10.44 sextillian American-made Marlboro Red cigarettes, a number so obscene and nauseatingly impossible that Till felt uneasy thinking about it. The same went for the size of the container-vessel they he piloted. The Elise-Marie, Till named her after a woman from Marseilles who he used to see, before becoming unbound. The Elise-Marie was a hollow galleon, a vessel the size of super-city. From a distance, she looked like a piece of long driftwood.  Up-close it was an asymmetric riot of delicate curves, deep ridges, and dull bronze. Till had traded a mint condition series of Harry Potter, signed by JK Rowling, for her - all 1,221,985.2 km³ of her - from a maltese art collecter at the mining facility on Wolf 1061b that the unbound had taken to calling Serpent. He had more than a few contacts, some even reputable, say that the ship was of sphinx design. A friend he had made, Paul or something like that, when he was on Serpent had explained over drinks that the sphinx are, or were, no one seemed quite sure if they were still around, excessively aesthetic creatures.

Till was 277 years old, 232 of them in stasis. He had had the Elise-Marie for 238 years. She was a good ship. No weaponry, but she did have a legion of small, spider-like drones to maintain her. Nevertheless, the ship at times made him uncomfortable, like she was watching, listening. She anticipated things better than Till liked sometimes. He knew that she wasn't one of the so-called infinity-craft, those billion year-old ships, armed with terrifying intelligence and detached from the known laws of space and time. He had seen one once.

He had made a stop near 55 Cancri at one of the dancer world-ships - the Jade Lattice if he recalled correctly - to replenish their supplies, check communications, and prepare for their next bout of stasis. While waiting for the dancer authorities to process their documentation and prepare documentation he had been watching the growing belt of ice and dust that had started to grow around the gravity of the Jade Lattice. A bright, fast metallic thing had caught his eye. The enhanced view screens showed a lithe craft, like a long needle that bulged ever-so-slightly at the end. The ship was unblemished silver, not a single line, rivet, or porthole could be seen on it's surface. The Elise-Marie had then informed Till that the ship was bound for a massive block of ice. It was large, twice as big as his ship. Yet there was no impact. No tell-tale flash of an exploding reactor, not even a cloud of debris. Till knew there were plenty of ships in the void that could plow through something that big. It would take a while, and would be more akin to the blow of a hammer, spaced over hours, but they could do it. There were no entry or exit craters. This ship though, passed through the ice without a trace, like it was there but it wasn't. He had then watched the ship in awe until it disappeared into the void...

A sharp knock brought him back from his day dream. It was his second, Ahmed. He was a good man, reliable if not personable. He was also a Muslim, and took the first chance he could to get away from Home. When they first left in 2097, the powers that were didn't take to kindly to anyone who was not a professed Christian. Volunteering to become unbound was, in all reality, a death sentence. The state was happy to sign you up. It was the end of life as you knew it. The Lorentz effect saw to that. Time dilation made no exceptions. Everyone they knew was long dead.

"They're here," said Ahmed.

A slight shudder throughout the ship doubly informed Till that the frogs had docked. Their scientific name is ranae matutinus, the overly generous "dawn frog." As Gliese 832 c, or Moor, was tidally locked, the frogs inhabited the ring where dusk and dawn met and were eternal. The soft light near the airlock gently shifted from a milky blue to a rich orange - the sphinx took beautiful little detail into account - and the portal, like a brass sphincter, slowly began to peel itself open.

Two shapes waddled and one shape walked out from the dank mist the choked the other side. Till was glad Elise-Marie had seen it wise to project a barrier field where the two ships conjoined. Occasionally her omniscience was a blessing. Whatever cocktail of gases filled the other ship. Till was sure that it was not something he was meant to breath. The two waddlers were frogs. Two meter tall piles of glistening skin. Two shiny eyes sat on top, with a mouth not far below. They each had two pairs of arms, each incredibly spindly in regards to their corpulent bodies. One pair hung from near their heads, the other sprouted from their chest, resting upon their bellies. Till knew the frogs were dangerously smart, but their physical form did not show it.

The other shape was different. It was bipedal thing, mostly composed of cartilage and sinew. It had an unnerving resemblance to a man. It's head, a tower of bone and ligaments, riddle with dozens of holes. It's articulated chest heaved heavily, deeply, and quickly. Several red metallic tubes weaved their way through white carapace: breathing device, thought Till. It was a talker, a fantastically old and long-lived race, and Till had no doubt that the one before him was no less than a thousand years old. The unbound found them terrifying.

Yet, they wielded much power. Not as mercenaries or scientists, but as interpreters. Their ability to hear, project, and mimic an unfathomable number of sounds made them integral to interstellar trade, politics, and war. Very few races heard the same wavelengths, let alone made similar sounds. They were a ghoulish necessity. The frogs could not produce the sounds of English (or Mandarin or Spanish or any human tongue for that matter) and Till surely could not produce the nauseating burbs and slurps that formed the heart of the frog language.

Yet, frogs and humans were not entirely alien to each other. A physiological and psychological weakness for tobacco made them strange bed fellows, like two drinkers, huddled outside the galactic bar, pulling drag after drag. In the maddening flurry of interstellar communication occurred after September 12, 2020, the frogs had sent a delegation Home. While learning more about humanity and acquiring the entire discographies of Huey Lewis and the News, Robert Palmer, and the J. Giells Band, the frogs also became irreversible hooked on tobacco and immediately purchased half that years harvest. Back in 2349, near Barnard's Star, Till had traded the shipment of gold and uranium in the Elise-Marie for an ungodly amount of smokes. It was a good deal, Till didn't want to go Home and the other ship didn't want to go to Moor.

One of the frogs shook violently, belching a series of wet sounds. The talker than nodded, bowed to the frog, bowed to Till, and spoke. It's voice was smooth and melodious, like a clarinet. It spoke the King's English.

"Good evening gentlemen, my employers wish to know if you are ready to discuss the terms of the transaction..."
    [/ic]

Zombie proletariat is super-meta.

There's definitely an art in finding the balance between the hamfisted and the nuanced in names that evoke a particular something.

You could also pick a seemingly arbitrary or strange title and work backwards in deciding why, in your setting, this title is important. If you have an empire where the ruler is bestowed with the title First Fisher, it may seem weird. But if that empire grow from a few scattered fishing villages, it makes more sense and is unique to your settting.