The Campaign Builder's Guild

While this will be a WIP, Arga has had three hefty threads devoted to it and there is no good place to find all the information. This is in part to keep things in my own brain organized as well as help whoever may be reading it. I will try to keep it as alphabetical as possible.

Alba Lonos: Land of Woad and Tin. A wild queendom on the eastern edge of Arga. Source of nearly all tin in Arga. Matriarchal society that has been ruled by queens for as long as anyone can remember.

Ancla: Mythic city at the bottom of the Great Ghost Ocean where sailors go if they die on the waves.

Anthos: The last surviving mortal race in Arga. Anthos means "wild mortals" in the tongue of the Tellae, and the Dura took to calling them humans, meaning "the uprooted." Numerous and varied, it is impossible to sum up the race as a whole.

Arga: The world itself, althought only very little of it is known. An ancient, somewhat mutated word from the Tellae meaning "deep hearth."

Baubles of Ur, The: Seven spheres forged by the proto-city of Ur, somewhere in the Unknown East. According to legend, originally there were seven, but three have been used throughout the Ages and only four remain. Each Bauble was made of a different metal - tin, bronze, gold, etc. - and had a different power. Depending on the source, these range from the power to resurrect the dead, control moon, walk on water, or become invisible.

Duendae: A catch-all name for all manner of fey, sprites, fairies, and pixies.

Dura: A dead race sometimes mistakenly called "dwarves." Masters craftsmen and builders, Duran trinkets, weapons, and the rare artifact are much sought after. Their crumbling empire of Durast sits on the western edge of Arga, and is a rusting land plagued by mad machines and dotted with the half-subterranean ruins of their once great iron and bronze cities. The Fall of Durast happened sometime in the Third Age

Great Ghost Ocean: The northwestern-most boundry of Arga. Sailors speak of a city named Ancla that sits at the bottom this ocean and is the place where all dead mariners go.

Moseer: The Red Moon Lands. The southern-most boundry of Arga. A strange, sweltering land famed for its poisons and other alchemical concotions.

Nira: The Drowned Kingdom. A once great kingdom, perched upon a peninsula west of Alba Lonos that was half-swallowed near the end of the Fourth Age. At high tide, the sea covers most of the land, and low tide reveals naught but drowned forests and the rarest traces of the once glorious land. The Nirans that escaped their kingdoms fall became the Wakefolk, the maritime wanderers of Arga.

Narrow Sea, The: Aside from the Iben Isles, the Narrow Sea is the only water route linking east and west. The realms of Perdan, Percath, and Phaelos - commonly known as the Three - constantly compete over the obscene wealth that flows through the sea. Former client realms of the Twin Empire until it's decline began around eight-hundred yeas ago.

Pellanosi, The: The Isles of a Thousand Kings. A large string of islands just east of the shores of Durast. Famed as adventurers, sailors, navigators, and explorers.

Phaen: Malignent, entropic magic. Those cursed with the ability to control Phaen are born crippled and unsightly and many are killed on the spot. But those few that survive grow to become the Phaen-born, dark and terrible conduits of chaos and decay. Phaen is unpredictable, costly, dangerous, and destructive, but it is not nesseccarily evil.

Pyron Ocean: The southeastern-most boundry of Arga. Sitting on the equator, it's weather is always hot and its water especially salty.

Salt-wine: The favored beverage of the Pellanese. A murky, bitter, saline brew made from fermented seaweeds that the rest of Arga finds absolutely repulsive.

Sea-dead: Soggy, kelp-covered undead that haunt the shallows of some of Arga's seas.

Tellae, The: An extinct race that once controlled most of Arga. Illness, war, inbreeding, and a slow decadence caused their downfall at the end of the First Age, just as the Anthos arrived from the Unknown East. In their own tongue, Tellae meant "the blessed children."

Twin Empire, The: The first great Anthos state formed upon the union of Mirminox and Mirminas. Ruled by two emperors, the Emperor of Shadow and the Emperor of Gold, the Twin Empire once stretched from the shores of the Pyron Ocean to the Narrow Sea, and established colonies as far as Nira and Narae. It's decline began about eight-hundred years ago, sometime in the Fourth Age, and is now only a thin shadow of its former self.

Ur: While it may not be the first, Ur is the oldest remembered city of the Anthos, located somewhere in the Unknown East. It was abondoned at the beginning of the Wandering and the end of the First Age.

Wakefolk, The: The sea-bound survivors of Drowned Nira. Travelling the seas in gaily painted carracks, trading all manner or trinkets and goods, they are wily, romantic, and usually not well recieved.

Ugh, tired. More Later.

*Shameless bump*

Short answer:
This is definitely a great idea, do keep it up!
Longer answer:
The date system makes sense, I guess, but the hyphen notation doesn't look too nice honestly. Makes me think of star systems in sci-fi settings instead. Also, it seems odd that two ages lasted exactly 1000 years unless the idea of a "year" was redefined from age to age. 4 ages = 4 calendars?

The Tellae are still canon?
How do you make necromantic snake worshippers?
Duendae is a cool name.
The Wanderers sound a lot like sea gypsies (not intended as a pejorative here). Which is all well and good, but how are the Arga gypsies different from what you see in other settings?
Phaen-born still seem ill-integrated with the rest of the setting. How do they fit in? Do they have a special role?
Alba Lonos can still end up being intriguing. Do they refine it into bronze themselves?
Now you mention Sea-dead, how do the undead function in Arga? Are they created? Infected? Born? Is there a mythological, biological or arcane reason behind their existence?
I like the bottleneck that is the Narrow Sea.

Quote from: Superfluous Crow
Short answer:
This is definitely a great idea, do keep it up!
Longer answer:
The date system makes sense, I guess, but the hyphen notation doesn't look too nice honestly. Makes me think of star systems in sci-fi settings instead. Also, it seems odd that two ages lasted exactly 1000 years unless the idea of a "year" was redefined from age to age. 4 ages = 4 calendars?

The Tellae are still canon?
How do you make necromantic snake worshippers?
Duendae is a cool name.
The Wanderers sound a lot like sea gypsies (not intended as a pejorative here). Which is all well and good, but how are the Arga gypsies different from what you see in other settings?
Phaen-born still seem ill-integrated with the rest of the setting. How do they fit in? Do they have a special role?
Alba Lonos can still end up being intriguing. Do they refine it into bronze themselves?
Now you mention Sea-dead, how do the undead function in Arga? Are they created? Infected? Born? Is there a mythological, biological or arcane reason behind their existence?
I like the bottleneck that is the Narrow Sea.

Yeah, I'm still trying to work out the dates better. Maybe just a pre- and post-event calender like our own?

Duende is Spanish for fairies or elves, so I can't take credit for that.

The Wanderers are sea gypsies, but I still have to figure out what makes them Argan. some strange bloodline of magic? They can speak fish?

I know the Phaen-born are tough, but I like the name so much. But yes, flashy chaos magic seems very out of splace.

The reason for sea-dead is unknown. Some people say they are the corpses of those drowned at sea (which completely counters the myth of Ancla), or that they are the corpses of "bad men" that died at sea.

So the sea-dead are the only form of "undead" known to exist?

Quote from: Superfluous Crow
So the sea-dead are the only form of "undead" known to exist?

mmmmm not sure. there are "undead" in Moseer, but they are more like voodoo zombies than the classic skeleton.

Okay, here's what I am thinking: You have the mystical undead in the form of the sea-dead. These are related to the great mystery that is the Argan Worldsea and arise spontaneously without reason or purpose. There is no such thing as a "necromancer" who can reanimate the drowned as sea-dead - their creation is solely the domain of whatever rules the depths.
Then you have the Moseer zombies who are not so much brought back from the dead as they are carried across death's threshold by their dread masters. Through esoteric elixirs, poisons and preservatives the heart is halted and the soul is killed, but after burial the elixirs kick back into action, restarting the heart and the mind in a new, clean, subservant and malleable state. The necromancer then retrieves the unperson.

Quote from: Superfluous Crow
Okay, here's what I am thinking: You have the mystical undead in the form of the sea-dead. These are related to the great mystery that is the Argan Worldsea and arise spontaneously without reason or purpose. There is no such thing as a "necromancer" who can reanimate the drowned as sea-dead - their creation is solely the domain of whatever rules the depths.
Then you have the Moseer zombies who are not so much brought back from the dead as they are carried across death's threshold by their dread masters. Through esoteric elixirs, poisons and preservatives the heart is halted and the soul is killed, but after burial the elixirs kick back into action, restarting the heart and the mind in a new, clean, subservant and malleable state. The necromancer then retrieves the unperson.

Couldn't have said it better myself. I may twek "necromancers of Moseer" to "alchemists of Moseer", which makes sense, considering its somewhat tropical and has tons of alchemical and botanical goodies.

Just because you call them necromancers doesn't mean they have to fit the D&D stereotype. Necromancer just means something akin to Death Diviner or Speaker with the Dead. Tweaking them to alchemists give them more of a scientific tone where I think you should aim for them being very spiritual. But yeah, skill-wise it makes a lot of sense to make them masters of poisons and elixirs rather than outright mages.
Of course, straddling that threshold could be interesting too, with them developing pseudomagical elixirs like prophetic potions and resurrection ointments. (although I advise you to stay clear of D&D potions...)   

Quote from: Superfluous Crow
Just because you call them necromancers doesn't mean they have to fit the D&D stereotype. Necromancer just means something akin to Death Diviner or Speaker with the Dead. Tweaking them to alchemists give them more of a scientific tone where I think you should aim for them being very spiritual. But yeah, skill-wise it makes a lot of sense to make them masters of poisons and elixirs rather than outright mages.
Of course, straddling that threshold could be interesting too, with them developing pseudomagical elixirs like prophetic potions and resurrection ointments. (although I advise you to stay clear of D&D potions...)  

Considering the setting, something too scientific wouldn't be a good fit, but something more mystical and strange would work pretty good, strange poisons and quasi-magical exilirs and salves. Moseen poisons could be a very rare and expensive commodity throughout the rest of Arga.

EDIT: That could easily be the niche I'm looking for each land to have: alchemy.

Also, you mentioned the Tellae, and they will be cannon, but very much in the background. Just a mechanism for ruins and ancient stuff. Maybe it was the Tellae that influenced the Anthos towards their "hellenicpunk" aestheics, just as the Greeks influenced the Romans and what-not.

Exactly, too scientific is a bad fit for Arga. Mystical ointment mixers/spiritspeakers is the way to go.

Had a good idea for some Argan artefacts:

The Baubles of Ur: Seven sphere-like devices, each with an extremely powerful, but specific, ability.

The Duran Panapoly: A "set" of the most advanced Duran craft: cuirass, gauntlets, helm, and hammer.

The Necochea: A simple, but ancient, silver brooch, that increases both bad and good luck.

Spheres of Ur has a more mystical ring to it than "baubles". The latter definitely works well for a run-of-the-mill D&D artifact, but I assume you are going for something a little more epic than that.
The Apparati could do with a better adjective - maybe they are named after their discoverer or a famous wielder?  
Both of the above do lack a pretty central piece of information though: what are their powers?
I am actually interested in knowing how powerful a magic object in Arga can be. What are the limits? Could a bauble stop time or resurrect a person or is that definitionally impossible in Arga?
Ideas for Spheres:
* Stop all macro-scale movement instantaneously - halting the charges of armies, making birds drop out of the skies, other fun stuff
* Blinding light of the sun unleashed for an instant. (Think the orb from the Van Helsing movie)
* Some kind of divination
* Weather control
* Palantir-style communication
* Melt all metal reflected in its surface

Does Necochea mean anything? I have an arcane monastic order who basically embody that whole super lucky/super unlucky thing, but I have had trouble coming up with a good name.

EDIT: just realized a few of the above suggestions might be too unspecific for what you have in mind. I am sure you can twist them to fit better with your concept. This page has some fun super-specific magic items - check the pencil or the alarm clock, for instance, and skip the ones with "Power unknown".

Quote from: Superfluous Crow
Spheres of Ur has a more mystical ring to it than "baubles". The latter definitely works well for a run-of-the-mill D&D artifact, but I assume you are going for something a little more epic than that.
The Apparati could do with a better adjective - maybe they are named after their discoverer or a famous wielder?  
Both of the above do lack a pretty central piece of information though: what are their powers?
I am actually interested in knowing how powerful a magic object in Arga can be. What are the limits? Could a bauble stop time or resurrect a person or is that definitionally impossible in Arga?
Ideas for Spheres:
* Stop all macro-scale movement instantaneously - halting the charges of armies, making birds drop out of the skies, other fun stuff
* Blinding light of the sun unleashed for an instant. (Think the orb from the Van Helsing movie)
* Some kind of divination
* Weather control
* Palantir-style communication
* Melt all metal reflected in its surface

Does Necochea mean anything? I have an arcane monastic order who basically embody that whole super lucky/super unlucky thing, but I have had trouble coming up with a good name.

No Baubles? I think its more interesting than spheres, which is about as done to death as the word shard is.

I changed Apparati to Panapoly, as I think Apparati can be used for something better.

As for how powerful magic items can become in Arga, I'll say that if a PC dies, he's only coming back after a campaign to find a single-use artifact, maybe like a Bauble of Ur. Just like magic, magic items often have a good side and a bad side, not unlike DnD cursed items. So they're powerful, but are they worth it? Maybe a ring that drinks the users blood, slowly killing him, or a magic blade that only activates when it touches the blood of an innocent.
Oh, and Necochea is a street I pass here in Uruguay - i have no idea what it means but i thought it sounded cool.

Also, most artifacts are hidden or lost, nly remembered in myths. If an artifact does come into play, its a world-changing event: kingdoms rise or fall, Heroes are made, history is altered, etc.

(added an edit to my previous post)
Isn't it panoply? My problem was more with Duran than Apparati, though. I'm sure there are a lot of (less powerful) "duran apparati" as well, so there should be some distinction between them. 

And Baubles is more unique, yeah, Spheres is a tad over-used, but Baubles just sounds so... innocuous. It sounds like it is a fun and brightly coloured artifact for the whole family. Or maybe it's just me :p
Are the Baubles one use only, though?? Because how did myths about their powers even come to exist in the first place then? Where they made for a purpose, then lost? Were there once hundreds of these baubles?