The Campaign Builder's Guild

So it's time for another big update.

First, the site has a new look.  My hope is that slightly brighter colors will be less fatiguing in the long run.  Also, there's a new menu.  While they popout suckerfish-style menu system had its advantages, I think this straight-forward one may be more user-friendly.

There is now an Updates page so you check to see when stuff changed :)

Beyond some minor corrections and adjustments, we now have a Calendar page.  At one point I was using the Gregorian Calendar, but the closer I got to thinking about publishing fiction, the more I decided I needed a different calendar.

Several new regions are available for perusal:
Ahlia
Kirahr
Naraka
Nidafjoll
Momur
Shambala

Finally, I removed the Outer Realm and Old Ones (the Lovecraftian aspects of my setting).  I still need to update the history/cosmogony to reflect this.  It was a hard decision, especially after getting such great ideas from my Alien Madness thread.  I hope to use some of it in the future.  Ultimately, however, I decided to gear the setting even more towards mythology, which meant ditching the wacky stuff with no basis in folklore.  The other factor was a desire to slightly compress the number of hostile factions, in order to create a more cohesive setting for my story.

Because the Dwellers (a race of Old Ones) were a major force in history, I need to really rethink how I want their role to be filled.

Anyway, I look forward to hearing what anyone thinks about the new material and layout.

I really like the new site. We all know how much color is tied to psychological perception and the new scheme makes the material seem fare less dense. Likewise I no longer weep tears of blood when trying to navigate. Bravo, now I can give Kishar more attention.

Good gracious, tears of blood?  I think that only qualifies as a miracle when it comes from a statue.  So the suckerfish menu system offers its condolences for your ocular discomfort.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.  In its lifetime, Kishar has gone through a lot of revisions, and may still go through more.  I suppose it's a long road to getting things where you really want them.

It's neat that you have mythic type lands in your world. In so many cases the standard D&D thing of having almost any largely human city have a bunch of minotaurs tending bar or else even worse human style cities with humans in funny suits--well it bores me. But I like how you for instance have a nation run by a Hindu demon lord or an actual hidden kingdom of the dvergar or a remote land of the fae, that's very cool.

I'm glad to hear that.  The world is by-and-large human.  And I'm still considering dropping some of the other mortal races (lupines and ursians have been on nebulous ground for a while - they may be better as another spirit race).

But the world is still a fantasy world, so there does need to be a place for supernatural creatures to exist.  There's definitely not many places where you'd find minotaurs tending bar.  The first read through of your post I read "minotaurs in funny suits."  The image of a minotaur in a tux gave me a laugh.

PK, how did  you make your map?

Quote from: IshmaylPK, how did  you make your map?

It's done almost entirely in Photoshop (6.0).

I started with a hand-drawn pencil sketch of the basic outline of the land (no features) spread across several pages.  I scanned it and did the best I could to line up the pages.  I wound up having to go over most of it with the PSP pencil tool to make it darker and add more detail anyway, so, in retrospect, it might have been easier to do it all in Photoshop.

I made lots of different layers - one for each type of feature, and generally one for each different color of shaded areas.

It was my first computer map (and my first Photoshop image), so I'm fairly happy with it.  If you'd like more information or specifics about how I did certain things, PM me, and I'd be happy to share.

Hey Phoenix Knight, I vaguely remember you asking for mythologies which you had forgotten, and I thought I would point out soemthign I'd like to see in Kishar.  If you have already, I couldn't find them, but have you written up anything for the Sirens of greek myth?  The Sirens, and their mythical counterparts from other cultures are a staple in history, and I really think that they should have a place in your world.

Just a thought, and keep up the good work dude!

Quote from: Rose Of MontagueHey Phoenix Knight, I vaguely remember you asking for mythologies which you had forgotten, and I thought I would point out soemthign I'd like to see in Kishar.  If you have already, I couldn't find them, but have you written up anything for the Sirens of greek myth?  The Sirens, and their mythical counterparts from other cultures are a staple in history, and I really think that they should have a place in your world.

Just a thought, and keep up the good work dude!

Thanks for the interest, Rose.  

I have sirens as Unseelie fae.  After some research, I found they were largely described in much the same way as mermaids (sirens were sometimes more bird-like than fish-like, but not always, and both were known for singing sailors to their deaths), so I decided that merfolk were the Seelie kind, sirens the Unseelie.  I originally got down that path from The Riddle of Steel, which uses a similar definition.

I'm thinking of adding a bestiary index which would list all the different names of monsters and link to them.

So I've made a number of minor and some moderate-size updates since last post.  The site.

First, I've finished revising the Cosmogony and History sections.  All reference to the Old Ones/Outer Realm have been removed (I hope; if you find one, please let me know).

While revising history, I settled on each iteration lasting 24,000 years (rather than a million), both to bring the cycles more in line with Indian Yugas, and because the large stretch of time no longer served great purpose without the Dwellers.  You can check out the Timeline to see the revision and when various Eras ended.

I also did a bit of revising the Bestiary.  You can see that several types of creatures got condensed or became sub-headings under one big heading.  For example, under fae, check out the shifter or sprite.  Fae, giants, asuras, and devatas saw the most of this stuff.  There's also slightly more short story monster intros and fewer quotations.

So anyway, enjoy.

EDIT: I did get around to adding that Bestiary Index.  It lists all the various creatures on the site, including the many different names.

So there haven't been any updates for quite some time.  Partly because I knew I couldn't access hosting so I wasn't working so much (now I no longer have that excuse), but mainly because I was working on other things for my career and personal life.

Among them, The Echoes of Dreams, which I posted about on a separate thread, and some Kishar fiction I hope will one day grace the pages of a fantasy magazine (we shall see).

Anyway, I have still been thinking about the setting.  I came to the decision to remove the ursian race.  The jury is still out on lupines, and felids are on only slightly more solid ground.

My reasoning: I think were-bears (and maybe fae shifters) can largely fill the same role while being a slightly darker alternative and being a little truer to mythological/folkloric sources.  I mainly saw ursians in my Norse, North American, and Arctic settings.  I think berserks which are werebears work fine for Norse, and some kind of skinwalkers for the Native American settings (and possibly the Inuit regions).

I have mixed feelings about felids and lupines.  On the one hand, they're kind of cool.  On the other, I think when writing (and that's really what this project is all about, fiction), it works better not to have too many different elements you want to introduce, so you can focus on all of them.  Especially in a gritty, serious world.

I also became more certain in the decision when working on Roaa for EoD.  I think a fairytale world (the world connected to Roaa) may be ideal for animal-men.

Bear-men seem a little surreal to me, for whatever reason.  I can use surreal, but I prefer to keep mortal races real, and animas surreal.

On the other hand, many of the other mortal races are definite keepers, drawn from mythology.  Anurans and saurians are not, but I'm probably too fond of them to axe them.  Plus, I think their alien natures and exotic locales may mitigate the problem there.


So, I'm posting all this to see if anyone has input or opinions on the matter, especially in regard to felids and lupines, and whether they are best relegated to mystical creatures such as shifters and werebeasts.  It'll be easier to remove multiple races from history all at once than one at a time, so I'll wait until I've made my decision.

I'm for removing them. I think they don't mesh well with the general world.

I think that thus far your world's creatures maintain the versimilitude and therefore keep the ursinids and felinids out of it. They as you say might better fit in with your faerie tale world.

[blockquote=Phoenix]Gaia is Kishar. Originally named Jord, she was once one of the most influential of the devas. But when brought a proposal from the aeons, her goals changed. She merged with a lifeless rock, becoming a living planet. Through her power, she coalesced the akasha into the Star of Life, leading to the creation of life across Kishar.

Exhausted by her great deed, she slept. She speaks softly, working through others. She is forever protected by her guardian, the great dragon, Ladon.[/blockquote]

I don't know why this struck me so much, but perhaps due to my own appreciation for epic cosmology that is beyond the knowledge of the folk of the setting.  The bit about her speaking softly somehow makes this more dynamic, perhaps reaching through the ages to the current day.  I like.

I also find it very interesting with your Brahmahn and Cythrawl's dual coming into the world.  I again did something similar, and I think it speaks to our similar respect for duality/harmony/opposition in mythology.  Assuming I am right there...

(do a quick spell check on the organizations page.  I'm having my players fix all my spelling errors...)
I like the organizations.  I am big on factions, so the trading guilds make sense to me, and I'd like to know moRE about the organization of the Midgard Trade Alliance.

Forgot to mention how much i like the minataurs

Way to raise a thread from the grave, LV!

As may be apparent by the "last updated" date being May 2007, I haven't messed with the site in ages. In fact I might have taken it down if I still had access, but until the CBG update, I don't. I've significantly revised the setting since what you've seen on the site, and even the more recent threads.

My focus has become working only on what I need for my writing. And because I'm trying to publish (fiction, not the setting), I've wanted to post fewer spoilers online. Hence my Writer's Corner thread seeking critiques for my novel.

That said, I'm deeply gratified by your compliments and interest in the setting.

Many of my cosmological constraints are still similar to what you find on the website, but they have been refined and streamlined a bit more.

Glad you liked the organizations. Only a few survived the refining of the setting (partly because I revised back my world back 400 years to the time the stories take place, as oppose to what's on the site which related to gaming), though, and the MTA was not one of them.

(Since my current writing is in word, not HTML, I hope the spelling will be better. I've seen plenty of errors on the site, but obviously can't fix them.)

Nice to hear there's a minotaur fan out there. One of Kishar's goals is to try to include all mythological creatures (and in newer revisions very few creatures not from mythology, so anurans and catfolk are out). Because very few supernatural creatures appear in novel 1, I haven't done much work on them lately, but I'll keep in mind you liked the old take on minotaurs when it comes time to write about them again.

Thanks for the review.