The Campaign Builder's Guild

Gladly...here is at least a link to my stream-of-consiousness disaster thread.  You'll aslo see a shared love of writing 'through' the bards and poets of the ages.

I'm enjoying the pagaentry of the six houses, and the necessary changes that haoppen through the years.  I need to get a better handle on the chronology, though.
Am loving the Brotherhood of Othello...

What type of population density?  Mine is very sparse, with some bundled areas.  You could probably take an Army into some areas of my Grey March and no one would know for weeks...

The population is very, very spread out. The Aradain and Dalefolk (the predecessors to the ancestral Andals) have very concentrated settlements with smaller populations, whereas the Southern Empire is somewhat larger in population and concentration yet divided by the vast expanse of wilderness. Aglador, by and by, is much smaller than Goth Moran and the Southern Empire.

I don't think I've uploaded the hex-based map to the Cartography section (as I generally define distances by leagues or days on horseback as the players travel), but it's roughly 10 days on horse between Girithlin and Belegost along the Kingsroad if that gives any indication as to the distances traveled. The entire world rests above the equator, so is fairly temperate. However, places like Goth Moran trap winter winds and have a higher altitude, making it colder. Places like Goth Moran are almost below sea level, and is very marshy and wet (with the highest peaks in the Horned Society, thus the coldest regions rest in the mountains). Aglador and Dunbrude is rainy, and the Southern Empire is very warm.

Population has always been a thing I've struggled with though, particularly in regards to city sizes. I've defined Kahabro as the largest settlement yet never really nailed down the approximate number of people within it. Belegost, the Parliamentary capital of Aglador, has a population of 64k. Yet, the Aradain/Dalefolk who settled there weren't nearly as numerous as the Gothric that formed Kahabro. I had at first thought to model Belegost roughly in size and pop

I've tried to model a lot of the economy, life expectancy and social settings similar to the Dark Ages (although technically they've been using steel for about 35 years now). There was once a website that had an excellent chart to determine demographics by area, modified by years settled and other factors, but I cannot find it. For now, I ad hoc a lot of the information. Players know Kahabro is the most populous city in the world, Girithlin is sparse yet rolling and Belegost is small and densely populated. I've never been too big on specific numbers for population (although I, like many others, take pride in the smallest of details).

Too true.

BTW, love the Fat Candle gang.  Names are very, very important.


Population is also very tied to available food supply.  Yet somehow 3/4 of the settings I look through have a farmer or 2 for a town of 50, or 10 farms for a city of a thousand.  I have a city that was built on the ancient ruins of the Vale of Silence, where the orignal temples that the Celestial PLanars actually lived. Then it was a village, then a town, the a city, which took the name of Winter, then it was the main city in the State of Winter, with villages outside it, then it swallowed many of the villages into its boundaries, and became renamed as Stenron (after Jon Stenron), and now it is the biggest city in the world, the Capitol of the Grey March.  No one has any idea of it's most ancient origins (though some funky stuff has been found in the seweres by the players...no one has bothered to figure oiut why so many doors lead there)...but I can say that there aer almost half a million people living there.  Since there are only two hundered thousand souls in all of Trabler (a country), that says a lot about ancient Stenron.  But the farming communes around the center of the Grey March Republic are extensive.

I can see the dark ages in here, though there are edges of light creeping through.

I love the mercantile and economic dynamics.  WHat sort of monetery system are you using, and whatvrates of exchange?  How much do things cost?

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm

This is the website I was talking about; an excellent resource.

As for monetary, we use a system based off of the Crown (silver) and Bitpenny (copper). Gold coins, commonly referred to as an Andal, is extremely, extremel rare (as gold is practically unheard of in the gaming world and that which does exist in circulation came from the Forbidden Kingdom - much of the existing gold coinage has been melted down and turned into roya regalia for Aradain kings [thus its uniqueness]). Generally speaking, we use the d20 Player's Handbook for rates of item purchase, although bartering is more commonplace than buying things between players and NPCs.

I want to revise the entire list with a download I found online for items and cost. Yet, I am struggling with figuring out a wage per month by profession. Do you have any recommendations?

that site rocks.

Medieval economies are very intersting, and actually very regionalized.  Very commonly people coming in from rural areas would come to the city and find their money bought them very little.  I've done some intersting reading on fairs and markets, and the amount done by bartering is huge.  Which is a realistic but really difficult way to run a game.

I use the gold horn as the mercantile standard and the silver children as the standard coin of Igbar.  The mean income for igbar is set at 2000 gold horn per year, or 40000 silver children, but this is skewed upward dramatically by the wealthy, and if you go to an alpha level of .05 and remove the top 5% and bottom 5%, it shoots down to 1050 gold horn.  The median income is 740 gold horn.

And I'm a bit of a freak to know that.  But I'd advise you to figure those numbers first, and figure out the price of property.  Owning property is a huge deal, so that changes everything.
It is pretty easy to figure from there what the yearly gross income for a proffesion should be in your world.  

The website has went through a vicious rewrite and CSS revision. The wiki is now completely hotlinked within itself and is approaching the 450 pages written mark!

A new navigation module on the right-hand side of the page has a more in-depth Table of Contents.

New content added to the following areas:

Political Geography
Physical Geography
Races updates
Forbidden Kingdom updates
Divine Source/faiths updates
Meduseld Protectorate
Lake Avernus
Eastern Khazar
Goth Moran
Ghastria (coming soon)

Cheers~

I just need to give you props for the Gran Grimoire.
That's a great item.  Really.  Very well done.

You're getting a review, and you will LIKE IT!* ;)

*Please note that the review is being typed while read, questions subject to self answering, no purchase necessary, void where prohibited, many will enter few will win.

Normally I don't like wikis, but I'll give it another go. I'm skipping personalities, simply because I don't enjoy wading through pages of character bios, and I gloss over those pieces on other reviews too. I'm also skipping campaign updates, since I assuming that has nothing to do with the setting. Since this is a wiki, I'm betting that I'll be jumping around alot, as I'll open each link to catch it, then keep moving down the line...

Akatosh Septim? Elderscrolls much? :D The Imperial Cult? Dude, forget the LotR references, Bethesda's going to sue your ass! :) I haven't done any reviewing yet and already I see familiar names. At least there isn't a Blades organization...

You have flags. I'm jealous. Those are very, very cool, and I demand you make a thread telling us all how you made them. :)

By looking at your variant rules table, I see a couple of familiar faces. I haven't gotten there yet, but unless you altered it, posting the XP tables for D&D is violating copyright law. You might want to change that, but I won't be ratting you out. Fight the Man.

Your graphics I'm beginning to love more and more, I want to know your secret!

Secunda? Tsk tsk tsk... Kudos to the timeline though. Sorry, timelines. I know how much work those take to put together.

The Andals. So they're actually two races? Or are you using races and species?

At least Akatosh Septim isn't a person, but shame on you nontheless!

I like the concept of Caer Moray, and I see no Elderscrolls references!

Girithlin is the first real city I've come to, and you don't seem to have much there. I'm disappointed, since that's the kind of stuff I like the best. Laketown seems like fun though; am I right in guessing a bit of influence from Tortuga? New Farouen is a bit strange, why does it still exist? Kahabro I want to hear more about, I like that you've got a whole campaign ready and waiting beneath the city.

You've got a very well developed set of religions, even if one of them is based on Christianity. I'm pleasantly surprised that you were able to pull of a polytheistic hierarchy with Christian overtones.

Another is based on the Imperial Cult... you even took its name... And I see we found the other missing moon... :-/

The old believers sounds a bit like what I've read of Druidism after christianity came to the English isles. I'd like to see this one expanded on.

Arkay? Seriously, I should be counting these...

Orthodoxy sounds more like its own religion than an offshot of the other.

It is at this point that I'm a little bit eyesore. Hopefully I'll come back to this setting, but not until you get rid of the references. You've moved the names out of their former context, so it's confusing the heck out of me.

I have to say Moniker that I like your setting better than the published one they did for "Song of Ice and Fire" which I was kind of wary of. I guess that's because I identify the books so much as particular stories and I'd find that distracting. Your alternate history of the Andals is very compelling.

Also thanks very much for putting up that link. I'm working on the war economy of New Edom right now. Difficult work even for a student of history.

Of your UA updated classes, the Warrior seems to be a bit feat-happy.  Is a bonus feat at EVERY LEVEL really balanced?  I mean, that one-ups the fighter.  (maybe two-ups).

I find that the Adept seeming to serve as the generic class for all spellcasters and just specify whether divine (Cleric) or arcane (Sorcerer/Wizard) is an interesting one.  It certainly simplifies things, but is there enough potential for variety between the types of casters to warrant this level of simplification?

It depends on what you mean by "balanced".

Warriors are the answer to the 10th level Wizard. They have greater accessability to Feats (mirroring that of the accessability to many different spells as like a Wizard or Cleric), therefore no longer serving as one weapon trick ponies.

In that, from vigorous playstesting my gaming group and I have found that although Adepts are more versatile than Warriors, the Warrior class has more options in combat at his disposal. The change from class abilities to Feats has brought the classes in parity with entries from the Monster Manual. Since the game doesn't lean towards heavy damage-based spells (and for that matter, is a low magic campaign), there has been great imbalance between entries from the rare monsters they do fight.

Simplifying the classes to three succinct, generic roles has seemingly made my players much happier. They enjoy the fact that as Warriors they can access a bevy of feats, as an Adept they have access to practically any spell they wish to take and as Experts, have the most variety of class-based skills with moderate performance in combat. It also provided me, as a gamemaster, a better and more realistic way to approach NPC classes. In my game, the PCs aren't really any different than NPCs as far as it goes for classes. Experts can be priests, merchants, aristocrats, shipwrights, blacksmiths - anything they wish because they are able to choose what skills they want (instead of being stuck with ones that aren't tailored for what they want to roleplay). Heck, you can even make an Expert who mimics a warrior.

As for the fluff, in the campaign world I run sorcery is simply that - sorcery. Gods, on the backend, don't grant spells. However, many mannors of Adepts have claimed they "speak with gods" and work through their divine word (although technically, it isn't true). The idea of the adept is that it is a generic class; as to what the character really is, whether he be chosen by the gods, a practioner sorcerer, some poor sap given the ability to wield great powers, a concubine to dark gods or a man returned from madness who can suddenly "see" the threads that bind life together (and play them, much as a musician plays an instrument), the adept is merely the generic class.

Thank you all for the feedback and criticism. I am in the process of making a few changes, if not simply to get rid of any and all references to Tolkien's work. It's requiring some retconning, but that's fine. Fortunately, a lot of those areas have been unvisited by the PCs.

On that note, I present the updated city map, complete with clickable interface! http://deismaar.pbwiki.com/Notable-Settlements

The setting for my 4th edition game is on its way for full development for Year 200 Kahabro. This is the second launch of a major city by edition (I launched  Belegost, the City of Ages for our 3rd edition game).
 
The game will take place in Kahabro, also called the City of Lights in  Goth Moran. It takes a little bit of Pholtus, influence from Sigil of Planescape and the Conan series, wrapping it tightly into the most densely populated trade city of the known world (while still retaining the humanocentric, politically-charged low magic feel of the gaming world)

Organizations are still being fleshed out, as are the merchant prince houses. A lot of information has went into the districts, but little into locales and influential people.

Living in Kahabro
This sectrion really made it for me.
In a few short sentences you did more for the 'feeling' of Kahabro than most of us can get with lists and reams of raw data.  Very, very nice.  How long businesses are open?  Such a little but important detail...so nice.  

I also like the way you detailed each 'section' of town.  

A bump for development of Kahabro (http://deismaar.pbwiki.com/Kahabro) and its factions/organizations:

The Sisterhood http://deismaar.pbwiki.com/Sisterhood
The Cabal http://deismaar.pbwiki.com/Cabal
The Legate http://deismaar.pbwiki.com/Legate
The Fifth House http://deismaar.pbwiki.com/Fifth+House