The Campaign Builder's Guild

The Lay of the Land[note]I have a map I drew by hand.  I don't have a scanner.  You'll have to bear with me for this one.[/note]
Unlike a lot of my previous settings, I have decided to focus on one region this time, going along with my second goal.  It's a fairly large region, mind, but not an entire world.  For a lot of my work, I have set several goals I'd like to try and aim for.

Keeping with my first goal, I have two goals for this part:

*Each region should have at least one detailed settlement as a base of operations for players.
*Each region should also have two or more secrets for players to discover, some perhaps fictional.

Ambitious, I know.

So the whole of the Land is divided into three parts.  The East, the West, and the Heartlands.  As the names imply, the East is to the east, the West is to the west, and the Heartlands are in the center.  There are other lands, like the Far West, or beyond the Great Forest and the Blue Mountains, but I'm going to leave them vague for now.  At more of a meta-level, the East and the West are a way for me to define and border the region I'm going to design.  They have natural features that further this.

The West
The two main areas in the West are the Shield Mountains and the Inner Sea.  

The Shield Mountains are located in the northwest.  Even more so than the Desert they overshadow, the Shield Mountains are uninhabited.  They are simply too barren for any kind of community to make their living.  However, on the very southern tip, the land supports just enough life that mining has taken hold.

The Inner Sea is located in the southwest.  On the northeastern part of the Inner Sea, one can find many small fishing communities.  However, none of these communities build very large boats; at most, one can find a single masted fishing boat.  It is rumored, especially amongst  the more intoxicated fishermen, that one can find merfolk living in the inner sea.

If you keep going west, you'll end up in the Far West.

The East
The two main regions in the East are the Great Forest and the Blue Mountains.

The Great Forest is the closer of the two, forming a "J" shape around the east, the southeast, and the south.  The edges of the Great Forest are regularly logged by people from the Heartlands.  However, they are generally careful how much they take, as bands of fey and giants roam the deeper parts of the Great Forest, and the fey in particular don't take kindly to outsiders meddling in 'their' forest.

Further on through the Great Forest is the Blue Mountains.  They form a "J" shape, much like the Great Forest.  Because of the difficulty and distances involved with the trek, most people from the Heartlands do not travel to the Blue Mountains, much less cross them.

The Heartlands
The Heartlands have two main regions as well: the Desert and the the South.  

The Desert is in the north, bordered to the west by the Shield Mountains, and then stretching on into the East.  The Desert is inhabited by human nomads who eek out an existence as herders.  Some nomad legends say that they have been nomads from time immemorial.  Other legends say that they fell from some past glory.

The South is the main populated region.  The south is the capital of the Kingdom that claims the region, though their claim outside of the South, especially in the Desert and the deeper parts of the Great Forest, is sometimes tenuous.  The Capital is, of course, located here.  Not far from the Capital, is the Ruins, an immense ruined city built long before the Kingdom was established.  Legends in the Kingdom say that the first King came from elsewhere after some kind of catastrophe.


That's it for this part for now.  Keep in mind, this is a work in progress.

I think your goals for the regions will definitely produce a very playable setting.  Your regions are nicely varied, so good job there too.

What might need some work is the names.  Are these just place-holders or are you planning on keeping them?  They're certainly functional, but rather bland.  The Great Forest and the Heartlands are both regions in Cyrodil, by the way, and the Blue Mountains are a range in Middle Earth I think, so you may consider changing those names if just to differentiate your setting from those ones.  I'm guessing, though, that the names are just temporary, and if so that's cool.

Looking forward to more, especially how your distinctive nature of magic has shaped things...

Quote from: SteerpikeWhat might need some work is the names.  Are these just place-holders or are you planning on keeping them?  They're certainly functional, but rather bland.  The Great Forest and the Heartlands are both regions in Cyrodil, by the way, and the Blue Mountains are a range in Middle Earth I think, so you may consider changing those names if just to differentiate your setting from those ones.  I'm guessing, though, that the names are just temporary, and if so that's cool.

Looking forward to more, especially how your distinctive nature of magic has shaped things...[/quote]
Thanks.

I've decided to make this a little more stream of consciousness-like, rather than me posting finished bits and pieces.  How's that different?  You'll just be getting less polished stuff, and I'll be changing things as I go along, and probably throwing things out.

Influences:
In a lot of my past settings, I've had some ideas to incorporate influences from outside the standard fantasy ones, but never really implemented them much.  A lot of these influences come from my background as a linguistics student, because that entails incidental study of anthropology.  Others come from just the general random facts I seem to pick up.  This time around, though, I'd really like to incorporate some of those influences.

So I'll go over some of the random crap I've always wanted to put into a setting, and how I can form it into an eclectic ball of awesome.  (Or an eclectic ball of eclectic.  Whichever.)


The Aztec
I'll assume that most of you have heard of the Aztec before.  If not, the Wikipedia article on the Aztec is a good read.  Those of you that are aware of the Aztec have probably heard of their ritual human sacrifices.  This is a little too transparent an influence for my tastes, so I'll throw it out.

So on to some stuff I can use with the Aztec.  They were not originally native to the valley of Mexico, instead coming from a land they called Aztlan (literally "the land of the heron"), somewhere in northern Mexico.  The Aztec have several myths and legends relating to Aztlan, but they eventually left Aztlan.  When they finally arrived in the valley of Mexico, they found that it was already settled, and they were forced to squat on a hill near Lake Texcoco.  Their god Huitzilopochtli ("Hummingbird of the South") then said to look for a sign that would mark their new home: an eagle on a cactus with a snake in it's talons.  They saw this on a small island in Lake Texcoco, which would later become the city of Tenochtitlan.  So that's kind of interesting; I could work with it.

Another interesting bit: once the Aztec had arrived in the Valley of Mexico, they found an ancient city they called Teotihuacan (literally "the birthplace of the gods").  It had lain in ruins for several hundred years before the Aztec found it.  Teotihuacan exhibits really advanced urban planning, and has the second largest pyramid in the New World, what the Aztec called Tonatiuh Tlamanacalli, the Pyramid of the Sun.  It has two other interesting features, the  
smaller Metztli Tlamanacalli, the Pyramid of the Moon, and the central avenue of the city, Miccaohtli, the Avenue of the Dead.  What I find interesting here is that the Aztecs created an entire body of myths about the site.  I had heard of this kind of thing before, but never at this kind of scale.  Another bit I could work with.

I also like the day-night cycle myth of the Aztec.  Remember their patron god, Huitzilopochtli?  He's also the sun god.  His mother, Coatlicue ("the one with the skirt of serpents"), the mother of the gods in Aztec myth, first birthed 400 other deities, including Coyolxauhqui.  According to legend, Coatlicue conceived Huitzilopochtli with a ball of feathers.  For obvious reasons, Coyolxauhqui thought this was just plain wrong, and proceeded to call together all the other deities to kill their mother.  As the gods descended on Coatlicue, Huitzilopochtli emerged from her womb fully armed and defeated all the other gods.  Now the Aztec didn't skimp on the messy bits, and said that he paid particular attention to Coyolxauhqui.  He cut off her limbs, and then decapitated her.  After he killed the other deities, he decided that he didn't want his mother to be lonely, since she had just lost 400 of her children.  So he preceded to throw the other deities up into the sky.  Most became the stars, but he threw up Coyolxauhqui's head, and it became the moon.  Later legends say that the phases of the moon are Huitzilopochtli dismembering Coyolxauhqui again and again.  Fun stuff.


The Tocharians
A large grouping of peoples who now inhabit modern Europe, Armenia, Central Asia, and South Asia owe their related languages to a culture known as the Proto-Indo-Europeans, originally nomadic herders from the Pontic-Caspian steppe.  There are also several extinct languages and cultures that fall under the grouping of Indo-European.  In this section, I will talk a little about the Tocharians, quite possibly the oddest of them all.

Around 4000 BC, the Proto-Indo-European language began to break up into its component parts.  One of the earlier languages to split off was Tocharian (around 3900 BC).  In his book the Horse, the Wheel, and Language, archaeologist David Anthony says that the Tocharians must have left due to some kind of conflict.  He says conflict because of the short timespan (400 years) and large distance (from the Caspian Sea, over the Ural Mountains to the foot of the Altai Mountains, around 1500 miles) that the Tocharian people moved.  Eventually, they wound up in the Tarim Basin, in what is Xinjiang Province, China, right on the Silk Road.  That in and of itself is pretty interesting, if a bit common.


Pulling It Together:
So let's say I combine these elements to make a culture for my new setting.  Here's a quick summary for what I have:

*Chased a long distance out of their original homeland due to a catastrophe (from the Tocharains).
*They have a cultural deity, as well as simple nature deities (from the Aztec).
*They find a massive, ancient ruined city, and they invent legends about it (from the Aztec).
*They go from a semi-nomadic people, to a settled people (from both cultures).

Oh dear... this is turning into a blog.  I am not sure if that's a good thing or not.  Oh well.

Other Stuff I Forgot:

Homeworld
I don't know if any of the rest of you ever played games in the Homeworld series, but I love them.  The game came with a booklet of background information for the story, essentially a campaign setting in itself.  I'll assume that at this point, everyone who is going to play the game has played it, but, just in case, I'll put all but the summary of this section in an Actual Spoiler,,¢ spoiler tag.

[spoiler=Actual Spoiler,,¢]The Homeworld series of games focuses on the people of Kharak, the Hiigarans, and, as the title implies, their search for their homeworld.  

The background documentation provided with the game spells out their history as thus: the Hiigara descended from the survivors of a wrecked spaceship called the Khar-Toba.  Unfortunately for the Hiigara, the planet of Kharak itself was geologically ancient and almost entirely desert.  Only the poles are habitable, and the planet-wide desert can reach temperatures of over 212°F near the equator.  Eventually, they fell into barbarism, and their religion ended up being concerned with the fact that they came from elsewhere, and the only real divisions were on why they came from elsewhere.

When they rediscovered the Khar-Toba, they found in it's hull a hyperpace drive as well as the Guidestone, a galactic map pointing to their original homeworld, in the deep core of the galaxy.

The background also includes information of the Hiigaran social system.  It is a clan system, that was originally a traditional age-based hierarchical system.  However, as the guide explains, as the Hiigara advanced technologically, the means to power in the hierarchy shifted.  At present, the guide says, the clans are based on meritocratic lines; that is, the clan member with the most merit, in some form of honor or achievement, is the leader of the clan.  This is a very interesting concept, as it is, to the extent of my knowledge, not really found in any real-world clan system.[/spoiler]
Pulling It Together (Again...):
A further summary:

*Chased a long distance out of their original homeland due to a catastrophe (from the Tocharains).
*Their most ancient myths and practices relate to this exile (from

Homeworld).
*They have a cultural deity, as well as simple nature deities (from the Aztec).
*They find a massive, ancient ruined city, and they invent legends about it (from the Aztec).
*They go from a semi-nomadic people, to a settled people (from both cultures).
*Their exile has significantly changed their clan-based social system into a meritocracy (from Homeworld).[/list]

Oh hai.

Here's a link to some flash fiction I wrote for the setting.  'Tis at the bottom.  Delves into geasa a bit.

Hey, I had one of those things. You know. A headache with pictures.

If I say "Modern Fantasy?", will your answer be "Fund it!"?

[blockquote limetom]Their god Huitzilopochtli ("Hummingbird of the South") then said to look for a sign that would mark their new home: an eagle on a cactus with a snake in it's talons. They saw this on a small island in Lake Texcoco, which would later become the city of Tenochtitlan. So that's kind of interesting; I could work with it.[/blockquote]

About that small island they found. I heard once that they had to build some hmm like-platforms to reach such island and once there they started to develop their civilization... above water. I havent confirmed this.


Hey! This is very interesting and I would like to see how do you work with it. Are you planning to use some symbolic mark for the semi-nomadic people? Will this become a major symbol when this culture develops? Sounds like it can be used as a motif.

Quote from: limetomTheir god Huitzilopochtli ("Hummingbird of the South") then said to look for a sign that would mark their new home: an eagle on a cactus with a snake in it's talons. They saw this on a small island in Lake Texcoco, which would later become the city of Tenochtitlan. So that's kind of interesting; I could work with it.

They would have had to do something to reach the island; it was pretty far off of the shore.  I'm sure they probably artificially expanded the island too.  Apparently, they built the causeways to the city so that they could be taken down in times of need.

One of the other interesting things the Aztec did was chinampas.  These were small artificial islands on Lake Texcoco which were used for agriculture.  And because they were right on the water, they were super productive.  They grew things like maize, squash, and chilies.  According to the Wikipedia article on them, they produced anywhere from one-half to two-thirds of Tenochtitlan's food supply.  Considering Cortes said Tenochtitlan was around the same size as Seville at that time (60,000 people), that's an enormous amount of food.

Of course, you could not do that today, as Lake Texcoco is now dry and modern day Mexico City was built over top of it.

Quote from: BlueSilenceHey! This is very interesting and I would like to see how do you work with it. Are you planning to use some symbolic mark for the semi-nomadic people? Will this become a major symbol when this culture develops? Sounds like it can be used as a motif.

Hadn't thought about that.  If I do use the symbol as a motif, I would probably change it.

The Aztec motif actually relates, in some interpretations, to the rituals related to Huitzilopochtli.  The eagle represents both the Sun and Huitzilopochtli.  The eagle is perched on a cactus, and is eating either the fruit of the cactus or a snake; this varies from legend to legend, but represents a human heart.  Thus, the myth represents the orthopraxy - the correct way - of sacrifice to Huitzilopochtli.  Although Aztec human sacrifice is usually said to be quite common, it probably only happened (at most) eighteen times per year, on holy days.  At the very least, it occurred once every 52 years during the Xiuhmolpilli (lit. "the Binding of the Years", more commonly "the New Fire Ceremony"), an important event in the Aztec calender system.


Thanks for the comments!

Ohgodwheredidthiscomefrom.

Giants

Physical Description
Giants are essentially giant-sized versions of humans.  Giants and humans may perhaps have some common origin, but the truth of this is not known.  Most giants live in semi-nomadic bands, migrating with the seasons.  Giants as a whole are aware of the strain their size can put on the land, and many aspects of giant life revolve around lessening their impact on their environment.  Giants call themselves Tanata, loosely translated as 'people.'

While humans average just shy of two meters tall, giants average a little over three-and-a-half meters tall, with less variation between males and females as is found in humans.  Giant skin color ranges from olive at the lightest to a light brown at the darkest, tending towards the latter.  Eye and hair color among giants is universally dark.

Giant clothing is commonly much more 'primitive' than human clothing, with leather and fur being more common than textiles.  This 'primitiveness' is due in large part that giant's size makes producing textiles much harder than animal products.  However, giants are prolific blanket makers, as this tends to be the most efficient use of their limited textiles.  Giant clothing is, on the whole, much more functional than fashionable, though many giants make their clothing works of art, with intricate, abstract designs and patterns.  Jewelry is not very common among giants, but bone is the most common material.  Body modification is quite common among giants, with tattoos and piercing being the most common types.

Society
Giant society is, to most outsiders, deceptively simple.  

For most of the year, giants live in gender-segregated, semi-nomadic bands.  Semi-nomadic in this case means that giants migrate with the seasons from one general location to another.   These bands are what most outsiders see, and what most outsiders think giant society is.  In autumn, however, several bands which form a single clan join up, which they call Sarafai.  If a band belongs to more than one clan, it will rotate between clans each year.  Outside of the family and the clan, that is, within the band, giant society is under a simple hierarchy based on merit.  Giants freely come and go from bands within their clan (or a related or allied clan) base on whether or not they respect the person leading the band.

The prototypical clan is composed of four bands, each containing anywhere from two to eight families.  These families are distinct from clans, and one band can belong to one or more clan.  Clans are traced bilaterally (that is, on the mothers side and the fathers side).

Families are traced matrilineally (that is, on the mother's side).  Most giants only keep track of family out two two steps (for example, as far as their first cousins or grandparents)

Gender-segregation among the giants is often one of the least understood aspects of giant culture among outsiders.  Though it has been enshrined in giant culture over the centuries, it serves a very practical purpose: it is a social form of population control.  Giants, due to their large size, can put a significant strain on the environment if their population grows too large.  Thus, keeping males and females separate provides a simple and effective way of keeping giant population down.  There is, however, no taboo on male and female giants meeting each other by chance.

Another common, related misunderstanding is that giants do not meet with each other except during the fall.  It is actually a regular occurrence for giants to meet up throughout the year.  Bands have no qualms with trading with one another or whatnot, and giants often need no better excuse than for one band to meet another to have a party.  They do however, limited these meetings to a day or two at most.  Both bands must move on eventually.

Giants are typically hunter-gatherers, though contact with other peoples has given them an understanding of agriculture.  However, giants are horticulturists, tending to gardens.  There are two main differences between horticulture and agriculture.  The first is the scale; horticulture is on a much smaller scale than agriculture.  The second difference is that agriculture focuses on a single species of plant, whereas horticulture often involves many types of plants.  Several bands in a clan often rotate between one garden, each taking turns tending to it.

Customs
There are no real special customs surrounding the birth of a child, which, for obvious reasons, is typically attended only by other females.  However, the child is formally introduced to their clan at their first Sarafai.  If a child belongs to more than one clan, they have multiple introductions at each 'first' Sarafai they attend.

Giants only have one rite of passage: when a child reaches puberty, they leave their mothers' band and join another band in the clan (or in a related or allied clan).  While a female giant would not necessarily have to leave her mother's band, giants are insistent that the now-adult giants must join a different band.

For the most part, giants die among their band.  For the most part, bodies are neither buried nor cremated by giants.  Instead, they place their dead on platforms a bit shy of four meters above the ground.  Ceremonies surrounding death occur once the band returns for the next Sarafai.  The ceremony itself is called Turi, or 'Silence'.  The band returns and is silent; other members of the clan are meant to infer what happened for themselves.  Generally, when other family members find out, they go silent as well.  After three days, the band begins to speak again.  If the deceased giant belonged to more than one clan, the Turi is repeated at each 'next' Sarafai their band attends.

Marriage is an alien concept to giants.  They of course know about it from contacts with other peoples, but the only giants who would ever consider it are those who have lived outside of giant society for some time.  While marriage is alien to giants,  monogamy is not.  Giants tend to have only one serious partner throughout their lives.  In giant relationships, an emotion called mamate (roughly, 'longing') is sought after.  Giants hold that the distance between the two partners in a relationship build a heightened sense of longing and desire, and a greater enjoyment when together, which they feel people who live closer to one another cannot get.  A good deal of giant oral tradition focuses on this.

Though cooperation is highly valued among giants, disputes within a clan do occur.  Outsiders generally view giants as happy, untroubled people, but like any other group of people who are together for any length of time, there are disputes among giants.  These disputes are settled at various levels.  Typically these disputes occur at the band-level, and are solved by the band leader.  When a dispute involves a band-leader, other band leaders in a clan often intervene.  Further, disputes are so looked-down upon by giants, that a band leader often finds themselves band-less during a prolonged dispute.  If a dispute is purely familial, generally the oldest relative intervenes.  Disputes between clans, however, are often long-lasting and bitter as there is no higher level authority to appeal to.  Disputes as a whole often take the form of passive-aggressive behavior, which giants call matatii, with all the accompanying blame-shifting, 'forgetfulness,' and everything else that goes along with it.

Giant greetings are formalized, but can have some variation between clans.  Generally, there are two kinds of greetings: those between bands and those between individual giants.  When two individual giants meet each other, they exchange a soni, a greeting in which they press noses together. When bands meet each other, the leaders have specific order in which they soni.  First, the leaders of each band soni each other.  They then soni any members of the other band they may know.  Finally, they soni other members of the other band in no particular order.  Other giants will perform a similar greeting ritual.  Any formal dealings is done between the leaders of the bands.  If there is any task at hand, all members are now expected to equally participate.

- - - - -

More to come.

Quote from: limetom

Quote from: Kapn XeviatThis reminds me of the taboos used by the Wu Jen in the Oriental Adventures version of the class for 3E D&D. I like that it creates a more mystic quality to magic than the simple "tool set" that some world's magic can become.

What system are you doing this for? Is this just for fiction or is it for a game?

Risus![/url] or Raelifin's Mastery system.  So I guess "for a game" would be your answer.


Thanks for the replies, guys.

  So if you're in Hawahii why are you on the computer?

 Regardless of where you are and what you're doing, that giant description is pretty cool.

Quote from: limetom*snip*

What.

Quote from: DrizztrocksRegardless of where you are and what you're doing, that giant description is pretty cool.

Thanks.

I'm not sure I like the reasoning for giants separating by gender, since conservation and preservation in a society usually begins only after significant damage has been done and the limited nature of resources becomes apparent.  But the fact that you explained it is a definite point in your favor.

Another thing that I see is a great mental image of a giant's garden.  Tended sporadically, it must have the appearance of a mystical oasis to a smaller being.  I just get the image of a hidden sanctuary with oversized watermelons, like in a children's book.  In a good way, of course.

Your talk of disputes being disapproved of makes me think of how individuals would adapt to this.  Since open disagreements are quickly settled or avoided, there might be passive-aggressive feuds perhaps?

One thing that I noticed was missing was mating behavior in giants.  You mention the care of children, but not whether giants mate for life or have any relationships.  I imagine that gender segregation would make marriages difficult if such a thing existed, so relationships of opportunity?  Like a whole race that exclusively practiced one-night stands, presumably with fewer social consequences?

Well, hope I spurred some thought.  Your work is always a pleasure to read.  It's a shame I don't do it more often.

Quote from: The Rose Of MontagueAnother thing that I see is a great mental image of a giant's garden.  Tended sporadically, it must have the appearance of a mystical oasis to a smaller being.  I just get the image of a hidden sanctuary with oversized watermelons, like in a children's book.  In a good way, of course.

Pirahã[/url], who have been known to settle otherwise unnoticeable disputes in a very... unprofessional manner after a few drops o' the pure.

Quote from: The Rose Of MontagueWell, hope I spurred some thought.  Your work is always a pleasure to read.  It's a shame I don't do it more often.

It's a shame I don't post more often. ;)

Thanks!