Xearic Discussion Thread

[LordVreeg]

Okay, so maybe that was a little rude. But I want ideas on how to change the setting so that it is more exciting, more playable and all around better. And if it seems kind of core, it is semi-based on a series of novels I am writing, so the world kind of has to be the same. But luckily the novels only take place in a small area {the north and small portions of southern jungle} so I have nearly complete freedom on all other areas. But I cannot change huge major things like races.

        That being known, I was thinking of starting AGAIN. This time including some kind of skill sytem somewhat like Celtricia's. Classes could just be sets of trainable skills. What does everyone think of this?

UMM...OOOPS?
I find your enthusiasm and candor refreshing.  
ANother way to look at what the Trollish Joker is saying is to delve into the cultures as much as the races.  Are all races living seperately?  who lives together?  what aprts of a culture do they share, or not?  Is every orc and every elf at war, or are there areas where they coexist or even work together?  Is there idiosyncratic magic or types of casting?

[Kindling]

Although I will admit I haven't read the entirety of the setting, I will offer this:

Most of the feedback I see you getting so far is along the lines of "good, but unoriginal"

Now, I don't know whether this is the case or not, but maybe your intent is just to make a good, solid campaign setting for you and your group to play in and enjoy? Maybe you're not trying to break any new ground?

If this is the case please, please don't feel you have to warp your world to conform to the tastes and opinions of the likes of us! Much as I love bizarre, outlandish settings, I recognise that the more mundane certainly have their place, for a certain style of game - and maybe it's that style of game you aim to run.

Basically, what I'm saying is, if YOU think your setting is good for YOUR purposes, don't feel pressured into changing it just because it doesn't conform to other people's preferences.

[Hibou]

Umm...thanks? But do you here yourself? This is a very basic beginner campaign setting, but don't be discouraged. So your telling me that it is basic and beginners, but I should continue to waste time doing it anyway??? Did I read that right?

What I'm saying is this setting looks like most others when someone starts writing settings, and you shouldn't be discouraged just because it's not all that original. Campaign design is a process of growth. What you should do at this point is take the advice from other posters here and edit your setting, but don't just edit grammar and punctuation to make it easier to read - take a look at all of the material you've got and see if some of it can't be merged together or removed entirely. D&D's core settings have the issue of having too much in them even if they are trying to be diverse settings, and it'd be a shame to see yours do the same.

[Drizztrocks]

Thank you for clarifying that, I will certainly try to change it to make it more original.

[Drizztrocks]

Okay, so maybe that was a little rude. But I want ideas on how to change the setting so that it is more exciting, more playable and all around better. And if it seems kind of core, it is semi-based on a series of novels I am writing, so the world kind of has to be the same. But luckily the novels only take place in a small area {the north and small portions of southern jungle} so I have nearly complete freedom on all other areas. But I cannot change huge major things like races.

        That being known, I was thinking of starting AGAIN. This time including some kind of skill sytem somewhat like Celtricia's. Classes could just be sets of trainable skills. What does everyone think of this?

UMM...OOOPS?
I find your enthusiasm and candor refreshing.  
ANother way to look at what the Trollish Joker is saying is to delve into the cultures as much as the races.  Are all races living seperately?  who lives together?  what aprts of a culture do they share, or not?  Is every orc and every elf at war, or are there areas where they coexist or even work together?  Is there idiosyncratic magic or types of casting?

   Yeah...I was extremely tired last night when I posted this and my mind was jumping to crazy conclusions. I am NOT starting this setting over, and have already went through that. No way. And i'm not using any abstract skill system either. And it really is just that I need a setting for my players to play in, and a novel series to be based on, so sorry if its not original enough, but i'm trying to make it unique while still fitting in a familiar scope for my players and not screwing with the material in my book.

[SDragon]

I'm trying to make it unique while still fitting ... the material in my book.

This is an admirable goal, and with many systems, it's a very delicate balance. I can't count the number of times I tried referencing the PHB when I was starting Xiluh, trying to do the same thing. A suggestion that you can accept or dismiss as you see fit, is to loosen up a little on this sort of balancing act. Eventually you'll have to either give up some of that originality in order to "stick to the books", or give up core rules (either by getting rid of them, or adding on to them) for the sake of original material.

Here's the good news: either choice is fine. It's when you try to stretch yourself thin by trying to accomplish both as much as possible that your material starts to suffer. This is true with any creative endeavor. Just find what you want to do with this, and continue to do it to the best of your ability. Try not to worry too much about balancing acts, and you'll find they go away pretty quickly, along with all the challenges they present.

[Llum]

Alright, as you said the setting isn't particularly original, but it has a comfortable feel to it. I do see a lot of resemblances to Forgotten Realms, and gathering from your name your a fan (of the older stuff at least).

For Buffalo, having a huge mile wide circle in the center of town isn't a good idea, it just makes traveling to different parts of town harder, especially with all the traffic going on in the market. Now I'm also curious as to why you named the town Buffalo?

Funny as it is, I have to say I like Beltruce, spider vampires are a cool idea. Now for the ruins of Durgrrim, they seem to be between Iron Fist and the more settled areas of Triscan, yet its infested with Orcs. Its potentially a huge threat and aside from adventurers nothing really seems to be done with it, now if I'm mixing up the geography of it, and Iron Fist is between it and most of the settled areas no problem, my bad.

Another thing, something I mentioned in Sahajjinn is the spacing, I personally think you should double space between underline towns and their descriptions, huge blocks of text are hard (for me at least) to read in forums.

I like your Feywild and Shadowfell, them being other planets is a nice distinction from them just being other "planes". Now the moon caught my attention in that its covered in snow and ice, does it sometimes warm up a bit for some reason, gaining a lot of liquid water? Do parts of the moon break off, to fall onto Xearic in huge chucks of ice or enormous globs of water?

The Underworld and the Abyss fit together nicely, and they make a good sort of hellish realm. Now one thing I would like to say is the Black Rock, the name while perfectly apt, just doesn't seem to fit.

Now as to getting into the Underworld by jumping into a volcano, wonder who figured that one out? Seems like a possible way for someone who was sacrificed to come back and cause a great deal of trouble to whoever sacrificed them. If they manage to survive there stint in the Underworld.

I like the idea of people living in between boulders in the desert, maybe carving out extra room. Now for the underground area, under the mountains, controlled by the powerful Necromancer, does he have any connection to the Shadowfell? However it does look like the Necromancer doesn't control all the undead, as they fight amongst themselves, are these just random undead who slipped under his control? Or are there multiple factions vying for the control of all these undead? A civil war kinda thing.

All the crossbows being made, I was curious as to what they were made from, I doubt it's wood as there are normally few trees in a desert. Are they made from bone? Sandworm plates? Also are Skimitars similar to scimitars? Being like swords? Or are they something else?

The Savannalands seem well thought out, lots of herd animals it looks like, with wyverns preying on them. About the savanna goblins, how big of a threat are they? It doesn't look like form any overarching nation, so tribes of Feildmen would just have to deal with whatever goblin tribes they encounter?

Not much to say about Seltoria and the Sunsea marshes, although I am curious as to what the dwarves do here. It also seems like it would be a big hub for people gathering alchemical components and things. Marshes would have all kinds of different plants and soils to sample from.\

Quick note, for the Orc-kin and Wood Elves, when you say they were calling each other traders, I'm guessing you mean traitors.

The Orcs seem to have become a fallen race simply because the one king. Were there other Orc nations, that didn't participate in the War of the Woods? So are modern Orcs are just the descendants of the Orcs who lost the war?

[Drizztrocks]

Skimitars is my mispronounciation of scimitars. {oops...}
   
   The crossbows are made from long, thin parts of rock and bone.

   Sorry if my directions are off, Durggrim is actually to the west of Ironfist and up far north.

   Traders and traitors....another one of my late night illiteracies. {I seriously dought I just spelled illiterate right.}

   Karahd Zidum was the homeland of the orcs at that time, and although there was other small tribes of orcs in the mountains and through the forest, they slowly decipated.

    I'm sorry for all my mistakes in spelling and such, I eventually go back and edit everything

    I might go back and double space my righting tonight... {I would just change righting to writing but the sheer hilarity of me actually thinking that is how you spell writing is just funny. Hehe

   

[SDragon]

Traders and traitors....another one of my late night illiteracies. {I seriously dought I just spelled illiterate right.}

You got it right. You misspelled "doubt", though...

[Drizztrocks]

Ow wel./

[Drizztrocks]

I did alot of copying, pasting, deleting, etc. Took a while, but the end result is more organized and should be easier to read and understand. I now have three seperate Xearic threads. This thread, the discussion thread, the Xearic Campaign Setting thread, which is now only for story and fluff purposes, and the Xearic Crunch Thread, where all the crunchy stuff goes. I also deleted the alchemy thingy. It was an impulse to create it, and it was confusing and had no point. Now i'm gonna work on getting rid of all the crap on this thread that isn't part of the discussion {the story content in the beggining}.

[Steerpike]

You mentioned a map, but I can't find it...

I like the first two paragraphs in your history of magic thread quite a lot - a relatively original take on magic that is as much "alternate physics" as a theory of magic.  The division between Mages/Wizards you establish in the latter part of the history feels more or less like a retread of DnD's standard magic divisions these days, so while I get that you want to keep that division and keep Xearic in sync with DnD crunch, I don't have much to say about that part of the history.

I understand that you're still developing as a writer, but perhaps some constructive criticism to point out where your language, to me, is lagging might be helpful?

[blockquote=Drizztrocks]Most things are completely composed of Der. But Tetri and Berbeli both have life strands woven into them, allowing them the ability to have a mind and move at will. Berbeli have extremely slower minds, processing a thought an hour. This is okay, however, as most Berbeli strands are tough, resilient and live for many centuries.[/blockquote]

These lines provide a good example... I feel that while you're communicating your essential ideas, you could do so more eloquently.  "...the ability to have a mind and move at will" for example, is a very clunky construction.  Consider this rewrite of these lines: "Tetri and Berbeli have strands of vitality woven into them, infusing them with sapience [or just "intelligence" or "self-awareness" or "consciousness"] and animation.  Berbeli have plodding, vegetative consciousnesses, though they compensate for this lack of cerebral fortitude through their physical resilience and centuries-long lifespans."  I probably swing too far in the other direction (overly poetic and lush - I resent the term "wordy" because to me that connotes poor sentence structure/cludiness somehow, rather than just a florid vocabulary).

The word "okay" in particular threw me.  Sometimes colloquialism is great (see Cowd's newly posted setting "Weird Sun" for an example), but it assumes a character as your narrator (Beruzz from Sahajjinn, for example).  But when you're using an omniscient third person narrator, it should generally be avoided.

If you dress up your language a bit more I think you'll attract greater interest to ideas that are very compelling, but delivered in an  occasionally lackluster way.

[Drizztrocks]

Like always, thank you very much for the response. You are right about my writing, i'll definatly have to change some of that. I was having diffuculty trying to get my ideas across in writing, a problem I have lots of time, but am working on.

  As for the map...neither am I. I am having trouble figuring out how to get pictures on here.

[Steerpike]

Easiest thing to do is to use imageshack (really easy to set up an account there) to host the picture, then link to it.

[Drizztrocks]

I'll be trying that later. For a current report on my progress: i spent some time on Sahajjinn weapons, but now i'm starting on different spell categories for Xearic. A Wizard or Sorcerer character will be able to take ranks in Spellcasting Categories, which allow them to perform specially trained magic. They will be presented with a different array of spellcasting options then the normal wizard, but some spells will be off limit to them.

  This is like the Magic Schools in 3.5, except more rewarding, interesting, and Sorcerers can use it. I should have it in the crunch section soon....