Xiluh

[SDragon]

The wampum idea actually might not be that bad. I've already started with hints of some sort of government that could back up the currency, but nothing as to how.

I'm... actually not sure how to respond to your comment about adventurers, though. I suppose they can play any role they like; tribal guardsmen, political shaman, even the occasional discoverer. I've always felt any world, regardless of presentation, had room for adventures. If nothing else, discovering new ways to have adventures would be an adventure in itself.

[Age of Fable]

I'm... actually not sure how to respond to your comment about adventurers, though. I suppose they can play any role they like; tribal guardsmen, political shaman, even the occasional discoverer. I've always felt any world, regardless of presentation, had room for adventures. If nothing else, discovering new ways to have adventures would be an adventure in itself.

Deciding who the characters are and what they do is a good way of defining the setting.

For example in Ghostbusters you're assumed to be a member of your city's franchise of the Ghostbusters business from the movie. In Vampire you're (obviously) someone who's been turned into a vampire, usually against their will. In Villains & Vigilantes you're meant to be yourself as a superhero. In all cases it sets the tone, and possible adventures.

D&D is quite vague about who you are and why you're adventuring, which fits with its origin as a setting-less game, but (IMHO) doesn't go well with its increasingly specific setting.

[SDragon]

Interesting... This was originally started out as a D&D setting, so that was never really something I considered at the beginning. I suppose habit just set in, and I never established that.

[Age of Fable]

PS To an extent D&D didn't need to say who adventurers were, because its audience had read Lord of the Rings or Conan. But if you're trying to get away from a 'vanilla' setting, then they might not carry across.

[SDragon]

Yeah, that actually was a large reason why I included the adventure hooks section...

[SDragon]

Finally added the in-world fiction to the bibliography, and added Xev's adventure hook idea. If you have any ideas, please let me know!

I also adjusted some of the words to fit the new aspects of the language.

[Age of Fable]

The adventure hooks seem to assume that most characters will live in tribes. Does that mean that there aren't any cities (or that everyone in the city is from the same tribe)?

[SDragon]

Xiluh is currently the second-most viewed thread in Recent Activity, and the sixth most-posted-in.

AoF, there are cities, but the "resedential sector", so-to-speak, is small enough that it might as well be considered a tribe; the majority of city dwellers are governmental-types, required to live at work.

[Age of Fable]

So most city-dwellers are part of a caste of non-adventuring scribes, clerks etc?

[SDragon]

Most of them, yeah. There's possibly a few major shaman officials that might still adventure from time to time, and just about everyone is pretty much expected to help their tribe, but for the most part, that's pretty much it.

[Age of Fable]

So do the characters / tribal members aspire to become part of the government caste, or is this impossible? If so, is there rivalry / hostility between tribe and city?

[SDragon]

The best hope a character/tribal member has of becoming part of the government is if they're a shaman adept and get chosen as an apprentice of an official shaman. There really isn't much rivalry between the government and the tribes.

Edit-- slight expansion on elven stoicism in the main post. The more this gets fleshes out in the discussion in the Racial Cultures thread, the more likely it'll be expanded even further.

[SDragon]

Minor update: the mountain range in the South now has a name. Also, I changed some of the spelling to be more compliant with what's going on with the language.

[SDragon]

Now I don't understand how clerics see wizards as taking a short-cut to power, since wizards study easily as hard as a cleric, gaining there power through knowledge alone. The sorcerer being weird is nothing new, but your sorcerers don't seem to gather any suspicion from naturally being able to do what takes others years to do?

Okay, this answer is very well overdue, but it's finally here. Wizards try to shortcut their way around the fact that being a proper shaman requires natural aptitude, and even some divine favor.

Killing a Couatl is both highly dangerous and highly taboo. Killing one for the feathers would be akin to killing a demigod for his left toenail; even if you survive the incident, you'll still be shunned and despised by many. It's not in your best interest to try this.

Really, the best chance you have to get the feathers is to find a corpse. This is only slightly easier then killing one yourself, as the bodies are taken by the gods pretty fast, but for some, the renown is well worth the effort.

Assuming they survived the encounter, sure. Let's be clear, though: these are not small creatures, nor are they weak. These are creatures of legend. One does not simply pick up a sword and decide to kill one.

[LordVreeg]

Now I don't understand how clerics see wizards as taking a short-cut to power, since wizards study easily as hard as a cleric, gaining there power through knowledge alone. The sorcerer being weird is nothing new, but your sorcerers don't seem to gather any suspicion from naturally being able to do what takes others years to do?

Okay, this answer is very well overdue, but it's finally here. Wizards try to shortcut their way around the fact that being a proper shaman requires natural aptitude, and even some divine favor.

Killing a Couatl is both highly dangerous and highly taboo. Killing one for the feathers would be akin to killing a demigod for his left toenail; even if you survive the incident, you'll still be shunned and despised by many. It's not in your best interest to try this.

Really, the best chance you have to get the feathers is to find a corpse. This is only slightly easier then killing one yourself, as the bodies are taken by the gods pretty fast, but for some, the renown is well worth the effort.

Assuming they survived the encounter, sure. Let's be clear, though: these are not small creatures, nor are they weak. These are creatures of legend. One does not simply pick up a sword and decide to kill one.

In case you didn't thingk I was paying attention....

 Wouldn't it take MORE natiural aptitude to shortcut the system?  You don't skip college and go right to succesful graduate studies by having less ability.  Or at least a different type of aptitude?  What would the diffrence be?

I can wrap my head around the Divcine favor thing a little better.  I actually kind of like that idea, about trying to earn power without the help of the religeous hierarchy...