"Age of Exploration" themes

[sparkletwist]

Recently, I was looking at one of my old settings. It is much more 'traditional' in theme, but it had some significant problems that, along with interest in some less traditional fantasy, caused me to put it aside a while.

The main problems were rather different nations/cultures that tended to coexist in a small space, and a generally crowded campaign area. It felt "cluttered," and it also made me wonder how such diverse peoples could evolve in such a small area. So, I think that spreading things out would probably work best.

I was originally just going to make the "home continent" bigger, but then I got the thought that what might really work best would be to move a bunch of stuff across an ocean. This would result in a sort of "Old World/New World" divide. New races and nations to encounter, lost civilizations to unearth, ancient dungeons to plunder, and so on. The existence of a large region entirely outside of the "civilized world" would be a reason for an "adventurer class" of people to exist in an otherwise more realistic world, wouldn't it?

So, what do you all think? Have you done anything with characters setting sail for a new land, and the like?

I'd also like, if anyone's got any thoughts, brainstorming on some magical/technomagical/etc. ways to cross an ocean that are a little more exotic than just a wooden sailing ship, but not quite as miraculous as a teleportation spell or the like. Nautilus-style submarines, long-range airships, and so on. I'd like to keep a fair bit of the history intact, and that requires a somewhat closer connection than a long voyage across an ocean can sometimes provide-- at least sometimes.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

I've played in such a game, but not run one. There was no contact with the Old World, though, and the New World turned out much more "civilized" than we first thought.

If the ocean is not huge, maybe a voyage that takes two weeks? Long enough to make crossing meaningful, short enough to make communication plausible (as plausible as any ancient world communication, anyway).

Or maybe you have to make it the long way first, but then people can start building magic portals.

Of course, airships are always fun if you want that kind of feel.

Does this mean Crystalstar is on hold?

[Superfluous Crow]

I'm actually running a campaign like this at the moment, where the characters started the campaign on a ship bound for the single colony on the new continent. Now they've ventured out on an expedition in search of another expedition (no, this was not meant as a Monty Python homage) .
I must admit, though, that i mainly did this because i didn't have a thorough enough idea about the workings of the Old World, so i placed the action in less populated and more malleable territory instead.
but it's working out quite well, although some character types fit less easily into a New World.
As for transportation i used wooden ships myself, but you could go with a variation of the portal where you have to travel through some kind of strange "passage world" until you reach the far portal, which might take days and can be dangerous but is still a far shorter amount of time. Other than that, i second airships.

[LordVreeg]

Well, just a quick bit, but 2 things I did that sort of deal with this.

I made teleportation very limited in Celtricia.  First of all, it is beyond the ability of all but 5 mortal casters to teleport into an unprepared area.  Casters have to prepare an area to teleport to, though this is still hard.  And for most of the casters who can do it, the distance is very proscribed and so is the amount they can carry.   So by doing that, I can see island, and even rotating ships at sea allowing for a caster to hopscotch, possibly having to stop and recover spell points, across an ocean area.  dangerous, but it might allow a certain amount of time saving.

communication...I again made communication difficult and limited, but easier and faster than waiting for a return voyage.

BTW...
[blockquote=ST]I was originally just going to make the "home continent" bigger, but then I got the thought that what might really work best would be to move a bunch of stuff across an ocean. This would result in a sort of "Old World/New World" divide. New races and nations to encounter, lost civilizations to unearth, ancient dungeons to plunder, and so on. The existence of a large region entirely outside of the "civilized world" would be a reason for an "adventurer class" of people to exist in an otherwise more realistic world, wouldn't it?[/blockquote]  the people who really did this crap in our history realy were adventurers, or some of the closest we have here.  SO I think you are onto a great mindset.

[Biohazard]

One of my current brainchildren (and one of the ones I may have blabbered about a few times in the chat) is actually a Colonial Age sort of thing, which is intended to be what follows right after an Age of Exploration. You might want to consider this option too. You've got very distinct separations between classes here, and the upper classes are quite capable of getting up and going in their youth (when you own a plantation and are possibly from a very wealthy family background, your sons and daughters can most certainly study the most difficult subjects and go on adventures into the unknown. It's no longer a case of "the world is bigger than we ever imagined" but rather it's "we find ourselves at the last frontiers... and they are the most dangerous and deadly of all". Depending on the level you want to go to, slavery of various races can be a very real thing that fuels such a setting. But, I digress.

If you want to make crossing the ocean crossing more interesting, consider trying to turn it into a much more treacherous place, like the real world, than is typically depicted - make areas dangerous with shallower waters and archipelagos, unpredictable currents, and make sure that sea monsters are a very real thing. Something equally interesting on the way would be to have a Caribbean sort of area smack dot in the middle between the Old and New Worlds.

[sparkletwist]

Does this mean Crystalstar is on hold?

a Colonial Age sort of thing, which is intended to be what follows right after an Age of Exploration. You might want to consider this option too. You've got very distinct separations between classes here, and the upper classes are quite capable of getting up and going in their youth (when you own a plantation and are possibly from a very wealthy family background, your sons and daughters can most certainly study the most difficult subjects and go on adventures into the unknown. It's no longer a case of "the world is bigger than we ever imagined" but rather it's "we find ourselves at the last frontiers... and they are the most dangerous and deadly of all".[/quote]
I like this angle, too. Some established colonial presence would help in bringing the political structures of the old world into the new.

Thank you all for your input and suggestions.  :D

[Ghostman]

For a more exotic mode of transportation: island-sized turtles ferrying passangers across the ocean. Big enough to carry lots of people and cargo on their shells, but extremely rare (maybe you can count the known ones in the world with one hand's fingers?) and possibly unreliable (might be simple animals that are difficult to control, or they could be sentient so the passangers have to be at their mercy during the ride, or use some means to enslave the creatures). Obviously the biggest danger would be that the turtle might decide to dive, drowning all the passangers.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Surprisingly, Urbis also permits such campaign styles. But the frontier isn't a different continent, but different planets!

People arrive on different planets via teleportation circles - but the appropriate rituals are very expensive, so it's not done often. The Astromantic Society serves as an excellent patron for such explorers, and the various planets of the same solar system are described here.

The other planets are significantly more inhabitable than those in our solar system, but the native life forms tend to be drastically different from Earth-like species (some of them ended up on the "main world", thus conveniently explaining the appearance of all sorts of strange monsters) - so there won't be any humanoid life forms out there. So far, human explorers haven't found a recognizable civilization comparable to their own yet, but this may only be a matter of time.

[LD]

For a more exotic mode of transportation: island-sized turtles ferrying passangers across the ocean. Big enough to carry lots of people and cargo on their shells, but extremely rare (maybe you can count the known ones in the world with one hand's fingers?) and possibly unreliable (might be simple animals that are difficult to control, or they could be sentient so the passangers have to be at their mercy during the ride, or use some means to enslave the creatures). Obviously the biggest danger would be that the turtle might decide to dive, drowning all the passangers.

Amusing. :)

[Nomadic]

For a more exotic mode of transportation: island-sized turtles ferrying passangers across the ocean. Big enough to carry lots of people and cargo on their shells, but extremely rare (maybe you can count the known ones in the world with one hand's fingers?) and possibly unreliable (might be simple animals that are difficult to control, or they could be sentient so the passangers have to be at their mercy during the ride, or use some means to enslave the creatures). Obviously the biggest danger would be that the turtle might decide to dive, drowning all the passangers.

How about submarine turtles. The passenger cabin are enclosed is enclosed and strapped to its back.

[Polycarp]

"Colonial age" has been mentioned, but there's more than one way to go about it.  We're probably most familiar with modern colonialism and the wholesale reduction of territories and populations to client status, but there's also "classical" colonization of the Mediterranean.  In Greece, for example, growing populations spurred the settlement of culturally Greek colonies as far away as Spain and the Crimea.  I've read that in some cases people were actually compelled to emigrate by the state if population at home was too large!  These colonies continued to be a part of the Greek world, but also influenced and were influenced by the "natives" around them.  In some cases you might even develop this into a thassalocratic empire like Carthage, which encompassed numerous Phoenician coastal settlements but didn't really control one bit of inland territory until very late in its history.  I feel something like this could work very well with Bio's idea of a "Caribbean-like" area in between the landmasses.

[Loch Belthadd]

Perhaps an obscure land bridge of some type. Really small, and only crossable sometimes( such as low tide, or when the water around it freezes.)

[Llum]

Well the only thing that has come kinda close, that I've thought about are the Katari in Hen Mut, they hail from a different continent, and colonized a off-shore island.

What about a kinda reverse-Age of Exploration. Like you live in the "New World", and then all these exploreres keep showing up and junk.

[Gamer Printshop]

What about a kinda reverse-Age of Exploration. Like you live in the "New World", and then all these exploreres keep showing up and junk.

Although this won't help Sparkletwist's needs, I really like this idea!

I can imagine an elf-like population of woodland dwellers in hidden enclaves in the forest, perhaps they have a developed culture, advanced arcane technology, so its not the native american savage culture of the New World, but to the Old World explorers showing up to plant flag's in the name of their kings - that's exactly how they perceive it.

In fact, what if the elf-like culture is actually highly magical and rely on arcane aided long bows, enchanted swords and sorcery magic. While the Old World explorers come from a magic dead, technology based "gun-powder" society who belief magic is a fairy tale who see the bow-handling natives as primitives they can conquer and perhaps try to enslave.

Perhaps the elven peoples don't live along the shore, so the first visitors find an empty wilderness and establish a colony. There could even be a Roanoke colony whose settlers have suddenly disappeared through conflicts with the "natives".

Although seeming like a spoof of real history, there's actually plenty of meaningful direction this could go... hmmm, its got possibilities.

GP