Three Worlds: What's next

[Xeviat]

[note=Insomniac Flurry]I'm thinking that sounds like an awesome name for a character power. Instead of the drunken master, I'm the sleepless master. Going to be seeing a doctor about this; I'm worried I might be a bit Manic. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I apologize for the bunch of early morning posts, but my mind is active and I need to get these thoughts "on paper". Also, expect to see me around more; even though I'll be starting work soon, I've rediscovered my motivation and currently have no video games distracting me. So onward![/note]As seen HERE, I've almost completed my race write-ups, which (due to my new classless take my game's presentation) represents potentially the bulk of player related info (the rest I can probably ad-lib and fill in as needed).

For both those familiar with my WIP and those not, what would you recommend I work on after I finish the races? What are things that you, as a player, would want to know before play starts (outside of character options; I'm working on the crunch simultaneously with the fluff)?

Also, I'm hunting for a new name. As the setting has grown, its sister planes (Avalon and Sylphenhest) have become less important. I may not retain them when all is said and done and instead go with a more traditionally neutral Spirit World, mostly to draw distinctions from 4E D&D's Feywild and Shadowfell.

The setting focuses on dualities (Light/Dark, Order/Chaos, Civilization/Wild, New/Old) and is themed heavily with the classical elements (Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and Aether/Void). On the surface, it is a fantasy world, but its approach is closer to science fiction. I do warn that I will be using my setting for my novels, so please don't give me any ideas that you are attached to (I already wanted to take someone's setting name of "Shattered Horizons" back when I was planning on having the three separate worlds within the setting).

So, thoughts or general discussion? I'm mainly looking for those player oriented questions, since I hope to get a game up and running again as soon as my work schedule is concrete (I will tentatively use M&M unaltered until I get my system off the ground).

[Ghostman]

A brief overview on the area the game is going to be set in. Important factions (guilds, tribes, royal families, religious organizations, etc) that the PCs are likely to interact with and that would be public knowledge. Example names for characters of different race/languages.

[Xeviat]

Awesome. Good ideas. I think I have a good amount of that in some fashion already, except for name examples. I'll talk to my linguistics friend about that one.

[LordVreeg]

Are you still predisposed to the animistic/spirit based magic?  How is magic looked at by the general populace?  Who teaches it?  How has it affected history?

[SamuraiChicken]

Religions would be another good thing to work on. Are there only a few, widespread faiths? Only one faith? Or is there a plethora of belief systems that never spread out of the lands they originated in?

Nations would also be a good idea to work on. Are you using the format of each race having their own nation, or do nations each have a different mix of races?

[Mason]

What is the most powerful being? Why?  Who would challenge him/her/it? Why?

Dualities are something that I am interested in. Elaboration , delineation of how you want to present these dualities would be helpful. These are broad descriptions (light/dark, wild/civil etc) and I am interested to see how far reaching the duality touches on the setting.

[Xeviat]

Quadruple awesome everyone. You've all posted some great requests. I'm real busy with work right now, just started and I've been training, so I haven't had much time to do much of anything. But I will be free Thursday and Friday, so I will post a preliminary primer on Friday.

Again, thanks! Keep any ideas coming.

[Age of Fable]

What role do adventurers play in the setting?

Are adventuring parties made up of a diversity of races, or will a group usually come from a single race (and how are the rules going to make whichever choice happen?)

[Xeviat]

Adventurers are the keystones of major events in the world. Either they cause them, or they stop them. "Adventurer" in this case does mean heroes and villians.

For instance, the founding of the Republic was lead by Daerkholm, an adventurer who was sponsored by the House of the Red Knight to take down the Emperor of the fallen empire.

Each of the games I run, when they get to a point that they're actually epic, become an important part of the world's history.

So far, adventuring parties have been made up of diverse races, and that is how I'd like to keep them. The civilized races (dwarf, elf, halfling, human, ifrit, triton, valkyrie) work together to enough of a degree that it isn't odd to see any of them in any of the race's cities. Most of them have a less than savory element (deep dwarves, red ifrit, sea tritons, highland valkyries), but they all have at least one country that believes in the idea of cooperation.

I've been real busy with work. I'm trying to find the time to get back to work on this. I think I'm going to focus on my story and my games now and let things develop as they're needed.