As I zoom down in drawing the map for my (as of yet) unnamed world, I begin to feel the urge to name things so that I start getting a frame of reference. Naming things is fantasy worlds is one of the more fun things in world building, and also one of the most nerve wracking. I want cool names.
I mean, the last thing I want to do is call a city Confluzel and have the players, for the rest of the campaign, call it "Floozy City."
It's really easy to slap two English words together. WotC seems to have made an art of it. Wintermist, Stonemarch, Gardbury, Dawnforge, Witchlight, and Ogrefist sit within the the Nentir Vale. So it's all pretty understandable and pronounceable to your average English speaking person. However, it lacks some of the foreignness I like in a fantasy world.
A while back, I thought it would be fun to make a world where Common was actually English, and that the culture had been around long enough that many of the place names were a lot older - Middle English, in fact. That would give the common sounds that would make the words easier to pronounce. It would also, in theory, pluck at the ancient etymological strings inside the players brains. WotC like to use this with the word "fell" and "dire" I think - fell-this, dire-that, fell-tonsils and dire-cabbages.
Making English the Common tongue also explains why any notes I give the PCs would be in English, and why you might have a character named Roger. I mean, if you look closely at the Middle Earth stuff, Tolkien did the same thing. Hobbit-speak evolves into English, and is basically a tweak on old or middle English. Good Old JRR probably explains it all somewhere, I'm sure.
So I've been working on names for some of the older towns and regions is the campaign staring region. I started with an English name and/or concept, and attempted to translate it (horribly, I'm sure) into Middle English. Here is a list:
Aloftgres (ME Alofte - on high + Gres - grass) a town on a elevated plain.
Duskenfaunt (ME Dusken - dark + faunt - infant) town of the dark child.
Dwergyen Doun (ME Dwergh - dwarf + Yen - eyes + Doun - hill) a town near the hill of the dwarf eyes.
Ernslak (ME Ern - eagle + slak - gap between two hills) the town at eagle pass.
Failham (ME Fail - dirt clod + ham - home) a town of sod houses.
Flumrys Brig (ME Flum - river + Rys - branch + Brig - bridge) a town near a river bridge.
Fultum (ME Fultum - help) a town built around a religious sanctuary.
Gobelyntur (ME Gobelyn + Tur - tower) Fortress built to hold back the goblins.
Hethwalle (ME heth - health + Walle - well) a town near a well with curative properties.
Kyndrecchen (ME Kyn - cows + Drecchen - torment) Where the cows were killed.
Lefdikuss (ME Lefdi - lady + Kuss - kiss) The town of the lady's kiss.
Nyrvylrem (ME Nyrvyl - little man + Rem - kinddom) land of the halflings
Pricketholt (Pricket - buck + Holt - wooded hill) a town built on a forest hill known for a male deer.
Rotenslade (ME Roten - Rotten + Slade - valley) the rotten valley.
Senginbergh (ME Sengin - singe + Bergh - hill) a town on a hill known for burning.
Senginerd (ME Sengin - singe + Erd - land) the burning lands (the elven Razing Zone.)
Vathloof (ME Vath - danger + Loof - rudder) The place of smashed rudders.
Now the next step is to say these names out loud in front of my son. If he busts out laughing, I know that it's probably not a great name. Hmm. Maybe that means it is a GREAT name. I need to think about this.
So how do you name things?
- Ark
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Tim Shorts Did Not Rip Me Off
Over the years, I've been leery of PDFs for cash. Rarely do I feel what I received was worth the money. Most of the time, I just feel like someone took advantage of me and I need a hot shower and a good scrub down with a thick bristle brush.
Knowledge Illuminates, by Tim Shorts, has broken that mold. It's a fifteen page, low level adventure culminating in a dungeon crawl. I'm sure you had that figured out already. What's nice about it is that it actually makes sense. All the bits and pieces build into a cool story for the players, and it was an enjoyable read.
There is also a rather heavy, potentially campaign changing idea in here. I'm talking about the Viz. No, not the anime distribution company. It's a . . . thing . . . which does a . . . thing. Let's just say it has to do with magic. I quite like it. But it has the potential of completely taking a standard D&D type universe and giving one heck of a tweak to the magically inclined. I don't' know how that would play out in a campaign.
However, the inclusion of one of Dr. Seuss' most lovable characters as the main villain is very confusing. Hmm. Oh. Not Lorax. Lorox. Oooooh. Um, never mind. Forget that. My bad. :) The big baddy is particularly cool and creepy and - well - just imagining him - the way he is described - might give me nightmares tonight.
The adventure sprinkles all sorts of hooks throughout, and by the time the players are done with the adventure itself, they will not be lacking for things to do. A lot of things. A lot of scary things.
This is definitely one I can recommend.
- Ark
Knowledge Illuminates, by Tim Shorts, has broken that mold. It's a fifteen page, low level adventure culminating in a dungeon crawl. I'm sure you had that figured out already. What's nice about it is that it actually makes sense. All the bits and pieces build into a cool story for the players, and it was an enjoyable read.
There is also a rather heavy, potentially campaign changing idea in here. I'm talking about the Viz. No, not the anime distribution company. It's a . . . thing . . . which does a . . . thing. Let's just say it has to do with magic. I quite like it. But it has the potential of completely taking a standard D&D type universe and giving one heck of a tweak to the magically inclined. I don't' know how that would play out in a campaign.
However, the inclusion of one of Dr. Seuss' most lovable characters as the main villain is very confusing. Hmm. Oh. Not Lorax. Lorox. Oooooh. Um, never mind. Forget that. My bad. :) The big baddy is particularly cool and creepy and - well - just imagining him - the way he is described - might give me nightmares tonight.
The adventure sprinkles all sorts of hooks throughout, and by the time the players are done with the adventure itself, they will not be lacking for things to do. A lot of things. A lot of scary things.
This is definitely one I can recommend.
- Ark
Friday, February 18, 2011
And They Say 'Geek'
I was driving my son to school, and suddenly remembered something important from the night before.
"Do you remember Beedo? He had talked about starting up a blog for his boy when you set yours up?"
"Uh-huh," he nodded, confused that I had switched from the lecture on cleaning the bathroom to blogging all of a sudden.
"Well, his son is posting on his very own blog now. I emailed you the link last night."
"Oh cool," he smiled.
"They have a game where there are a bunch of kids and a bunch of dads play D&D."
His looked at me, "Can we play with them?"
I took a deep breath, "They are not around here. They are in Canada or Mongolia or someplace. I'm not sure where, but not close."
"Oh," he looked down at the floorboard in the car.
"But we could set something up like that. Are any of the kids in your school interested in fantasy stuff?"
"No, he said, looking out the window, "I say 'Dungeons and Dragons' and they say 'Geek.'
"Is there something wrong with being called a geek?"
"Yeah."
I sighed. "You know, people who use words that they think are an insult to you were not your friends to begin with."
"It's not people that I know really well that say it," he shrugs.
We do the school drop off thing and on my way home, I begin to think about the day before. My boss was in town with a bunch of other manager and executive types. A group of us go to lunch and for some reason the topic moves to Star Wars and I express that my favorite Star Wars movie is The Empire Strikes Back.
My boss pops up that he preferred the stories when Han and Leia had kids.
Thinking for a second, I cock my head and reply, "You mean the ones with Admiral Thrawn?"
He points at me with a smile and says, "Yeah!" Then he immediately looks embarrassed and covered his mouth. "I shouldn't talk about things like that. People will think I am a geek."
Too late, dude, too late.
I sighed.
- Ark
"Do you remember Beedo? He had talked about starting up a blog for his boy when you set yours up?"
"Uh-huh," he nodded, confused that I had switched from the lecture on cleaning the bathroom to blogging all of a sudden.
"Well, his son is posting on his very own blog now. I emailed you the link last night."
"Oh cool," he smiled.
"They have a game where there are a bunch of kids and a bunch of dads play D&D."
His looked at me, "Can we play with them?"
I took a deep breath, "They are not around here. They are in Canada or Mongolia or someplace. I'm not sure where, but not close."
"Oh," he looked down at the floorboard in the car.
"But we could set something up like that. Are any of the kids in your school interested in fantasy stuff?"
"No, he said, looking out the window, "I say 'Dungeons and Dragons' and they say 'Geek.'
"Is there something wrong with being called a geek?"
"Yeah."
I sighed. "You know, people who use words that they think are an insult to you were not your friends to begin with."
"It's not people that I know really well that say it," he shrugs.
We do the school drop off thing and on my way home, I begin to think about the day before. My boss was in town with a bunch of other manager and executive types. A group of us go to lunch and for some reason the topic moves to Star Wars and I express that my favorite Star Wars movie is The Empire Strikes Back.
My boss pops up that he preferred the stories when Han and Leia had kids.
Thinking for a second, I cock my head and reply, "You mean the ones with Admiral Thrawn?"
He points at me with a smile and says, "Yeah!" Then he immediately looks embarrassed and covered his mouth. "I shouldn't talk about things like that. People will think I am a geek."
Too late, dude, too late.
I sighed.
- Ark
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Kicking it Olde Schoole v3.5
The boy and I had a pretty busy weekend. We went to a micro anime convention at a local library, talked Labyrinth Lord over dinner with a old 4e friend, and attended the kick-off meeting for brand new Old School D&D Group in North Texas.
I've attended - and run - quite a few rpg-centric greet and meet-ups, ranging in focus from D&D 4e, Star Wars Saga Edition, and Shadowrun. Really, the best formula seems to be shaking hands, reminiscing about the old days for half and hour, than taking out the dice and getting to business. This new group did not disappoint, as the organizer guessed that to be the proper course of action.
The one thing that I didn't realize is that the organizer considered D&D 3.5 to be old school.
That was . . . okay. Not what I was hankering for, exactly. I had never player 3.5, but am willing to give anything a shot. I took my pre-gen's backstory and ran with it, playing an cleric who had been told by his deity to meet up with the group. I played up the creepy stalker guy who 'talks to God' aspect.
The boy was bored stiff. He was playing an elf ranger. Plink plink plink.
While he has some attention problems in day to day life, a good game usually snaps him into focus. This was not one of those games.
I too wasn't incredibly impressed. The DM and the 'theory' behind adventure were fine. But the actual fights took forever. I once thought that 4e fights could be painfully long. I had no idea. And at first level even.
I don't really know all that much about 3.5. I'm sure that some experts could have banged out the fights in half the time. But these guys we were playing with seemed to know what they were doing - yet it still took freaking forever - and the time was mostly spent on the mechanical details - not in anything that I consider particularly fun.
3.5 seems to be pretty damn fiddly. There is all sorts of math and bizarre rules slapped willy nilly on everything you might want to do. 4e is much more cut because of what appears to be a rules consolidation and simplification from 3.5. 0e and 1e is much more clear cut cause THE DM JUST MAKES UP RULES ON THE SPOT AND NO ONE FUSSES ABOUT IT SO THERE.
The DM and players were all nice people and fun to be around. My new buddy 3.5 - well - I don't know if I'll call him back for a second date. I'm just not that into him.
That gives me some worries about Pathfinder. I was thinking about taking a look at it - now I'm wondering if D&D 3.75 will do it for me. How different is it?
I should probably give 3.5 another try - but - hmmm. Yeah.
Talking to my son about it, he said he didn't like it much. I asked him what he thought the biggest problem was. He told me in no uncertain terms - it didn't have and POWERS. All he could do was plink plink plink.
Ah. I'm noticing a pattern here. Options makes the game. For my son, at least.
- Ark
I've attended - and run - quite a few rpg-centric greet and meet-ups, ranging in focus from D&D 4e, Star Wars Saga Edition, and Shadowrun. Really, the best formula seems to be shaking hands, reminiscing about the old days for half and hour, than taking out the dice and getting to business. This new group did not disappoint, as the organizer guessed that to be the proper course of action.
The one thing that I didn't realize is that the organizer considered D&D 3.5 to be old school.
That was . . . okay. Not what I was hankering for, exactly. I had never player 3.5, but am willing to give anything a shot. I took my pre-gen's backstory and ran with it, playing an cleric who had been told by his deity to meet up with the group. I played up the creepy stalker guy who 'talks to God' aspect.
The boy was bored stiff. He was playing an elf ranger. Plink plink plink.
While he has some attention problems in day to day life, a good game usually snaps him into focus. This was not one of those games.
I too wasn't incredibly impressed. The DM and the 'theory' behind adventure were fine. But the actual fights took forever. I once thought that 4e fights could be painfully long. I had no idea. And at first level even.
I don't really know all that much about 3.5. I'm sure that some experts could have banged out the fights in half the time. But these guys we were playing with seemed to know what they were doing - yet it still took freaking forever - and the time was mostly spent on the mechanical details - not in anything that I consider particularly fun.
3.5 seems to be pretty damn fiddly. There is all sorts of math and bizarre rules slapped willy nilly on everything you might want to do. 4e is much more cut because of what appears to be a rules consolidation and simplification from 3.5. 0e and 1e is much more clear cut cause THE DM JUST MAKES UP RULES ON THE SPOT AND NO ONE FUSSES ABOUT IT SO THERE.
The DM and players were all nice people and fun to be around. My new buddy 3.5 - well - I don't know if I'll call him back for a second date. I'm just not that into him.
That gives me some worries about Pathfinder. I was thinking about taking a look at it - now I'm wondering if D&D 3.75 will do it for me. How different is it?
I should probably give 3.5 another try - but - hmmm. Yeah.
Talking to my son about it, he said he didn't like it much. I asked him what he thought the biggest problem was. He told me in no uncertain terms - it didn't have and POWERS. All he could do was plink plink plink.
Ah. I'm noticing a pattern here. Options makes the game. For my son, at least.
- Ark
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Nettle Coral
As I was doing development work on my aquatic 4e campaign Sea of Tears, I started watching the anime series Eureka Seven. I'm not a fan of giant robot anime, but this series had amazing characters, flying surf boards, great music, a green haired emo girl, and scub coral. I highly recommend it.
The scub coral in Eureka Seven is part of the big mystery that the series unravels slowly throughout it's 50-odd episodes. I won't spoil it for you, but my initial ideas of what scub coral was turned out to be dead wrong. However, I used those initial guesses to fuel a major feature of the Sea of Tears campaign - Nettle Coral.
Nettle coral appears to be a regular form of coral, although a bit more straight and spiky and thorny in appearance - more like bleached brambles. Its biological niche includes where normal coral lives, but it exists in deeper waters as it does not need sunlight to live.
When the sharp tips of nettle coral come in contact with skin, they delivers a sharp blast of pain and damage similar to a nettle, or other corals, for that matter. However, nettle coral does something that other corals do not do - they reach out to and touch someone.
"Explosive growth" was how I described it to the wide eyed players. A foot long nettle coral spike could suddenly grow ten feet long to stab its victim. The coral commonly grows in large enough batches to take out entire pods of sperm whales. The stuff was a major shipping hazard, and if a port became infested, it had to be abandoned.
Given the right circumstances, nettle coral grows in huge enough clumps to exit the water and form bone white, thorny islands. Above water, the nettle coral thorns do not explosively grow, they simply explode, sending showers of randomly sized stinging needles in the direction of any movement or noise. Pirates and other sea-farers used such island to their advantage.
Eventually the characters discovered that the nettle coral was undead - formed by swarms of zombie coral polyps and the nettle stings were actually the polyps sucking life from them like microscopic vampires. Had the party a cleric, they could have even turned the stuff, but they didn't have one. Silly party.
I did a search on Google for the term nettle coral, since I figured that the name was already in use somewhere - perhaps even a real type of coral. I could only find one reference. Strangely enough, it was mentioned once in the book Blue Lagoon. I could not have invented such a bizarre non-sequitur if I tried.
So I offer unto you the humble nettle coral - vampiric and evil zombie polyp swarms. It's Strahd von Zarovich under a microscope. Do with it what you will.
- Ark
(Check out the rest of the Sea of Os'r Project over at the Lands of Ara.)
The scub coral in Eureka Seven is part of the big mystery that the series unravels slowly throughout it's 50-odd episodes. I won't spoil it for you, but my initial ideas of what scub coral was turned out to be dead wrong. However, I used those initial guesses to fuel a major feature of the Sea of Tears campaign - Nettle Coral.
Nettle coral appears to be a regular form of coral, although a bit more straight and spiky and thorny in appearance - more like bleached brambles. Its biological niche includes where normal coral lives, but it exists in deeper waters as it does not need sunlight to live.
When the sharp tips of nettle coral come in contact with skin, they delivers a sharp blast of pain and damage similar to a nettle, or other corals, for that matter. However, nettle coral does something that other corals do not do - they reach out to and touch someone.
"Explosive growth" was how I described it to the wide eyed players. A foot long nettle coral spike could suddenly grow ten feet long to stab its victim. The coral commonly grows in large enough batches to take out entire pods of sperm whales. The stuff was a major shipping hazard, and if a port became infested, it had to be abandoned.
Given the right circumstances, nettle coral grows in huge enough clumps to exit the water and form bone white, thorny islands. Above water, the nettle coral thorns do not explosively grow, they simply explode, sending showers of randomly sized stinging needles in the direction of any movement or noise. Pirates and other sea-farers used such island to their advantage.
Eventually the characters discovered that the nettle coral was undead - formed by swarms of zombie coral polyps and the nettle stings were actually the polyps sucking life from them like microscopic vampires. Had the party a cleric, they could have even turned the stuff, but they didn't have one. Silly party.
I did a search on Google for the term nettle coral, since I figured that the name was already in use somewhere - perhaps even a real type of coral. I could only find one reference. Strangely enough, it was mentioned once in the book Blue Lagoon. I could not have invented such a bizarre non-sequitur if I tried.
So I offer unto you the humble nettle coral - vampiric and evil zombie polyp swarms. It's Strahd von Zarovich under a microscope. Do with it what you will.
- Ark
(Check out the rest of the Sea of Os'r Project over at the Lands of Ara.)
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Surts' Island Draft
The weekend was pretty busy, and I swore to myself I wouldn't blog till I had finished up at least a rough draft of my island. I kept to the letter of the law - but not the intent, when I saw one of Telecanter's found treasures and had to go on and on and on about it. I swear, he always finds cool stuff. You know that boy who stuck in a thumb and pulled out a plum? Yeah, that's Telecanter as a kid.So I finished the rough draft. It needs a hacksaw taken to it - and maybe an arc welder - but it's done. I couldn't keep it down to a page. Verbal diarrhea I guess. So it's two pages. With teensy font. I apologize for your eye strain.
The link is here. Again, this is on Goolge Docs, which makes pdfs look crappy. Just click File and save it to your desktop and read it via acrobat.
Enjoy!
- Ark
(Check out the rest of the Sea of Os'r Project over at the Lands of Ara.)
Friday, February 11, 2011
Your Moment of Zen
"When I get 16 I'm going to get a car and drive to the game store and play Living Forgotten Realms with the RPGA." my ten year old son said suddenly from across the room.
"That's fine with me," I said as I worked on the map at my desk.
"I want to go play," he sighed, "I miss it."
"So do I. We had some good times there. But you know I can't support the RPGA if they are going to allow those cards in the game."
"But I want to play D&D."
"We will be playing D&D. Two of the guys from the old group are interested in playing Labyrinth Lord."
He perked up. "They are?"
I chuckled. "Yes, the are. I've told you ten times already."
He looked as if it was the first time he had heard it. "Oh."
"And you could play yourself, yanno. You have friends around here. You could DM a game."
He shrugged and grunted.
"And there is that map you drew and the character I made. I do want to play with you."
The boy sighed. "I don't know how to DM. I'm too young."
I shook my head. "You know, I was just a little older than you when I started to play Less than a year older. Practically your age. I picked up the D&D book, read it, and started DMing without anyone teaching me how. There was no one to teach me how. There was just me and my friend Chris and neither of us knew anything."
"Really?"
I nodded.
"But it's a big book."
I nodded. "Yes, it's pretty big. But do you want to know a secret?"
"Yes," he said as if that was an extremely stupid question.
"Have you ever noticed how in fourth edition that everyone expects to follow the rules in the book? Players even correct the DM and the DM nods and goes along with what the player said, or people will argue about a rule and someone will have to pull out one of those big hardcover books from their bags? There are so many rules that it takes a whole table of people to try and remember them all."
He looked at me like I was telling him the sky was blue.
"Well, in classic D&D, the DM is the rule book."
He looked at me as if I was telling him that martians made all of the bubblegum in the world in a secret chicken coup in Mumbai.
"What?"
"The DM is the rulebook. You have final say on the rules. Not some book."
"Oh," he said, staring off into the aether. Then he looked at me. "I'm the rule book?"
I nodded. Deep in thought, he stood up and wandered off in a daze.
A few minutes later, he came back with a crooked smile and a bag of dice. "Can I use your book and some paper?"
"Sure thing," I grabbed the Labyrinth Lord book and some paper and a clip board and pencil and handed it to him. "What do you want the book for?"
"Prickly the hobbit will need retainers, right?"
I tried not to smile. "Yes."
He sat down across the room and began flipping through pages. "Would he like short people to adventure with him? Like a dwarf?"
"Sure,"
He stopped at a page, put a sheet of paper on the book and began writing. Then he started rolling dice and writing again.
"Just remember," I said. "If the NPCs have all 18s, it makes the PCs feel kind of useless."
"Oh," he said, and began erasing.
I smiled and turned back to the map.
- Ark
"That's fine with me," I said as I worked on the map at my desk.
"I want to go play," he sighed, "I miss it."
"So do I. We had some good times there. But you know I can't support the RPGA if they are going to allow those cards in the game."
"But I want to play D&D."
"We will be playing D&D. Two of the guys from the old group are interested in playing Labyrinth Lord."
He perked up. "They are?"
I chuckled. "Yes, the are. I've told you ten times already."
He looked as if it was the first time he had heard it. "Oh."
"And you could play yourself, yanno. You have friends around here. You could DM a game."
He shrugged and grunted.
"And there is that map you drew and the character I made. I do want to play with you."
The boy sighed. "I don't know how to DM. I'm too young."
I shook my head. "You know, I was just a little older than you when I started to play Less than a year older. Practically your age. I picked up the D&D book, read it, and started DMing without anyone teaching me how. There was no one to teach me how. There was just me and my friend Chris and neither of us knew anything."
"Really?"
I nodded.
"But it's a big book."
I nodded. "Yes, it's pretty big. But do you want to know a secret?"
"Yes," he said as if that was an extremely stupid question.
"Have you ever noticed how in fourth edition that everyone expects to follow the rules in the book? Players even correct the DM and the DM nods and goes along with what the player said, or people will argue about a rule and someone will have to pull out one of those big hardcover books from their bags? There are so many rules that it takes a whole table of people to try and remember them all."
He looked at me like I was telling him the sky was blue.
"Well, in classic D&D, the DM is the rule book."
He looked at me as if I was telling him that martians made all of the bubblegum in the world in a secret chicken coup in Mumbai.
"What?"
"The DM is the rulebook. You have final say on the rules. Not some book."
"Oh," he said, staring off into the aether. Then he looked at me. "I'm the rule book?"
I nodded. Deep in thought, he stood up and wandered off in a daze.
A few minutes later, he came back with a crooked smile and a bag of dice. "Can I use your book and some paper?"
"Sure thing," I grabbed the Labyrinth Lord book and some paper and a clip board and pencil and handed it to him. "What do you want the book for?"
"Prickly the hobbit will need retainers, right?"
I tried not to smile. "Yes."
He sat down across the room and began flipping through pages. "Would he like short people to adventure with him? Like a dwarf?"
"Sure,"
He stopped at a page, put a sheet of paper on the book and began writing. Then he started rolling dice and writing again.
"Just remember," I said. "If the NPCs have all 18s, it makes the PCs feel kind of useless."
"Oh," he said, and began erasing.
I smiled and turned back to the map.
- Ark
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