7.20.2006 - It Begins
So, the new point of this Blog is to document the creation process of world creation.
Why create worlds? a couple of reasons.
1. it is fun.
2. comic books and D&D games are better set in a papable "somewhere" rather than an amorphous "anywhere."
And since I DM D&D and occasionally write/draw comics, I like worlds on which they exist. I'm up to three worlds now. My First world, Derranos, was created in college. A fine world, it suffered from clutter and cliche. My second world, Aqualaria, was also a good world. 7/8's water with one big continent, humans in the minority. good stuff. But not quite where I wanted it to be.
So now we come to world number three: Natralis. (of couirse it was called "new world" for a very long time)
Now. there are a couple of ways to start this process. Inside out, or outside in. Derranos was made inside out. I began with a small map of seven or so towns or cities with no real idea how they related to anything off that map. No deities, no culture, just some random names and places. Then gradualy I added to that map, I added some gods, some culutres and some history. Soon that became a globe with a whole pantheon of gods, different cities, countries and continents. Creating like this can be fun, if not disorganized and full of revisions. I don't feel it is the best way to go about it. Some people start even samller, with one town, or even an inn. a character. it's a good challenge.
Aqualaria and Natralis were built outside in, meaning the globe, the deities, races and cultures were all planned out before a city was thought of, maps were drawn etc. This determines alot of the circumstances that affect culture, technology and trade.
SO.
Let's begin shall we?
I needed a new world. The other two were fine, but I wanted to have something new. At the end of this summer a group of friends and I will be playing a new D&D game. I will be running it. Therefore I felt the need to create once again.
I usually start with map. Not this time. This time I started with the pantheon. Or lack there of. I didn't want my typical type of gods( sun, moon, four elements, war, peace, death, blah blah blah) this time I wanted something more cohesive. --
a side note on deity creation. there are a couple ways to look at this.
gods can be close or distant, involved in the affairs of motrals, or not. do they meddle or not? Remember clash of the titans for a good example of meddling.
Each culture/race has their own gods and converting "pagans" to your religion is a big deal. So there are many sets of gods, literally multiple pantheons that do battle with each other. fun, but horribly complex.
There is one god, or set of gods, and while different cultures/races have different names for them, they still answer the prayers.
There are no gods, just suprememly powerful mortals.
god sare deeply affected by their believers. If no one worships them, they cease to exist at worse or at best have no power.
or Gods are omnipotent and it doesn't matter what mortals do, these being created the universe and can do anything they want.
--
For Derranos and Aqualaria I went with one pantehon for all the world, deeply meddling in motral affairs, and omnipotent. I wanted to change that a bit for the new world.
For Natralis I decided to go with a family of gods. Law vs Chaos, instead of good vs evil, and have some of some them distant and some close. Law would be the mother, and Chaos the father, thier children in orer are, shadow(male), dream(female), and luck(male). I later changed Dream to Death& Rebirth. The parents would be distant, always fighting and the kids would be the meddlers. Now I did stick with the notion that these are the only gods. Different races wouldn't have thier own pantheons. This was it. So of course these Deities have proper names but each mortal race has their own names for them.
Race: When us gamers talk about race, we actualy mean it: not white black asain. We mean, Elf, Dwarf, Human.
On Derranos, there were SO many races, it was genereic D&D and eveything was there. Aqualaria was a bit more specialized, and with Natralis I decided to heavily limit the "playable "races.
Humans are a mainstay. so they are in.
I think Dwarves needed to be there.
I'm tired of elves so they were out. ( more on this later)
And i'm not fond of the little folk, ie gnomes and halflings. nix them.
SO that leavs only two. I created a race on Aqualaria that i really enjoyed called Caprians. I added them to Natralis. I also changed the dwarves a bit to make them bigger and more attractive to ease the relationships with humans to facilitate breeding between the two, creating fertile half dwarves.
Then a during a conversation with my friend Bill, a spark of an idea for another race came to me, and the Husken joined the world.
I'll give in depth descriptions and characterizations on these races later.
the other side of the coin is the so called "evil" races. I've always had issues with the evil races. Why do they breed? Why have children? To further the species I guess, but it still doesn't make much sense. As welll as the fact that it leaves no room for indiviual choice. If these races (goblinoids mainly) are intelligent enough to use armor and weapons and have clerics, they are smart enough to make up their minds on how to percieve the world morally.
So for Natralis I had to come up with something else. I got rid of orcs, goblins, kobolds and most of the intellegent 'evil' races. I kept hobgoblins, bugbears and ogres. All very dumb names for some cool "monsters." I combined them all into one race, the Gorlim. (not very far form goblin on purpose) The hobgoblins became the prime, the ogres are beta and the Bugbears are a sterile mix of the two. Long ago they had a ruler of the hitler type. His influence reached their clerics and became part of the their culture very early on. They are fanatically xenophobic. Not just afraid, but hating all other races. This might then explain why they go rape and pillage and have "human hunting" parties. When what you are fighting is not in the civilized realm of your culture, it's alot easier to mow them down....no?
I realize that if you have read this far you are a saint, a fellow gamer, or just really into me (HA!). I wll wirte more later.
stay tuned for MAPS! " I DO love maps! I have qite a collection!"
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