Traveller's Cafe 3: Brainstorming, discussion, tea, advice

[Australian Antarctica]

Are there any modern military experts who would be willing to help me with an RP I'm creating right now? Basically what I need help with are specific units and strategies that would be used in a hypothetical future conventional war in the middle east.

[Tiltjuice]

Are there any modern military experts who would be willing to help me with an RP I'm creating right now? Basically what I need help with are specific units and strategies that would be used in a hypothetical future conventional war in the middle east.

Who's the opposition?

[Australian Antarctica]

Are there any modern military experts who would be willing to help me with an RP I'm creating right now? Basically what I need help with are specific units and strategies that would be used in a hypothetical future conventional war in the middle east.

Who's the opposition?

A future alliance consisting of Egypt, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, and Pakistan, vs. A UN coalition consisting of the US, Germany, France, and the UK.

[Rupudska]

Who's the opposition?

A future alliance consisting of Egypt, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, and Pakistan, vs. A UN coalition consisting of the US, Germany, France, and the UK.

I don't see Jordan siding with Iran anytime in the near future, nor do I see Syria stabilizing enough to be much of a threat.

[Australian Antarctica]

A future alliance consisting of Egypt, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, and Pakistan, vs. A UN coalition consisting of the US, Germany, France, and the UK.

I don't see Jordan siding with Iran anytime in the near future, nor do I see Syria stabilizing enough to be much of a threat.

The year would be around 2030-2040-ish. Though, I see your point. This is still an extremely rough draft though.

[Prusslandia]

Would anybody be interested in developing an rp set in this setting ?

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_Machine

I would be very interested. Maybe you can call it the Clockworks or something.

What I'm thinking is that there is one "official" entrance, but several secret entrances exist and, despite international treaties prohibiting it, are exploited by nations/organizations for their own profit.

If you ever decide to develop this, I could write up the Official UN Guide to the Machine or something like that.

Of course. The USSR has an entrance in Siberia, iirc. Why would their be only one entrance ?

That would be grand of you to do so.

Would anybody be interested in developing an rp set in this setting ?

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_Machine

So many nefarious ideas, so little time.

Indeed.

If I started an interest thread, would anybody here come and support it ?

[Gvozdevsk]

Who's the opposition?

A future alliance consisting of Egypt, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, and Pakistan, vs. A UN coalition consisting of the US, Germany, France, and the UK.

The only country that should be in that alliance is Iran. Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan are majority Sunni and would never side with Shia Iran. Syria and Yemen are well on their way to becoming failed states. Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan would also not be willing to lose their US support. If you want my 2 cents, just straight up change the setting because military RPs set in the Middle East are boring.

[Prusslandia]

A future alliance consisting of Egypt, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, and Pakistan, vs. A UN coalition consisting of the US, Germany, France, and the UK.

The only country that should be in that alliance is Iran. Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan are majority Sunni and would never side with Shia Iran. Syria and Yemen are well on their way to becoming failed states. Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan would also not be willing to lose their US support. If you want my 2 cents, just straight up change the setting because military RPs set in the Middle East are boring.

Head into Africa, or mayhaps South America.

[Rupudska]

The only country that should be in that alliance is Iran. Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan are majority Sunni and would never side with Shia Iran. Syria and Yemen are well on their way to becoming failed states. Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan would also not be willing to lose their US support. If you want my 2 cents, just straight up change the setting because military RPs set in the Middle East are boring.

Head into Africa, or mayhaps South America.

Go with Africa.

[Ontorisa]

Head into Africa, or mayhaps South America.

Go with Africa.

^
Simply because Africa is a cesspit of religions with both pagan, Sunni and Christian religions lying throughout the continent. Let's just say, it's not the best place to be if you're religious in general.

[Australian Antarctica]

Go with Africa.

^
Simply because Africa is a cesspit of religions with both pagan, Sunni and Christian religions lying throughout the continent. Let's just say, it's not the best place to be if you're religious in general.

Thanks for the advice.

[Gvozdevsk]

Head into Africa, or mayhaps South America.

Go with Africa.

Yes, preferably something involving South Africa and minimal foreign intervention.

[Vancon]

Are there any modern military experts who would be willing to help me with an RP I'm creating right now? Basically what I need help with are specific units and strategies that would be used in a hypothetical future conventional war in the middle east.

Ask that over here.

[Plzen]

Of course. The USSR has an entrance in Siberia, iirc. Why would their be only one entrance ?

That would be grand of you to do so.

Alright. Drop me a telegram if this ever gets made, and I'll start working on materials then.

[Benuty]

Go with Africa.

^
Simply because Africa is a cesspit of religions with both pagan, Sunni and Christian religions lying throughout the continent. Let's just say, it's not the best place to be if you're religious in general.

I wouldn't exactly call Africa a "cesspit of religion" while on that topic the traditional faiths of Africa are more than mere "paganism". I don't see why it wouldn't be the best place after all religions flourished there before in history?

While I am aware of certain militant fundamentalist branches acting throughout the continent they aren't always the whole picture. Of-course this really isn't the thread for this so I digress.

[Shyluz]

Would anybody be interested in a Last Exile themed RP?
...
You know, Last Exile, the anime?
...

[Altito Asmoro]

Who's the opposition?

A future alliance consisting of Egypt, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, and Pakistan, vs. A UN coalition consisting of the US, Germany, France, and the UK.

It is already a one-sided battle, if it ever happens.

Head into Africa, or mayhaps South America.

Go with Africa.

Go with Asia. Or Pacific.

[Kaledoria]

Do you think, this is the place and here are the people for a project like this:







World-building - Fantasy edition

What is this?
I would like to gather the creative writers of this forum to build a fantasy world, that is at the same time really detailed and internally consistent.
This will be a lot like a nation RPG - just without the IC thread.
The goal is to create a great fantasy role-playing setting with a rich background.

Road-map:
- I have created cornerstones for the setting, described below. But most is waiting for communal input. Most of all, we need a name! If nobody comes up with something good, I might just use the first or second syllables of the first 4 posters in this thread here.
- Writers will present first sketches of their races, cultures and nations, while also describing in detail the continental shape, major mountain ranges etc.
- Over the next days, I will then draw a map of the continent. This will take into consideration the geographical descriptions of the first nations but in between will leave a lot of space for more nations.
- Writers will place their nations and fill it with races, peoples, cultures and religions. First comers will be able to create stuff mostly free from restrictions, while later, I would like to ask you to look at your neighbors and ask yourself, whether it makes sense, that this nation has developed this way under the influence of such neighbors.
- All the fine details get worked out: Flora, fauna, HISTORY, detailed demographics, economy. This should take quite some time. If somebody is good at this, city maps for the metropolises would be awesome, too.
- If people still have interest by this point, we could move the history further forward. Neighboring nations renegotiate borders, leaving writers' nations will be twisted by someone else or be replaced, etc. This way we could create a snapshot of the world in the classic age, early medieval, high medieval and early renaissance - or something like that.


The world - so far:

*** is a high fantasy world yet with low "magic" level. Various nations, comparable in technology to the earth early iron age rule over a large continent or two close or conjunct continents.

The material plane and what else?

There are 3 kinds of "planes":
1. The material world, which is the world as we know it.
2. Faery Spots, which are strange, mythical places that are kind of connected to our world but more or less not really part of it. Think "Isle of Avalon" or that cave in Pirates of the Caribbean 4. Some can be accessed by secret (nonmagical) means, others need to be accessed with special magic rituals.
3. And then there are divine/distant realms, which are all the way separate from our realm and usually not reachable for the mortal men or vice versa. The land of the dead is a distant realm. Sometimes divine realms are accessible via a gateway Faery realm but even this can hardly be considered possible for anyone but the greatest of all heroes.

The bigger picture
For all we know, the planet is a spherical planet in a geocentric universe surrounded by two moons and a sun.

The radial sizes on the sky of the moons are 0.98 and 0.8 times the sun diameter. The bigger moon is closer and faster. The axial tilt between the moons and the sun is only about one degree and alignment of the two moons, or sun- or moon eclipses are averagely frequent.

The continent of *** is in the northern hemisphere. It reaches from around 64° latitude ( comparable to Reykjavík or Fairbanks(Alaska)) down to about 8° latitude (Panama, Sri Lanaka). There is/are one or more large inner seas. Alternatively, there may be two continents, very close to another / connected. The reason is, that there is not supposed to be a huge desert like the Sahara. Smaller deserts (like Nevada or the Chihuahuan Desert) should have a place, of course.

It fits well on a square map; about as wide as high.

I would like to avoid Elven and Dwarven nations.
Instead of Tolkin-ripoffs I would like to include them more in a folklore-true version: Elves and Dwarfs are races of Fae - mythical magic creatures that usually hide from the eyes of the lesser races. Dwarves will be more Gnome-like.

Other then this, I will throw two kind of human into the pot: "High men" and "low" or "common men". I would like a good couple of races, however. Men may be a numerous race but just one race among many. On the other hand it should not be one or more different races per nation either. Some nations should be melding pots and some races should stick to "their" one land but overall, there should be a good deal more nations then races.

It would be great, if in the end we have kind of like an "intelligent species taxonomy". For that we should use "races" synonymous with "subspecies".
Along the way similar races might get combined to species, similar species to Genus and similar genus to Families. The two Families so far would be Fae and Hominidae.

Hints: Great races 1. Are sufficiently different, physically 2. Offer a range of personalities and archetypes, as wide as among humans 3. If they have mythical aspects or powers, those are minimal.

First Draft

We are in the year 200 after the fall of a great Empire - this leaves a good reason, why everybody starts on about equal grounds and keeps the necessity to coordinate histories to a minimum.

Which race was the Empire of? High men - think Tolkien's Dunedain. They fit well into a "lost greatness mourner" role, in a world where Elves do not take that role.
I also want dragons and a wide range of possible faiths. This kind of sets some parameters for the early history.

I would thus like to divide the history into kind of like the classical Greek ages:

First, the Golden Age: -10,000 to -6,000 of the forth age.
The world was young and full of magic. In the beginning, there were no races, just individuals. Births were rare but deaths even more so. During this age, the people split up into groupd that became known as "Gods", "Fae" and the immortal forefathers' of today's races. Towards the end of the age races gained population and with them came conflict.

Second, the Silver Age. -6,000 to -2,000 of the forth age.
Gods, and some some Demigods created mortal races. Given only a short time on the world, they were driven by instincts to multiply at levels virtually unchecked. The Fae kind of fated away from the material world. The race, that achieved dominance however was an immortal one: Through strength, magic and intellect Dragons subjugated the lesser races. They were determined to rule the world and drive the Gods out. And so they did.

Third, the Bronze Age. -2,000 to 0 of the fourth age.
The Dragons fell and Men rose. Tribes joined forces and became nations. Soldiers replaces warriors. With time, the Empire of Men subdued most other races, conquering more then half of the continent. But on the inside, the Empire rotted and with it, the longevity of men. Finally, there were some cataclysmic events, that wiped out many of the remaining "high" men. Their Empire was overthrown by their slave races and shattered

Now, the Iron age. 0 to 200 of the fourth age.
The rebellious factions of the Fallen Empire ordered themselves into a multitude of sovereign nations, while at the same time, the people of the regions, that had been unconquered tried to go from "looking unimportant and not economically reasonable to conquer" to becoming strong players by themselves, giving themselves a good start into the new age.

Iron smelting was invented around the end of the Bronze Age, the dominant metal for tools and weapons before that was bronze, thus the names of those two ages. The other two ages were retroactively named to fit the scheme of metals by sages.

How does it work?
I'd like there to be multiple forms of magic. The forms are defined and the users of one know about the others, too.

"Arcane" Magic: Magic fixed in formulas: This form of magic is almost a science and very methodical. It packs magic in specific formulas called "spells". This means, that one "spell" usually does one specific thing with little alteration possible. A fireball spell can not be used to light a cigar.

However, arcane formulas can be developed with parameters, that allow the mage to scale it's effect at casting time. Depending on the freedom of options, the spell becomes increasingly difficult but for a great mage it's often more convenient to remember one spell for multiple minor effects, instead of many specific ones.

The main advantage is the relative safety of this method. If a mage fails to produce a certain effect, usually just nothing happens. Unwanted effects usually do not happen.


"Mystic" Magic: Mystic magic on the other hand does not have fix formulas. Its users have magic skills governing certain fields (Earth, Fire, Animals, Metamagic) and techniques (Creation, alteration, movement, ...) and can create effect concerning their fields on the fly. It's more of an approximate task, unless the Mystics is really skilled and the task is sufficiently simple.


"Occult" Magic: In Occultism, the caster is not the creator of the magic, just a channel, through which magic beings native to other planes act. This can take various forms from a devoted cleric to a demonologist.
It must not necessary be a weak caster begging for the powers of might fiends, however: The role can be reverse, too: A summoner may call upon lesser magic beings and force them to produce certain effects.

Skill in Occultism can be achieved through knowledge of or devotion to said magical beings. Failure can be in the form of a different being answering, or a failure to please or control the entity in question.


Basic rules governing all three forms:
- A magic user channel magic energy from the surroundings.
- This can be physically demanding and will exhaust the mage (henceforth called "Drain").
- Usually there is "mana" available for whatever you wish to do but in some area some or all kinds of spells are easier or harder then someplace else. Mystics are more affected by this then Mages or Occultists.
- The raw power of a spell or magic effect and the finesse are subject to two different limits. A caster able to withstand a lot of drain might be able to use telekinesis to lift an elephant but can not use it to knot a robe while an expert in the magical art might be able to telecinetically move a string through a needle's ear but can't lift a human because he can't deal with a lot of drain or the "movement" mana in the area is exceptionally low.


Magic limits:
- Don't mess with the time-line unless you are a god.
- You may revive someone who is mostly dead. But if someone is totally dead, all you can do is check his pockets for loot.


Magic Level in the world: High or low?
For now, this is open to debate. We should find a common baseline, how common magic is and how powerful it is in average. My default position would be that weak magic is kind of common (not Elder scrolls or D&D-like but still a couple of people in every 1000). At the same time, however, very powerful magic exists just that it's rare. (Not as rare as you might think however, considering, that moderately powerful magic is also very rare already)

Time to get creative!

Code: Select all

Race form:

[b]General description:[/b]
[b]Belongs to species:[/b] (Can leave empty for now)
[b]Average height and weight:[/b]
[b]Life expectancy:[/b]
[b]Time to (physical) adulthood:[/b]
[b](Main) Ethnics:[/b]
[list][*]1.
[/list]

Code: Select all

Culture Group form:

[b]General description:[/b]
[b]Core Race(s):[/b] (If the culture group is centered around a specific race)
[b]Religious tendencies:[/b] (monotheist, pantheonic, animist, atheist or no preference)
[b]Political Tendencies:[/b] (tribal, autocratic, "democratic" or no preference)
[b]Main Language:[/b] (Invent a name and maybe give an earth reference for place and people names)

Note, that this should be a very rough groups, (like "Slavic" or "Germanic"), that will get concrete Cultural descriptions in the nation aplication (like Russian/Polish/Bulgarian or Norse/Frankish/Anglo-Saxon respectively for the previous real-world examples)

Code: Select all

Religion form:

[b]Type:[/b] (monotheist (one god, who is seen as significantly greater and likely much more virtuous than any other god), pantheonic (a finite set of gods, usually with certain portfolios each) or animist (lots of gods, two people may see each other as a brother of faith despite them worshiping guardian patrons that the other has never heard of, as long as their practices and superstitions about nature and cosmology are relatively similar))
[b]General description:[/b]
[b]Other...[/b] (Other points as needed)
[b](Organized) Churches:[/b]
[list][*](May stay empty)
[/list]

When creating a religion remember, that there is no creation history. The "gods" were either born in the first age (or some later and ascended) or were created together with the world at the beginning of time by unknown forces. ... This does not mean, that zealous worshipers can not make something up - or maybe the gods did.

Code: Select all

Nation - first draft form

[b]General description:[/b]
[b]Approximate location:[/b]
[b]Approximate size:[/b]
[b]Climate:[/b] (Temperature and humidity)

[b]Geography:[/b]
[u]Coastline:[/u] (length, direction, roughness, ...)
[u]Mayor mountain ranges:[/u] (Names in local language, approx. height, direction, ...)
[u]Terrain:[/u] (arable land, forest-coverage, hills, ... Short description)

[b]Population:[/b] (Total number)
[u]Races:[/u] (race and ethnicities, if decided already. Leave some "Other" percentages for races not yet created)
[u]Cultures:[/u] (can be blank for now)
[u]Religions:[/u] (can be blank for now)

[b]Form of Government:[/b]

[b]A lot more...[/b] (More detailed forms will follow at a later time. For now, this should not be required but if you want to add own points, feel free to do so.)

General: We write together at a world here and it should happen that some writers pick up other writers' work and add to that. This should count especially for races and culture groups, nations however should be in the hands of their inventor as much as possible.

[The Starlight]

Do you think, this is the place and here are the people for a project like this:







World-building - Fantasy edition

What is this?
I would like to gather the creative writers of this forum to build a fantasy world, that is at the same time really detailed and internally consistent.
This will be a lot like a nation RPG - just without the IC thread.
The goal is to create a great fantasy role-playing setting with a rich background.

Road-map:
- I have created cornerstones for the setting, described below. But most is waiting for communal input. Most of all, we need a name! If nobody comes up with something good, I might just use the first or second syllables of the first 4 posters in this thread here.
- Writers will present first sketches of their races, cultures and nations, while also describing in detail the continental shape, major mountain ranges etc.
- Over the next days, I will then draw a map of the continent. This will take into consideration the geographical descriptions of the first nations but in between will leave a lot of space for more nations.
- Writers will place their nations and fill it with races, peoples, cultures and religions. First comers will be able to create stuff mostly free from restrictions, while later, I would like to ask you to look at your neighbors and ask yourself, whether it makes sense, that this nation has developed this way under the influence of such neighbors.
- All the fine details get worked out: Flora, fauna, HISTORY, detailed demographics, economy. This should take quite some time. If somebody is good at this, city maps for the metropolises would be awesome, too.
- If people still have interest by this point, we could move the history further forward. Neighboring nations renegotiate borders, leaving writers' nations will be twisted by someone else or be replaced, etc. This way we could create a snapshot of the world in the classic age, early medieval, high medieval and early renaissance - or something like that.


The world - so far:

*** is a high fantasy world yet with low "magic" level. Various nations, comparable in technology to the earth early iron age rule over a large continent or two close or conjunct continents.

The material plane and what else?

There are 3 kinds of "planes":
1. The material world, which is the world as we know it.
2. Faery Spots, which are strange, mythical places that are kind of connected to our world but more or less not really part of it. Think "Isle of Avalon" or that cave in Pirates of the Caribbean 4. Some can be accessed by secret (nonmagical) means, others need to be accessed with special magic rituals.
3. And then there are divine/distant realms, which are all the way separate from our realm and usually not reachable for the mortal men or vice versa. The land of the dead is a distant realm. Sometimes divine realms are accessible via a gateway Faery realm but even this can hardly be considered possible for anyone but the greatest of all heroes.

The bigger picture
For all we know, the planet is a spherical planet in a geocentric universe surrounded by two moons and a sun.

The radial sizes on the sky of the moons are 0.98 and 0.8 times the sun diameter. The bigger moon is closer and faster. The axial tilt between the moons and the sun is only about one degree and alignment of the two moons, or sun- or moon eclipses are averagely frequent.

The continent of *** is in the northern hemisphere. It reaches from around 64° latitude ( comparable to Reykjavík or Fairbanks(Alaska)) down to about 8° latitude (Panama, Sri Lanaka). There is/are one or more large inner seas. Alternatively, there may be two continents, very close to another / connected. The reason is, that there is not supposed to be a huge desert like the Sahara. Smaller deserts (like Nevada or the Chihuahuan Desert) should have a place, of course.

It fits well on a square map; about as wide as high.

I would like to avoid Elven and Dwarven nations.
Instead of Tolkin-ripoffs I would like to include them more in a folklore-true version: Elves and Dwarfs are races of Fae - mythical magic creatures that usually hide from the eyes of the lesser races. Dwarves will be more Gnome-like.

Other then this, I will throw two kind of human into the pot: "High men" and "low" or "common men". I would like a good couple of races, however. Men may be a numerous race but just one race among many. On the other hand it should not be one or more different races per nation either. Some nations should be melding pots and some races should stick to "their" one land but overall, there should be a good deal more nations then races.

It would be great, if in the end we have kind of like an "intelligent species taxonomy". For that we should use "races" synonymous with "subspecies".
Along the way similar races might get combined to species, similar species to Genus and similar genus to Families. The two Families so far would be Fae and Hominidae.

Hints: Great races 1. Are sufficiently different, physically 2. Offer a range of personalities and archetypes, as wide as among humans 3. If they have mythical aspects or powers, those are minimal.

First Draft

We are in the year 200 after the fall of a great Empire - this leaves a good reason, why everybody starts on about equal grounds and keeps the necessity to coordinate histories to a minimum.

Which race was the Empire of? High men - think Tolkien's Dunedain. They fit well into a "lost greatness mourner" role, in a world where Elves do not take that role.
I also want dragons and a wide range of possible faiths. This kind of sets some parameters for the early history.

I would thus like to divide the history into kind of like the classical Greek ages:

First, the Golden Age: -10,000 to -6,000 of the forth age.
The world was young and full of magic. In the beginning, there were no races, just individuals. Births were rare but deaths even more so. During this age, the people split up into groupd that became known as "Gods", "Fae" and the immortal forefathers' of today's races. Towards the end of the age races gained population and with them came conflict.

Second, the Silver Age. -6,000 to -2,000 of the forth age.
Gods, and some some Demigods created mortal races. Given only a short time on the world, they were driven by instincts to multiply at levels virtually unchecked. The Fae kind of fated away from the material world. The race, that achieved dominance however was an immortal one: Through strength, magic and intellect Dragons subjugated the lesser races. They were determined to rule the world and drive the Gods out. And so they did.

Third, the Bronze Age. -2,000 to 0 of the fourth age.
The Dragons fell and Men rose. Tribes joined forces and became nations. Soldiers replaces warriors. With time, the Empire of Men subdued most other races, conquering more then half of the continent. But on the inside, the Empire rotted and with it, the longevity of men. Finally, there were some cataclysmic events, that wiped out many of the remaining "high" men. Their Empire was overthrown by their slave races and shattered

Now, the Iron age. 0 to 200 of the fourth age.
The rebellious factions of the Fallen Empire ordered themselves into a multitude of sovereign nations, while at the same time, the people of the regions, that had been unconquered tried to go from "looking unimportant and not economically reasonable to conquer" to becoming strong players by themselves, giving themselves a good start into the new age.

Iron smelting was invented around the end of the Bronze Age, the dominant metal for tools and weapons before that was bronze, thus the names of those two ages. The other two ages were retroactively named to fit the scheme of metals by sages.

How does it work?
I'd like there to be multiple forms of magic. The forms are defined and the users of one know about the others, too.

"Arcane" Magic: Magic fixed in formulas: This form of magic is almost a science and very methodical. It packs magic in specific formulas called "spells". This means, that one "spell" usually does one specific thing with little alteration possible. A fireball spell can not be used to light a cigar.

However, arcane formulas can be developed with parameters, that allow the mage to scale it's effect at casting time. Depending on the freedom of options, the spell becomes increasingly difficult but for a great mage it's often more convenient to remember one spell for multiple minor effects, instead of many specific ones.

The main advantage is the relative safety of this method. If a mage fails to produce a certain effect, usually just nothing happens. Unwanted effects usually do not happen.


"Mystic" Magic: Mystic magic on the other hand does not have fix formulas. Its users have magic skills governing certain fields (Earth, Fire, Animals, Metamagic) and techniques (Creation, alteration, movement, ...) and can create effect concerning their fields on the fly. It's more of an approximate task, unless the Mystics is really skilled and the task is sufficiently simple.


"Occult" Magic: In Occultism, the caster is not the creator of the magic, just a channel, through which magic beings native to other planes act. This can take various forms from a devoted cleric to a demonologist.
It must not necessary be a weak caster begging for the powers of might fiends, however: The role can be reverse, too: A summoner may call upon lesser magic beings and force them to produce certain effects.

Skill in Occultism can be achieved through knowledge of or devotion to said magical beings. Failure can be in the form of a different being answering, or a failure to please or control the entity in question.


Basic rules governing all three forms:
- A magic user channel magic energy from the surroundings.
- This can be physically demanding and will exhaust the mage (henceforth called "Drain").
- Usually there is "mana" available for whatever you wish to do but in some area some or all kinds of spells are easier or harder then someplace else. Mystics are more affected by this then Mages or Occultists.
- The raw power of a spell or magic effect and the finesse are subject to two different limits. A caster able to withstand a lot of drain might be able to use telekinesis to lift an elephant but can not use it to knot a robe while an expert in the magical art might be able to telecinetically move a string through a needle's ear but can't lift a human because he can't deal with a lot of drain or the "movement" mana in the area is exceptionally low.


Magic limits:
- Don't mess with the time-line unless you are a god.
- You may revive someone who is mostly dead. But if someone is totally dead, all you can do is check his pockets for loot.


Magic Level in the world: High or low?
For now, this is open to debate. We should find a common baseline, how common magic is and how powerful it is in average. My default position would be that weak magic is kind of common (not Elder scrolls or D&D-like but still a couple of people in every 1000). At the same time, however, very powerful magic exists just that it's rare. (Not as rare as you might think however, considering, that moderately powerful magic is also very rare already)

Time to get creative!

Code: Select all

Race form:

[b]General description:[/b]
[b]Belongs to species:[/b] (Can leave empty for now)
[b]Average height and weight:[/b]
[b]Life expectancy:[/b]
[b]Time to (physical) adulthood:[/b]
[b](Main) Ethnics:[/b]
[list][*]1.
[/list]

Code: Select all

Culture Group form:

[b]General description:[/b]
[b]Core Race(s):[/b] (If the culture group is centered around a specific race)
[b]Religious tendencies:[/b] (monotheist, pantheonic, animist, atheist or no preference)
[b]Political Tendencies:[/b] (tribal, autocratic, "democratic" or no preference)
[b]Main Language:[/b] (Invent a name and maybe give an earth reference for place and people names)

Note, that this should be a very rough groups, (like "Slavic" or "Germanic"), that will get concrete Cultural descriptions in the nation aplication (like Russian/Polish/Bulgarian or Norse/Frankish/Anglo-Saxon respectively for the previous real-world examples)

Code: Select all

Religion form:

[b]Type:[/b] (monotheist (one god, who is seen as significantly greater and likely much more virtuous than any other god), pantheonic (a finite set of gods, usually with certain portfolios each) or animist (lots of gods, two people may see each other as a brother of faith despite them worshiping guardian patrons that the other has never heard of, as long as their practices and superstitions about nature and cosmology are relatively similar))
[b]General description:[/b]
[b]Other...[/b] (Other points as needed)
[b](Organized) Churches:[/b]
[list][*](May stay empty)
[/list]

When creating a religion remember, that there is no creation history. The "gods" were either born in the first age (or some later and ascended) or were created together with the world at the beginning of time by unknown forces. ... This does not mean, that zealous worshipers can not make something up - or maybe the gods did.

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Nation - first draft form

[b]General description:[/b]
[b]Approximate location:[/b]
[b]Approximate size:[/b]
[b]Climate:[/b] (Temperature and humidity)

[b]Geography:[/b]
[u]Coastline:[/u] (length, direction, roughness, ...)
[u]Mayor mountain ranges:[/u] (Names in local language, approx. height, direction, ...)
[u]Terrain:[/u] (arable land, forest-coverage, hills, ... Short description)

[b]Population:[/b] (Total number)
[u]Races:[/u] (race and ethnicities, if decided already. Leave some "Other" percentages for races not yet created)
[u]Cultures:[/u] (can be blank for now)
[u]Religions:[/u] (can be blank for now)

[b]Form of Government:[/b]

[b]A lot more...[/b] (More detailed forms will follow at a later time. For now, this should not be required but if you want to add own points, feel free to do so.)

General: We write together at a world here and it should happen that some writers pick up other writers' work and add to that. This should count especially for races and culture groups, nations however should be in the hands of their inventor as much as possible.

Why Kaledoria? Why do you do this to me! I'm so busy with RPs at the moment! Right now, I'm making Issue 2 of the P2TM Times! Why?
Anyway, short rant over. I am definitely in.
No elves!??? Tolkien rip-offs?!
Dude, elves is basically what I do. But I understand, and that's fine. I think, with help, it could definitely work.
But anyway, I am definitely in. No way I'm missing this. I got you with those high men, and I'm pretty good with names, so I could do that too.

[The Starlight]

Sorry for the double post, but Issue Two of the P2TM Times is up!

[Indo-pasif archipelago]

What do you guys think about Prison-themed roleplay? There will be gangs, corrupted police, breakout attempts, and maybe some other twist. I'm still planing on main plot though.

[Minroz]

I've been thinking about doing a Alternative History/Fantasy RP centering on Majapahit Empire who manages to survive into modern times, at the same time remain as a Great Power. Superpower, ideally.

I may need your help with the this question, which Asian nations you think is best suited to be Majapahit's rival? For example, like Britain and France in the old days. My candidates includes China and Ottoman Turkey. Even Vietnam and Thailand. :3

[Indo-pasif archipelago]

I've been thinking about doing a Alternative History/Fantasy RP centering on Majapahit Empire who manages to survive into modern times, at the same time remain as a Great Power. Superpower, ideally.

I may need your help with the this question, which Asian nations you think is best suited to be Majapahit's rival? For example, like Britain and France in the old days. My candidates includes China and Ottoman Turkey. Even Vietnam and Thailand. :3

Thailand maybe? Or India?

[Prusslandia]

I've been thinking about doing a Alternative History/Fantasy RP centering on Majapahit Empire who manages to survive into modern times, at the same time remain as a Great Power. Superpower, ideally.

I may need your help with the this question, which Asian nations you think is best suited to be Majapahit's rival? For example, like Britain and France in the old days. My candidates includes China and Ottoman Turkey. Even Vietnam and Thailand. :3

The Khan.

[Kaledoria]

I've been thinking about doing a Alternative History/Fantasy RP centering on Majapahit Empire who manages to survive into modern times, at the same time remain as a Great Power. Superpower, ideally.

I may need your help with the this question, which Asian nations you think is best suited to be Majapahit's rival? For example, like Britain and France in the old days. My candidates includes China and Ottoman Turkey. Even Vietnam and Thailand. :3

What would be the plot and style of the RP anyway, why would there have to be a rival and why would that be relevant to the story? And why does it have to be an Asian nation, if it plays in the modern, globalized times?