5 posts tagged “d&d”

I completed the first "article" in what hopefully will be the collections that make up Mohr Vesik.  While I am not sure what it accomplished as an article, I am sure what it served in the writing.  I am not one used to writing source material in wholes, I am used to writing dribs and drabs as they were needed for games, never finishing never formatting.  So despite my misgivings, this is a unique element of my creativity... an end.

What was I not satisfied with, beyond my own dislike for my lack of voice as of late?  I guess that is important, as I do mourn the lack of what I once liked about my writing style, when I once had a writing style.  I guess I have spent so much time trying to convert my haphazard stream of consciousness but still connected to a thread feel for writing that I lost that which I enjoyed about the writing, the wordsmithing.  I should have clung tenaciously to my pulp influences and enjoined them in my writing instead of purging.  But it was not only that, as I can say honestly, the article was boring.  The country of Hyrmdaal was a boring land and I did nothing to raise it above it's clean, friendly, productive nature.  It lacks character and so does the writing.  I write about the stuff of the land without really writing about the heart of the land.  I describe elements of the country like a prose laundrylist.  When I wanted to describe a land where hardworking farmers and noble folk work together to make a land that will someday rival the empires of the west and those in the legends of the Olde Worlde, I only describe building colours and the structure of the social strata.  Oh those details have their place but they should be tempered with the things that make a land interesting, its oddities and colourful folk.  There should have been more specifics, examples of people and places and events and locations. 

But as I said, I am not too broke up about it for now we have the new article, the neighbour and rival -- Can'Manaar, the land of ninjas and poison and xenophobia but more cities in three hundred miles of high coastal cliffs than in the entire east.  Can'Manaar's article will be the story of one elf's journey, an elf with hereditary ties to the land allowing him to go where most would be killed on site for doing.  It is definately going to attempt to have a voice.

I have been editing the first (completed) article for a few minutes before bed every night, so not writing so much new material.  It's amazing how much continuity I can lose between sections just because it's been a few days between writing.  But I have continued to make notes in my bag book and in the bedside book, as ideas come to me.  These notes are the epitome of fluff material when it comes to source material for my world.  They are the sidebars and those shaded books so often seen in published game books.

For example, I envisioned a common Kopaak dining style popular in taverns and inns that service the hard working cotters and farmers of the countryside.  It's such an old tradition that even without the need it has carried over into some city & town eating places, purely on popularity and nostalgia.  Also, a family & farm version of it will happen at farmstead kitchens where a cookhouse will be near the gate entrance and working folk will mingle in as the work in the fields comes to a day's end.

The working folk come in at midday or at the end of a long day in the fields.  They walk through the main door stopping by the big wicker baskets at the door.  Inside are wooden spoons and forks, as well as bread & cheese.  Each work grabs some utensils and the bread & cheese.  They then make their way over to the fireplace or hearth which is dotted with pigeon holes either side of the fire itself. These shelves are open to the back of the hearth letting them be heated by ambient all day long heat.  In each is an earthenware bowel with wooden handles and a cover.  The worker grabs and pushes his way to a trestle table, elbowing in among familiar faces.

In each bowl is a simple meal, pre cooked and portioned into the bowl earlier.  It could be a chicken leg with onions and root vegetables.  It could be a stew of beef and seasonal vegetables.  It could be a mash mixed with chicken & lamb.  It will always be a hearty food that goes well with the bread & cheese and a small ale they can grab from a keg or bartender.  At the end of the meal they bring up the utensils and bowl, and if it's a public place, then they pay their coin and be on their way. 

This is the kind of fluff that I want to populate my world with.  Sure I envision my world articles as gaming material but for the most part that will be incidental.  There will be little crunch.  There will be no prestige classes, no racial feats and no new spells.  I might end up adding a new monster or two or mention new style weapons, but these will be more fluff oriented, added as flavour.  That is the blessing of writing it for myself and for Marmy -- the crunch will happen when it has to happen.

I have also decided to take this philosophy with gaming 3.5 D&D as well.  I was making another character to see if I could get over the feel of how much drudgery it is.  The Old Skool feel of joy when putting together a character is just not there in this tradition.  I always feel I am too uncomfortable with it.  I always feel I have to look back at the beginning of the player's guide and see what I missed.  I am always looking at the empty spots on character sheets and wondering if I want to fill them in. So, I am going to resurrect my personal D&D sheet and take cues from what I leave empty on a sheet after I consider him done.  Leave that all out and I should have a fun and quickly put together sheet for making characters in my games.

I will leave my crunch to cookie baking.

Reading the ENWorld Wiki reminded me of my favourite self-created campaign world -- Weffenruga.   Weffenruga, or The Woven Rug was a rectangular world hanging from four chains of the heavens.  Literally the land was woven from the threads of fate & destiny by the gods themselves that dwelled in the stars & sky above the rug.  Two of the chains had suffered ill-fates with one rusting and having to be shortened by a single link, which caused the lands of that corner to slide together, creating massive mountain ranges, open volcanoes and a dangerous land in general.  One chain had broken all together weighing down and spilling off the contents of one corner.  This was an extremely dangerous area where the oceans and rivers around it flowed into a maelstrom and off the literal edge of the world.  The other major aspect of the world was that it was divided into fabric patches, small squares with natural land mass dividers, each a distinct people.  Crossing over the boundaries was not difficult but it did require an effort usually left to the hardy and the trader.  Weffenruga was a mysterious and odd world.

Yes, I took a piece of graph paper and defined this as the world.  It was a flat world, a world with an edge.  You could literally walk or sail off the edge of the world.  There was a sky above with a small sun that travelled the length of the world in a repeating metronome fashion.  Those lands at the edges had strange repeating sunlit days while those nearer the center had long periods of night.  The sun shone down on the land in a vertical pattern running north to south but appeared to those below as a ball of light.  When the sun was not in the sky, the star pattern of the heavens was above.  The gods lived above this pattern.  Below the woven rug were the tatters and the mistakes of weaving and this was the underworld.  Evil creatures clung in reverse gravity beneath the rug, in a tormented land of endless night.  horrible mountain ranges, massive ravines, crevasses with no bottom, open lava pools and every other tormented geographic features made up the underside of the rug, as well as a few unique features that were considered unworthy of the light, such as the Crystal Range, a small mountain range of perfectly formed crystals with a massive glowing castle at it's center. 

The campaign was very basic.  The characters represented those interested in crossing the borders of the patches.  They were curious folk, restless adventuring types all drawn together because they had heard rumours of changes in the land.  Was another chain about to break?  Was an area becoming thread bare and unravelling?  Something was a stir and they were to travel from patch to patch gathering clues.

It came about because I tired of the typical "earth like" D&D world.  This was early university and really, none of my worlds had gone beyound a massive world map and a few months of play.  No campaign bible ever was created and all notes were in my head.  I used to be a very spontaneously creative person able to adlib things endlessly.  Or at least I was secure in my personal knowledge that I was good in it, instead of wrapped in self doubt.  I never had a blank page like I am plagued with now. I didn't require notes because I created them as I went.  I desperately would love that feel back but creating on word processor and paper is a good second.  Every created D&D world took place on a ball of mud in space, on a planet a bit bigger or a bit smaller than earth.  Usually one side of the planet would be covered by the maps with room for creation later in the age of the creation.  Modern understanding of geography, climate, ocean activity, etc. would all apply creating a world with a "real feel".  Unfortunately this does not lend itself very well to anything fantastical.  There really isn't any land of open lava pools, scorched earth Mordor-style land masses on our earth -- at least not country-sized.  It's fun to take liberties with science.  This is what fantasy is all about.

So, the problem with having three spaces for blogging is using the three spaces.  This is number three with tbit.nu and my livejournal being the first two.  Since I barely update the first it is not surprising this gets neglected.  But I do need the other space, the space where I can write in length as opposed to my frenetic entry of links as depicted in the main blog.

Perhaps reviews are not so ready in coming yet.  You would think it would be easier right now not actually having much money to partake in pop culture consumption.  Alas.

So, how about some nightly updates about the gaming, now that the gaming is starting again?  Marmy and I have another attempt at a D&D going on and I do need a space online to ramble about it.  Not so much to record the happenings of the game but to vent the meta data that appears in my head when I think too much about said game. Gone are the days when gaming worlds were non-constructed, free form and spontaneous.  Now, I must plan and I am obsessed with the details.  Thought I am still lazy so the articles (as I have discovered is a good format for gaming world writing) are slow in coming.

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One aspect of the world I am creating, Mohr Vesik for those who care (yes, I am very aware that there IS no audience but it helps to pretend there is one), is that I wanted to represent that plot element of so many earth based adventure stories -- the experience with other cultures and their unique aspects.  I constructed 9 tribes that came to this "new world" after the unknown devastation of their homes.  I chose a handful of stereotypical earth racial types: white, black, asian & "brown" and gave them a rough seat in the Old Worlde.  Once the remaining tribes hit the New Worlde they began to intermingle, more or less, but still kept hold of some cultural aspects.  For example, the white Kopaak were predominately peaceful farmers with a hardworking ethic about them.  And the dusky skinned Manaars are a passionate warrior race used to harsh conditions.  It's hard to choose how to represent a handful of cultures without fear of relying too much on stereotypes from our own world.  By dusky skinned warriors from a harsh land, am I automatically depicting the middle east or persians?  Will asians automatically be honourable warrior types?  Most likely yes, as familiarities do help in building a good world picture.

Even with strongly integrated countries and cultures in Mohr Vesik, there still exist aspects of society that are dominated by one tribal history or another.  A man who dresses in simple tunic & breeches, keeps his hair short and his beard trimmed and just has a way of working the land, might be considered of Kopaak blood but when in fact he has more Mezla island blood.  Blood, colour and dominant tribal features have diluted and mingled but they still stand for the most part.  There is a small group of people known as The Fighters, traditionally apparent warriors for the sleeveless jerkins they wear and the massive dreads they tied their hair into.  They are known in every land but obviously have some origins in the black south coast tribes.  Alas, I do not have my notes here so i am not truly sure of most names.

Next time, we talk about the land, itself.

I have been coming to Vox on and off and not really doing anything with the site.  It really lends itself to the "more than a blurb" style of blogging.  I am not really about the article style of blogging, nor can I think about dedicating it to reviewing.  So, what do I dedicate this sub-set of my blogdom to because I really do not want to abandon it.

Well, another focus I have had in the last few years, when I started noticing that as I pushed more into my brain, I was losing focus on other things.  Too much mass consumerism. With the use of Bit Torrent over the years, I can consume pop culture in an unending stream.  But I feel this need to export it as well, as in, "If I am enjoying it then I must SHARE my enjoyment."  Thus, I feel this site will become such.

Welcome to the Geekitude.  Soon will come not so much as reviews but ponderings, revelations, sharing and thoughts about all the aspects of geeky pop-culture consumerism.