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Thread: Other continents?
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09-24-2007, 09:22 PM #1
Other continents?
I know of Cerilia, Aduria to the southwest, Djapar to the southeast, and Thaele to the northwest.
Q1 Are there other continents that anyone has added? What made them different to the existing continents?
I was thinking about sketching out a continent in the far west with the following characteristics:
Three new cultures - I didn't want to add many as one of the strength of BR in my view was the relatively low number.
I figured distinctive cultures that everyone could have a go at interpreting could be:
1. Ancient egyptian. Funky architecture that immediately stands out, plenty of pop culture references to be gleaned by a DM.
2. Chinese/Japanese. Although oriental settings never seem to last very long, there are a number of sourcebooks around to allow easy conversion of the culture.
3. Deepest darkest Africa. This needs a physical barrier from the other two such as a mountain range, but allows the insertion of dinosaurs and savagery fairly close to civilisation - always handy for a DM.
Q2 What do people think of the choices of cultures used? Would any others be better? Are these playable cultures? Is the Africa schtick covered in Aduria already - I figured I might add some stuff from Ebarron (shifters and changelings) or Pluma/hishna magic from FR to make the 'africans' exotic but based on something tried and tested.
I figured that some of the continent might briefly have been part of the Anuirean empire - or at least colonies formed by third/fourth sons and the like so allowing a few 'familiar-style' realms to be made. As Egypt is less well known than Japan in sourcebooks I figured the 'Egyptians' should have been the ones 'blessed' with the empire so that a confused DM can just say 'the anuireans changed things - these egyptians eat toast'. Some Masetian people (the best sailors) could also have fled here rather than Cerilia allowing some more quasi-familiar realms without the need to invent a whole new culture.
Q3 Could the Anuireans - people barely better on boats than dwarves in my view - have sailed across the ocean to get there during the empire? Presumably the empire used Brecht/Rjurik sailors? They are needed mainly to introduce bloodlines and some familiar style realms...
To make it distinct I figured maybe an evil-ascendant spin - so the empire was over-thrown by the orog and goblin mercenaries the last emperor desperately raised to defend himself against the rebellious 'Egyptians'.
To keep it playable the orog empire would in turn be fragmenting as the 'Egyptians' re-assert themselves allowing PC's to play the heroic under-dogs if they wish without having to be humanoids.
This does however risk downplaying the political aspects of the game, and stressing the adventurous side.
Q4 Can a game where most realms in one area are goblin/orog led be playable? If not how many human realms do you need to allow intrigue and the like? Is a non-human dominated area usable at all?
I attach some stuff I hacked out while musing the possibilities.
Q5 Is the 'Azrai killed the local gods before Deismaar' approach I scruffed up reasonable? It allows a handful of new bloodlines without changing the underlying mechanics and explains why the locals worship variants of the standard BR pantheon.
Would it be better to use completely different mechanics & pantheon or would that detract from the BR-feel?
Q6 Should Dwarves, elves, goblins, etc be kept, or new non-humans be added? Lizard folk could easily take the place of orogs for example, although I do have a fondness for elves and dwarves - and halflings given their BR abilities could turn up anywhere...
Q7 Is my assumption that Azrai imbued beings with his power (gave them bloodlines) prior to Deismaar to create champions a valid interpretation of canon? If not is it reasonable that bloodlines of Azrai would be fairly common over there? I figure that the Cerilians who went would be those least settled at home, and a scion of Azrai is hardly optimal marriageable material so more likely to emigrate than most.
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09-24-2007, 11:18 PM #2
Interesting Ideas
I like some of your ideas here. I have included a African tribesman area and Dinosaur Lost World in my verion of Aduria, which worked out well. I also included an expty wasteland inhabited by the Tarrasque. I used the standard bloodlines as I do not like to clutter up Aebrynis with too many Gods. However I changed their names and the nature of their Avatars to fit the local cultural identitys. Id like to know more as you go along.
regards Alnor I, King of Jankaping
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09-25-2007, 10:44 PM #3
Nice material here, Andrew.
I found the attached map somewhere on the net, showing two more continents, one far to the west and a small one on the southern hemisphere. Sorry, I just can't remember where I found it.
I always pictured the Adurian cultures as similar to ancient Mesopotamia (Sumerian, Assyrian, Persian), with an evil bend and maybe a good measure
of Aztec-style human sacrifices thrown in, so I don't think any of the three proposed cultures are really covered in Aduria, though I might place an Egyptian culture here, a bit closer to home so to speak. The write-up of the Serpent in Blood Enemies, especially the illustration, also suggests an Egyptian theme to me, which would link the Masetians to Egypt.
You are of course not bound by the regional distribution of real world cultures, but I find it hard to picture Egypt and Chinese/Japanese cultures close together. Too far removed and too different for me to really picture how these would interact. Let me introduce India to the mix. Granted, it's a harder to come up with source materials, but elephant-riding Maharajahs sound good to me. I believe they mix well with either Egypt - a different main terrain type for each culture, chariots vs. elephants - or China/Japan - a different climate, temperate vs. tropical, both very structured societies, and well, samurai vs. elephants doesnt sound to bad either.
So, if you want to keep to three cultures, I'd drop either Egypt (or rather, place them in Aduria) or East Asia (or rather, place them in Djapar) and add India.
I'd keep the African/Lost world shtick, though for a more Asian feel, it might also be possible to use Polynesia or Papua New Guinea instead of Africa - also fits with the lost world theme, but would rule out Masai herders.Last edited by Beruin; 09-25-2007 at 10:52 PM.
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09-25-2007, 11:55 PM #4
For Africa, you should check out the Nyambe setting from Atlas Games, if you can find it. It has a variant wizard class dealing with the orisha (spirits), and the concept of the spirit world their might fit in with the shadow world.
Originally Posted by AndrewTall
However, you should also consider, that the Anuireans would need a clear military/technological or magical advantage to be able to establish colonies, otherwise the would at best be able to establish small trading outposts, I believe. The Europeans were only able to really gain influence in East Asia during the 19th Century, when the technological gap widened. Before that time, they were only superior at sea. Given the distances involved, I'm not sure I'd believe that steel or a small number of mages accompanying the Anuireans is a sufficient explanation.
Originally Posted by AndrewTall
Originally Posted by AndrewTall
To allow intrigue, you only need one larger realm, with enough differing factions in it, I'd say.
Originally Posted by AndrewTall
For bloodlines, how about this approach: The ancient gods imbued a part of their essence in the mortal leaders of the native cultures, given them bloodlines. Maybe it is here, that Azrai learned to imbue others with his powers and corrupt them in the process. The Ancient Cerilian gods disapproved of this practice, deeming this to mighty a power for mere mortals to wield, and only resorted to this when their very existence was threatened at Deismaar.
Originally Posted by AndrewTall
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09-26-2007, 09:36 AM #5
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A lot of useful information (from the creators) can be gleaned from the interviews posted recently by Andrewtall
http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/Interviews
Specifically there was a question on bloodlines and the other continents:
Question 18 There has been discussion of Bloodlines outside of Cerilia on the newsgroup. Are there any bloodlines in the nations outside Cerilia that are not derivative of the Cerilian bloodlines (as in Bloodline of Roele, etc)? And if so, are they similar in strength and cultural significance to those in Cerilia?
E: Well, we'd discussed something like that for Aduria, but I really believe we'd decided that all bloodlines would derive from the Cerilian gods... who were also the Adurian gods. I could be wrong here, Rich? Carrie?
E: That doesn't mean there aren't more Aebynnian gods, btw, but if there are, they weren't involved in Deismaar.
C: That's how I remember it, Ted.
R: Nope, you're right, Ted. I guess Azrai might have had some cohorts or demigods that we just haven't read about yet, but for the most part, the bloodlines will stem from the gods killed at Deismaar.
C: There were only so many gods who blew up, after all.
E: But, remember, an explosion is spherical... bloodlines were created on both sides of the (former) isthmus.
R: Maybe all gods everywhere blew up when Deismaar when down. Maybe the universe had to wipe the cosmos clean and start from scratch.
Question 19 I don't mean the gods themselves, but rather are the peoples of foreign lands inhabited with bloodlines.
E: Not in my thinking.
C: We'd talked about the Anuireans colonizing other places during the height of the empire...
E: Not bloodlines derived from the gods at Deismaar anyway. I mean, somebody could have sailed back to Djapar after the battle.
E: Or Whatever.
R: In fact, my dragon pieces explore the north coast of Aduria, where several Anuirean colonies used to exist.Duane Eggert
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09-26-2007, 12:22 PM #6
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For a really old game that never happened, I considered having artifacts on other continents. When the gods died, those artifacts were destroyed and infused the owners and those nearby with that god's bloodline.
Just another idea you could consider.
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09-26-2007, 08:39 PM #7
I'll try, hopefully it won't add to the growing pile of 'must read these at some point' games I've got...
I kind of figured a south amarica and gunpowder sort of thing. The gods leave to the east promising to return after battling their enemies, Torele returns - with flash and thunder magic - and has an impact completely out of proportion to his actual power.
That and a healthy dose of alexander the great / divide and conquer / luck - the roele bloodline could work wonders against unblooded regent opponents. I had the Cyclops (former overlord) temporarily whacked by the Lost to justify Torele turning up at a time of flux as another possible angle.
Quite possibly - the serpent is the closest thing to a Masetian on Cerilia. Someone suggested that they were Phoenican though or Italian given the names (Jairo, donato, Cidro, etc) but that would allow me some egyptians after all though - one problem I came across was the monstrous heads work fine on races such as humans/elves/dwarves/orogs - but not on lizardmen or other more monstrous races.
I figured that allowing the Samurai a Chinese style great wall would mean that the two cultures wouldn't meet that much - the samurai simply don't care about the barbarians - beyond wanting them to stay away from civilisation. Doesn't work to well with a coastline however allowing the coastal areas more cultural latitude and causing conflicts with the purer areas inland.
My only issue with an Indian culture is lack of knowledge - somehow using the kama sutra as a game resource is beyond me...
Indeed, but if playing to each their throne, the players need to have other realms to bounce off. I'd probably advance the uprising to make more realms human dominated, or have some more 'friendly-ish' races around.
The dominance would force the human realms to work together more - the ones I roughed out would be at each others throats without the greater threat - and have a major impact on the conquered humans. Figuring out how to keep the humans contained by a small upper class of orogs / whatever's was a pain (spartan-style culls? mass narcotics? a thousand descending social ranks each oppressing the one below?) since it had to be a reasonably stable method.
I figured possibly elves based more fully on the cha'asi and hulderfolk of Taladas - or the horse nomads from the same. The setting deserved more of an airing than it got as a back pocket of Krynn.
Lizardmen have always been a favourite and could easily replace orogs - although that would knock the egyptian theme (they already have cool heads). Quaggoth minions for the ape? you can never have too many quaggoths...
Dwarves are always difficult, obsidimen from earthdawn are a possible alternative, or more spirit-like dwarves to make them distinctly non-human.
Bloodlines
I didn't want to make many new ones - too much crunch-work. I might simply have one for the grand celestial dragon or have no surviving members of his line - they were all drowned by Masela/died at Deismaar
That however made issues with locals either descendent's/killers of Torele's bunch (and whoever followed them in a few centuries of contact) or Azrai-blooded - which has its own issues. The latter would however tie nicely in a bleaker more hostile world.
Possibly however the locals would claim that they had the blood of various of their old gods - not of the foreign gods...
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09-26-2007, 09:25 PM #8
I've always viewed the Masetians as Egyptian-like.
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09-27-2007, 03:49 AM #9
Okay 5a.m., I'm just home from work and dead tired, so I keep this short.
Well, certainly possible, and you already mentioned a few things in your write-up, but I thought that here it'd be useful to elaborate the history a bit.
Originally Posted by AndrewTall
Seriously though, I can't claim to be an expert on Indian history, but I did a quick check of the unofficial dragon magazine index at http://www.aeolia.net/dragondex/index.html and Dragon 189, 225, 226 and 229 had articles on India, dealing with weapons and armour, classes and kits and spells and magic items, so maybe you could start there.
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09-27-2007, 07:56 PM #10
Regarding Nyambe...
I need a bit of legal clarification. You could download the book here http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=AG3700 for 18$, they also have a free 2 page preview. The book is a beauty in hardcover though, I'm not certain a pdf really does justice to it. However, most of the book is designated as open game content, including the races (and their names), so could I legally post or send you an excerpt, say the write-up of the elves or dwarves?Last edited by Beruin; 09-27-2007 at 08:00 PM.
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