Upgraded Currency

 In ye olde Dragon Warriors, Coin was Copper, Silver and Gold.. but in Dungeon World we have

A Multitude of Coinage

Each kingdom tend to make their own coinage, and the exchange rate is not common knowledge, for reasons (below). Common folk, within the kingdom are barely going to understand their coinage going up or down outside their own town, let alone country, if it costs a silver florin for a barrel of wine today, it'll cost a silver for a barrel next year, and anyone trying to tell you otherwise is a cheat, and a liar, and will be run out of town.

Since almost any town will have some kind of 'barrel' of 'alcohol' which will invariably costs 1 silver, there will always be some kind of pushback on inflation. Also, because the god of inflation has been imprisoned by several very powerful heroes who want prices to stay the same.

So, Coinage never has to worry about being devalued, prices will, with fluctuations from supply and demand, always hover around the same value. and lifestyles as well.

Copper is for the poor, people who need to trade in copper are considered lower class, and the lower class love it, because they always managed to get the better end of a deal when some middle class pays for things with silver, and no change.

Silver is the trademans and merchants main coin, they will happily deal with all varied forms of coinage, and with the help of a street mage, always ensured that they don't get ripped off.

Gold is the coin of Kings.. and Nobles, and Gentry and people who want to be Nobles and or Gentry, and Heroes.. because Heroes somehow seem to be finding so much of the stuff.

But, Like many things in life, its not so easy to be carrying around all this coinage.

In The old Dragon Warriors, with a 10:1 ratio on things, and 10 coins to enough to carry let alone 100, Buying a peasants house at 10 gold, is only 1000 x the cheapest coin, so 1000 hours labour = a house? right?

Well, Then along came realism.. Dungeon World started looking at the metals in circulation and determined that Pewter, at least medieval, magical world Pewter, was slightly more expensive to make than silver (which bends and can technically be magic'd away) has magic resistant properties, To the point where a coin of pewter is worth 10 silver, and a gold is worth 10 pewter. Interestingly, Pewter contains lead, and is constantly poisoning people, but with an abundance of magical healing, its not noticed like we know of on Earth.

Then too, the common class decided that since wood is a worthy substance by itself, and people of certain class want a kind of recognition, certain woods, stained and sealed in a resin like substance, would count as a kind of thieves world coinage. Not as simple to make as just melting down some copper, but still plentiful enough, its has an almost 15:1 ration to copper.

Well of course, its a little easier to carry half a coin, than 5 other coins, and don't clink so much in the wallet, so snipped coins started to make circulation, til the powers that be decided that we can't have snipped chunks of metal where its unsure if its 45% or 55%. So the Moons started to make an appearance, and you can get gold, pewter, silver and copper moons in many states.

Then later, magical fused coinage, Gelds were discovered in magic councils, considered as worth much more to a mage than anyone else, they are often stamped differently by the magi, but not required. A geld might be accidentally traded by non magi for their metal worth, and the lucky mage will pick one up at the metal price, but its usually considered to be 20x the worth of the coin to a magi, and as such as become a worthy coin for the wealthy.

Note: Copper and Silver Gelds can cope with only 1 magic point, as they tend to melt with more infused, and as such are closer to 10x worth for a mage, but while Gold can normally cope with 3 magic points, Gold has been known when fused with some metals to cope with as much as 7 magic points. 

Rarer is the Octiron Coin, rumoured to be created when 8 magic points are infused into a gold coin using a crystal rod, The Octiron coin is somewhere in the range of 1000x gold crowns. 

We have not touched on the chunkier and heavier Dwarven varieties, which are typically twice the size and three times the worth, as they resist any tampering, and the artistic elven varieties which are only worth more for their beauty, as a coinage, they lose worth as soon as human hands mar and tarnish their faces, and return to bland versions within a few days of common usage. though, still worth 1.5 times normal worth to a clever eye.

Many 'lesser' races still trade goods, but use human coinage if its available, yet, pewter and silver tend to be pooled together.

In the Demon realms, trapped souls exist in a crystal like structure when touched, but in a softer form when not, are both used as a currency and a consumable, and when brought to the surface are traded in back alleys and black markets. 

Pretty much, once anything is common enough, it becomes a kind of currency, as such the apothecary world trades internally with empty vials as they can cost somewhere between a pewter and a gold to manufacture, and are only really used by apothecaries and heroes. 

So what of these exchanges? well, the kings of the world, have for the most part discovered one thing to keep their countries in flow. exchanging currency between traders and Adventurers can be, in itself, profitable enough to maintain the border guards, passes, diplomats and trade relations, instead of war. War is costly, the benefit is limited, but currency exchange?

So when players get to the edge of the country, there might be a border guard who can 'change' their money.. its ALWAYS a rip off.. 10 Zonti for 9 Jebas? but on return, 10 Jebas for 9 Zonti? hang on?

but in town, no-one is going to.. legally.. exchange other coins.. except of course, for a fee. 

The Twelve Archtypes of Christmas

Having a new player watch the game, who can't make up their mind as to what to play, You start with something simple, but then suggest increasingly complex character choices..

On the First Day of Roleplay, My GM said to me:
Play as a Warrior in Chain.

On the Second Day of Roleplay, my GM offered me:
Game as a Ranger, or just
Play as a Warrior in Chain

On the Third Day of Roleplay, my GM offered me:
to Sneak like a Rogue,
Game like a Ranger, or just
Play as a Warrior in Chain

On the Fourth Day of Roleplay, my GM offered me:
to Pray like a Priest
Sneak like a Rogue,
Game like a Ranger, or just
Play as a Warrior in Chain

On the Fifth Day of Roleplay, my GM offered me:
a Spell Caaaasting Maaaaaaage,
Pray like a Priest

Sneak like a Rogue,
Game like a Ranger,
or just
Play as a Warrior in Chain

On the Sixth Day of Roleplay, my GM offered me:
a Snooty Elven Noble,
Spell Caaaasting Maaaaaaage,
to Pray like a Priest

Sneak like a Rogue,
Game like a Ranger,
or just
Play as a Warrior in Chain

On the Seventh Day of Roleplay, my GM offered me:
a Book Academic,

Snooty stuck up Noble,

Spell Caaaasting Maaaaaaage,
to Pray like a Priest

Sneak like a Rogue,
Game like a Ranger,
or just
Play as a Warrior in Chain

On the Eighth Day of Roleplay, my GM offered me:
a Short Dwarven Blacksmith,

Book Academic,

Snooty Elven Noble,

Spell Caaaasting Maaaaaaage,
to Pray like a Priest

Sneak like a Rogue,
Game like a Ranger,
or just
Play as a Warrior in Chain

On the Ninth Day of Roleplay, my GM offered me:
to Haggle as a Merchant,

Short Dwarven Blacksmith,

Book Academic,

Snooty Elven  Noble,

Spell Caaaasting Maaaaaaage,
to Pray like a Priest

Sneak like a Rogue,
Game like a Ranger,
or just
Play as a Warrior in Chain

On the Tenth Day of Roleplay, my GM offered me:
to Croon like a Bard,

Haggle as a Merchant,
Short Dwarven Blacksmith,

Book Academic,

Snooty Elven Noble,

Spell Caaaasting Maaaaaaage,
to Pray like a Priest

Sneak like a Rogue,
Game like a Ranger,
or just
Play as a Warrior in Chain

On the Eleventh Day of Roleplay, my GM offered me:

a Medieval Doctor,

Croon like a Bard,
Haggle as a Merchant,
Short Dwarven Blacksmith,

Book Academic,

Snooty Elven Noble,

Spell Caaaasting Maaaaaaage,
to Pray like a Priest

Sneak like a Rogue,
Game like a Ranger,
or just
Play as a Warrior in Chain

On the Twelfth Day of Roleplay, my GM offered me:
a Mind Bending Mystic,

Medieval Doctor,

Croon like a Bard,
Haggle as a Merchant,
Short Dwarven Blacksmith,

Book Academic,

Snooty Elven Noble,

Spell Caaaasting Maaaaaaage,
to Pray like a Priest

Sneak like a Rogue,
Game like a Ranger,
or just
Play as a Warrior in Chain

16 month Calendar and other time keeping

I saw a youtube video about the Human Calculator, and his 13th month Calendar and I thought.. Hmm, I wonder If I've mentioned it in my blog? my Calendar that is..

16 Month Calendar

Earth has a strange calendar, You can google hundreds of articles and videos about it, how to calculate it, ways to fix it, etc etc. I do like the idea of the 13 month calendar and how people in power have crushed all attempts to have it through history.. makes you wonder.. 

So I looked at my world(s) and thought.. Hmm, How many days/weeks/months etc would I have..How would people measure it?

Earth has 4 seasons, hot, warm but getting colder, cold, and cold but getting warmer, depending on where you are in the world. Unless you could think of anything else in such a binary system, It'll stay.

Then there is the moon cycle. Travels around the world, gives you a sense of when things should happen next.. 4rd moon this year? must be time to plant crops, 7th moon, animals will begin to breed. So there's that to consider too.

Moon cycles were divided into four, to make the week, giving us 7 days a week, luckily, would be havoc if it was 27 day cycles, we'd have some messed up calendars.. maybe that's why many civilizations don't get space travel, their clocks are so confusing, their lives so disordered, they can't get anything done efficiently, and why should they, the universe is obviously not consistent, so why should we?

So, that's Earth.

The Coyn.

Well At first it was earth like, and later I thought.. that's wrong, because of many reasons. So I had to do some math, lots of math, and figure out all the angles.

A brief reminder: The Coyn is a flat, disc shaped world, it has a sun, smaller than the disc (for reasons) which rises and sets on the same side of the world, but moves around it, 1 full rotation of the sun is a year, and takes, now, 515 days. Actually its 515.25258.. but more on that later

There are many ways to divide up 515, not. You have 5 and 103. So would the civilisations choose 5 months of 103 days each, or 103 weeks of 5 days? 103 doesn't divide easy, so, yay!

So, Ancient Civilizations might have 5 seasons, areas that are usually cold, might have, "the Great cold" as a season.. Russian Winter! Then a season for getting warmer, but its still cold, getting warmer and its nice, getting colder but its still nice and getting colder but its already cold, each season is 103 days long? 

Does it have to? We have leap years, where we add in an extra day every 4 years, so why not leap months? Maybe as time went by, they looked at the 103 days and figured.. you know, we could break it up into 51 days x 2 and a spare day... or 25 days and 3 spare days, or 3 sets of 26 days and 1 set of 25 days. Then 25 days can break into 5 days each, since 5 seems to be a dominant number here..

Viola.. its got some logic, but is broken, so I gave it to the Orc Tribes in the mountains (since they'd be watching the sun and figuring this stuff out), but broken enough to be a little chaotic, unruly and cause fights. 

"Midsday, the 3rd week of Forthmonth of old winter, I was reminded by my mother that there would be no end of month day celebration as it is the end of old winter and the next day would be Firstmonth of wintergone, war is coming as does the sun"

Of course races with a bit more aesthetic, would be insistent on declaring some days as seperate celebratory days, and having a nice clean set of numbers to work with. Humans, arriving at the world, remembering their earth calendar would be putting together a 30/31 day a month calendar, resulting in 17 months, 12 with 30 days, 5 with 31 days. But an offshoot of people would try to force a 12 month calendar of 43 days each, with 1 less day each year, except leap years.. 

What about leap years?

So, Earth, has 365 days, but we also have .24, so every 4 years we add a day (leap year), but thats .25, so that little..01 means that every 100 years we don't have a leap year, BUT theres a teeny tiny bit, so if the 100 year is also divisible by 4, then it is a leap year, except a miniscule little leftover, we'll add a day in the year 4909.. got that?

So, If I allow for leap years, every 4 years you add a day, and every 40 years you add an extra day and every 160 years you don't add either of those extra days.. thats the .25258 part.. 

So now, our offshoot humans have 43 days a month for 12 months, for 1 year, and then the other 3 years, December has 42 days (better to have 1 less day of winter, than 1 less day of summer)

The Elves

The Elven Homeworld is an eight sided octohedron, six gigantic mountain ranges that seperate the eight lifestyles of the elves. The aesthetic of the number 8 permiates their existance, and relates to their innate usage of magic. They quickly recognised that the world was not right and have attempted many times to get it right by speeding up the sun, slowing down one of the moons, their long term impression is that once its 'back to normal' the internal machine of the world will start back up and set things right. Their clocks have 80 second minutes and 80 minute hours, broken into four 8 hour chunks of the day for 32 hours, so it stands to reason they're try to force their calendars to a 8, and then when they realised they couldn't, force the world to conform to their system.. 

The Dwarves

The Dwarves are based on a 4 and 6 structure, 24 hours, broken into 4 sets of 6, 60 minutes, 60 seconds. All very logical, so their calendar too tries to split into 24 months, but that makes 21 days per month.. not very 24 like.. but 21/4 gives 5 days a week (one for each finger on the hand) for 4 weeks, and a day off at the end of the month.. very dwarf like.. very agreeable. oh and 11 days at the end of the year for a festival.

Of course, this is all for the major civilisations, all the minor groups have their own, and their neighbors influence, and then it all gets messed up by the spire.

The Spire

In the middle of the Coyn is a gigantic spire of ice, at its base, its 100km wide, rises 60 something km high, above the clouds of the clouds of the cloud cities, The very nature of a gigantic structure, causing a shadow across the land for miles and miles, the sub being blotted out for days or even weeks, will affect the psychology of the people and the weather of the area.. As a result, a sub-section of the calendar might also come up.

In my Dark Moscow campaign, there was 10 days of utter darkness in the winter where the sun was behind the spire, it was called Deep Winter, and was not recorded on calendars at all, for fear that acknowledging it would bring out demons, vice versa, during summer, autumn and spring, a few days of extreme warmth from the reflected rays of extra sunlight, caused a Mid Spring Summer, a mid Autumn Summer and a Very Hot Summer for a few days, So for them, there were almost 8 types of weather, the equinox of winter and summer marked by days of extreme cold and heat.

In roleplay, this happens for a few sessions, players are reminded of the natural course of events that their characters are fully aware of, and the players are always fascinated by. Before, I might explain it each time, later I had hand-outs and now.. I can reference this blog.

World Build October Part 14

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Sunday the 14th - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) what your inhabitants wear in warm weather"

Describe Warm Weather?

In Australia, Warm is 30-39c, In Russia, Warm is above 15c to about 30c.

In the Highland Swamps of the Kukuru mountains, the reflections of the sun on the mountain ranges, means year round warm weather, muggy, humid, The soil composition has left the valley in a perpetual swamp like pond, it rarely rains, just constant moist weather.

Clothing clings to the body, restricting movement, so most clothing is made from vines, weaved together to form a mesh, its not worn for protection from weather, but from the bites of fish.

Often, mud is worn on the skin to protect from bugs, and coloured mud has been sought after by several inhabitants, creating a trade in rarer shades of red and white (from the normal range of browns)

Celebrations often bring out the women covered head to toe in a variety of patterns of mud, in varies stages of drying out. clever 'dressmakers' have layered the mid so as a layer dries and breaks away, it reveals another colour beneath.

----

Deep in the mines of Karak-Dune, The Dwarves sweat when it gets above 20c. Maybe because its due to the varied layers of leather armour and mail, maybe its the forge tunnels are full of warm foggy air, so often Dwarves sweat. When the lava pits or forge halls get roudy, the rest of the tunnels start to get really warm, up to 40c, Dwarves can put up with alot, temperature included, but their clothing can't. So, when the temperature gets high, leather can rot, so off comes the leather.

But Dwarves are very traditional when it comes to gender relations. What with the beards and all. Often Dwarves mating rituals involve years of getting to know if the person you're friends with is a male or a female. Its considered extremely rude (at point of death) to imply, let alone ask a Dwarves gender.

As a result, in the warm tunnels, revealing anything that could imply gender would be extremely upsetting. So the dwarves invented a chainmesh, smaller links with the link gaps fused closed. Its slightly heavier, more comfortable than plain mail and still conceals enough of the body to remain respectable.

p.s. With my house-move-issues, I thought I scheduled these to post on their respective days, but obviously failed to do so, hence the block of posts all in a row

World Build October Intro & Part 1

Its World Build October.. So I'm going 'to try' to Blog Daily, .. with some short sharp, snazzy bits of the Coyn World as per the World Build October Prompts you see above:

Monday the 1st - World-build-tober

Draw your worlds non-human Sentient Occupants.

p.s. I know it says Draw, but its a blog, so I'll draw in your imagination..

In a Time long forgotten, the world was a spinning lump of hot lava, from which the first lifeforms grew. From this mountain sized lifeforms pulled themselves from the molten sludge and walked? some crawled, some slithered, some attempted to bounce. The ones that could move, act and even think quickly dominated over those who could not.

They called themselves, Krowzp.

Thousands of years later, lifeforms alien to the world, started to appear, some microscopic, some as big as a Krowzp thumb, they buzzed around their ears, their bodies, they sometimes bit at them, but for the most part they just moved around chasing one another, ignoring the Krowzp.

Thousands of years again, the Krowzp are rare, almost non-existant, There are now a myriad of races that come and go from the planet, why? because the energy of the world allows warp gates to appear and even move around the world, people from other worlds accidentally (or purposely) have come to this place. They form new settlements, now structures, new place.

As a result, every form or being ever thought of by any creative mind probably exists here. The more dangerous ones are often hunted by the more resilient and inventive ones.

Yes, there are Elves, Dwarves, Halflings and Gnomes, as often as much as Caitshee, Snirfneblin, the Fey and the Formless.

Some Notable races might be the mighty Lionshee, the Lion-bipeds. The Gelflings, with their winged females, the Dryads and their tree-affinities, the Croconians, huge 9 foot tall crocodile-bipeds, or the rare Krowzp born, a strange rock strata that walks and talks.

Part II

Part III

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

What races should Dungeonworld include in the next book

As I ramp up the writing and my play testers and I discuss the next book, we're talking about what races to include.. So here's a nice big list and my thoughts on what should be included.

What races should we include in the new books..

I've currently got the stats and skills for nine races, so lets start by looking at them:

Variety is the spice of life

Humans: Pretty much need to have static classic humans. I have racial modifiers for the five variants in The Full Coyn World Book, Finno-ugric, Caucasian, Asian, Arabian, Nigerian, though I recognize that plausibly the scottish red-heads and the Irish raven heads have unique traits, which also suggests to include the islander races, Indians of both variants and Meso-americans, have some unique skills or modifiers too, but I'm careful not to include cultural differences.. Why not have Samurai culture in Africa or Scottish camel riders.

Elves: As part of the core fantasy races, but because of the world creation mythos, there are eight distinct varieties of elves, The Hearth Elves, being of sound mind and spirit, living above ground in large stone buildings, the Wood Elves, a classic, as are Dark Elves, Sea Elves and Desert Elves, but I've also included a second Underground Elves race and an above ground Evil Elven race so theres a bit more balance.

Dwarves: Again, classic core fantasy, with some small twists. Since alot of my world was developed while reading Terry Pratchett, my female dwarves have beards, but as is always plausible, not every dwarven culture will be identical, so there are the two offshoot varieties, where the men shave and where the women shave.. Also there are two 'evil' varieities, The Dark Ones, who've been trying to get magic going in their culture, very anti-dwarven.. and this has caused some bad blood.. and the Dwarvult, Dwarves that take on Mechanical advantages, but lose their humanity in the process.

Halflings: Both Hobbits and Halflings, but also the Dwarflings and Elflings, not named by themselves, but by external cultures because of who or what they remind them off.. Hobbits as we known and love from LoTR and Halflings being the curious busybodies, Dwarflings are bearded, but they're actually more into lore and knowledge and magic, and Elflings are laid back, casual and less likely to achieve anything in life, regardless of their taller, lithe, pointed ears and aloof looks.

Gnomes: come in two major varieties, the studious, well spoken, cultured artists of metal, jewellry and fine arts, with a dash of magic in there from time to time, and the uncultured nature loving tricksters who prefer to cast bogs spells on travellers than anything much else.

Interesting Goblin!

Goblins have 1 of their sub-species that's a playable race, and they in kind have two sub-sub-species. The Ugly, spiteful, yet intelligent and calculating masters of the counting houses, and the bookish, foppish readers of great works and great wit. Both of which usually reside in large cities within or around the banks and libraries respectively.

Gelfling, Friend?!

Gelfling: A shorter than elves and humans, but taller than dwarves and halflings race, they have an affinity for inner magics and attunement for nature, the females have gossamer wings that can used to float down safely, and they have a kind of telepathic ability within their race or with races that have similar abilities.

Caitshee: A race that seem to have evolved from cats, not so much a cat person, but cat-like in many ways. they have a selfish kind of nature, less likely to move about in groups, but have a need to be around others for safety and comfort. Caitshee sometimes get attached to their friends, but would never admit it.. its not sure if they view themselves as the pets or the masters (or both)

I am Groot!

Dryads: When a nature spirit leaves its environment for too long it can sometimes get stuck in its humanoid shape, often when this happens they seek out others of their kind and form communities and protect nature and its flora and forna from those who would seek to destroy it. The Dryads come in a wide variety of abilities based on their nature, be it forest, pond, stream, cave or swamp.

Half Forms can exist from any of these varieties, players choose which parent would have raised them, and typically will take the average of both races for characteristic modifiers, the common variants are half-elf, half-orc, but players being players, don't be surprised to see a half-caitshee, half-dwarf (would that be a dwarfshee or a caituarf?)

So now we get to the part where we explore the other variants, what to choose to add to the books..

I have been contemplating having one section about playing as 'bad' races, Orcs, Lizardmen, Goblins, Kobolds and such, Sometimes players find it fun to try the other side, but I always make a point of how brutishly short their lives are, the dog eat dog world they live in means constant fear, even from their own group.. 

But for now, lets contemplate the following:

Giants, Ogres, Trolls or Golems: The bigger problem with large bulky beasts of characters is logistics.. getting anything for them as armour or weapons is pretty much impossible in standard towns, so everything has to be crafted specifically. Also food costs, a Troll at 9ft isn't going to be eating 1.5 times his size, no, the ratios of weight and energy usage means at least double the meals, if not triple. Dungeon adventures become impossible, local towns are more likely to hire knights to slay a giant than to employ one.. so they're pretty much out.

Minotaurs, Centaurs, Satyrs and Archons: While these exist of course, and are a race that would have towns, culture, locations of interest, within their own world and in specialised places of the Coyn, I fear that humans would have not seen them as a culture of people, but as creatures, and would have likely killed off or made enemies of these races.. so for the purposes of the next book, I think they'll have to wait..  Also, Could I not just cut-n-paste any animal+humanoid together and viola another race? Harpy, Mermaid, Siren, Lamia, Naga, Manticore, Sphinx, Ganesh? Alot of 'gods' are just animal headed people..

Draconians, Gargoyles, Djinn: The only real problem I have is with these, is balance. Getting players to play their characters appropriately and not becoming the star player of the group, can be hard GMing one of these guys can be a strain, so like the Satyrs and Merfolk, they might need to be in the later books with some "Roleplaying advice" thrown into the chapter... I'll include them later, with a higher Karma cost, but maybe not for the next book.

Pixies or Sprites: Actually for a long time you could play a Pixie or a Sprite. Magic using characters as a natural effect is something that brings a little balance to early games, Magic User Sprites start with some effects and powers, rather than just "Salt" and they always have that 1-shot death danger that balances them long term.. the problem is that exact point.. 1-shot death, Pixies and Sprites are so fragile, any AoE spell will take them out of the group.. 

So what else is there?

Warforged? Being a bit anti-technology, having players rely on another form of 'magic' but one that's easier to understand or use, sortof takes the 'fantasy' out of the game for me. I represent this is many ways through the game, the only 'mecha' race are considered evil, Magicians have formed a guild to eradicate the technology of gunpowder, so any kind of AI-robot-race won't be appearing.. heck if we can't make robots work yet in modern society, it's definitely not going to exist in fantasy...

Wolf-men/Vampyres/Blended: Actually also, as long as there is some kind of balance, I don't mind the idea of a blended race, heck I have Caitshee already, so doing a Dog-man/Wolf-man/Hamster-man is going to be viable. I did have Badgerians in for a while, (Half Dwarf, Half Badger) so they might come back.. (Vampyres were Half-bat, Half Elf, a race we had for some games 10+ years ago, they worked ok, not real vampires, but more sonar-sense & day-sleepers)

Dimituative Races: The Pod People, Gibberlings or any Athropomorphic 3 foot tall creature with intelligence? Sure, why not.. If players want to play a smaller person, I think the 'easier to kill' balances with the 'bonuses to stealth' so thats going to be fair.. though I'd probably have a very very low Karma cost to play such a race.

(Rock)-Trolls: Again, Terry Pratchett influence here, but if Detrius can become a watchman, then players can play as a RockTroll. They're big, and they pack a massively mean punch, but the balance is speed and intellect. They are incredibly slow, physically and mentally, so as long as the player is a good roleplayer, I'm ok with it.

I explored the concept of 'modifying' the existing races to create new 'breeds' in the last blog, but it just felt a little .. uncomfortable.. I already had dwarflings and elflings.. but they already feel a bit 'stickytaped', but they were added such a long time ago so they sorta became canon, the gelfling might not make it to the books due to copyright, which is why I don't even consider talking about Wemics, Driders or my little Ponies.

though, I'd love to include Aughra somehow, what would she be? teifling?

And thats about it.. Sure there are a multitude of 'races' that people have invented, named and appear in books, but they all seem to fit into these categories or are just variants of what I've listed.. so maybe thats all I can do for now.. just make a chart of them all, roll some dice and blend them together?

All images were googled for, their image names unchanged, so you can copy the name and find the file to get the original locations, some come from pinterest others from blogs, so it'd be impossible for me to track down every artist for the sake of a common blog.  

In a world of Heroes

So your local king is a real douche, you live suppressed in a world of pain and misery, In Earths History, you worship a god that gives you hope that, if you don't give up, and keep trying, at least you'll live in paradise when you die. In a fantasy setting, you can actually call upon that god to come down and smite the king.. or at least have some heroes sent over to do it for you.

Why would an Evil dictator exist?

I've asked this question to myself often enough, Things are the way they are in our world because of so many small significant, as a whole, things. Bad people get away with bad things because good people don't band together to fight, and fighting isn't good, or the status quo is not so bad, so lets just cope with this small disturbance, and hey at least it gives us something to complain about.

But, in a world of heroes, magical items, spells, powers, gods, kings are going to need a few thousand defences if they want to be bastards.

Lets take a simple example.. Krona the Barbarian, His Local Chief decides to raises the tributes for the year, and his village is unable to pay, so as an example, the Chief sends over thugs to rough up the village, killing Krona's mum. Krona utters an oath of revenge, which a god hears, and now she's god a slight amount of protection.  She heads out into the wilderness, fighting goblins, bears, bugbears, owl bears (lots of bears in this wilderness) even a random polar bear (encounter chart, rolled a 00) and makes all their bones into some sweet bear-bone-scale armour. Gets it blessed by a sacred temple, enchanted by a witch, finds a sacred blade in a Crypt, and returns to her lands.

She finds the a-hole that slaughtered her mum, and kills him. In the process, having to slaughter all the guards and champions that protect the chief, reducing the defences against standard local armies, triggering invasions, reacting to those invasions by having to slaughter the next chief, etc etc..

Can you see where this is going? No Chief, King, Duke, Lords in any kingdom is truly safe.. heroes are going to rise up, greater power levels than the local guards & even kings champions.

The only people capable of stopping great heroes, are other great heroes.. 

Which is probably why the kings of the land are constantly sending heroes out on missions.. the poor quality ones will die, while the survivors are rewarded by the king, given ceremonies, befriended, and are now part of his 'entourage' & 'protection' from other heroes.

Why bother with armies then?

 So, I've got this big bad-ass 18th Level Sorcerer buddy Symion, and his 17th level Necromancer cousin Nevvar, and their 19th level Assassin Andy, and they hang out in my palace. My neighbour kingdom is a bit peeved because some villages cut down some trees.. should I send 25,000 troops to attack them? knowing full well that they'll send their 20,000 against me? are they as well trained as mine? how much does this army cost me? 25,000 well train soldiers + conscript the villagers, rations, etc.. wow, I'm going to have to spend over 100,000 gold.. 

oh wait.. Maybe my friends can help? Andy pops over to the kingdom and just assassinates the king, Symion casts spells to charm the commanders of the army, Nevvar quells any uprising with hoards of Skeletons.. we declare to the populace that they are now part of our kingdom.. and viola.. problem solved..  100k gold enough for them? maybe.

Andy and his mates

Follow that through and yes, every kingdom is going to have some powerful heroes on the payroll.. AND armies, just in case.. but I bet that this becomes very much a cold war.. no-one wants to attack anyone because they all have enough information (scrying, teleporting, messages, clacks towers) about the odds, and the WMDs "Warlocks, Mages and Demonologists" will keep everyone just a little bit scared to 'push their buttons'

Will border controls, passports, customs become standard between countries? Will wars even exist? or will they all start representing modern life? 

I ran a campaign once, the world was 'skinned' with fantasy races, Russians were Dwarves, French were Elves, Arabs were Dark Elves, players started at 8th level, couldn't do much below 8th.. and it just turned into a spy game.. sure there were some goblins in the caves, but it was more interesting to travel over to the Dwarven Steppes (Russia) and ride the Minecarts(Metro) between Lybyanka (Spy Central) and Kransaya Plochad (The Palatial City) dressed as Dwarves(Russians), trying to get information about the movement of Troops into the Southern Duergar(militant) lands of UnChrome(Ukraine), and spread dis-information about their own funded Duergar as they pretended to the world, they were Snerfnebblin(United Dwarves).

Now, be careful, I'm not trying to include the 'boring' parts of history, nor make the whole scenario into a real time simulation. Its just the whole 'lit streets' issue, making sure the world build includes the realities that would happen as a result of the differences in realities. You don't add in 'diseases' so players can sit at home in bed for three weeks.. you build them in as cash/time sinks, to build suspense, to make them feel like the world is more complex, to take the edge off their skills when going into the next combat.. 

Online Fantasy Kingdoms Map,
Helped players make decisions, raid villagers, etc

In my board game "Fantasy Kingdoms" you need to maintain a fairly decent happiness of your people, if the value drops too low, they'll convert to independants, electing the local highest level paladin as protector, or if you attempt force to keep them, you need a force ratio high enough to block any uprisings, at least until you get that happiness back up again.. Kings have a hard time maintaining a level of popularity lest the locals allow (or hire) outside influence, while maintaining the political level of the game.

Its a hard thing to try to make your Fantasy world more real, but if you want your players to really appreciate your game world, you want to do it. Everyone shrugs their shoulders, rolls their eyes and just goes and hacks apart the local Ogre, when the village has a component shop, a blacksmith selling magic swords and a healing sage who sells potions, but give the players a witch who only has what she uses herself (herbs for poultices, cures & agricultural needs) The Smith bangs out nails, horseshoes and the occasional pot, and the Towns sage grows weed & smokes it to calm his nerves, the players will pay more attention, and really appreciate the sword of "Carbannog"

[Story - Untitled] Big Long Text plot Synopsis

I don't normally do this, Posting a plot Synopsis, but since I got the Idea from Observations of the Fox in his Worldbuilding, and I'm unlikely to have the time to run this at any time soon. I leave it up to you, Gamesmasters to do with it what you will. I think it would make for a nice Adventure, If I have the time in the future I'll write it up a little cleaner.. but I'd rather someone use it than it sit on a dusty harddrive.

The Town over the Mines of a Metal that's Stronger than anything, destroyed by...  

(p.s. I have not edited this, When an Idea pops into my brain, I write it fast & furious, so its messy, I'm not going to edit it as is, I'd rather edit it into a larger document later)

Its not fully understood how or why it exists, but an ancient buried castle was discovered in a wilderness, the soil was poor, plants didn't really grow, a desertous wasteland.

But that didn;t stop some adventurers from exploring the burined castle.

The first thing they noticed was the castle was not flat. The windows had hard glass in them, so it was obvious this was a rich castle.

Weapons didn't make much of a dent to the walls, and only through some powerful magics were they able to break in and access the castle.

Unfortunately there was not much to claim, the rooms were for the most part empty. Strange monuments were bolted to the walls, alot of the caste was empty. But two things stood out. A Large Sword, later known as the Blade of White Lightning, and a small round runic device, correctly guessed by the mage as a runic fireball.

The Adventurers left, and for years afterwards no-one known, came across it.

The Adventurers became pretty famous in their time, Sir Lious for his combat skills and the foes he vanquished with white lightning, and the Mage Eldus who used the runic fireball to defeat the demon gate.

Eldus, had read the runes on the device and found 10 small notches, and determined (incorrectly) that this was the radius, but 1 metres was a tad small for a powerful runic device, so setting it for 1 made no sense, instead he thought possibly each notch was 10 steps/ 3 metres (feet).. making the full radius 30 metres. But given the power of the White Lightning blade, he also was quoted as saying, jokingly, it could be 10 x 100 metres! no one believe him, but he must has thought it a possibility.

The Demon Gate was opened by Sd'ohy Udhi of the Half Orc Clan, in an attempt to bring power to the Half Orcs, Sd'ohy gathered as many books on the subject and studied hard the ancient demonology, and using a large ancient stone gate, runes he copied from those books, he managed to create a Demon gate.. allowing demons to enter the world, at will. It was horrendous to say the least, Within hours, hundreds of demons had merely walked through, slaughtered the half Orcs and began their relentlous feast on all souls that lived near.

The Adventurers heard of the Demons, like mostly anyone else within weeks of travel to the Gate, as Demon begun to pour into the world and reak havok as quickly as they discovered it.

So, They headed for the gate, After a battle like none they had faced before, they defeated demon after demon, some mere beasts with extra horns, some a mixture of an elephant and a bicycle, neither of which they knew the look of, and nearing the end, with a telescope, theymanaged to locate the Gate.

Eldus, seeing the sheer bulk of demonic entities entering the world summised that they could not hope to approach, let alone close the gate easily.. he would need to study the runes, determine the counter spells and close it, all while his friends held back wave after wave of demonic creatures..

as it was, at this distance, The party was fighting back large numbers of weird things.

It was then, that Eldus remembered he had the runic fireball!

He took out his rare scroll of group flight, he had hoped to make a copy before using it, but now was no time to think of lost items.

Casting the spell, the group flew over the land, fighting off the few winged demons that existed, and Eldus Magically engaged the Runic Device, and dropped it to the gate.

Being a overly cautios fellow, he had timed it, so they could fly at least 500m away from the gate before it would explode.. they turned on his cue to watch the explosion.. but after the initial wave of blue light, shredding all the creatures on the land, Eldus screamed at his companions to fly, fly as fast as they could.

The blast ripped through them as they flew.. Eldus quickly cast feater fall on his companions as they flew, and so as they pased out from pain, they glided down to merely crash with a few scrapes and bruises.

Sir Lious the sword weilder had not passed unconcous, instead he landed with his now sleeping friends, and fought off the few demons that survived the blast.

After the carnage, a 750 metre crater existed in place of the cavern.. and interestingly revealed several underground cryots and tunnels.. The team managed to raid these places for weeks afterwards, until the rains filled them and today the lake it home to a fresh water merfolk city.

The Original Castle
-------------------

The Adventurers had mentioned the place they claimed their items from, which of course prompted others to travel to the site and raid it..

The Opening of the Castle had somehow leaked some moulds and plant life had begun to grow up around the entrance to the castle.. Some of which proved to be not only edible, but highly nutritious. People could come and live near the castle, use its now open door (blast hole) as a means of access, and traders tents began to appear around the entrance, selling goods to adventuerers who sought the riches of the castle.

Once such dwarf, known as Werthstone, found that when lightning was cast at the walls of the castle at the same time that he hit it with his Eldritch Hammer, the Stone would break away in shattered chucks.. He returned with some of the chunks to his home, and they fashioned the metal with ancient techniques, into a dagger now known as Eldritch Werthblade. The Metal renamed as Eldritch WerthStone.

Werthstone, returned with a small group of Dwarven Metalsmiths and Priests, and found a small town had sprung up around the castle. Importing food, goods, wood and the like, and Exporting the Lode Stone (as they called it) As they had taken the idea of Werthstone, and had priests bless the stone before striking it.
This of course became a tiff with locals, they instead had to live outside the towns borders.. . At first they were livid, , at first they decided to build a mineshaft more than five hundred metres from the castle, They knew that within the time it took them to build the shaft. The Townsfolk would somehow lay claim to the castle, and prevent them from taking any of the precious stone.

After a feast, getting drunk and a few fights, they eventually gave in, and So they dug quickly.

Within a few months, the Town had summoned the sherrif and a small regiment, to protect the kings interest in the castle.. the sherrif stated, that according to the laws (and the treaty with the dwarven king), the Dwarves could claim a chunk of land and pay tax on that land and claim anything beneath that land..

The Town was happy with that arrangement, at first the dwarves felt like they would dig deep, then an illegal side shaft to the underside of the castle, and claim the lowest levels of stone first.. illegally mine the stone, deeper than anyone had travelled, so by the time anyone reached their tunnels, they'd have claimed a large chunk anyway..

but within a few days the dwarves came to the surface, and signed the document. begrudingly.

A month later, the Dwarves bought some extra land, behind their own, and further away from the town, then later still,    They brough in a few hundred new dwarves to work their mines, and build their end of town. Stone from beneath the surface, gold, some Jewels.. They bought another 'chunk' of land behind theirs again.. still further from the town. The town was happy, they had claimed this castle and its possible source of income for years. The dwarves had obviously struck stone & gold independantly, and so peace settled in the town.

The Dwarves were supplying stone to the townsfolk, who traded for it with Lodestone, the dwarved turned lodestone into werthstone and sold it back as picks, shovels, swords, anything that someone wanted. The Metal was harder than many types of metal, cut deep and true with almost every strike, resisted damage, lasting longer than Mithril and Deamonite, and with dwarven craftsmanship, was some of the most balanced and therefore sought after weapons in the world. So the dwarves could, and did, make a far larger profit being the smelters of the stone, than the miners.

Two things happened that shattered this bergeoning city.. The Kings of the Dwarves and the Humans, struck a deal to deal with the Half Orc incursions and their enslaved demons, and asked the Dwarves of Cyrstylwerth? to fashion helms and breastplates of Werthstone, to aid the armies. The Humans would supply metals for the chainmail, the Dwarves the Werthstone (Dwarves, when asked by their king to supply them do so as an honorable task. to refuse your king is to refuse your kind, so it was done without payment)

But The Werthstone Mines & Forges started cranking out far more armour and weapons than the town thought possible.. 100 crates of Lodestone would go in, and 500 suits of Armour would come out. Ok the dwarves were good, but surely not that good?

Then the Dwarven city came under panic, Crazed, purple eyed Dwarves came screaming out of the mines, ravaging anyone in their site before being chopped down. over 400 dwarves and 100 humans were killed in the slaughter. A scouting team was sent down to investigate. The mines closed until their return. They did not.

Some townsfolk packed up and left,

The King of the Dwarves sent a small army, with a Miners detail, they dug a side chamber down the mineshaft to find the source of the problem, Days went by, digging, preparation, priests in prayer, until the day came to break through into the mine. They did so,.. The horn blew to let everyone know they had entered.. Within minutes, the horn blew again.. one and a half times.. Not a good sign.. The Priests threw up protection barriers against evil, undead, demons, dark elves, dark dwarves.. but the purple eyed Dwarves walked straight up the shaft and with the echo of a few hundred screams, slaughtered everyone in sight.

The Townsfolk waiting on edge for news, hearing the screams, fled as fast as they could.. yet none have been heard of since.

The Townsfolk that left before the dwarven army told folk of this:

The Dwarves had mined a shaft down when they first arrived, and sooner than expected, hit the Castle of Lodestone.. but It was somehow pearched on a rocky mountain years before the great mudslide. and the dwarved had found its western most buildings. So it became obvious this was why they signed the land deal, they were sitting directly above a large deposit of lodestone in its raw form. So all this time they were digging out rock and gold, they were also digging up lodestone, but converting it to werthstone before bringing it to the surface, then when folks came with lodestone to trade, theyd gladly buy it, because it gave them legitimacy as to how they got lodestone.

But the Dwarves had dug too deep. The story is, the Lodestone is the shell of an egg of a great creature, not evil, not dwarven, not undead not demonic, nor elven, nor human in any nature, and its very breath drove the soldiers mad, insane and so no priestly barrier had been erected against madness.. (this is the reasoning of the survivors) So the mad soldiers emerged from the caverns and slaugtered the town.

TODAY
=====

As it stands, As its rumoured, The Town lies in ruins, covered in vines, trees, strange plants that move too much for just wind.. There are no living humans in the city, and supposedly a few Mad Dwarves in Werthstone Armour guard the abandoned streets, purple glow to their eyes..

Green Adventurers do not seek out this place, only those who favour their skills and might against mad, gibbering dwarves who run like cheetas and fight like monkeys, dressed in armour tougher than dragon scale, yet light enough to be barely noticed. Yet this armour is what those who travel there seek out.

Gossip
------

3 months back, 3 Adventurers returned from the Shid'he deserts, wearing Werthstone Armour, and Weilding a Werthstone Glave, They fought back some Dwarves, entered the Dwarven city, took one set each of the armour set aside for the human king, and a single Glave, found in the hands of a long dead soldier.. They claimed the city seems to be far emptier of Mad Dwarves than previously claimed. Possibly the Dwarves have died of old age? or so many of them fell at the hands of Adventuring parties? Its unknown..

The King has asked the kingdom, for adventurers to travel to the falled city, find out if indeed the rumour is true, is the city now empty? He'll pay a princes ransom for this information, one tenth to be paid in cash upon the return of the adventurers, the remainder to be paid when his own scouts have returned with confirmation.



TL;DR Two Races vie for control of a new metal, mining it, unleashes a new horror, killing the town, and creating an adventure: