World Build October Part 29

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Monday the 29th - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) a ceremonial object"

In A time long gone, The Angels who flew the world left the 'candleholders'. They were collected and distributed amongst the churches of the Holy order of the Tree and are used in ceremonies to celebrate the festivals.

They are light weight, have a heavy pointed end and a hollow end. When placed in the ground or on a wooden table, they balance easily and the weight of the candle usually has no bearing on the balance.

When lit, they give off a glow toward the ground, some show special symbols and patterns, some a generic circle.

Some have been told, hold the bones of the angels and are regarded as holy relics, stored in ancient vaults beneath great churches.









unrelated..

The light weighted bird race invented a spear, that could be segregated into 6-8 parts, and carried on a belt at the waist, connectable in times of need as a dagger, or short bladed sword, a polearm or a full spear. 

World Build October Part 28

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Sunday the 28th - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) a common pet or companion animal"

I'm going to go with this from Players.

Typically you'd expect that players would go with a familiar or pet that matches something either easily accessable, OR something rare and exotic.. now while thats true for most players, a larger majority decided that declaring their horse as their pet/companion, was the best choice.

In that line of thread, it seems fair that at least amongst the more common folk, a riding beast or beast of burdern would be most likely as the commonest..

Which brings me to the Yakult. A six legged Oxen/beast of burden, quite friendly, mildly magical, and very strong when it comes to pulling heavy loads. They have tough skinned hands instead of hooves and have been known to grip trees and stones to pull themselves forward.

Since the wild Steppe of the Ashigaru plains have many nomdaic races, which use the Yakult for many reasons, statistically speaking, the Yakult is the most common animal companion.

World Build October Part 27

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Saturday the 27th - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) an average citizens home"

Average? for where? The houses of the medieval European cities are single roomed, sometimes built upon a structure to keep above the dirt, which affords the owner a cooler storage place. Colder climates need a hearth of sorts, while warmer climes can do without.

Being a generic, from all worlds, fantasy trope place, its not hard for any gamesmaster to throw any kind of house into the world and it being fairly normal.

Wood Elves live in forests, high up in treehouses. Dwarves carve their places into the stone of hills and mountains. Deep Dwarves live completely underground. Caitshee tend to be nomads or live in moving tribes and Dryads live inside of trees.

An Average citizen of a High Elven city, might live in a 4 roomed, 2 story building, perched on the side of a cliff, while the average halfling lives in a communal hall with his brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents.

The People of Rel'Whenderfel live on house boats, and the people of the lands of the Water God Innusi live on mounds of dried dirt, in a land of perpetual swamp.

World Build October Part 26

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Friday the 26th - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) a predatory animal from your world"

Ok, so since dangerous, roleplay worlds are pretty much filled to the brim with predatory animals, who have yet to starve themselves out of the food chain. I'll have to roll on my chart of animals, and pick one that isn't standard trope, already in any other rpg...

here goes.. 

The Mortubus.

Most likely a demon-dog hybrid? The few who have encountered the Mortubus have described it as either a dog with tusks, or a warthog with a lithe body, but the most unpleasant thing that has always been said about it is that it has the hindquarters of a human, even though it runs on the ground. As a result, its end is raised in the rear.

None have been killed and brought in for study by any mage schools or monster hunter guilds, so it can only be thought of as one of the many gorgons that inhabit the world. i.e. the variety of creatures that seem to be made by warped gods who stitch random creatures together.

It is a deadly creature, possessing some semblance of intelligence. It fights with crazed fevour and uses some mildly clever tactics to corner its victim. The tusks are sharp and long, penetrating armour easily and doing some severe damage, often also infecting the wound, causing the victim to die days later and their organs seeping from the wound.

Its suggested that the Mortubus cannot properly chew, and needs to poison the victim into a more slush like food to be lapped up.

Its hind quarters are its vulnerable location, being human-like, cuts easy, yet any strike to the latter half will result in the creature retreating and fleeing from combat.

World Build October Part 25

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Thursday the 25th - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) a prey animal from your world"

Besides all the standard earth world predator-prey examples that you can google, and all the ones that match, i.e. any animal that tries to catch and eat another, and this can include alot of ones that might be world-buildy.. i.e.

the plant that captures other plant/animals and eats them?

or the animal that captures sentient plants that walk around?

or the rock elemental that chases down dust-bunnies?

How about this one:

Living coins.

For some strange reason, magic tends to give everyday objects sentience and purpose, without any reason. The weirder variety of these are living coins.

They can cause themselves to roll, if they manage to fall from a shelf or high enough surface, in order to move themselves around the world. They tend to 'park' themselves upright against walls or furniture so they can move off at a later point, because if they ever end up flat on the ground, they are immobile.

They tend to want to be picked up by humanoids, placing themselves in places to get noticed. If they get into an empty bag of coins, they escape. Working their way up the sides with each jostle until they jump out. Sometimes, its noted that they take other coins hostage?

But they are, for the most part, trying to escape the dungeon they are located in, because eventually the mimic will find them and eat them. 

World Build October Part 24

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Sunday the 24th - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) an extreme form of weather that exists in your world"

You'd think a cyclone of sharks, or an earthquake that has sentience would be bad enough.. but what about blood rain that causes all living things to become undead.

In the most recent times, the queen of death, from another dimension, decided to target the coyn world, and the whole that she came through ripped the fabric of reality, causes rain to become blood and within it a disease which caused living tissue to suffer and dead tissue to attempt to live once more.. in other words.. zombies.

The whole continent is now under heavy rain of blood, heroes everywhere are seeking out the source in an attempt to 'save the world'.

Meanwhile in sunny Archronite, there is a sentient cup of tea having a heated argument with an air- water sprite.

World Build October Part 23

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Tuesday the 23rd - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) some plants from your world"

There is a strange little flower that grows all over the world, in various forms. The colours it displays to the average person can ranger from a single pigment to a rainbow of shifting patterns, depending on the time of year and the moving leylines.

Yet to a wizard, the flower represents potential. The flower exhibits magical properties, seems to be magical, yet is the alchemists stone of the magical herbalists community. Nothing can be discovered about it enough to make use of its properties.

-----

In the northern jungles, in the shade of the Kalikuri mountain, There is a plant that having observed wildlife, create a two part structure. One, looks like a predator, and the other a grassy knoll. When someone or something comes along, sees the predator, is startled and falls back, they fall on the grassy knoll, which is instead a pit trap with spikes.

Smaller varities of the plant produce snake-like vines with huge heads and beady looking eyes, larger varieties have been told to shape into giant cats and even fantastical creatures unseen before.. Anything to scare the victim into the trap.

-----

The world seems to have a strange sense of humour, many plants have grown in a way that suggests some level of sentience, or an external force. Once such plant is the dandy-lion. The flower of which represents a lion, with a smile, with leaves that look like a suit of a 17th Century Victorian dandy. Curiously, boiling the flower heads, results in a tea that has been known to bring courage to the imbiber.

Another curious plant is the blood-wart. It grows on the sides of things.. other plants, buildings, people if they stay still long enough. Its green, but in the core is a wart of blood. it can be squeezed, and blood like substance will come out. It has no known use and is considered a weed as it makes places and things look quite grotesque with all these little blood coloured warts all over it. 

World Build October Part 22

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Monday the 22nd - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) one of your worlds man-made wonders"

The Original city of Middlehelm was a sprawling great city, people built both up and down. Many houses of the affluent were severl stories high, with a floating chamber in the house that allowed anyone quick access to float up to higher floors or float down to lower ones. Stairs still existed for several purposes, but not common everyday access. This was due to the fact that the city had been built on a magical leyline of the element of earth and air, allowing almost fee gravity spells.

The Tallest Tower in the city was run by the University of the Coyn. Due to their almost inexhaustible supply of gravity stones, They were a hub of magical travel by means of a variety of floating paths, and hover carts. The Tower boasted over a few hundred levels, yet, one could argue that placing a floor half way between the floor above and the floor below, on the outside of the two, did not constitute as a seperate level. If we disclude those, the tower rose 498 levels from the ground, and was over 900 levels in total.

When the great flood of mud buried everything, the top 70 or so levels were not flooded and buried. But, as a result of the shift in magic, they almost immediately collapsed. The surviving wizards and dirtomancers managed to rebuild a new University with the bricks and stones of those 70 levels.. not up so much.. but more around. Yet still boasts a tower of 13 levels, held up more with engineering than magic.

The New city of middlehelm, still benefits from a pulse of magic that comes from deep with the land, and worthy adventurers come from miles around to delver deep into those dungeons, plunder the ancient treasures and return (if they return) rich enough to retire.

The City is a wonder to behold, and the caverns below more-so.

World Build October Part 21

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Sunday the 21st - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) one of your worlds natural wonders"

If you've ever travelled earth, Seen some of the natural wonders that we have, you'd be hard pressed to invent anything that isn't already a real, natural wonder.

Sure you could include magic, turn things upside down, or floating without gravity, entering one place and popping out another. Things akin to the world in the Russian made Dragon Hunters movie (which I've seen on YouTube in its entirety).. or Labyrinth, Jareds castle's gravity mixed locations could present an interesting natural wonder..

That begs the question, if a place is created by a god.. is that a natural wonder?

If magic, psychic or godly powers, influence anything, would it still be natural?

So, for this, I Think I'll have to go with something a bit different, and a lot bigger.

The Coyn World..

The World was made of Lava, it was a spinning top of lava, and upon its surface little lava people walked around and fought for the creators amusement.

Over time the lava cooled, and became a giant rock, meteors of ice and minerals crashed into its surface and eventually over time, the escaping gasses formed a dome of air.. because, even though the world gravity caused the shape of a flat coin from the rock, air has its own way of doing things.

At first there was no plant life, mostly due to a lack of sunlight. There was no sun, originally being lava, there was no need, but as the rock cooled, light faded into nothing.

Yet life still somehow existed on the surface.

The Creator has included some left-over toys to create suns, but never got around to starting them up, they floated around this little creation, their energy seeping into the world, yet no light.

At some point, the little lifeforms on the surface began to create light sources, who knows why, and eventually, they tapped into the giant energy balls and started one up as a sun (not before getting one wrong and creating a cold sun) and so, light eventually existed on the world.

Now (skip time), Four remaining spheres float around the world, One Sun, bright and hot, one Cold-sun, Bright yet frozen, One untapped Sphere of energy and a small lump of rock, that may have been the top of the spinning top at some stage. Plants began to grow, giant dinosaurs didn't take the time to eat all the plants as people were already running around the world, using the dinosaurs as mounts, No comet has come to wipe life off the planet, but there was a great flood of mud that buried everything, and people had to dig it all up again, which created hundreds, if not thousands of tunnels and dungeons beneath all the cities of the world.. hence the name.. DungeonWorld.

World Build October Part 20

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Saturday the 20th - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) an important historical figure"

There was once a great king, He drew his people together to forge an empire. They cut down trees, cut stone, smoothed the land, and built a network of roads from the north of the empire to the south, but along the way, they disturbed an ancient vampire who lay sleeping in his crypt for a few hundred years.

At first the king thought it to be a crypt of ancient lore, like any other, and had it moved to his city of cemeteries, like the rest. A trophy city if you will, of all the lands that had been taken over by this king.

Well, the Vampire awoke, and at first thought that the city had merely grown up around his crypt, but as soon as he discovered that he'd been moved.. well there was hell to pay.

He summoned up all the dead from the city.. which was alot.. and lay waste to the entire land, searching for the king.

Eventually, the king was defeated, the vampire approached him, and whispered in his ear. The King was appalled. Aghast, he attempted to fight back, but the Vampire turned the king into his own kind.

The Vampire king, as the story goes, strolls the land in search of something, somewhere.

Little children are told this tale to teach them not to forget where they put things, lest the vampire king come find it first. 

Like most historical figures, much is lost of the reality, and only the 'interesting bits' remain.