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Okay, I have put the Kraecheeth on the list (which is only meant to record ideas and proposals, nothing in any way final). The Gates could well have caused the mutations of the Kraecheeth. In a sci- ence fiction setting the Gates could be described as disintegrating a "passen- ger" at Point A and reintegrating him at Point B. If the process of reintegra- tion is somehow manipulated, or the Gate is malfunctioning, the "passenger" could well be "transformed" into something different. If the Azchirgnoth had found a way to manipulate the Gates ... By the way, Soltakss (I hope I got his name right ...) has just edited the myths in the Wiki, bringing them in line with your description of the past; I think he has done a very fine job. And another thought (rather a question): Do you have any idea who built the Gates ? Edit.: Ah, I have found it, the Akershule created the Gates.

Here is a short list of the races that have been mentioned until now. I have no doubt that I did forget some, and that some of the connec- tions I made are wrong. So, please tell me what to change, and I will edit this posting accor- dingly. Akershule ( = Azchir = Ancients ?) [extinct / undead] - created / opened the Gates ? Ashuli ("octopoids", very rare) [deep sea] - came through one of the Gates Humans (barbarians, corsairs, Freelings, etc.) [everywhere] - Nifara [The Green, trees] Kraecheeth (summoned creatures, many sub-species) [wherever summoned] - possibly chaos mutations created through the Gates ? Lizard People ( = Troodon = Dinosauroids ?) [The Green] Mamprusi ("swamp apes") [The Green] Orms (including Naga and Dragon Brood) [The Green] Tree Kraken [The Green] Trogod (Goblins) [The Green, surrounding mountains ?] - Grulk (Hobgoblins / "Orks" ?) - Karee ("Elves" ?) - Kweeg True Elves ( = The Shea ?, very rare) [The Green or undead ?]

I think the moisture for The Green should be no problem. With mountain ranges on three sides, and rivers from all three mountain ranges flowing down into and through the same basin, The Green should receive enough water, I think. As for the pirates, I think the distance between Corsair city and Akershule could still be quite great, with the foothills and mountains and half of the river valley between The Green and the mouth of the Jule.

Ah, well ... a very good proposal, but any solution to the problem probably would spoil the fun of debating it ...

I suppose that the rivers flowing through The Green and the River Jule flowing through Akershule flow into the same sea, so that Puck's Corsair City on the coast of The Green and Rurik's mouth of the Jule are on the same coast, and the corsairs prey on the trade coming from and going to Akershule ? Also, the barbarians living in the hills (and mountains ?) west of Akershule are the same as (or related to) the tribes (of as yet unknown race, but perhaps Trogod) which inhabit the mountains on the eastern border of The Green ?

I used the Snipping Tool to copy the map and enlarged it 500 % with Paint. It is then quite grainy, but the important features can be seen well enough.

Yep, this is exactly what I imagined The Green to look like on a map. If we follow Rurik's description in his Portal entry in the Wiki, east of The Green would follow, from west to east: - a mountain range - hills - the fertile valley of the River Jule with Akershule - arid plains - a desert - the Sky Mountain while hills and another mountain range would be located north and north- east of Akershule. The Green therefore would be surrounded by mountains on three sides, tur- ning it into a wet basin that opens towards the sea - which, in my opinion, would fit perfectly well.

As mentioned elsewhere, there are some features I would very much appre- ciate, because they would make it easy for me to link my Pharos IV setting with the Shared World: - mountains on one side (the north side ?) of The Green, with at least one major river flowing from there through The Green to the sea, - a major sea on the other side (the south side ?) of The Green, preferably with a long coastline and a depth of at least 1,000 meters. The mountains could well be "foothills" (I don't remember the right word) of Sky Mountain, and could reach from Sky Mountain through a desert area all the way to The Green, with the last "chain" of mountains in or under The Green. On another thought: I have made a list of the races that have been proposed as inhabitants of The Green, and if we want to include all or most of them, The Green should have truly "epic" dimensions, in my opinion at least 1,000 kilometers from the mountains to the sea. This would give the different races and cultures some "elbow room", and it would prevent The Green from becoming something like a "zoo", as many of the published D&D settings, where the capitals of hostile realms sometimes were almost within "arrow range".

I do not know how others would like to handle this, but for me it would be easier if you would just continue to develop your "Fantasy Green", becau- se I find it much easier to "translate" an entire setting ("pick, choose and introduce"-style) from fantasy to science fiction than to work on two simi- lar settings at the same time. As for the Ashuli (thank you !), you do not have to use them in your fanta- sy setting, but on the other hand I see no problem with them being there - they are far away in the deep sea and rarely show up. Their similarity with the Tree Kraken should also be no problem at all, there could well be two similar-looking but otherwise completely different species in different parts of the region, I think. In fact, this could be a nice way to confuse players who run into one species after having encountered the other one earlier ... Anyhow, I consider The Green basically your setting, and will accept what- ever you find most useful.

Troodon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Just take a look at that "Dinosauroid" which might have evolved from the Troodon (near the bottom of the page) ...

Of course you are right, but I hesitate to put the chart on the forum. I am using the "Honorverse" of David Weber's "Honor Harrington" novels as the background universe for my setting, and Mr. Weber is well known for his ex- treme dislike of unlicenced use of his ideas - as fas as I have been told (well, warned) he has already "killed" at least one fan project, and I do not want to cause the forum any trouble. However, I can provide a link to a map of the "Honorverse": http://harrington.suewebik.net/obrazky/mapawall2.gif This is a detailed map of the "Honorverse". In the "far north" of the map you will find Basilisk, which is connected with Manticore through a wormhole over a distance of 210 lightyears. Pharos IV is in the Demara Sector (my invention, not on this map),"left above" Basilisk, about 43 light years from Basilisk. There is a chart of Demara Sector, but it is hardly more than a sheet of paper with a dozen dots, some of them named. Now, other people contributing to the shared universe will hardly want to use the "Honorverse", I think. Therefore we could concentrate on the Gates as connections of the setting (which would allow us to ignore star charts almost entirely), or we could de- sign some long-range connections (like the wormholes of the "Honorverse"), which would allow us to ignore the "space between", too. And, of course, I could "transport" Pharos IV from the "Honorverse" to a com- mon background universe of the shared universe worlds, although this would force me to rewrite lots of history, politics and diplomacy.

There could be some kind of (unwritten, ancient ?) "agreement" between the Mamprusi and the humans that allows for conflicts between individuals, but bans wars - perhaps something based on certain goods or services only the Mamprusi can provide, and would withhold in the case of a war ? Deeper in The Green, this kind of cooperation between Mamprusi and humans would not exist, and therefore hostilities would be more likely and common ... Besides, these Mamprusi ... they would make an interesting addition to my water world colony, perhaps as "guest workers" or thelike ... originally I wanted to avoid the introduction of humanoid aliens, but this race is really a temptation ...

Just for the record: After taking a look at the star charts I have decided that the Shared World (whatever its final name will be) is in my universe's System 0801 of the Demara Sector, right beyond "the edge of nowhere" in unexplored territory, and approximately 19 lightyears from Pharos IV.

Thank you very much, especially for the skill values ! This was exactly what I needed to continue working on my "homebrew-to- BRP-translation" of my setting.

Yep, I think this would be a very good idea. If you make them rare enough to avoid serious "ecology problems" (e.g. what do they feed on, etc.), and perhaps move them a little bit more towards strange dinosaurs, they would fit my "mental picture" of The Green perfectly well - not that they have to fit my imagination, this is just my opinion.

A more and more fascinating region - and then the Corsair city and the Grulks you mentioned ... Keep going, please !

I know, I agree, I apologize ... but in my mind Warhammer always remained associated with tabletop wargaming, and the fact that Dark Heresy once again was military oriented did not help much ... sorry, but that is how my old brain works (at least it used to, before that Alzheimer crawled in ...)

In fact, I have never seen Warhammer as a "real" roleplaying game, from my point of view it was always more a tabletop game with some roleplaying ele- ments. Over the years the roleplaying elements became more and more, but at the core it remained a tabletop wargame - at least that is how I saw it.

In my case, this has nothing to do with your proposal, in fact I like the "Guar- dians of the Green" idea. It is just bad luck that dinosaur-riding lizard-people (usually with an Aztec touch) seem to be the newest fashion in German fan- tasy RPGs - everybody publishes them, everybody plays them, and I am fed up with them. But that has nothing to do with The Green, it is just a personal dislike, which should not influence the work here.

Good to know that I am not alone. I find WoW about as fascinating and en- tertaining as watching paint drying or reading phone books. It was very interesting to read your posting, because over here I usually hear the opposite complaint: Modern RPGs have too much setting and not enough "action", young players love "narrativism" instead of going out and killing mon- sters, the good old days of "powergaming" are gone, and so on. Perhaps you had just a streak of extremely bad luck with the players you met ?

With a different name and a different culture, I do not think that your Mam- prusi could be mistaken for Baboons. Besides, "ape races" are common in many African and Asian legends, they are not tied to Runequest. As for the size, I would think that somewhere between 120 cm and 160 cm (standing upright) - slightly smaller than real-world gorillas - would be suffi- cient. Much smaller, and it would become difficult to imagine them in a con- flict with the Trogod; much bigger, and they would become "monsters" in- stead of a potential player race.

Well, I think it would be a good idea to at least "rename" the more typical ra- ces (Elves, Orcs), and I would prefer to see them all as different cultures of Trogods, with the differences more in their cultures than in their physical attributes. Forest-living Trogods could replace the Elves, Mountain-Living Trogods the Orcs. The only race that gives me a bit of a headache are the dragon-riding, man- eating lizard people. Unfortunately I have seen such a race a bit too often recently, and I would very much prefer to see a completely different lizard people culture for a change, perhaps a peaceful race with a high culture.

As mentioned elsewhere, there are a couple of features I would like The Green to have, in order to make it possible to "link" it with my science fiction world: - a nearby Gate, preferably in a flooded cave (because the Gate on Pharos IV is in a flooded room of a ruined outpost of an aquatic alien race), - a coastline which is not too densely populated by the natives (because the spaceships my colonists use land on water, and they would prefer some un- inhabited coast to go ashore), - cultures which do not entirely rely on powerful magic (because this would enable me to treat the magic either as a kind of psionics or as the cultu- res' religions - "Well, they believe in it, and that it works, but actually..."), - some kind of a trading center, and perhaps some unique trade goods, like special woods, pharmaceutical herbs, etc. (because my colonists would most probably visit The Green's world to trade for "land goods" not available on their water world - and then other adventures could follow). These few features, which would probably not be difficult to integrate, would allow my colonists to discover The Green through the Gate and later visit it per spaceship for additional adventures - and the Gate could just as well al- low characters from The Green's world to visit Pharos IV (provided they have a non-magic method for diving). Otherwise, I like the Trogods and all that has been proposed for The Green in the Wiki.

Warlords of Alexander is a truly fascinating setting you may find in this fo- rum's download section.

You could put it where Konstantinopel / Byzanz / Istambul was / is in our real world, turning the Bosporus + Dardanelles into the River Jule, I think. This would give it a rather central position, which would be fine, since it will probably become an important adventure site.