rust

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".

Rust, I was thinking, would it be helpful to start a new wiki and a new thread for a sci-fi Green? ...

One issue I that kind of brought this to mind was the Ashuli ...

I was thinking of using a very similar concept for a minor race called a Tree Kraken (for lack of a better term).

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.

Everything is in channels: the limbs, the roots, the rivers. To go off these paths would be possible, but dangerous. ...

Close to the mountains are the sky steps.These I thought would be more so-lid ground where people could go to earth. ...

As the Green nears the coast I thought it would break into a morass of mangroves and salt marshes, still very hard to navigate through.

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.

What, you don't like dinosaur-riding lizard-folk? Whever not?

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.

World of Warcraft ... I find it to be a trite game with no depth and no personality.

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.

the wondrous city of Asherayne ...

Any thoughts where in the world it could be?

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.

Originally I thought that the green was going to be able to work for both fantasy and Sci fi worlds with just a few adjustments that could be cut and plugged where the GM needed them. Now it looks like there will almost need to be two greens: one for fantasy and another for sci-fi. Of course the basic write-up could be used for both.

My world's universe does already include a mixed fantasy-science fiction-sys-

tem designed by a group of gamers. In their Solabar system the "Elder Races"

(fantasy, use magic, etc.) have retreated to one of the system's planets, and

the "Younger Races" (including humans, use science fiction technology, etc.)

have established their settlements on two other planets of the system.

I first considered this a rather crazy idea, but meanwhile I have played seve-

ral "crossover adventures" with characters from my Pharos IV visiting the So-

labar system, and it worked just fine - the "fantasy creatures" are treated as

"low-tech aliens with strange powers", and I really did not have to change a

lot to make Solabar playable for my SF group.

So, I see no problem at all with The Green becoming predominantly fantasy,

I will doubtless still be able to use and enjoy this setting. And I think that

other SF-GMs will also be able to make the few necessary changes without

serious problems.

Originally, The gorges coming out of the mountains contained gates. One of the major gorges was called the gate teeth

Ah, now I have a language problem: The gorges are the valleys where the

rivers come out of the mountain range, right ?

If so, perhaps you could include some kind of (at least partially) water-filled

cave system (labyrinth ?) under the mountains, as a Gate in a flooded cave

would make the perfect "other end" of the Gate I already located in a similar

place on Pharos IV ?