frogspawner

I like the idea of mammoth, woolly rhino and musk-ox riders. And camels, certainly. I think I mentioned Moa-riders before (you know, the now-extinct giant flightless birds from New Zealand), or possibly Giant Dodo's? Continuing the prehistoric (but post-dinosaur) theme, maybe sabre-tooth tigers, similar to the wargs from the LotR films (easy to find figures!). And of course, various types of frogs... PS: For realism's sake, maybe have mammalian ones from one continent, and reptilian from another?

When a contradiction arises, it's not a problem - it's an opportunity to create more diversity, and so make the setting richer. Don't edit out contradictions: make up something else, that explains why the world is (seemingly) contradictory...

Thanks guys. It helps to start the day - hauling out of bed and finding you have become a god! I guess folks'll start bugging me for Divine Interventions now, though... :ohwell: PS: "incredibly evil" too - nice! >:->

Spawn 'em, then make everyone wear frog-skins would be more like it. Oh, just wait till someone mis-spells your name Mr Atgtxg, then who'll be laughing, eh? Eh?

That's what I did to create it in the first place, tracing the Ptolemy original. It didn't take long. I'd suggest doing that again, rather than tracing mine.

Say what you like about me or my maps, but get the name right...

I meant AutoRealm can export in WMF (Windows Metafile) format, or EML or some sort of XML (not just images). If CC can't handle the concept of flat 'worlds', I guess it'd just have to be a plain ordinary map...

Would .WMF/.EMF versions of the map I did in AutoRealm be useful, to import into CC3/FT? Or even it's native ".AuR", or ".AuRX" (XML-style) formats?

But of course: the wondrous city of Asherayne, now known as Portal, bisected north/south by the (mighty?) River Jule, surrounded by barbarian tribal lands, and with mountains beyond haunted by degenerate remnants of the Akershule sorcerors (Azirgnoth?) who built it... Any thoughts where in the world it could be?

Technically, the Gates idea was to enable travel between the non-shared worlds - so SharedWorld is the one that actually doesn't need gates. (But the concept seems popular enough that people want to include them anyway - which is nice). I'd say The Green could be a Gate in itself: if you finally manage to hack/paddle your way out from it's claustrophobic depths, who knows what world you may find yourself in...?

Precisely what I was thinking - but you beat me to it! The version I was working on also has the scorched desert areas around Sky Mountain...

Well, one of the first votes might very well be whether to have a separate SharedWorld (galaxy?) for Sci-Fi, like someone suggested. And if we do, that shouldn't be a problem. But maybe just Yes/No's would be simpler. After all, what if a "sort of" option won the poll? Yes, I hope Mr T will volunteer as supervisor of this sort of thing: deciding how to phrase polls, checking they're properly proposed, spotting multiple voters... I also hope that we will get lots of different ideas (even conflicting ones) - and can build up a rich background/mythology to reconcile them all...

We've had one of these polls already: Average Age...

Darn. Looks like Bunnies & Burrows might be in for a renaissance in Bavaria, though...

Would they also ban Lego? About the first thing kids (well, boys) make with the stuff is guns or swords...

From a point in the "RPG Twilight" thread, about calls to ban human-killing games, maybe SharedWorld should have no Humans...

:focus: Does no-one have any suggestions for a process of taking decisions?

Well, we are discussing a fantasy world over there, but I see no reason why it can't be Nivenesque. That's part of what we're trying to thrash out. I suspect this thread is related.

You're too kind. Any suggestions, that might satisfy the non-earthers? (And, have any been rendered into CCx/FT already?) Even a notional 27km should be plenty if the 'earth' is flat, or slightly bowl-shaped... Sorry, do you mean you're ok with the sun rising above the mountain steadily during the day (after coming up through it from Below), or not? If not, and he's there all day, what gives dawn and dusk?

Well, I have a points system where you have to pay extra for races that have advantages over humans.

A thought about the Sun/Sky Mountain: how about if, instead of sitting there on top of the mountain all day, the Sun God emerges from the 200-mile plus mountain at dawn, sits in his throne, and rises straight up for a few thousand miles until noon, then comes back down again by dusk? That should scorch the nearby lands nicely, keep the mountain short, and preserve 'sunrise/sunset'-type terminonlogy (which I bet people would slip into). The mountain could be a hollow tube - essentially a heat shield. PS: how tall is the highest mountain in the solar system?

I think most people aren't keen on the idea, but ever-hopeful, I'll try again! Using some Earth geography - and, I'm assuming, some ancient cultures too - gives an advantage of instant familiarity. But making it clearly not Earth shows Authors/GMs they can play around with it, and not worry about slavish historical accuracy. There should be enough details like The Green and Asherayne (yes, and maybe even Sky Mountain) on it to show that it's not Earth. I'll also say, if you're worried about slipping into the 'bog-standard middle ages', then firmly planting the ancient cultures there helps avoid that. (Oh, and I like the link it gives to RQ3!) My rationale is that the Sphere passed Earth, some of the gods saw it and said 'What if?' - and re-created a pseudo-earth as one of their playthings... Certainly not! But CC3/FT may be good for creating nice-looking pictures - with swirling clouds, and so forth. (AutoRealm may be free, but hard/impossible work to produce good-looking stuff, unless I'm missing the tricks). Great!

I held back from skewing Spain. Who am I to criticize Ptolemy? Besides, I still reckon using a recognizable fantasy Earth, clearly not the original one, is a bonus. Is there any point hiding it's origins, when people can trace them via this forum (or ask us)? We can gain the benefit of 'instant familiarity' by using known geography and a few pseudo-historical cultures. (Plus the link back to RQ3...) Hopefully the dizzying effect is just the low-quality of the jpeg. The original can zoom to any view you like, without loss. Frankly, I think the Sky Mountain is daft. But if that's what people want... Currently it is 250 miles across the base, but still looks piddly. I'll try doubling it (that'd make it 500 miles high, too - is that enough?) - later. It's not really central either, since I put it where the Himalayas should be, in a vain attempt at realism. But there's two approaches to fixing that: 1) Move it to the Caspian Sea; 2) expand the map China-wards, so it's current location becomes central. Given that deserts are wanted around it, I'd favour 2. Opinions?

More mountains, more sea/ocean, a sky mountain, and a flipped version. Does it look any better yet?

Thanks for the comments. No strawberry-flavoured swamps, though - sorry. Can't claim credit for anything creative, essentially I just traced the old world map ascribed to Ptolemy (same one as RQ3 Fantasy Earth was based on), plus Mr T's "Islandia" map, and filled the gaps with a fractal line-drawing tool. Donkey work. (In AutoRealm, btw, which I haven't used much so I'm not sure how easy any flipping operation would be... ) Posting, I just clicked the "Manage Attachments" button, then Browse to get an "Upload file from my computer" and hit Upload (and ignored the stuff about maximum file sizes!). Never done it before, but it seemed to work, after a fashion. I'll hold off doing anything more for a short while, in case anyone else wants to give feedback, or if anyone else has anything better. I thought Rurik might be working on one, since he mentioned he had Campaign Cartographer?