The Green

[Puck]

I recently sent in the monograph of The Green to Chaosium. Dustin let me know that they have received it and it may be finished by January. I just hope there are no bugbears lurking in the shadows.

The Green is a fantasy setting occurring in a densely-forested arboreal continent. The Green draws on a number of different ideas and should resemble a mixture of the New World Americas or Africa of our own world, the Endor of Star Wars, or Aborea of Flash Gordon. It should have something of the feel of early fantasy and sci-fi stories of Burroughs with just a tad of King Kong’s Skull Island added in for flavor.

Although a full fantasy setting on its own, the Green can be adapted to fit other existing settings without too much trouble. For those who are not looking for a new setting, the Green offers a pile of ideas that can be cannibalized and brought to any jungle or forested regions of existing game worlds.

The Green consists of:

Introduction: An overview of the land.

1. Cultures Under the Canopy:

Details a number of different cultures and playable races including stats and backgrounds. It includes:

The Nefira: Tree-faring Humans who have adapted to living in the Green. They have developed their own culture, dwelling high in the canopies above the murky swamps.

Rivermen: Both local tribesmen and newcomers from the world beyond who make their livings and seek their fortunes on the river arteries that lead into the jungles. The dense forests of the Green hold a fortune of valuable tree products, and factions from the outer world are competing to establish trade routes into the land.

Hillmen: Tribes of fierce metal-wielding barbarians who live in the mountains that skirt the Green. They have great reverence for the powers of Stone and Earth. Some tribes follow the cult of an ancestor-hero while others look to their earth witches for guidance.

The Goblins or Trogod are a race seeped in animalistic traditions. Each tribe and sub-race looks to particular animal totems for meaning, ritual, and magic.

The Tree Children: a pygmy race living in the canopies of the Green. The Tree Children are accomplished weavers of the wealding or tree magic.

Mamprusi: A species of intelligent apes.

Morpa: The Morpa are a highly magical long-lived race that resemble sloths. They, like the Tree Children, are potent users of the Wealding Way.

2. Glyphic Magic:

Introduces a new magic system (not anything terribly new or complicated), and numerous new magic traditions (Cults). These traditions take up considerable space in the document as they make up a large part of the society of the Green.

Magic is based on Glyphs and Totems. The spells and other magic characters can use are dependent upon the Glyphs or totems that their traditions teach.

Also included is a section on alchemy and potion brewing. The various flora of the Green has proven highly valuable as ingredients for potions, both magical and mundane.

3. Bestiary:

A number of new creatures to inhabit the forested land.

4. A Gazetteer:

Describes the major settlements and ruins of the liana hung world.

5. Game Master Section: Suggestions of how to adjust the Green to playing styles as well as how to adapt the Green to existing game worlds. It also discusses many of the legends and myths that could lurk in the verdant jungles.

6. Adventure Hooks and suggestions for campaigns and events.

Unfortunately, the Green does not include specific statistics for individuals. I was constantly trying to keep the page count down and decided that was one place where I could do it. It also does not include an introductory adventure (Sorry Triff). At a certain point I just had to go with what I had finished, otherwise I would be working on the thing forever and it would not have seen the light of day. There is an adventure that is about ready to go though.

Warning

As I am a novice and have never really written gaming books before, I am sure that there are some problems with the monograph. There was too much stuff to properly play test, and I wrote the whole thing in a bit of a vacuum. I have never been a real stickler when it came to role-playing rules…story always came first. I also felt that I was walking a fine line between being new and unique, and adding so many new names and ideas that the world took a huge effort to understand. I hope the mistakes are not overwhelming.

I had hoped that I could support the Green from this website, adding personalities, maps, new traditions, or adventures. This is provided it is O.K. with Triff and causes no other legal problems with Chaosium. If anyone is inclined to write stuff for the Green I would greatly welcome it as well as any other input or help. The monograph is merely a starting point. I of course would love to see the Green grow and I believe there are a lot of possibilities still lurking in the shadows under the boughs.

[Thalaba]

Sounds great - nice blurb! - sounds like something I'll be getting!

[threedeesix]

I recently sent in the monograph of The Green to Chaosium. Dustin let me know that they have received it and it may be finished by January. I just hope there are no bugbears lurking in the shadows.

Congrats Puck, I am so eager to get my hands on this.

Rod

[Agentorange]

Put me down for a copy...it sounds good.

[Jarulf]

Sounds very interesting.

[Puck]

Thanks all! Hopefully, it will live up to expectations.

[threedeesix]

feel of early fantasy and sci-fi stories of Burroughs

Oh cool, I missed this. Make it happen faster damn it. Pellucidar and Caspak, here I come.

Rod

[Rurik]

Great news. Sign me up for a copy come January.

[Vorax Transtellaris]

The fact that there's little rules-related stuff in this only makes it better as I am now planning to integrate this into a sword & sorcery setting using Barbarians of Lemuria.

[Puck]

Oh cool, I missed this. Make it happen faster damn it. Pellucidar and Caspak, here I come.

I was kinding of aiming at this sort of feel: large animals, dinosaurs, and wierd tribes. I was reading Doyle and Burroughs in the middle of writing it. I think this shows up most in the Monster section.

The fact that there's little rules-related stuff in this only makes it better as I am now planning to integrate this into a sword & sorcery setting using Barbarians of Lemuria.

I do not want to give the wrong impression, there are crunchy rules bits in it, I am just a little worried at how well I carried them off. Gm's should see this material as rough guidelines and feel free to tinker. I tried to leave the normal BRP options open and that made a few things a little difficult.

I would like to think the Green could link into Barbarians of Lemuria pretty well.

[threedeesix]

I was kinding of aiming at this sort of feel: large animals, dinosaurs, and wierd tribes. I was reading Doyle and Burroughs in the middle of writing it. I think this shows up most in the Monster section.

Awesome, what Burroughs? I'm a huge fan of his lost worlds stuff. When I was trying to decide what to write for Chosium, I jotted down five ideas, of which Classic Fantasy was one, another was a Lost Worlds setting.

mmmm... dinosaurs.

Rod

[seneschal]

What? No love for H. Rider Haggard? Lost tribes and jungle queens? (sob!)

Much as I enjoy Burroughs, I don't think Conan Doyle gets the attention and respect he deserves. No Lost World, no Land That Time Forgot or Jurassic Park.

It's not easy being Green!

[threedeesix]

What? No love for H. Rider Haggard? Lost tribes and jungle queens? (sob!)

Much as I enjoy Burroughs, I don't think Conan Doyle gets the attention and respect he deserves. No Lost World, no Land That Time Forgot or Jurassic Park.

It's not easy being Green!

I admit, Doyle set the stage. But Burroughs filled that stage with dinosaurs and scantily clad jungle princesses. Those were my two favorite things as an adolescent young boy, and I cant really say I like it any less as an adult.

Seriously, I loved The Lost World when I first discovered it in my school library. I must have been about 9 or 10, so it still holds a special place in my heart. But come on... scantily clad jungle princesses! :thumb:

[seneschal]

That's what H. Rider Haggard's She is for!

[Vorax Transtellaris]

I was kinding of aiming at this sort of feel: large animals, dinosaurs, and wierd tribes. I was reading Doyle and Burroughs in the middle of writing it. I think this shows up most in the Monster section.

I do not want to give the wrong impression, there are crunchy rules bits in it, I am just a little worried at how well I carried them off. Gm's should see this material as rough guidelines and feel free to tinker. I tried to leave the normal BRP options open and that made a few things a little difficult.

I would like to think the Green could link into Barbarians of Lemuria pretty well.

I may also use it with Call of Cthulhu so the BRP content is not lost on me . It's just that for a sword & sorcery setting that will serve as the prehistory of my Call of Cthulhu 1920s BoL seems like the perfect system, rather than the more deadly and skill-focused BRP that fits Call of Cthulhu better. The Green will then feature in both eras as a kind of land that time forgot. Edited December 7, 2009 by Vorax Transtellaris

[Puck]

Hmmm. I have never read Rider Haggard. I may have to look it up.

When I first started thinking about the Green I was thinking along the lines of a world of huge trees. I was always fascinated by this type of world whether it was Niven's Integral Trees or Arboria. I always enjoyed climbing trees and often played and dreamed about worlds were people live in and adventured in trees. I came to BRP through Runequest so I tried to imagine a world like Glorantha, but set in these huge forests rather than the Praxian plains.

The forest naturally led to the Rivers which would be the easiest way to travel in a flooded country. That is where connections to literature really started humming. The Green started seeming like the Heart of Darkness or any one of the lost-world type settings. I always thought that the Green would be for fantasy or possibly, with a stretch, sci-fi setting. I had forgotten that Burroughs and others had mixed fantasy or at least prehistoric worlds with the modern age long ago.

Not long after several people suggested it as a Cthulhu setting. I had never dreamt of that, but if done right it could be rather cool.

The Green does have a mythos or legends of its own, as well as a suggested outer world. One of the prime elements of the Green is the Outworlders or Ichorites (Alchemists) who are setting up forts and outposts along the rivers. These will need to change or be adapted to fit the setting of the outside world.

Edited December 7, 2009 by Puck

[rust]

I may also use it with Call of Cthulhu ...

This is how I intend to use The Green, most probably as a region of the Love-

craftian Dreamlands that at the same time mirrors the distant past of the set-

ting, so that the characters can both be sent back "in time" and "into fanta-

sy" to solve a problem of the setting's timeline in the 1920s.

[seneschal]

Hmmm. I have never read H. Rider Haggard. I may have to look it up.

He invented the "lost worlds" sub-genre of adventure fiction. King Solomon's Mines and She, both set in Africa, are his two best-known novels but he wrote others. Like Burroughs and Lovecraft, his novels haven't been adapted faithfully to the screen. While there are several movie versions of each tale, I'd read the books to really get the flavor. He did the whole lost city, white goddess thing before Burroughs or Howard.

[frogspawner]

He [Rider Haggard] invented the "lost worlds" sub-genre of adventure fiction.

Apparently, he's also regarded as very "of his time" (the euphemism for grotesquely racist and sexist). Enjoy!

[rust]

Haggard's most interesting (and influential) character most probably was

the adventurer Allan Quatermain, in my view a direct ancestor of now more

famous characters like Indiana Jones:

Allan Quatermain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[rust]

Apparently, he's also regarded as very "of his time" (the euphemism for grotesquely racist and sexist).

This would surprise me, in my opinion Haggard's treatment both of non-Euro-

peans and of women was surprisingly progressive for his time.

[seneschal]

Apparently, he's also regarded as very "of his time" (the euphemism for grotesquely racist and sexist). Enjoy!

No more so than Kipling, Burroughs, Stevenson or Howard or any of the jungle adventure movies of the 1930s-'60s. Alan Quartermain, despite his British colonial outlook, respects the African tribesmen he works with and tries to treat them justly. She (Who Must Be Obeyed) displays the ultimate in Grrrrl Power before it became a concept (and could give Narnia's White Witch a run for her money). If we're going to get all politically correct, we won't be able to read any adventure fiction written before Charles Saunders' Imaro series, which is also very much a "product of its time" (the 1970s, Angry Black Man Betrayed By His People, All White People Are Evil, etc.).

[Puck]

King Solomon's Mines and She, both set in Africa, are his two best-known novels but he wrote others.

Doooough! Sound of fist slamming skull!

I have read "King Solomon's Mines" and quick looked through it for cool quotes for the Green within the last year. Good stuff. Somehow the name "Haggard" never stuck in my mind as the author. I have not read "She" though.

[seneschal]

She has a very different feel than King Solomon's Mines, although it also involves a quest into the hinterland. Part romantic melodrama, part horror, and as I've said, its the origin of all the "white goddess of the jungle" plots you've seen in old movies and comics. There was also a sequel, Ayesha: The Return of She, which I started but unfortunately didn't get to finish. She was too good a character to give only one novel to.

William Henry Hudson's Green Mansions (1904) isn't as action-packed but also involves an eerie white jungle goddess, Rima, the Bird-Girl. Set in Venezuela, it very much evokes the deep woods.

Also check out Abraham G. Merritt, author of The Moon Pool, The Metal Monster, and The Face in the Abyss, among others. He wrote a lot of lost worlds type tales. Face in the Abyss is set in a hidden location in South America, not unlike The Lost World or Green Mansions.

[pulpcitizen]

Put me down for a copy...it sounds good.

I'll be in for this also. Congratulations.