The Green

[Puck]

The Green also reminds me of Brian W. Aldiss's "The Long Afternoon of Earth".

I am going to have to add that to my reading list.

I hope the final result will bear more resemblance to "The Integral Trees" than to just primordial forest fantasy.

I am afraid that it turned out to be just a primordial forest fantasy. :ohwell: Originally I tried to make it more open ended, but as the cultures, races, and particularly magic developed, the world became more and more a fantasy world. Not that it couldn't be used as a Journey to the Center of the Earth type thing or even an arboreal planet for space opera type adventures. I think a little too much of the book got wrapped up into the varying magical cultures bit.

It is difficult to include interesting or anything close to detailed social interactions with the outside worlds when you do not know the dominant cultures or even tech levels of the outside world. I just kind of assumed the people coming into the Green from the outer world had tech levels anywhere from the Ancient World to the Renaissance and assumed they used magic. Anything else may require a little shoe horning.

Hopefully the giant tangled forests of the Green and their denizens will end up just familiar enough to ground them and make the setting easy to play in, but new and original enough to be fun and exciting for gms and players alike.

I think I am pretty much done with the writing (depending on how close to 200 pages it ends up. I may have a lot of leftover sections). A great deal of editing and messing around with the format still needs to be done though.

Thanks for the interest Vorax. Hopefully, the Green is still something that may prove interesting to you.

[Vorax Transtellaris]

I'll certainly keep following its development and make up my mind about it after I have read a couple of reviews.

I do like the idea of this massive forest with different sentient races and cultures living and interacting in it. I don't mind magic per se. I am just not too fond of fantasy races that are too similar to the overly well-known dwarves, elves, trolls, etc. I was sort of expecting kind of "foresty" races, if that makes any sense. Beings and cultures adapted to life in The Green since that is where they evolved. Beings and cultures that seem weird and exotic to outsiders.

The thing is I would want to use The Green as a place my 1920s CoC investigators could travel to and it should not resemble anything that may be found in the dreamlands. I guess that's rather specific.

Nevertheless, even if it turns out not to be what I'm looking for I am sure lots of people will love it, because the idea is really cool and exciting.

Edited April 25, 2009 by Vorax Transtellaris

[Conrad]

The thing is I would want to use The Green as a place my 1920s CoC investigators could travel to and it should not resemble anything that may be found in the dreamlands. I guess that's rather specific.

Nevertheless, even if it turns out not to be what I'm looking for I am sure lots of people will love it, because the idea is really cool and exciting.

Having been priviliged to read some of the prepublished files I'd say that

The Green reminds me most of Runequests Glorantha in its cultures, though Zoogs might not be out of place there and I think I'm going to put the little beasties in my game of The Green.:thumb:

The ideas are really cool and exciting. I think that Puck should have gone to Chaosium to get this done as a proper publication, not as a monograph. But that would delay its release for a much longer time.

Edited April 28, 2009 by Conrad

[Puck]

The thing is I would want to use The Green as a place my 1920s CoC investigators could travel to and it should not resemble anything that may be found in the dreamlands. I guess that's rather specific.

That is odd. CoC was the last type of BRP setting I was thinking of when I was writing this, but this has been mentioned more than once. I have not really played much CoC, but your post has me thinking a little. Huge amounts of Sci Fi was written about lost continents. A lot of these were written in Victorian times or early 20th century. I cannot see why the Green would not work very well as a Pellucidar or a Skull Island. Their is a malignant or chaotic force/sorcery/religion in the Green called the Une. There is no reason that that could not easily be grafted into something Lovecraftian. I have not read Dreamlands so it is hard for me to say, although I am guessing the Green will not resemble it at all. Think Skull Island/Pellucidar/Glorantha with big trees. :thumb:

The Green reminds me most of Runequests Glorantha in its cultures, though Zoogs might not be out of place there.

The ideas are really cool and exciting.

Thanks. I am very flattered. That is pretty much what I was aiming for. Hopefully, I can hit the mark. :thumb:

I am not sure what Zoogs are?:confused:

Edited April 25, 2009 by Puck

[Vorax Transtellaris]

That is odd. CoC was the last type of BRP setting I was thinking of when I was writing this, but this has been mentioned more than once. (...) There is a malignant or chaotic force/sorcery/religion in the Green called the Une. There is no reason that that could not easily be grafted into something Lovecraftian. I have not read Dreamlands so it is hard for me to say, although I am guessing the Green will not resemble it at all. Think Skull Island/Pellucidar/Glorantha with big trees.

I am not familiar with any of those places except of course Skull Island as depicted in the 1933 version of King Kong. A place like that would be great to use in CoC.

The setting/scenario doesn't have to be particularly Lovecraftian but I would like it to sort of fit in with that pulpy, mysterious adventure and exploration atmosphere of the weird tales and fantastic cinema of the 1920s and '30s. IMHO elves, dwarves and trolls do not fit in with that.

The "malignant or chaotic force/sorcery/religion in the Green called the Une" does sound good! :thumb:

(...)I am not sure what Zoogs are?:confused:

They're a kind of Dreamlands creature. I am guessing Conrad misread my post, assuming I do want it to fit in with the Dreamlands, but I do not. So Zoogs should not be in The Green.

[Conrad]

. IMHO elves, dwarves and trolls do not fit in with that.

The "malignant or chaotic force/sorcery/religion in the Green called the Une" does sound good! :thumb:

From what I've read there aren't any elves or dwarves in The Green. The Bog Trolls I'm sure you could convert to something suitably Lovecraftian or not.

.

They're a kind of Dreamlands creature. I am guessing Conrad misread my post, assuming I do want it to fit in with the Dreamlands, but I do not. So Zoogs should not be in The Green.

I didn't misread your post. I'm trying to say that the background to The Green is versatile enough to fit into any fantasy setting, including Lovecraft's Dreamlands.

Edited April 28, 2009 by Conrad

[Vorax Transtellaris]

From what I've read there aren't any elves or dwarves in The Green. The Bog Trolls I'm sure you could convert to something suitably Lovecraftian.

Theoretically you can convert anything into anything. The usefulness of the supplement of course depends on how much converting it would take for it to fit my rather specific needs .

However, even if it doesn't fit those needs, I might still order it if it turns out to be interesting and different enough as an independent sci-fi/fantasy setting. As I said before, the whole concept sounds very promising! :thumb:

I didn't misread your post. I'm trying to say that the background to The Green is versatile enough to fit into any fantasy setting, including Lovecraft's Dreamlands.

Then I misinterpreted your post .

I would personally like to use The Green as an undiscovered, unexplored "lost world", either on earth or on another planet. Travelling there could be by the usual means, by an experimental spaceship or by an interstellar/interdimensional gate.

Puck, The Green also reminds me of an episode in the comic series Storm titled The Green Hell. Here's a link to the Wikpedia page: Storm (Don Lawrence) - Wikipedia.

In this link you can take a look at a preview of the book: Storm 4 preview.

Edited April 26, 2009 by Vorax Transtellaris

[rust]

I would personally like to use The Green as an undiscovered, unexplored "lost world", either on earth or on another planet. Travelling there could be by the usual means, by an experimental spaceship or by an interstellar/interdimensional gate.

I used the predecessor of The Green, when it still was a Shared World pro-

ject, as a "lost colony" accessible both through a "portal" and by starship

in my Pharos IV campaign, and it worked extremely well - so much so that

I have to admit that I am very much tempted to find a similar role for The

Green in my new Anuira science fiction setting.

[Conrad]

Then I misinterpreted your post .

I would personally like to use The Green as an undiscovered, unexplored "lost world", either on earth or on another planet. Travelling there could be by the usual means, by an experimental spaceship or by an interstellar/interdimensional gate.

The Green appears to be humanocentric, from the files I've read, so its use as a lost world or planet of transplanted humans and plants wouldn't be hard to do.

Planetary romance would be a good genre for the setting. The Green could be Venus from Space 1889. Wasn't there supposed to be a proper Chaosium publication with pulp planetary adventures in it?>:-> I wonder what Jason Durall's version of Venus is like and if The Green would slot into that setting?

Edited April 28, 2009 by Conrad

[Puck]

Puck, The Green also reminds me of an episode in the comic series Storm titled The Green Hell.

Yep, this is very close. So close in fact that from what I can (I cannot read the captions very well) tell that that comic could be the Green itself.

The Green does include a few fantasy races, but they are not quite the typical elves and dwarves:

The Maprusi are intelligent apes (like the comic).

The Tree Children are pygmies who live in boughs and use wood magic.

The Togod (called goblins by mankind) are Similar to orcs, but use Totemic magic. They often take on the features and abilities of their tribe or clan's totem animal.

The Morpa are rare, scholarly, sloth-like beings. Who, like the tree-children, use wood magic.

Although there are a few others that is the maine line-up. :thumb:

[Vorax Transtellaris]

Yep, this is very close. So close in fact that from what I can (I cannot read the captions very well) tell that that comic could be the Green itself.

The Green does include a few fantasy races, but they are not quite the typical elves and dwarves:

The Maprusi are intelligent apes (like the comic).

The Tree Children are pygmies who live in boughs and use wood magic.

The Togod (called goblins by mankind) are Similar to orcs, but use Totemic magic. They often take on the features and abilities of their tribe or clan's totem animal.

The Morpa are rare, scholarly, sloth-like beings. Who, like the tree-children, use wood magic.

Although there are a few others that is the maine line-up. :thumb:

sounds good sounds good :thumb:

It may be that the only thing I may have to adapt is the appearance of the different races/species. I want them to be green or have a plant or tree-like appearance, so they really are part of the ecosystem they live in. One (or perhaps even more) race/species of intelligent apes also fits in very well. (This might even be converted to Eden Studios' Terra Primate for an action-packed one-shot! Including Unisystem stats in an appendix. )

Still very much interested!

P.S. Have you considered adding a sentient fungus? :cool:

Edited April 27, 2009 by Vorax Transtellaris

[Vorax Transtellaris]

Any news on this?

[Puck]

The project seems to be in suspended animation for a while. Most of it is already written but there are many loose ends (actually a bunch will probably need to be cut as I think it is a little long to fit in a monograph). A great part still needs to be edited and the whole thing needs to be properly formatted. Right from the start I knew those things would be trouble for me to accomplish but a number of friends assured me that they would be willing to do that stuff and seemed excited about it. I believe it is a little more work than they originally counted on though and I go for months without hearing from them. I am afraid that at the rate things are going I will be in retirement before the Green is actually sent in.

I am often tempted to just forget the monograph and to post what I have already written here in the Shared world again. The bonus with that is that can be an ongoing thing and does not have to have a definite finish, and most importantly I can put stuff out sooner.

P.S. Have you considered adding a sentient fungus?

I have certainly considered it, but I have a prejudice somewhere in my imagination against such things. Glorantha did it well with dark elves, but otherwise, perhaps because of movies, comics, and pictures I have seen, they seem very corny and low budget. It is just a matter of personal taste though (I prefer to eat mushrooms on pizzas rather than fighting them with spears:)).

A type of fungus does grow on a number of creatures giving them the look of living or crawling plants. Others have natural camouflage making them resemble vegetation. Hopefully this can kind of fill in the role of animated plants.

[MrJealousy]

I believe it is a little more work than they originally counted on though and I go for months without hearing from them.

Well it is a lot of work, requires dedication, fixed attention, and perseverance. If they said they could help, I'm sure they wont mind if you give them a gentle prod now and then. If they can't do it, hopefully, they will tell you.

I am often tempted to just forget the monograph and to post what I have already written here in the Shared world again.

That sounds like giving up talk! Stick to yer guns mate. It'll be worth it in the end :-)

[Vorax Transtellaris]

About the sentient fungus:

I don't mean an animated mushroom, I mean a fungus that has a kind of hive mind which can perhaps telepathically communicate with or influence the minds of people who come in contact with part of it, perhaps by merely touching it, by inhaling its spores or by eating its fruitbodies (the actual mushrooms).

Some fungi are among the biggest lifeforms in existence. The mycelium can spread over the whole surface of a forest, with each cell sharing the same DNA.

Imagine these cells forming a kind of intelligence. It would be almost as if The Green itself was sentient. Whoa! :cool:

This fungus could be revered as a kind of deity by some of the forest dwellers or it could be perceived of as a sacred medium by which to communicate with The Green itself.

Fungi are not plants, by the way.

Edited June 15, 2009 by Vorax Transtellaris

[Puck]

That sounds like giving up talk! Stick to yer guns mate. It'll be worth it in the end :-)

Thanks for the encouragement. I have a couple of possibilities that could work out yet. I just get very impatient at times .

I don't mean an animated mushroom, I mean a fungus that has a kind of hive mind which can perhaps telepathically communicate with or influence the minds of people who come in contact with part of it, perhaps by merely touching it, by inhaling its spores or by eating its fruitbodies (the actual mushrooms).

That does sounds much better than what I originally imagined. There are areas of the forest that are infected with a chaos/evil magic called the Une. Twisted forms of giant mushrooms, lichens and mosses are heavy there. Never thought about them having hive-mind intelligence though. mm.... Could be the seeds for an adventure.

[Conrad]

The project seems to be in suspended animation for a while. Most of it is already written but there are many loose ends (actually a bunch will probably need to be cut as I think it is a little long to fit in a monograph). A great part still needs to be edited and the whole thing needs to be properly formatted. Right from the start I knew those things would be trouble for me to accomplish but a number of friends assured me that they would be willing to do that stuff and seemed excited about it.

I offered to proofread any material for typos and to correct them but I've not been contacted for a while. .

[Puck]

I offered to proofread any material for typos and to correct them but I've not been contacted for a while. .

And a very great help you have been, particularly as an experienced BRPer. I am very thankful for your help. I had not heard from you for a while after I send a bunch of stuff and thought that maybe you had burned out. The last batch I send was pretty big. I just checked my past e-mail stuff and found that I had a message returned because my attachments were too big :shocked:. I did not recognize the account name when I first got it. So mark one down to my stupidity. If you are still willing I will send you a few more files to look at. :thumb: Thanks again.

[Vorax Transtellaris]

There are areas of the forest that are infected with a chaos/evil magic called the Une. Twisted forms of giant mushrooms, lichens and mosses are heavy there. Never thought about them having hive-mind intelligence though. mm.... Could be the seeds for an adventure.

The thing one must realize is that the a mushroom is only a small part of a fungus. The subterranean mycelium is the biggest part of the organism and, as I said, it can cover an enormous surface.

Once The Green is finished and I get my hands on a copy I may come up with a sentient fungus scenario. The language barrier prevents me from writing it all out in a decent way, but I may be able to upload some rough guidelines. We'll see.