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Shared world races:


Puck

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Well, here are some random thoughts on it.

They should be carniverous or omnivorous (I saw a thing on PBS about how 'lucy' evolved/survived in Africa that said that herbivorous diets don't support large enough brains for sentience - take that vegitarians! ;) - not that we really require real scientific feasability thogh).

They either ignored or maybe herded their humans (or whatever rides them) for food before training them to ride.

Maybe they ran into traditional horse barbarians who moved in ontheir territory and used archers and lances and barding giving them a distinct advantage in combat, so this new mount race needed riders to be able to effectively fight back.

They need some way of controlling their riders, so mental powers or magic makes sense.

Maybe some tribes treat humans as slaves and oppress them, while others are more 'enlightened' and treat their humans much better, almost as equals.

The lizard/dinosaur thing sounds cool, or maybe big lions or something like that. Such a creature would probably need to be able to kill an armed human with natural weapons to risk arming humans (maybe not with mind control - sentient horses would work just as well I suppose).

Any thoughts or comments or ideas to add?

I've been away for a bit and want to finish Portal and have some Ideas for an Orc-like race I want to get posted as well but I'll give this all some effort once those things are done.

Help kill a Trollkin here.

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somewhat like dragons and dragonriders in other game worlds.

Are there other game worlds where that was done? And to what extent did the mounts have control?

The reason I ask is that this comment here got me thinking a little about the lizard man/orm/dinosaur races we have been swaffling around. None of them are particularly strong or unique. What if we were to mash all these Ideas together with Rurik's mount controling master idea. Has this kind of thing been done before?

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Are there other game worlds where that was done? And to what extent did the mounts have control?

As far as I can remember, the mounts (dragons) often were far more power-

ful and at least as intelligent as their riders, but they did never have the con-

trol (although they could have taken it whenever they liked, I think).

So, no, I think it has not been done before, and I totally agree with Trifletra-

xor: I like that idea ! :D

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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I very much like Soltakss centaurs. Familiar, but with just enough added quirks and details to make them unique.:thumb: It got me thinking a little about beast people in general. Would it be possible to have some way of attaching the beast people thoughout the shared worlds to one of the moon wives of the myths. I am not a master of myths like Soltakss, but in my old homebrew goblins were always tied to one of the moons. I think I kind of borrowed this idea from an old Kull comic book titled Under the Goblin Moon. Also from the Werewolf stuff.

Maybe when this particular moon is full or lines up properly, the beast people have special rites, bang bongos, and possibly even kind of go wild and nuts. Their magic may work better at these times. Could one of the moon wives "awaken" the beasts? Any ideas?

Note: A moon connection may be able to tie in with the centaur's scythes.

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Yep, I like both Soltakss' centaurs and your wyverns.

If the "moon connection" would fit in with all the beast people cultures, I

would certainly like it, because it would create a special time / deadline

for adventures ("You have to cross the steppe before the moon drives

the centaurs mad ..."), and such give the world some additional "colour"

that also influences the game.

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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Yep, I like both Soltakss' centaurs and your wyverns.

Thanks again, your encouragement helps a lot to keep this going. How is the work on the water-world developing?

I have been toying with another idea for the shared world:

When I first mentioned the Green I was thinking about including a group of men, traders, who were coming into the green from the back... from the gates in the mountains. I was going to port in one of the key players of my old homebrew: the Merchants Guild or simply the Guild. I do not know if they would work in the shared world though as they would be major players and may goof up other peoples visions.

The last empire in the history of my world was a Rome-like entity that counted on its cavalry rather and legions. When that empire fragmented, much like Rome herself did, the merchant houses who were based in the colonies rather than the Catholic church stepped in. Through time they formed the Guild.

The Guild was a cross between the God Learners, the Spacing Guild in Dune, the Italian republics of the renaissance and maybe a bit like the post-Rome church . The Guild first and foremost acted as bankers and they continued to coin money when the Empire ceased (giving a pretty much universal coinage). They claimed neutrality between the kingdoms and were allowed to set up markets in different realms. They also would finance roads and ports in different kingdoms. They arranged ransoms and treaties as well. The Guild’s neutrality was not always evident of course and they tended to take over kingdoms from within. Once they made a kingdom addicted to trade and wealth they would begin to assert leverage.

The Guild was not as unified as they seemed on the surface either. They had many factions and sub-guilds. There were the Mariners, the Alchemists, the Merchants guard, and the Caravaners. One of the things that may screw up the shared world is that the Guild had found the secrets to gunpowder and used primitive firearms, usually matchlocks and very expensive wheel-locks. Gunpowder was a super refined substance that only special alchemists could whip-up. The primary substance was called Dragonsdung ( a term I realized that I had stolen long ago from the Fantasy Trip and then forgot where the idea came from so it would need a new name). This substance was only found in mountains of a pretty dangerous desert and mining it was a bit of a hazard.

The guild was a great boon to role-playing as they often hired adventurers, barbarians and mercenaries to do their dirty work for them. Often they were the patrons of adventurers and just as often they were bad guys who were power hungry and hatching plots against the adventurer’s homelands.

The inclusion of the Guild would generally give the shared-world a renaissance feel rather than the bronze age feel of old Runequest. They could be very interested in the lost magic of the gates and sponsor magical reseach on them. Even though they know that this is a more than a little dangerous the ability of quick travel may outweigh the perils.

Would the Guild or some derivative work in the shared world?

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Thank you for asking, my Pharos IV is doing well. Currently I have about 60

pages of "canonical" material, including the colony's almost 70 years of histo-

ry, a couple of (not very detailed) maps, and a small hill of notes.

The problems will start when I will have to translate at least the core stuff,

which I can only begin after the final BRP version has been published.

I have already reserved a spot for the Shared World in Pharos IV's universe.

In my preliminary notes the planet is named Green, and is the third planet of

the Edura System, approximately 19 lightyears from Pharos IV, in an as yet

unexplored region.

Of course, this can be changed, it is just a "placeholder".

Your Guild should work fine in the Shared World, I think. However, it should

probably not be a truly planet-wide organization (they will need some elbow

room to expand further ...). I could well imagine the Guild as an organization

which covers a number of renaissance-type city states and their "hinterland"

on the coast of one of the continents of the Shared World, for example.

Since we have an entire world to "fill", the area where the Guild is already an

important organization could easily be as big as Europe, and it would still not

ruin the bronze age feel of the rest of the world. In fact, different cultural or

technological levels on different continents seem a good idea to me, as this

could add some more "colour" and "depth" to the world.

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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I very much like Soltakss centaurs. Familiar, but with just enough added quirks and details to make them unique.:thumb:

Why, thanks a lot. I always wanted to write centaurs up as something slightly different to the normal ones.

It got me thinking a little about beast people in general. Would it be possible to have some way of attaching the beast people thoughout the shared worlds to one of the moon wives of the myths.

I'm never in favour of saying that all such-and-such creatures are connected to so-and-so. I like a fair amount of leeway in everything so you can introduce other variants.

So, some beastfolk being Moon-related is fine. Making them all Moon-related wouldn't work, in my opinion. In fact, there may even be centaurs who are not Moon-related at all, for example. They might have gated in and live somewhere else. That's why I talked about Plains Centaurs.

I am not a master of myths like Soltakss,

Phooey! Anyone can write myths! You start off with a fairy tale/folk tale and work from there. Make it a bit dreamy, a bit unreal and link it to something in RW mythology and that's a myth. Easy-peasy.

The hard part is hanging cultures off the myths.

but in my old homebrew goblins were always tied to one of the moons. I think I kind of borrowed this idea from an old Kull comic book titled Under the Goblin Moon. Also from the Werewolf stuff.

Well, I've got Four Moons White, Black, Blue and Red (sound familiar?) but that doesn't mean that's all there are. You could have a Moon connected to Madness, for example.

But tying the Goblins to the Moons sounds a good idea. The Sky Goblins would, of course, have transcended all that mumbo-jumbo and would have discarded their Lunar influences and in the process have lost some of their Goblinness.

Maybe when this particular moon is full or lines up properly, the beast people have special rites, bang bongos, and possibly even kind of go wild and nuts. Their magic may work better at these times. Could one of the moon wives "awaken" the beasts? Any ideas?

Now, that's a good idea.

Each Moon is full at a different time, although this is regular and in cycles. White and Black Moons are opposite so are Full when the other is Empty. I don't think Red and Blue are opposite so they would be full at different times.

Glorantha has cyclical magic that works better at the Full Moon and worse at the Empty Moon, so something similar could well work here.

If the "moon connection" would fit in with all the beast people cultures, I would certainly like it, because it would create a special time / deadline for adventures ("You have to cross the steppe before the moon drives the centaurs mad ..."), and such give the world some additional "colour" that also influences the game.

That's a good idea as well. You could even have aberrant clans worship the "wrong" moon so their madness/fertility rituals would be on different days. "Don't worry, centaurs like to ravish travellers on the Full Moon and we are well past that." he says as he passes into the Red Moon Host's territory.

Note: A moon connection may be able to tie in with the centaur's scythes.

I did intend the scythes to be Moon-related, but couldn't really think how, so I left it as an unmentioned possibility.

A lot of nice ideas there.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here. 

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What other Beast Folk would people be interested in?

I like Minotaurs, so I'll probably write them up as Red Moon or Madness Moon connected. How about other classical types? Satyrs/Fauns/Griffins are good and I like flying horses, so maybe they should make an appearance.

As a RQ-head, I need to be careful that I don't just include all the RQ Beast Folk .....

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here. 

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What about the lizard-riding Sauroids mentioned elsewhere ?

I am not sure whether they would be Beast People in the usual sense (I have

almost no knowledge of RQ), but I think they could be quite interesting, per-

haps as steppe nomads herding antelopes or other suitable animals ?

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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The problems will start when I will have to translate at least the core stuff,

which I can only begin after the final BRP version has been published.

I am looking forward to it. I cannot believe how well you do with English when it is your second language. I had no idea at all until you mentioned it a while back.

I saw that you ordered BRP 0 edition so you should be able to start soon. I am dieing to get my hands on a copy but I know as soon as I order one the new edition will come out; on the other hand if I don't order one the final copy won't come out till september. >:->

Magic will be a big issue. I still do not have a firm grasp on what that will be like. One thread mentioned it is like stormbringer and I never had a copy of that.

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However, it should

probably not be a truly planet-wide organization (they will need some elbow

room to expand further ...).

and

I'm never in favour of saying that all such-and-such creatures are connected to so-and-so. I like a fair amount of leeway in everything so you can introduce other variants.

Never really meant to say either of these would be all inclusive of the shared world.

For the Guild to function in the Green the way I intended it, the Guilders would have to come in from an outside source though. The Green would just be at the tips of their fingers. Guilders could be potentially in conflict with the corsairs possibly drawing the people of the Green into their conflicts.

The guild really grew up out of necessity and through role-playing in my old world and are very handy when it comes to adventure writing as they generally have gold and are in need of mercenaries or even more often simply hated by players just because they are the establishment; kind of like the Lunars. They could also be the reason that outside adventurers enter the Green (as bodyguards or mercenaries)

The big problem they would offer to the shared world is their use of firearms ( in my experience some people just don't like the idea of firearms in a fantasy world and that is understandable) and their use of the gates. Are Gates controllable? How are they really used?

Either of these could be left out, or the Guild altogether for that matter if it is a corny or overused idea. I am certainly open for ideas and options.

As for the moon idea, I had not even planned on using it for all the beast-connected people of the Green, but thought it could be an idea where we could kind of tie strands of the shared world together without being to intrusive. More than anything I thought it might be tied into some myth and threw it out there for discussion.

What other Beast Folk would people be interested in?

I too would like to see something on the Saurians. :) We have bounced around a lot of ideas, but nothing solid.

Actually, what I would find rather interesting would be more on the steppes themselves. I am kind of intrigued with the setting and who the centaurs would interact with.

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Thank you very much for your comment on my English. Well, over here in Eu-

rope English has become something like a "common tongue", and after so ma-

ny years of playing untranslated RPGs ...

The Zero Edition should arrive today or tomorrow (:D), and then I will begin

to complete the "system" part of my world, and I hope I will be in the mood

to start the translation soon after this.

I do not see any serious problems with the Guild's firearms. At least the early

firearms were not much more efficient than bow and crossbow, only easier

to learn and to handle, and the members of the Guild probably would be the

only ones who know how to use them, and who have access to the "gunpow-

der". Therefore a comparatively small number of firearms should not be able

to unbalance the game, I think.

The Guild's knowledge about the Gates could be more of a problem. However,

the Gates could still be extremely difficult to use, dangerous and unreliable.

I think it really depend on how much the Guild knows, and how much it can

achieve with this knowledge.

Besides, the Guild's attempts to learn more about the Gates, and to become

more able to control them / some of them, could make a fine campaign.

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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They should be mean and nasty, big and bad. Not the normal "noble beasts" or cuddly beastmen.

This is where having a really good artist would come in handy. Picture is worth a thousand words and all that. A good illustration of a minotaur rippled with hairy sinues and slobbering all over the place as he hacks through the upraised sheilds of his enemies would do nicely.

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