For dramatic purposes, I want settlements to be few and far between. This forces the player characters to travel through "untamed wilderness" between towns. On Earth, this is a very unrealistic situation as people tend to clump together and spread out, but not too far from the nearest settlement. I came up with one obvious solution, with three different variations:
- The Firelands: The world is a great barren desert, and settlements can only occur at oases. Most oases will have only a little water and thus only be able to support a small village. A few might be large enough to to support cities. In this world, players would be able to put together a caravan of camels to carry goods from one oasis to the next.
- Tundra: Just like #1, but the world is a frozen wasteland. Frost and snow replace sand and dust. Instead of desert oases, we would have "geotherms"--spots where hot springs warm up the ground enough to grow crops and raise livestock. The camels would be replaced with reindeer or horses.
- The Dreadwood: Just like #1, except the desert is replaced by a wild untamed forest. The forest itself is alive, and actively seeks to destroy settlements. Some say that just standing in place too long will cause the forest to entrap and envelop you in fast growing vines. The oases are replaced by glades. Instead of caravans of camels, the players would have a mule train.
- Okeanos: Just like #1, except the desert is replaced by the sea, and oases are replaced by islands. Instead of caravans of camels, they players would have a ship. One downfall about this is that I would need some sort of ship combat rules, and I've never really seen any that I love.
I spoke to James about this and he really liked the Firelands better than any of the other options. As I was writing this, though, it occurred to me that There's really no need to just pick one. In fact if we look at the map of my gaming world, we can see that there's spots where these different areas meet:
(The green is the Dreadwood, the white is the Tundra, the tan/yellow is the Firelands, while the green dots in the Great Sea make up the archipelago of Okeanos.)
If I put it in the area with the red circle, players can cross between Firelands, Tundra and Dreadwood depending which way they go.
So what do you think? All three? Just one? If so, which one?
The final option sounds strong, and I think fits the mythos of the world-building. Having all three aspects seems like a good highlight of both the chaos following Hume's demise, as well as a great way to further divide races ("Besides being *insert negative adjective here*, those *race* also lives over in that awful *insert location here*!").
ReplyDeleteIt also feels reminiscent of a balanced world, so could be a sign both to what happened and what is possible.
And it provides a strong player agency, as they don't have their first world choice (environment) immediately picked for them.
Also works with open table, as a certain group may prefer one aesthetic over another, and could lead to concurrent groups potentially (though this would become far more difficult to juggle).
My musings on the topic, but all that to say the "all three" option looks the best to me.
Thank you for you comment!
ReplyDeleteI think "all three" also provides some walking variety. I place on not having "straight line borders" between the "biomes", so walking in a straight line in the right place can cross from one to the other and back again.
I like that; the environment providing a fluctuating locale even if the adventurers don't "stray". Good immersion tool!
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