Author Topic: TW(i)G Setting Basics  (Read 33026 times)

Lieutenant Kije

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Re: TW(i)G Setting Basics
« Reply #45 on: January 20, 2004, 08:26:00 PM »
Okay - the issue on my mind has to do with origins.  We have two major ways in which azmothian humanity is fractured: element and nationality/race.

I guess my first question has to do with nationality/race.  I was assuming that each nation you created is populated by its own race, for the most part.  Like France is home to the french, Bask is home to "Baskers."  (I just made baskers up, and I kinda like it.)  Is this assumption correct?

My second question is, did the races/nations develop in the south, post-exodus, or were they existing in the north prior to the order to move south?

If they developed in the south, it would be a stretch to have a tarthite forest human, or a tylerian desert human.  If they developed in the north, what elements are common to that race depends on what their lands were like in the north.

Here's a possibility that might make these arguments moot.  You mention in the above postings an undefined, yet very real, biological interaction between humans and the environment (i.e. a stormy sea makes for a temperamental ocean type.)  You could go further and say that prolonger time away from one's element can change type.  I'm not saying that if a hill type moves to the forest and stays there long enough, he'll become a forest type.  I'm saying that if hill people moved to the forest and stayed there, for generations, their ability to pass on their hill type to their children might be mutated by their forest environment, and so in time (generations of time,) hill types might begin to have forest children, in a forest environment.  This capacity to adapt might be widespread, or found in only a select number of humans, or anywhere in between.

This would allow the humans to gradually adapt to whatever their environment is, and would allow for humans of all nationalities to be all types.  Maybe in the distant past in the north, some tarthites were forest types.  So in the south, you can find forest tarthites (though they may be rare, or not, or whatever depending on the degree of mutation,) but you can also find desert ones.  This is just a thought.

That could also make things needlessly complicated.  I still need to think about this; I'm not sure it makes any sense at all, really.  

The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers

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Re: TW(i)G Setting Basics
« Reply #46 on: January 20, 2004, 09:39:20 PM »
Quote
Like France is home to the french, Bask is home to "Baskers."  (I just made baskers up, and I kinda like it.)  Is this assumption correct?

I prefer Basquettes, but that's just me. I think the assumption is correct.

The easiest solution, I think, is that people just prefer to live near their own element. Hence they tended to settle in similar environments to their home ones. Of the few who didn't, most of their choices in mates did. Then the influence of the element comes in, and the children all inherit the primary element dominating the area. All of which means, over time, that the dominant element of an area will manifest in the subtype of most humans.

Lieutenant Kije

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Re: TW(i)G Setting Basics
« Reply #47 on: January 20, 2004, 09:56:43 PM »
gotcha.

Lieutenant Kije

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Re: TW(i)G Setting Basics
« Reply #48 on: January 20, 2004, 09:58:19 PM »
And being the manly man that I am, I too would prefer a basquette to a basker any day.

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Re: TW(i)G Setting Basics
« Reply #49 on: January 22, 2004, 10:08:01 PM »
Kije, I got 4 mails from you about the religions. THey all appeared to be the same. Except the signature that MSN tagged on. I got three different versions of that.

Lieutenant Kije

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Re: TW(i)G Setting Basics
« Reply #50 on: January 23, 2004, 12:21:34 AM »
wierd - I swear I only sent it once.  Hopefully it's an anomaly, and not some evil plot by MSN, or stupid user error (which it very well may be.)  I'm sorry for the clutter.  Please let me know if it happens again.  If you think it might be my fault, tell me how you think it happened so that I can avoid it in the future.

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Re: TW(i)G Setting Basics
« Reply #51 on: February 21, 2004, 01:16:45 PM »
ok, news on the TW(i)G front:

I just submitted the information on humans from this thread as an article. Figured we should have it out there. However, Kije and I together and did some religious information. It's all very general. I'm inserting it to the main article we did first. Either re-read that or see me before you finalize an article about a nation or empire so we can make sure it's all consistent

Also, Kije finished his article on Silkur. I finished editing/approving, so we should have it posted very soon.

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Re: TW(i)G Setting Basics
« Reply #52 on: February 23, 2004, 12:47:41 AM »
Humm I'm thinking we need a twig section in the RPG deparment.  From now on SE put twig in the meta tags and I'll get a sort link for it when I can.
 And just to be sure I'm doing Parth right?  All the old converations are somewhere on my old PC which i don't use anymore.  If I got that wrong I can proably easly change what little I've written.  It's turning into a little more Japanese theamed then maybe originaly inteneitoned.  Actaly it's more of a mix of Japanese/grecko-roman and Babalonian/sumerian.  The Japanese influence is that the Emperor is a direct decended of the founding god/angles and is thusly the head religious figure.  But more ceramonial (though times are changeing).  The grecko-roman influecne is more social.  And the last part, Babalonian/sumerian, is religion based.  This may cause a problem with your original discription, it's more all the different ceramonies and such.  But it could endup conflicting with what you had in mind.  If it does I guess I can switch all my ideas and use them for another country.
« Last Edit: February 23, 2004, 01:23:27 AM by Spriggan »
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Lieutenant Kije

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Re: TW(i)G Setting Basics
« Reply #53 on: February 23, 2004, 01:45:00 AM »
Japanese/Greco/Roman/Sumerian/Babylonian sounds like a freaky cool mix.  The religion sounds kind of close to what Saint wrote up for Tyleria.  I'll let you guys work that out.

Thanks for formatting the Silkur article in html, Saint.  The side bar thingies look pretty good, imo.  I just submitted it.

I'd like to keep working on this, unless you guys feel you've outsourced too much of it already or want some more variety in the contributors.  I'd kind of like to write up Bask, unless someone else really would like to do that.  I'm flexible; let me know.

Spriggan

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Re: TW(i)G Setting Basics
« Reply #54 on: February 23, 2004, 02:39:22 AM »
I haven't read SE's religion writeup beyond what was part of the very first concept.  My idea is a very complex religion that has so many ceramonies, traditions, pilimagres that it would actualy be possible for players to go from lvl one to what ever the max level in the RPG will be just doing them.  Of course doing so will require a very rich and detailed descriptions and such.  This concept I've worked up realy does conflict what SE has on the The World of Azmoth page.  He has it as a very intelectual religion where the beliefs are often debated, this is the exact opposite of what I've got.  In fact just about every thing SE has come up on the orginazation front conflicts with what I want to do. I feal that his is too Judeo-christan theamed for me.  I want something that we're not accustomed to seeing.  I've got a very traditional religion where the head is the Emperor (who is allwayse the same base element, haven't decided on which, but he's considered all of elements in one) and then there's a councle that has on of each of the elemental types.  Then the curch hiarchy is broken down by each of the elements each with their own orgnaization.  While this dosen't affect the layman, anyone wanting to be in the cleragy will be.  While Theology might be discussed at the higher levels, they never are at the lower levels or by the adverage person, when at church that is, anyone can discuss how they want outside of it.  There are actualy no "weekly sermans" at all as we have with jeudeo-christan beliefs.  It's the responsablity of the famaly to educate each other in the religion.  With the priets running the church and presiding over ceramonies.  Also at anytime someone may request a house call from a lower end priest (or more powerfull one depending on the family), or go visit the temples for any spiritual needs they have.

My other hang-up is the base arcitecture style.  I was originaly leaning twords grecko-roman, but I felt that would protray too much of a cristian element (if only subconsenly) and would ruin the feel of this being a world unto it's own.  However, it does give the feeling of a "classical" world and a certain amount of "holyness" which would lend to the setting.
« Last Edit: February 23, 2004, 03:18:23 AM by Spriggan »
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The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers

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Re: TW(i)G Setting Basics
« Reply #55 on: February 23, 2004, 07:26:27 AM »
well, I assume you're just referring to religion in Parthann/Tarth, since practice varies from region to region quite a bit.

My response is.. well... change it. i'm looking at the main write up as a work in progress. I'm thinking once all the nations are done, we can make a big PDF with nice formatting and make that available that includes all of them. This means re-writing and transitioning better than I have, but I don't want to make all the changes till everything's ready.

in other words, I can go back and edit that info I recently added.

Kije sent me a great set of ideas for religion, so I modified it slightly. Tarth and Parthann had an intellectual religion because that's where most of the universities are. I latched on to it because that sounded good. But I don't see why that can't change.

A solution to your problem with architecture might be to go more Byzantine or even Arab in the architecture. I confess, I had religious people in the desert, so I though Muslim at first anyway. That may be too obvious for your tastes though.

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Re: TW(i)G Setting Basics
« Reply #56 on: February 23, 2004, 08:49:14 AM »
ok thats good to know, I was worried that you were dead set on the religious views of Parth/Tarth.  And I didn't want to tread on your project in such a way if you were, especialy if you're doing Tarth.

You're right that Ottoman is about the same are greco-roman in my mind.  I don't want to copy anythink 100%, but I'm trying to get something to start from.  I have been leaning toword going Mesopotamian somewhat with useing Zigarauts and such as here and here.  Another thing I'd like to do is for the capatial of Parth have large gardens/parks that are the base element of all the other elements except destert (since its in one), ocean, river (the city is on 2 shores, one river and one ocean) and mountain.  I'm not sure if I want to go hanging garden style of things, or just city parks/resedental areas that are tailored to different people.

And just for fun a temple full of monkeys.
« Last Edit: February 23, 2004, 08:54:47 AM by Spriggan »
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Re: TW(i)G Setting Basics
« Reply #57 on: February 23, 2004, 09:14:26 AM »
Sweet. We need to give them ninja masks. They're already priests since they're in the temple.

anyway, i like where you're going. I'm hoping to have Tyleria up in the next couple weeks too.

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Re: TW(i)G Setting Basics
« Reply #58 on: February 23, 2004, 09:23:25 AM »
One other thing I wanted to ask you was the over all relationships of all the countries.  If I wanted, for example, have Parth Temples in different coutries that were used for pilgrimages and were completly run by Parth would that be too hard?  Or go one step further and maybe make all/some of them so they don't have to follow any laws, of what ever nations boundries they're in, that would interfear with the Temples purpose (like houseing relics, etc).
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Re: TW(i)G Setting Basics
« Reply #59 on: February 23, 2004, 10:19:12 AM »
Well, keeping in mind that Tarth and Parthann share a religion (though I'm thinking Tarth would have a more intellectual approach still, accounting for the split between the two empires), There would certainly be Parthite temples in  Tarth. I could even see them being exempt from some Tarth laws, though being persecuted for their "religious heresy"

In Bregtoran and Silkur, there isn't a national government, so you could probably get away with independent temples there as well.

Tyleria would kill the priests and burn the temple down (or at least convert it's use) if one was established there.

Parth temples in the Free Cities would be possible, depending on the individual city's laws.

In Bask... well, they have a state religion too. They are business minded, so they probably would allow temples, but it doesn't seem to me that they would exempt them from Bask law.