New fantasy RP from me

[Duck14]

That looks pretty good Tim. I haven’t done much with Inkarnate for awhile but you’ve done a great job there.

What are the border lines for Datha?

[Bannanachair]

Mar 25, 2019 23:43:05 GMT -4 Tikobe said:

Holy hell.

I mean, I realized that Orevod was small when compared to some other kingdoms, but now that we're seeing more of Eredal I'm beginning to realize just how small it is on a comparative level.

Yeah. You remember when Hedrek said something like "There are more dukes in Eredal than earls in Orevod, and each Eredalian duke is far more powerful than an Orevodian earl"? Well, now that you can see it on a map, you can see why.

That said, Orevod does have some distinct military advantages - it's densely populated where Eredal can be sparsely populated at times, there's just one chokepoint to enter Orevod from Eredal by land (between the Crebehl Forest and those mountains between Clearden and Estermere is the easiest way to move an army through), the Zhalst Islands will prevent Eredalian fleets from attacking that way, making Estermere the only navy worth a damn (I'm exaggerating this one, but still), Orevod is much more centralized where Eredal is still highly feudal and Orevod is ruled by a dragon.

[Bannanachair]

Mar 26, 2019 4:03:26 GMT -4 Duck14 said:

That looks pretty good Tim. I haven’t done much with Inkarnate for awhile but you’ve done a great job there.

What are the border lines for Datha?

The western border might be that tributary for the Nubarb. The eastern border might go along the other tributary until it juts west instead of north-south, at which point it's largely just a line in the ground. I don't know the southern border yet as I still need to make a map of all of Elusia, but that's on the way. All of that's highly tentative until I figure out the internal geography of Elusia, by the way. Datha could control up to the west coast, if I decide to alter things to let it, but I don't think that I will.

[Tikobe]

Mar 26, 2019 8:33:21 GMT -4 Bannanachair said:

Mar 25, 2019 23:43:05 GMT -4 Tikobe said:

Holy hell.

I mean, I realized that Orevod was small when compared to some other kingdoms, but now that we're seeing more of Eredal I'm beginning to realize just how small it is on a comparative level.

Yeah. You remember when Hedrek said something like "There are more dukes in Eredal than earls in Orevod, and each Eredalian duke is far more powerful than an Orevodian earl"? Well, now that you can see it on a map, you can see why.

That said, Orevod does have some distinct military advantages - it's densely populated where Eredal can be sparsely populated at times, there's just one chokepoint to enter Orevod from Eredal by land (between the Crebehl Forest and those mountains between Clearden and Estermere is the easiest way to move an army through), the Zhalst Islands will prevent Eredalian fleets from attacking that way, making Estermere the only navy worth a damn (I'm exaggerating this one, but still), Orevod is much more centralized where Eredal is still highly feudal and Orevod is ruled by a dragon.

Not sure if that's an exaggeration cause Lemmurath is living on a forest that runs along a portion of the coast between Ostcliff and Clearden. This creates a big problem cause if Orevod needs to intercept Estermere's navy with just the naval forces in Ostcliff then Estermere has plenty of time to do whatever they want since Ostcliff would need to be slow and careful when sailing through the waters near the Hyst Forest or they would need to completely circle around it. Either way, it would take too much time and only work if Ostcliff knew well in advance what Estermere would do. Point in case, the only section of Orevod that can quickly send out a navy to intercept Estermere is Clearden, and with just that alone Orevod is left with a huge weakness.

Or that's how I see it, at least.

[Bannanachair]

Mar 26, 2019 16:27:51 GMT -4 Tikobe said:

Mar 26, 2019 8:33:21 GMT -4 Bannanachair said:

Yeah. You remember when Hedrek said something like "There are more dukes in Eredal than earls in Orevod, and each Eredalian duke is far more powerful than an Orevodian earl"? Well, now that you can see it on a map, you can see why.

That said, Orevod does have some distinct military advantages - it's densely populated where Eredal can be sparsely populated at times, there's just one chokepoint to enter Orevod from Eredal by land (between the Crebehl Forest and those mountains between Clearden and Estermere is the easiest way to move an army through), the Zhalst Islands will prevent Eredalian fleets from attacking that way, making Estermere the only navy worth a damn (I'm exaggerating this one, but still), Orevod is much more centralized where Eredal is still highly feudal and Orevod is ruled by a dragon.

Not sure if that's an exaggeration cause Lemmurath is living on a forest that runs along a portion of the coast between Ostcliff and Clearden. This creates a big problem cause if Orevod needs to intercept Estermere's navy with just the naval forces in Ostcliff then Estermere has plenty of time to do whatever they want since Ostcliff would need to be slow and careful when sailing through the waters near the Hyst Forest or they would need to completely circle around it. Either way, it would take too much time and only work if Ostcliff knew well in advance what Estermere would do. Point in case, the only section of Orevod that can quickly send out a navy to intercept Estermere is Clearden, and with just that alone Orevod is left with a huge weakness.

Or that's how I see it, at least.

I meant it was an exaggeration because, while navies from Belgate, Faerseton and Cannersley can't pass through the Zhalst Islands, they could always go around them and hug the coast tightly - Belgate, south directly to Galbror and then to Eriport. Or, alternatively, they could go around the other way and hope that their navigation is good enough.

Anyway, you posted on the last possible day that I have a couple hours available to reply. I'll type what I can this morning, but I have a psychologist's appointment basically until the evening, so expect my reply up in twelve hours or something like that.

[Bannanachair]

Mar 27, 2019 6:19:32 GMT -4 Bannanachair said:

Mar 26, 2019 16:27:51 GMT -4 Tikobe said:

Not sure if that's an exaggeration cause Lemmurath is living on a forest that runs along a portion of the coast between Ostcliff and Clearden. This creates a big problem cause if Orevod needs to intercept Estermere's navy with just the naval forces in Ostcliff then Estermere has plenty of time to do whatever they want since Ostcliff would need to be slow and careful when sailing through the waters near the Hyst Forest or they would need to completely circle around it. Either way, it would take too much time and only work if Ostcliff knew well in advance what Estermere would do. Point in case, the only section of Orevod that can quickly send out a navy to intercept Estermere is Clearden, and with just that alone Orevod is left with a huge weakness.

Or that's how I see it, at least.

I meant it was an exaggeration because, while navies from Belgate, Faerseton and Cannersley can't pass through the Zhalst Islands, they could always go around them and hug the coast tightly - Belgate, south directly to Galbror and then to Eriport. Or, alternatively, they could go around the other way and hope that their navigation is good enough.

Anyway, you posted on the last possible day that I have a couple hours available to reply. I'll type what I can this morning, but I have a psychologist's appointment basically until the evening, so expect my reply up in twelve hours or something like that.

Or maybe I’ll have finished it just before I need to leave to catch a bus, and it’s already up as I type this update from that bus.

[Bannanachair]

Here's my last version of the map of Argolon before I convert it to the premium map style. The first thing that I do after updating it to an HD map is going to be to add Secelle and Viercon to the map. I'm not going to bother adding Camasse to the map, as it is too small and insignificant for me to bother with it.

I'll eventually be getting rid of the name-tags for the duchies as well; they're just there for now so that I know where everything is. Once I have the cities and forests and rivers and mountains all filled in there won't be enough space left for them.

SPOILER: Click to show

[Bannanachair]

I want to change the large-scale structure of my world. I quite like what I've done so far in western Emuine, though I want to change everything else around it - I want to change the shape of the continent, I want to significantly alter or remove the eastern continent of Atera (possibly redefining it to be everything east of the Oln Sea?) and I want to make Eplune more complex than just Trade Cities all along its entire northern coast, likely elaborating upon the ancient empires of Zarionar and Men-Thar-Kot as well.

I also want to change what my original notion for the Cavelands and Riftlands was, but I'm not 100% sure quite how I'll be adjusting it yet.

I'll be doing all this in the background as I finish working on western Emuine - I'll be writing up the remaining few kingdoms in the north, elaborating more upon the history, creating an actual calendar, filling in all of the organizations like the Threun Guard and others that I've just now named and creating minority groups in the vein of real-life Jews and Romani or the fictional Tuatha'an and Edema Ruh.

[Bannanachair]

Feb 5, 2018 10:59:59 GMT -4 Bannanachair said:

I tried to go to sleep, but I was having a hard time of it, so I decided to write up some details about a small handful of locations that I've thought of in some detail, plus some information that could lend itself to a cool storyline or two in those locations. I have maybe four or five of these sorted in my head out so far, but here's just all that I'm typing until I'm tired enough to fall asleep.


Winterpond

• Winterpond is a fortified town built in the Tundra by the empire of Nerath nearly 300 years ago at the height of the empire. It was built in its location due to how incredibly strategic it is, with the intention of further expansion in the north, though a succession crisis a mere thirty years later greatly destabilized the empire, leading to a complete lack of Imperial support for Winterpond, and twenty years after that the entire Empire fell.
• Winterpond is built on the western edge of a large lake called the Frozen Lake due to the fact that it is frozen. It is located just to the south of the Icewood Forest, and is thus the only location where Icewood, a hardwood not quite as strong as Spiderwood by a significant margin but with even more powerful magical properties, is harvested.
• To the west of the Frozen Lake is a mountain range that stretches far to the north that maps denote as the Ironfrost Mountains due to the name of an abandoned settlement there, a contemporary sister town of Winterpond. Ironfrost was never as large and is now a ruin.
• The entire area is known sometimes as the Frozen Lake Vale or the Winterpond Vale, and surrounding it, even to the south for nearly a hundred miles, is The Tundra.
• The area just around Winterpond has some viable farmland, even though the Tundra tends not to. In addition, cutting through the ice of the Frozen Lake allows people to fish, thus supplying the town with enough food to (barely) survive.
• Winterpond, the Frozen Lake and especially the Icewood Forest have an unusually high faerie presence, and the faeries tend to be significantly more unseelie than they are in other places. In addition, though some Cyclops groups are good for trading, some are rather hostile to the inhabitants of Winterpond and the faeries in the Icewood alike.
• The architect who designed and built Winterpond added a large underground system of crypts, and among some circles it is rumoured that Nerath used Winterpond's isolated location to store magical artifacts that it deemed to be too dangerous, and though some attempts have been made to map the crypts of Winterpond, they are significantly more expansive than the town itself.
• Winterpond is ruled by Counts, and has two or three knightly houses as well, who make up the aristocracy. Due to the small population there's not much of a difference between the various social classes, and because all men are required to train with the city militia when they reach fifteen, if the "aristocracy" begins to oppress the people, the people would very easily be able to overthrow them, which they haven't ever done.
  

Yhendorn City-States

• The ancient region of Yhendorn is one of the oldest hubs of human civilization in the world, and is currently home to nearly a dozen small petty kingdoms, which tend to control a large-ish city that is their namesake and the surrounding towns for a few days ride. I won't go into detail about all of them here, but I will cover some large ones.
• The Yhendorn people (who, let me just remind everyone, are humans, not a fantasy race) do not practice knighthood (a Nerathi tradition), and managed to remain largely independent of any conquering empire since Ghoril. As such, their best warriors are often considered to be inferior to the knights that much of the rest of the world has adopted, in social standing if not in skill. Rather than jousting, quite a few of the Yhendorn cities have ritualized gladiatorial combat which, though much more violent in appearance, tends to leave neither opponent with significant and permanent injuries: The exception is the city of Sylathneus, which has fallen into the hands of demon-worshippers.
• The most infamous if these kingdoms, though not the most militarily powerful by any margin, is Sylathneus. Six hundred years ago the Demon Prince Gar'Goriz, through a cult that influenced parts of the upper-class of the city, orchestrated a coup d'etat that put his most fervent supporter, Themeros I Skados, on the throne. The coup opened up the kingdom from attack by its neighbours, though, and several important border towns and cities were conquered, significantly diminishing Sylathnean influence in both the region and the world. That said, the demon-aligned kingdom has since regained considerable amounts of strength through their immortal "overlord", and the King of Sylathneus has since always been versed in summoning magic to be able to summon demons to aid their kingdom in their conquests. Despite what might be expected, the people are free to practice worshipping their traditional gods, so long as the city as a whole provides sacrifices to Gar'Goriz - which it often does in the gladiator pits.
• If Sylathneus is the most infamous of the Yhendorn cities, then Nasathalus is the most famous. Where Sylathneus is located in the southern part of Yhendorn, Nasathalus is located in the northern part, and all trade that enters Yhendorn through land does so through Nasathalus. This has led to it being the most economically powerful of the Yhendorn kingdoms, and as such one of the most militarily powerful, with alliances both with the various Yhendorn Cities and with nations outside of Yhendorn. That said, Nasathalus is also the most culturally un-Yhendorn of the cities, and several of their noble families have knights in their employ; a fact that is often used as propaganda by their ever-changing rivals.
• Kings of Isthalas, the largest and most populous of the Yhendorn cities, still include "Emperor of Yhendorn" in their long list of titles despite the fact that they haven't held the associated power in at least four thousand years and have actually been conquered, not only by external powers, but even once very briefly by another Yhendorn kingdom.
• Other Kingdoms of note in the area include Lylalnas and Asnenas, which have, for the past century, been allied against the growing power of Sylathneus as a result of their sudden conquest of another City, and there have been constant border skirmishes; Gharak, which is not Yhendorn in origin but rather grew out of a Ghoril settlement in the area; Ollalnas, where the Amber/Golden/Yellow (I still haven't decided) Tower is located; and Mytfanoras, which is likely to be due for violence and wars now that the current Royal Family, House Casmeros, is ruled by an old man with no clear heir.
• All of these cities are very old, and given how ancient the region is, it has its fair share of legends about it. Among other things are the rumors of old tombs located in the deserts surrounding the Cities where ancient Kings are purportedly buried with all their treasure, ruins of ancient settlements destroyed in some war or another, an ancient Brown Dragon lurking somewhere who supposedly was a friend and ally of several kings of Ghoril and even the tomb of the Lich King.

Okay, I'm done for now. I'll post the other three tomorrow, maybe, or after I post the map. As always, tell me what your thoughts are on what I've written, what your criticisms are and what here you think you'd like to RP with. I'd like to keep the current King of Sylathneus as an NPC, but aside from that I've avoided mentioning names as much as possible for if you guys wanted to come up with your own names.

Literally three and a half years later, I haven't written up these regions, but they're still fresh in my mind. It's so weird, though, looking at the early development of Fantasy RP and the ideas I've had and then discarded, and what's stuck around after all this time.