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I assumed that the Orcs are "peaceful" in that, being the only inhabitants of the New Land, they had no enemies to fight, except monsters of course. Oh and maybe each other, just like the Native Americans did.

I have no problem with Phantasy Spelling, as long you understand what is being referred to. Again, it's just a colorful detail.

I like it. Though I'd like to see the creature better described. And I'd hope that it isn't humanoid (again, it bothers me how in classic fantasy everything intelligent ends up looking human or half human. Not a lot, just saying.)

You know what we need? Dragons!! Can't have a fantasy without them!! Thing is, they have been done so much it's hard to be unique. Maybe we should vote on how we want them to be? I'll give my vote later.

Oh and Exelixi? You might want to have that twitch checked. *Runs away*

edited 5th Dec '11 5:54:31 PM by Sijo

I think the first thing we need to decide is whether we use intelligent or savage dragons. Or both

edited 5th Dec '11 7:41:55 PM by eX

I was imagining it as maybe being a bit of a shape shifting storm that often takes a humanoid form, when not in the shape of a tempest.

On 4chan, specifically /tg/, I read a wonderful description of Dragons as the hucksters and con-men of reality. Capable of lying so well that the very fabric of being believes them and twists to shape their desires. Maybe we can play off of that?

It fits really well with the whole abuse of power theme.

I proposed something with dragons before, if you wanna take a look.

Dragons are complex centrepieces to many a setting, more important then Gods often. I don't think we should simple take any one existing idea, I think we should use a more democratic process of design for them due their powerful narrative presence.

There are two mutually exclusive archetypes with dragons: Dragons that are animalistic, and dragons that are sentient. These two are incompatible and cannot exist together in any setting without some severe justification. Having only sentient dragons means that when a hero sets off to slay a dragon, its more like an assassination plot, sentient dragons also means no dragon riding Knights, as personally I cannot think of any reason that would be advantageous, outside of a particular setting that results in proliferating illogical Mary Sue-ness.

Other issues are colour (Does it matter?), lifecycle (How often can we expect more of them?), origin (Fallen Gods? Aborted God Foetuses? Hyper-evolved Dinosaurs? Ancient Ancestors of today's sentient creatures awakening? Aliens? Gods of a fallen progenitor race of lizard people? What happens when someone throws a lizard at a ball of magic hard enough? And many many more when you start reading widely enough) Motivation (Are they just trolling? Lost in the war against the Gods and are spiteful to worshippers? Omnicidal Maniac? Again like Origin this is pretty heavy).

edited 6th Dec '11 3:22:55 AM by Eyclonus

Dragons are indeed a complicated business.

I like God's idea; 'twould balance them out decently, and avoid the "well if there are so many dragons, why haven't they caused the extinction of all other animals?" issue.

On Phantasy Spelling: As one who takes a great interest in language, I have to repress the urge to inform everyone that æ doesn't make the sound they think it does, and I must do this quite frequently.

: Dragons can fly and breathe fire and be sentient despite being overgrown salamanders because they're living repositories of mana. They congregate around ley nodes to preserve/bolster their power- this may be part of why they fight.

Thoughts?

edited 6th Dec '11 3:25:41 AM by Exelixi

I have the same issue with Necromancy...

NO USE OF THE WORD NECROMANCY.

Also because its never used in properly defined manner, therefore I propose:

Mortismancy: the Magic concerned with death, spirits and the soul. Involved with Ghosts, and all the non corpse related spells. Can be used to extend lifespans without affecting the condition of the body. One can potentially be an immortal, wrinkled, diseased old man with no physical strength, but unable to die because of Mortismancy effectively saying No.

Cadavermancy: Reanimate the corpse, manipulating organs and creating autonomous entities from bodies. Has a somewhat limited application on living beings. Is related to Ghouls, who are effectively living people hit with zombie reanimation magic.

Creating a sentient undead requires the combination of both magical fields.

EDIT: Good idea about the dragons, but what about their relationships with others? I can't see dragons being the type to worship Gods. Maybe they have grudge of some sort? Its hard to flesh that relationship out without working the Gods out first.

edited 6th Dec '11 3:33:40 AM by Eyclonus

There is a permanent ban on mixing Latin and Greek. It's an abomination in the sights of the gods.

On the whole "whatevermancy is wrong" thing, I agree. I propose -urgy, (or -turgy) coming from ergon "to work" or "to do". Pyro(t)urgy, necro(t)urgy, et cetera.

edited 6th Dec '11 3:39:57 AM by Exelixi

If people don't mind, I'd like to add my two pence, by submitting a race for perusal and possible inclusion:

The Mabin

Physical Description

Frogmen. Basically, humanoids no taller than 3 feet with bulbous eyes, webbed hands and feet and damp skin any colour from vivid green to dull brown and any texture from slick to warty. They have an amphibian lifestyle and tadpole-like young, although all stages of their life-cycle can breathe air.

Culture/Beliefs

The Mabin effectively control all the freshwater waterways of the known world and want to keep it that way. As such, they issue permits to traders and other travellers who wish to use the rivers, streams and canals and check on any craft they spot. Any unauthorised craft is seized and impounded unless a sizeable sum is paid. If this fee is paid within 30 days, the craft is released and a temporary permit issued. Otherwise, the Mabin take permanent possession.

The Mabin believe that water is the source of all life, and that the Mabinari, the Eternal Waterfall, is the source of all water. As such, they believe the Mabinari to be the ultimate source of all life, and worship it as one might a god.

There are many Mabin settlements around the edge of Lake Mabinari, the largest lake in the known world. (Lake Mabinari is in fact so large as to be an inland sea. Despite this, it is still fresh.) However, the largest Mabin settlement is the Shrine of the Mabinari, an enormous city-temple built around the base of the Mabinari. All the priesthood of the Mabin live in the Shrine, and all Mabin attempt to make a pilgrimage at least once in their lives in order to bathe in the purest of waters.

Despite the high population density in and around Lake Mabinari, there are Mabin villages and wayposts scattered around the waterways of the known world. Each Mabin settlement has a matriarch, the Mab, who functions as leader, spokesperson and supreme broodmaster of each settlement.

Raising young is a communal affair, and each breeding pair will lay eggs in the same communal pool. The young are removed as they hatch, and are transferred to a second, larger pool with plant matter contained in it. Once the young begin to grow legs, they are again transferred to a yet larger pool, where insects and other small creatures are permitted to live. Finally, young with all their legs are removed from the pools altogether and are expected to attend one of a number of schools to teach them the cultural history, beliefs and skills to become a functioning member of Mabin society. By far the largest of these schools is the school of the River Guards, an all-purpose combination of hunters, soldiers, scavengers and police wardens whose primary responsibility is providing protection and provision for the settlement. Other major schools include the school of the Broodmasters and the school of the Priesthood, which is housed within the Shrine of the Mabinari.

Other Information

The Mabin feel a primal connection to water, and as such will never willingly (knowingly) stray further that half a day’s travel from a body of water large enough to immerse themselves in fully.

Mabin have very thin skins, and dry out if they spend too much time out of water. Visitors to Lake Mabinari might be excused for wondering why there are no settlements around the southern tip of the lake. The Mabin have found that buildings on the lake in that area tend to disappear. Nobody actually knows this, but there’s a portal at the bottom of that portion of the lake which opens about 300 miles above the surface of the lake – causing the Mabinari.

There are unconfirmed rumours about brightly coloured pygmy Mabin who live deep within the jungles of the plane.

edited 6th Dec '11 4:34:08 AM by Marr965

@Vyc: That works for me. We can assume the storm (does it have a name? If only used by outsiders?) takes the form of those it attacks. So a dragon would be attacked by a dragon-shaped storm. That would justify its "humanity".

Eyclonus made *exactly* the points I felt re: dragons. I propose we have two types- one that is the typical monster-to-be-slain, and the other a more civilized one (drakes, perhaps?) As with the gods, they might not even be the same species, and it's just the common man who mistakes them. They are probably not amused.

As for their origin, I lean towards the evolved-dinosaurs (by natural magic) idea, but we can fit GoA's idea in there too.

And yeah, let's have elemental dragons! It's one of the best ideas I ever discovered in RPGs (as opposed to regular fiction) why should they breathe JUST fire?

(...We can link to specific posts here? *slaps forehead*.)

As for language: I'd like to remind everyone that languages are living things, only in dead languages like Latin do words keep the same meaning all the time. So let's not get too obsessed over that. (Except, as I mentioned, for "local color".)

@Marr: thanks for your contribution, I'll give my thoughts on it next post.

edited 6th Dec '11 5:13:24 AM by Sijo

"I'd like to remind everyone that languages are living things, only in dead languages like Latin do words keep the same meaning all the time."

For instance, this is a perfectly gramatically correct sentence: "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

Well, if dragons are repositories of magic, there's no reason they couldn't conjure anything from frost to radium (turns out it kills you)

Old Greek isn't dead per se but it isn't in wide use and is, like Latin, used as a language to give things specific denotations.

edited 6th Dec '11 9:09:44 AM by Exelixi

I suppose if a dragon attacked it, it would take a dragons form. Unless the form of something else that attacked it would suit it better. When I say massive I mean like it could stand straight up and stand at level with the Colossus of Rhodes.

In my origin, I mentioned drakes, giant fire-breathing wingedl lizard that were at most cunning and semi-sentient but still little more then beasts. So basically dragons except what most everyone calls dragons are the beings a bunch of ancient Terrestrial Gods made from drakes.

Drakes

A huge fire-breathing winged lizard that isn't a dragon. They're between the size of a horse and an elephant, depending on the breed. They possess a keen cunning but are not intelligent as humanoids are although some think they come close. They live for ridiculously long periods of time, stretched out by years long periods of hibernation. They are highly territorial against other drakes and rarely breed. When they do, the gestation period is overly long and marked by rampages. While the eggs develop, the male will go out and try to feed the female and will pretty much use anything meaty and they find humanoid population to be delightfully stationary. Once the eggs are laid, both male and female will hunt together but once the eggs hatch the male either abandons the female or is driven out by her. Alone she will continue the hunt. During this time, it isn't uncommon for some very wise people to kill the chicks and in this way dragons are on the decline as a species.

Even when they don't have chicks, their territories by neccessity of their food consumption are huge. Their population is therefore small albeit widespread although they are especially prominent in the Spine of the World but are now being driven out by their magical cousins, the dragons. Drakes have long learned to avoid dragons so one finds drakes far from leylines where dragon's roost out of necessity for the magic that sustains their impossible lives and very far from nodes where many dragons will congregate.

It is not that dragons do not broke the pressence of drakes, they even break a few into pets, it's that drakes do not bide by dragons for drakes still see another drake invading their territory. While a dragon only shares a drake's breeding cycle with little propensity to rampage and none of their other habits which were weaned out of by their creators. The ancient Erian civilizations, who were ruled by cold warring Terrestrial gods, shared the same word for drake, 'dragon', and it is the Erian gods who created dragons.

edited 6th Dec '11 12:11:44 PM by God_of_Awesome

I actually quite like the concept of not-just-fire breathing dragons. For instance, we could go with the classical elements, and have fire, earth, water and air breathing dragons. (For offensive uses of water and air, have you ever been hit with a water cannon? I haven't, and I'd like to keep it that way. Also, wind can be ridiculously powerful.) Or we could go with more abstract stuff, and have various forms of energy (electricity, heat, raw magic, stuff like that). Or we could even do a mash-up and have both.

If drakes and dragons are related, then if one is an uplifted form, maybe they get forms of energy, and the others get the classical elements? Or vice-versa? Or maybe both types get both forms, but the uplifted form gets an energy form and a classical element?

If you guys hammer that out, I'm not gonna stomp on it but what I had said is that drakes are classic firebreathing beasts, dragons are uplifted with fuck all all kinds of breath weapon. So if you give elemental and energy breath weapons, give it all to dragons. As I imagined it, drakes are their relatively boring mook-y cousins that justify some dragon slaying quests.

What about some abominations? Things that were supposed to become dragons (or their equivalent, if the drakes weren't their first choice) but failed. Released back onto the continent because why not?

Golden Empress

Their is a swathe of territory under the 'rule' of the Golden Empress. It isn't known if she is a Fae, a God or just very powerful mortal although if she is the very later Godhood seems likely as people prayer for her intervention or to keep her away. The area she encompasses is made up of multiple nations, each ruled by its own sovereign government. The Golden Empress is merely an interfering player that doesn't rule so much as occasionally enforce her will without an inch of subtelty.

Their was a parcel of land between two countries occupied by the ethnic groups of those two countries, so thickly mixed as to be impossible to pull them apart so the two countries fought to rule over it and protect the interests of their ethnicity. The Golden Empress appeared and teleported the people and their property of that land to their respective ethnic country and then set the whole land on fire. The two countries were allowed to reoccupy the area but an invisible forcefield was erected that neatly divided the land in half.

Their was a merchant who accrued a great deal of money and power, paying off governments to look the other way to his immortal practice, such as slave trade. The Golden Empress disintegrated him and all the officials complicit in his dealings. Then she warned their successors not to repeat his mistake. Their was a starving nation suffering from drought while their neighbors prospered. The Golden Empress appeared briefly above the cities of the prosperous nation and then then starving one. The private cubpards and the public stores of the prosperous were half emptied and the starving half filled, and this practice continued monthly until the drought ended.

Many have fled her 'empire' to escape her heavy handed ways and others have flocked to place themselves under her protection. It is interesting to note that so far sages have determined that the area of her influence appears, to the best of their guess, to be limited to an exact circle measured by where permanent examples of her power seem to suddenly end. The exact center of that circle has changed and never proven tobe significant. Also interesting is that over the few centuries she's been about, her sphere of influence had grown and shrank. Now their are those who are interpreting the pattern of those growths and shrinks so they may figure out how to influence it, either to extend the Empress's control over the globe or make her disappear forever.

Right, I'd gotten it backwards. But overall your version works for me. Drakes as naturally-evolved, fire breathing monsters, and dragons as their altered, now sentient, magic using descendants. With both sorts still around. And their elements might depend on their location, eg, the Ley Node island mentioned above might have Snow Dragons in it.

@Marr: That sounds perfectly Smurfy to me.

-*Ahem* What I meant to say was, I like the idea of a frog-based race, in D&D they had some but they were always evil; developing a more nuanced society for them is more interesting. Besides I'd been waiting for a race to be truly native to the New Land (as opposed to Dragons and Orcs, who came in later); we could use this one.

edited 6th Dec '11 4:28:17 PM by Sijo

The Tattering Beasts

These near mindless abominations ruled the sky for many many years. They were the creature that existed before the age of man, one of many failed attempts to create what we would call dragons. The original creature they came from is unknown but is is believed that every single one of their kind was used into the creation. These days they are few and far between driven deep into the earth by their successor and then even more so by men.

They are beings with pure magic sewed into their creation, and immune to all magic as a result, they are ageless but cannot breed and in fact have no discernible gender. They forms vary but most are a tattered mess of leathery wings bones and claws that surround it's oval shaped head which is a a skull usually having one giant eye and a wide vertical toothy maw, usually surround by several un-used eye and mouth cavities, which sometimes have malformed eyes within them.

They are large with the size of a dragon and sometimes even larger. Due to the way they are formed they cannot land normally, and are most certainly doomed if they cannot right themselves. They can fly for years on end without ever stopping and usually anchor themselves to cliff if they ever do. Though said doom may not come for several hundred years. They like dragons use Leylines but have also been known to feast on anything that moves, which is why they were forced underground in the first place as they seem to have no way to become full and in-fact don't even digest their food.

Like this?

edited 2nd Jul '12 2:06:31 PM by Vyctorian

Mabinari

The Material world is occupied by spirits, birthed of the natural confluences between the Aether and the Mortal, in fact much like Fae but of the Material. These spirits take to occupying a landmarks, sometimes whole swathes of land like an entire forest, sometimes just a really big tree or the whole forest with the big tree as their 'throne' or 'bed', depending on how you or they think. They are not mortal in the sense of being as susceptible to death as we but they are just as elligible for Terrestrial Godhood as any other. In fact, more so as they are already closer to the Immaterial.

The spirit called Mabinari is one such being. Occupying a waterfall as his 'bed' and treating the whole lake it fed into as his home, he lived a uneventful existence until a bunch of frog people showed up and started worship his bed as the Source of All Life. Of course, a spirit and where it lives are naturally ingrained and he was just as much the center of worship as the waterfall itself. It ascended him to Terrestrial Godhood and he introduced himself around the time he could manifest as a giant frog face made of water trailing water from his mouth eternally. The Mabin took their name from him and worshipped him directly.

Now Mabinari does not remember being the Source of All Life, nor his waterfall home. Actually, he doesn't remember much of his early nascent existence but then he began to have dreams, dreams unwittingly imparted to him by the belief of the Mabin and dreams that lent themselves to him actually begetting life. He began to believe what they were selling and now totes that he is indeed the Source of All Life. He doesn't do much, except protect the environment and life, especially aquaeous life. Predominantly, he uses his power to keep fresh water fresh and clean and pure cause that's what he's supposed to do, right?

No, no, no. The Mabinari doesn't manifest itself. It just is. It's never manifested itself. Sure, it might be a water spirit instead of a portal, but it never tried to cause more worship.

You've missed a large detail of the setting, mate. Something powered by enough faith ascends into Terrestrial godhood. It's how it works.

Again, please read the thread before posting. A few pages won't hurt you.

edited 7th Dec '11 12:51:39 PM by Exelixi

Okay, retcon. It has manifested itself, but not in such an over-the-top manner. It acts as a general protector, and generally keeps the Mabin from harm. Its manifestation is the Mabinari.