TVTropes builds a campaign setting!

Oh, I like that.

The higher soul is something like the 'true' soul while the lower soul is like the animus or life force. I expect to do something different here. People have just a soul which becomes a ghost when left behind. They can also just leave footprints with their life force, especially with their deaths, especially a violent death, that become shades and phantoms.

Sounds good to me.

Works for me too. But add some source of magic (which can include the character's own magic, if any) is also needed. The reason: to explain why not everybody who dies in intense circumstances leaves something supernatural behind. Otherwise, nobody would ever be tortured or killed unjustly, for example.

It doesn't have to be unjust torture. And being magical would be a concern for ghosts but so much for shades. It's, say, why dungeons and torture chambers would feel particularly spooky to the sensitives, places where someone died can have a haunting aura several days after, why hospitals are such absolute bullshit for the ethereal attuned.

I agree with an added magical requirement or risk being needed, I'd actually be more in favor of a risk.

Libritium and the Nation Of Gekqual

Libritium is a particular bio-crystal harvested from the fruit of the librin tree. It came in a astounding array of colors and gave off a bright luminescence. It could easily be shaped and manipulated to make marvelous beauties or widely distributed for cheap lighting. They are widely popular in the Easter Dominion, the Black Empire and all through out the old world.

The librin tree grows exclusively in Gekqual, an isolated nation nearly alone in the World Ocean. This nation is about equidistant to many of the major powers, making conquest of Gekqual unlikely as any attempt would be met by resistance from a rival. Further, navigation through its tempest waters is difficult for any non-native of Gekqual, putting any would-be naval invaders at a disadvantage and placing trade in and out of Gekqual firmly in Gekqual's hands.

The Gekqual people are primarily Sylvan Elf, each of it numerous tribes bearing a unique combination of bright colors. For a tribe, they will have a different color for their skin, hair, eyes and the natural tattoo-like markings on their skin, a combination different from another tribe. These markings glow much like libritium, possibly from eating the librin fruit.

Once, the Gekqual people warred for the lucrative contracts of selling their libritium, raiding each other for their stock. This ended when Chief Mexiac of the Ym'baulu Tribe lead his tribe to conquest, absorbing many other tribes into his own and taking to rule the rest. Now the Grand Ym'baulu Tribe and Supreme Chief Mexiac are rich indeed, ensuring a constant and uninterrupted flow of libritium to the outside world.

Any tribe that fails to meets it libritium quota will have their village burned down, their hands cut off and-or all of their children executed. This state of affairs is kept secret from the outside world so that Mexiac's power will remain perpetuated by the foreigner's lust for shiny baubles.

Cut the more brutal elements, it's alright if they're alluded too but I'd rather them not be outright stated. Leave that up to the individual GM.

Man, this seems pretty dead. Saddening. That said, I liked the idea of World Story quite a bit. Collaborative projects and all that. I'm considering starting another, and hopefully this time I won't be tripping out on drugs and dropping behind this time. Keep your eyes peeled, if you're interested. Oh, and, yes, the new one will be much better organised.

I was thinking mayhaps organize things into different canons; The Core Canon, the Splat Canons and the Errata Canons. Core Canon is the ultimate canon, from which all else derives. Splat Canons consider the Core Canon canon, but the Core Canon does not consider the Splats to be Canon. Splat Canons deriving from each other consider each other canon but not any other, although for the most part they should be able fit together nicely.

If they don't, Errata Canon is used to reconcile between to contradicting Splat Canons and grease the gears. Essentially though, that shouldn't happen, different Splats just focus on different things so the Core doesn't get crowded.

That seems amazingly unnecessary. Don't take worldbuilding tips from DC comics. :P

I wouldn't say where dead just all busy at times. That being said I think the main issue we had here is we built more of a world of campaign settings rather than a single campaign setting. Though I still think we could have a recovery, and I still think over Domhain Sceal regularly.

Yeah, I still think we could salvage Domhain, or even start a new project, but in either case, we need to organize better. Setting definite goals, and assigning specific jobs for each of us (eg. one of us builds races, someone else designs lands, etc.) would be much better than just piling on suggestions.

Agreed, I think salvaging would be a start but I'm also willing to contribute to something new in addition to salvaging DS.

I'll do whatever.

Like whatever is assigned/needed?

Yeah, that. Whatever that is.

Ok, first we need to decide if we continue the project as it is, start it over, or begin a whole new one.

I vote that we start over, because it would be a shame to abandon all the material we worked on for so long. Think of it as doing Domhain.2- heck, real RPGs do that all time. What version is Dungeons and Dragons now, the 4th?

Anyway, it would just be a matter of going over what we have already made and decide what to keep.

We also need to decide who does what. I offer my services as editor, because honestly that's what I'm good at; organizing things, catching errors, etc. I'll let you guys do most of the World-Building.

(note: just because we get specific tasks, doesn't we couldn't make all kinds of suggestions- only that a particular person gets to make certain decisions. This is to avoid all that voting we used to do. For example, any of us could suggest ideas for monsters, but only one decides which gets used. )

These are all just suggestions for now of course. What do you guys think?

edited 20th May '13 4:29:04 PM by Sijo

I was about to suggest rebooting as well, and D&D is on 4th and coming out with their 5th soon. I'm not sure what I could tackle but I'm up for anything I'm needed for.

Yeah, I wanna do the Elf-Dwarf thing right, this time.

I think we should tone down our races/ethnicity a bit as well. It's okay to be different and diverse but to be honest I couldn't even keep track of it all, no matter how much I read over it.

One person to each element will cause too much disparity. Everything will be disconnected and trying to be welded together, which is the problem now. What needs to happen is for things to be done in a specific sequence. Instead of just throwing any idea about anything, start from the bottom and work up. First off: Laws of reality that differ from Real Life. That is, magic, planes of existence, how deities happen, etc. Then geography. Then flora and fauna, including sapients. Then history and nations, not sure in which order for those two. Then establishing when is 'now,' so to speak, and what that means in regards to politics, technology, etc.

I like that.

I like it too. I just don't want to have to go through all the voting we did before- too time consuming. Maybe we should vote on *one* proposal at a time?

Also Exel, what's going to be your role in the new project? You're free to decide your level of activity, just let us know.

edited 21st May '13 8:07:05 AM by Sijo

I'll be setting up and actively participating in the second as-yet-unnamed setting, the thread for which will be created soon, and if Domhain Sceal is rebooted (preferably in a new thread because information flood) I will participate in it as well.

I do like the concept of only holding with one item at a time. This discourages random spamming of ideas, and, coupled with a more organised outline, should eliminate poorly thought-out ideas from everyone. (Or rather, it will act as a crucible and make the good poorly-thought-out ideas into good, well-thought-out ideas with lots of detail.