Fate. Treasure. Dragons.
Random entry from the Encyclopaedia Telrhinica:
Arina
Trade city on the White River between Barakan and Akear, controlled off and on by either Damoras or Ausgourd in the River War ('War of Short Yards').
I wrote this as an adventure setup, in the style of a (long) event promo blurb:
The gorge looked a lot nicer when you weren’t running for your life. The sagging rope bridge bounces more than you’d like and you’re not making good time, what with all the loot you’re carrying.
A short stab at the world origin myth from the Lowlanders world view, which is one of many Westron variants of the Serpent Earth mythology.
Odom Tan is the 'great uncle', a folk figure who travels between the farms and towns, whose real identity as Tandim Ulgrasar is forgotten -- and unimportant -- to the rural Lowlanders.
The party's been stuck in the wilderness for months now. Winter-edge-of-nowhere wilderness. It turns out the biggest npc killer is ravines. You'd think wolves, bears, oversized spiders, bloodsucking vines, tentacled freshwater things, or the usual hordes of hostile humanoids. Angry fairies. Carniverous pandas. Nope. Ravines.
Pretty sure we've lost six party members to ravines.
The fantasy genre gets a little dull in a winter wilderness. Most things are hibernating. No farms or towns to explore or draw out the hordes of humanoids or country brigands. You're stuck with dragons. And that's if they're even warm-blooded. I found myself making up reasons why there are kobolds with catapults.
Diagram of the Three Worlds: Prime (known world), the Embers, and the Listar (Spirit World). The Traum is its own reality, a greater embryo for the inception of the original Chimerums before the Diegesic Struggle and the Antedivisian world.
[update: I was about to delete this post, but for fun throught I'd instead mention where we are now (January 2019): Drupal 7, https and global CDN]
We're back up after a brief downtime, on our new speedier and shinier server and database! Access should be more reliable now.
This paves the way for the other upgrades: Drupal 7 (yeah, we're still on 6) and a shiny new theme! Which will be responsive for all those times you wish you could check out the site and all you have is a crappy phone. All of those many times.
New region write-up for Rakshem: Khitagan and the Three Lands. This chunk of the world has been begging an overhaul to mark iv for a long time. Here's a teaser:
Image from Blackadder the Second
I just added a culture sidebar for the section on the Lark-Han citystate:
Somehow after five years the Rahman Brothers are still alive and the campaign is still going. It's been a grognard romp for the most part, full of murder and mayhem and -- as the brothers often explain -- "terrible misunderstandings."
Currently in the Borderlands of Wallendahr, faced with a freezing snow-drenched wilderness. Great old school stuff ahead: dragon, wizard(s), druids and a lich. I just hope they don't read the blog.
Again with the name changes! We're trying "Midsummer: the World of Telrhin". And this is the new intro on the home page that helps shape it:
Chaos in the melding of the Twelve Lost Dreams gave way to the Great Dream, a gathered world of mythic and impossible things. It cracked and boiled out into new parts: the Second World of lost secrets, the Spirit World of ideas too large, and what remained was Terra.
[update: name switch to Indago Nigh: the World of Telrhin after letting it digest and some feedback, and still playing with rule names like Alpha Nigh...]
A long delay in work on Telrhin thanks to a Vespa accident. But the end is nigh: work on Mark IV is drawing to a close, enough to look for some good 'branding' for both the world and rules. Enter 'Ars Indago: the Art of the Crawl' (the "product" title) with the Indago Rules (as much as I loved calling them Fat Dragon...).
