I have a couple of fully fleshed out game worlds (fully is a relative term here, I guess) - so of course, I'm losing interest in them, and now it seems I have to create a new setting for a game I want to play.
Now, the title is all but self-explanatory: I want to create one of those worlds of islands among the clouds, with some variety of flying transportation between them.
Help me build it =)
I think there needs to be an Empire of Crows (kenku, obviously). I know there needs to be some sort of explanation for what's below the islands. I need a concept for the ships - how do they fly. I need some idea of ecology, and the logistics of where timber comes from (in sufficient quantities to justify fleets of sky ships).
There are no floating continents or the like - only islands of varying size. I imagine play starts on Lantern Peak, an island dominated by a tall 'mountain' capped by a lighthouse, that happens to be home to Caliper, a democratic republic of gnomes, as well as the Free Trade League, a merchant guild primarily run by humans. The Crow Empire is encroaching from the ... let's say east.
I feel like there needs to be un-Imperial kenku - maybe puffins?
Generally I hate dragons, but I think I need them for this world. But where? Do they have lairs high above, at the edge of space? Or far below, in the churning chaos (I dunno if there's a churning chaos below, it's just one idea)?
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Only way I can think to avoid the airship becoming the answer for all travel issues is that the crew/captain refuse to travel certain places due to danger, and where they will travel to they charge fees only nobility or merchant companies can afford. https://routerlogin.uno/
Floaty boats, without the hot air balloon lift device is my favorite style of airship, the kind you see in spelljammer.
I'm perfectly fine with sky ships being the primary means of travel - how else would anyone get anywhere? But skyships are kinda fragile, and need proper mooring. So you can only go to ports, or 'natural mooring' places. Meaning, in essence, you need to travel overland once you tie off your boat in a place I designate.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
It occurs to me that there needs to be glider mail-slash-delivery guys.
So, for your everyday mail that you stuff in an envelope and slap a stamp on, there's the Royal Mail Service, and various merchant lines you can use. But if you want something delivered directly and quickly to your recipient, you hire an adventurous (read: Stupidly overconfident) individual with a simple glider to ride the cloudtides straight to ... Uncle Everard.
I can hear you think: But why not just have carrier pigeons? They can fly! Well, because the wyverns tend to eat them. That's why. Are there somewhat smaller aerial predators? Maybe not wyverns, but ... some sort of 'dactyls? =)
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
It occurs to me that there needs to be glider mail-slash-delivery guys.
So, for your everyday mail that you stuff in an envelope and slap a stamp on, there's the Royal Mail Service, and various merchant lines you can use. But if you want something delivered directly and quickly to your recipient, you hire an adventurous (read: Stupidly overconfident) individual with a simple glider to ride the cloudtides straight to ... Uncle Everard.
I can hear you think: But why not just have carrier pigeons? They can fly! Well, because the wyverns tend to eat them. That's why. Are there somewhat smaller aerial predators? Maybe not wyverns, but ... some sort of 'dactyls? =)
I would definitely include magical envelopes (which may or may not be made using carrier pigeons) which will fly back to their owner when sealed. Thus two people in correspondance can give each other these envelopes to send swift replies, which fly off at pigeon speeds (60mph-ish). It would require prior planning (as do pigeons, people often gloss over the fact that pigeons fly home, they don't fly to a requested postcode!) but would be a fun way to have two NPC's communicate!. The brilliant aspect is that they could have the wall of small boxes with envelopes in, which are called pigeon-holes even now despite being long since we used pigeons, so the lore of having previously used pigeons but finding a better, less smelly method will fit exactly like it does in the real world!
Maybe the world below is still inhabitable, just that it's ruled by creatures way too big and way too powerful to be around. Say for instance, titans, or primordial creatures that predate the world blah blah. Basically, very big and deadly things live beneath the clouds - people can go there, but only really powerful ones do, and even they barely return.
Maybe there are a few tall mountain peaks that people have access to in the clouds, and from those mountains there are tunnels that allow a city/civilization of sorts to flourish closer to the ground. Never above ground, mind you. More like ants in an anthill.
If all that is true, then you can have a decent source of stone/precious metals/gems, and a somewhat reliable source of wood (high level adventures to gather...wood?) So long as you make it clear that it's not a "survivable" thing to go down to the ground - it's death for anyone but the most powerful.
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
If all that is true, then you can have a decent source of stone/precious metals/gems, and a somewhat reliable source of wood (high level adventures to gather...wood?) So long as you make it clear that it's not a "survivable" thing to go down to the ground - it's death for anyone but the most powerful.
As an engineer who loves making artificer NPCs, I am imagining one of the islands features a "fishing" crane system where they sling huge grappling hooks into the below-lands, and drag up entire trees for wood gathering. Still risky - you never know what lives in the trees - but definitely an Artificer solution to the problem!
I would definitely include magical envelopes (which may or may not be made using carrier pigeons) which will fly back to their owner when sealed. Thus two people in correspondance can give each other these envelopes to send swift replies, which fly off at pigeon speeds (60mph-ish). It would require prior planning (as do pigeons, people often gloss over the fact that pigeons fly home, they don't fly to a requested postcode!) but would be a fun way to have two NPC's communicate!. The brilliant aspect is that they could have the wall of small boxes with envelopes in, which are called pigeon-holes even now despite being long since we used pigeons, so the lore of having previously used pigeons but finding a better, less smelly method will fit exactly like it does in the real world!
That actually is a wonderful idea. I even went so far as imagining it takes a single drop of blod from the sender to power the envelope - making it a sort of 'Convenience Necromancy' - each time it's used.
Trouble is, I really want communication between islands to be somewhat slow and bothersome - either you pick the slow option, sending it with a merchant boat that follows a circuituous route, or you pick the fast but somewhat unreliable messenger option (unreliable because messengers get eaten by a not-insignificant margin).
Oh and on carrier pigeons? Yea, no one pays much attention to the fact that you need to grab a pigeon, carry it overland on foot or my horse, to wherever - and then you can use it once, to carry a single message back to the origin point. Man, the logistics of that =D
Maybe the world below is still inhabitable, just that it's ruled by creatures way too big and way too powerful to be around. Say for instance, titans, or primordial creatures that predate the world blah blah. Basically, very big and deadly things live beneath the clouds - people can go there, but only really powerful ones do, and even they barely return.
Maybe there are a few tall mountain peaks that people have access to in the clouds, and from those mountains there are tunnels that allow a city/civilization of sorts to flourish closer to the ground. Never above ground, mind you. More like ants in an anthill.
If all that is true, then you can have a decent source of stone/precious metals/gems, and a somewhat reliable source of wood (high level adventures to gather...wood?) So long as you make it clear that it's not a "survivable" thing to go down to the ground - it's death for anyone but the most powerful.
That's one option, and a very good one. I had a similar idea, that kaiju-like living and maybe, possibly sentient mineral deposits lumbered around down there - luring the greedy to swift and messy deaths.
The thing is though - I don't think this world is broken. Rather I think ... in the beginning, there was nothing - except magic. And a lot of nothing filled with magic isn't a stable condition, so the Big Whatever happened, and where our universe coughed up ... well, the universe, this universe burped a bunch of floating islands into existance, and what's below them (eventually - there are many things below them) at the very bottom is just that sea of raw magic that started the universe.
Another thing: In such a world, planets do not orbit stars in any logical fashion. So .. is there a day cycle? If there is, how does that happen? If there isn't, do we just ... gloss that part over, or ..?
=)
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
As an engineer who loves making artificer NPCs, I am imagining one of the islands features a "fishing" crane system where they sling huge grappling hooks into the below-lands, and drag up entire trees for wood gathering. Still risky - you never know what lives in the trees - but definitely an Artificer solution to the problem!
Oh, this is a neat idea. But! Said cranes wouldn't be on the islands - because, well, they were, but now there's nothing more to drag up. Cranes kinda only reach a limited area below, after all. So now, they're on ships, which I suppose will have to be called Rigs, dragging up whatever's down there for ressources.
Maybe that get's too cyberpunky? I have a sort of ... colorful high-fantasy ideal in my mind. But ... this is something I just started on, so anything might change.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
As an engineer who loves making artificer NPCs, I am imagining one of the islands features a "fishing" crane system where they sling huge grappling hooks into the below-lands, and drag up entire trees for wood gathering. Still risky - you never know what lives in the trees - but definitely an Artificer solution to the problem!
Oh, this is a neat idea. But! Said cranes wouldn't be on the islands - because, well, they were, but now there's nothing more to drag up. Cranes kinda only reach a limited area below, after all. So now, they're on ships, which I suppose will have to be called Rigs, dragging up whatever's down there for ressources.
Maybe that get's too cyberpunky? I have a sort of ... colorful high-fantasy ideal in my mind. But ... this is something I just started on, so anything might change.
I always feel that cyberpunk is more of a visual thing than anything.
The rigs could be styled as classign fishing trawlers which have to navigate to the deepest sections of the cloud sea (where the ground is furthest below) and then cast a single line to pull up trees (nets were tried but they snagged too much and then something pulled the ship down, so they stick to one easily cuttable line!). They don't need to be as intensive as modern fishing trawlers, but it would still be a "deadliest catch" sort of thing. Perhaps there are swarms of creatures which are decent eating that live in trees, so when they pull up a tree full of them, they have to process all the things living in it.
You could also make that the reason the creatures on the ground are all hostile to the people in the clouds, as they just take from them, potentially allowing a redemption arc. A cool plot point might be a trio of trawler rigs dragging in a colossal tree, which was deeply spiritual and sparks a war. Maybe this happened long ago, and the tree still stands in the courtyard of the court of the clouds. The party discovers along the way that this was not only a deeply spiritual tree, but the only one left, and the seeds were supposed to reseed the forest - until it was taken.
I always feel that cyberpunk is more of a visual thing than anything.
The rigs could be styled as classign fishing trawlers which have to navigate to the deepest sections of the cloud sea (where the ground is furthest below) and then cast a single line to pull up trees (nets were tried but they snagged too much and then something pulled the ship down, so they stick to one easily cuttable line!). They don't need to be as intensive as modern fishing trawlers, but it would still be a "deadliest catch" sort of thing. Perhaps there are swarms of creatures which are decent eating that live in trees, so when they pull up a tree full of them, they have to process all the things living in it.
You could also make that the reason the creatures on the ground are all hostile to the people in the clouds, as they just take from them, potentially allowing a redemption arc. A cool plot point might be a trio of trawler rigs dragging in a colossal tree, which was deeply spiritual and sparks a war. Maybe this happened long ago, and the tree still stands in the courtyard of the court of the clouds. The party discovers along the way that this was not only a deeply spiritual tree, but the only one left, and the seeds were supposed to reseed the forest - until it was taken.
Propably it would be more accurate to call it steampunk anyways - but yea, it's more an aesthetic than anything else.
These are good ideas - maybe there are trees down there. However, maybe not, they wouldn't get the most sunlight down there. Could be the bones of unknown leviathans, instead, and then that would mean the ships were made of bone. That would again change the aesthetic of the game. I've also toyed with fallen (sunken?) islands, or even petrified trees.
Anyways, maybe it's not important - right now - what it is they drag up. But they'd be dredgers, yea? Like the messenger guys, who would be some sort of ... I dunno, would they be a guild? I just called them independent (actually I didn't, but I thought it, which totally counts), so does it make sense for them to be a guild?
Well, we call it the Messenger's Guild, but really we're more of a loose confederacy!
- some Messenger called Rufus.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Propably it would be more accurate to call it steampunk anyways - but yea, it's more an aesthetic than anything else.
These are good ideas - maybe there are trees down there. However, maybe not, they wouldn't get the most sunlight down there. Could be the bones of unknown leviathans, instead, and then that would mean the ships were made of bone. That would again change the aesthetic of the game. I've also toyed with fallen (sunken?) islands, or even petrified trees.
Anyways, maybe it's not important - right now - what it is they drag up. But they'd be dredgers, yea? Like the messenger guys, who would be some sort of ... I dunno, would they be a guild? I just called them independent (actually I didn't, but I thought it, which totally counts), so does it make sense for them to be a guild?
Well, we call it the Messenger's Guild, but really we're more of a loose confederacy!
- some Messenger called Rufus.
I would say that for interest, they should either be a guild, or be fiercely competitive. That way it will either drive the story of "We're all in this to survive", and makes befriending the guild a high priority for the players, or it promotes the "There's not much resource, so we take what we can" mentality and has the players potentially managing piratical attacks and attempted theft of dredged goods when they are on a dredging ship. Both have good story connotations, and it really depends on whether you want your world to feel like it's the above-world vs the below-world, or if you want it to be the above-world infighting whilst neglecting the threats of the below-world.
I don't have much to say, but I think this is a great chance for evil warlord with an army that rides dragons, and the dragons hold up/pull these GIANT ships that can transport unbelievable numbers of troops. Maybe he even has like some of the biggest dragons in history that literally pull an island.
I would say that for interest, they should either be a guild, or be fiercely competitive.
It occurs to me that it could be both: Maybe not all the messengers are part of the guild. So you could have the somewhat more stable guild messengers - and the utter-wildcard ungilded madmen. I think I like that dynamic =)
I don't have much to say, but I think this is a great chance for evil warlord with an army that rides dragons, and the dragons hold up/pull these GIANT ships that can transport unbelievable numbers of troops. Maybe he even has like some of the biggest dragons in history that literally pull an island.
See - I love and I hate this idea.
Visually, it's awesome. A team of giant dragons hauling off giant troop barges or - as you say - an entire island, is just staggering.
But on the other hand, we just turned the most iconic monster in the game into a mount, or even worse, a beast of burden. That was always my trouble with the Dragonlance setting: Sure, Verminard (or who ever) has a great time riding around on a dragon - but why exactly is the dragon putting up with him, when he's not even a snack to it? Never made sense to me. 'Oh, but Thakisis' - don't Thakisis me, that doesn't explain anything.
*cough*
Anyways. If - like me - you like dragons to be rare and overwhelmingly powerful, you really can't also have them haul around cargo like a bellhop =)
But it's not like you're not onto something. The awesome imagery works. It's just that it indicates dragons being subjugated by mere ape-descended bipeds. But if the Below is filled with ressources, maybe occasionally a dragon is seen diving into the clouds - or emerging with some large chunk of something grasped in it's claws. What are they up to?
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I see what you're saying, and I thought about that too. But maybe this BBEG controls them by crazy powerful magic, or they are getting something valuable out of it, or they are playing the long game, waiting for revenge. Maybe he had them from eggs, so they never knew anything else. But I also always love the rare, powerful and feared beasts. The idea of the characters riding on an airship when out of the blue a hulking red dragon comes flying bye, rocking the ship with the force of his wings, carrying the body of some large creature from down below. Maybe this can be an entire like mini event, where the characters have to help upright the ship, but an enemy spy is also on board and takes the opportunity to sabotage the ship, cutting ropes and whatnot. Either way, i think you kinda have to use dragons in some way. I have a lot of other ides that I'd love to right down here, but I don't really have the time to right ten paragraphs.
Hm yea. To my mind, the dragon is the ultimate monster. Even from the egg, their cannot be dominated, and their mindset isn't to work for the things they want, but simply to take them.
This needs to be weighed against their long lives though: You don't live for 1000 years by being reckless. So they're intelligent, clever, greedy, lustful, but also cautious. In a way they're perfect villains - except their motivations are too foreign for my tastes. They don't really want things we can comprehend. Oh, sure, treasure. But ... why? They're not doing anything with it.
So .. I dunno, maybe dragons are better used as villains - rather than monsters or mounts or beasts of burden. Only I can't figure them out, I cannot decide for myself what motivates them. But I like the idea of parading someone like Verminard around as the main bad guy, then revealing right at the end that actually, really, the dragon is pulling Verminards strings.
That said I'm still against dragons being mounts. Or ... dubious, at least.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Yeah, okay. That makes sense. I'm one of those DMs who likes to change things, like maybe dragons aren't ancient, but only live around as long as an elf. Either way, you do you! It's you campaign, so obviously I can't force you to do something.
I should mention, I am unsubscribing from this thread, so I won't see if you reply. Good luck!
Yeah, okay. That makes sense. I'm one of those DMs who likes to change things, like maybe dragons aren't ancient, but only live around as long as an elf. Either way, you do you! It's you campaign, so obviously I can't force you to do something.
I should mention, I am unsubscribing from this thread, so I won't see if you reply. Good luck!
Well, I appreciate the input, thanks =)
I change almost everything too. The thing I usually change about dragons is their existance: In most of my games, dragons are long extinct. In one particular game, dragons are forces of nature - like, literally - so there's only one of each unique type, say the Dragon of Storms, or the Dragon of Quakes.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Plenty of other minor flying things you could incorporate to free dragons up to be all they can be!
Wyverns would work well for evil mounts. Flying Whales, or giant manta rays. Maybe they have Rocs hauling their loads. If the islands are floating I can definitely expect people to be finding ways to propel them. Maybe an uran-utan inside a volcano making it propelled with a geyser for a polar-werebear Druid/Ranger warlord and an army of animals?
I like the idea of the ground below being a place Dragons can go, and if you want to make the ground dangerous even to them then you need some sort of insipid evil down there. Mindflayers and their ilk might be an option, or some Lovecraftian horror-landscape. You could also have it that there are Greatwyrm-drakes down there, with no wings but immense power, and the Dragons are stealing their gold.
Plenty of other minor flying things you could incorporate to free dragons up to be all they can be!
Sure - so many things. It's really up to what flavor you prefer. You mention rocs and whales and manta rays. Giant manowar jellyfish (which, technically, they aren't), moray eels, lantern fish, squid and octopi could all be adapted. Of those, I think I like the manta rays best =)
Wyverns would work well for evil mounts. Flying Whales, or giant manta rays. Maybe they have Rocs hauling their loads. If the islands are floating I can definitely expect people to be finding ways to propel them. Maybe an uran-utan inside a volcano making it propelled with a geyser for a polar-werebear Druid/Ranger warlord and an army of animals?
Wyverns are my go-to 'there are no dragons, but there are these guys' monster. I tend to drama them up tremendously - while not actually making them any stronger - just play on their powerful wingbeats, primal screaming roars, ferociousness and deadliness. Rocs are cool. However, you've lost me on that last bit. I've no idea what an uran-uran is (don't worry, I'm sure google can enlighten me), but you raise another point: If there are no plate tectonics, there aren't any volcanos either - so are there? And I kinda thing there are (volcanos, that is) so I need another reason for them to exist. Same for climate. There wouldn't be any poles for polar bears to call home, but maybe higher islands are colder? So they're high-bears? =)
I like the idea of the ground below being a place Dragons can go, and if you want to make the ground dangerous even to them then you need some sort of insipid evil down there. Mindflayers and their ilk might be an option, or some Lovecraftian horror-landscape. You could also have it that there are Greatwyrm-drakes down there, with no wings but immense power, and the Dragons are stealing their gold.
I need to figure out what's down there. I think empty space is above - eventually - but what's below? Maybe just crushing pressure, like if you're on Jupiter? That kinda works.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
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I have a couple of fully fleshed out game worlds (fully is a relative term here, I guess) - so of course, I'm losing interest in them, and now it seems I have to create a new setting for a game I want to play.
Now, the title is all but self-explanatory: I want to create one of those worlds of islands among the clouds, with some variety of flying transportation between them.
Help me build it =)
I think there needs to be an Empire of Crows (kenku, obviously). I know there needs to be some sort of explanation for what's below the islands. I need a concept for the ships - how do they fly. I need some idea of ecology, and the logistics of where timber comes from (in sufficient quantities to justify fleets of sky ships).
There are no floating continents or the like - only islands of varying size. I imagine play starts on Lantern Peak, an island dominated by a tall 'mountain' capped by a lighthouse, that happens to be home to Caliper, a democratic republic of gnomes, as well as the Free Trade League, a merchant guild primarily run by humans. The Crow Empire is encroaching from the ... let's say east.
I feel like there needs to be un-Imperial kenku - maybe puffins?
Generally I hate dragons, but I think I need them for this world. But where? Do they have lairs high above, at the edge of space? Or far below, in the churning chaos (I dunno if there's a churning chaos below, it's just one idea)?
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Only way I can think to avoid the airship becoming the answer for all travel issues is that the crew/captain refuse to travel certain places due to danger, and where they will travel to they charge fees only nobility or merchant companies can afford. https://routerlogin.uno/
Floaty boats, without the hot air balloon lift device is my favorite style of airship, the kind you see in spelljammer.
I'm perfectly fine with sky ships being the primary means of travel - how else would anyone get anywhere? But skyships are kinda fragile, and need proper mooring. So you can only go to ports, or 'natural mooring' places. Meaning, in essence, you need to travel overland once you tie off your boat in a place I designate.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
It occurs to me that there needs to be glider mail-slash-delivery guys.
So, for your everyday mail that you stuff in an envelope and slap a stamp on, there's the Royal Mail Service, and various merchant lines you can use. But if you want something delivered directly and quickly to your recipient, you hire an adventurous (read: Stupidly overconfident) individual with a simple glider to ride the cloudtides straight to ... Uncle Everard.
I can hear you think: But why not just have carrier pigeons? They can fly! Well, because the wyverns tend to eat them. That's why. Are there somewhat smaller aerial predators? Maybe not wyverns, but ... some sort of 'dactyls? =)
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I would definitely include magical envelopes (which may or may not be made using carrier pigeons) which will fly back to their owner when sealed. Thus two people in correspondance can give each other these envelopes to send swift replies, which fly off at pigeon speeds (60mph-ish). It would require prior planning (as do pigeons, people often gloss over the fact that pigeons fly home, they don't fly to a requested postcode!) but would be a fun way to have two NPC's communicate!. The brilliant aspect is that they could have the wall of small boxes with envelopes in, which are called pigeon-holes even now despite being long since we used pigeons, so the lore of having previously used pigeons but finding a better, less smelly method will fit exactly like it does in the real world!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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Maybe the world below is still inhabitable, just that it's ruled by creatures way too big and way too powerful to be around. Say for instance, titans, or primordial creatures that predate the world blah blah. Basically, very big and deadly things live beneath the clouds - people can go there, but only really powerful ones do, and even they barely return.
Maybe there are a few tall mountain peaks that people have access to in the clouds, and from those mountains there are tunnels that allow a city/civilization of sorts to flourish closer to the ground. Never above ground, mind you. More like ants in an anthill.
If all that is true, then you can have a decent source of stone/precious metals/gems, and a somewhat reliable source of wood (high level adventures to gather...wood?) So long as you make it clear that it's not a "survivable" thing to go down to the ground - it's death for anyone but the most powerful.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
As an engineer who loves making artificer NPCs, I am imagining one of the islands features a "fishing" crane system where they sling huge grappling hooks into the below-lands, and drag up entire trees for wood gathering. Still risky - you never know what lives in the trees - but definitely an Artificer solution to the problem!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
That actually is a wonderful idea. I even went so far as imagining it takes a single drop of blod from the sender to power the envelope - making it a sort of 'Convenience Necromancy' - each time it's used.
Trouble is, I really want communication between islands to be somewhat slow and bothersome - either you pick the slow option, sending it with a merchant boat that follows a circuituous route, or you pick the fast but somewhat unreliable messenger option (unreliable because messengers get eaten by a not-insignificant margin).
Oh and on carrier pigeons? Yea, no one pays much attention to the fact that you need to grab a pigeon, carry it overland on foot or my horse, to wherever - and then you can use it once, to carry a single message back to the origin point. Man, the logistics of that =D
That's one option, and a very good one. I had a similar idea, that kaiju-like living and maybe, possibly sentient mineral deposits lumbered around down there - luring the greedy to swift and messy deaths.
The thing is though - I don't think this world is broken. Rather I think ... in the beginning, there was nothing - except magic. And a lot of nothing filled with magic isn't a stable condition, so the Big Whatever happened, and where our universe coughed up ... well, the universe, this universe burped a bunch of floating islands into existance, and what's below them (eventually - there are many things below them) at the very bottom is just that sea of raw magic that started the universe.
Another thing: In such a world, planets do not orbit stars in any logical fashion. So .. is there a day cycle? If there is, how does that happen? If there isn't, do we just ... gloss that part over, or ..?
=)
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Oh, this is a neat idea. But! Said cranes wouldn't be on the islands - because, well, they were, but now there's nothing more to drag up. Cranes kinda only reach a limited area below, after all. So now, they're on ships, which I suppose will have to be called Rigs, dragging up whatever's down there for ressources.
Maybe that get's too cyberpunky? I have a sort of ... colorful high-fantasy ideal in my mind. But ... this is something I just started on, so anything might change.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I always feel that cyberpunk is more of a visual thing than anything.
The rigs could be styled as classign fishing trawlers which have to navigate to the deepest sections of the cloud sea (where the ground is furthest below) and then cast a single line to pull up trees (nets were tried but they snagged too much and then something pulled the ship down, so they stick to one easily cuttable line!). They don't need to be as intensive as modern fishing trawlers, but it would still be a "deadliest catch" sort of thing. Perhaps there are swarms of creatures which are decent eating that live in trees, so when they pull up a tree full of them, they have to process all the things living in it.
You could also make that the reason the creatures on the ground are all hostile to the people in the clouds, as they just take from them, potentially allowing a redemption arc. A cool plot point might be a trio of trawler rigs dragging in a colossal tree, which was deeply spiritual and sparks a war. Maybe this happened long ago, and the tree still stands in the courtyard of the court of the clouds. The party discovers along the way that this was not only a deeply spiritual tree, but the only one left, and the seeds were supposed to reseed the forest - until it was taken.
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Propably it would be more accurate to call it steampunk anyways - but yea, it's more an aesthetic than anything else.
These are good ideas - maybe there are trees down there. However, maybe not, they wouldn't get the most sunlight down there. Could be the bones of unknown leviathans, instead, and then that would mean the ships were made of bone. That would again change the aesthetic of the game. I've also toyed with fallen (sunken?) islands, or even petrified trees.
Anyways, maybe it's not important - right now - what it is they drag up. But they'd be dredgers, yea? Like the messenger guys, who would be some sort of ... I dunno, would they be a guild? I just called them independent (actually I didn't, but I thought it, which totally counts), so does it make sense for them to be a guild?
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I would say that for interest, they should either be a guild, or be fiercely competitive. That way it will either drive the story of "We're all in this to survive", and makes befriending the guild a high priority for the players, or it promotes the "There's not much resource, so we take what we can" mentality and has the players potentially managing piratical attacks and attempted theft of dredged goods when they are on a dredging ship. Both have good story connotations, and it really depends on whether you want your world to feel like it's the above-world vs the below-world, or if you want it to be the above-world infighting whilst neglecting the threats of the below-world.
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I don't have much to say, but I think this is a great chance for evil warlord with an army that rides dragons, and the dragons hold up/pull these GIANT ships that can transport unbelievable numbers of troops. Maybe he even has like some of the biggest dragons in history that literally pull an island.
It occurs to me that it could be both: Maybe not all the messengers are part of the guild. So you could have the somewhat more stable guild messengers - and the utter-wildcard ungilded madmen. I think I like that dynamic =)
See - I love and I hate this idea.
Visually, it's awesome. A team of giant dragons hauling off giant troop barges or - as you say - an entire island, is just staggering.
But on the other hand, we just turned the most iconic monster in the game into a mount, or even worse, a beast of burden. That was always my trouble with the Dragonlance setting: Sure, Verminard (or who ever) has a great time riding around on a dragon - but why exactly is the dragon putting up with him, when he's not even a snack to it? Never made sense to me. 'Oh, but Thakisis' - don't Thakisis me, that doesn't explain anything.
*cough*
Anyways. If - like me - you like dragons to be rare and overwhelmingly powerful, you really can't also have them haul around cargo like a bellhop =)
But it's not like you're not onto something. The awesome imagery works. It's just that it indicates dragons being subjugated by mere ape-descended bipeds. But if the Below is filled with ressources, maybe occasionally a dragon is seen diving into the clouds - or emerging with some large chunk of something grasped in it's claws. What are they up to?
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I see what you're saying, and I thought about that too. But maybe this BBEG controls them by crazy powerful magic, or they are getting something valuable out of it, or they are playing the long game, waiting for revenge. Maybe he had them from eggs, so they never knew anything else. But I also always love the rare, powerful and feared beasts. The idea of the characters riding on an airship when out of the blue a hulking red dragon comes flying bye, rocking the ship with the force of his wings, carrying the body of some large creature from down below. Maybe this can be an entire like mini event, where the characters have to help upright the ship, but an enemy spy is also on board and takes the opportunity to sabotage the ship, cutting ropes and whatnot. Either way, i think you kinda have to use dragons in some way. I have a lot of other ides that I'd love to right down here, but I don't really have the time to right ten paragraphs.
Hm yea. To my mind, the dragon is the ultimate monster. Even from the egg, their cannot be dominated, and their mindset isn't to work for the things they want, but simply to take them.
This needs to be weighed against their long lives though: You don't live for 1000 years by being reckless. So they're intelligent, clever, greedy, lustful, but also cautious. In a way they're perfect villains - except their motivations are too foreign for my tastes. They don't really want things we can comprehend. Oh, sure, treasure. But ... why? They're not doing anything with it.
So .. I dunno, maybe dragons are better used as villains - rather than monsters or mounts or beasts of burden. Only I can't figure them out, I cannot decide for myself what motivates them. But I like the idea of parading someone like Verminard around as the main bad guy, then revealing right at the end that actually, really, the dragon is pulling Verminards strings.
That said I'm still against dragons being mounts. Or ... dubious, at least.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Yeah, okay. That makes sense. I'm one of those DMs who likes to change things, like maybe dragons aren't ancient, but only live around as long as an elf. Either way, you do you! It's you campaign, so obviously I can't force you to do something.
I should mention, I am unsubscribing from this thread, so I won't see if you reply. Good luck!
Well, I appreciate the input, thanks =)
I change almost everything too. The thing I usually change about dragons is their existance: In most of my games, dragons are long extinct. In one particular game, dragons are forces of nature - like, literally - so there's only one of each unique type, say the Dragon of Storms, or the Dragon of Quakes.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Plenty of other minor flying things you could incorporate to free dragons up to be all they can be!
Wyverns would work well for evil mounts. Flying Whales, or giant manta rays. Maybe they have Rocs hauling their loads. If the islands are floating I can definitely expect people to be finding ways to propel them. Maybe an uran-utan inside a volcano making it propelled with a geyser for a polar-werebear Druid/Ranger warlord and an army of animals?
I like the idea of the ground below being a place Dragons can go, and if you want to make the ground dangerous even to them then you need some sort of insipid evil down there. Mindflayers and their ilk might be an option, or some Lovecraftian horror-landscape. You could also have it that there are Greatwyrm-drakes down there, with no wings but immense power, and the Dragons are stealing their gold.
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Sure - so many things. It's really up to what flavor you prefer. You mention rocs and whales and manta rays. Giant manowar jellyfish (which, technically, they aren't), moray eels, lantern fish, squid and octopi could all be adapted. Of those, I think I like the manta rays best =)
Wyverns are my go-to 'there are no dragons, but there are these guys' monster. I tend to drama them up tremendously - while not actually making them any stronger - just play on their powerful wingbeats, primal screaming roars, ferociousness and deadliness. Rocs are cool. However, you've lost me on that last bit. I've no idea what an uran-uran is (don't worry, I'm sure google can enlighten me), but you raise another point: If there are no plate tectonics, there aren't any volcanos either - so are there? And I kinda thing there are (volcanos, that is) so I need another reason for them to exist. Same for climate. There wouldn't be any poles for polar bears to call home, but maybe higher islands are colder? So they're high-bears? =)
I need to figure out what's down there. I think empty space is above - eventually - but what's below? Maybe just crushing pressure, like if you're on Jupiter? That kinda works.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.