For ideas that don't quite fit in the other categories
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The Miscellaneous
- Thread starter JamesMartin
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The Miscellaneous
Eli-B
A Writer
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This may be more Populations/People and even Nations, but I'm going to dump it here since it kind of compasses both.
This is just a gigantic word dump of some ideas for government, factions, military...stuff, it's a lot of the minor details.
The Directorate: A governing system. Two members of each country/nation that serve as the leaders of their respective land. Every five years there is an election to see if new members to the Directorate will be anointed. This is uncommon and most members of the Directorate have served for many years. On alternating five year periods, an "On High" is chosen from within the Directorate to serve as the supreme ruling power until the next election period. There has been very little discourse over history against the Directorate and "On High" as a whole, with almost every decision being in the best interest of the people. Overall, a fairly benevolent system (at least at the top of the chain).
The Holy Hand: The official title of the conscripted armies within the nations, they branch out from main military cities into nearly every other country/nation to serve as a standing force and to keep the general peace. Most citizens are required to spend two years of service within The Holy Hand but since there is no easy way to ensure someone does or does not serve their years, if someone chooses not to, seldom are there serious consequences.
The Fleet: While many countries (provided they aren't landlocked) possess a naval structure of some kind, most official and sanctioned vessels consider themselves part of The Fleet. This has given rise to some split factions of pirates that operate off of the coastline on several smaller islands but they mostly keep their conflicts between themselves and seldom raise the ire or retaliation of the Fleet itself. The Fleet is large enough to almost act as its own governing body, and given their overwhelming control and near monopoly over aquatic trading routes, one could justifiably be wary of such a system.
The Monasteries: Many traditions have very little in common with each other, but the network of monasteries act as a haven of information and as libraries. Each sanctioned monastery is in charge of a wealth of historical information they are to protect and preserve. This network exists to maintain whatever is left of history and to ensure the preservation of the past. The information can seem limited at times, but that is what makes it so precious. Each monastery is led by a "Luminary" though unlike the Fleet of Wandermere or Holy Hand, there is no one "Luminary" above the others. They act separately within their own facilities and do not directly report to each other.
The Guilds: A true conglomerate, a guild can be anything involving a set of merchants and a good they provide. This makes them difficult to regulate, but they have major outposts in key cities. These outposts do their best to regulate who is selling what and when and attempt to ensure a fair price is maintained within the guild structure. This is wildly unsuccessful but the effort is there. At least within the major cities the prices are fairly consistent.
The Azure Knot: While anyone with magical capacity is allowed and encouraged to practice magic in a safe manner (this is built assuming we keep a low fantasy context and not everyone is running around slinging fire and brimstone), the official centers of learning belong to the Azure Knot, an interwoven magical society that allows for instructed learning for youths to adults that wish to hone their magical talents. No matter how someone comes into their magical prowess, they have the potential to be accepted into the Azure Knot. However, like the conscripted military service, post-graduation you are required to spend two years in service to the Azure Knot itself, either as a teacher or mage assigned to a specific city. This is in substitute of standard Holy Hand service.
The Urbestros: An Urbestro is a Directorate-appointed leader for each city, no matter the size. Each city has their own Urbestro who oversees civil matters, trials, and planning. A sort of judge, jury, and executioner, a democratic election is held by the people of each city and chosen by the two Directorate members. The Urbestro will remain in their position unless the Directorate is alerted to negligence of the position. As the Urbestro is elected out of a group voluntarily put up by the people of the city, this is unusual but does happen on occasion.
All names are subject to change this is just throwing ideas out there.
This is just a gigantic word dump of some ideas for government, factions, military...stuff, it's a lot of the minor details.
The Directorate: A governing system. Two members of each country/nation that serve as the leaders of their respective land. Every five years there is an election to see if new members to the Directorate will be anointed. This is uncommon and most members of the Directorate have served for many years. On alternating five year periods, an "On High" is chosen from within the Directorate to serve as the supreme ruling power until the next election period. There has been very little discourse over history against the Directorate and "On High" as a whole, with almost every decision being in the best interest of the people. Overall, a fairly benevolent system (at least at the top of the chain).
The Holy Hand: The official title of the conscripted armies within the nations, they branch out from main military cities into nearly every other country/nation to serve as a standing force and to keep the general peace. Most citizens are required to spend two years of service within The Holy Hand but since there is no easy way to ensure someone does or does not serve their years, if someone chooses not to, seldom are there serious consequences.
The Fleet: While many countries (provided they aren't landlocked) possess a naval structure of some kind, most official and sanctioned vessels consider themselves part of The Fleet. This has given rise to some split factions of pirates that operate off of the coastline on several smaller islands but they mostly keep their conflicts between themselves and seldom raise the ire or retaliation of the Fleet itself. The Fleet is large enough to almost act as its own governing body, and given their overwhelming control and near monopoly over aquatic trading routes, one could justifiably be wary of such a system.
The Monasteries: Many traditions have very little in common with each other, but the network of monasteries act as a haven of information and as libraries. Each sanctioned monastery is in charge of a wealth of historical information they are to protect and preserve. This network exists to maintain whatever is left of history and to ensure the preservation of the past. The information can seem limited at times, but that is what makes it so precious. Each monastery is led by a "Luminary" though unlike the Fleet of Wandermere or Holy Hand, there is no one "Luminary" above the others. They act separately within their own facilities and do not directly report to each other.
The Guilds: A true conglomerate, a guild can be anything involving a set of merchants and a good they provide. This makes them difficult to regulate, but they have major outposts in key cities. These outposts do their best to regulate who is selling what and when and attempt to ensure a fair price is maintained within the guild structure. This is wildly unsuccessful but the effort is there. At least within the major cities the prices are fairly consistent.
The Azure Knot: While anyone with magical capacity is allowed and encouraged to practice magic in a safe manner (this is built assuming we keep a low fantasy context and not everyone is running around slinging fire and brimstone), the official centers of learning belong to the Azure Knot, an interwoven magical society that allows for instructed learning for youths to adults that wish to hone their magical talents. No matter how someone comes into their magical prowess, they have the potential to be accepted into the Azure Knot. However, like the conscripted military service, post-graduation you are required to spend two years in service to the Azure Knot itself, either as a teacher or mage assigned to a specific city. This is in substitute of standard Holy Hand service.
The Urbestros: An Urbestro is a Directorate-appointed leader for each city, no matter the size. Each city has their own Urbestro who oversees civil matters, trials, and planning. A sort of judge, jury, and executioner, a democratic election is held by the people of each city and chosen by the two Directorate members. The Urbestro will remain in their position unless the Directorate is alerted to negligence of the position. As the Urbestro is elected out of a group voluntarily put up by the people of the city, this is unusual but does happen on occasion.
All names are subject to change this is just throwing ideas out there.
NovaChridhe
Knight
So the continent(shown in the world threat) is actually one big country with different provinces? wouldn't it be hard for conflicts to happen if everyone is on the same page? Or is this to keep it as simple as it can be, for everyone to participate?
Darko Cernovsek
Soul Of Vengeance
I was under the impression they're different countries, actually.
Eli-B
A Writer
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This is built from the perspective of a continent-wide democratic process. These are separate nations (listed wherever I put those) that collectively have aligned themselves around the Directorate as a system by the people, for the people (which always works and has never failed in the past, no way that'd be ridiculous). Everyone betters themselves by bettering those around them. You can still have conflict, groups fight all the time about anything, but you likely wouldn't be planning a nation versus nation war without something seriously going wrong.
Who's to say nothing would seriously go wrong? Resources are limited, space is limited, power is limited. Conflict always has a chance to arise, no system is perfect. I'm just putting a base out there to stand on and build from.
Who's to say nothing would seriously go wrong? Resources are limited, space is limited, power is limited. Conflict always has a chance to arise, no system is perfect. I'm just putting a base out there to stand on and build from.
TMITM
Megalomaniacal Arbiter
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Please, for everything that is good and right in this world, come up with a plan. It would be painful to see something like the star wars sequels happen. Please, just do it.
Also, I don't like math. Not a lot of people like math. Please don't make me do math.
I would also like to say that this should not be a 'mission', or a 'quest'. We shouldn't have to 'go here', 'get the sword', 'defeat boss', because that creates a sense of monotony, and eventually monotony creates, especially with authors, a "you can't tell me what to do" attitude, and that is the last thing you want an adventure to do. I don't wanna be told what to do. Do you want to be told what to do? Of course not. Nobody does. What we should do instead is be presented with a problem that has no readily defined solution, and then we can make up our own. It shouldn't be a task, it should be a problem that takes creativity and ingenuity to solve. That itself would be a huge hit, I think, for writers.
And even if there was a monotonous series of tasks we had to do, there should at least be a reward at the end of it. The motivation for the player would be to defeat a cool and unique boss, and get a cool thing. That's what I like a lot about the master sword, especially in old Zelda games. It's talked about in a literal sense. It's a sword that would make you more powerful. You go through the game, get the sword! Who doesn't want a cool sword?
There should be rewards because it creates a connection to the player. It creates expectations. It creates a good frickin game.
Another point of my apparent essay that I'm writing should be... puzzles. A puzzle is something you have all the pieces for, but you are only limited by your wit and your imagination to put all the pieces together in the right way. The satisfaction of a puzzle comes from the 'Aha!' moment, where the pieces finally fit, and you did it.
What is not a puzzle is when there is some random, arbitrary ingredient that you are missing. So you stumble around blindly, doing a million different things to try and solve it, but none of them work. Until, that is, you find the arbitrary ingredient and you solve the 'puzzle'. The satisfaction isn't there, and you say, "well, crap!" or, "come on!" the puzzle isn't satisfying because it isn't a puzzle.
And, whatever. Take my opinions with a grain of salt, because I certainly don't pretend that I can tell you what to do, or how to make this happen. This is just based on my personal preference, and I just want this to be the best it can be.
So, thank you for listening to me shout my opinion at you for awhile. Have a nice day.
Also, I don't like math. Not a lot of people like math. Please don't make me do math.
I would also like to say that this should not be a 'mission', or a 'quest'. We shouldn't have to 'go here', 'get the sword', 'defeat boss', because that creates a sense of monotony, and eventually monotony creates, especially with authors, a "you can't tell me what to do" attitude, and that is the last thing you want an adventure to do. I don't wanna be told what to do. Do you want to be told what to do? Of course not. Nobody does. What we should do instead is be presented with a problem that has no readily defined solution, and then we can make up our own. It shouldn't be a task, it should be a problem that takes creativity and ingenuity to solve. That itself would be a huge hit, I think, for writers.
And even if there was a monotonous series of tasks we had to do, there should at least be a reward at the end of it. The motivation for the player would be to defeat a cool and unique boss, and get a cool thing. That's what I like a lot about the master sword, especially in old Zelda games. It's talked about in a literal sense. It's a sword that would make you more powerful. You go through the game, get the sword! Who doesn't want a cool sword?
There should be rewards because it creates a connection to the player. It creates expectations. It creates a good frickin game.
Another point of my apparent essay that I'm writing should be... puzzles. A puzzle is something you have all the pieces for, but you are only limited by your wit and your imagination to put all the pieces together in the right way. The satisfaction of a puzzle comes from the 'Aha!' moment, where the pieces finally fit, and you did it.
What is not a puzzle is when there is some random, arbitrary ingredient that you are missing. So you stumble around blindly, doing a million different things to try and solve it, but none of them work. Until, that is, you find the arbitrary ingredient and you solve the 'puzzle'. The satisfaction isn't there, and you say, "well, crap!" or, "come on!" the puzzle isn't satisfying because it isn't a puzzle.
And, whatever. Take my opinions with a grain of salt, because I certainly don't pretend that I can tell you what to do, or how to make this happen. This is just based on my personal preference, and I just want this to be the best it can be.
So, thank you for listening to me shout my opinion at you for awhile. Have a nice day.
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Heyo, I have an idea for some kind of homebrew sanctum class idea you could play in this world as well. Still a work in progress and I'll post when I have a bit more if you are interested. It would be cool to see it on the dndbeyond homepage one day with "Sanctum" as its source if it ever picked up traction.
BGP
Serf
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OK some thoughts here on the general concept of the Outer Sanctum WIP name pending early access.
Mostly meta related stuff that I'm borrowing from past experiences.
Mostly meta related stuff that I'm borrowing from past experiences.
- XP. While I kinda hated it because it directly connected to how much content a character pushed it did create milestones to reach which connected to specific bonuses. All characters started out at level 1 which essentially governed their influence in the world. As the players leveled up through posts, they would eventually unlock more influence and access to things eventually culminating in level 4 (I think? It's been almost a decade). Level 4 was sweet because you could effectively choose a... let's call it divine action. You could have an interaction with a God (God RP'd by a mod), or, with VERY strict controls and requirements that I don't remember, ascend to Godhood. At that point, the character was no longer playable for power control.
- Godhood, mentioned above, is an achievable aim but ultimately retires an active character. This control restricts power creep
- There should be a separate area for magic, and possibly tech, maybe that belongs under the world thread.
Darko Cernovsek
Soul Of Vengeance
Well what would be the point of godhood then, if it basically makes the character unplayable? What's the upside?
Better for it to just be unachievable.
Better for it to just be unachievable.
Darko Cernovsek
Soul Of Vengeance
So let's just omit ascension to godhood altogether, and eliminate the need for sacrificing characters. lol Seems like a much more simple and sensible solution.
Seraph Darkfire
King of the Underworld
Would common staple foods fit here?
Also, what about magical creatures? Plants, Animals, Spirits, things that aren't sapient enough to form their own societies. Insects? Honestly, the variety of creatures people could create and figure out how they interact with each other and the denizens of the world would be fascinating. Honestly, this is making me want to create a researcher character to just study these things that haven't been created yet.
Common illnesses and rare diseases? From magical flu to magical STDs? I hope we aren't going with healing magic as a cure-all kind of thing. It would definitely have to be nuanced, different healing magics for different illnesses...but maybe I'm getting too scientific for a High Fantasy setting...
Also, what about magical creatures? Plants, Animals, Spirits, things that aren't sapient enough to form their own societies. Insects? Honestly, the variety of creatures people could create and figure out how they interact with each other and the denizens of the world would be fascinating. Honestly, this is making me want to create a researcher character to just study these things that haven't been created yet.
Common illnesses and rare diseases? From magical flu to magical STDs? I hope we aren't going with healing magic as a cure-all kind of thing. It would definitely have to be nuanced, different healing magics for different illnesses...but maybe I'm getting too scientific for a High Fantasy setting...
I think guilds would be a good idea as well. We could even have people be the guildmasters of different guilds. Ranks wpuld go up after say a number of missions or each mission would have a rank and depending on how well the mission is carried out they could rank up off of one big mission. Of course you would need someone of that higher rank to do a mission of that rank status. So an E rank couldnt do a C rank mission unless someone in their party was a C rank or above. As for the missions themselves I've seen a few sites that create and save up missions for such an idea.
Right now the world is structured from the outside in. I'd like to see about flipping that and working from the inside out.
The threads are set up for people to make abstract world building suggestions, but there's no place to play. World building takes a long time and is a lot of work. I want to propose an alternative approach to the whole project.
I'd like to start a city or town. Just one. An inn/tavern. A castle or town hall. Some guild halls. A church. A criminal underground. Draft experienced players to run the different buildings and organizations. Declare a king. Elect a mayor and just let people play.
It could be chaos... but if each forum had it's own limited access moderator, and enough people took interest it could go somewhere. The bigger world could start to take shape based on the interactions, rather than having to invent a whole world from scratch.
I'd most like to develop and run the church please... maybe multiple churches even.
@Penfighter
@Ice
@JamesMartin
@Otys
The threads are set up for people to make abstract world building suggestions, but there's no place to play. World building takes a long time and is a lot of work. I want to propose an alternative approach to the whole project.
I'd like to start a city or town. Just one. An inn/tavern. A castle or town hall. Some guild halls. A church. A criminal underground. Draft experienced players to run the different buildings and organizations. Declare a king. Elect a mayor and just let people play.
It could be chaos... but if each forum had it's own limited access moderator, and enough people took interest it could go somewhere. The bigger world could start to take shape based on the interactions, rather than having to invent a whole world from scratch.
I'd most like to develop and run the church please... maybe multiple churches even.
@Penfighter
@Ice
@JamesMartin
@Otys
I made a couple of posts to The Divine section of the Lore forum... putting up an open proposal for what I have in mind for the church.
Regarding the larger world. I see the tavern/inn as forming the heart of the Outer Sanctum, a place for people to gather casually IC, seek out quest companions, or bandy about campaign ideas.
I'd like to see the Outer Sanctum forums structured as buildings in the town. Tavern, Town Hall, Castle, Church, Secret Hide Out, Military Base, Mage College. Each building can house one or more guilds or organizations, and one or more rooms public or private. All of the buildings could go up at once, but each building/forum should stay closed with a "Help Wanted" notice until someone is attached to the building. I think anyone should be allowed to play any role in the town... with a few exceptions. I think if a non-admin/moderator wants a high level position they should seek sponsorship by someone whose been around for a while. That way if a person disappears or does a bad job they've got someone dedicated to watching them.
Characters can be granted access to private spaces, by working in the building, being invited, ect... anyone can read posts in the private rooms, but if they post in there they might be committing a criminal offense. Probably not a big deal if they wander into the tavern's kitchen, they can just be shooed away, but if they're in the private chamber of a princess in the castle... buddy better have a good explanation. Having at least one play in an active role in every active building/forum will help the site to grow at a good pace. Too many empty spaces and people start to lose interest. I heard Warwick mention in chat that he wanted to open a restaurant in IS. I wonder if he might want to take a role as tavern keeper
Regarding the larger world. I see the tavern/inn as forming the heart of the Outer Sanctum, a place for people to gather casually IC, seek out quest companions, or bandy about campaign ideas.
I'd like to see the Outer Sanctum forums structured as buildings in the town. Tavern, Town Hall, Castle, Church, Secret Hide Out, Military Base, Mage College. Each building can house one or more guilds or organizations, and one or more rooms public or private. All of the buildings could go up at once, but each building/forum should stay closed with a "Help Wanted" notice until someone is attached to the building. I think anyone should be allowed to play any role in the town... with a few exceptions. I think if a non-admin/moderator wants a high level position they should seek sponsorship by someone whose been around for a while. That way if a person disappears or does a bad job they've got someone dedicated to watching them.
Characters can be granted access to private spaces, by working in the building, being invited, ect... anyone can read posts in the private rooms, but if they post in there they might be committing a criminal offense. Probably not a big deal if they wander into the tavern's kitchen, they can just be shooed away, but if they're in the private chamber of a princess in the castle... buddy better have a good explanation. Having at least one play in an active role in every active building/forum will help the site to grow at a good pace. Too many empty spaces and people start to lose interest. I heard Warwick mention in chat that he wanted to open a restaurant in IS. I wonder if he might want to take a role as tavern keeper
Darko Cernovsek
Soul Of Vengeance
Sounds like the better approach. If I were to be a part, I'd focus on building a Thieves Guild in the city. Getting some criminal underground up and running. Of course "Thieves Guild" would be an euphemism. They would run all kinds of shady activities besides thievery; assassination, intel-gathering/espionage for the highest bidder, some mercenary/privateer work, etc. They'd be tolerated by whatever ruling structure there is, because their services would be useful on occassion, but also cracked down on, when they go too far.
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I'd be down to think about magic! I love developing and writing out magic systems. If we make a city or town, I'd be excited to create a tower and to start opening the door to the world of the Arcane.
This is definitely the way to go. Communicate and work together to establish concrete details and then let people play it out from there. A roleplay that you can keep adding to and coming back to with different characters and ideas is always really fun and addicting for me. It's awesome to have something that persists even when you are working with different characters and stories later on.
This is definitely the way to go. Communicate and work together to establish concrete details and then let people play it out from there. A roleplay that you can keep adding to and coming back to with different characters and ideas is always really fun and addicting for me. It's awesome to have something that persists even when you are working with different characters and stories later on.
So tell me your thoughts on Magic. It seems like the consensus on magic rules is to aim for something similar to DnD.
I'm personally more interested in the social and cultural status and implications of magic.
I also have some thoughts on the relationship between divine and arcane casting types.
@Penfighter
I'm personally more interested in the social and cultural status and implications of magic.
I also have some thoughts on the relationship between divine and arcane casting types.
@Penfighter