I have finished the Scotland map. For those who have donated $20 to my Patreon, the publisher and png files have been duly updated on the Google Drive file so you can have a look at them. I'll be doing this going forward on any map changes that I make, so if I do update something important the maps will show it without anyone having to wait.
The dragon territories seem most upon people's minds, as they ask me how those work in my world order. That's understandable; it is certainly the weirdest political division that I've included, mostly because it is the only one that is not a humanoid in some fashion. It reminds me, however, that I have a very large world yet to fill, massive empty areas in Africa, North and South America, Australia and the rest of Oceania and of course Antarctica. I don't have enough humanoid races for all of those.
I've already used dwarfs, gnomes, halflings, elves, orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, norkers, ogres, bugbears, xvarts, cameltaurs (like centaurs), djang (from Dray Prescott), qullan, frost giants, githzerai, githyanki, firenewts, flinds, trolls and minotaurs. It is easy to imagine where I might locate quaggoths, lizard men, tabaxi, aarakocra and kenku, but I'm quickly running out of odd humanoid races and I'm not running out of parts of the world to fill.
Incidentally, I have been thinking of cutting off the Dingwall part of the map from Cromwell's Britain and identifying the inhabitants as berserkers. Technically, the population density is high enough to be rated as human - but then, berserkers are, kind of, sort of, human. The idea of identifying the wildest part of the Scottish highlands (along with parts where my Scottish grandmother's family originates, name of Ross) as a bunch of rabid multi-attack per round death engines appeals to me greatly - particularly if I adjust the berserking rules so they can be "normal" most of the time and only berserk when sorely pressed in battle. And heck, consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds anyway - so why not a piece of Scotland where the fighters attack twice, hm?
I have to be thinking, though, of making a dozen other dragon cultures, along with other giants, then onward into regions where live any and all of the other intelligent races. I don't have a single faerie kingdom created (though I have the sylvan forests of America to settle), I haven't considered Rakshasa (maybe we'll assign one of the minor kingdoms of Burma and make it a Rakshasa-controlled human entity), Drow, doppelgangers, surface troglodytes, gargoyles, mind flayers, night hags, yeti, xorn and umberhulks, not to mention the number of sea-dwelling creatures I haven't considered yet as I've been concentrating on the land. As I move outwards from Europe in all directions, the residents are bound to get weirder and weirder, particularly as I get inventive as I did when I created Paraguay.
Much to do, much to do.
Do your githyanki have the same backstory and abilities? Or, would that be telling?
ReplyDeleteI dumped the backstory, filling in one of my own. They dwell in Naryn province in modern Kirghizistan so this makes up some of their personality, along with some fiction books I once read many years ago (that WOULD be telling).
ReplyDeleteThe githyank have SOME of the abilities from the Fiend Folio. The description there is fairly overpowered, unjustly complicated and on the whole a demonstrative case for what was going terribly wrong with TSR in the early 80s. It's quite clear from many of the folio's descriptions that the creators had seriously lost their perspective, to the point where they were working without any accountability.