Re: Great secrets II : Syndic's ban

From: bryan_thx <bethexton_at_Y4qNpCpE7Tc3AH6e2JLPsGrixDFFkR19klXxELJiNj_kEopzZ5foZXPDxoOBpV6QqY>
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 15:35:33 -0000

So I took this as an invitation to start thinking of possibilities of all sorts…..

Which eventually led me to realize that they seemed to break down in three categories:
1) Actual threats of some kind, which is to say things that surrounding territories have to respond to. Under this category I thought of:

  1. A plague land, where the remaining inhabitants are wretched and infected, surviving and fighting only due to their mastery of disease magic.
  2. A monster land. As mentioned this kind of duplicates Dorastor, but it could be a different take on the same sort of thing, possibly a more organized menace, like a society ruled by Karshtids or something.
  3. An inhuman land. Charg is now one large elf forest, and they have the resources to start extending the forest rapidly. Or they are totally ruled by Dwarfs, utterly regimented and dour, but with large squads of musketeers.
  4. Something that is not outright a threat, but which is disturbing, unsettling, or outright revolutionary. For example:
  5. They are lunars, but in a totally different manner. They have chaos integrated fully into their society, or claim the original red goddess died and everyone else is worshipping Gbaji, or whatever.
  6. They are a republic with strong belief in equal rights and freedom of expression. They have a magic that helps make this so, and they are aggressive in defending themselves (think Switzerland crossed with revolutionary America).
  7. They have some new/re-found magic of the world-upsetting type, akin to the god learners or EWF. All they want to do is be left alone while they perfect this magic, and they are quite fanatical about this.
  8. As mentioned before, they are a prize that is impossible to ignore, because if someone else seizes it they become too powerful. It should be something that is essentially impossible for the players to control (that would change the world too much), so it should probably be something that can be destroyed or controlled, or which takes decades to fully exploit.
  9. The land is empty of sentients. There are still towns and cities and farmhouses, all somewhat overgrown and broken down but still restorable. The fields are full of bushes and saplings, but still less work to clear than full forest. There are even domestic animals wandering around more or less gone wild, but easy enough to gather up. You could easily settle a horde of farmers there and quickly have a rich and prosperous kingdom.
  10. The land is largely a smoking ruin, with a few heavily fortified wizarding schools, all in decline due to the attrition of war—but still possessing grimoires of mass destruction.
  11. They have become some sort of communistic state as imagined by a naïve fourteen year old. They all work together for the common good, have no crime, weapons, or army. They view gold as something you might make dishes out of if you don't have anything better, like copper or pottery.

More than one could be true—it could be 1b and 3c, or 1a and 2c, or 1c and 3b, or even 1b and 2a and 3c….or whatever.            

Powered by hypermail