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Old 08-25-2018, 08:40 PM   #1
JohnPaulB
 
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Default Duchy of Dran

Maps of Ducy of Dran and Bendwyn have newly rendered maps. They look fabulous!
Is Legacy ITL going to have the same data as the original ITL (just lifted from it) or is it going to be more fleshed out?

I know you are still working on the book, but was that ever a consideration?

The reason I'm wondering was... should we wait till the PDFs release to start designs on stocking this map?

For those interested in working on Limited Publishing License and using Dran as the setting, how do we coordinate all the other different versions of the kingdoms social, political, economic variance and magical level?

Is there going to be or already is a Limited Publishing License place that the writers can go to to perhaps coordinate or discuss these things?
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Old 08-26-2018, 12:50 AM   #2
Jim Kane
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Default Re: Duchy of Dran

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Originally Posted by JohnPaulB View Post
Is Legacy ITL going to have the same data as the original ITL (just lifted from it) or is it going to be more fleshed out?...The reason I'm wondering was... should we wait till the PDFs release to start designs on stocking this map?
In what ways do you mean when you say: "more fleshed out" and "stocking the map"?

JK
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Old 08-26-2018, 09:19 AM   #3
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Default Re: Duchy of Dran

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Originally Posted by Jim Kane View Post
In what ways do you mean when you say: "more fleshed out" and "stocking the map"?

JK
By that I mean, Will SJG be producing stocked villages in the manner of Bendwyn, more than just a line of data on The Tower of Revoreesh, what the politics and military of Kel is like. You know, creating a small fully realized bit of Cidri for those who don't World-Build.

By stocking the map, I meant filling in the noted villages with either scratch built GM villages or stocking the indicated location with third party RPG companies pre-made products.

But I guess it really does not matter, because I can hold on these projects and wait for two months on the PDF release and find out then.
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Old 08-26-2018, 09:48 AM   #4
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Default Re: Duchy of Dran

The new page on Dran is only slightly longer. I hereby declare this thread to be a good place where Dran-builders can talk. I would like to officially publish a book on the city of Dranning, and fan-created villages, or hamlets too small to show on the map, would be fun.

In fact, since I have the file on my desktop, I'm just going to copy the current Dran text here . . . a little sample while we wait till October. Rubydelve and Revoreesh are the only entries that changed noticeably; I named the service village south of Rubydelve, and I made Revoreesh a bit more "good" and, by making it clear he did not live alone and undefended, a much tougher target for random wizard-hunters. Not that any IQ 20 (+?) wizard is "undefended" . . .

Oh, yes - I also added a bit of flavor to Littlehill. It would not surprise me if those halflings sell T-shirts too.

---

The Duchy of Dran and most surrounding areas are civilized, but neither populous nor especially advanced. Elyntia and its neighboring kingdoms are still recovering from a devastating war that ended two hundred years ago, and much of the land is wilderness. Its folk are mostly human, though other communities exist.
Huldre Forest is not a large wood, by Cidri standards – but it is very old, and there are frightening stories about its southern parts.
Dranning is the capital city of the Duchy and the seat of the Dukes of Dran. It has a population of about 15,000.
Bordre is the second city of the Duchy, with a population of about 7,000. It was originally a fort built to guard shipping along the Evenflow and to keep an eye on Kel and Deseret.
Tro is a port city – population around 5,000.
Kel is the capital of the Duchy of Kel, to the east of Oran. It is slightly smaller than Dranning, but has a thriving river trade.
Winterhome is the only city in the western part of the dusty Duchy of Deseret. Once an oasis metropolis and winter capital of a great empire, it is now shrunken to a town of 10,000 souls amid buildings that could house ten times as many.
Rubydelve, dug into the eastern slopes of the Gargoyle Mountains, is a dwarven town of 2,000 or so. Its chief industry, of course, is mining. Occasionally rubies are found – mostly, though, the dwarves dig for silver and iron. Just south of Rubydelve is the ambitiously named Ruby Town, a mostly-human village that provides crops and services to Rubydelve.
The Gargoyle Mountains, as their name implies, are full of gargoyles . . . as well as other creatures.
The Bright River carries half the commerce of southern Elyntia. Since it flows very slowly for most of its length, and the prevailing winds are from the southwest, ships work upstream as well as down on the Bright, King Ater, Trassy, and Lesser Trassy.
Tanander was once a kingdom. Its southern parts are now a squabbling jumble of counties and city-states; the northern reaches have no organization at all, and few folk venture there. Elyntia honors the Bright River as the old border – so, south of the Bright, force is the only law.
Thargi Swamp is a fell place, indeed – though fortunately the really bad parts lie in the Duchy of Bolors. It harbors octopi, wild saurians, and less nameable terrors. Merchant craft plying the Trassy and Lesser Trassy carry armed crews . . . and a few ships vanish every month.
The Tower of Revoreesh lies in the foothills of the Gargoyle Mountains. Revoreesh is probably the most powerful wizard in (at least) the whole Duchy. He is an adept, preferring the company of his books. The people of the countryside believe him to be quite mad, and rarely see him, but hold him in great respect due to his advanced age and the help he has been known to provide in emergencies. His servants and their families number in the dozens.
Podliforku is a fishing village grown up alongside an old fort. It is, in its small way, a notorious pirate base.
Littlehill is an ordinary farm village in all ways save that its people are halflings. There are old ruins nearby, and the halflings encourage treasure-seekers, rent them clean rooms, and sell them good food. They will be deeply surprised if anything is ever found!
Elfwood does, indeed, contain a small population of elves, as well as a tribe of centaurs.
Canigli is a town of about 2,000; its population is mixed human and goblin, with a little of everything else. Its lord, who holds the rank of Count, is an old goblin-warrior – still robust in his early 80’s. He, his son and heir, and his eldest grandson are all totally loyal to their liege lord the Duke, though there is constant intriguing against both Count and Duke among those goblin-lords who have not given their pledge of fealty.
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Old 08-27-2018, 02:04 AM   #5
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Default Re: Duchy of Dran

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Originally Posted by Steve Jackson View Post
The new page on Dran is only slightly longer. I hereby declare this thread to be a good place where Dran-builders can talk. I would like to officially publish a book on the city of Dranning, and fan-created villages, or hamlets too small to show on the map, would be fun.
Thanks Steve.

This should be fun for all of us.

Any comments?
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Old 08-28-2018, 09:26 PM   #6
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Default Re: Duchy of Dran

Just to start somewhere, Here is a suggestion about Sizes of Communities from City Builder: a Guide to Designing Communities.
  • Hovel – 1 or 2 inhabitants
  • Homesteads – 1 family
  • Thorps – 20 to 80 Inhabitants.
  • Hamlets – up to about 400 inhabitants
  • Villages - up to about 1000 inhabitants.
  • Communes - varies
  • Towns – at least 2000 & up to 5000
  • Cities –
  • Small medieval – up to 12000 inhabitants
  • Large medieval city – up to 25000 inhabitants
  • Medieval Metropolis -at least 25000 & up to 100000 or even a million
I think the values of Thorps through Villages might be high, but I don't know until I start stocking some.

Special Built Communities
  • Plantations
  • Exploitation (Lumber, Mining, etc)
  • Military bases

- - - - - - - -
Elyntia Kingdom
  • Duchy of Dran
  • Duchy of Bolors
  • Duchy of Deseret
  • Duchy of Kel
Former Kingdom of Tanander

There seems like several more Elyntia Duchies should be north and west of the map. And what is the capital of Elyntia?

What is happening in Tanander right now?

What size is that water mass that Tro is next to?
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Old 09-05-2018, 10:12 AM   #7
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... Kel is the capital of the Duchy of Kel, to the east of Oran.
I always assumed you meant "west" rather than "east" here, since the map shows Kel west of Dran. I also assume "Oran" is a new typo here, which should read "Dran"?
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Old 09-24-2018, 09:21 PM   #8
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Default Re: Duchy of Dran Religious Establishments

I had a question about Religion in the Elyntia. Not a specific religion nor the "my cleric has spells" issue. It's more like an encyclopedia question:

In general, how many notable religions are there in Elynthia?
Do they build edifices for their parishioners?

If you're creating a town, you're probably going to encounter a church building, so that is what is spurring me to contemplate this.
  • Do we use the European Medieval criteria? Cities get Cathedrals, Towns get big churches, Villages get parishes church, hamlets get shrines...That sort of thing? But Medieval Europe had only one Religion.
  • Or perhaps the Egyptian/Aztec criteria? Cities get Pyramids and Temples of enormous proportions for one religion.
  • Do we use the Enlightenment criteria? Most areas have a dominant religion, some places have two competing schism religion. Both have big churches in big cities. When going to foreign lands, you encounter their dominant religions.
  • Do we use the Modern criteria? There are several dominant religions and many minor ones. There are many religion churches in big cities (and lots of same religion churches spread out over the area) and several different religious churches in a town. Villages may have a dominant and a minor religion publicly displayed. Cities might have foreign districts that have their own foreign religion edifice.
  • Some places may have monasteries off the beaten track, or sacred forests with specific sites, or a sacred burial ground or cairn. Some religious followers may just use their homes as places of worship.

And this is if religion is organized and ready to build churches. It could be that any religion is not allowed socially or legally to build edifices.

I'm also wondering about the racial religions: Orc, Elf, Dwarf, Centaur and the others. Do they build edifices?
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Old 04-06-2019, 08:26 AM   #9
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Default Re: Duchy of Dran

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Originally Posted by Steve Jackson View Post
The new page on Dran is only slightly longer. I hereby declare this thread to be a good place where Dran-builders can talk. I would like to officially publish a book on the city of Dranning, and fan-created villages, or hamlets too small to show on the map, would be fun.
Here are the assumptions that lead me to put a Wizard Academy (Harry Potter style) in Dranning: https://www.hcobb.com/tft/house_rules.html#Maps
  • A 20 year old wizard has both basic Wizard training and starting spells
  • At most 16 starting spells times three months each is four years
  • Apprenticeships therefore start at age 16
  • Real world skills start around age six so wizard training must start then
  • Ten graduates a year times an average career of 30 years gives 300 active wizards in Dran
  • Times the 300:1 ratio gives a human population of 90k in Dran
  • The cities of Dran have a total listed population of 31K
  • Total urban population is around 40k with 50k rural
Note that my assumption of 80 wizards in Dranning gives a ratio of 187.5:1 with respect to the city's population. Hence the ratio out in the fields is much higher and it's quite a ways from the average farm to the nearest Town Wizard with his chest and big book of spells.

This then gives a dozen labs in Dranning powered by 40 (10 each year times the four years of 16, 17, 18 and 19) poorly paid grad students (mirroring the real world too well for a "fantasy" game). Six of these are doing Weapon/Armor Enchantment, four are doing Lesser Magic Item Creation and two are doing Greater Magic Item Creation. There are at most another dozen enchantment labs scattered around Dran.

To give a feel for how small and tight these numbers are: At the moment in my story when miss Tsozan sits down for lunch with the Decosta twins there are zero to two other wizards their same age in the Dranning "Megahex".
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Old 04-06-2019, 02:55 PM   #10
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Default Re: Duchy of Dran

Interesting. I'd forgotten this thread. I wonder if it will stay active now for a bit longer than it did then?

On the Wizard Academy thing, I'd look for something a lot less "Harry Potter-ish" I think, and more along the lines of a classic University of the early Renaissance period. Mostly just because Harry Potter style magic seems too "cute" for the nitty-gritty "real" world to me. And, actually, I'd think such an Academy would be vanishingly rare, simply because most budding sorcerers would probably lack the money to indulge in something like that, and most experienced Wizards would have better things to do with their time. Having said that, it might be fun to see what something like that might look like. I can recommend a couple of examples I've collected over the years; Redhurst Academy, GURPS Worminghall, and Wizard's Academy (for Pathfinder). All are interesting, and all provide a slightly different look at what such an academy might actually be like, so are probably worth a gander if one is interested in this particular trope.

Most of you probably realize from many past posts of mine that I'm somewhat of a fan of macro-economic models that drive my fantasy worlds, so I envision Dranning as a major trade hub for the interior of the continent. Oddly enough, there doesn't seem to be much of an emphasis on the port cities along the coast in this setting, which inclines me to believe that the trade opportunities there are possibly somewhat limited. Perhaps the body of water at the southeast end of the map is more like the Black Sea (or even the Caspian) than it is like the Baltic or Mediterranean Seas. But, if so, then that means Dranning may be far more important for trade, and may be a hub filled with Caravansaries and connected with something like the Silk Road (see GURPS Hot Spots: The Silk Road for more information), or the Salt Road from Harn. Which gives us a basis for some wonderful adventure opportunities right there within and based on the city itself. Everything from a Lankhmarish thieves guild type of set up, to a city filled with rumors, legends, fake and real treasure maps, and plenty of available means of transportation to get you to where the adventure is. Plus there are always caravans to guard (and raid) if you want your players to go somewhere else. Then too, the city would probably be pretty cosmopolitan, giving you the opportunity to make contact with other races and civilizations under circumstances which do not automatically force confrontation upon the players.

So that's kind of my personal vision for the place -- something in spirit more like Constantinople or Venice than it is medieval London or Paris, with lots of color, vibrant cultures, and adventure opportunities based around the information, opportunities, and goods that arrive daily with the trade caravans.
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