Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 06-01-2019, 11:27 AM   #21
ericthered
Hero of Democracy
 
ericthered's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
Default Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu

Quote:
Originally Posted by Daigoro View Post
Calledronite is prized across the Civilised Worlds of the Polycosm for ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by patchwork View Post
... but with control of the Mother Plains portal, Calledronians have been far more interested in the polycosm next door than exploring the edge of the sky...
Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
... found throughout the polycosm...
The question was never asked, but we appear to have a name for the setting as a whole!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Daigoro View Post
Some numbers if anyone wants to do more calculations:
Fragment sphere is 100,000 miles diameter
Sun is at radial centre
Calledron is 30,000 miles from the sun (compared to Earth-Moon of 240,000 miles)
Calledron's 4,000 mile length subtends a 7.5 degree angle at the sun
The teeth, in proportion to the skull for real crocs, would be 150 miles high for the canines, and maybe 10-15 miles for the other teeth (twice the height of Everest)
Crocodiles don't have canine teeth. They do have some tooth differentiation, but not like a mammal.

I've been looking at photographs of crocodile skull replicas for sale. I've got one with an 890px skull. The longest tooth in the upper jaw on it is 69px, with the second longest measuring 63px. the shortest is 23px.

By those numbers the largest teeth are 310 miles high, and the shortest 103 miles. The earth is pretty smooth, all things considered. Of course, the challenge of Everest is the atmosphere and weather, and I don't think those challenges apply to the teeth, though they will be quite wet, and take a lot of work to ascend.
__________________
Be helpful, not pedantic

Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog

Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one!
ericthered is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 06-01-2019, 12:02 PM   #22
Daigoro
 
Daigoro's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
Default Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Crocodiles don't have canine teeth. They do have some tooth differentiation, but not like a mammal.

I've been looking at photographs of crocodile skull replicas for sale. I've got one with an 890px skull. The longest tooth in the upper jaw on it is 69px, with the second longest measuring 63px. the shortest is 23px.
There's a bit of variation, it seems. This one has two prominent "canines" further down the jaw, while this one has forward and mid-jaw canines.
Quote:
By those numbers the largest teeth are 310 miles high, and the shortest 103 miles.
I actually got a ratio of 10:1 of head-length to large-tooth-size, which would mean 400 miles high, but I pulled it back a touch for sanity's sake. Besides, real crocs were just inspiration, so we can adjust to taste.

Quote:
The earth is pretty smooth, all things considered. Of course, the challenge of Everest is the atmosphere and weather, and I don't think those challenges apply to the teeth, though they will be quite wet, and take a lot of work to ascend.
I imagine there'll be quite a lot of hydrologic weathering, and with that massive scale, tiny features will be huge for humans. So ten mile waterfalls descend down narrow crevasses that form series of terraced ponds two hundred miles up, before dropping as further waterfalls. They'd be very attractive for miners too, given the magical nature of their material. Anyway, we can explore and decide deets properly with questions. I'll drop in a bonus question then:

Question 23 [FRG]- Toothtops
How many teeth are there rimming Calledron, and how tall are they? Are they named? What inhabitants or polities do they have?
__________________
Collaborative Settings:
Cyberpunk: Duopoly Nation
Space Opera: Behind the King's Eclipse
And heaps of forum collabs, 30+ and counting!

Last edited by Daigoro; 06-01-2019 at 10:21 PM.
Daigoro is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-01-2019, 02:41 PM   #23
CraigR
 
CraigR's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Florida
Default Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu

Quote:
Originally Posted by (E) View Post
Answer 1
Travel to other worlds, dimensions and realms is through a limited number of quite variable portals that predate written records. No one really understands how the portals work though many theories exist.

Each of the portals is seen to have a personality for want of a better term, the realm is centered on a portal know as "Mother Plains" which is the most reliable portal and also the one with the most gentle transition. It provides transport from right beside the seat of governance to a vast impossibly flat plain covered in a grass best described as giant wheat.
Another portal is known simply as "The Kidnapper" which appears at random and can send the unwary almost anywhere. It sometimes even returns them at a later time, though as often it brings a new resident(s).
The distorted lands are different again and surround the [area] here an adventurous sort may climb an almost impossibly tall cliff and arrive in the heaven of a deity of life, or cross a river of poison and find themselves in the land of the dead.
Tens or scores of portals exist and each is unique.
I was reminded of this when I read yesterday's Flaky Pastry comic strip
__________________
Craig Roth
Facebook
Twitter
Planet Flipside
CraigR is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-01-2019, 10:56 PM   #24
Daigoro
 
Daigoro's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
Default Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu

Quote:
Originally Posted by CraigR View Post
I was reminded of this when I read yesterday's Flaky Pastry comic strip
That's a fairly neat ontology.
Quote:
Originally Posted by William View Post
I will not spoil the fun by joining in the enumerated questions and answers, but the existence of something like this in the GURPS system was precisely my purpose behind writing up my "Tomos, the Divided Land" setting for crossplanar GURPS fantasy.
Did you have any background justification for the existence of the planes?
__________________
Collaborative Settings:
Cyberpunk: Duopoly Nation
Space Opera: Behind the King's Eclipse
And heaps of forum collabs, 30+ and counting!
Daigoro is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-02-2019, 12:58 AM   #25
Daigoro
 
Daigoro's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
Default Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Question 14 [MV] per answer #9 Calledronite is used by one world to make life-draining blades. What are the notably geological features of that world?
Answer 14 [MV]- Alchemists' World
That'd be the world of the Sky Alchemists of the Hanging City of Ton. Ton is a rough, chaotic assembly of interlinked and overlapping platforms, blackened by centuries of corrosive effluent, all suspended by massive chains of verdigris-covered bronze anchored in a vast ceiling of blasted rock.

Some platforms support the city's infamous alchemical foundries, essence smelters and vitriol mills, while others are cages for containing test subjects collected from across the Polycosm.

With few natural resources of their own, other than dust, vapours, wind and smoke, the Sky Alchemists are very much a knowledge economy. Their agents may often be seen abroad and are recognisable by their wondrous Worldsuits, made to protect against the rigours and risks of polycosmic travel from fantastical gems, alloys and resins.

Question 24 [ALC]- The Hanging City of Ton
Continue this setting description:
"The City of Ton hangs precariously from the ceiling of the world. Looking over an encrusted bronze guard rope while crossing one of the city's swaying chain suspension bridges, one can gaze down upon ..."
__________________
Collaborative Settings:
Cyberpunk: Duopoly Nation
Space Opera: Behind the King's Eclipse
And heaps of forum collabs, 30+ and counting!
Daigoro is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-02-2019, 05:25 AM   #26
patchwork
 
patchwork's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
Default Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu

Answer 12 The inhabitants of Fragment can be broadly divided into two groups, Imperials and not-Imperials. The Imperials arrived about 200 years ago, at which point they were an invasion fleet of about 30,000 sailors and marines headed towards delivering what they thought would be the knockout blow of the war. Their godlings were less attentive or powerful than their enemies' godlings, alas, and the entire fleet was sent somewhere "the ocean could never reach". They quickly discovered the portals and came to understand them well enough to make use of them, and started building imperial cities and provinces around portals they controlled, convincing others to join them. Calledron had many previous populations, but given the poor local mineral resources, inconvenient climate and food crops, they mostly lived at a neolithic level and avoided the portals. Some accepted Imperial leadership, but just as many retreated to the portions of the nasal cavity and brainpan far away from a portal and maintain their autonomy. Imperials sometimes wonder about the war that brought them here, but tend to assume their old home was destroyed, and focus on the empire they have built here and now.

Question 25 While most of Fragment consists of chunks of bone the size of large islands ill-suited to any sort of development or habitation, the collarbone and pelvis have enough surface area to accumulate some topsoil and biome. How are these two masses different from Calledron? Are they understood well or mysterious?
patchwork is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-03-2019, 01:11 PM   #27
ericthered
Hero of Democracy
 
ericthered's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
Default Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu

Quote:
Originally Posted by Daigoro View Post
Question 24 [ALC]- The Hanging City of Ton
Continue this setting description:
"The City of Ton hangs precariously from the ceiling of the world. Looking over an encrusted bronze guard rope while crossing one of the city's swaying chain suspension bridges, one can gaze down upon ..."
Answer 24:
A Mosaic of colorful bubbling pools and smoking molten flows, sending up plumes of vapor. The landscape slowly changes with each hour, as semi-solid effusions firm and cool and the thin precipitate walls between pools form and rupture. Long chains extend down to the flows, laden with suited men and massive buckets, searching for alchemical fortunes in the semi-molten chaos.

Question 26 [ALC]:
How Does the Hanging city of Ton get its water?
__________________
Be helpful, not pedantic

Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog

Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one!
ericthered is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 06-04-2019, 12:49 AM   #28
patchwork
 
patchwork's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
Default Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu

Answer 13 The most important thing the Mother Plains provide to Calledron is pseudowheat, as well as grazelands for aurochs, horses and venomous sheep. There are also a number of plants useful in medical alchemy and the manufacture of soporifics. As a service, it also provides isolation; a wide open stretch of strategic nullity is a fine place for a prison, exile community, or lab of second-rate alchemists trying to reverse-engineer the latest gimmick from the Hanging City of Ton (although the latter still need to be watched in case they start a prairie fire). There is also something of a fad for small earth elementals; the earth of the Mother Plains occasionally heaves itself up into a crude copy of a human being (or other novel being) and attempts to emulate the new thing. Left unmolested, it tends to grow bored and lonely and recombines with Mother Plains soon enough, but some people have decided they like having a copy of themselves (or someone else) around, however crude and simplistic, and will pay for the privilege. The process is poorly understood, however; if Mother Plains is a being or goddess, as the elementals imply, she disdains direct contact with tiny humanity.

Question 27 What qualities, virtues or principles do the Imperials of Calledron value in themselves and others? What is the ideal to which they aspire to?
patchwork is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-04-2019, 06:36 AM   #29
Daigoro
 
Daigoro's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
Default Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Question 26 [ALC]:
How Does the Hanging city of Ton get its water?
Answer 26 [ALC]- Tonic Water
Any way it can. The city has been under tight water usage restrictions since eleven years ago, when their tame ice ettins were broken free of their decanic containments by a contingent of raiders from the Peripatetic League. Generally, the populace gets by with its cisterns of brackish gathered by recycling wastewater and supplemented by condenser vanes made from hydrophilic alloys that extract what atmospheric moisture is available due to the steaming fumaroles below. The vanes work best when polished clean of scale or rot, and the children of the city usually get the chore of scrubbing off the salty crust.

Currently, the Pro-Provost of the Eighth Sigil has a captured water sprite, but her emanations are restricted for use by the Fourth Faculty in their vortex alembics where pure water is essential. Similarly, the city fills up their cisterns from glacier wasps, ghosts of the drowned, mist wights and other such beings when they get the chance, but priority is given to alchemical purposes over civilian supply.


---
Time for a question recap?

Quote:
Question 15 [MV]
Per answer #1, Many Portals have names, and each is unique. How may a wayfarer or sage distinguish between two portals?

Question 16 [FRG]
How many worlds is Fragment in regular contact with? How many has it documented but not maintained regular contact with?

Question 22 [MV]:
What shape is the world or cosmos of the mother plains?

Question 23 [FRG]- Toothtops
How many teeth are there rimming Calledronite, and how tall are they? Are they named? What inhabitants or polities do they have?

Question 25 [FRG]
While most of Fragment consists of chunks of bone the size of large islands ill-suited to any sort of development or habitation, the collarbone and pelvis have enough surface area to accumulate some topsoil and biome. How are these two masses different from Calledron? Are they understood well or mysterious?

Question 27 [FRG]
What qualities, virtues or principles do the Imperials of Calledron value in themselves and others? What is the ideal to which they aspire to?
I'm working on something for Q15.

----

And to dig out some more inspiration:

Question 28 [MV]- Peripatetic League
Who are the Peripatetic League?

Question 29 [FRG]- Culture of the Calledron Empire
As an adjunct to Q27, what was the culture and religion of the Imperials' homeworld like? How much of that did they carry over and remains now? What was the name of their home civilisation and their enemy's?

Question 30 [MV]- Summoning
Are there demonic planes or spiritual dimensions to which the dead go? Can such their denizens be summoned, or is such cross-planar travel only possible via portals?
__________________
Collaborative Settings:
Cyberpunk: Duopoly Nation
Space Opera: Behind the King's Eclipse
And heaps of forum collabs, 30+ and counting!

Last edited by Daigoro; 06-04-2019 at 09:24 AM.
Daigoro is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-04-2019, 11:35 AM   #30
patchwork
 
patchwork's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
Default Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu

Answer 22 The Mother Plains are a geocentric cosmology, a spherical earthlike "planet" with three radiant satellites of different magnitudes and periods, corresponding roughly to MP's day, month and year. It is old, smooth, and not terribly geologically active (earthquakes appear to be the results of earth elementals). The breathable atmosphere thins out gradually until it becomes too thin and cold to sustain life; a dozen bright wandering stars are presumed to be even smaller and more distant satellites of MP itself. Logically there is a huge ocean on it, but this must be far away from where the MP portal drops people.

Question 31 Re: A#1, what and where are the Distorted Lands?

Question 32 Where does Calledron get its metal and metal items from?
patchwork is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
collaborative setting, game, setting, world building

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 09:53 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.