Celestial Bodies

[Johnny Angel]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

"Sea monsters" might not look as elegant as special celestial arrangements but in a fantasy world might be more practical. :)

Very true, and something I've considered. I don't necessarily see water travel as being murderous; just difficult. Part of this is due to the remnants of my attempt to build this world with D&D. At the time, I always had difficulty figuring out how to use gnomes in my campaign worlds because they didn't seem to have a very defined place in D&D. It was then that I had considered giving their ability to tinker more prominence and having them be known as skilled seaman due to gadgets and methods they had invented which allowed them to travel easier than most races were able to. Even though I'm moving away from D&D -and moving away from copy & pasting their races onto my world (I have a thread about fantasy races around here somewhere), I think I still like the aesthetic value of the two moons.

Perhaps I'm just greedy and want it all :-) Monsters and moons...

[Johnny Angel]

a bit off topic, but...

I was looking into getting a mapping program so that I could create some 'hard copies' of my ideas. I had considered Campaign Cartographer and the various expansions involved with that product.

However, while at Staples today, I ran into this product: http://www.punchcad.com/products/viacad2dV6.htm

Although not designed for rpg world building, it seems as though I could use the program for that; from what I can tell, it would give much more realistic (and prettier) looking images.

There's always the draw-everything-by-hand method, but I've come to realize that it's hard to scan some of the large maps I've drawn into a computer.

What other programs out there are good for the aspiring world builder? With the two-moon idea I have, it would be nice to be able to see my idea and play around with lighting and shadows to get an idea of how it would look.