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Old 12-31-2020, 12:28 PM   #1
Anders
 
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Default Has anyone considered playing on Loren'dil?

According to Banestorm:

Quote:
Loren'dil [is] an idyllic place with rolling plains interspersed with swathes of dense forests. ... some of the trees were as big around as hills and tall enough to disturb the clouds.
Allowing for some hyperbole, I imagine that the average tree is some 100 feet in diameter at the base and reaches about 1,000 feet high. This is about four times as large as the largest redwood trees. The largest trees would be five to ten times larger and weigh millions of tons. When such a tree falls it would be accompanied by a minor earthquake...

Races include halflings, giants, minotaurs and centaurs. The halflings live in the forests - presumably each tribe claims a tree and defends it from all other tribes. The other races live on the plains where the more civilized centaurs face the barbaric minotaurs and the savage giants heads-on.

So how would you run adventures on Loren'dil?
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Old 12-31-2020, 12:31 PM   #2
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Default Re: Has anyone considered playing on Loren'dil?

It's come up, once that I know of.
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Old 12-31-2020, 12:39 PM   #3
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Default Re: Has anyone considered playing on Loren'dil?

Always disconcerting to see posts of mine that I have no memory of ever making.
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Old 12-31-2020, 01:11 PM   #4
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Default Re: Has anyone considered playing on Loren'dil?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anders View Post
According to Banestorm:



Allowing for some hyperbole, I imagine that the average tree is some 100 feet in diameter at the base and reaches about 1,000 feet high. This is about four times as large as the largest redwood trees. The largest trees would be five to ten times larger and weigh millions of tons. When such a tree falls it would be accompanied by a minor earthquake...

Races include halflings, giants, minotaurs and centaurs. The halflings live in the forests - presumably each tribe claims a tree and defends it from all other tribes. The other races live on the plains where the more civilized centaurs face the barbaric minotaurs and the savage giants heads-on.

So how would you run adventures on Loren'dil?
Eh... I'd probably set up some big campaign arc about a necromantic blight afflicting the trees and the quests to figure out how to stop it. Given my players, they'd be a mix of halflings and centaurs. Probably have the blight be a false-flag operation conducted by someone trying to spark a war between the woodsfolk and the plainsfolk for Reasons.

Also might lean into the colossal trees bit and go with actual mountain-sized trees, and use a couple of them as living cities for the halflings. I like my fantasy to be pretty fantastic sometimes.

Last edited by Apollonian; 12-31-2020 at 01:17 PM.
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Old 12-31-2020, 02:37 PM   #5
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Default Re: Has anyone considered playing on Loren'dil?

Definitely druids. Definitely definitely druids. And dryads, of course.

SO for a proper fantasy trope, there should be a Dark Race and/or a Nation of Evil. A Dark Centaur herd doing a Ghengis Khan routine? Dark Halflings inhabiting a tree tainted by Dark Powers? A demon-minotaur controlling an underground empire? A halfling necromancer using undead giants to control a mana-rich territory?
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Old 12-31-2020, 03:04 PM   #6
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Default Re: Has anyone considered playing on Loren'dil?

I took the hint from Banestorm and the black woods to make Loren'dil the origin of the black wood "plague".

I used Loren'dil as the place where the darkness originated, using the GURPS Religion godess Dhala, Destroyer of Worlds. In Loredn'dil the creation and benevolent aspect was dominant but something perturbed it and turned into the destructive aspect, part of that was summoned to Yrt by the dark elves.

The campaign started in Ytarria and ended in Loren'dil by appeasing the godess, more or less.
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Old 12-31-2020, 03:41 PM   #7
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I would actually take the description at face value, with the most ancient trees being 10 km tall and 1 km wide, with a branch system and a root system 10 km across, meaning a mass of ~20 billion metric tons. Such trees would take ten thousand years to grow, would live one hundred thousand years, and would support multiple ecosystems. Such a tree would support a halfling town and dozens of supporting villages, or a single halfling city.
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Old 12-31-2020, 05:39 PM   #8
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Default Re: Has anyone considered playing on Loren'dil?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anders View Post
Always disconcerting to see posts of mine that I have no memory of ever making.
I was going to make a smart alec comment... only to see that I posted in that 6 1/2 year old thread as well. lol

But just imagine coconut like seeds falling from the tops of those trees.
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Old 12-31-2020, 05:43 PM   #9
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Default Re: Has anyone considered playing on Loren'dil?

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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
I would actually take the description at face value, with the most ancient trees being 10 km tall and 1 km wide, with a branch system and a root system 10 km across, meaning a mass of ~20 billion metric tons. Such trees would take ten thousand years to grow, would live one hundred thousand years, and would support multiple ecosystems. Such a tree would support a halfling town and dozens of supporting villages, or a single halfling city.
Long ago I imagined a world based around trees like that. I called the parallel, Yggdrasil. My small peoples evolved similar to the ant species that live symbiotically with acacia trees.

(I don't know anything about Yrth as I lack the Banestorm books. Nice to see I reinvented the wheel.)
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Old 12-31-2020, 05:48 PM   #10
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Default Re: Has anyone considered playing on Loren'dil?

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Originally Posted by Apollonian View Post
Eh... I'd probably set up some big campaign arc about a necromantic blight afflicting the trees and the quests to figure out how to stop it. Given my players, they'd be a mix of halflings and centaurs. Probably have the blight be a false-flag operation conducted by someone trying to spark a war between the woodsfolk and the plainsfolk for Reasons.

Also might lean into the colossal trees bit and go with actual mountain-sized trees, and use a couple of them as living cities for the halflings. I like my fantasy to be pretty fantastic sometimes.
Don't necessarily need magic to cause problems. Living trees likely have predators or parasites. Anomalously frequent infestations could add some intrigue to the campaign.
Of course magic could magnify mundane threats.
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