Worldbuilding: Races of the World of Thornhold

Although the four common races of D&D (Dwarves, Elves, Halflings & Humans) are present in the World of Thornhold, as well as the more exotic races (Dragonborn, Gnomes, Half-Elves, Half-Orcs and Tieflings), they don’t exist in the same numbers as in other D&D worlds.  There are also 21 other playable races in the World of Thornhold, but for brevity’s sake we will only focus on the ones listed above.

Humans are the most widespread and populous race in the World of Thornhold. They can be found everywhere, from cold Hartun to sweltering Valoria.  The majority of humans, however, exist in the Republic of Sangara.  Because Sangara founded Thornhold, humans comprise the largest percentage of the Lonely City’s population.

Dragonborn are the next most numerous race in the World of Thornhold.  Although originating in the north, Dragonborn can be found scattered across the width and breadth of the East. Dragonborn were created by a wizard named Galentein, during the Century of Ash. Silver and Blue Dragonborn are the most common varieties.  The race had a well-deserved reputation for producing warriors, but these days you’re more likely to encounter a Dragonborn bard rather than a fighter.  Dragonborn exist in the Lonely City, but they do not comprise a major segment of the population.

Dwarves comprise the third largest racial demographic in the World of Thornhold.  In the East, the majority of dwarves reside in the Clarentine Confederacy, living contentedly under the Iron Peace.  The race is probably the most well educated, with many of its members embracing alchemy, chemistry and engineering. Dwarf miners still exist but it isn’t an occupation, or a lifestyle, most dwarves want for themselves or their children.

Elves, Gnomes, Halflings, Tieflings, Orcs, Half-Elves and Half-Orcs combined comprise the next largest segment of the population.

The Elves are a divided people, separated by ideology and belief as much as geography. Many, unable to adjust to the rapid changes in the East, fled west and fully embraced their Fey nature, joining the Court of Stars or the Court of Shadows.  Of those left in the East, many have embraced the Church of the Divine Child. Smaller numbers have turned toward the Deep God of the Fisherman’s Church.  Elves do not make up a majority in the Lonely City and, given the presence of the Thornwood and Darkwood, many in Thornhold view them with suspicion.

Gnomes are not a majority in Thornhold, and have a very minor presence in the East. Although many are fascinated by the technological wonders of the Iron Peace, the Clarentine Confederacy finds the race, in general, too disruptive.  As a race, they are barred from traveling through the Confederacy or living within its borders. Most gnomes in the East live in the south, in Irmalind, Valoria and the Republic of Sangara.

Halflings do comprise a small majority in Thornhold, and in the East can be found living in the lands bordering the Panphillian Sea: the Clarentine Confederacy, Darja and Orsion.  Their lifestyle has remained largely unchanged for centuries.  Most Halflings still pursue agrarian careers, but in the Confederacy a growing number of Halflings are joining the bureaucracy that serves the Iron Peace.

Tieflings are a fairly new race in the World of Thornhold.  They can trace their origin to the Traitor Empress, Elynor the Damned, who brought down the First Republic of Sangara when she seized the Imperial Throne from her husband, Benedict the First. Unfortunately, Elynor was unable to hold onto the throne. Besieged by an army, Elynor made a deal with the Devil, serving him in exchange for eternal youth and beauty.  The Traitor Empress got what she wanted but her descendants bear the mark of her sin.  Tieflings are reviled in the Republic and viewed with deep distrust throughout the East. Many fled west and some found a haven of sorts in the Lonely City.

The Orcs are dying.  Sixty years ago, the Orc Horde attacked and looted the Cathedral of the Divine Child. They butchered the Regent of the Church who, with her dying breath, cursed the race.  Since that day, Orcs cannot breed among themselves; they must find mates from other races. The Regent’s Curse shattered the Orc Horde.  Some embraced the very Church that cursed them, others saw the Curse as a justification for the most vile and despicable acts. Today, the Orcs are a shattered, scattered, elderly race on the verge of extinction.

Half-Elves and Half-Orcs are almost flip sides of the same coin.  Neither faction enjoys a majority in Thornhold, and the same holds true for the nations of the East.
Half-Orcs are more common than Half-Elves, and, in the East, most are the result of rape. They are most common in Valoria, which has a sizable Orc slave population, and Aldrich. Given the nature of their conception and parentage, Half-Orcs are stigmatized in the East. Many journey into the West, hoping to find a place among their Orc cousins. Half-Orcs are welcome among Orcs begrudgingly, serving as a living reminder that the pureblood race is doomed.
Half-Elves are less common than Half-Orcs, and face a stigma of a different sort. Usually begot on willing partners, either through seduction or arcane trickery, Half-Elves are often viewed as the product of sinful lust. Viewed with pity and scorn by most humans, Half-Elves are viewed with derision by their full-blooded kinsmen.  Many Half-Elves spend their lives traveling, in search of a place that will accept them.

The races listed above are the most numerous in the World of Thornhold, but there are several others available to player characters including:  Aarakocra, Bugbears, Bullywugs, Deep Gnomes, Drow, Duergar, Githyanki, Githzerai, Gnolls, Goblins, Grimlocks, Hobgoblins, Kenku, Kobolds, Kuo-Toa, Lizardfolk, Merfolk, Quaggoth, Sahuagin, Thri-Kreen and Troglodytes.

Worldbuilding: Thornhold - Part 2

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Now the devil gets to creep into the details.

We've got our city, Thornhold. The Lonely City. But what about the rest of the world?  Who founded Thornhold?

The Saragan Empire founded Thornhold, 200 years ago, as a placeholder for them to lay formal claim to a region north of the Trollhammer Mountains. But that wasn't feasible because of the Flux, so Thornhold became a city of exile where the Empire sent its troublemakers. This lasted for 50 years before the Empire was caught up in the Butcher's Revolution.  The Revolution lasted a decade before it ended and the Republic of Saragan, sometimes called the Diamond Republic, came into existence. 

By this point, Thornhold was a name on old paperwork, a frontier city the Republic didn't care about. If it was even still around. 

Thornhold still existed and people still came to live there, but the newcomers were not political agitators but refugees fleeing persecution or the frequent wars erupting among the Eastern nations. Most of the people who fled west, seeking Thornhold did not find it. Most of them died. Some did make it though and found a new life in the Lonely City.

Over the next century, Thornhold would see the trickle of refugees slowly replaced by asylum seekers. In the East, the nation of Clarentine collapsed into anarchy and was only restored when an alliance of wizards, alchemists and engineers created an autonomous mechanical army to restore the peace.  This Iron Peace continues today, the Confederacy of Clarentine now a nation ruled with clockwork efficiency and cold logic. Anarchists, protesters and free-thinkers are executed with mechanical precision. Most flee if given the opportunity and some make it to distant Thornhold.

The other source of asylum seekers is the Fisherman's Church.  The Fisherman's Church had existed as a modest cult in the East for centuries, but had risen to power over the past 50 years. Today the nation of Bracha is practically run by the Fisherman's Church and their influence extends throughout the north. Their Fisher Knights enforce Church doctrine from chilly Hartun to the sun-kissed shores of the Panphillion Sea. Princes and paupers alike pray to the Deep God of the Fisherman's Church if they don't want to be drowned as a blasphemer and heretic.

A different sort of newcomer arrives from the southern nations. Runaway princes from noble Valorian houses, opportunistic smugglers from Irmalind, arcane researchers from Aldrich and Valdis, mountebanks and criminal scum from the latest version of the Diamond Republic. They all find their way to Thornhold, for one reason or another, and the city welcomes them with open arms and the promise of the headsman's axe if they get out of line.

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Worldbuilding: Thornhold

I was talking with someone at my job the other day about the D&D campaign I'm running. They were surprised I wasn't using a module or setting it in one of the pre-generated worlds associated with the game.  Then they asked how I went about creating a campaign setting from scratch?

Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I usually start with a name.

Names are important. Knowing someone's name was once thought to give you power over them. In many ways, names continue to define us.

So,if I was going to start a new campaign, I'd find a name to anchor it too.

For this example, let's use the name Thornhold.

When I think of the name, Thornhold, it immediately conjures up something out of a dark fairytale. The ruins of a once-great castle, surrounded by a forest of thorn trees.  Haunted thorn trees.

Immediately, elements of story are starting to present themselves: a fairy tale setting where 'happily ever after' never happened or happened so long ago it's no longer relevant. And a spooky, haunted forest. Except, it's not haunted by ghosts. Or just by ghosts.  It's haunted by the Fey.

We could totally build a whole new setting just out of the description above; a D&D campaign set in a dark fairy tale world.  It would work.  That would totally work.

But what about Thornhold? It's the name of a city, obviously. An isolated city with a mysterious past? Maybe. It's isolated by the Thornwood. Why is it isolated? How was it founded? What was it's purpose? Is it still fulfilling that purpose or has it gone in a totally different direction?

First things first. Let's figure out how old Thornhold is.  Roll a die. Get a 2.  

So, Thornhold is about two hundred years old.  Is it a proper city? Or a large town? Maybe a city with the population of a large town? So there would be lots of empty buildings and abandoned, decaying houses?  Gothic and spooky.

But let's not get distracted.  Thornhold is 200 years old.  It's isolated. There are no other cities or towns near it and the Thornwood is difficult to get through. Why build a community there? Maybe it started as a military outpost? Maybe it was a place-holder for an expanding empire which wanted to harvest the resources of the region.  That would work.

Only there were difficulties.  Economic troubles. Political unrest back home. In the East. Exploitation wasn't feasible but an isolated community would be an ideal place to exile people you couldn't risk martyring.  Political exiles. Social agitators. People you'd want out of the way but not necessarily dead.

Yes, that sounds good. Thornhold became a city of exiles and rejects.  But how do they get there? Overland? Too slow. Too dangerous.  There could be a river passing through the city. It would make sense to build a community near a source of water.  So, there's a river.  What to call it? Names have power. Do we want to give it a fairy tale name? No. Let's go further abroad. Instead of fairies lets look at angels.

A quick Google search gives me a good name.  Cassiel. The River Cassiel. The Cassiel River. It flows through Thornhold and the Thornwood. Bisecting both. Rolling east through the woods and maybe some mountains? Mountains would be good. Just to reenforce Thornhold's isolation. Yes, we'll have mountains.

The Trollhammer Mountains. The Trollhammers.  Heh. Back to the fairy tale stuff.

So, people get to Thornhold via the river. Just the river? What about other ways? Magic? No. Thornhold is isolated. There's got to be a reason teleportation spells don't work.  Maybe it's in a low magic area? Maybe spells above, say, level three don't work in the city? Is it natural? The effects of a curse? An enchantment? Is it like that everywhere? Or does magic work differently in different parts of the world? That might be interesting.  We'll make that cannon.

Magic in the world is in flux.  Maybe because science is on the rise? We'll decide later. But high level spells don't work in Thornhold.

Back to the city. Exiles arrive by boat. Just boat? Maybe airships. Gaily colored blimbs? Rigid zeppelins? Tech here is maybe more 18th century than Medieval? That could be interesting.

Ooh! There would be firearms! Sold!

So, back to air ships. Why not literal air-ships? Ships made of wood. Magic wood. Wood that's lighter than air. Light as a feather. Featherwood.  Air-ships made of featherwood, expanding the Empire's reach! I like! So, people arrive in Thornhold via the River Cassiel and the occasional air-ship.

But what sort of city do they arrive in?  It's got walls. With a name like Thornhold, it's going to have walls. Serious walls. Thick and tall. Gothic walls. Gray stone walls enveloping a city, bisected by a river. Bisected north and south.

How many neighborhoods does Thornhold have? Time to open PhotoShop! Open a Hex Map file, fill in some hexes to represent the walls. Okay. Got an outline of the city. Now we add the river and then we start breaking it down into neighborhoods/districts.

Seven. Seven districts and seven is a magic number. It's a lucky number. So, seven districts. What to name them? More fairy tale stuff? Eh. Maybe something more rustic. Things start to pop into place.

Wolf District in the north, then Sabre, Pine and Falcon. The River Cassiel splitting the city. The south districts: Faith, Greyhart and Key.  Named for the city's seven founding families.

Hmm. If the city is separated why not the Thornwood. Maybe there's two forests. The Thornwood to the south of the River Cassiel and something worse to the north. Something darker. 

The Darkwood.

Oooh! Fey are sometimes divided into opposing courts! I'll put the Seelie Court in the Thornwood and the sinister Unseelie Court in the Darkwood!  And Thornhold in the middle between these two warring factions!

Okay, so what we've got so far: Thornhold is an isolated city, established 200 years ago and used as a dumping ground for Imperial troublemakers. The city has high stone walls and seven districts. High level magics don't work there and, just outside of the city walls, are the Thornwood and the Darkwood.

What next? Probably more history. ^_^

Politics. Pheh!

Gentle readers, I'm going to ask for your forbearance today.  As a general rule, I try to avoid discussing politics.  However, as it is February 29th, a day that only comes around once every four years, and because we will be voting for a new President in the USA this year, I am going to comment very briefly on the current candidates.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think that we're pretty much fucked.

I wouldn't trust any of these people to sell peanuts at a circus. I certainly don't want any of them as my President.

At this point, three of the Republicans (Carson, Kasich and Cruz) don't actually have a hope in hell of winning the popular vote.  That leaves us with Rubio, Trump, Sanders and Clinton as potential candidates.

I'm tempted to call them the cream of the crop, but cream isn't the only thing that floats to the top, ladies and gentlemen.

Trump is a self-aggrandizing egotist. I don't think he gives a good goddamn about you, me or the country.  He wants to be President so he can strut across the world-stage and win global recognition. That's it.

Clinton isn't any better. She's a Washington insider, a career politician in the worst sense of the word. I don't trust her and I certainly don't respect her.  She'll promise the moon to her supporters but once she's in office, they'll be lucky if she even remembers them. She's just after money and power.

Marco Rubio strikes me as a deadbeat. Not only does he have the worst attendance in Congress, there are reports he has skipped out on paying his bills to numerous individuals over the years. Also, there are claims that he misappropriated funds from his own party to pay for personal things like house repairs, travel, groceries, etc.  Like Clinton, I think he wants the job for the money. Unlike her, he probably needs it to pay off his various debts.

As for Sanders? To me, Bernie Sanders is a one-note wonder. All he and his followers seem to talk about is free health care for everyone. Only, nothing is free. Someone, somewhere, has to pay for it.  His policies don't seem very well thought out and, to be honest, I think Bernie Sanders is just too damned old to be President.  The man is 74 years old! Sorry, but I'm not willing to vote for someone who's likely to drop dead in office.

Actually, Clinton and Trump aren't spring chickens either. If either of them croaked in office, who the hell would we get stuck with?

We'll have to see how things play out, but I don't hold out any hope that the next President will make things better for anyone but themselves.

As I said above, ladies and gentlemen, I think we're fucked.

Worldbuilding: Organic Growth

Good evening, gentle readers!

Last week, I wrote about how I'd found a creative outlet in the D&D game I was Dungeon Master-ing.  I told a little about the world I'd built; about how it was a Bronze Age setting, not the typical Medieval fantasy world most gamers are familiar with.  I described it as a young world, with a few scattered cities, separated by vast swathes of dangerous wilderness.  Travel in the Known World occurs mostly via water, as civilization has evolved and expanded around a trio of seas: The Cradle, the Sea of Splendors and the Sea of Trials. There are 22 deities, 13 cities and 4 races.

And that's all great.

But when you DM a new setting, when your worldbuild, you keep adding new details.

There were four languages when we started; one for each of the core races (Dwarf, Elf, Halfling and Human). That didn't include things like Thieves' Cant which I forgot and Druidic, which inspired me to authorize Temple Languages, unique to the clergy of each deity. And then, a player asked if he could speak a Pigeon dialect that might have arrived in marketplaces. This seemed like a fine idea, so I said "Sure!" And then I decided there was an original language, the Old Tongue, the four races spoke before a Tower-of-Babel like incident scrambled their languages. Most of the cities in the world are named in the Old Tongue.  And then, last week, a wizard joined the party, prompting me to authorize a Wizard's Tongue.

So, suddenly I have gone from 4 basic languages to 32 separate languages.

Which, from a creative outlook, is fucking awesome!

It demonstrates how settings like this can become organic and take on a life of their own.

And now, heaven help me, there are regional dialects popping up.

I introduced a character last session from the North who speaks with a faux Russian-esque accent and now everyone from that part of the world will speak the same way.

Fun, but requiring notes. 

Lots and lots of notes.

^_^