Gah. Sorry – Hiatus?

Damn, it seems that I can’t even compromise with anything. Sorry guys, but it things are a bit hectic at the moment, and I can’t guarantee anything, it seems. I haven’t had the time or the will to work on Dragonia for a while, which is very sad for me. Either way, I can’t promise anything, but I will chunk out updates as I make them. It shouldn’t take long for this phase to pass… I hope.

-Silver

The Hiatus is Over

Hello, guys.

Posting here to say that my previous hiatus is now over, and regular updates should come back shortly. Sadly, I haven’t worked much on the setting on the past few weeks, but that will change from now on. I’ve also started to write some short stories, related or not to Tales of Dragonia, which I will post once they are ready. So, expect the movement on the blog to increase in the near future, at least from my part. (;

-Silver

Tales of Dragonia: Religions and Religious Matters

Hello again, my fellow readers! It seems that I am a master of going against what I said, since I bring you yet another post in no less than two days after I said I would not be able to post for a while. Well, time sure is something inconstant; while I thought I would have none, I managed to find some yesterday and today… So I’m putting it to good use, putting all my ideas to paper before they escape my grasping fingertips. Well, on to important business then!

This time around, I’ll be talking about religions, since in my last post I mentioned some things about angels, demons and gods, and felt that it wasn’t explained at all. It’s somewhat hard to write those posts, as I have everything laid out clearly on my head, and sometimes forget that my readers don’t know what I’m talking about when I introduce new concepts to the article. Either way, let’s go on, then, to explore the mysteries of Al Na’ir!

First, I’ll begin with Gods. In the world of Dragonia, Gods are different from other common fantasy settings. For one thing, they are not omnipotent; nowhere near that. Their powers are huge, that is true, but they have limits. And while they are immortal – in the sense of the world that they don’t die from old age -, they certainly can be killed, or disappear to the mists of time. So, what are Gods, then? Precisely speaking, they are the aspects of the beliefs and faiths of mortals all around Al Na’ir. To be more specific, whenever a mortal believes something strongly, a deity might be born to that feeling. He will be just a divine wisp, a shadow of a being, at first; however, if more people start to worship the original concept of this “wisp”, it will grow and become stronger, transforming into a real god or goddess. Basically, what this means is that the gods didn’t create the mortals, as most settings make it to be, but rather that mortals create gods.

This, of course, brings the question of who created the Universe. If it weren’t the gods, the most powerful beings around – or at least the more powerful known beings around -, who was it? As previously stated, some believe that it was some kind of higher power, a True God of sorts, that did it, retreating from Creation soon afterwards, for motives unclear. However, this is not necessarily true; no one knows about the origins of the Universe as we know it, and it could well be a major plot quest in one game to discover such things, if these matters strike the fancy of the players. Therefore, I will hold on expanding them for the moment – while I have many ideas, it would be best to just wait for it to come up in-game, so I can more easily adapt to the real feel of the setting and the players. And, if necessary, this specific bit of information can change from game to game; after all, the setting will not be set in stone (pun not intended).

Well, going back to the gods; because of the mechanism of creating deities, a mortal can ascend to godhood if he or she starts to be worshipped by others due to his/hers feats. This has happened before, and I intend to be at least one or two powerful gods in the current “pantheon” that are like this. I say current, because gods frequently (for immortal standards, that is) ascend and fall, since they are frequently forgotten and created by mortal minds. I will expand more on the gods themselves, and Elnath, on a later article. At the moment, I’m only interested in laying out the basics for the divine, which I have already done.

With that out of our way, we go into the most interesting aspect of the immortal scenery in Dragonia – at least in my opinion -, the angels and demons. Both angels and demons are immortal creatures, like gods, but differ greatly from them; they have no relation to mortals, for example. They are not created by them, like gods are, and have no special bounds or duties to them; neither side has. They can use and mingle with mortals, of course, but they have no obligation to do so. Angels and demons are creatures loosely humanoid, at least in the most part, which leads some scholars to think that the same being who created humans – and Creation as a whole – created them with a purpose in mind. Whatever purpose that was, it is now forgotten, and the only important matter for both angels and demons are their never-ending war against each other, as they try to vanquish one another for millennia.

Angels and demons have a set hierarchy that they follow, through the specifics are dim and clouded to mortals; they are connected on nets of ranks and obligations and duties so complex that a mortal mind alone can’t understand, not even if it works on it for years. Therefore, while there is an hierarchy, both in Canopus and in Gacrux, this hierarchy is abstract at best for mortals dealing with the immortal powers of Heaven and Hell, as they are called by the common man – these names, however, are off, as are “angels” and “demons”, since neither side has any particular tendencies towards good or evil; they are labelled as such only because the angels are at large uncaring of mortals, and demons are at large willing to use mortals to further their own ends.

More about those fascinating creatures – angels and demons -, their Realms, and other stuff will come at a later article. More information on actual religions and gods will also come at later articles. This one was just to lay out the basics for me, so I could build up from a common ground without losing sight of my objectives. And to lay some insight into the readers, of course. (:

See you next time, folks! This time, I probably shouldn’t have time to post for a while – for real. Probably not until sometime next week; but keep tuned! Things happen, and the situation can change!See ya!

-Silver

Tales of Dragonia: The Cosmology

Hello, guys. It seems that I will contradict my previous notice but a few hours after I posted it, bringing a fresh new update to y’all. Though this shouldn’t be the norm, I had some time today, and wasn’t feeling sleepy, so I decided to sit down and write it. Well, no more waiting; after three long weeks, here is my promised update, and it talks about the cosmology of my upcoming world!

Although the matters of the divine – including the existence, or not, of gods – is always a matter of debate, the cosmos has been studied in depth already, and no doubts exist any more about it’s characteristics or it’s particularities. While there are still unknown spots or mysterious trends, the universe at large has been examined, catalogued and studied; therefore, there isn’t much debate about what’s true or not.

The cosmos are largely divided into two great sections, one called Creation, and the other called The Outside. The true nature of these divisions, like who or what created them, and what existed before them, is unknown; however, due to several studies made by many scholars, their characteristics were pinpointed and knowledge about them abounds – to any who is interested. Creation is where life exists; it is further divided into “Realms”, each with it’s own unique characteristics and defining aspects. These Realms are infinite in extent, basically parallel dimensions that coexist within the vastness of Creation. Besides them, there are also smaller, “pocket” dimensions, which are not infinite; these were not created originally with the Realms, but actually created by other powers, like beings with great power or particularly powerful humans. However, even when it is possible for mortals to create pocket dimensions, it has been proved, theoretically and practically, that creating another Realm is impossible, due to the sheer amount of power required for such.

The Outside, differently from Creation, is utterly alien and strange. It holds no life, and it’s very essence is made of madness and terror. Nothing in it resembles life, and the place itself is anathema to life; it just wasn’t meant to hold life. This doesn’t mean that The Outside is uninhabited, though; strange, dark creatures lurk the deepest recesses of the void-like dimension – colossal creatures so alien that their sighting alone induces madness in most people. The Outside’s creation or purpose is unknown, but it is clearly not suitable to mortal eyes or for mortals to visit. It is sealed off from Creation, and as such it’s horrors are kept mostly at bay; however, there are places, or times, when those seals weaken and falter. Such occurrence usually leads to maddened people, horrible abominations and aberrations appearing on Creation, and dark events unfolding that threaten to shatter the peaceful life of most mortals.

Back to Creation, it’s Realms are few, but vast: there are exactly five Realms in Creation: Al Na’ir, the Material Realm, Nihal, the Spiritual Realm, Canopus, the Celestial Realm, Gacrux, the Infernal Realm, and Elnath, the Divine Realm. Al Na’ir is the place where mortals, including humans, originate from, and where most of them spend their lives. It is a vast world, filled with dangers and treasures. Nihal, the Spiritual Realm, is a sea of cosmic energy that surrounds all Realms and pocket dimensions, allowing for the travel between each of them. It is also the home of spirits and spiritual beings, and strange phenomena. Canopus and Gacrux are, respectively, the homes of angels and demons, forever bound to their endless war. Elnath, the last of the Realms, is the place where the aspects of the Gods and Goddesses live, empowered by the faith of their followers.

Now, although there are angels, demons and Gods, these are just names given to powerful creatures, most naturally immortal, or at least long-lived. Angels and demons are just other-worldly creatures that endlessly fight each other; neither is particularly tilted towards good or evil; it’s just that angels generally leave mortals to their own devices, while demons tend to use and abuse of mortals. Gods, on the same train of thought, are not really gods by themselves; they were not the creators of the cosmos, for instance. They are just immortal creatures powered by the faith of their believers; the more faith and raw people worship them, the stronger they get. If a god or goddess is forgotten entirely, he or she ceases to exist; these divine beings are nothing more but the creation of their followers’ faith. They might even once have been mortal beings, but once they ascended to godhood, there is no turning back; if forgotten, they will forever be lost to the sands of time. Because of this same faith empowerment, no single god or goddess has absolute power; none can create new Realms or change the cosmos, for instance, which leads to disturbing questions about the universe’s origin.

Such questions are left unanswered, as there is no way to actually search for clues about a thing like the origin of the cosmos. Many, however, believe that there exists a greater power outside of the universe as it is known, a single powerful entity, a True God, who created everything as it is. A cult exists for this One True God, but there’s not much evidence of his existence. More about this cult, and other religions, will be written in a future article. Likewise, I will explore the Realms themselves, and their inhabitants (including angels, demons and gods) in a future post.

Now, I must take my leave, my friends. I don’t know when I will be able to post again, but don’t hold hopes that it be soon. Anyway, as I said previously, I will not give up on this project, so keep your eyes open for future updates! See you next time!

-Silver

About the Blog: A Probable Hiatus

Hello, folks. If anyone is still following this blog, that is.

I realize that it has been a few days already since my last posting. I am sorry for that. Whoever, I come now with bad news. Due to some unforeseen real life happenings, my time on-line – and my free time at large – has suffered a great drop. Because of this, I am sad to say that I must put the work on this setting, and this blog, on hold. I may be able to put up a post or another sometime, but I will probably be away for the next months.

With that said, I won’t give up on this project, that’s for sure. Even if I have to wait for months, I will come back to it, eventually. And when I do, I will come back in style. =P

Farewell, my faithful, if few, readers. Heed my words, for I will come back! I promise!

-Silver

Tales of Dragonia: The Mechanics (Revised)

Hello again, folks. Lately, I haven’t been with much free time, so that’s why I haven’t updated the blog in a few days. However, everything is back to normal again, and I should be able to resume my development journal, if I can even call it that, heh.

As I remember, last time I went off saying how I was thorn between using DnD and using Freeform to run my upcoming game, yes? Very well, I’ve reached a decision. I’ll be using Freeform to run my game, and all games set on the Tales of Dragonia setting; this way, I can be free to build it as I want to, without paying attention to mechanical limitations or having to break my head re-fluffing stuff. It will be easier for me in the long run, and also more enjoyable. Of course, it has it’s negatives as well, like the smaller player base and the opportunity for abuse and problems if I don’t choose my players well, but that is secondary to the game’s experience, in my opinion.

That being said, I’ll have a little more work to do, now that I think about it. I’ll have to work on creating a new cosmology for the world (which will, frankly, be based off of DnD 4e’s cosmology, though different – simpler), along with a few assumptions and set-ups. Either way, it will be fun, and will allow me to truly shape the world, in all it’s forms – I’ll be truly able to call it mine.

Well, that’s it for today, guys. I’ll probably post another article during the weekend with more concrete information, though this one’s just to update everyone on the status of the developing process. See ya! (:

-Silver

Tales of Dragonia: The Mechanics

Hey, folks.

I was thinking these days, and a doubt came to my mind. Before, I was sure I would use Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition to run my upcoming Tales of Dragonia game – heck, I would use DnD 4e to be the home system of the Tales of Dragonia universe. However, as my thoughts wandered further these days, and I thought ahead a little, thinking on possibilities and options, I entered a hazy, misty territory. I’m not so sure I want to run it in DnD 4e any more.

One thing is a given, that DnD 4e is already an established system, and therefore has lots of support and material for it out. And it is also easy to adapt and homebrew, and even easier to just plain re-fluff things. However, I don’t know. I had been thinking lately, and some of the things I want to do with the game world just go plain opposite to the system’s assumptions, and while it could be worked around some way, it would require a lot of effort and work. I would need to re-flavour a lot of things, and plain deny or create others, but it would be doable in the end. However, besides using DnD 4e, I have two options.

The first would require the same, if not more, amount of work, but would also turn out nicely: I could take DnD 4e’s base and build a system of my own, using the established structure for my own purposes, thinking new classes, races, feats and power for exclusive use in the game. This would be rather troublesome, but also doable, and could turn out better than just changing DnD 4e, since everything would already be overhauled to my liking and to the setting itself.

The second option, on the other hand, is much easier, but also harder in a sense. It would be to run the game in a freeform environment, without using any systems or rules, and letting it all on the roleplaying and story sides. However, this would be harder in a sense because there are definitively less people willing to play freeform than DnD 4e, and it also holds some problems in the long run if good players are not found.

I’m thorn between these three choices. I’m only fleshing out the setting itself now, so this choice is not really important at the moment; however, it will be in the future, when I get to the mechanical notes and the way the world works behind the scenes, i.e. the rules that govern it. At this moment, I’m leaning towards just turning Tales of Dragonia into a freeform world, but that would entail a great change to how I’ll deal with some stuff – which can be good or bad.

Any thoughts?

-Silver

Tales of Dragonia: The Council

Heyo, guys. How’s it going? This time around, I’m going to talk about the most powerful and influential “organization” of Fort Dragonia: the ruling Council itself. First things first, I have almost nothing written about the Council yet, and most of what I’ll write here is mainly brainstorm and still needs much thought. Most of it will never directly influence a game either, probably, but I want to have it written out anyway because building the mechanics behind the workings of the city help make it come alive.

Well then, the Council. I think that “Ruling Council” is a bland name, so we will need to have something different, something unique to be the council’s name. I thought on it a bit, and the name “Council of the Royal Dragonlords”, or “Royal Dragoncouncil” really appealed to me. It gives a royal feeling to it, like saying that, while there are no actual nobles or royal lines in Fort Dragonia, the Council is a resemblance of nobility. Also, it ties with the Ancient Dragon Kings, which are the deities from the religion most worshipped in Fort Dragonia, which I will speak about later of course. With this decided, it is clear the the councilmembers will be called “Royal Dragonlords”, to differentiate them from normal Dragonlords.

The Royal Dragonlords will be chosen by voting, but it won’t be that simple. Like I also said in a previous article, I want the Royal Dragonlords to be different among themselves, to create further conflict and struggles for power. That said, there will be three “classes” of Royal Dragonlords: the Bronze Members, the Silver Members, and the Golden Members. The Golden Royal Dragonlords will be able to maintain their seats in the Council for 10 years before having elections again, while the Silver Royal Dragonlords will maintain their positions for 4 years, and Bronze Royal Dragonlords will change yearly. The same person can be voted consecutively for a single seat, be it of Golden, Silver or Bronze status, and therefore occupy the seat for a long time. Also, the ammount of seats avaiable will be different; I don’t know the exact numbers yet, but I want for the ammount of seats to be inversally proportional to the time they stay in power, that is, for every golden seat there will be 4 silver seats and 10 bronze seats (1:4:10).

The voting itself will be made with all current Dragonlords, and anyone can be voted to a Bronze seat in the council. For a Silver or Golden seat, however, there will be special requirements, though I haven’t thought about them yet – I’m open to suggestions. While anyone can try for a position in the council with a Bronze seat, it is very hard to actually be able to gain the support for the number of votes required to succeed without being already very powerful and influential; it is, more than anything, a heavy game of politics. To get the Silver or Golden seats is even harder, and only a few select members of the Dragonlords are able to attain such political power.

Speaking of Power, I was thinking, there will be no militar power inside Fort Dragonia. No one will be able to act as guards, and no one will have the permission to kill another, save for a few select men: the Dragoons. The Dragoons will be a military organization, stronger than common guards, that works for the Royal Dragonlords. They will be expanded on a future article.

I was also thinking about the comission made from the council to decide if organizations and enterprises should be elevated to the status of Dragonhouse or not, and I thought: the comission needs to be formed by at least 15 members of the council, and at least one needs to have a Silver seat. On the other hand, if the organization in question is able to gain a formal letter of recomendation from at least two Golden Royal Dragonlords, there will be no need for a comission to be made. These exact numbers will still be messed with before I’m truly happy with them, probably when I finally decide how many people there will be on the council.

Well, I think I’ve covered the basics… Of course, there are many other details, like the actual power of the Royal Dragoncouncil and it’s members, and even their vantages and such in the city, but these are much more specific than what I can work with now, so they will be dealt with at a later date.

-Silver

Tales of Dragonia: Dragonhouses

Hello, folks! This time around, I’m going to talk about an important aspect of the world pertained to Tales of Dragonia: Dragonhouses. On another note, I really need to come up with a name for the world. =P

So, Dragonhouses.

I have been thinking about them for some time, and I’ve already sorted some things. First, I want them to have a great impact in Fort Dragonia, but also some impact in the remainder of the world. While they will not be as important in other regions, I still want for them to have some influence outside the Fort City, like contacts and dealers. After all, players will probably be working for a Dragonhouse at the start, and if they ever need to go on an “international mission”, it would be good for them to have some kind of backup. Or not, but the possibility of having such backup is nice, and it’s something I want in the world, even if I don’t use it in my upcoming game.

Second, I want the Dragonhouses to be structured as “guilds”. I’m going to follow the Dragonmarked Houses concept from Eberron and say that they have varied purposes: for example, one can be dedicated to trading, and as such be like a merchant’s guild; another can be dedicated to education and knowledge keeping, working more like a chain of universities and libraries; another yet can be dedicated to military purposes, working like a mercenary band. The Dragonhouses will be diverse in their purposes and actions, and while they can even overlap somewhat, I don’t want two similar Dragonhouses. While there may be a Dragonhouse for magical education and one for normal education, for example, there will not be two Dragonhouses for military purposes. Trading, on another hand, is something I’ll have to think about, since I don’t know if I want to have a single Dragonhouse take care of all trading, or have specific Dragonhouses for specific materials/parts of the market, like one for mineral and ore trading, another for food trading, so on and so forth. This is something to come back to later.

Third, the Dragonhouses’ members will be organized into hierarchies, though each Dragonhouse will have it’s own hierarchy and structure. The only thing in common to all Dragonhouses is that the leader of a Dragonhouse will be called a Dragonlord, and will be the head of the Dragonhouse and one of the few people eligible to be a part of the Ruling Council of Fort Dragonia. The Council itself will be explored in a later article, as I’m still mulling over ideas about it. I want to have a good diversity within it, however, to make way for many conflicts and problems to arise, without making it too cliché or too boring.

Last but not least, while Dragonhouses can be related to anything (religion, military, trading, education…), not every organization or enterprise in Fort Dragonia will be a Dragonhouse. Actually, I want it to be rather hard to create a Dragonhouse, and it’s abundancy will be explained by Fort Dragonia being an ancient city existing for more than 800 years, so there has been plenty of opportunities for Dragonhouses to arise already. The process to become a Dragonhouse will be rather complicated: first, an organization or enterprise must elect one of it’s members to be the possible future Dragonlord, and then fill out a formal request to the Council to be elevated to the status of Dragonhouse. Then, a commission formed by 5 members of the Council (this will be expanded on later, when I talk about the Council, probably) need to evaluate the organization/enterprise, and at least one of the members must approve the request. Then, the organization must pass through a probatory period of at least five years (but usually much more), when it needs to attain at least 75% acceptance among the Council, to be formally elevated to Dragonhouse status. I’m also thinking about setting a maximum time limit for this probatory period, maybe somewhere around 50 years, and another 50 years before the same organization can apply again, but I’m still not sure about it.

Well, this is what I have about Dragonhouses up until now. Comments are appreciated, as always. See ya next time! (:

-Silver

Tales of Dragonia: Initial Thoughts

Hey, guys!

I’m going to talk about the very basics of the setting in this post. Well, not really. Instead of that, I’ll be talking about thoughts for the setting that I have and had, both good and bad, especially geared towards the Adventures in the Fort City game, which is not only my current pet project, but also the debut game that will happen in the Tales of Dragonia setting. Of course, this is going way into the future, since I have no basis to start the game right now, and would need at least a few months before everything is prepared.

First, some basics. I want this game to be about roleplaying, politics, and character development. Combat will happen, and even a lot sometimes, but it’s importance will always be on the side, and the roleplaying aspects will be the major focus of the campaign. That said, this is not going to be a normal game, as there won’t be a group of players; instead, they will be each following a different “power” in the city, trying to further the goals of their patrons and their own. Because of this, some players will team up at times, while be rivals at others, or even work alone. For this, the usual party composition of 4th Edition doesn’t suit my needs, and so I’ve decided to change it entirely. Players are free to form groups together if it is good for all of their goals, but I will by no means enforce it. With that said, I was thinking of running this game with somewhere between 8 and 20 players, to provide lots of options for development and conflict. Also because of this, the players of this game will need to be mature, since they will probably go against each other sometimes, and hold private information and such from each other; I don’t want to have whiners or people complaining about favoritism in my game.

In my original idea, I envisioned Fort Dragonia as being the capital of an empire by the name of Dragonia, which would be the ruling power of the region. However, after some thought, I decided to not go that way; the capital of the most powerful nation in the region would open some doors that I’m more interested in keeping closed, else the PCs will have an easy time doing some of their jobs. If they were working for powerful people in the most powerful city of the region, they would have practically unlimited resources, after all, and that’s not fun. I want the players to have to struggle to accomplish their jobs and further their goals. Also, having a nation called Dragonia didn’t really strike my fancy, and I want the name “Tales of Dragonia” to have a special meaning (more on this later), not just be the name of a kindgom in the setting.

With those thoughts, I scrapped the “Capital” idea, and went with an interesting, but underused (by me) concept: a city-state. Nothing fits better my image of Fort Dragonia than a powerful city state: by doing this, I can make it the most powerful city in the region, but still be weaker than the neighbouring nations as a whole to keep the tensions up and not create a “win button” for the players. Fort Dragonia being a city state means that I can have it with a powerful militay, powerful leaders and powerful merchants all around, but without the large scale resources needed to subjugate an entire country, which leaves it as the largest power seat in the region, and respected as such, but without the actual resources to enforce this power.

Thinking further on it, I thought about making it further different than a common city. Being just yet another common city state with a king and it’s ruling power and such would be boring, and not provide many possibilities for conflict. Instead, I want for Fort Dragonia to be ruled by a council, but not a normal council either. This ruling council will be formed by the heads of the merchant houses that exist in the city, and it will not be permanent, instead having elections and seat swaps, to add to the conflict possible.

Now, I don’t want it to be simple merchant houses to rule the greatest city of the world. Instead, I have a better idea. I have been into Eberron lately, and it’s characteristic Dragonmarked Houses gave me an idea: Dragonhouses. Yes, the name sounds awfully similar, but they’re fundamentally different. For once, there are no “dragonmarks” in my world. For another thing, Dragonhouses are much more broad than Eberron’s Dragonmarked Houses, and they have a smaller impact in the world in general, only being truly important in Fort Dragonia, because the only people elegible to the ruling council are those that hold the title of head of a Dragonhouse.

I’ll expand on the Dragonhouses on a future article, but for now I’m happy with them being merchantile and similar business houses whose heads make up the ruling council of Fort Dragonia. One thing that strikes me as obvious is that there will be far more dragonhouses than seats in the ruling council, though, to keep conflicts and power struggles aplenty.

Well, I think that’s enough for this post, folks. See ya soon!

-Silver