KhorasForum

After multiple year hiatus, I'm back to playing GURPS in a fantasy setting, which can only mean one thing: Khoras! Just wanted to say thanks to David for keeping this wonderful resource going. Cheers!

Assuming that Khoras is a globe, and there are no other large continents that aren't mentioned, it would seem that if one were to start in the Shard Wasteland and continue north, up over the north pole, the first thing you'd run into on the southward journey would be the Shidar Wasteland.

Is that right?

Just two quick questions regarding how the cultures of Talis and Kalimura would react to my adventuring party.

The PCs arrived in Orrojek, and two of them were identified as mages. Their magic items confiscated (they have just one, plus a book that was obviously about the arcane), and were told very sternly that if they practiced any magic within Kalimura, they would likely be shot immediately. After this warm reception the party bought some horses and rested. The next day they decided to do some research on Talis before they left, and went to the Flayed Priest.

While there Qulloch identified two of them as mages with a methkari crystal in his walking stick, and decided to get them arrested. While the group was reading in his library, he notified the city guard as to what was about to happen, then made it look like he was magically set on fire by one of them (he used some alchemy to light the back of clothes on fire temporarily). The two mages were summarily arrested and taken to that precinct's jail. They were told the next day they would be taken to the capital's prison, and would shortly have a trial. That night, however, the two used their magic to teleport out of the jail, and the entire party road their horses out of Orrojek, heading south.

How hard would the Kalimuran government track these people? Would they send messengers to every major town with composite portraits? Would they say "They're gone now, and good ridance"? Would they scour the nation for them? The group is currently a few hours ride south of Orrojek, sleeping in a field off the side of the road. What do they have to fear if they don't return to Orrojek? Also, how prevalent are methkari crystals outside of Orrojek?

Now for Talis. Humans coming out of the east that don't dress like Kalimurans: Will they look to trade with them? Attack them? Avoid them and stealthily watch to see what they do? The phellysians are used to karthasians, grum, and the bathynians. There are some humans and other races in Talis, but not much. So I'm not quite sure how xenophobic/isolationist the phellysians are.

Lastly, the PCs -will- try to get into Rexilar's ruins. What will the normal (non-Crimson Scourge) phellysians say to this? Will they wait outside like Myrians, waiting to kill them for their transgressions? Will they ask them what they saw? Do their codes apply to outsiders?

Thanks for the input!

I have a pressing video editing issue, and I can't seem to find anyone that specializes in the area. Luckily for me, I remembered that several of the people on Khoras make, you know, -movies-, so one of them might have a suggestion for me.

Basically, the issue is I have 20 hours worth of film (data for an experiment in my lab) where one section of the feed is too bright. It's one room for the whole 20 hours, and the lighting puts too much glare on an area, meaning our tracking software can't do it's job. Is there any software out there that can selectively manipulate the brighteness and/or contrast of just a specific section of the viedo feed?

Thanks!

If you've loked at my players' character log on the Gaming Tales forum, the group has just arrived at Asylum. Aside from tracking down their target (Ray Bresslar), and the possibility of Maloren having a tangle with The Company, does anyone have suggestions for what sorts of things ought to happen in this gigantinourmohuge city?

Tracking down Ray will lead them through several places, including the Ring of Flesh, which I just love from a story-telling standpoint. His bodyguard will have been killed by Phendar, so that brings that character into the mix.

How about influence of The Company in this city? I suspect it would be huge, but since the area is so chaotic, maybe Maloren can slip around without being noticed, if she's careful.

Hey, I'm making a calendar for my campaign, which I can use to make notes for what happened where and when. I'm trying to automate the moon phases, but I may be finding a little trouble. That 11-year "in line" that creates the big storms. When was the last one?

I've initially placed the World Storm as one of them (year 0), because it was convenient and made sense. Maybe moons' gravity acting on the magical energy helped cause the Sundering, blah blah. I sort of assumed that these 11-year conjunctions were when all three moons were full (or new) together. That's not so, as my spreadsheet math tells me. This may have just been a bad assumption on my part.

And when you say that a moon's cycle is 27 days, do you mean that it takes 27 days to return to the same point, or just to the point right before it? If it's the point right before it, then two of the moons can fit nicely in line with the weeks and months. If not, then then it's not so pretty.

Thanks!

So, recently I was trying to find a digital solution to measuring distances on the Khoras world map. Lacking any other alternative, I decided to resort to a piece of string. No longer!

ImageJ is a powerful, and free, image manipulation program, which you can find here: http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/

Using ImageJ, all you have to do is download one of the maps, open it, and then draw a squiggly line on it that represents the path you want to take. Hit Ctrl+M, and it measures the length of the line (I think in pixels, but I'm still playing with that). I used Strathon to Ithell as my base case to establish a conversion rate, and now I can easily and accurately measure and distance I want.

This sucker can do a ton more things, as well. Like measure areas of countries, if you wanted. Just outline the figure and go to Analyze->Measure. Voila! Now you can see if all the Land Area estimates we have on the nation pages are close 

Just thought I would let people know about this. My group is traveling great distances every other session, so it's certainly useful for me.

Hey, I'm in the midst of designing big backstory stuff for my D&D campaign. I'm trying to keep everything occuring in my particular campaign in line with Khoras "canon" as presented on the website, because it makes it easier. You know, not needing to remember which stuff I changed and why. However, any place where the details are not yet written in, I'm taking my liberties  Right now I'm trying to get a list of mages that -could- have worked the Irennian League's creation of the morphians.

My present list:
Project Lead: Jaidor
Assistants:
Rexilar
Nemiram
Sorov
Kadin

Rexilar goes on to use the principles of humanoid physical manipulation to create the phellysians. I'm thinking of saying Kadin went on to create the Avar. Sorov later defected to the Traxxians

Any other particular named mages who could have been around during that time? I think I have enough for now, but I'd like to know if there are any other people who already have some details about them that could be useful.

Thanks!

I don't know if you've announced it somewhere yet (in fact, I think I may have accidentally found this about 3 minutes after you put it up), but great job on the maps. This was exactly the sort of thing I was looking for! This presented very cleanly, allowing for very easy navigation. Thanks!

My players are collectively keeping session journals, so I'll just be posting those up here. Here's the cast of characters:

Maloren Calimonde:

Kaya Dawn Winter:

Calloway Casades:

Cassius Casades:

Golrath:


Saturday, February 25, 2006

The story begins with the brothers, Calloway and Cassius Cassades in their small hometown in south central Normidia.  After being run down by a malicious pack of spirits, Calloway is inflicted with a strange disease which causes periodic spasms of muscle disfigurement.  He and his brother travel to River's Gate in hopes of finding a cure.  The medical practitioner there tells them the only chance of a cure would be to ask the ancient Irennians, as the affliction is reminiscent of their creations. "And unless you can find the lost city of Iquro, I have nothing to help you."  The brothers retire at the local inn, considering what to do next.

Also at the inn are a group of students on an end-of-term trip from the University of Ithell.  Two of these students, Malloren Clarimonde and Kaia Insert-Last-Name-Here are studying quietly in their room when they hear shouts down the hall.  The town's law enforcement is searching the inn for a missing necklace with a red stone in the center, and none of the students are to leave their rooms while they are searched.

Malloren looks down from her book and is surprised to see the described necklace in her bag.  Kaia sees it too.  As the police steadily approach from down the hall, Malloren grabs the necklace, and prepares to jump out the window.  A convenient deus ex machina, a cart full of straw, is parked right under her window.  She jumps into this, and Kaia, not wishing to explain what happened to her missing roommate, follows.   

Golrath, the shocked cart driver, looks up from his map to see two young women behind him.  He informs them that he is driving to Iquro on business, and they can come along if they like.  Calloway and Cassius hear this from their room, and they too jump from their window into the cart.

Following an uneventful yet bicker-full eleven-day-long journey, the five arrive in Iquro, which is located on an island and is the site of an archaeological dig.  Following a tour, the five learn that the dig is financed by a wealthy art-lover, and that beyond art there are obviously many magical relics to be found here, some of them possibly weapons.   That evening, Cassius spots a shadowy figure sneaking into the tunnels, and the three other youths follow to see what this person is up to.   

Cassius and Kaia catch up to him in time to see him pull out a medallion much like the one Malloren found in her bag.  He presses this on three of the five green stones that are located in a hidden alcove in the wall.  He turns to leave the room in a hurry, but runs into Cassius.  The shadowy man manages to get past Cassius, even after he has an arrow shot into his shoulder.  When he comes to Malloren, he pauses and says her name, then runs even faster when Malloren starts sprinting after him.  He gets to the end of the tunnel, fiddles with the medallion, then disappears around the corner.  During this time, three spirits similar to those that attacked Calloway run down the hall, not visibly hurting anyone.

The medallion in Malloren's possession begins ticking as the group convenes in a section of the hall.  Then it explodes, and gears fly out of it.  No one is killed, although Kaia is knocked unconscious.  They bring her back up to the camp site, where the spirits have apparently wreaked its fair share of havoc.   

They explained what happened to the leader of the dig, Ron, who tells them that the green stones likely held prototypes for Morphians, which were developed by the Irennian League (of which Iquro was a part of).  He also tells the group that another tunnel had collapsed under similar circumstances a few weeks ago.  Calloway explains to Ron the nature of his disease, and asks if he knows of any cure.  Ron tells him he knows there were several powerful wizards that were part of the Morphian project over 2,600 years ago. One of them, he knows, ended up in the far southwestern country of Talis.

Cassius and Calloway head outside to see if they can find the shadowy man, but only find a few bloody footprints and at the bottom of the lake, a medallion.  Calloway dives down and picks it up. 

The group decides to travel south together, Calloway and Cassius to Talis, Malloren and Kaia to Ithell to possibly clear their names of thievery charges, and Golrath to Drakell on business.  In the morning, they take the ferry back to Lake Shore, the nearest town to Iquro, to buy supplies for their journey.  There, they see wanted posters for Malloren and Kaia, so the group plans to quietly exit the town.

My players will be heading to Ithell from Lakeshore tomorrow, probably by way of Strathon. On the map, there's pretty much nothing but grassland between the two big cities. Any suggestions on points of interest that would be in this area? Not necessarily monsters to fight, but small towns or something else to populate the sixteen days of travel time? 

Thanks!

Five years ago I found this site. I read a great deal on it, and then was distracted by other things. This week I decided to reboot my D&D group, and was looking around for a world to run in. Then I remembered:

"That one site with the brown background. That world was pretty cool, and it had that yellow sun/blue sun thing that affected magic, and the world started with a K. I liked that world a -bunch"

Somehow, I was able to find the site with that information. And I'm so glad I did :-) You have a really great world here, man, and I'm so appreciative that you and your crew are able to put it up in a nice, extremely navigable format. And keep it up for over FIVE YEARS? That's ancient on the internet!

So, thank you very much. I've given my players the packet, and am devouring as much information as I can. But now I have question for you: I'm looking to start a campaign that could be done in about a year (real time). Playing an average of once a week, for about 6 hours, I'd like to be able to have rising action, tension, falling action, and a good ending. I've been reading some of your campaigns that you've catalouged, and I'm trying to get a feel of the length on them. Can you tell me how long it took you to run each of these things?

Thanks!