KhorasForum

Ah, nevermind. They came around just through mutation, according to the Avar history section.

I hadn't read that bit about Threll Bathyn...Ah, so the Ruins of Threll would be a possible location for the Stone Phellysian. That sort of dates Rexilar before the creation of the morphians, though. Too late! Already have him very written into the story. 

Do you have any notion of how the Avarians came to be? Or is that open ended?

Thanks for the help :-)

I've been searching around the site, and those were just the names I pulled up. I haven't found anything else in particular, which is fine. If you don't think there is anyone else, I'm already set. From your description in the Jaidor Campaign, I won't find anything else that perfectly fits with the cannon. But if you spontaneously think of anything, let me know.

As a related question: Other than Rexilar, are there any particular mages who are known to have created a race? Ex. The Avar.

Thanks!

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!

Another belated Happy Birthday here! Thanks for the site!

Edited in the most recent session. Also, I've begun keeping another copy of the story hour at ENWorld, a very large d20 system-related message board.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=2990634#post2990634

I strongly suggest anyone interested in roleplaying check out the site, as it's a very great community. www.enworld.org
If you happen to post on the ENWorld story thread, I just ask that you not "give away" any of the brainstorming I'll be doing on this website (The ENWorld story hour is for my players' reference).

March 4, 2006

In the last episode, we left our intrepid adventurers in Lake Shore, following a night of mystery, exploration, and getting blown up.

Malloren and Kaya are prepared to leave town once they notice the "wanted" posters bear their faces, so the group has convened at Golrath's cart on the edge of town, and is preparing to leave when something has to catch their attention.

A town crier announces that a dead body has washed up on the shore.  The group, suspecting that it is the dark-clothed man who they met in the tunnels of Iquro, goes to investigate the scene.  There they find that same man, sans calves and with an arrow sticking out of his back.  Besides a guard, there are only a handful of people gathered to look.  While searching the body, the guard pulls out, among other things, a black amulet that catches the eyes of said intrepid travelers.  With all the madness that amulets can do, is this one somehow significant to the antique disease that is inflicting Calloway?

Miserably failing at enacting any sort of plan to distract the guard and steal the amulet, Calloway and Cassius only end up irritating the guard to the point where he strongly suggests that they leave.  The group leaves town, none the wiser on the mystery, and just a wee bit more annoyed with each other than they were before.

They travel to Strathon, which will be the last stop before the long trudge to Ithell.  This means that it is time to go shopping for horses, food, herbs, and such, and Calloway wants no part of it.  He goes to the local tavern and drinks himself into oblivion.

Meanwhile, Kaya and Malloren are spotted by the guards, chased through town, and escape by losing the guards in a garden. The group, minus Calloway, reconvenes at the inn.

Calloway awakes in the middle of the street, head pounding, only to discover that all he has to call his own are his pants.  He returns to the inn, and where his companions inquire about his plight.

The next morning, while everyone else impatiently waits, particularly Malloren and Kaya who are wanted by the law, Calloway runs around trying to procure new supplies.  He buys a new sword and new clothes.  The owner of the inn, who can't stand listen to the warrior whine, offers his old hunting boots free of charge.  The group sets out for Ithell.

The first few days are easy going, but soon a long stretch of rainy weather drenches the heroes and floods the road.  While in the midst of fording the road, four heavily armed ogres come up behind them suggest they stop.  From the other side, eighteen lizardcreaturesthatashleighforgetsthenameof (LCTAFTNOs; as a side note, screaming out the unabbreviated name when surrounded by eighteen of them is a good way to end your life on a presposition) - anyway eighteen of them agree with the ogres and add that dropping their weapons and valuables is an even better way to please them.  Thirty more ogreq coming over the hill behind the first four, don't even need to say anything to get the message across.  After a witless attempt at bravado from the brothers Cassades that only accomplishes a nice collection of arrows to be stuck through Calloway's arm, the group hands over their food, four horses, their money, and their unconcealed weapons.

(DM's Note: the LCTAFTNOs are Saurians. The player forgot the name)

The next few days is a test of these intrepid heroes' survival skills.  In other words, they nearly starve to death.  I say nearly because they did not, in fact die, because as providence would have it, a band of traveling grumm merchants meet them in the road.  On the fly, Kaya learns Grummish, explains their plight, and Malloren gives them a golden bracelet in exchange for a few crates of food.

They make it to Ithell with little other to-do.  After stabling the horses, they go to the house of Kaya's parents.  Her parents are tickled pink at the explanation of her absence, which is to say she had decided to expand upon her studies and took it upon herself to visit the archaeological excavation of Iquro.  She tells them that she is going to continue to study the ruins of the continent, and her parents happily agree to fund these exploits.  Everyone, in much better spirits at the mention of "funding" scurries off to the libraries to research the pesky pendant and the disease that had started this whole mess. 

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!

I did some research about mapping/routing software, and it's a beast. Theoretically could be done with some open source software out there, but I think it's a great deal more trouble than it's worth. Especially since you can just use a marked piece of string. 

I think your simplest option would just be to have a line somewhere on the map(s) that has a marked length in miles/kilometers.

Quote from: David Roomes on February 27, 2006, 02:06:04 PM
Well, I'm swamped til march 10th. After the 10th, I'll have plenty of time to work on whatever needs to be done.

That's fine. I'll probably only have one more session before the 24th, and you've given me plenty work with :-)

"I really need to get the map section reorganized. As a matter of fact, I might make that a priority - the March spotlight or something. I will do a quick reorganization of the maps page using all existing versions of all maps. So, at least, you'll be able to get to the map you want quickly."

Now that I've found them, I have them, so it's no biggie. But for new arrivals, I would suggest reinstating that list, so they can find them.

"I need to implement a better solution for finding distances too. I like your string idea, that should work. I'll think about this."
Really, as long as there's an easily interpretable scale somewhere on the map, anyone can use a string, or just estimate if they're not so picky. I don't know what your programming skills are like, but there is an additional, crazier possibility:
http://www.agyris.net/v3/encyclopedia/places/maps/dl_travel.asp
This is about the best thing going for this world, but it's really cool. Click on a city, and then another and another, and click plan this trip, and it will give you some very useful information. Try it out, you'll be amazed 

Programming something like this for Khoras would be absolute madness, especially if you were to keep to the roads. However, from my understanding, I think it would be possible to do simply if you used a particular program to designate "location zones" and "path zones". I'll ask around to some of my programer friends. That sounds like it would be a big and long term project to tackle. I might be able to convince a guy or two to look into it, though ;-)


"As for nation maps... the only maps I have are the ones that show up on the Nation pages themselves. And those are really just sections of the main continent maps. I have been wanting to do full scale nation maps, with roads and everything, for some time. That's a really big project."

I figured, and that's fine. I particularly like large cross country trips where players interact with each little town and crossroad, but that obviously requires a high level of detail beforehand. No worries, I can make it up as I go  for now As I said, we have only one more session any time soon, and they probably won't get from Lakeshore to Ithell during that time.

"The only way to do it right is to start at the continental level and redo the main map with additional layers and then zoom in from there."
That's a definite possibility. You could look into using a Google Map or Google Earth hack to provide the engine for the zooming mechanism/layers. Of course, you probably know of some better means, with your career.

While that may be the best way, I'll take mediocre  My players aren't going to see it, why do I care if it's pencil on a napkin? But if you don't have anything written as of yet, that's fine. As I said, I'll wing it. Or ::gasp:: make it up myself!

"Everything you said about roads and mail"

Good deal. Thanks for the info!

As you'll see from my story hour (as soon as it gets up), I think I'm doing something of a lead in to your ideas with the Jaidor campaign you ran. So, here's another vote for putting the rest of your notes! For me, at least, I'm not too worried about it being formatted very prettily. Heck, if they're handwritten, I could just work wiith a scan 

A couple questions:
Roads- how many are we talking about? I understand the Rukemian empire has an advanced road system, so I assume, then, that the roads in the western portion of the continent are not so snazzy. My campaign is focuing exclusively on the western portion of the continent for now, so any word on the quality and quantity of that road system would be excellent. For instance, I thought that a narrow, poorly kept trail straight from River Gate to Lakeshore might exist. Is that about typical, or no?

I see that the Trader's Road through Ithell is of some considerable quality. The players will currently be trying to get on that from Lakeshore, then to Ithell, and then to Talis, to give you an idea of where I'm headed.

I figure the answer to this is "Nope" before I ask, but I'll ask anyway: Do you have any maps of the individual countries? Even if they're hand drawn, if you send me a scan I could potentially fix up something that looks good. I'd figure that such maps would have the sort of information I'm looking for on roads, unless the quantity of them in the west is really, really low.

Oh, and something else that goes along with the roads. Mail service  I'm assuming that getting a letter from northern Arkalia to Ithell could take a very long while, correct? As you say in the Technology section of the site, there isn't very advanced long distance communication. I put the time of the delivery for such a letter at 5 weeks. Thoughts?

Thanks!
Eltern

Well, I just started my first Dungeons and Dragons campaign in Khoras last night, and it was a blast. At least one of the players is going to make a session journal, so as soon as that is made I'll start a story hour on this forum (and on ENWorld.org, a great RPG site if you've never seen it before). Two of the characters are from Normidia, the other two are from Ithell, and now they're schlepping all over the continent.

So, with all this schlepping that they're doing, I'm finding out more what sort of resources I'm looking for, and I'm wondering what you have...

First things first: It's midterms for me, so I'm busy as well. Don't worry about getting anything up by a certain time, we can wait. Starting March 11 I'm on spring break and would like to be able to do some major brain storming about the campaign, but if you don't have time, that's fine I'm thankful that you created the site at all, so I can make it on my own, if need be. But here we go...

Maps. You said there were only the three maps: Global, continent with cities and countries, and the political ones. But you lie  I perused through your HTML files, and found a page that had 6 old versions of the Ithria map, along with a big chart that indicates distances between places. Several of these maps had just the countries named, without cities. That's what I was looking for, so I'm using them.  No, they're not as pretty, but they're functional. And I don't -want- my players to know everything about the geography, anyway.

As I was looking through your HTML network, I found lots of little juicy things that I don't think you can access through normal links any more. I understand that you might like to use the newer, prettier maps, but I bet some people might still find your old stuff useful. Of course, I might just have been unable to find them the normal way. I would consider, however, reinstating this list of maps for the Ithria continent, including a link directly to the political map, just for ease of use. The parchmenty map in particular was cool.

About that chart of distances: Wouldn't it just have been easier to put a scale on the maps?  That's a lot of calculations you did. Unless you made up latitudinal and longitudinal positions for all the cities. Did you do this because the map isn't quite to scale? That'd be a great thing to know, as I think I'm probably going to print out a big copy of the map. I'm using the distance between Ithell and Strathon as 1,000 miles, and then using an appropriately marked string to measure out distances. With the map and distances given, do you think this will be accurate? It does give me the advantage of measuring the actual path they take, not just as the dragon flies.

As for the CD: I've got it covered. HTTrack is a program that allows you to extract the entirety of a website (ie. all of khoras.net) onto your hard drive. Images, hyperlinks and all. This should, theoretically, get all the subpages as well (individual nations, etc.). I haven't actually -done- this yet, but I'm hopeful. The program is free (Httrack.com), and looks simple enough. I encourage anyone who was planning on getting a CD to just extract it themselves, as it'll be less work for David. Of course, David, if you want to make the CD, go right ahead :-D I might not be needing one, however.

Alright, I'm off to dinner right now, but I'll have another barrage of questions when I get back.

Toodles!

Thanks for the information. As I get this campaign of the ground in the next few weeks, I hope you don't mind as I ask a barrage of questions  Just trying to get myself acclimated to your world, which so far I'm loving.

My first few questions are a little technical.

What sort of format are you storing the Khoras webpages? I ask, because I would definitely be willing to pay a couple bucks for a CD that had Khoras on it, linked up and everything. Normally I would just go to the website, but I often game with my laptop in locations where I don't have internet access. Having the entirety of everything in one easy location would be killer. But if you don't have it in a sensible format for this, I understand.

I wish I knew more web page design! Since I'm going through literally every page you have, I'm finding a broken link here, a layout bug there. I'd offer to help tweak these things for you, if I could. As it is, though, I'm only able (and willing) to send you any typos and the like that I find. Would you be interested in such feedback, or would you rather not deal with that sort of wealth of info? 

And the last thing: Maps. I'm having trouble navigating around between all of them, I think. Is there a central list of them somewhere on the site that I'm missing? For instance, right now when I want to see the political map of Ithria I go to "Nations", select a nation on Ithria, and then select the white and red map located on that individual nation's page. Is there a different way to get there?

I saw you say you created the map of the continent in Photoshop using layers. What was the nature of these layers? For instance, I'd love a general map of Ithria that has the name of countries, but not all the little towns. I'm looking for something like this to give to my players. All their characters are of rather bucolic origin, so they shouldn't know -too- much readily about the great big world.

If you don't have a map of the continent that fits that description, I might be able to make it myself for you. If you have some of the leftover pieces from when you made the map, I could put them together in this way and send it to you.

Thanks for the awesome site, world, and inspiration!