KhorasForum

I decided to search the web again and see if I could find a tool that could count it up. And this time I was successfully. It wasn't free, but it was cheap... only 12 euro. So, not bad. And worth it, in my opinion. This software tool was able to count every word in every HTML page in the site. Here are the totals:

Total Number of Pages:  1,622

Total Number of Words:  1,271,820

Those totals only include actual content of the site. It does not count anything in this Forum. Due to interesting questions, in-depth conversations and verbose session summaries, this Forum would likely add another million words...

Wow, thanks a lot, this is really informative, once more I'm deeply impressed by the coherency of your creation, and how it all fits together, even if I don't grasp it at first glance (to be honest, often not even after 10+ years of glancing).

Should you ever need an idea for a future spotlight, I totally encourage you to incorporate this into the site, as I did not find such an exhaustive overview.

And I had similar thoughts about classification, I already considered asking about the classification as lesser versus greater race.
I noticed some lesser races seem to be variants (aberrations) of other races rather than races of their own, and while I admit that it doesn't really matter (after all, lesser versus greate race seems to be a metagame classification rather than an in-game aspect), I did e.g. not quite understand what makes ogres a greater race, and orcs a lesser one...numbers? Whether they have their own society or blend into other races' societies? Maybe a bit of all, and yet a lot more to consider?
Also right now there's a page for lesser races and a page for greater races, plus a page for an overview with a list of some of either.

While in itself, the classification lesser/greater would not have been important enough for me to really be an issue, I would really be interested in reading anything you publish about origin and classification of races

First, let me preface this by saying that any game master is free to change the origin of the races in his or her game if they need a specific race to have a specific origin to serve their story. That's fine.

In my version of Khoras, here are the origin of all the "races"...

Original Species: Human

Forced rapid evolution due to massive radiation after Sundering:
Borrellians, Dwarves, Elves, Eshtari, Grum, Magrakians, Ogres, Saridians, Sybrenar, Vaullians, Ankari, Goblins, Hyttar, Merfolk, Orcs, Phanglir, Pugnar, Sea Gypsies, Trolls, Urtas,

Engineered by magic:
Baenites (created by the Thullian Empire for the Great War),
Phellysians (created by the wizard Rexilar)
Secambru (created by the Kytohan Empire)
Thallasians (created by a wizard pre-Sundering which then evolved and changed greatly after Sundering)
Mandalar (created by the Kithdari as a slave race)
Morphians (created by the Irenni League for the Great War)
Guldra (created by a wizard pre-Sundering which then evolved and changed greatly after Sundering)
Saurians (created by the Jakar resistance group prior to the Great War)
Skrell (created by the sarthak - background not posted yet - possibly a future spotlight topic)
Vothen (created by a wizard pre-Sundering which then evolved and changed greatly after Sundering)

Offshoot of another race that came about through continuing evolution:
Aswani (offshoot of the Mandalar race)
Boglings (offshoot of the Goblin race)
Hurkyte (offshoot of the Saurian race)
Sayune (offshot of the Grum race)
Scrub Rats (offshot of the Skrell race)
Trog (offshoot of the Goblin race)
Sarthak (offshoot of the Kithdari race - background not posted yet - possibly a future spotlight topic)

True Aberrations
Setharin (not a true race, an aberrant form of avarian)
Aberrants (individual aberrations that can occur in any race)
Faerie (not a true race, an aberrant form of elf)
Giants (individual aberations that can occur in any race)
Etherbane (individual aberrations that can occur in any race)

Came from another dimension: Kithdari, Xorians

Came from another star system: Karthasians


Now that I've reviewed all the races, I realize that I should probably make some changes:

For instance, the "aberrations" are not true "races". I probably shouldn't call them races. Perhaps I should move the Aberrations somewhere else.

Also, the Sea Gypsies are more of a culture, not a different species. The sea gypsies are mostly human and should perhaps be reclassified as a human subrace, along with Northerners, Southerners, Padashani, Tomarin and so forth.

The Kithdari, Sarthak and Skrell all have historical information about their origins that hasn't been posted to the site yet. Maybe I should make the "origin of the races" the next spotlight and clean up a lot of the historical vagueness.

Thoughts? Comments?

I think I forgot to consider the "single genius explanation", which seems to be a common narrative aspect (not only) in fantasy.

If as an analogy, we assume that Alrem Evarel combined the genius and ideas of Newton, Planck, Einstein, Heisenberg and others in a single mind, in a scientific background struggling with Copernicus, it seems plausible that nobody else understood his ideas, so they never became actual scientific theory.

I got the flat Khoras belief from http://www.khoras.net/chat/index.php?topic=28.0 where you stated that most commoners, serfs and mariners believe Khoras is flat.
I thought it was a bit odd, considering that over 2000 years ago, the Greeks already tended towards a round earth.

But then again, when I say "the Greeks", it probably actually means a few philosophers/scientists, not the commoners (although I don't know for sure).
Also Khoras had some tremendous backlash, the Sundering, which goes far beyond any real-world equivalent, so I considered a widespread flat Khoras belief somewhat conceivable.


I think what fascinates me most:
While the general technology on Khoras is obviously (more or less) medieval, there are some achievements that even go beyond what modern science could achieve, by means of magic.
Like the creation of the secambru, the morphians or the phellysians.
Or the stiffening. It seems beyond plagues available to modern biological warfare.

And since "Magic is a force of Nature. Like gravity or inertia, it is bound by physical laws as are all aspects of the universe" (as stated on the article on magic), In my imagination, those creation acts were scientific achievements, based on profound scientific knowledge.
I tend to assume that if a modern scientists was to examine Khorasian life forms, he would find an equivalent to real-world DNA, and live would be based on cells, even if nobody on Khoras knows that.

So I just imagined that to create the secambru, you would need knowledge as sophisticated as CRISPR or the like.


While this might not be of any interest for most campaigns, the implications are totally intriguing for me as a World Builder.


And of course this would be knowledge of the past, which now is lost.
I just wondered how much is lost, and what remains.
And how it would differ from historical reference, which has no such advanced knowledge in the past (unless this knowledge is lost in a way we don't know about it....but of course many cultures had an astounding knowledge on astronomy, line the Maya).


But none of what I assumed, wondered and imagined is a necessary conclusion within Khoras ;-)

Yes, Khoras is written at people in the modern Western world, but I think most pages in the site make it clear that the technology of Khoras is medieval. Most commoners and peasants in most lands are illiterate and, for the most part, poorly educated. Scholars, nobles, wizards and clergy are the only ones that enjoy any kind of formal education.

I don't know what thread you are referring to about the flat Khoras belief. As it was on Earth, most educated people know the world is round. This would likely be especially true with Khoras. Because they have 2 suns, three moons and the movement of the stars influence magic on Khoras, there would be great interest in astronomy. Commoners might belief the world is flat, but this would vary from region to region and from person to person. I imagine it would be a topic of lively discussion in the taverns.

The people of Khoras, even the educated ones, don't know about plate tectonics. They also have no germ theory, no concept of evolution, no idea what the stars are and probably primitive and competing classification systems for biology. They most likely WOULD have developed a Copernican theory due to the elevated interest in astronomy. Some nations are more technologically advanced that others. In particular, the nation of Kalimura is far ahead of most other nations.

Also, religion tends to hinder scientific knowledge wherever such knowledge starts to contradict the religious beliefs. There are a lot of religions on Khoras and, if you read them, you'll notice that a lot of them have conflicting beliefs and origin stories. This is intentional.

Bottom line is this: commoners and peasants are uneducated. Only the wealthy and privileged are educated. But even those who are lucky enough to be educated are still limited by the knowledge available in that part of the world at that time.

Anyway, that's how I look at it. I don't know if this has ever come up in any significant way for gaming purposes. It could though. Superstitious sailors refusing to join the crew of a ship that's bound for the edge of the map, perhaps. I remember one D&D adventure from long ago that involved a wizard who had been studying astronomy and his notes on a comet were clues that tied into the plot.

One last random thought. Although the medieval ages didn't really know where germs and bacteria were, they did know that dead bodies could spread disease, which is why they burned them, buried them and occasionally flung them over the walls of a city during a siege. So sometimes primitive cultures have a general idea about something even though they don't know the specific details.

Is there / was there ever a map (rough or otherwise) of the buried ruins from the prelude?

Just wondering if you got a more recent number...would be interesting to see how it developed.

Also I'm not sure if I understand the challenge of counting words...with all html files in a directory (or its subdirectories), I think it shouldn't be too difficult via bash/cygwin.
Getting those files in a directory in the first place... don't know about that...

But maybe now, 13 years later, a Notepad++ plugin could do it...

Assuming the term race as "defined as any intelligent species which has developed language and culture" I'm uncertain about which (if any) races came into existence "naturally" on Khoras and before the sundering.

Elves, dwarves, ogres and others "splintered" from humans due to massive radiation after the sundering.
Other races where created/bred by human magic (i e. not "naturally"), like saurians, baenites, mandalar, secambru.
Not sure about vaullians, or saridians.

And some races came from other planets or dimensions like the xorian.

This seems to be summed up as "Originally, only humans lived in the world."


But at least one race seems to have developed on Khoras independent from humans and before the sundering - the sarthak/trossoli, as they are described as the only race not to change their calendar after the sundering.
And as I understand it, when the (maybe not-yet) dwarfs met them, it was a first contact, they were unheard of.

Did they still evolve from humans, and if so, when did they seperate?
Or is it truly seperate evolution? If so, when did they first exist?


Or the thallasians....they "seem to have evolved from a crustacean life form".
Also after the sundering?

While the Khoras page seems to be written for people with our modern western knowledge about science, I wonder what scholars and commoners within the game world know (or believe) about such topics

For example I read in another thread that most people believe Khoras is flat rather than spherical. So they probably don't know about plate tectonics.
How would they explain tidal patterns?

And I guess they don't know about a thing such as an atom model...what would they believe instead?

Or do they know about evolution, do they know/believe simple life forms started in primordial soup, and more complex life forms evolved from them?
Or do they believe live forms where created the way they are now? Designed to develop into what they are today?
Do they even have a biological taxonomy, or would they for example think rats, bugs, worms to be of the same "category vermin", without further classification?

In our world, people long believed in (what we today call) abiogenesis, i.e. non-living matter turning into life forms, like cheese actually turning into maggots (if I remember correctly, some scholars even stated that native Americans grew out of the soil this way, but this might be a myth in itself).
The idea that living things come only from living things (or cells only from cells) is a historically rather recent one, so might not have yet come up in Khoras.


I'm not expecting a definite answer for every Khorasian society - I'm mainly fascinated by thinking about how people in Khoras would explain certain things, based on what they observe.
I think it's possible to have a lot of (maybe a bit nerdy) fun with outdated knowledge, or even made-up yet plausible in-game explanations, in a pseudo-historical fantasy world..


Oh, one final notice: What I wrote is pretty eurocentric - when I say a theory/discovery is rather recent, I'm implicitly limiting to "in western society" without adding it every time.
And even so, I sometimes might be wrong, and being corrected is appreciated as a chance to learn