Thanks so much! And in need of some advice...

[Eltern]

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!

[avisarr]

Hi Eltern,

I've run three really big campaigns in my life.

The Quest of the Avisarr - This was the first one and is detailed under the Campaigns section. That's the one where the group has to travel around the continent of Ithria finding the skulls of six dead wizards and return them to a specific place to prevent the rise of a demon lord. It typically runs about 30 to 35 sessions, each being about 6-7 hours long. I've run that one twice, many years apart. So, once a week would take about 8 to 9 months.

The Warriors of the Mark - I haven't posted this one yet. Just because I haven't had time to clean up the notes from it, but this one was about the same length as Avisarr. Maybe a little shorter. It also was limited to western Ithria, if I remember correctly.

The Jaidor Talisman - This was the biggest and grandest one of them all. I've run it only once and it took almost 60 sessions to complete. It would take a little more than a full year if you played every week without fail. And this campaign crosses an ocean and much of the campaign takes place in the continent of Aggradar. I used this campaign to take a group of players around the world and show off many new nations and cultures. The notes from the first half of this campaign are on line already. I can post the rest of anyone is running that campaign and wants to see them.

In my experience, it always takes longer to run a campaign than you estimate. If you think it'll take 25 sessions, it'll actually take more like 40. Players never get as much done each session as you think. At least, that's how it works for me.

You certainly aren't limited to the campaigns I've posted. Feel free to look around the site and see if anything spurs an idea for a plot.

Oh, and thanks for the kind comments. I'm proud of that Khoras has been a steady as a rock all these years. Khoras has been online for almost 9 years and it will be online for many more. Come to think of it, Khoras is approaching it's 10 year anniversary. How about that!   Maybe we'll do something special to celebrate the big anniversary. 

[avisarr]

Sure thing. If I win the lottery, I'll have a big party and pay for everyone's airline tickets. 

[Eltern]

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!

[Kristian]

I'm not running the Jaidor Talisman or anything, but if you ever post the rest of the campaign notes, I'd love to read them.

[avisarr]

Wow! Lots to reply to. 

Ok, first of all, Kristian, I'll post the rest of the Jaidor Talisman notes next month. Maybe Jaidor can be the March spotlight. Also, I'm not quite done with Citadel yet. Got lots more to do. So, I'll probably keep the spotlight on the Citadel as well in March just so we can be sure that it's done thoroughly.

Now, on to Eltern's questions.

1. The Khoras web site is just simple HTML pages. I use Frontpage to maintain it. So, it does have lots of little extra files, but essentially, it's just plain old HTML. I can put the entire web site on a CD and send it to you. Actually, that offer is for anyone. If anyone needs to have Khoras on a CD, just ask. It's actually really nice because you can browse the entire site very quickly. There are no internet delays - it's blazingly fast. Copy the entire web site to your hard drive and it will be even faster than your CD drive. Also, I can put copies of the world and continent maps on the same CD. If you are interested in this option, send me your physical mailing address and I will put a CD in the mail to you.

2. Yes, please let me know about typos. It's a huge site and it's difficult to find them all. Plus, too often I am typing at 2am and lack of sleep makes for many mistakes. So, yes, if you ever find a typo, mistake, broken link or anything else, feel free to email me. I love those emails. I print them out, save them and then, when I have time, I go through the site and fix everything I can.

3. Are you saying you want a single page that lists all the different maps? Well, actually there are only two kinds of maps. There are the main maps. The big, full color huge maps of the world and continents. You get there by clicking on the big green button marked Maps. And there are the "political boundary" maps which you get to as you described - through the locator maps on every nation page. But that's about it, really. I can put a link to the political boundary maps on the main map page if you want. Is that what you mean?

4. Layers - yes, the main maps - the big, full color ones - were created in Photoshop. Photoshop is an advanced photo editing program, but you can do a lot more with it than just edit photos. It supports layers. There were about 15 layers for geological stuff (sea, land, hills, mountains, rivers, etc) and there were hundreds of layers for cities, towns and labels. I still have all of the original Photoshop files. So, yes, it would be possible to create a map with nation names only. I'll add that to the list of things to do next week.

[Kristian]

Cool, I'm looking forward to reading the rest Jaidor. And I'd love to have the whole website on a CD, if it's not too much trouble for you to send me stuff here in Denmark again Just let me know if you want money in any way, 'cause I'd be willing to pay for it. I tried downloading the whole site as you suggested some years ago (wow... years) but I never really was satisfied with it. It downloaded a lot of external stuff, and it didn't get all the pages. So a CD would be very cool.

[avisarr]

Ok. I'll plan on preparing a "Khoras CD" which will include the maps and the entire web site. Not only is it fast, but you'll find a few pages buried deep that don't have links to them. Sort of like bonus "behind the scenes" stuff. Most of them are unfinished pages, which is why they aren't linked. But hey, Khoras is definitely a work in progress.

However, I'm about to enter a really busy period at my day job. I'll be buried for the next 2 weeks. So, they CDs may have to wait for a little while.

Is there anything else I should put on them besides the web site and the maps? I could put the original layered Photoshop maps on there too. That would allow you to take a very close look at how the maps were built. However, you would have to have Photoshop in order to open the files.

And yes, I'll get the rest of the Jaidor notes up as soon as I can. That too, will have to wait until sometime in March.

[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!

[Eltern]

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

[avisarr]

Eltern,

Well, I'm swamped til march 10th. After the 10th, I'll have plenty of time to work on whatever needs to be done.

Yes, I had forgotten about those old maps. You're right. 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. I need to implement a better solution for finding distances too. I like your string idea, that should work. I'll think about this.

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. 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.

So, yes, in summary... the whole maps section needs an overhaul. I think I'll start working on that in March.

There is a version of the continent maps with a scale. I'll be sure to add that to the new maps page.

ok, let's talk roads. Yes, the Rukemian Empire has a very good road system. In very general terms, the eastern half of Ithria is more "civilized" and the further west you go, the more wild and barbaric it is. Although there are some exceptions. Also, the quality of the roads tends to degrade as things get more rural and wild. Some nations, such as Kalimura or Uthran, maintain good roads. But the roads between kingdoms are not maintained as well. Often, long roads stretching between kingdoms will be narrow, winding dirt roads as you described. Yes, the road between River Gate and Lakeshore would be a typical dirt road, average quality.

I don't have an official map showing all the roads. Just notes. I'll create one in March. If you're in a rush, I can tell you that most of the roads in the west are simple common dirt roads and hunting trails. There are very few paved or brick roads in the east. But there is usually a dirt road connecting a town or city to its close neighbors.

Mail - there are no wide spread organized postal systems. Only the largest and more organized empires would have such a thing (Rukemia, Padashan) and even then it would be only within the nation. There's no formal system to get packages or mail between kingdoms. Most of the time it was necessary to send the letter with a trusted servant or send it with a caravan that happened to be heading to the same destination. As you can imagine, mail was definitely NOT a sure thing. You were lucky if it got there at all. And if it did make it, it could take days or weeks, depending on distance and other factors.

You know what... I totally forgot about that old Distance Chart I created. That DEFINITELY needs to have a link to it. I may re-engineer that thing too. Anyway, the distances on it are accurate. I will make sure that chart gets up on the web site right away. The chart says that the distance between Ithell and Strathon is 525 miles. Therefore, a letter going from Strathon to Ithell could get there in about 16 days if you sent a trusted servant on a fast horse. It would probably take between 3 and 5 weeks if you sent it with a caravan.

Some of the big cities have organized postal systems, but it's more of a messenger service and it just covers the city.

Also, the dwarves tend to be very organized about this sort of thing, so all 3 dwarven nations have good postal systems within their kingdoms.

[Eltern]

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!

[Kristian]

What would also be handy for us Europeans is the scale in kilometers    I know it's not that difiicult, but for some reason I tend to get it wrong when converting miles to kilometers, plus there are like three different mile length in the world, or more. I think.

[Eltern]

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.

[avisarr]

I'll make sure I include kilometers on the scale when I redo the map. These are all good suggestions.

Reorganizing the maps will be one of the main spotlights for March.