Historical Architecture - Part 3

Angel Temple

The continent of Grittlanni is a freign place to the civilized races, even to many of the shadowkin who call it their home and homeland. Few such places are more mysterious than the angel temple, a building built in a unique style of uniqu materials, and inhabited (ocasionally) by unique creatures.

The building is built atop a large stone pyramid, built of stone blocks each wider than the one above it - and the largest one at the base nearly a quarter mile in both width and length of flawless sone, though only a foot tall. The block above it is fifteen inches less from all sides, and it repeats until the top, each block flawless in all ways. The building itself is also square, and appears to be carved from a similarly flawless single peice of stone. The ceiling is a hemisphere of thick, impenitrible glass, and all the walls, inside and out are fit with ensconced torches that burn without fuel inside golden-lined archways to illuminate the building constantly, even in the darkest of nights. It is, in fact, this light that most often leads explorers to this building.

Outside of the strangeness of how the building is built, there is the strangeness of when it was built. Each of the gods in turn will deny having built it, yet the power it contains insist it was done so by magic, yet it's earliest sighting places it well beyond the first day of the year of recording, and centuries before magic was granted to the land by the gods.

The truth of the structure is in what lies beyond the gods, and in the true nature of the multiverse. From another reality came creatures never created upon Ronar, and never intended to be seen there. These creatures are the angels, the creautres that occasionally visit this magical world, and tap into it's powers.

Visitors to this site often find simply it's incredible architecture. Occasionally, if one is lucky, they may see one of the angels that visit, and if they are even luckier, be granted he opportunity to learn from them.

Ronarian Locations - Part 1

While there is no place in the world without history, some places have less exciting histories, and many have shorter histories.

The city of Arianna is a present-day callback to the ideals of the age of magic, and while it is part of the kingdom of Wetisa, and the current throne of it's Queen Mysti, it is a magocracy in all other ways - even the queen has some magical powers.

For those of you who don't know, a magocracy is a city whose ruling class is formed of, and decided by the members of the city who can use magic, and in a standard fantasy setting, that means arcane magic, instead of divine. I'm sure divine magic has some sway in magocracies, but that's the basic definition of them. But, back to the city.

Arianna is smilar in many ways to the cities built during the age of magic, in that rather than building structures on archetectural stability, they are built on magical supports, leading to Nine almost spindle-thin towers dozens of floors high. Their open construction allows the high updrafts to whip through the large windows (because hey, who'se going to fire an arrow through a window twenty stories up?) making the entire city a place aways literally humming and whistling. Most days the inhbitants agree that the sounds are soothing and pleasant, but there are rare days where the sound obviously becomes grating, forcing the people to use ear protection against the sounds.

The centralmost tower is the castle, and at over fifty floors tall and containing nearly a thousand rooms, is easily the largest tower on Ronar outside of the tower-city of Mer. Like the other towers, the walls are white plaster and rather than supporting them with beams and stone blocks like oter cities, or even other buildings in the city, the floors and walls are all supported by extremely thin and magically strong threads of metal - or even just walls of force. Some people in the city worry that a particularly clever sabateur could knock out an entire section of the city by toppling the towers, but the mages in charge of maintaining them assure them that the wards are strong enough to endure anything but the strongest of magical assaults. They survived the reign of Astra, the age of souls, and a seventeen year long inheritance war, after all.

The city itself is circular in nature,even to the point that the buildings have curved fronts facing the castle, and backs facing the outer walls. Almost exclusively, they are one tory tall, and built from brick, fronted with white plaster, giving the red-paved streets city a clean, serene feeling.

Historical Architecture - Part 2

Haiga's Clock

Along the western coast of Maxitone, the oldest settled continent is the vast forest of Wedra, stretching thousands of miles along the coast. This forest is the homeland of the Torin, where they were placed by the gods with the command to guard the forests of the world. Many Torin have since moved on, but most of them remain here.

Less than a hundred years after Torin were created, there was a Torin named Haiga born into one of the families who had taken it upon themselves to organize the people, these families were th nobles of the Torin folk, and while not quite he same as the noble of the humans they sufficed. Haiga was a passionate torin, and his first great passion was a toy brought from far away human lands, a small clockwork statue that would walk about, and a true marvel of engineering at the time. He spent many years obsessing over the way the gears meshed together seamlessly, and even after he was banished from his homeland (which is another story althogether) he retained the passion for the smooth and seamless workings. In fact, in common history, he is heralded as the father of clockworks, although it is obvious to those with more informaton that it is impossible, it is agreed that it was the torin who brought clockworks into the hands of the common man.

Haiga built over the years a number of creations, each grander than the last (although none of them quite as delicate or precise as the toy he admired as a child). Eventually, he found himself needing to know the time of the day it was precisely, for being immortal (which is really a story for another day) the times and days belended together into a great blur. And so, Haiga returned to one of the sites where he had battled dragons along heroes of the past, heroes who had all moved on to other lives, or ascended into a more complete existance, and asides the town he began to build a massive structure, four stories tall, and stradding a small river.

This structure contained a waterwheel at it's base, and a mill for the local villagers, but the wheel would power his most impressive structure yet - which he named 'A Clock'. This tower had four great glass faces, each one revealing the exact time of day to the distance and could be seen for miles around. Haiga's Clock, as it is know today is the first precise timepeice on Ronar, and it's inner workings have been sealed off from others to examine - all people know is that the clock continued to count exact times of day even during the droughts when there were no water, and during the floods, while the wheel was spinning furiously. The building itself is rather delapidated now, but so far the clock has been respected by wariors, and passed over by weather. Perhaps the immortal still visits and maintains it, for he has not been seen in many years, perhaps he lives inside.

Origin of the races

Fantasy worlds have long-since been defined by JRR Tolkien's lord of the rings books and his take on the fantasy creatures out of classic faerie tales. Elves, classically, and dwarves are very similar. They're tiny creatures that live in the earth and go about playing tricks on people. So are gnomes, so are faries, and goblins. They're all very similar creatures - in earth mythos.

But Tolkien took these creatures and made a series of distinct races from them. Drawves live in mountains, elves live in forests, and the two don't get along. Hobbits are flighty, Orcs are brutish, and so on. Dungeons and Dragons took these types and ran with them, and thus he generic fatasy world is born.

I started Ronar as a generic fantasy world, with elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings and so on - but I gradully felt that it wasn't my world doing that. Everyone who thought of elves in that world made them the same as elves in other worlds. It wasn't what I wanted, when building a new, distinct world. The idea to make my own races came when was playing final fantasy. They stopped using elves and dwarves long ago, they created Vierra, and Moogles, and Bangaa, and a dozen other races in their recent games to populate the world in their place. Some of the races, Vierra and Bangaa, make clear lines to more generic races, elves and dwarves respectively but they were still new and exciting. A race made entirely of sexy bunny-girls who wear lingere? A little unrealistic, but certainly fun.

And so, I cast about to create my new races. Torin were the easiest, cat-people. You can probably see where the insiration came from already, but such is life. You need to be inspired from somewhere. Unofotine were next, a race of bear-like mole people. Cyclops were next, although their histry has been changed and re-written more times than I care to remember. Hopefully they're in a more steady place now. Last came Shadowkin, and I will admit they were someone else's creation that was looking for a home - only to find one in my world.

Historical Architecture - part 1

In any world the size of Earth (which Ronar is, near enough) there is a lot of world to exist. You might think a city is a big place to learn, or you might think a country is a hard place to move about, imagine the number of things across an entire planet! In starting my epic campaign on Ronar, I've been inspired to work on some of the landmarks across the world.

Alladora's Orphanage

Alladora is the goddess of fertility, and of children. As such, it only makes sense that her followers will be devoted to the health and wellbeing of children. Many of them run orphanages for both the protection of children and the access to the magical energies they draw from their godess by virtue of the children being present.

The most prominent orphanage is Alladora's Orphanage, named after the goddess herself, rather than the founder as is traditional. It was founded Circa 339, after the first dragon wars and during the age of the faithless, to take in many of the children whose parents had died during the wars. Despite the absence of their goddess, the faithful of Alladora followed her tennents to build the structure at the base of Mount Fejj (currently mount Silen, the home of the gods)

In current Ronar, the main structure of Alladora's orphanage is four stories tall, and at least twice as wide and deep as it is tall. Atop it's roof, since it's founding, are smaller additions, raising the building's height another two stories. It has the capacity to hold over a thousand people, mostly children in large common rooms and bunk beds. Still, for it's age, at nearly 1,200 years old it is one of the oldest buildings on Ronar, thanks in part to it's being a temple in such an actively religious city, and part of it being constructed with the aid of powerful magics that prevent it from decaying or suffering from any of the natural wear and tear a busy building would normally suffer. It usually houses about 500 orphans from across Maxitone (currently many from the inheritance wars between Barakaan and Arianna), although the number has increased steadily over the years as the number of people in the world has done likewise.

Looking ahead

Once you have a procedurally generated world of any kind, you have to ask yourself how it's going to be used. Sure, we know in my case it's going to be used for a rogue-like roleplaying game, but beyond that I mean how the player is going to play through it.

Once a dungeon is built and the player delves into it, clears out all the monsyers and grabs all the treasure laying around; what happens to it? Should the dungeon fade away to be replaced by another one later? Should the dungeon get refilled with more random monsters and treasure? If so, how long should it take? Instantly, so the player never needs to go looking for a new place? After a predetemined, or even random length of in-game time forcing the player to go back to town? After a year so only after the player has cleared a hundred other dungeons can they come back?

A solution on another blog I read inspired me to the solution I offer. Every map has two states of information - who currently 'owns' the map, an who is supposed to own the map. Thus, a map within orcish territory is supposed to be owned by the orcs, although it could be actually owned by the humans, or the elves, or even nobody if the player just ran through and killed everything. That part's simple.

Next, each map knows who is currently owning the maps adjacent to it, and for simplicity's sake we'll say there are four of those, one in each compass direction. So, each map has six crucial peices of information to be used in the next step - spawning.

Every map is constantly (if slowly) spawning creatues based on those four peices of information. Each group represented in the six areas (supposed to own, actually own, and owns north, owns east, owns south, owns west) spawns slowly into the map - probably at an even rate, with the group supposed to own the map highest of all. Obviously, this will probably lead to a conflict in who actually owns the map, if more than one group is represented, but that's fine - conflict is what makes the engine easy. You see, if humans own a square, and strong human units spawn into the adjacent square, eventually they will take over that adjacent square, having lots of spare units there, though they will constantly be under attack. Then,a single strong orc unit could spawn into it, and then the map would be quickly owned by orcs again - changing the power balance.

This way, the player could pass through a village one day (which normally only spawns peasants) and two days later pass through to find it overrun by orcs. The player kills them all, goes away, and comes back later to find the town once again filled by peasants, respawned once there were no orcs to kill them.

Dynamic background information makes the player feel a lot stronger about their influence in the world, but also that it doesn't seem like the world is totally at their control. A player who kills everyone in a town then comes back three weeks later to see everyone still laying in the street knows that nothing will happen they don't control. A player who walks into a town they like and finds they have to save it from monsters feels like they make a difference, and that the world is more real. Which,of course, is something we really want.

Unreal Holidays

Happy Holidays, everyone.

Holidays are interesting things, all full of stress and family and gifts and so on. They've been comercialized, and only the most base idea of what the holiday was continues on in tradition. Christmas, for instance, was adapted from a pagan ritual to banish away the darkness. Now, it's a holiday celebrating the birth of the son of god, where everyone is expected to give to everyone else and spend time with family. I *totally* see that connection.

I've recently created a calendar on Ronar, and with it some holidays. I needed it because I realized I needed to give important events in Ronar actual dates and timelines beyond what era they happened in.

The first step was to decide how the calendar was set up. How many days in a year. In my case, the world was created by the gods, and a simple, even number works best. Three hundred days. The calandar was made by man - and so ten months makes a beautifully symmetrical calendar. That puts thirty days in a month, which doesn't divide by the classical week value of seven. That's fine, Earth calendar months don't divide by seven, right? But I'm making a well-balanced, symmetrical calendar.

What I finally decided, four weeks in a month is 28 days, then two days of rest, one every second week. It fits a classical religious feel with the days of rest, which don't fit nicely into the regular calendar already. These days are often holidays - though not always - and represent time for people to relax from their normal routines and spend time with their families and such. Like Christmas.

Then, we have to come up with names for the months, and there are generally two schools for doing that. The first school is similar to the japanese language where every month is simple named after which month it was numerically. Onemonth, Twomonth, and so on. A little plain, but certainly effective. The other school is to name months after what they represent. A friend of mine called the first month of his year 'yeardeath' to represent the end of the old year, which is an oddly morbid look at things - most people look for the positives in the end of things, but that's his world, ne?

The ten months of the Ronarian Calendar are as follows: Newyear, Winterbreak, Journey, Downpour, Kingsith, Scorching, Queensith, Harvest, Greybark, and Barren. Good names for months, but what do they represent? I'll tell you my friend. I will tell you.

The month of Newyear is the first month of the year. It is cold, and snowy, and much of the month is spent preparing what can for the year ahead. Craftsmen are fond of this month for the extra time they are able to spend crafting. Most craftsmen will produce their best works in this time.

Newyear 4 is the Day of the Divine, marking the first day the gods made themselves known to Ronar, circa 103. This holiday is typically celebrated only by clergy and strongly religious folk, and is used as a day to reinforce the presence of the gods in everyday life.

The month of Winterbreak is when the winter finally turns to spring. Typically begins the coldest, but ends with little to no slow. Farmers will spend this time getting their fields ready for planting, merchants will get ready for travel, and laborers start work in earnest.

The month of Journey is when everyone who has holed up for the winter gets out to start working again. Typically, this means most merchant caravans which slowed or stopped over the winter months finally get up and running again, bringing a surplus of trade to all the cities, for most places have an excess of crafted goods of a high quality from a long winter. Typically, most crops are planted during the middle to end of this month, as the weather becomes particularly pleasant outside. Also importantly, most humans are born during the month of journey as with the festival of fertility and the nine month gestation period of humans, most children are born around this time.

Journey 15th is The day of beginnings. Not only is this one of the most common birthdays on Ronar, but as the month of Journey represents the new travels, new caravans, new crops, and new life. This day is a large celebration, and often merchants will hold large sales on this day and the week preceding it to celebrate the beginning of the trade year - making the day of beginnings a day where most people will receive and give many gifts.

The month of Downpour is the end of spring, and where there is the most rain. Worhippers of Malladine are busy this month, for this is the most important month in the years harvest. Clerics of Malladine will often hold month-long celebrations to please the goddess.

Downpour 30th is the Festival of fertility, celebrating life, and harvest. This day, above all others, love and lust is in the air, and the temples to Malladine, Sanfra, Alldora are packed with worshipers and revellers. Malladine has been known to occasionally reward farmers who pay her particularly strong homage with divine aid on this day, so they may rest and relax - all the more reason for them to celebrate.

The month of Kingsith is named through the arrogance of King Sirra, as the month in which he was born. Originally named Kings month, the name was later shortened to Kingsith. This is also the month where spring changes to summer.

Kingsith 6th is the King's day, originally King Sirra's birthday, it has become a day where everyone celebrates their lords, ladies, kings and other nobles. The ruling classes will hold lavish parties, and while most people don't get to attend, entertainers commonly put on shows about the lives the lords and ladies of the lands to entertain.

The current month of Scorching was originally Queensith for King Sirra's wife's birthday, Scorching is a warm month, and the month where harvests are reaped but not yet stored for the coming winter. Often, this month is a month of relaxing for that reason.

The month of Queensith, Like Kingsith, was called Queens month after King Sirra's wife. It was swapped with the seventh month from the sixth by Queen Mellichai, King Sirra's daughter, in year 93 to mark the day of her mother's death, rather than the day or her birth. This month was originally Scorching, and is the hottest month of the year.

The month of Harvest is exactly as it sounds. As the fall approaches and the temprature starts to fall, farmers and craftsmen alike harvest what they can to prepare for the coming winter. Typically, by the end of this month, there are few crops still in the ground.

The month of Greybark was named as such by King Sirra after an unusual tree he had in his possession that as it's leaves turned from green to red for the fall, it's bark also turned from brown to grey. The first cold month.

Greybark 15 is Reverence. As the world slows down for the winter, the gods require that everyone take at least a single day to go and worship and pay homage to the gods that created them, and are the source of power in the world. Almost exclusively, this day is spent in temples to one's patron deity, and the greatest sacrifices of the year are made on this day.

The month of Barren is when the trees have lost all their leaves. This month often ends with snow, and is one of the slowest months of the year. It is a month for gathering the last of provisions for the winter, wood and water, supplies, and the month where only the slowest and bravest caravans are still on the roads.