Sunday, November 28, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Telemachus wrote:
An overview: is this an alternate Earth? Or another setting entirely?
While I'm beating my head against the wall with how to handle summoning I'll rough out the geography.
Traditionally The Nights or centered on the reign of Harun al-Rashid (caliph 786 - 809), I center my setting about 900, when the Abbasid caliphate is in full decline and petty emirs are staking out big chunks of the Islamic empire for themselves; inciting civil wars, border skirmishes, and palace intrigues. The empire stretches from the lower half of Spain, along the coast of Africa, a few Mediterranean islands, the Middle East, down the East African coast to Zanzibar; along the coast of India, Indo-china, to the Spice Islands.
Politically, Autocrats are the rule.
Cliches for the various lands of the Land of Fate from my Risus of Arabia game.
Maghreb (Saharan Africa): Powerful Berber Mages, Salt caravans, Timbuktu, Barbary pirates, Algiers, Morocco, Casablanca
Egypt: Tombs, tombs, tombs, barging down the Nile, Nubian gold mines, (Egypt is, historically, the center of the Arab world)
Abyssinia (East Africa): King Solomon’s Mines, the slave trade, She Who Must Be Obeyed, Mountains of the Moon.
Arabia: riding camels, sailing Dhows, resting in oases, sand swept ruins of lost civilizations.
Persia: Like Arabia, only with mountains.
Anatolia (Turkey): Like Persia, only on the Mediterranean Sea.
India: Ornate temples of Doom, jungles, the Ganges, Thugges.
Spice Islands: old men who like piggyback rides, headhunters.
Al-Andalus: Arabic Spain. The height of urban sophistication almost constantly at war with the Franks.
An overview: is this an alternate Earth? Or another setting entirely?
While I'm beating my head against the wall with how to handle summoning I'll rough out the geography.
Traditionally The Nights or centered on the reign of Harun al-Rashid (caliph 786 - 809), I center my setting about 900, when the Abbasid caliphate is in full decline and petty emirs are staking out big chunks of the Islamic empire for themselves; inciting civil wars, border skirmishes, and palace intrigues. The empire stretches from the lower half of Spain, along the coast of Africa, a few Mediterranean islands, the Middle East, down the East African coast to Zanzibar; along the coast of India, Indo-china, to the Spice Islands.
Politically, Autocrats are the rule.
Cliches for the various lands of the Land of Fate from my Risus of Arabia game.
Maghreb (Saharan Africa): Powerful Berber Mages, Salt caravans, Timbuktu, Barbary pirates, Algiers, Morocco, Casablanca
Egypt: Tombs, tombs, tombs, barging down the Nile, Nubian gold mines, (Egypt is, historically, the center of the Arab world)
Abyssinia (East Africa): King Solomon’s Mines, the slave trade, She Who Must Be Obeyed, Mountains of the Moon.
Arabia: riding camels, sailing Dhows, resting in oases, sand swept ruins of lost civilizations.
Persia: Like Arabia, only with mountains.
Anatolia (Turkey): Like Persia, only on the Mediterranean Sea.
India: Ornate temples of Doom, jungles, the Ganges, Thugges.
Spice Islands: old men who like piggyback rides, headhunters.
Al-Andalus: Arabic Spain. The height of urban sophistication almost constantly at war with the Franks.
From Dragon's Foot
Opening remarks and mission statement.
The Nights are, in tone an temperament, more supernatural pulp than high fantasy. I don't want to run an Arabian Nights game; I want to adventure in the Arabian Nights universe - more the Golden Voyage of Sinbad than The Thief of Bagdad.
Back on topic.
For Mini Six there should be two levels of Perks in Magic Knowledge.
First level is "has some knowledge of". Usually the daughter of a cobbler or butcher "has some knowledge of" enchantments and can recognize a man who has been turned into a monkey and may know how to break the enchantment. Maybe even make reasonably useful charms.
The second level is "higher education". The can make explosives, acids, golems; can summon and bind jinn and demons; and make really useful charms.
You shouldn't have to buy separate Perks for Summoning, Alchemy, and Kabalism; but the skill for each has to be bought separately.
The Nights are, in tone an temperament, more supernatural pulp than high fantasy. I don't want to run an Arabian Nights game; I want to adventure in the Arabian Nights universe - more the Golden Voyage of Sinbad than The Thief of Bagdad.
Back on topic.
For Mini Six there should be two levels of Perks in Magic Knowledge.
First level is "has some knowledge of". Usually the daughter of a cobbler or butcher "has some knowledge of" enchantments and can recognize a man who has been turned into a monkey and may know how to break the enchantment. Maybe even make reasonably useful charms.
The second level is "higher education". The can make explosives, acids, golems; can summon and bind jinn and demons; and make really useful charms.
You shouldn't have to buy separate Perks for Summoning, Alchemy, and Kabalism; but the skill for each has to be bought separately.
From Dragon's Foot
jeffG wrote:
I ran an Arabic setting several years ago. I did a number of Google searches on Arabic monsters, Arabic myths and Arabic magic. I came up with several dozen monsters and an equal number of magic items.
Yeah, the basic everyday magic is usually handled through amulets and talismans, basic kabbalist stuff. For game purposes we arbitrarily divided the post-grad magic into Summoning, Kabbalism, and Alchemy. In the Nights sorcerers were polymaths, that lead to an over-complicated magic system in the first incarnation.
http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=44929
I ran an Arabic setting several years ago. I did a number of Google searches on Arabic monsters, Arabic myths and Arabic magic. I came up with several dozen monsters and an equal number of magic items.
Yeah, the basic everyday magic is usually handled through amulets and talismans, basic kabbalist stuff. For game purposes we arbitrarily divided the post-grad magic into Summoning, Kabbalism, and Alchemy. In the Nights sorcerers were polymaths, that lead to an over-complicated magic system in the first incarnation.
http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=44929
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