Quote from: Cranewings;379017I usually name countries after real world cities that players aren't likely to have heard of before. If I'm making a country that is like France, I might name it Narbonne, or one based on Egypt "Abydos."

I do the opposite: if I get an idea from Greek mythology I might use Celtic-derived names, or vice-versa.

Anyway, I used this to come up with part of the name for one of my places.

Quote from: Silverlion;378941Not really "dominant", more like vestiges of another time struggling to survive in the harsh world. Often corrupt or evil. Since pretty much that's the role of most non-humans in S&S stories.

Sometimes less is more.  I've very successfully used an older "race" of humans to fill that niche in my campaign worlds.  And I don't mean cultures, but distinctly differently human-like races.  Their traits should be obvious to the casual observer and shout "vestigial."  Along the lines of a human with gills for "Atlantean" or useless wings for an aerial empire.  On one of my campaign worlds (where elves were very rare and divine beings) the decadent empire bred with dark elves and developed a very obvious dark purple hue to their flesh.  It's something to think about if you want something in addition to your vulture folk.

QuoteI usually name countries after real world cities that players aren't likely to have heard of before. If I'm making a country that is like France, I might name it Narbonne, or one based on Egypt "Abydos."

I have done this too.

Another tactic I have used is to mentally note street and town names.  Street names especially have a certain idiosyncrasy to a region.  After I've collected a few, I base lesser holdings/towns/locales on that naming scheme.  Even a trip along the highway can do this (but streets are better).

Also, don't ignore play on letters.  I enjoy this method as well: Take a powerful, meaningful word and change a letter or two.  Hopefully, the meaning of the word tickles something in the players' mind or subconscious  without being too in-your-face.  I once lived near a town called Elyria.  Great name.  I applied the name to magocracy named Alluria and it suddenly sounds mysterious, tempting (Alluring, if you will).

Quote from: RPGPundit;379063That's more or less what they did in the Mystara setting, and it works very well.

Ersatz-nations are a time-honored staple of world-building, going back to Robert E. Howard, who allegedly did it to release himself from any commitment to historical accuracy; and also because it allowed him to set Conan stories wherever he damn well pleased, e.g. ancient Egypt (Stygia) today and Medieval France (Aquilonia) tomorrow.

Mystara takes this concept and cranks it up to 11, with the faux-Arabs sharing borders with the ersatz-Romans to the South, the not-quite-Vikings to the North, and (IIRC) the goddamn elves to the West. Or is it the halflings? Anyway, you get the idea. There was also Glantri, the wackiest place in the world, a collection of principalties which included swashbuckling Spanish-speaking elves, militaristic magipunk Prussians, lich-ruled Scotland and clannish French wizards straight out of Clark Ashton Smith's Averoigne.

Of course, there's also the mashup option. The Birthright setting had the Anuire (Medieval England/France & Roman Empire); the Brecht (Medieval Netherlands/Germany & New World pirates); the Rurik (Danelaw Vikings & Native Americans); the Vos (Rus Vikings & Mongols/Tatars); and the Khinasi (just about every culture from Morocco to India).

And then of course, there are those settings which strive out to be a deliberate pastiche of a given epoch. The Old World (Warhammer Fantasy) and Legend (Dragon Warriors) are probably the chief offenders. This probably works best as an exercise on alternate history, e.g. "what would 8th C. Europe look like if Elves settled Great Britain circa 1000 BCE?" Incidentally, setting your game on an "alternate Earth" or "mythic Earth" works just as fine, up to and including "plausible deniabilty" (so you can tell the PC ranting about how there were no greatswords before the 14th C. to shut up).

This is all, of course, a huge digression. Sorry, I get often carried away on the subject of world-building. Do carry on.

No worries. I love world building....

Updated Map with the map maker from the Trade Guild leagues naming things as he sees fit. (Varies between "Made up because it makes sense to the description" to "people from there call it that..")


Still not finished:



I'm pretty sure Vulture Men will be in, and I'm thinking of perhaps a few places filled with "demons." (Man-eating frogs for example..who may or may not be intelligent.)

Also now I'm looking for a game to use the world for: I could write one but I'd like to veer away from that much additional work. I've got Barbarians of Lemuria, Savage Worlds, three different books of Fate (Starblazers, Diaspora, Spirit of the Century...so I'm not buying another one...but they're easy to adapt.)  I've also got an awesome game made by Mathew Slepin (The Fiendish Samsara) called Swords of Fortune/The Sword and Sorcery RPG, and its pretty sweet. (It's a bit more abstract and narrative, but it works well.) Now to decide which to use.

I'd have a hard time deciding between Savage Worlds or FATE.

Since you're explicitly not going to pick up LoA, SW might be an easier fit. Whipping up new races for SW is very simple.

Quote from: winkingbishop;379184Along the lines of a human with gills for "Atlantean" or useless wings for an aerial empire.

The latter especially if it's hinted that they're the origin of stories about angels.

Quote from: Silverlion;379217Updated Map with the map maker from the Trade Guild leagues naming things as he sees fit. (Varies between "Made up because it makes sense to the description" to "people from there call it that..")

Hey Silverlion,

I really like the map.  For what it is worth, I like the second round of names.  It is an aesthetic choice, but I kinda like the exotic tones like those of Clark Ashton Smith.

Quote from: Silverlion;379217I'm pretty sure Vulture Men will be in, and I'm thinking of perhaps a few places filled with "demons." (Man-eating frogs for example..who may or may not be intelligent.)

I like the Vulture Men, but as a point of aesthetics I always do my Sword & Sorcery with either humans only (the point being that human folly and venal self-interest are the things the PCs must struggle against), or with a hidden threat unfathomable to humanity...which is where the insect angle struck me as an interesting idea.  I might be tempted to go with a race of insects that have a long (maybe as in thousands of years) gestation period.  During the long gestation there are a small number of caretakers who care for and guard the eggs in vast underground chambers, but when the hatching comes millions of ravenous creatures swarm the surface and devour everything. Everything.  And the cycle begins again.

Maybe the caretakers have some sort of intelligence (whereas the hatchlings are mindless murder machines) and have learned to manipulate the surface world through agents.  Or they are not intelligent in any way that humanity can relate to, but there are deviant and half-mad humans who worship them in perverted cults.

In any case, I would run a campaign that started with some standard "hired to get valuable stuff from an underworld", whereupon the PCs might stumble across said cult.  Then they might uncover evidence of the insectoids and the terrible threat they pose to the human world.  Maybe the little murder machines won't emerge for centuries or even thousands of years, maybe they will come tomorrow.  What will the PCs do?  

Quote from: Silverlion;379217Also now I'm looking for a game to use the world for: I could write one but I'd like to veer away from that much additional work. I've got Barbarians of Lemuria, Savage Worlds, three different books of Fate (Starblazers, Diaspora, Spirit of the Century...so I'm not buying another one...but they're easy to adapt.)  I've also got an awesome game made by Mathew Slepin (The Fiendish Samsara) called Swords of Fortune/The Sword and Sorcery RPG, and its pretty sweet. (It's a bit more abstract and narrative, but it works well.) Now to decide which to use.

Several good choices there.  I would lean towards Barbarians of Lemuria or Starblazers myself from those choices, but I would probably use Swords & Wizardry or Zefers if I was running it myself.  But that is entirely a personal choice.

TGA

In the setting I tried to avoid funny-sounding names, and many places ended up having names in common English (Landrest, Diablo's Point, etc), with the assumption that these were the common names of places in the common tongue. The exceptions were, to a minor degree, the Bowlands (which were based on Polish names), and the areas of the foreign Hong tribesmen and the monks of the Great Wheel religion.

I did likewise with races, ie. the Gorilla Kingdoms.

RPGPundit

Quote from: The Good Assyrian;379379Maybe the caretakers have some sort of intelligence (whereas the hatchlings are mindless murder machines) and have learned to manipulate the surface world through agents.  Or they are not intelligent in any way that humanity can relate to, but there are deviant and half-mad humans who worship them in perverted cults.

In any case, I would run a campaign that started with some standard "hired to get valuable stuff from an underworld", whereupon the PCs might stumble across said cult.  Then they might uncover evidence of the insectoids and the terrible threat they pose to the human world.  Maybe the little murder machines won't emerge for centuries or even thousands of years, maybe they will come tomorrow.  What will the PCs do?  



Several good choices there.  I would lean towards Barbarians of Lemuria or Starblazers myself from those choices, but I would probably use Swords & Wizardry or Zefers if I was running it myself.  But that is entirely a personal choice.

TGA

I like the insect idea as a great threat. Although I'm tempted to do it as caretakers of destroyed eggs with nothing left to take care of---immortal and alien by products of a now deceased race. Some still trying to care for eggs by  putting them back together, some less tragic--more monstrous. Trying to create new children...perhaps with preserved bodies of their ravenous kin in amber, and their caretakers turning human into worshiping slaves, slowly using them to hunt down dark sorcery that might let them return their kind to life, or transform humans into their "children." Perhaps conflicting ideals from the caretakers lead the human PC's into the conflict. A caretaker who sees the age of his race gone--trying desperately to stop the "mad" members of his kin. Of course that caretaker might have a single queen egg hidden away--waiting some point of perfection to open, and the other caretakers endanger her birth.