Location is another factor. Heavy armour and hot tropical climates do not mix.

Metal purity may be a problem too. Rust is going to make keeping low grade irons intact a hassle.

Any world can have not much iron, or a hot climate that makes heavy, metal, and low-ventilation armor have problems during most daytime hours.

And yes, no one wants to go swimming in heavy armor (even heavy fabric).

However, the line of thinking that the islands on that map are mostly smaller than Japan, if that's an Earth-sized planet, is off. The map has a large number of islands that are quite large. The Fractal Terrains program will show you the actual distances, and you can also compare it side-by-side to an Earth map to get an idea how your land masses are by comparison (but also note the projection distortions).

Yeah, I've ended up with many islands larger than Britain.  Here is a link to a better map (my linked uploads sux).  This is just a the section of the larger one, but it gives you a scale at the bottom.  I crudely set it up on one of my sites, so apologies.  And yes, for some reason when I export form FT3 to Campaign Cartographer, the rivers don't connect to the coast.  But you get the idea.  As Sponge Bob says, "Use your imagination" : )

http://thenewshadow.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/test5.jpg

I'm going to roll with it at this point, as I would rather work out the implications of larger land masses than redo the map.  One is easier than the other IMO.  I'm trying to upload the full map, but I am running into loading errors - damn you wordpress!

Cheers,

Mark

Quote from: Omega;858114Some thoughts.

If these are smaller Easter Island style islands with a more aboriginal theme and smaller boats then armour is going to be rare to non-existent due to the severe dangers. There may be little incentive to develop more than leather, padded, or equivalents. Metal armors are about out as its a death sentence.

Larger islands will be a different matter. But then a large England or Japan scale island you can have extensive adventures and never see the ocean once. Armour there will be whatever level you want that fits your idea of the setting limits.

Agreed.  I once saw pictures in a book on ancient arms and armor of south Pacific armor made from coconut hair: coats, vests, breeches. . . Maybe make plant fiber or wooden armor that is equivalent to leather/padded or studded leather/ring mail, with maybe some added quirks (flammability, tendency to split or have harder weapons get stuck, etc.).

I'd generally rather have larger islands anyway, personally.

I'm pretty sure the rivers have all been shifted too far north, as they are on the sides of their valleys and so on, not just not touching the coast.

Quote from: Tyndale;858234Yeah, I've ended up with many islands larger than Britain.  Here is a link to a better map (my linked uploads sux).  This is just a the section of the larger one, but it gives you a scale at the bottom.  I crudely set it up on one of my sites, so apologies.  And yes, for some reason when I export form FT3 to Campaign Cartographer, the rivers don't connect to the coast.  But you get the idea.  As Sponge Bob says, "Use your imagination" : )

http://thenewshadow.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/test5.jpg

I'm going to roll with it at this point, as I would rather work out the implications of larger land masses than redo the map.  One is easier than the other IMO.  I'm trying to upload the full map, but I am running into loading errors - damn you wordpress!

Cheers,

Mark

Just reduce the scale and make it a regional map. It doesn't have to be global.

Quote from: Omega;858117Location is another factor. Heavy armour and hot tropical climates do not mix.

Metal purity may be a problem too. Rust is going to make keeping low grade irons intact a hassle.

Bronze ftw.

Or exotics, like orichalchum, mithril, etc., that aren't going to rust.

Quote from: apparition13;858363Bronze ftw.

Or exotics, like orichalchum, mithril, etc., that aren't going to rust.

That was what I was thinking too. But bronze will corrode in a saltwater environ as well. Just in a different way and rate.

Problem with mining is as noted. If the island is not large then getting at the ores may be near impossible due to water levels or volcanic activity.

Which brings up another thought. Earthquakes. How frequent are these going to be? The more frequent. The less incentive there is to build tall structures. Storms might kill that urge too if they are frequent.

Another problem with metalworking is that it needs wood. Probably lots of wood.

Level of advancement and access to magic will totally change the dynamics though.

Example: When I was a playtester for Furry Pirates I playtested the hedge wizard, magic was on the decline since the Robin Hood era and what we had was mostly focused on handling the ocean environment. My character had magic for quelling storms and diminishing tidal waves (as well as causing). This came in handy when a pirate attacked by opening up with their ships mage throwing a tidal wave at us. I was able to stop it and used the last of my reserves to speed our own ship by diverting wind currents to favour us.

After that it was broadsides and boarding.

The published version toned down the weather magic and left it optional as the book was more a historical setting. With the notable exception of the animal people.

Islands with weather beating shamans, witchdoctors and hedge mages would mean that those would better survive natural disasters.

Little islands are perfect places to put contained weird shit for adventuring purposes.

Big islands are very useful as contained campaign setting areas.  They're particularly useful as starting points for a campaign: you can put a lot of interesting stuff there, with a natural boundary (the sea) that means jumping off to larger territory will not be something PCs do right away.

Quote from: snooggums;857917There won't be any large migratory animals that develop naturally, since there aren't any large plains or steppes. Island dwarfism and gigantism would be fun for setting up island themes.

That depends on how far the islands are apart, and how long they've been apart. One key question you might want to decide is how hard it is to get from Island A to Islands B-Z and so on.

My own campaign is largely set in an island chain like Indonesia, though in your typical Dark Age or Migration Era North Sea/Northern Europe style when it comes to climate, ecology, etc. So some islands will be late Romano-British, some Gaelic, some Saxon, some Norse, plus a number of oddities.

Some islands are isolated due to weather, prevailing winds, icebergs, currents, sea monsters and magical concealment. Here are just a few:

• a Roman-Etruscan-style colony founded by one of the "lost legions" and their subjects/followers



• a Phoenician colony that was overrun by local orcs, leaving a realm of half-orcs using bronze weapons and armor



• a land that was home to a race of giants that were wiped out by some mysterious calamity, only to be replaced by humans who have adapted to the oversized homes, tools, livestock, etc of the long gone giants



• a huge flat plain with a few volcanic mountains on one side: dragons roost in the mountains and prey on the vast herds of reindeer, musk-oxen and the humans who live in tunnels like rabbits



• a land with Ice Age megafauna: mammoths, sabertooth cats, neanderthals



• various other islands featuring just about everything I could possibly steal from the Iliad, the Odyssey, Beowulf and Sinbad movies.

This kind of setting is ideal for the DM who wants to add things in close proximity that might seem odd if they were adjacent on land (like Etruscans, Vikings and cavemen). Why don't the Vikings conquer the Etruscans (or the other way around)? Because there is little or no contact between the islands due to the icebergs (and the frost giants that use them as houseboats) that flow in the seas between the islands.

You can even run a kind of Star Trek campaign where the PCs' main goal is to explore the region as best they can without being killed by monsters or the sea itself.

Quote from: RPGPundit;859144Little islands are perfect places to put contained weird shit for adventuring purposes.

Big islands are very useful as contained campaign setting areas.  They're particularly useful as starting points for a campaign: you can put a lot of interesting stuff there, with a natural boundary (the sea) that means jumping off to larger territory will not be something PCs do right away.

Darwin's finches come to mind.