World Building - Quirks and Customs

 I just got The Fantasy Trip's Hexagram #8, and the article is about local color. Looking through that, I and also realized it was very similar to the Traveller Grand Census, which I have a copy of. And Spectacular Settlements. And half a dozen other world build magazines and PDFs I've collected over the years. And, what with the Organic Towns Kickstarter, probably even more. And of course, I start to wonder why I keep getting these. And hoping I'll start embracing JOMO (the Joy Of Missing Out) versus the FOMO that Kickstarter really promotes. And then I also realized, I did manage to NOT back the Reaper Bones VI KS despite thinking: hey, that fey expansion would work really well with all the fey books I've been getting. But of course, Dungeons & Lasers will be having an outdoor Kickstarter and that looks really interesting as well. 

But back to the world building and local color and quirks. How often has that actually been used? I think I had one Traveller world where the older you got, the more you dyed your hair various interesting colors. But honestly, I don't think I've managed to convey locations as being distinct and unique versus just another village, just another world, just another place. Another blog pointed out E.M. Forster's view of the future (which I also posted in COTI, and now wish I remembered which blog I read that I first saw this):

“Few travelled in these days, for, thanks to the advance of science, the earth was exactly alike all over. Rapid intercourse, from which the previous civilization had hoped so much, had ended by defeating itself. What was the good of going to Peking when it was just like Shrewsbury? Why return to Shrewsbury when it would all be like Peking? Men seldom moved their bodies; all unrest was concentrated in the soul.”
― E.M. Forster, The Machine Stops

If everything is the same, it is boring. And to quote one of my favorite movies, The Incredibles (which is probably a quote from someplace else): if everyone is special, then no one is. 

Anyway, while I've tried to make all my locations at least partially distinct (and they really are in my head), I always wonder just how much of that is recognized or seen at the table? Or, as we play now, over our voice channels? 

Regardless, I'll still expand out my little towns and locations, and while I have local copies of the documents, it is always easy to share via this blog. As I have even more books I should use (a variety of rumor books that have some neat ideas, a few cult books such as Remarkable Cults to flesh out the more nefarious people, and so many random tables that I really need a random table for the random tables!)

So, a quick Saturday post to go over the fantasy locations I've done. I'll probably have to poke through to find Traveller planet descriptions as I don't think I tagged them as well.

Ceawla, city of tents. A desert oasis town with an excellent wine selection. I did this one mostly without any rule books or guides. I had an idea, and I needed an oasis partway through the desert. 

Edge City, one of my college-created locations that was nothing more than a name. Finding the Ankh-Morpork Guide (with a wonderfully huge map!), Edge City is basically Terry Pratchert's city. The book I got was $5 new at Barnes & Noble: you never know what ends up on the discount table! 

Fort Covenant, a larger city east of Windemere on the Ocean Trade Route. Developing that for the OSE game. Not much really done other than that 1 write up and the work sheets. It is a more urban landscape as the Sunday group wanted to do more thieving and things. I did run a solo version of the heist I was going to have them run here, in some spot of the city as yet defined.

The Kalor Desert that stretches south of Edge City and north of Windmere, with it's Trail of Lost Hopes trade path.

Sunshi Troph, also known as the Elemental City of Athukthad. I did not do anything much with this city as we sort of bypassed that part of things. But I do like the name.

Tebou is really Corsair's default setting that we created partially as a group. I can see opening a portal there though from other games. I have more Corsairs books that help expand out the role-playing more. Maybe we'll get back to that some day.

Windmere, a trade town on the edge of the Kalor Desert. This was the first town I used the Spectacular Settlements as a guide to creating the town. I think. 

And of course, my last post on the Cowboy and Dinosaur game. I've gotten a couple things from some players so it is getting a bit fleshed out. And in talking with one, who is both an excellent GM & player, I realize I also need to take all those ideas I posted, and start to make a timeline. Sort of like the old Traveller Journal entries: there are things that are going on regardless of what the players are doing. I want to have the weekly paper show up with things that are going on. Things that the players may want to follow up on, or not. Just so that there is a "real" world outside their immediate game. While I am still in the nascent phase of figuring out the 1st adventure, the rest is a giant sandbox. I'll probably ask the players, as we get closer to the game, what sort of adventures do they want. 

Part of that came from the Old School Essentials time log, part of that from the Costumes game we just ran where we caught the news periodically. OSE has a very handy time tracking sheet. It has a bunch of free downloads here, including that tracker. I'm going to do something similar but for weekly intervals I think. I just need to get all that set up before we start. At a guess I have at least 3-4 weeks, perhaps longer. We've just started the Star Trek game. Perhaps I need to share my character next post!