Hey everyone, we have a few players now and I'd like to get the ball rolling a bit in terms of the world.

My personal preference is that the world be mostly unexplored and unknown. However, that might be because the players are all members of the same isolated village or city, or maybe something happened and only now are people going out into the world.

Other than that, I'm 100% open to everything from history of species, the city or village, just anything you guys want to add or see let me know!

Some questions to get us started

1. Why is the world unknown? Did something happen?

2. Who inhabits the city? Where did they come from? Why haven't they left their isolation until now?

You're welcome to add questions and discuss?

GM does seem really great.

So, the idea for the setting seems to be focused around a specific town. Hmmm. I don't know if I like the 'something drastic happened and the town where everyone is  was cut off from everything and its only just exploring a world it knows nothing about'...

Maybe this is more like a frontier town on the coast of a new continent. Maybe it's been growing for 50 years or so, and it's kind of a foothold on this continent from peoples of another, attracting the curious of all walks who want to seek freedoms or fortune and opportunity, to discover the wonders of magic and such that this new land offers.

On one hand, this might mean that the 'magical loot' here is less expansive, or maybe takes different forms. But there's also the possibility of past adventurers having fallen and lost things. Maybe the 'magical loot' takes different forms, or maybe a lot of it is crafted locally. Maybe there are other settlements too, along the coast, some further inland. Maybe 50 years isn't enough wind-up time, maybe it's longer?

Might also be a way to work in the potential for local peoples, too, draw on real-world circumstances as an inspiration for conflicts and such between locals and the arrivals.  It wouldn't even need to be a case of 'advanced vs tribal' - the locals could actually have castles towns, too, but we're starting from a perspective of people new to the area, but we can fill out the stuff that's out there as we go?

Just speculating a variant that still allows the world to feel explorable without feeling 'rootless'?

I'm game for frontier town, I just didn't know if that was an overdone concept. Really the only thing I was trying to achieve by saying it was a town of isolation is because

A) I wanted a "home base" for the players because knowing how popular Pathfinder is here, I'm assuming we will end up having a fairly large number of players, which means we may end up splitting into different parties. Rather than trying to track each party in an entire world I wanted to be able to have a central "return point" for everyone to mingle and sell loot buy new gear etc. Additional settlements to visit are perfectly okay. As long ad there's a compelling reason to return to the main city I'm happy!

B) I wanted to give us the ability to make up things as we go, this is two fold. One I didn't want us to have to come up with explanations for everything right from the start, this takes a lot off my workload and we can still create a new world. Second, I wanted to give everyone a chance to have input, make the setting their own, and allow for maximum immersion.

All of this can be done with a frontier mind set easily

C) Have a good reason for ancient ruins and unexplored territories, and the chance for me to create some new creatures and monsters, I'd also like the game to have some areas that are just a "higher level" . Maybe this patch of woods has more dangerous creatures living there, or this dungeon has mostly a small community of goblins and ogres but in the bottom there's an ancient dragon that if the party awakens it will leave the dungeon and roam about, attacking anyone it crosses. Now everyone in the game has to be on the watch for a marauding ancient dragon. Perhaps prices go up because it burns the local fields and causes a food shortage.

I kind of like the idea of some catastrophic event that displaced the town we are in into either another world or time period. That way it explains why the PC's don't need to know each other. Or perhaps the PC'S have been kidnapped/pressganged and taken to a different continent?

From what I understand, GM is making this a pretty broadly open thing, not so  much a dedicated 'party' campaign? I personally like the feel of a party thing. I personally am not too into the presseganged thing. The 'the town was yoinked' or 'locked away and is just reconnecting' things feel like they'd actually limit new arrivals in some ways, since if they suddenly show up 'where have you been?" I sort of think we might get some mileage out of having a port that has ships coming in and going out every month or so.

I definitely think our main settlement should be big, but it shouldn't be the only 'place' that isn't hostile out there :D

Before I read the wanted GM thread my original concept I was going to run was somewhat like this-

The PCs awaken from suspended animation and find themselves in a ruin, weapons drawn, spells prepared, and the doors barricaded...from the inside.

Standing in the middle of the room is a strange relic, emanating a powerful magical field that slows fades away before them. The relic is a small sphere with runes that grow dim as the sphere slowly stops hovering and settles onto a pedestal. The PCs all have some form of amnesia, and must explore the ruins and the world beyond to learn what the relic is and what happened that led them to being in suspended animation.

I was then going to have the party venture forward into a strange world. Characters would essentially only have level 1 abilities because they can only remember the foundations of their class. Clerics wouldn't have any gods to follow, and would have to go on divine quests to discover their god and earn their power. Wizards would have to learn new spells and unravel the secrets of ancient tomes, warriors would need fighting experience to remember old techniques, and bards would need to see the world and experience it in order to write their ballads. It would give every class a reason to be an adventurer.

This could easily be done though in any setting, rather than amnesia it could be the players have learned their basic class skills but now must adventure if they wish to grow in power.

Yeah, forget the kidnapping. We need a safe zone.
If the town were large enough we can still have new people. I grew up in a town of 25,000 I certainly didn't know everyone.

I like the idea of a colony of some sort, whether its a port on a new continent or even a city on a new planet connected by some magic portal of some sort. I am good with any and all terrains being representative on the continent/planet, but prefer a forested area for the home base, just cause I am a tree hugger ;).

I just want dinosaurs to be a part of this fantasy setting! My second favorite class is Druid, which I considered making for this game, and I like the idea of dinosaur-themed ones.

I won't be turning into them, but I don't mind them existing :D

The way I usually like to have it, the Elves (including Aeris' home temple and tribe) live alongside and train raptors to hunt with them. Her small temple, which exists in the boughs of vast trees, emulates a lot of dinosaur stuff. Graceful pterosaurs and raptors inspire their martial arts styles, for instance.

Do you think her tribe is local, or did she come from across the waters? She could be a local potentially?

Local is fine by me. I figure it's a small group. Temple lives in the forest, as Elves are wont to do, and trains lots of Monks, Druids, and probably like Rangers and Nature-Domain Clerics, probably.

That sounds like a fun idea for your tribe Aeris. I am still deciding what to do for mine. Might even be lazy and end up being in your tribe or something, I'll think about it over the weekend.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:31, Fri 11 Dec 2020.

I am thinking my character (name pending) is her family's first generation in this land, and came from overseas and settled in the the main town.

Dinosaur creatures are fine by me, and could be a great natural threat for the settlement.

Local tribes are a great idea too, and perfectly fine by me! Could make for some great first encounter type situations.

I think, if we want the town to be a home base, it should be at least about 50 years old, time to get 'established' but definitely not 'in control' of the area.  I figure it's stable, but partially because there are worthy adventurerers using it as a base camp to make their fame and fortune and such.

Also, mhm, I think there should totally be a few unscrupulous adventurers out there, too, thieves, thugs, the type to try and take credit for other people's heroics or  swoop in and take your loot. Not all the time, but I love the idea of rival adventurers, though most should be of at least neutral alignments :D

This message was deleted by the player at 06:22, Fri 11 Dec 2020.

I like the idea of a portal to a new world!
We could even be part of the first group to go through. Any new characters could easily be more colonists, or indentured servants. Not to mention the local tribes.
An organised first group through would quickly set up a safe area and have a lot of supplies. And if the gate were currently one way for living matter then we would have an excellent reason for all doing our best to get along. And we would still be able to do business with the old world.

Can't say that I like the portal thing one way or no. I do like the general feel that the GM's trying to do for a more open game where more characters can show up than one party. If we want to do a committed party, I'm game for that but it doesn't seem like the GM's intent?