Now, Have You Seen ME? (Big Pics!)

[Wids]

"Where have you been for the past three or four days, Wids?"

I'm glad you didn't ask, you scandalous pack of mutes....

Anyway, here's the sample platter of some player-submitted stuff I've been whipping up.


This lot reserved for Galleon Reyer's new digs.

The sailboat even got a name on the map: The Poor Man's Galleon. Hope that's peachy.

(Thanks for helping me find his boat in the haks, Stingy. )


Spillways in the breakwater.

Umberlee cannot be contained. >;]





One thing I've long said about this server is that it needs more pirates.

Behold! More pirates. And a smuggler or two.

(The conversation files should be interesting. Every pirate or smuggler has his or her own tale to tell. Hope you put some ranks in Persuade, Bluff, Taunt, Intimidate and/or Perform....)

(Also, watch what you say around Breakwater Harbor!)











The areas have several hints and clues about the identity of the oft-mentioned "Our Benefactor".

(I never come right out and say it, though.)

Like that alehouse name, for instance. "Our Benefactor" has some old parental issues.





Piratey superstitions abound.





What few merchants there are sell "flavor" stuff. Harmless, world-building and educational!

The prices may need tinkering, though.







The harborside tavern is pretty much the quasi-medieval equivalent of a large truck stop frequented by long-haul truckers.

Have you ever seen one of those truck stops?

They have stuff like public showers, barber shops, shoeshine places and such.

So have a barber. Pirate captains like to look their best, after all.

And let us not forget that Ye Olden barbers were a lot more hardcore than today's barbers.

...I should come up with a better name for Toadie there, huh?





More useless, educational stuff. Like all those books, except books don't weigh over 15 pounds.



A most peculiar lighthouse.

Judging by the number of shipwrecks around the breakwater, the light can be snuffed to blind unwelcome ships so that they crash into the rocks.

(Now to figure out how to actually do that with the light crystals....)





Ooh, tease-hanger! More stuff to come, peeps. ;D

[gathera]

Great stuff! Hmmm that barber does give a right close shave now. *chuckling*

[Wids]

Apr 1, 2012 2:56:41 GMT -5 gathera said:

Great stuff! Hmmm that barber does give a right close shave now. *chuckling*

I promise you that there are absolutely no meat pies involved with his profession. ;D

[luckbringer]

Err, this looks like a lot of work. We should talk about what you want to build in a lot more detail before you build it ... to make sure it's stuff that will be added to the module. I think I mentioned this before?

Please talk to me about what you are building in a pm or online!

[Wids]

Apr 1, 2012 18:53:19 GMT -5 luckbringer said:

Err, this looks like a lot of work.

Oh, it is a lot of work. For one, I want it to be really good. I'm not just going to stick a tower in the middle of a field, add a few interior rooms with a few goblin spawns and call it done.

For two, the Breakwater Harbor area is large by necessity. It's taking up the surface area directly south from Umberlee's Shoal. That means that I also have to consider the undersea area directly south from Umberlee's Shoal, that being the Feeding Grounds. That breakwater's presence is going to impact the Serôsian depths directly under it, so if I run the breakwater straight out from the Shoal, people might start to poke around the Feeding Grounds, asking "Hey, where are all the supports and all the landmass or underwater masonry for that breakwater?". And by now you should know how much of a stickler I am for detail and continuity.

So as far as I can see, Umberlee's Shoal is a 10x10 area, and the Feeding Grounds is a 12x8 area. And they go together like this (with the dotted blue line denoting the transition between the two areas):



Now, Breakwater Harbor (the main area of the five areas I'm building right now) is a 16x14 area, but most of that surface area is seawater, with a couple of docks and a fair number of boats and ships floating in it.



...and as you can see, Breakwater Harbor does indeed stem from Umberlee's Shoal and enclose the Feeding Grounds without infringing on the Feeding Grounds' geography. All that's required to complete the joining and the transition would be for either the shrine's sandbar to be extended all the way to the area's south edge or for a new dock built off the sandbar to do the same.





Breakwater Harbor's layout could also mesh neatly with the Feeding Grounds' scenario. Having a breakwater in that position would form a dead end or enclosure which would trap a great number of fishes, particularly at low tide. With so many fishes wandering into the Feeding Grounds and not being able to find their ways back out (because of the breakwater blocking escape to the East and the South), the goblin sharks and other predators would move in to take advantage of the easy prey. This could explain the large numbers of goblin sharks that are encountered in the Feeding Grounds. And if any mako sharks or hammerhead sharks were to join them later, I certainly wouldn't blame them.

(As for how much of the breakwater's supporting landmass naturally existed beforehand versus how much of the mass was, is or will be raised or engineered through Serrica's coin, diplomacy and/or divine jiggery-pokery, that's up to you. More on that in the soon-to-come PM.)

Apr 1, 2012 18:53:19 GMT -5 luckbringer said:

We should talk about what you want to build in a lot more detail before you build it ... to make sure it's stuff that will be added to the module. I think I mentioned this before?

Please talk to me about what you are building in a pm or online!

Why talk about it when I can show it? That's half of why I made this topic in the first place. To the players, I'm saying, "Hey, don't give up the ship, I'm still around and I haven't been in-game because I've been working on something big" (that and because our resort's power-tripping jerk of a computer guy occasionally likes to flex his butthole muscles and validate his employment by cutting off our hub's internet access to certain websites or internet applications without giving us warning or advance notice--and with or without Upper Management's say-so--and that's why I can't play Neverwinter Nights at work anymore; naturally, I'm still a bit miffed at the guy. What else am I supposed to do when all the work's done, I'm bored and there's nothing good on TV at 3:00 AM?).

And to the DMs, I'm saying, "Hey, here are the new areas I'm working on, so brace yourselves, because the module I'm sending over is going to be quite large." Remember that last module I sent to you guys? I never did hear back from any of you about it, but that's okay, because this module will completely bury it and obliterate it from the memory of all future generations.

So there's the idea. I send the module over. The DM team loads it, hits F9 and looks it over. You can then send me a PM back, saying "I like this, I love this, let's keep this, I don't like this, let's fix this, let's throw this out." I make the appropriate changes to the areas, save the module and send it over again. Repeat until we have something that works for all of us.

So, Scurvy...what ecclesial rank does Sammy Sampson claim within the Church of Umberlee, and what does he want in his priest quarters at the new temple? And does he mind being across the hall from an Untaken aquatic elf's quarters, would he rather replace Liridys with someone else from the Church, or would he rather manage the whole temple by himself?

[Wids]

Come to think of it, that whole concept behind Liridys was me being subtle with the lore again.

So one of the Church of Umberlee's big secrets is the Drowning. The Drowning, as far as I can see, serves two purposes: 1) it weeds out the weak, and 2) it gives Umberlee herself direct control over all of her clerics, in as much as it gives her the means to kill any Umberlant cleric who betrays her at anytime. Most other gods have to settle for stripping a wayward cleric of his spells, but Umberlee gets to kill the cleric the next time he goes to sleep (or at any other time, if she's sufficiently angered). So even though the churches of the various evil gods tend to punish desertion with death, the Church of Umberlee is particularly thorough about it; if all the other clerics can't stop you from leaving the Church with your life, the goddess herself can do it with a thought.

So it should be obvious why the Church takes pains to keep the Drowning a secret from all the outsiders: were the Drowning and its purpose to become common knowledge, stopping the local Umberlant high priestess from completing her master plan would be as simple (if simple it indeed is) as tricking that cleric into betraying Umberlee somehow, then sitting back and watching Umberlee do all the hard work of killing the Umberlant priestess for you.

(The good news is that Umberlee can be placated--at least to an extent--and she does get lax in her obligations from time to time. So she's one of the more agreeable evil deities, which helps explain why Umberlee's clerics are tolerated in most port towns even as the local paladins are driving all the town's Talossans, Aurilians and Malarites into the wilderness. The people's well-founded fear of the sea accounts for the rest of her influence.)

Now, how this works is that the acolytes trying join the priesthood must go through the Drowning. The ones who fail the test drown and perish. But from what I see, the ones who survive the Drowning only survive because Umberlee intervenes and spares them; thus, the Church reasons, if you survive the Drowning, it's because Umberlee likes you, and thus the Church should by all means usher you into the priesthood. But all that ultimately means is that your doom was held back and indefinitely delayed by Umberlee's hand; as soon as you displease Umberlee, she withdraws her favor, the aforementioned doom overtakes you and, since that doom originally would have taken the form of death by drowning, that's exactly how it manifests on its return. You fail Umberlee grievously enough that she decides that she hates you, she withdraws her blessing and you drown in your sleep...even if the nearest body of water is thousands of miles away. It's as if you had never survived the Drowning at all.

But there's never any mention about the Church of Umberlee barring any sentient races from the priesthood or limiting their priesthood to air-breathers. On the contrary, Umberlee has plenty of priests and followers from water-breathing races...weresharks, shalarin, krakens and such. If some of those water-breathers should find their way to the Church, the Church certainly wouldn't turn away someone who enjoys their goddess' favor, regardless of what kind of matter they breathe.

So here's the big question: How would the Drowning's test, its purpose and its consequences for later betrayal matter to an Umberlant from a water-breathing race? An air-breather with water-breathing magic can be handled easily enough; Umberlee just negates the water-breathing magic and lets nature take its course. But how could she negate something which is an intrinsic part of the wayward cleric's being and physiology?

Toughie, huh?

[minion]

i have indeed been wondering where you went, but i try not to freak out about other peoples' lives until enough time has passed to keep it from seeming like silly worry-wartishness. welcome back.

as for what you've put together, the areas look beautiful, and seeing the gnoll actually made me grin (i have a bit of a fondness for them...), but seeing squiddie... and spidey... well... let's just say i second Lucky's request for some consulting (despite not having the time to actually do it myself, which i realize is bordering on hypocritical but can't do much about).

[luckbringer]

Wids, I thank you for all your good intentions and time, but this isn't how we do building for the server. We're open to anyone building areas, but the process is as follows:

• Builder has idea for area/areas & shares with server admin
  
• Server admin approves/tweaks/modifies idea or suggests something similar, larger/smaller in scope, etc.
  
• Information is shared with the builder ... like naming conventions for areas, creatures, items, etc. Balance considerations for creatures and items. Thematic guidelines like what kind of npcs are appropriate (Eg, do we want gnolls as ship captains? It's not a horrible idea, but it might bear discussion). We also have a custom spawn system that requires very specific things to do be done for creatures, so this needs to be taken into account by the builder.
  
• Builder does some concept work & checks it with the server admin to make sure they're on the same page. Eg, a list of NPCs and their descriptions. What kind of creatures will live in the area. Whether there will be shops/etc. Server admin approves concept work or asks for more details.
  
• Once approval has been granted, the builder goes and does the terrain/placeables (and maybe shops, npcs, monsters, depending on scope of project) and submits those for review. There might be a few revisions at this step, depending on how big it is.
  
• If there are creatures, likely they will be tested for balance
  
• Once everything is in agreement, the new areas are merged to the mainline module and next update they go in.
  

You've skipped pretty much all of these steps & gone straight to making a huge set of areas. Hopefully they are something that fit with the server's vision (and I really mean dorkling's original vision). Even if all the areas are things that we want to add, I am pretty sure that it will require major changes. It could just be stuff like ... please rename every blueprint to use our naming conventions, but either way, this would be less work for you if we did this in the right order.

I'd like to start talking about this as soon as possible, so that we can make use of what you are doing and waste as little of your time as possible reworking things.

-Lucky

[Wids]

Apr 2, 2012 18:34:07 GMT -5 minion said:

as for what you've put together, the areas look beautiful, and seeing the gnoll actually made me grin (i have a bit of a fondness for them...)...

Heh heh heh.









I just had to get educationally preachy again, this time with longships. A bazillion successful Viking shore raids during the Dark Ages can't be wrong.

Apr 2, 2012 18:34:07 GMT -5 minion said:

...but seeing squiddie... and spidey... well... let's just say i second Lucky's request for some consulting (despite not having the time to actually do it myself, which i realize is bordering on hypocritical but can't do much about).

Oh, Squiddie's not such a bad guy.

















He's just not particularly nice, either. ;D

(Note to self: Change some of the conversation text, bearing in mind that one of Iliscorian's eyes is concealed behind a big friggin' monocle; Whether he's completely blind in that eye (and that device is actually the illithid equivalent of an eyepatch) or simply needs a little help seeing with it is something I haven't decided yet.)

(Second note to self: Add alternate dialogue options for characters with Intelligence scores below 10. It's unlikely that someone with a 6 in Intelligence would know words like "psionic.")

Apr 2, 2012 19:46:26 GMT -5 luckbringer said:

Wids, I thank you for all your good intentions and time, but this isn't how we do building for the server. We're open to anyone building areas, but the process is as follows:

• Builder has idea for area/areas & shares with server admin
  
• Server admin approves/tweaks/modifies idea or suggests something similar, larger/smaller in scope, etc.
  
• Information is shared with the builder ... like naming conventions for areas, creatures, items, etc. Balance considerations for creatures and items. Thematic guidelines like what kind of npcs are appropriate (Eg, do we want gnolls as ship captains? It's not a horrible idea, but it might bear discussion). We also have a custom spawn system that requires very specific things to do be done for creatures, so this needs to be taken into account by the builder.
  
• Builder does some concept work & checks it with the server admin to make sure they're on the same page. Eg, a list of NPCs and their descriptions. What kind of creatures will live in the area. Whether there will be shops/etc. Server admin approves concept work or asks for more details.
  
• Once approval has been granted, the builder goes and does the terrain/placeables (and maybe shops, npcs, monsters, depending on scope of project) and submits those for review. There might be a few revisions at this step, depending on how big it is.
  
• If there are creatures, likely they will be tested for balance
  
• Once everything is in agreement, the new areas are merged to the mainline module and next update they go in.
  

You've skipped pretty much all of these steps & gone straight to making a huge set of areas. Hopefully they are something that fit with the server's vision (and I really mean dorkling's original vision). Even if all the areas are things that we want to add, I am pretty sure that it will require major changes. It could just be stuff like ... please rename every blueprint to use our naming conventions, but either way, this would be less work for you if we did this in the right order.

I'd like to start talking about this as soon as possible, so that we can make use of what you are doing and waste as little of your time as possible reworking things.

-Lucky

All right. I'll pause the building, come up with a rough bullet point plan or guideline (which will probably have plenty of bullet points, be advised; I'm big on tossing in lots of detail and alternate options...) and send it over.

So how cool does that gnoll pirate look now? I even tossed in a conversational reference to Gurrr and whatnot. ;D