World Building 101: Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

No, today's essay is not going to be about how to handle sexual situations through dice-rolling mechanics or scene descriptions. The rather raunchy Book Of Erotic Fantasy already did that, and even though I am a credited artist in the much more tame and factually/historically-based Naughty And Dice, I'm not talking about that one, either.

Although if you asked me which one I would recommend? Naughty and Dice, all the way, and not just because I have art in the book. N&D handles the topics of taboos, gender politics, and the history of sexual equality in various societies for the bulk of its text, while BOEF is mostly a treatise on which Alignments have which kinks. I'm not even kidding.

Okay, so, here's the thing:

Sex and the politics surrounding it are two of the most heavily influential factors in the development of a society. After "Where does the food come from?" and "Where do we sleep?", "Who is having sex with whom?" is the most prominent developmental factor in any society, real or imaginary. As a world-building GM, you need to understand this, dear reader. Who has what rights in society, how those rights are enforced, who is seen as "equal" and who is seen as "other" all have a tie, somewhere, to the sexual (and gender) politics of the society.

Let's take an example of the Doro, from Loris, or more specifically, the matrilocal society of the Apache, on which the Doro are heavily based. Here's a handy Wikipedia link for your reference. Go ahead and read it. I'll wait right here, it's cool.

Okay, so, you got all that? Let's take a look at part of that:

All Apachean men practiced varying degrees of "avoidance" of his wife's close relatives, a practice often most strictly observed by distance between mother-in-law and son-in-law. The degree of avoidance differed in different Apachean groups. The most elaborate system was among the Chiricahua, where men had to use indirect polite speech toward and were not allowed to be within visual sight of the wife's female relatives, whom he had to avoid. His female Chiricahua relatives through marriage also avoided him.

For those of us from any kind of "typical" Western society, this is almost completely unfathomable. Not simply because (let's face it) most of Western society is Patriarchal in its organization, but because ostensibly, we come from an egalitarian culture where everyone is equal regardless of their gender. Now, I won't get into any arguments about whether or not that presumption on our part is true, because that would require the entirety of Tumblr to debate (and surprise! We'd all lose, regardless of whatever side we took), but I will point this out:

Gender politics like those of the Apache are almost universally avoided in fantasy RPG's.

In most fantasy RPG's and game worlds, society is almost uniformly displayed as being perfectly and inexplicably egalitarian, where even though men run the show politically, there are still tons of powerful women around doing their thing. Adventuring, running countries from behind the scenes, conjuring up demons to beat up the neighbors, you name it. But did you notice something, just now? I said "even though men run the show politically..."

Not very equal if that's the case, is it?

Well, there are also those games where they have vast, immense, Matriarchal societies, like the Drow of the Underdark...

Oh. No. Wait. The Drow, with their Matriarchal society and their mercantile clans and their constant internecine bickering are portrayed as evil. And yeah, worshiping a soul-eating Spider Demon is pretty evil, but the Drow are almost literally the only fantasy RPG society in which women control the way things run, and they are universally the bad guys. (And no, I don't care about your dual-wielding Ranger, thanks.)

Throughout the typical fantasy RPG world, even though there are tons of female adventurers, politicians, powerful magicians, you-name-it, the fact of the matter is that the gender politics of the world conform to a Powerful Male Leader model. Sure, you might have your exceptions (a few of the Lords Of Waterdeep are women, to call back to The Forgotten Realms, again), but by and large the concept of a society that focuses on the type of gender politics that we see in a matrilocal society such as the Doro and their real-world references is almost completely foreign. Because of this "otherness" of such a culture, they are almost always painted as the bad guy - they go against the "norm" and because of that, they are portrayed as the antithesis of the "acceptable" culture. The leading women are portrayed as domineering, overbearing, "men are all weak and wicked" types, a-la the hardline Amazons in just about any Wonder Woman comic. I love Wonder Woman, but the portrayal of a Matriarchal society as being anti-male as a matter of rote is simply not borne out by the evidence of historical cultures that practiced that model.

Now, again, I don't want to get in to the why of this sort of thing. That's a discussion for a different time and in a different venue. Suffice it to say that you can have a Matriarchal or Matrilineal culture without the necessity for the subjugation of the male portion of the society. (Don't believe me? Judaism is Matrilineal. Go look it up.) The purpose of the essay today is to discuss how gender politics influences society, and how you can incorporate such things into your game world as you're building it – and also to help you get the idea that you can incorporate cultures into your game world that are otherwise foreign and unusual to a "normal" societal method of thought. Let's go back to the Apache (and by default, the Doro) for a moment, and talk about how their leaders were chosen.

From Wikipedia, again:

Several extended families worked together as a "local group", which carried out certain ceremonies, and economic and military activities. Political control was mostly present at the local group level. Local groups were headed by a chief, a male who had considerable influence over others in the group due to his effectiveness and reputation. The chief was the closest societal role to a leader in Apachean cultures.

The office was not hereditary, and the position was often filled by members of different extended families. The chief's leadership was only as strong as he was evaluated to be—no group member was ever obliged to follow the chief. The Western Apache criteria for evaluating a good chief included: industriousness, generosity, impartiality, forbearance, conscientiousness, and eloquence in language.

Got that? Gender politics within the Apache people were based around relational proximity to the eldest women within the group, and the leader of the local groups was a man chosen by virtue of his overall effectiveness and reputation. The two are clearly intertwined, but at no point does the one prevent the other. The husband of the eldest and most favored daughter of the most powerful grandmother might be passed over for election as the chief because he is lazy and does not comport himself properly. By contrast, the husband of the youngest, least known daughter of least powerful grandmother might surprise everyone because he is strong, fast, clever, and kind. Is it a perfect example of gender egalitarianism? No, but then, nowhere in human society is there a historic example of such things.

Still, though, as you can see from just a few short paragraphs, the real world gives us an example (and there are many, many more) of a culture in which sex and gender politics influence the society differently than the typical Western viewpoint.


The Doro were also heavily influenced by the Mongols and their culture, as well, and although I have purposely tossed the vast bulk of the societal and sexual politics of the Mongols, potential world-builders might want to read up on an overview of Mongol kinship and family life, especially their views on children born of concubinage (something that is also completely foreign to most fantasy RPG settings).

What does any of this have to do with sex, though? Well, everything, really. Who is sleeping with whom is a direct influence on the gender politics of a society. The gender politics of a society determines what, if anything, is "men's work" vs "women's work" and what the implications of those two types of work will be. The societal views on things such as manners of appropriate dress, speech, and music can and will be influenced by their views on sex and sexuality. History shows us that a society that places an extreme importance on female virginity, but not one on male virginity, will have a very conflicted view of a woman's worth outside the bed chamber and an overly proportional value on the sexual prowess of the man. Almost universally, this leads to the increasing use of force to control the female population and keep them "proper." Contrariwise, a society in which the sexual agency of both men and women are guaranteed by tradition, law, or religion will tend to place a higher importance on the freedoms of both sexes as a whole, leading to a more open and politically progressive society. Not always, mind you, but often enough for me to cite this with some confidence.


Religion also plays a very strong part in all of this. It's important to remember, though, that oftentimes religion and society are completely at odds with one another, and that most of the time, society wins. There are hadiths and verses within the Quran that very clearly cite that Islamic women are to be treated with respect and consideration, as well as being given rights to education and employment, but nearly all aspects of traditional Arabic culture go against this. Similarly, in Judaism, the entirety of a families lineage and hereditary standing is traced through the mother's line, but all religious matters are handled by men. I make no judgement in this essay on either of these things, I mention them only from the observational and academic viewpoint. Religion can have a tremendous impact on the sexual agency of men and women, which in turn influences gender politics.

Putting all of this together in Loris, then, I had to consider what sort of gender politics I would enact in the various cultures of the world. I've already spoken on the Doro. Some of the other decisions I enacted include:

* The Vetrur are modeled on a very Norse view point of gender politics. "Men's Work" and "Women's Work" is clearly delineated and by and large kept to, but unlike the ancient Norse, there are methods and manners by which those boundaries can be crossed without shame or dishonor. Due to the harsh environment of their homelands, Vetrur society is a meritocracy, for the most part, with men and women both holding power over their families and within their clans. Sexual agency between the two genders is guaranteed equal, with strict rules on when and where and how contact can be made, along with extremely harsh repercussions for breaking the line of consent. As well, violence between genders is almost universally forbidden, with a series of cultural taboos and strictures guiding the few places such violence can be legally carried out. A duel under the full gaze of the entire village is a betting event, while an angry fist across a jaw can get the offender stripped naked and thrown into the winter night (almost certainly a death sentence).

* In Angarn and Cymrik, women have long been second class citizens, culturally. Although Angarn has in recent centuries shifted away from this tradition (due in no small part to the influence of the Church Of The Nine), there are still certain expectations and a great deal of condescension levied against most women in the land who seek to break out and make their own path. It is safe to say that the closer one gets to a major city, the fewer these are, but they are still present within the culture. Both the religion and the law of Angarn and Cymrik say that women are to be given each and every right and protection of a man, but discrimination still exists. While Angarn prides itself on the fact that a full quarter of its navy is composed of women, for instance, those ships are crewed entirely by women, and of those ships, less than half have a female in the Captaincy. Cymrik has more female fusiliers and artillerists than any of its allies, but less than a tenth of its infantry is made up of women. The urge to "protect the girls" runs high in the armed forces of both of these nations, and it shows.

* In the Cualish Free States, women are very rarely the public face of political power. Behind the scenes, however, they are probably the most adept and influential members of any City State's leadership. "Sex and Money and Death are three sides of one coin," they say, and this is reflected in the proliferation of not only well-established, well-respected houses of prostitution, but also the very present reality of many of those same houses being training grounds for assassins and professional killers. "He died in bed," when said in the Free States, more often than not means the subject of discussion was the target of a successful assassination. Moreso than any of the Allied Nations, the women of the Free States have near-total freedom of their own path in life. They have the longest history of land ownership, property management, and monetary influence of all the women within the "Big Four," combined. Despite this, there are still prejudices and societal restrictions on women within the walls of many of the City States, although more and more of their leaders are dying in bed, so this may change, soon.

* Perhaps paradoxically, it is the Kolanthans, with their rigid and unforgiving society, that have achieved actual, total, gender equality. As dictated by the High Inquisitor of Kolas – and thus by Kolas himself – it is an affront to the One True God that any Human, male or female, be kept from their full potential under the eyes of Kolas. Kolas sees everything, everywhere, as he is the God Of Knowledge And Truth, and so to attempt to prevent a Sacred Daughter from achieving her full potential (whatever that potential might be) is a mortal sin. Given the choice of being tied to a pole and left to rot in the summer sun or encouraging your daughter to pick that sword back up and get back out there and unleash hell on the neighborhood boys, which would you choose? The armed forces of the Kolanthan Inquisition are fully fifty percent female, and their columns, battalions, and armadas are just as likely to be led by a woman as they are a man.

Of course, adventurers can and will buck the examples presented here. That's why they're adventurers, after all. But as you go forward in determining how your game world handles such things – whether it's as simple as saying "all societies are equal, regardless of what they're based on," or diving into a more complex, multi-faceted approach as I've done with Loris – it's important to remember that the three driving factors of any culture are food, shelter, and sex. Those who control or command such things are usually the ones with the power, and those with the power are usually the ones who decide how the future is shaped. With a little research on history, and a little adaptation on your part, you can come up with some awesome concepts to fit into your game world.

If you've got any of your own to share, please throw them into the comments section. I and the reader base here would love to see them!

World Building 101: Where Do The Myths Come From?

So, if you'll recall, way back here in October 2013, I brought up the topic of some of the masterful essays and lectures (and books, and videos, and oh-so-many things) presented by Joseph Campbell. You'll find, if you're familiar with them at all, that a good deal of the idea of the Myth As Metaphor concepts so central to Campbell's work have been integrated into the weft and weave of Loris' religious and mythological structure. But I have yet to address something that is central to concepts such as religion and culture, especially here on the real world we live on:

Where do the myths come from?

It's not a stretch to state that the central purpose of parables, myths, legends, and the like is to provide an object lesson with which to direct the lives and thoughts of the target of the tale. The story of the Good Samaritan so central to Christian myth, for example, is given as an object lesson to provide not only perspective on what it means to love your neighbor, but also as a method of invoking a particular moral code – Help those who need your help, whether they are someone you are friends with or not. It is an object lesson in ethics and morality, designed to provide a guideline by which the listener is supposed to proceed with throughout life. The same is true of nearly every other myth, legend, and parable throughout time, regardless of the source.  Thorn in a lion's paw, removed by a mouse? Resisting the temptations of Boredom, Craving, and Passion while seated beneath the Bodhi tree? All of these are object lessons. These are directed, purposefully crafted tales, designed to inspire, to guide, and – sadly, but in some cases absolutely true – control.

So what do you do with this sort of thing in a game? Especially in a game where you have Gods, Demons, and other Powers that actually work? Remember back here in this post where I talked about what sorts of adjustments you must make to your assumptions about how the world works when you have Gods that actually work? When you have a Pantheon of deities sitting up in their cosmic recliners sipping whatever passes for cocktails on that level of existence, you have to – both as a GM and a player – come up with new conceits about how the world of the game works, and then remember to continue to accept them as you play the game. You have Gods that actually work. Okay.

So what now?

Where do your myths and legends come from? In a world where things like Dragons actually exist, where do the stories that inspire and guide and give over to the faithful their daily dose of morality come from?

Some games choose to deal with this by saying that it is the player characters themselves that are building the legends and stories by which the rest of the game world will become inspired. Which, I suppose, is all fine and well, unless your PC's are of the (surprisingly typical) "Murder Hobo" variety, in which case your PC's are building myths and legends about going out into the wilderness and committing genocide on creatures of suitably acceptable Alignment Codes... which is really no way to build up a mythological system. I mean, even if Dirk The Dashing did go out there and wipe out the entirety of the Black Hill Orc Nation just to get one princess back so she might be woken by True Love's Kiss, it's still a story of Dirk going out there and beating up on Orcs that's made acceptable because Orcs are Evil, right?

Sure, it makes for a great heroic ballad, but it's not really a myth or a parable or a legend, now is it? (Well, maybe it will be a legend in a few centuries, but for now, Dirk's still washing all that Orc blood off of his Longsword +5 Against Bad Guys)

 You see, when you are building a world, you must populate it with cultures. A world is only as interesting as the fabric and pattern of its quilt, and that quilt is made up of cultures, countries, geography, politics, and most importantly: people. And as it is people that all of those other things flow from (even religion), it is the people that you should be spending the most time developing. And frankly? People are story tellers. Stories told often enough become tales. Tales become legends and myths. Legends and myths turn into truths and parables and life lessons. Thus, it is from the events that become the foundation for stories that the most important part of any religion or belief system – the Daily Code that is made up of these object lessons, these myths and parables – are crafted. Daedalus' son Icarus is lost because Icarus is not mindful of the lessons and warnings his father has given him, for instance, along with hundreds of other "Listen to your parents, they've been around the block and know a thing or two. REALLY." stories. The tales don't even have to be ancient; there are modern parables running around that serve exactly the same purpose as the older sort. For instance: the wolf you feed is the one that wins.

It is important when you are setting up your cultures and religions and philosophies in your game world to make sure that they're believable. Building up the fleshy, chewy bits of them by way of these sorts of tales is a good way to add to the believability of the whole tapestry of your game world. But again, where do they come from?

To be perfectly honest, this is another part of the reason that I have no creation myth for Loris. It's why I have a murky, inaccurate-at-best history weaving the world together: the clouds of the past enable the tales to be told. It's the tapestry of the nebulous and foggy past that enables the tales to be told. Cause begets Effect. For instance:

The Eternal Kings took the power they drank in from the death of the Gods Of Light And Darkness and threw the world into a state of tyranny and fear: Beware rulers who hold absolute power.

Three Gods: Jiordal, The King Of Books, and Kolas went seeking the sacred secrets of the world and returned insane and bloodthirsty: Don't allow yourself to be consumed by your passion.

As well, these tales can fill in the blanks for why certain things are done the way they are now. For example, one of my personal favorites:

Long ago, in the Dark Century between The Age Of Kings and the founding of Angarn, Shakur, The Restbringer, through some manner unknown to this very day, somehow fathered a son. His priesthood was woken at the dawn of the day of the child's birth to the sound of their God's voice: "I have a son." The boy was taken off to The Throne, Shakur's seat of judgement, from which he sent the souls of the departed off down the Forty Rivers Of Memory And Fate, where they would receive their just reward. There, in Shakur's realm, the boy and his mother were cared for and kept safe, until the boy reached the age of Manhood. "Father," he said. "I am now a Man, and I am ready to take up your Throne."

Shakur was a kind, and loving father. Though he did have fears, he also knew that his son had always shown wisdom and maturity beyond his years. And so he gave up the Throne, but only for one day. And in that day, the boy saw the entirety of Justice and Death in all of its gravity. He was driven mad by this, and souls were sent to punishments when rewards were due them, and in the same fashion, too, were the spirits of evil men given sumptuous gardens to spend their time until they were reborn. In the end, The Restbringer brought Final Rest to his own flesh and blood, and wept a trail of ash upon his cheeks. And so in his grief, Shakur shaved clean his head, and bound his eyes with a black cloth, so that he might not see the face of his son in the faces of all the mortal souls who came upon him for Judgement. This is why the Restbringers shave their heads and paint a black band across their eyes, and why they now may not marry and must remain celibate and chaste. And this is why you must never give responsibility to those who are not ready for it, for too often, it leads to disaster.

When it comes right down to it, these sorts of things are important to your game because they provide your Player Characters with cultural meat and potatoes. Coming up with these extra bits and pieces of your game's "hidden history," as it were, may seem like a lot of extra work, but it is completely worth it, and your players will only thank you for it. I know mine have.

World Building 101: Throw Away The Whole Cloth, Make A Quilt Instead

I've talked about mingling Norse and Iroqouis traditions when creating the culture of the Vetrur, and how the Doro people are a mixture of Mongol and Apache influences. It's very clear that the other Allied Nations of Angarn, Cymrik, and the Cualish Free States are drawn from Medieval and Renaissance influences: predominately Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern in their origins. Kever is drawn heavily from historical Egyptian and other Super- and Sub- Saharan cultures. Harak-Ur, if you haven't guessed, was influenced heavily by Babylonian and Sumerian mythology and culture.

Why?

Why not just create my cultures out of whole-cloth, and come up with really new, interesting, novel stuff?

Easy.

Because creating entire cultures and their respective idioms, biases, traditions, and methods is really amazingly difficult to do believably.

No, I mean, it really is. It is phenomenally hard to come up with truly unique and novel cultural concepts that haven't been done before, and then, on top of it all, to do it believably.

Don't buy it? I'll prove it to you.

Star Wars.

Star Wars?

Star Wars.

The universe presented to us in Star Wars is one of strange alien races, with enormous walking carpets, snooty robots, and so many aliens. Man, look at all those aliens. Oh, and laser swords! And crazy mystical magical powers!

And Star Wars just all fits together, man. It is so interlocking and well woven, it is a brilliant piece of world-building. Every planet is one of extremes, which leads to an interesting Mono-Climate scenario for each planet - which in turn influences all manner of behavior in the way people develop culturally. The people of Tattooine are so completely different from the people of Coruscant, who are in turn super different from the cultures on other worlds that aren't monolithic City Complexes. The aliens are alien and they aren't just people in funny suits.

It's an amazing piece of whole-cloth world-building, isn't it?

Except, it's really not.

There is absolutely nothing in Star Wars that doesn't come from somewhere in Human culture and history, somewhere. The reason the Rebellion fighting the Empire strikes such a chord in us when we watch the movies is that we understand the struggle between the underdog and the oppressor. The reason we identify with the people of Coruscant and their hustle-bustle city-planet life, and we can so easily contrast it with Farm Boy Anakin Skywalker, is because we are familiar with the disparity between the country boy and the city boy. We immediately accept Obi-Wan Kenobi's explanation that "sand people always ride single file to hide their numbers" because this is a plausible scenario for a culture of savage, desert dwelling nomads. And we understand the concept of "savage, desert dwelling nomads" because (for better or worse) we have grown up on the idea that such things exist. The "oh-so-alien" Aliens? Not even they are exempt from this. They are bombastic and prone to overblowing their own importance. They are crime lords and shady junk dealers and jittery-nerved co-pilots. There is nothing about any of the aliens in Star Wars that doesn't resonate with us as part of the Human experience somewhere, somehow. Even the concept of The Force comes from a place buried in the Human psyche and in our collective experience - The Force is an analog to magic, to mysticism, to the careful and controlled application of martial force in pursuit of a higher ideal. It at once combines Western magical theatrics with Eastern mysticism. It is at once a fencing school combining longsword techniques from Middle and Northern Europe with Japanese techniques and the type of balefire-and-lightning sorcery that we reserve for the most powerful of all fantasy magicians.

Star Wars combines our world's historical trials - all-consuming wars that bring upheaval on a cultural level, the desire for freedom, the need for spiritual guidance, and the cautionary tales of granting too much power to any single body - and distills them down into a series of adventures and stories that speak to us of a time long ago, in a place far away. How does it do this? If all that's being done is taking these aspects of the Human experience and moving them around, then how did the universe of Star Wars become so unique?

Simple: Because Mr. Lucas and the others involved in its creation knew that story telling, world building, is like making a quilt. You don't make a quilt from whole cloth. You make it from scraps, from pieces. You have a few large pieces of cloth, you have a few medium-sized pieces of cloth, and a very large number of smaller pieces. Scraps, bits, leftovers. Ask any quilter - a quilt is a story. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end to the story of the quilt. The quilt can be made to a pattern, sure, but more often than not, the quilt builds itself from what you put into it.

The same is true of game worlds. I put it to you that it is easier to build a believable, enjoyable game world (or heck, any work of fictional world-building) if you take familiar aspects of the real world (the oft-mentioned Human experience from this essay) and turn them ever so slightly on their ears, than if you sit down and say "Today I am going to build a world where everyone lives in magical trees, no one ever uses gender pronouns, and the word for 'war' doesn't exist."

I am not saying it cannot be done. In fact, that kind of sounds like a neat idea, and it would be awesome to see someone do it. I am saying that you will have more luck if you take a cue from the world we live in than if you attempt to go it without. The Human experience is a vast and amazing tapestry. It's full of myths and legends that are begging to be adapted to your story.

You don't have to recreate the entirety of Regency Era France in your game world (unless that's your thing), nor do you have to fall prey to the temptation to make your Sub-Saharan African analog cultures into skin-wearing savages (which is not only really annoying and overdone, but is also buying into "dark skinned savage" tropes that I am really truly tired of seeing in so many fantasy RPG worlds... sorry. Got away from myself, there). You can grab the bits of Norse and Iroquois culture you find coolest and mingle them liberally with the cosmology of your world, turning them into a long-standing, proud people. You can, if you choose, grab Late-Period Victorian England and run it headlong into 1950's Americana, if you really want to. (And as a side note, if you don't think those two eras are story- and culturally- compatible, you're not paying attention.)

When you are building your world, then, look around at your favorite periods of history and your favorite bits of culture and philosophy, and ask yourself "How can I make this work in my game world?"

Odds are, when you figure that out, you'll have the basis of a really amazing quilt.

GM Advice: Keep Yourself Humble

No tag for Under Sleeping Suns this week, because this is not a Loris-specific essay.

This week (sorry for the delay, folks, life got in the way), I'm going to talk about something that a lot of GM's, designers, and world-builders often forget:

It pays to be humble about your creation.

When I say that, when I use the word humble, I'm not referring to you being meek about your goals: don't say "well, it's obviously not that good because Joe didn't like it." I'm also not suggesting that you be submissive in what you want to see in your game world: no giving in and putting everything in that your players want and nothing they don't (well, unless that's your thing).

No, when I say humble, I mean that you should have a state of being unpretentious about it. You should strive to let go of your ego in the building of your game world and be willing to accept input and criticism about the way that your game world (and therefore, your game) is developing. I mean that you should ask the players at the end of each session "Did you have fun?" and if even one of them did not, step back and take a good hard look at why they did not. Is it a difference in play style? Is it that the player feels that their character didn't get enough spotlight this session (and the last several sessions)? Is it because of personal issues on the player's side?

The art of being a good GM stems from the same root as being a good world-builder, or being a good host and friend. It requires practice, patience, and the understanding that sometimes you're going to get things just plain wrong. You aren't a "bad GM" if you make a mistake during a game. You're not a "bad GM" if you forget to follow up on a promise to a player to delve into a particular plot-hook. And you're not a bad world-builder if you let certain aspects of your world get away from you and go running off onto their own tangents at the expense of others. But here's the thing: Just as you can't be a good GM if you're not paying attention to your mistakes, you similarly can't be a good GM if you only ever pay attention to your successes. The art of getting it right – whether it's just for your regular game group, a convention tournament, or for the thousands of people you hope will one day buy your adventure module – is a constant process of comparing and contrasting your successes with your failures. You must learn from both equally if you want to succeed.

Sure, this is pretty common-sense stuff, but honestly in my day I've seen a lot of games, and I've played in just as many, and I've had good experiences and bad. All of the bad experiences were identical in their failures: the GM didn't take time to really think about the outcome of the actions of the NPC's, the world-building was rushed, set in stone, left little room for adaptability to player actions, and the GM's game style was not compatible with the play style of the group. The good experiences all shared identical qualities, as well: The GM was adaptive to the actions of the player characters, the world was established and firm but still malleable enough to adapt to the events of the game, and the GM (even if their play style and that of the players wasn't the same) was able to figure out what the players needed in their game and provide it to them.

In other words, the "good" games in this list all come from a place of humility in their creation. The "bad" games are inflexible, unconcerned with player actions/ingenuity, and generally fairly rigid in their premise and execution. Under the premise of this essay, then, a successful GM and world-builder must therefore be able to accommodate these things, and enact changes in their approach when necessary.

So why bring this up today? Frankly, because one of my players pointed out that I had done something in my game world that was not consistent (and we do know how I love to be consistent) with the rest of the worlds cosmogony. He asked several astronomical/cosmology related questions, and in seeking to answer them, I discovered that I'd made a few blunders that were not only inconsistent, but outright contradictory to what I'd written elsewhere. Now, blatant contradictions is good for in-game philosophy or religious texts, but it's really bad for observable phenomena such as the worlds orbiting Loris and how they interact. Since I don't want to just hand-wave his questions and say "my world my rules" (and especially since I have made a point of trying to remain internally consistent), I had to step back and ask myself how I was going to answer him while keeping the previously related items.

I did find a way, but in the doing, I had to change a few things. The orbital "dance" of Loris' two suns, to be specific, and the method in which the planets move through the cosmos around Loris herself. But in the end, I think the game world's believability has come out the stronger for it.

Of course, all of this long-winded essay can be summed up with a few short sentences:

* Don't have an ego about your work.
* Be willing to accept your defeats with as much enthusiasm as your victories.
* Get your players input, and apply it where you can.
* Make sure everyone's having fun.
* That includes you.

Under Sleeping Suns: What About The Monuments?

For those of you paying attention, we skipped an essay last week. That was intentional, as I needed a week off and wanted to take some time to address a few things (about this very game blog) that could be used to help the players in my current game. This week, I'm back, and it's time to talk about building things. Specifically: enormous monuments, strange stone circles, and that sort of thing.

So let's say that you're an aspiring (or well-seasoned) GM, and you've come to a point in your game where it's time for the players to encounter a long-dead (or heck, thriving and alive, just unusual and unknown) culture through those most lasting of endeavors: the enormous stone edifice. Whether it's a Henge, an Obelisk, a vast and forgotten temple complex, or the most easily recognized of all of them - the Pyramid - it's important to know where these things come from, and why. Today I'm going to talk about the reasons these things exist in Loris, and hopefully give you some ideas on how to integrate them into your game without having to completely replicate the how's and why's of their creation here on Earth.

So, let's start with Pyramids. On Earth, the Pyramids of Egypt were built for pretty much one purpose and one purpose alone: the interment of the mortal remains of their namesake Pharaohs. And before we get into the debate about whether or not any actual remains have been found in the Pyramids, let me assure you that there have been remains found in Pyramids. The commonly accepted archaeological understanding, currently, is that part of why the Pyramids are so sparse in terms of identifiable remains is a reaction to grave robbers and tomb looters: the Pharaonic cults (as well as the very government of Dynastic Egypt itself) moved the bodies into more easily hidden (and thus defended) tombs and burial complexes. If you have these enormous monuments standing as a testimonial to the greatness of your God King, and the looters know there's likely to be all manner of offerings and accoutrements in there to see the dead ruler off to the afterlife, they're going to come knocking. Curse or no. Therefore, since you don't want the looters to desecrate the corpse, you (wisely!) go back in, pack him up, and leave the monument standing.

It bears mentioning that the Egyptians were not the only Pyramid builders in Africa. The Kush (or Nubian) Pyramids were also built as burial monuments, not only for the great rulers of the Kushite empire, but also for their respected priests and other persons of note and import. As with the Egyptian Pyramids, these were looted and their tombs desecrated. Unlike the Egyptian Pyramids, the Nubian Pyramids were apparently organized into actual burial complexes (Wikipedia likes to refer to them as cemeteries, actually), and they appear to have eschewed the Egyptian tradition of building elaborate temple and worship complexes in the surrounding area, preferring to build the worship temples directly into the Pyramids themselves.

So here we have two Earth cultures, both of whom use their monument building as methods of erecting places of burial and worship of their rulers – who are the physical embodiments of the Gods themselves, let's remember – nearly all of which end up getting looted as the years go on. So what do we do about this sort of thing in our game worlds? Do we recreate the Egyptian/Nubian cultures entirely? What if we don't have any Egyptian-Analog Gods to provide this sort of inspiration? What if there was never a Pharaonic culture present in your game world? You want Pyramids, but how to make them fit into your world?

Well, let's talk about Loris for a minute, and I'll tell you how I made this work.

So, remember, I've mentioned more than once that Loris has no creation myth and that the Gods Of Light And Darkness didn't so much create the world as they broke it apart and made it safe for man to live on. The GOLAD (we're using abbreviations, now) also had both Divine and Mortal forms, enabling them to keep to their Godly duties off in The White, while staying hale and hearty on the world of Loris herself. They ruled over Kever for thousands of years, guiding their favored civilization and making it the greatest (but not the only) nation of its age. When I was designing Kever and its surrounding civilizations, I had to come up with an answer to a very pressing question:

Where did the Gods live? Their Divine forms took up residence in The White, naturally, but what about their Mortal Forms? Did they just kip it under the stars every night? Did they stand vigil all day and night, never resting, never sleeping? Where did they live?

The answer became, as I fleshed out more and more of what it actually meant to be alive in the Kever Age, that they lived in the Pyramids. I knew I wanted to have Pyramids in the game, and I knew I wanted them to be the last standing monuments of a once great and powerful (but now utterly destroyed) civilization. And I knew that I wanted them to have at one time been vast, living edifices; bustling with priests, worshipers, and functionaries. So why couldn't the GOLAD actually live in their Pyramids?

And so, as the original twelve Gods became fleshed out, so too did their residences. For Doan and his brother Kalykan, a pair of matching Pyramids – each a full thousand meters to a side at its base – were built on either side of the widest of the 12 sacred Rivers Of Life: The River Natu. Their Pyramids would be connected by an avenue wide enough for fifty men to march shoulder to shoulder, and would meet at the Natu, where they would be connected by a bridge; this bridge would be constructed of both light and dark granite, so as to represent the divine interdependence of day and night. On either side of the grand avenues there were erected buildings for living and doing business. As the buildings were filled, and more were built, each successive row of construction was built one tier higher and broader than the one before it, so that the citizens who lived and worked within them could take to the rooftops to observe their God Kings as they took to the daily parade. It would be considered blasphemy and the highest of crimes to obstruct the view of one of the Gods going about their daily procession. Each dawning, Kalykan would march from his throne within his Pyramid, accompanied by the entirety of his priesthood. He would meet his royal brother at the apex of the bridge, whereupon he would give to Doan the mantle and scepter of Divine Rule, and Doan would kneel to receive them. For the duration of the light, Doan's rule would be kind and merciful. At each sunset, Doan, too, would proceed down his avenue so as to return the artifacts of Divine Rule to Kalykan, who would kneel to receive them, and wield their power justly throughout the night.

And just like that, I had it. The Pyramids of the GOLAD were no enormous burial markers, but rather the crucial keystones of entire, bustling communities. Thousands of functional buildings – merchants, craftsmen, public houses and more – lined the streets of the grand avenues that shot arrow-straight from each Pyramid out to one of the twelve holy rivers. And because the God Kings were living, breathing entities, and because they ruled with visible power, it would be unthinkable to build the highest buildings closest to the avenue: after all, you could not deny your fellow subjects the right of being able to take in the sight of their deliverers. To do so would be treason!

With this one decision, I not only had a reason for the Pyramids (and I also decided that the original twelve GOLAD would get the full Great Pyramid Of Giza treatment, while their numerous offspring would go on to develop the smaller, more angular Nubian Pyramids, among other types of edifice), but I also had some key bits of Keverite culture and history that my players could uncover. By figuring out the why of the monuments, I had also further developed the game world itself. Rather than putting Pyramids into the desert after thinking "Hey, I'd like to have some Pyramids here," the extra time taken to make it fit (remember: you can get away with almost anything as as long as you're consistent) ended up giving me rather a lot of extra detail and information that I could turn right back into the history and "look and feel" of the game. The Great Pyramids of Kever, once thriving centers of cultural development, would eventually become covered and buried under the sands of time. Inside their long-forgotten chambers would be painted hieroglyphs, once vibrant and urgent, now faded and nearly destroyed by time. What was once a grand avenue that would have been lined with cheering citizens standing on tiered balconies is now a sand-covered, time-worn ruin of a city with just barely a few recognizable walls and hearths still visible. The answer to the question "Where did the Gods live?" was not just the answer to that one question, but to a series of questions that hadn't even been asked yet.

Now, of course, not every game requires such elaborate reasons for the rulers of your ancient, once-proud-but-now-vanished empire to build Pyramids. In Egypt, the Pyramids were built on a sort of Works Progress Administration – hundreds of thousands of people were deliberately employed by the government to build these things, and were paid for out of the various taxes the workers and their families had already paid in the years prior to the Pyramid being built. It's also incredibly likely that the people working on the Pyramids were happy and proud to do so, going so far as to actively compete with other work groups: there is evidence of graffiti at the quarry sites of the "we're better than those guys, they're slow and smell funny" variety. If you have a nation that has a large amount of unemployed youth, a lot of stone to quarry, and a good solid tax base to pay them out of (most likely in food, drink, clothing, and housing), there's no reason not to build a Pyramid or some other monumental edifice. The Parthenon, for example.

But what about the various Henges, stone cairns, and plinths that dot the rest of Loris? If I ever get around to providing you a map of the known world, you'll see that these things are thick on the ground, as it were. If Loris never had a neolithic culture (it didn't), why would these things get built? If I don't have the catch-all answer of "The Druids Did It" in Loris (I don't), then who did it?

Again, I had to stop and consider what would make these things internally consistent with the rest of the world I'd been establishing. Given that there are no Druids in Loris (sorry, Druid Hopefuls!), and that there was never a Neolithic age for all these massive stone circles, spires, and mounds to get built by, why are they there?

Well, again, you don't actually need elaborate reasons to build these things, but it helps. In the case of Loris, we have a built-in historical reason for various cultures to get together and start building these sorts of things: we have The Sunfall.

Remember, The Sunfall blasted most of the civilizations that weren't Kever almost literally back into the stone age, and I've spoken about the various ways in which things can go bump in the night in Loris. Putting these two things together, then, I have a few very good reasons for the survivors to start building these "primitive" stone monuments.

As the remnants of those pre-Sunfall civilizations started scraping themselves back together, they would of course start coming across places in which The Knot was just a bit too strong or a bit too weak, and of course, bad things would invariably happen. Oh, sure, good things would happen, too, but let's face it: when you find a mysteriously mystical place in the middle of the forest, it's almost always going to be something bad. So the wise men and women of these fragmented cultures would get together and figure out ways of capping these places. Of plugging these holes. Of creating gates and locks on these rips and tears and doors into the other worlds that make up The Knot. And they did it with stone and hard work, and they did it with knowledge passed down from parent to child. And perhaps, eventually, the incantations and inscriptions were forgotten by all but a handful of people. And maybe, just maybe, some of those gate-locks are starting to wear a bit thin, because perhaps one-too-many farmers have nicked "just a little" stone from this circle or that one-too-many times.

And for some reason, some vast and forgotten reason, so many of these circles are within a days walk of the walls of some of the largest cities in the Allied Nations, that it can't be a coincidence. Can it?

My players read these essays. I'm not saying.

But there you have another trail of thought on the why's and wherefore's of monument building: The "stone circle" builders don't have to be an ancient and mystic order of magical shape-changing folks who cut mistletoe on the first night of the full moon. They can be panicked locals who are tired of nightmares seeping up out of the ground. They can be grateful farmers who erect permanent gates for the helpful spirits to come through in hopes those same spirits will continue blessing their crops. They might even be the lucky survivors of twin kingdoms ravaged by The Sunfall, who managed to keep enough mystical and arcane knowledge intact so that they knew exactly what would happen if they didn't get those rocks in place, and soon. And when the Kolanthans came, with their armies and their engines of war, and knocked those blasphemous relics of the old beliefs aside?

Well that would just be bad, wouldn't it?

Under Sleeping Suns: Liber Deus

Some more World Building Theory this week. Today, you get some resources that I hope will help you as you proceed down the path toward getting a more complete, richer, fuller campaign world.

Back over here in "The Hour's Getting Late," I brought up a couple of points about religion in the real world, and how I built the Church Of The Nine to reflect the various aspects of churches and how they interact with their faithful – making the faiths of Loris far more than just Stop-And-Heal shops for adventurers.

I talked about how churches meddle, how they expect certain behaviors from their faithful and their priests, and how there's a very large difference between belief and worship in the context of a Fantasy RPG. All very important things, and worth paying attention to as you build up your game.

Now, I've got seven years of higher education under my belt to tell me about the ways and methods of organized (or not) religions and how they get their believers to do what they need to have done. But most of you reading this won't – nor should you. So how can you get that information? How would it be best to really get a good overview on how the various aspects of a religion might interact? How they could, for instance, take eight different Gods (whether they're part of a single pantheon or not) and make them all not only work together, but still maintain their individual flavors and foibles?

Well, the first and most common answer is to base the religion and church on what you know. I know a lot of people who, when building up the faiths for their game worlds, took inspiration from their Catholic or Protestant upbringings, and based the clergy of their fantasy religions on the authority figures from their real-world faiths. This works fine, and is the basis of many a good game I've played in.

But what if you want something a little different?

I'm going to point you at an old book. It's from 1990 and it is one of the "core four" of the "Complete Handbook" series, published by TSR (before they were bought out by Wizards Of The Coast), and was written by the very awesome Mr. Aaron Allston (who I freely admit wrote one of my favorite books of all time, Galatea in 2-D, check it out). The book in question is a valuable and incredibly under-stated resource for tackling all the big, grand, sweeping themes of a religion, as well as all the "fiddly, crunchy bits" that so often get left out when creating an in-game religion.

I am of course referring to The Complete Priest's Handbook. Don't buy in to the 1 or 2-star reviews, those people have (in my opinion) completely missed the point of the book. Where many of the other 2nd Edition "Complete" series brought in the power-creep that would become so common in the non-Core supplement series (seen very clearly later on once 3rd Edition hit the shelves), the Complete Priest's Handbook did exactly what it said on the cover: It provided rules and guidelines for building priesthoods and religions that were well developed, well-put-together, and different from the "generic cleric" of the main game. Yes, many of the options "reduced" the power of the Priests and Clerics in the game, but they all made sense, and they all fit together quite well. They pulled the Priest out of the "healbot with a hammer" role and added layers of depth and complexity that enabled roleplayers to craft pacifistic worshipers of the Gods of Peace, or heavily armored Crusader Clerics of the Three Sisters Of Battle, or anything in between. The point of the book was not to provide "more powerful" clerics, it was to provide GM's and players options for depth and detail in their game world's religions.

If I said that the bulk of the original inspirations for the Church Of The Nine didn't come out of this book, I'd be lying. As I started building up The Nine in my head, using my love of mythology and my classes in philosophy and religion as a starting point, I got my hands on this book at my Friendly Local Gaming Store, and didn't put it down for a week. I scribbled down notes and page numbers almost non-stop during my waking moments, and when I wasn't in class or at work, I was poring over this book, deciding all manner of things that had never even occurred to me. I keyed upon the concepts of give-and-take in the powers and abilities of the various clergy of The Nine. It was here that I decided... no, more like discovered, really... that the Lightbringers could not wear armor, nor could the Woundhealers. Their combat capacities as a whole were grossly lacking, but as a result of this, their healing magics were greater and broader than those of, say, the Keepers of Moran. Although Moran was a more powerful god than either Kalis or Tara, the breadth of the powers of his clergy was fewer, and their role more specific. It was this book that made it clear to me that it was okay if not every member of a Deity's church could cast spells – sometimes it was okay for the gift of a God's magic to go to only a select few, those "Adventurers" who were destined for greater things.

Moreso than any textbook or book on myths, the Complete Priest's Handbook quickly became the most valuable piece of literature in my collection in regard to making sense of the Church Of The Nine in terms of a roleplaying game. It provided me with the differences between the concepts of celibacy and chastity, and how those played in to the formation of certain strictures in real-world religions, and how to translate them into a game world without breaking the "feel" of that world. It gave me ideas on how and why clerics of certain faiths could, for instance, cause the undead to flee while others might be powerless in their presence. It brought up the concept of traditions and routines, the idea that nearly every real-world religion has certain basic, fundamental behaviors that they cling to above all other things (circumcision, for instance, or the concept of communion through transubstantiation of foodstuffs). It gave me insights into the differences between inherently peaceful and inherently warlike faiths.

Now, I realize that this entire essay thus far sounds like I'm basically trumpeting this book, and let's face it: I am. That book did for me what I am attempting to do for you with these essays: it took the ideas and knowledge that I already had and showed me a way to put them together that not only made sense, but felt like it was right. The book helped me to fill in the gaps in my campaign setting, helped me to solidify the various bits and pieces of the game world that I hadn't even realized were missing, and brought me a good, clear shot of consistency training when I needed one. Mr. Allston, in the event you ever read this: Honestly, thank you.

So where am I getting with all of this, besides go buy that bloody book? Well, first, if you are looking to understand how religion can be applied consistently and persistently across a game world, go buy that bloody book. Yes, parts of it (a lot of it) is repeated in later books by other authors. Yes, a good portion of it no longer applies mechanically to "the game," and yes, it is 20-some years old. But it is a damn good resource, and I can't say enough nice things about it. Secondly, my point with this essay is this:

It doesn't matter if you have meticulously researched your Grecian Mythos, or your Egyptian Dynasty Of Kings, or your Eastern Orthodox Christianity. You can recite names and dates and the complete lineage of Popes all you want, until you're blue in the face – none of that will matter if you can't put it all together in a way that feels like it is right. Take a moment to reflect on what I've talked about so far with the Church Of The Nine.

* It's an intruder religion. The Nine are, for all intents and purposes, usurpers of the power of the Eternal Kings. It doesn't matter if Astares and Graalis were orphans of The Sunfall (rather like their cousins Alzin and Alfin). The Eternal Kings had that power, and The Nine took it.
* The Nine either stole that power, or they took it back, using Astares and Graalis as conduits for it.
* The Nine had to ask the people of Loris to worship them. As a result, the interaction between the Church and the Gods, and also the People and the Church, is a bit of a tricky one.
* The various Gods of The Nine each have their own unique roles to play, and each of them has their own power and influence within the Church itself, as well as society as a whole.
* The Church Of The Nine influences society by maintaining a constant presence in the lives of the people – the children of the Allied Nations are educated, medicines are distributed, crops are tended. The Church Of The Nine is everywhere in society, keeping the wheels of civilization turning.
* The Church maintains statuary of the Gods, including Kolas The Outcast.
* The statues of Kolas are kept standing, but with their mouths and eyes carved out – the Gods of the Nine can apparently see, speak, and hear through their statues (or so it is believed).
* The Nine and Kolas speak to their faithful through songs – the importance of music and song is a longstanding and multi-cultural keystone in most real-world religions, taken to a higher level in Loris.

Last week, I talked about the difference between the Toybox, Sandbox, and Vacant Lot methods of world-building. I'd like to give credit where it's due and say that it was The Complete Priest's Handbook that pushed Loris out of the Toybox and into the Sandbox. All of the things I just mentioned about The Nine and their Church are a result of using the ideas, methods, and suggestions found in that book and applying them to my existing knowledge (and the things I would learn later in school and on my own) in a consistent, methodical fashion. And there's that word again: Consistency.

It would be easy to say that the only thing you really need to worry about when you're building a campaign setting for any RPG is consistency. Easy, but also wrong. Yes, consistency is a large part of it, but so too is information and comprehension. I've said this before, but as I continue on with these essays, I plan on showing you – whether you're the experienced GM or player, or the newcomer-to-the-hobby with your first set of dice and a ton of questions – how I put things together, why I put them together that way, and what it means in regards to the rest of the campaign world. I hope to provide you with information (what I did), comprehension (how I did it and why I did it), and consistency (how it impacts the rest of the game world).

Hopefully you've figured all of this out already, as you've been with me for the last quarter-year as I've trekked through these wilds. But, just in case you haven't, I hope that makes it clear, and gives you a good reason to keep coming back. I will if you will.

Under Sleeping Suns: Putting It All Together

So far, I've talked about a lot of things in relation to Loris and how it all fits together.

I've touched on how history buries all evidence of itself and how that doesn't necessarily fit in with the vast majority of Fantasy RPG worlds.

I've talked about an important historical figure and his direct and lasting influence on the culture, methods, and societal mores of the world at large.

We've had a discussion on how culture and society vary based on things like geography, politics, tradition and languages – and not simply based on the color of someone's skin or whether or not their ears are pointy.

The concept of patterns, as well as the importance of mythological currents and mainstays, has been discussed in the creation of a solid, consistent and persistent spiritual "center" for the cultures of the game world.

These pieces of World Building Theory, along with the rest of the essays (dealing with World Building Practice), have all been specifically chosen by me for one singular purpose:

To assist GM's (new and old) with getting their game worlds off of the page and into the imaginations of their players by helping them make their game worlds consistent, believable, and most of all, rich in depth and character.

Now, let's be clear: I do not pretend to be an expert or a high-demand professional when it comes to writing Fantasy RPG's. My published credentials are few (although I do have them), and even though I have been pleasantly surprised when someone at a convention comes up to me and says "Hey! You're Jim Milligan! I ran your Mekton Zeta mini-campaign set and I loved it! Even better, my players loved it!", by and large I have not made a ton of breakthroughs in the realm of self- or sponsored- publishing.

But I do know my history, and my mythology, and I know more than a little about anthropology and the theories of cultural drift and migration. And so while writing these essays, the underlying theme that I have been weaving through all of them has been a subtle one: Internal Consistency. Your game world can be the most ridiculous, absurd, comical thing in the history of all game worlds, ever, but as long as it is internally consistent, you're golden. Don't believe me? Read Terry Pratchett's Discworld series (or watch the incredibly well done television movies, they're awesome). Discworld is played for laughs just as often as it is played for subtle, macabre, insidiously clever horror, and it is rife with callbacks and references to real-world myths and fables, but it is – above all – internally consistent. Even when it isn't, even when it breaks its own rules, it breaks them in such a way as to keep the suspension of disbelief. When Pratchett breaks his own rules, he breaks them just enough to make sure you don't realize he has until the deed is done and you've already bought in to the new way of things.

Just like in the Discworld, the myths, legends, religions, cultural mores and beliefs of the real world are not always internally consistent. I'm sure that as intelligent, well-read gamers, you've noticed that simple truth as you've gone through life. And here's the nice part about that:

Knowing that religions, myths, and history often contradict themselves within their own chain of events enables me to create those same ripples and folds within the world of Loris, and make them behave in a manner that is internally consistent with the rest of the campaign setting.

Do you get where I'm going with that? I know my way around mythology and history (I'd damn well better, I studied it for 7 years in college), and because I know my way around it as well as I do, I am able to drag out the various repetitive functions and foibles of the mythological models (be they Greek, Egyptian, or what-have-you) and apply them to Loris. As well, because I understand and comprehend that history is made up of discoveries, mistakes, conflicts, and most importantly people, I can apply those things to Loris as a whole, and in the doing, create a very rich and bountiful tapestry that quickly becomes more than just a series of names and dates on a laser printed player handout. 

When creating a game world, whether you are new to the concept or a seasoned GM with numerous campaigns under your belt, it is really easy to forget that in order for your "starting town" to get to the place it is today, it had to be populated by people that came from somewhere else. The importance of that somewhere else, all the little fiddly bits and pieces of history and influential persons, are why I've been writing these essays. They are designed to show you the why's and the how's and the who's  that make up the world of Loris, and to show you how - in my own way - I have been working toward making a solid, believable campaign world.

It is really easy for a GM to say "Man, I really love this particular kind of Elf! I'm gonna stick them in this part of the game world, and then run them up against these Dwarves as their life-long enemies!"

Okay, cool. Elves and Dwarves, fighting one another. I can get behind that. But why? Why are they fighting one another? Why are they living so close to one another in the first place if they don't get along? Seems to me they'd not want to live close to each other if they don't like the other culture, right?

See, now, the new GM has to answer these questions. And these questions lead to other questions. And it never really ends.

There are two ways to build a game world, and that's one of them. I call it the "Toychest" method. It's the one where you start out small and build out and "up" from there: You pull a toy out of the chest, and make up a story about it. Then you pull another toy out of the chest, and make up a story about that. Eventually, you've got a series of toys on the floor, each with their own story – and they may not always fit together seamlessly, but you will always get an interesting tale out of it. Here's a good example of a "Toychest" game world:

You begin play in your home town. One day, while you and your friends are out hunting for deer in the forest, you return home to find that a Green Dragon has come in and destroyed your entire village. Your quest now becomes the goal of gaining enough skill and power to kill the Green Dragon, and in so doing, you venture out into the world around you.

In this example, the GM builds the world as you go, and you and your companions find new and exciting adventures – but all along the way, your GM is answering those questions. Why are there Elves fighting Dwarves here? Why is there a forest right up against this desert? What happened in those mountains over there?

This is a perfectly reasonable and viable method, and I've done it more than a few times myself. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. It can be immense fun and I enjoy doing it.

Another method is the "Sandbox" method – The GM sits down and says "I have this big blank sheet of paper, and on it I'm going to draw a map. And on the map, I'm going to put these five civilizations, and they will interact in this fashion. And these races shall be here in the North, and these here in the South, and these others over here in the East. And there shall be magic, and it's going to be awesome."

The advantage of the "Sandbox" game world is that it's really big, and from a macro level, the GM can pick you up and put you down anywhere, and you'll be able to know that there will be something there to interact with. Sandbox games are usually found in the form of pre-packaged campaign worlds. The Forgotten Realms, for instance, can be considered a published sandbox-method campaign setting – just one that's already had all of the fiddly bits filled in and set down for the GM.

The big disadvantage of the sandbox-method for building a campaign world is that, unless the setting is completely under the control of one particular GM (say, your very own home-brewed campaign world), where you go with your game will not always be where the creators want to go with the game. This ends up with the "Well, that's not what happened in my game!" syndrome coming to pass every time the creators release a new supplement. While not the biggest drawback, it can be frustrating.

Loris, however, was built using what I call the "Vacant Lot" method. Think about a vacant lot. The one down the street from your home, where something once stood, but stands there no longer. There's now a big patch of land there, and at first blush, it seems empty and barren. But if you look, there are little remnants of its history, things that have been there since the house was standing. An old doll, or a few pieces of broken furniture. Some pieces of the foundation may be found, covered by weeds and the turned-over dirt of the lot. This is where I started my entire world-building method with the question of "What happens when all the Gods of a world die, and new ones show up to replace them?" In essence, I generated a vacant lot and started building on it: the world of Loris is built on the castings and remnants of a world that has come before it. Just like in the real world, where nearly every civilization in history has been built on the remnants of those who've come before it, Loris is built on the old vacant lot. As it is built, it incorporates the little bits of character and remnants of the previous house, as it were.

So how does this all tie together? Well, hopefully, Under Sleeping Suns will provide new and established GM's with all three methods of World Building in a neat and tidy package. How?

In last week's post, I was asked the following question:

"How do you intend to help new GMs in their world-construction exercises?"

 

The answer I gave spoke about internal consistency and the persistence of history, and talked about providing a sort of a-la carte method to allow the GM to craft their own path in the game world – by choosing from a series of Scenarios, Root Causes, and Impacts, the GM, essentially, gets to play around with a toy chest in a sandbox on the Vacant Lot that is the world of Loris. The framework – the world of Loris itself – is the vacant lot. The magic, cultures, myths, and peoples of Loris are the toys from the toychest. The maps and nations and meta-plot allusions are the sandbox.

At least, that's the operating theory.