#sunny junk

[gildedcities]

things my players have done so far:

summoned a rhino inside a church

used the rhino to bluff their way into the palace by pretending to be envoys from another country bringing it as tribute to the prince

continued to bluff their way through dinner with the prince and a bunch of nobles

bought weed for a bored rich girl

threw handfuls of gold at racist nobles, thus instigating a fight

[gildedcities]

Welcome to Naddred; the gateway to the Five Cities on Dararen's western coast. She steams gently in the muggy Summer air, her many canals afloat with gondolas and barges and glittering in the high, hot sun. 

[gildedcities]

TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT

first time DMing, first time introducing the setting

I’M NERVOUS

[gildedcities]

got everybody onto roll20 to test it out and my map has been improved

[gildedcities]

I’m making a lot of good progress, I think I should be ready to start soon!

[gildedcities]

“Mage” as I’m using it in my setting isn’t meant to be a class, it’s more a legal classification. Technically, any class of magic user can qualify as a Mage, Wizards just have several factors that make it easier for them to qualify, therefor most Mages are Wizards. Sorcerers occasionally pass the tests to qualify as Mages, though they often lack the control required. Warlocks must keep the true source of their powers secret since communing with demons and other similar entities is illegal, but if they can do that successfully they could possibly qualify. Paladins and Clerics aren’t considered Mages, but due to their status in the church, they receive the same benefits and legal/social status. Druids rarely spend enough time in the cities or care enough about their affairs to bother trying to qualify, and Bardic magic rarely meets the requirements.

[gildedcities]

one aspect of my setting I really want to get into eventually (and it’s the sort of thing that like, narrative-wise, wouldn’t come in until later in the story anyway) is the history I built in, that thousands of years ago the world was wilder and more full of magic, and that there aren’t just ruins and artifacts from this time, but bits of ancient magic too

the borders between worlds were thinner back then, and it was easier for beings from other planes to cross, and Gods walked the world and mages powerful enough to almost become gods themselves waged war on each other, leaving great fissures and wastelands in some parts of the world, and in others pockets of magic that might do anything from keep a forest of sentient trees alive to curse anyone who unknowingly gets too close

that’s the age when the Elves had their great, world-spanning civilization, which fell to some cataclysm so destructive no history survives to record what it even was, and now not even the Elves themselves remember much of their ancient culture except for echos, traditions and rituals they keep alive without knowing why

and I really like the idea of like, certain species of monsters being things that were created by some ancient wizard or something, especially the ones that are clearly some form of hybrid of two animals, or a regular animal with a magical mutation

like chimeras, they’re obviously magic-created

and like

carnivorous

horses

>:]

[gildedcities]

I’m still waffling on if I’m gonna have the Kenku in my campaign use the “can only make sounds they’ve heard before, therefor speak mostly by making sound effects” thing from the books or not

like, it’s sorta cool? but I also feel like... okay, so maybe their mouths/throats aren’t as good for speaking Common as some of the other races, but they also have like... “human” level brains, right? so shouldn’t they be able to listen to people speaking Common and learn to mimic language, effectively learning to speak it?

like, birds who can mimic (like corvids) don’t “speak” the way humans do because... animal brain stuff I’m not smart enough to expound upon

but a humanoid bird with a brain on par with a human... there’s no reason they couldn’t learn to converse with others, yeah?