Illusees's page

Ain't no party like a Ravenloft party.

Krinia takes your hand and leads you across the pulpit to where a very short, elderly man is standing with his back to you, conversing with a group of students in a thick accent: "And then I grabbed him by the ears, put my fingers right into the holes, and scrambled his brains like a big, rotten egg! The other giants just laughed until they wet themselves! Aye, shocking grasp, fine spell. Take my class and you'll learn that and a hundred more uses for it!" he shouts, apparently concluding a rather exciting tale.

Krinia chuckles softly and chimes in: "Froud, I have someone who would like to speak with you."

The group of students dissipate as the old man turns toward you. The first thing you notice is the stark white beard covering most of his upper body, which is tucked into a wide leather belt on his waist. Hooking over the top of the beard is a long nose that resembles a hawk's beak, and two deep-set eyes glimmering brightly under a pair of bushy white eyebrows. The blue robe he wears is sleeveless, revealing two grizzled, hairy arms with stout muscles. It is then you realize that this man must be a dwarf, who you know are like cousins to your people, but are rarely seen above-ground.

"Hello, young lady. And who are you?" he asks, peering at you with his twinkling eyes.

I come from a land down under, where halfling wizards roll and half-ogres Thunder.

As the Company wanders down the path to town, Cereanos makes an arcane gesture with his hand and utters a couple of spidery words under his breath, casting prestidigitation. He holds his hands at eye level and causes the rain in front of his face to change colors as if part of a rainbow. It then coalesces into a small orb, and he swallows it. "Hm. Strawberry." he smiles, seemingly amused by his own antics, his playful nature deceiving the darkness of his true self. When his amusement is satisfied he falls in with the others, basking in the moisture choking the air.

After going through the process myself, I've found certain things that work for me and certain things that don't. That is to say, to start with, you should decide which techniques appeal to you the most after looking into it. Some people will say that bottom-up is the only way to go, others say that top-down works best overall, but I used a pretty decent mix of both and filled in the blanks from there.

The first step I suggest you take is to find a blank notebook, blog, Obsidian Portal account, or something similar to organize your work. It will be radically convenient later on when you need to start connecting little things together (X nation was founded when Y nation ended and Z race migrated there, etc.). Cross-referencing your notes becomes important after a while, and the more organized you start, the better off you'll be in the long run. This was something I learned the hard way, after years of having ideas and not recording them and then forgetting them or worse, improving them and forgetting the changes later on. Even after I started writing things down, I've had to re-organize a couple of times due to laziness on my part. Not a fun thing to do with a 50-page word document, heh.

You'll need a map eventually, so why not make it the first thing you do? You don't even need a world map unless you're going extremely top-down, a single continent or even a single region will do. Even most officially published campaign worlds focus on a single continent or part of one, and it seems to work well enough for them.

As for making the map itself, there is a lot of trial and error involved. Some fundamental research on real-world geography will go a long way towards helping you. As quirthanon said, the World Builder's Guidebook is very useful in this regard. I referenced that book countless times in my own work. Finding a copy (digital or otherwise) is highly recommended.

Form an idea of the types of terrain you want to feature, from forests, to plains, deserts to swamps and so on, and figure out how these types of terrain interact with one another. Research will be your friend here and really throughout the entire process, so familiarize yourself with ways of finding information as well.

The medium(s) you use to create the map will depend heavily on how much time and effort you want to spend on it. Map creating software exists but can be pricey and often requires huge investment of time to learn the program and use it, but the trade-off is they produce maps of decent to fantastic visual quality. Using an image editing program such as MS paint or Photoshop has many of the same pros and cons. Old-fashioned pen-and-paper drawing is cheap, easy and can be fun, but unless you have some artistic ability may not live up to your ideals. Again, this step majorly involves trying different things and finding which you feel comfortable with. There really is no wrong way to go about drawing the map as long as you (and eventually your players!) are satisfied with the end result. Personally, I use the old 2nd ed. AD&D Core Rules Program which has a built-in mapping program for overland, city and dungeon maps, and has a very simple "point and click" interface. It also includes a very early version of the Campaign Cartographer software, but unlike the other program, has a steep learning curve.

I realize this post is a wall of text but maybe someone can get some use out of it. I can continue on with other aspects of world building if someone would like, otherwise I'll crawl back into my wizard tower and hope someone finds this useful!

Here is the heraldry for The Order of The Lion. An Obsidian Portal page detailing the order will be up soon.

I can't see more healing as being a bad thing, but this is coming from someone who doesn't enjoy dying, haha.

Hi there, prospecting player for Heart of Journeys here. I'll be submitting a character within the next day or so, probably a dwarf cleric of Pharasma focused on healing.

The fact that you feel the need to defend yourself not just in the threads you post in, but to create an entire thread dedicated to your 'creepy fantasies' means not only that you have a psychosis, but that you are so far lost inside of it that you must draw attention to it at every possible opportunity. This whole thread is an admission of guilt on your part.

The fact that even when the center of attention is not on you and yet you continually twist the events of the game and other players' words, as I have seen in numerous play-by-post games that you have participated in, to suit your own fantasies says something about you. I've also watched you cheat repeatedly (don't think I don't pay attention), and while that is an aside, it only serves to show what kind of person you are. Personally I find you insufferable and while I do hope you find the help that you so desperately need, I also hope that you will some day be no longer allowed to sully these boards with your presence and the filth that you post.

No one cares about your 'symbolism' or the type of character you want to play. No one cares to hear you explain why you play the same character in every game. No one cares whether you are a pedophile or not, because the fact is, you have no place posting that filth here in the first place. No one wants to read the disgusting things you post.

You need help and I suggest you look elsewhere for it. This outcry of attention would do much better falling on the ears of a psychologist. We can't get you to admit your true problems or find the outlet you need, so take it somewhere else.

http://www.findcounseling.com/help/hotlines/california.html Here is a list of hotlines and organisations you may contact to get help four yourself. I strongly suggest you do so, for your sake.