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Florafaunar is a home-brew setting of pathfinder that is designed to focus on the adventures of faeries, 'cultured animals', Intelligent insects, tiny constructs, and the numerous variants of borrowers(tiny versions of the pathfinder races we know and love). The Scale of the setting is tiny as medium, which puts diminutive and fine into small and tiny respectably. this also renders the entirety of the residual elements into several scales larger than normal. Now even a rabbit is a terrifying concept to face.
Fortunately, whether it be naturally intense magic or the clever engineering of the people of the setting, weapons and items from pathfinder directly cross into the world of Florafaunar. Even Firearms, which you will need to survive the worlds you are in.
Gods are an interesting element of the setting, being that there are the pathfinder gods as well as other gods who hold dominion over Florafaunar. these gods are based on the aspects of the seasons, ideas and on the principles of the various clans.
Are you looking for feedback on the concept? Help developing it? Other?
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Are you looking for feedback on the concept? Help developing it? Other?
Help in developing it. The setting is at the moment one where I have a lot of ideas for lore, just very little in the way of the kind of creatures of gods I want to inhabit the setting alongside some of the other pathfinder gods. The clans are the societal structure that ends up differentiating the fay, much like the cities and nations did in pathfinder.
The clans so far are...
The Royal courts:the nobles and Servents of king Oberon and queen titania(both living gods of the setting). They are all about serving the will of their monarch, though some wish to also expand their power.
The Hedge clans:lead by the barons and lesser nobles, these fay are the bulk of the royal courts main forces, and they often fight. Not just against the dangers to their way of life, but also against the oppression of some fairy nobles. They mostly seek to have representation within the courts of Oberon so they can defend their rights.
The Shade clans:formed from exiled Subjects and nobles of Oberon and Titania, the shade clans residence in the marshes and bogs has exposed them to the teachings of the dark hags, ultimatly making them adept in the art of subterfuge, dark magic and trickery. This benefits some of the more vengeful nobles dark designs on the world.
The greenwood alliance:the only group of fay to have been given independace from Oberon, the greenwood have formed them selves from a multitude of different races, from the brownies, to the tribalistic pixies, to the spirits of water,air and earth.
The Dust clans:Fay that have gone into exile in the barren dust planes and deserts of Florafaunar. These fay live a nomadic life alongside the barren's wildlife, becoming experts in mounted combat and life in the wilds.
The hobgoblin confederacy:formerly fay of the warren clans, these once vain creatures were humbled by Oberon, cursed with stunted magic and repulsive features. These goblins have adapted to this reduction in magic by becoming tougher, more resistant to magic, and have been notorious for making pacts with dark creatures from the rifts, making them more malevolent. By forming alliances with the oppressed mountain elves, and the stoic and deeply religious mountain trolls, the confederacy is protected from direct retaliation by Oberon.
The Goblin principality: Goblins that followed the betrayer hooknose out of the warrens, these learned the secrets of alchemy, metalergy and civilisation, forming a merchant state that profited from the sale of altered iron to the fay kingdoms, granting them the means to make stronger weapons and armour without suffering the debilitating effects that iron has on their bodies. This money helped make the goblin principality one of the strongest civilisations outside the fay kingdoms.
The hive clans:some fay have taken to the worship of powerful insect queens over loyalty to Oberon, and have taken to living among the insects whose queens they serve. They are believed to be preparing for a uprising to bring the whole world into their state of enlightenment.
The fae-eaters:Not much is known about this collection of fay, though rumours are abound that cannibalism is practiced among these relatively unknown fay. The few reports seem to indicate they were of a primal quality, with a societal structure following an alpha over any sort of established monarchy. Regardless, these shifting groups have proven to be extremely dangerous and have the strength and coordination to bring down massive prey with reletive ease. The disappearances and depopulation of several Settlements in their area has given cause to take extreme care when encountering such individuals.
Is the standard creature size in this world going to be medium, or will the abundance of fey make small and tiny the norm?
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Is the standard creature size in this world going to be medium, or will the abundance of fey make small and tiny the norm?
It's the latter, as there are no medium races in Florafaunar. When people from Golorian or other worlds portal in, the natural magics of the world put them into the worlds closest equivalent(namely borrowers). Actually the native borrowers are supposed to be the result of a planer expedition gone wrong in the past, and the have not found a way to get back to their original worlds. it is believed that borrowers were responsible for introducing technology and science to Florafaunar's goblins, making them one of the most advanced races in the setting.
Small(in Golorian terms) would be considered large here, if you consult the relative size chart, so if you encounter a troll, it's like meeting a giant or colossus. Tarrasques fortunately don't exist in this setting, because considering that Golorian has trouble dealing with them, this world would be a mess if only one tarrasque arrived.
Methods of travel(since everything is so big) is extremely varied. Generally air travel is the most common, since sprites naturally have wings, there are almost billions of methods of getting into the air, and Gravity is very forgiving to small things. This can backfire easily as there are also thousands of things that can, and will try to eat you/kill you, and many are also very capable at aerial attacks, adapted to hunt flying prey, or are just big,mean and tough.
Seems like a neat concept. Have you seen Land of the Giants? A 1950s or 1960s TV show about normal folk trapped in a world where everyone else is Giant-sized.
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I have not seen land of the Giants, though I have seen the likes of 'honey, i shrunk the kids', am familiar with 'the borrowers', watched 'Arthur and the invisibles', and have a familiarity with insects, and the small world they enhabit. After that, some of the inspirations were a combination of alice in wonderland, red wall, narnia, Fairy meat(bizzarely), and other fictions where the small worlds and large worlds collide.
I think this is a fantastic and creative idea!
It still isn't clear to me either, exactly what type of help you're looking for?
Content creation? Worldbuilding help? Designing different fey-folk to be part of the world?
Also, you gotta have pseudodragons. Pseudodragons (and other tiny dragons) are bomb.
The reason I ask about creature sizes is that I think you should change the scale of the game mechanically. You're familiar with the reach rules for tiny creatures, right? Well if most every thing is tiny, then it makes no sense for them to be five feet apart with a reach of 0 feet.
For example, represent a tiny fairy on the battle map with a medium figurine and five it reach of 1 square. Instead of a square represting 5 feet, say tha it about 1 foot. The area of effect of spells and some other abilities would need some work. For simplicity, if a tiny wizard cast fireball, divide the radius by 5. The diameter is 8 squares/8 feet instead of 40 squares/40 feet.
A diminutive creature would still occupy 1 square and be treated the normal small creature - the way that halflings and gnomes are in the normal rules.
A "small" goblin in your world would be represented by a large figurine, and follow rules for large creatures.
A warthog would be... gargantuan?
By extention, all of your plantlife would be much larger. a leafy dandelion would probably grant cover and a rosebush could become something quite massive. The root system under a tree could be a "dungeon".
The reason I ask about creature sizes is that I think you should change the scale of the game mechanically. You're familiar with the reach rules for tiny creatures, right? Well if most every thing is tiny, then it makes no sense for them to be five feet apart with a reach of 0 feet.
For example, represent a tiny fairy on the battle map with a medium figurine and five it reach of 1 square. Instead of a square represting 5 feet, say tha it about 1 foot. The area of effect of spells and some other abilities would need some work. For simplicity, if a tiny wizard cast fireball, divide the radius by 5. The diameter is 8 squares/8 feet instead of 40 squares/40 feet.
I believe this is exactly their plan - that's how I read it anyway.
The one real hassle here, I think, is converting stat blocks and such.
If you're calling "Tiny" the new medium, do you adjust all creature's dex down by -4 (or 2? it isn't applied consistently), str by +4, etc? I think you would have to.
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That's kind of the idea. The borrowers idea is so I don't need to convert as many stat blocks of the general pathfinder races. As for monsters, remembering to have a size conversion sheet is all I need to do for now. This also opens the doors for quick switch setting changes from Golorian to Florafaunar, like if the players are initially pursuing a band of cultists when one drops a planar gate, a mistake suddenly changes the gates destination and the party follows them through the portal. The gate closes, and they (and the cultists) realise that their destination is a little odd, since the seem to be fighting very large insects and animals. Probably then explore the world, meet the locals and try to find a way back to Golorian.
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Since a lot of the races, like sprites, atomies, and brownies have wings, which not all borrowers have for obvious reasons, it would be a good thing to have an item like the sail cloth from skyward sword, or a wingsuit made of spider silk, with balloons for decent. The setting. Since they are quite cheap out of neccesity. A rope and grapple would also not go amiss. After all, manoeuvring through the large world and dungeons would be very hard without one, and there are a lot of uses for grappling hooks against those really large foes.
There are also uplifted creatures within the setting, animals and insects given the power of understanding and the capacity to wield weapons like any other race. So there will be mice adventurers, as well as other adventures from the animal kingdom(though they probably need 4 limbs and some measure of hand dexterity to wield weapons and equipment. Insects have a more interesting time, since they have six limbs, but they count as having only 2 arms, since they need 4 limbs on the ground to wield their weapons. So that limits the amount of 4 armed silliness normally associated with multi limbed races.
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I might even make a borrower race for the main setting of Golorian.
Because the borrowers are so small, they lack the general capacity to build civilisation in the same way as the 'big people'. so they borrow, taking useful items and food and exchanging them with other things they made for themselves. Since many live in the shadow of larger civilisations, with larger, more dangerous creatures, most are Terrified about the prospect of being discovered by 'the big people', since normally such discoveries are followed by a swift and often violent death by being crushed, eaten, torn apart or other possible methods of killing very small creatures.
Borrowers are not especilally skilled at magic anymore than the average human, but they have adapted to use their naturally small size to climb, sneak, and even scale larger foes, striking at weak spots in a larger beasts armor, dealing considerable damage for their small size.
Borrowers can be born from other borrowers, and some humans can become borrowers through magical accident, experimentation, or even being cursed. Regardless, most borrowers accounts and history indicate that they may have originated from other planes, leading to theories and speculation about the long term effects of planar gates and the dangers of using faulty planar travel.
Probably going to take up elements from micro sized adventures, in addition to some abilities to compliment a full range of classes. These are for Golorian only, though they can be translated to Florafaunar with relatively little effort.
Mechanically, are you keeping the PCs the same size and scaling up the monsters and other effects?
Maybe reducing everything by a factor of 12, linearly, so a human has a speed of 30 inches, can take a 5 inch step, their longbows have a range of 100 inches, fireball with a 20 inch radius, etc.?
And then just make Colossal-sized bunnies? Terrible, terrible bunnies of death?
Or are the PCs going to be 6 inches high and still have to worry about 20 foot radius fireballs?
Midge swarms would be terrifying!!!
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Mechanically, are you keeping the PCs the same size and scaling up the monsters and other effects?
Maybe reducing everything by a factor of 12, linearly, so a human has a speed of 30 inches, can take a 5 inch step, their longbows have a range of 100 inches, fireball with a 20 inch radius, etc.?
And then just make Colossal-sized bunnies? Terrible, terrible bunnies of death?
Or are the PCs going to be 6 inches high and still have to worry about 20 foot radius fireballs?
Midge swarms would be terrifying!!!
you got it there, though it depends what you want with the setting for power scale. do you want it to be every thing to scale, like the as with the first, or do you want the ridiculous, over-the-top power level of spells being the same scale as golorian, because then i would probably add in cover altering the blast, as well as knock back for when the fireball explodes like a microsized sun.
I would say have the first more than the second, but allow for the second if you really want to.