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68 Years ago technology started to flourish and machinery became more common throughout the world, mining operations became more intense and eventually wars began to spread across nations because of the rapid border expansion over contested areas. The commonfolk called it the Age of Greed because every Lord and King wanted to own as much land as possible to dig for minerals, but it didn't stop there.
Border wars became more common where people would use this new technology not only to mine more efficient, but also to wage wars at a larger and more destructive way. Machines of war called 'Mechs' started to appear more and more often on the battlefields which cost more and more minerals to make as well as magic components since many wanted to magically enhance them for durability as well. This war was called the Arcane-Technological conflict or "ArcaTech-tural Conflict" and scarred the earth horribly, but one day something went very wrong during one of the excavations.
Several miles down in the earth one of the teams had dug down farther than anyone had before and broke through an earthen wall where a wine-red mist started to slowly belch out of the hole. Creatures that came in contact with this mist became insane, starting to attack each other or themselves. Needless to say communcations with the excavation team was suddenly lost and on the surface the people who looked down into the shafts could see the lights go out one by one as the intangible substance rose from the darkness.
Not before long this mist had crept up from the shafts and started to spread itself out from this remote location and affect nearby villages and cities. Contact was lost in many places, only the cities with really tall walls and gates tightly sealed enough survived and some people starved to death as they were stuck in towers or places with high enough ground.
All the warring ceased and an uneasy silence settled over the lands as the mist spread, but the biggest problem was yet to come.. the starvation. Crops became unreachable because of this and Clerics in every city was busied with the task of continuously creating food and drink for the population, exhausting themselves to no end day after day as engineers and arcane casters alike banded together to find a solution.
A year later while a messenger was flying the skies high above the wine-red mist he discovered something truly amazing, a floating mass of lands high up in the sky. Why this hasn't been discovered before is as good as anyone's guess, but this was reported to the first nation attempting to populate the skies, Rerios. After this discovery all of the neighbouring nations started to look towards the skies for a better place, sending scouting parties to explore and find more land to found new cities.
(More updates soon! Thanks for all your continued support and advice thus far!)
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Very cool. Though the "no on saw the floating rocks in the sky before" lacks continuity. It would be interesting if parts of the former landmass rose up after the mist cataclysm. No one is sure why or how they rose, but they did.
This way you can also have some elements of the former civilization. Ancient caves, chunks of cities, etc. You could have buildings floating that weren't designed to be floating. Just my 2c.
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Brother Alester, just want to say your nation list looks pretty frackin' cool. If that were the advertising blurb for a campaign setting book I'd be looking for somewhere I could buy it right now.
Wow, thank you! You have no idea how much that means to me, it's kinda embarrassing at the same time though. =P
Maybe at some point I will try and make this published as an unofficial module, though I'm unsure how the mechs and some 3.5 rule setting would fit in.Don't forget the Strix!
Strix are awesome.
That's true and alternatively it can be one of the the creature types from Itah! Thanks!
I recommend Fire as She Bears. Sure, it has some flaws, but it's far better than anything Paizo has done for naval combat.
Excellent, I'll make sure to order the book when I get an opportunity. I need more data about actual naval warfare!
The interior typically is either Steam or Magic Powered and uses something similar to Eberron's Elemental Rings for that bottom halo to actually fly.
That's an interesting way to make it work, I'm slightly uncertain about the speed of such an aircraft but it does look like a stealth-ship with its sleek design. I'll save this link for further references, thanks!
Recommend playing the Strix Race, Aasimar or Tiefling templates. Let players be boarding party and have mundane crew to handle the ship. Do not go easy on the players at all, skies are a hazard as much as the sea. Make mundane items available like parachutes, possibly safety rigs for the ship itself such as 'life-boats'. Make large grappling hooks available as cannon shots to board other ships.
I haven't heard of Strix before, but from all the suggestions it seems worth looking into and adding. I did not intend to go easy on the players, I was throwing out possibilities for making an aerial campaign more appealing instead of intimidating. Maybe it's just me that start thinking about the problems more than the possibilities.
Mundane items will be available, most certainly and the safety rigs does sound like a good thing to have prepared on a ship much like airbags in a car. Grappling hooks will be available, thanks for your input!.. the "no on saw the floating rocks in the sky before" lacks continuity. It would be interesting if parts of the former landmass rose up after the mist cataclysm.
Now that you mention it you are absolutely right, I will retcon it to reflect more accurately on the cosmical chaos that derives from letting the Mist loose. It will make for a more dramatical standpoint rather than a mere perfect coincidence, thanks!
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Look at the bright side: You get exploding red mist vents that erupt like huge detonations, launching big parts of the landscape into the air.
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Look at the bright side: You get exploding red mist vents that erupt like huge detonations, launching big parts of the landscape into the air.
That's good. Also could explain if/when more landmasses rose into the air. They would be new resources that nations could compete over. Also the mist geysers would make being anywhere near the mist dangerous as it would be much more chaotic and less stagnant than having it just hover near the surface.
edit: Ohh! Also it would allow some of the mist to be "trapped" on floating rocks in low lying areas. Like lakes of this mist that have to be drained off before that area is useable. Basically, just more dangers of the newly "discovered" landmasses. Perhaps some groups use these mist pockets for a nefarious means, like creating powerful magical war weapons. Hell, just bottling the stuff and launching it at your enemies would be detrimental. All the more reason for keeps and the like to have "runoff channels" so that any mist would naturally run off the side like water.
Not sure if these were mentionned:
- altitude sickness... different birds can't go as high into the sky as others (thin air and stuff... also popping ears)
- another air-ship design idea: eberron had them in their setting... they were driven by (enslaved) air/fire elementals.
- magical cannons: magically enchanted cannons that fire "magic missle"-like force effects at enemy ships
If you assume the same levels of pressure caused the detonations, the altitude of the floating island would depend mainly on size, giving you smaller flying islands the higher up you go. If the red mist is heavier than air, you get the aforementioned pools of the stuff, mistfalls from various islands, and the possibility of making defenses that have a pretty good chance of withstanding it.
So here is the Strix:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/uncommon-races/arg-strix
They live in Cheliax but are in the devil something mountains. During Cheliax's good years before the living god died these guys were called "Black Devils" but these days they are just seen as reclusive and hateful of humanity. I guess generations of mass genocide will do that.
They can fly 60ft a round (average) which translates to 240 for a full round run, 300 if they have the run feat and are in light or no armor.
Tieflings with the Variant system (The feat is not required. It was put there to tie up a feat slot for NPCs.) can levitate themselves + 10lbs per the spell as a SLA so they could fall off and survive.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/featured-races/arg-tiefling
Aasimar with their variant race can get wings can gain a fly 20ft (poor).
NOTE: The variant builds on these guys come with different SLAs. If they choose any of the variant abilities from the dice chart then that REPLACES the SLA. So, an Aasimar who cannot cast daylight, but can fly instead. A Tiefling who cannot cast Darkness, but can instead levitate.
If you wanted to give everyone flight (4 race points) then you'd need to balance that with something like 2 feats (2 race points each) or something.
You could also give them Wings of Flying, or heavily encourage them to pick these up. They could be forced into debt with 1/2 of all their gold going to said debt or something. These wings give them a fly speed of 60ft (average) and all they have to do is say the command word.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/wings -of-flyinG
Airships would be awesome, perhaps have somebody who has to maintain and repair the engine and keep it from exploding or whatever
Water supplies and living space, steal or trade for survival, take large amounts of land below the skies and bigotry.That's right.. Because there is no way for unlimited water
There is, it's the easiest thing to deal with and mostly requires infrastructure and one to two gp per person once otherwise.
USGS says average US person uses 80-100gal per day. Decanter of Endless Water puts out 5gal per second on highest setting, resulting in the average US consumption being met every 20 seconds=3 people per min =180 people per hour =4320 people's requirements met per day.So devide population by 4320 and get twice that number of decanters and you're set for water. If you have a wizard to make it at the cheap rate it's about a gp per person one time and building the tanks/delivery method.
Well I think Shin & Orphan can cover massive distances...
I think Eberron's Airships were 30 Miles in a Day.
Sorry I was reading something else there... I was reading the speed for something the size of the Orphan not the Big Orphan.
So something akin to an Air Dingy.
@Journ-O-LST-380-100 gallons a day is obscenely high by medieval standards. Please don't forget that they generally had to cart water up by the bucket from a well or stream.
each persons use per day probably averaged out closer to 4 gallons. They didn't bathe every day, and when they did a family shared the bath water. they also didn't have a full sized tub. more like an oversized bucket you might be able to squeeze into, if they didn't just wash with rags and a small bucket of water.
major water consumption would be for crops and livestock. I'm not exactly sure how large land masses floating in the air would affect updrafts and rain cloud formation.
I would not be surprised if floating landmasses encouraged warmer moist air to be redirected upwards, where it could cool and form miniature fronts, aka more common localized rain showers.
Yes but if you have the infrastructure people will use more, and I took a high number to provide wiggle room.
Also, PATHFINDER IS NOT MEDIVEAL, to harp on a pet peeve of mine.
They actually used Public Shared Baths that had a cycling on the Water to where there was a small current that refreshed the water. The dirty water would be used for clothes washing and other tasks like that.
Only the wooders would use the washing basins.
There would be a pretty serious problem of pressure and the hose blowing up.
Dot.
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Thank you all for your attention to this thread, I will continue to update this thread as soon as I am done moving to another country and I apologize for the delayed responses. Once there I will have loads of free-time to build this campaign, post my suggestions and conclusions here.
Again, thank you all!
Just note that some might post their ideas here and make this a community resource thread.
Another setting that could be fun for you, or someone reading this, is called Sundered Skies for Savage Worlds. In that setting, the setting starts where another setting ended. The world blew up and there are floating parts of the world and people fly around in ships. Yeah it is for a different system, but it would work fine in Pathfinder. In my opinion Pathfinder runs fantasy better than Savage Worlds does. But that might be because my idea of fantasy is largely shaped by playing D&D as I grew up.
Well as far as I can tell they are at least not Feudal but they are Medieval Level of Tech with Renaissance Level of Knowledge.
Remember that Medieval Tech is still used today. (The basis behind the gear dates back to the early Roman Empire or earlier.)