World of the Stick[edit]

Campaign Guide Revised: 10-13-2006 By: Janx Jelantru

Legal Stuff[edit]

The World of the Stick is a campaign world in the style of Rich Burlew's Order of the Stick web-comic. It is not based on the same world or characters for copyright reasons. It is the intention of this work to create a world similar to the concept presented in OOTS, but it must be its own work. You can see the Order of the Stick(OOTS) at the following URL: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html

Because OOTS is owned by Rich Burlew, we cannot include any of his artwork, nor can we include any artwork that was modified from his. I say this, because somebody may be tempted to add some art to this work, just make sure you own it.

Furthermore, this work is intended to be compatible with the SRD. Here's a link to the OGL: http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/OGLv1.0a.rtf Here's a link to the nicely formatted SRD: http://www.d20srd.org/index.htm

Everything hosted at the URL http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php?title=Eurastika: is considered open content (makes sense, this being a wiki site). If the URL you're reading starts with that, it's open content.

Summary[edit]

The campaign world one in which the characters are aware of the D&D rules and terminology. In role-playing, they may refer to their own class and stats openly. The art style of the world is "stick figure" and it is accepted as normal that everyone is a stick figure. This gives the campaign a humorous tone, though the entire game should not be run as a joke.

In this world, characters know their stats. They know how many ranks they have in a particular skill. They accept that dungeons are vast underground structures consisting of rooms connected by hallways. Their Knowledge (Arcana) skill may reveal useful stats about the Collosal Red Dragon they're facing.

The World of the Stick is one that is created through random tables. Dungeons come from random generators. Villages and Cities come from random generators. Even NPCs are often randomly generated. It creates a stereotypical view of the D&D world. In fact, this campaign is about embracing the D&D rules as the known physics of the world. If it's in the rules, its realistic from the point of view of its denizens.

Cosmology[edit]

The world is called "Eurastika" by its denizens. The world is flat, with a wrap-around characteristic, should one travel the 26,000 miles to find out. The sun is a light source that resides 20,000 miles above the plane. The sun travels a path from East to West across the equator of the world (the middle as determined by the path the sun takes). It exists in all positions along the equator at the same time. (a dilema for whoever discovers quantum physics in this world to solve). Thus, from any position on the ground, it appears that the sun rises and sets. It also will be "midnight" at the same time, anywhere on the plane. The day/night cycle is 24 hours. The plane tilts along the equatorial axis seasonally, which causes the seasons, temperature variance, and varying length in daylight hours.

Eurastika has a single moon that travels diagonaly across the equator from a north-east to south-west direction. this causes it to appear in varying positions across the world. The moon exists as normal entity, and truly does appear different when viewed at the same time from different places.

Science Content[edit]

The sun appearing in all positions along the equator is a quantum physics effect. Basically, the sun exists in such a state that it hasn't determined it's starting position, and thus exists in all posible starting positions along the equator. It's momentum keeps it moving, so it effectively shifts position along the equator. The sun is not a big entity, being close enough to the plane provide its warmth. It is still hot enough that if one were able to travel to it, proximity would be fatal.

The wrap-around effect isn't really scientific, you might claim it as a curvature of space problem. However, the plane really is flat. When sailing, ships on the horizon are just really tiny, as opposed to only being able to see the crow's nest, as the rest of the ship is obscured.

The plane tilt will cause seasonal effect farther away from the equator, because as the plane tilt brings the northern half closer to the sun, getting it more heat. Technically, there's a little problem with what happens to the southern half, since it is technically, just north of the northern half, if you get our meaning. Somehow it all works out though. Perhaps the wrap-around effect only works east-west, and not along the northern/southern borders. it's too cold there to find out.

The last problem to solve is the whole distance of the sun to the plane, size of the world, and the appearance of night (aka lack of visible sunlight). Since the world isn't round, the sun can't hide behind the other half. If the world width is very wide, and the sun height is not very high, then as the sun recedes from your position, it will be mostly obscured from view due to the landscape. At most, there will be a glow on the horizon all night.