LetsBuild5e:Questions

Currently voting

Geography

What's your take on the map that was posted to the thread [1]?

1: Let's go with Kelly's map.
2: I'd like to see some other options first.
3: Something's missing that I'd like to discuss before we finalise the map.

What's the nearest large city like?

(Question by Unka Josh)

1: A military base left behind from a great war, its civil officers all bearing honorary military ranks, its mayor called a "General" despite having no military command, its fashions based around imitating mail and plate with cloth.
2: A floating city formed out of a vast armada all chained together, with different neighborhoods formed by ships of a style of a given nation.
3: A city built out over the Tallest Tree in the World. Living in its shadow is a slum of exiles from the city; refuse from the city above rains down on them, and they live in perpetual shadow.
4: The Bonehunter City, built next to a chasm that's full of the stony bones of long-dead animals no one has seen before. Scholars and necromancers are constantly digging more of these bones, or paying workers to do the digging for them... or paying adventurers to steal prize specimens from each other.
5: The capital of the vanished half-orc empire, its villas long taken over by now-evicted mages, and its overgrown training grounds far more than the current militia require.

Politics and Society

Which PC race is unusually unpopular, and why?

1: Dwarves. It's generally held that the dwarves left the current dark side swiftly and in good order without helping the other nations; dwarves are often blamed for the resulting hardship and death.
2: Dragonborn. Dragonborn are new to the area in any significant numbers, and tend to live apart from the warm-blooded species. They're also popularly associated with the tyrannical elder-dragon-god - according to legend, the dragonborn were already on the light side when the warm-blooded elder-race tried to tunnel through.
3: Elves. The elves had a great empire on the current dark side when it was last the light side. They've never let anyone forget it, and recently an irredentist movement has emerged, arguing that elves should rise up and take land and resources on this side in preparation for a glorious reconquest of their ancient empire.

Which two PC races or subraces are rivals, and why?

1: Humans and elves. Hard-line elves view humans as a danger to their dwindling numbers, both stealing their land and parenting half-elves in place of 'true' elves. Some humans view elves as aloof and uncaring towards shorter-lived peoples.
2: Halfings and wood elves. Halflings keep calling for forests to be cleared to make way for ranching, smallholding, transhumance and logging. Elves want the forests retained for fruit-growing and hunting.
3: Dark elves and high elves. The dark elves were a caste within elven society that specialised in various subtle arts. At the rise of the half-orc conqueror, many of them defected, and have remained allied to mainly orcish and human realms ever since. The high elves have never forgiven them.
4: Halflings and gnomes. Halfling culture has long valued practicality and simple pleasures; gnomes favour baroque complexity and exotic novelty.
5: Dwarves and gnomes. The two races maintain virtually identical versions of the Great Pit legend, but each ends with a claim that earth-god specially favoured one race over the other.
6: Humans and dragonborn. Humans have produced many famed dragonslayers over the years; the dragonborn take humans' passion for slaying their elder cousins very personally.

Is this much political and philosophical strife enough?

Miscellaneous

For each language out of Common, Dwarvish, Orcish, Old Imperial, and Elvish, what is the naming convention?

1: Personal names only
2: Personal name plus family name
3: Personal name plus clan name
4: Personal name, clan name, and nickname
5: Personal name plus patronymic/matronymic
6: Personal name plus chosen name, changed at marriage
7: Personal name plus family name, changed at marriage or adoption to show fealty
8: A series of acquired personal names representing achievements
9: Something else

What forms of religious expression are prominent in the starting region?

(Select as many as you like.)

1: Pantheistic worship of the gods
2: Individual worship of the gods
3: Propitiation of domestic spirits
4: Oracular utterances by holy hermits
5: Politicised religious groups promoting new scriptures
6: Politicised religious groups protecting themselves against perceived threats
7: Philosophical movements teaching courses of moral or spiritual action
8: Ritualists maintaining ancient customs for obscure reasons
9: Something else

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Open for discussion

History and Mythology

Which of the following stories should be added to the timeline?

• The great conqueror's empire broke up when the conqueror died; the conqueror's lovers divided it acrimoniously.
• The great conqueror's empire broke up within a decade or so of the conqueror's death; the conqueror's generals went to war for it.
• The great conqueror's empire lasted another generation; the conqueror's grandchildren partitioned it amicably.
• The mage-guilds began to be a political force when several of them gained sanctuary in the elf-dominated north-realm during the half-orc conquest.
• At one time, a major nation from the northeast overran the area; but the conquest was halted for reasons of internal politics, and never resumed.
• Under the rule of the mages, the starting nation took a province from a neighbour in a war that was provoked by a forged courier message.
• The starting nation once lost a province to a neighbour in a war that started with a bandit attack for which no-one has ever taken responsibility.
• The starting nation was one of the first to throw off the regime which succeeded the half-orc empire; the current rebels hark back to this previous success.
• The half-orc conquest was brutal, but the conqueror went on to abolish most forms of slavery.
• A senior clerical position currently operates in exile due to a hostile government in its former home. (Maybe their base in exile is in the starting nation; or perhaps the holy place is here, and the rule of the mages is what drove the clerics into exile?)
• A province was once completely obliterated by a vengeful army; its former population became permanent exiles, and all its cities are ruined to this day.
• The steppe-riders were never fully part of the half-orc empire, but they served as mercenary shock troops for it.
• The development of trade with the insect-folk has led to the establishment of great earthworks; this has made siege tactics harder as time has gone on.
• There hasn't been a stable centralised currency since the days of the conqueror; hoards of old coins get bought up really quickly and melted down to make debased local currency.
• The mage guilds started as magical generalists, but as time went on, the branches in individual cities and provinces specialized into the various schools of magic, and gained some autonomy in the process.
• The starting province, in particular, was formerly ruled by a branch of the Guild that focused on Evocation and Abjuration - lots of shock and awe when they went into battle, and big impressive magical shields for defense. The rebels relied heavily on stealth, illusion, and misdirection to overthrow them. This has left a lasting distrust of big flashy magic in the starting region, while sneakier magic is considered fashionable.
• Creating enchanted items, as opposed to standard spellcasting, has developed into its own discipline within living memory. The new artificer-mages are trying to get their specialty recognized within the Guild, and many are travelling to the starting region as it represents a power vacuum for the standard Guild.
• The Dragonborn clans were swept by religious fervor in the past two or three generations. They're closemouthed about it, but part of the reason for their recent migration to the area is related to their beliefs.
• The gnomes are the longest-settled race in the starting region and the lands immediately around it. They settled on the plains early, and grew into many small farming communities. However, they've never had an empire or even a major kingdom of their own. A vocal faction within the gnomish population is agitating to change this, whether here or by founding a new gnome empire on the current dark side, after the flip.
• An orc or half-orc claiming to be the "rightful heir" of the old orc empire has recently (within the last 2 decades) emerged. This has happened before, and is usually dismissed, but this one seems to possess both impressive charisma and leadership, and some objects that sure look like the fabled lost regalia of the Empire, lending more weight to her claim.
• The great conqueror's empire dwindled within 2-3 generations. The successors were less able to hold it together, especially without constant wars of expansion to unify people, and border provinces quietly seceded, rebelled, were taken over by neighbours or other factions.
• The mage-led faction that took over 100 or so years ago was able to mop up the fragmented successor states as clients or puppets with relative ease (and an advantage in magical firepower).
• The regimes backed by the mage guilds have mostly been using an arcane form of paper money for all but the most trivial transactions. These make trade wars between guilds especially vicious, and have also left the anti-mage rebels suddenly dependent on hard coin.
• The half-orcs brought with them a tradition of oral history through songs. Even now most bards are at least half-historian. This ticked off the Magocracy, who have been pretty keen on aggressive historical revisionism. Wandering off to check out some old tombs was illegal until the revolution.
• The final straw was the Magocracy's plan to dig up everyone's dead relatives and reanimate them into a zombie workforce.
• They say the steppe-riders are a bunch of were-creatures; it doesn't help that they refuse to be paid in silver.
• When the mage guilds were first being founded, warlocks and sorcerers petitioned to join as well, but the mages rejected them. This lead to bad blood between them, and warlocks and sorcerers have, since then, often worked to discomfit the Guilds. This definitely occurred during the recent rebellion, when warlocks and sorcerers provided the bulk of the arcane might the rebels had access to.
• During the recent rebellion, the non-magical craft guilds formed a bloc and sided with the mage guild.
• During the recent rebellion, the non-magical craft guilds formed a bloc and sided against the mage guild.
• Only Wizards could be full members of the mage's guild but their laws and taxes affecter all casters, so many warlocks and sorcerers worked against them.
• Only full members of the mages guild could hold public office.
• Only full members of the mage's guild could own and operate a magical shop or other premises devoted to offering arcane services for money
• Warlocks, bards and sorcerors could work in magic shops but only under direct supervision of a wizard (and therefore they could normally only expect to be paid apprentice pay for such work)
• Practicing arcane magic while not a member of the mages guild (or under direct supervision of one) was punishable by a fine not less than thrice the guild rate for getting a wizard to cast any spell that was cast.
• Sorcerers, warlocks and bards could apply to join the mages' guild as students provided they paid the fees and passed the entrance exam. Upon graduation (and taking at least one multiclass wizard level) they would be granted full rights appropriate to their wizard level (not their caster level).
• Occasionally groups of non-wizard casters would team up and sponsor one of their number through wizard college, so that they could become titular head of a business employing the rest of the co-operative. More than once in the past a sponsored student has reneged on that deal and not offered their fellow syndicate members equal shares. When this has happened the mage's guild always backs up the registered multiclass wizard, sometimes with force.
• Sorcerers and warlocks basically knuckled under to the mage guild monopoly, or at best worked as illicit spellcasters on their own. Bards, however, organized around the preexisting college systems, and fought back. As a result, the Mage Guilds basically banned bards altogether in the regions they controlled, forcing all bards to go underground. The rebellion was heavily backed by the bardic colleges, as a way to help break the Mage Guild monopoly on at least one region.
• The bardic College of Valor descends from the Warsingers of the old Orc Empire. Though they're not orc- or half-orc-exclusive any more, people from that whole cultural group (which now includes the steppe nomads) are more prominent in the leadership of the college.
• The College of Lore is a more broad-based organization, that claims roots going back before the last flip, at least. They're more demanding on their membership than the College of Valor, however. You can claim to be an "apprentice" or a "student" of the College of Lore, but if you want to be known as a full Master of Lore, you have to go in person to one of their chapterhouses and pass a very stern test of knowledge of history, skill at playing, and mastery of the art of magic, all at once. Many students of the College of Lore are old and highly skilled in their own right, but have failed the test, or feared to try, and never claimed the title.

Miscellaneous

How do the various druid circles, paladin oaths, monk orders and barbarian paths fit in?

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Coming soon

Geography

How many other nations immediately border the starting nation?

Politics and Society

How much ideological difference is there on this world?

(Question from Yadal)

1: Almost none: Everybody has the same basic ideas of how things should be done, or everything is very clearly Good v.s Evil. This would be like a typical feudal state or fantasy setting, but limits opportunities.
2: Live and Let Live: There are a lot of well known differences in the world, and plenty of anatagonism and debate but a fundamental unity of enough assumptions (except for maybe the cliched Evil) to keep things working. A good comparison would be the Left v.s Right political differences in a typical modern Nation State.
3: Major differences: This would involve two or more ideologies with differences comparable to Capitalism and Communism, or the French Revolution v.s traditionalist conservatives. Basic assumptions are shared (like the equality of women in one case, or the existence of fundamentally different nationalities in the other) but ideologies are nonetheless opposed.
4: Radical: Ideological difference level of two or more ideologies is more like United States v.s ISIS, with comprehension difficulties accordingly. Not necessarily factions which are ISIS evil, but ones which share almost no basic assumptions.

Miscellaneous

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