LetsBuild5e:Questions

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Politics and Society

What sort of government was overthrown by the rebellion?

1. Monarchy
2. Oligarchy
3. Plutocracy
4. Theocracy
5. Reign of terror - a failure of one of the other government types, which collapsed into infighting and purges
6. Direct democracy
7. Republic
8. Martial law
9. Gerontocracy
10. Magocracy

Do all the player races actually get on ok with each other?

(Question from Mr The Geoff)

1: mainly yes but some (half orcs, tieflings) are mistrusted a bit
2: One or two races are really xenophobic, the rest get on fine (Elves? Dragonborn? halflings?)
3: something in the setting's history makes one of the player races outcast that you wouldn't expect (gnomes used to be enslaved, they rebelled and are now the enemies of the other races)
4: Something in the past leads to a big rivalry between a couple of races (eg Elven heroes destroyed the last true dragons, now Dragonborn and elves hate each other)

Geography

What is the immediate specific climatic type at the starting location?

A) How humid are the seasons?
1: Dry summers
2: Dry winters
3: Wet all year

B) How warm are the warmest and coldest month/s (in decreasing order)?
1: Warmest over 22 celsius on average
2: Four months over 10 celsius, but none over 22 on average
3: Neither of the above, but coldest above -38 celsius
4: Cold enough to fail all three criteria (at most three months above 10 celsius, coldest below -38)

C) Are there any moderating features nearby?
1: We're close to a coast with a warm current; temperatures rise sharply towards the sea
2: We're over a secondary fault; there's hot springs and the like scattered about, and snow settles less than air temperatures would imply
3A: We're close to a major mountain range; under certain conditions, a cold wet wind blows down directly from the mountains (Mistral/Tramontana effect)
3B: We're close to a major mountain range; under certain conditions, a hot dry wind blows down directly from the mountains (Föhn/Chinook effect)
4: A mediterranean climate is within riding distance towards the tropics
5: A semi-desert is within riding distance towards the tropics
6: A tundra is within riding distance towards the nearer pole
Supplemental: A cold steppe is within riding distance towards the nearer pole

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Open for discussion

History and Mythology

How long ago was the last flip?

1: Lost in the mists of time - possibly over 10,000 years ago
2: In a time of legends - 5,000 or more years ago
3: In a time of civilisations no-one now remembers - 700 or more years ago
4: At the dawn of modern recorded history: 300-500 years ago
5: More recent - there are written records of pre-flip history

Geography

What is the edge of the world like?

(Question from Mr the Geoff and the DM)

1: Fortified by both sides, with the occasional 'Checkpoint Charlie' style border to let trade through.
2: A world spanning wall of force which only a few high level mages know the secret of passing
3: On both sides it is a waterfall that falls towards the plane of the world, then folds inwards to form the groundwater people plumb for wells, springs etc.
4: It tapers away to a sharp edge, and a popular sport among rich adrenaline junkies in neighbouring regions is to tightrope walk along the edge where the gravity from both sides meets in unpredictable eddies.
5: Continental landmasses project over the edge into impossibly huge, steep mountains; elsewhere, the sea pours over in a waterfall that can only be navigated by trained experts

Politics and Society

Which of the following propositions do you support?

1: Towards the tropics, close but not adjacent to our own borders, is a nation of elves and humans. They are skilful traders, and they export court scholars and diplomats to other nations. Their native language is language B, which is a member of a wider group of Elvish tongues.
2: Towards the pole, beyond the settled nations, live clans of horse-riders, predominantly orcs and humans. They speak language F, which has grown to have some features in common with language G, the speech of the mountain-orcs.
3: Much of the territory hereabouts was once part of a large empire, whose half-orc rulers spoke language F. Language H is the language of the orc-majority kingdom from which the ruling family originated.
4: So called dark elves exhibit a range of skin-colours from light grey to ebony. They speak a form of language B, but they are often found living alongside orcs and speaking their language - which is a major source of tension with other elves.
5: Aasimar, tieflings, and genasi (if any) are found throughout other cultures, races, and societies - their special natures occur as genetic throwbacks, and they rarely if ever have distinct settlements of their own.
6: Dragonborn speak language C, which is a form of Draconic, in addition to any local languages. Dragonborn live mainly in mountain foothills, where they have a very tense peace with the dwarves and gnomes.

Miscellaneous

Do you support or oppose the following propositions?

1: The insect-folk cannot even be traded with; they are incomprehensible, even with magical assistance.
2: Humanoids do not know how the insect-folk communicate among themselves; trade with them is conducted by trained interpreters who have developed a basic sign-language that the insect-folk are able to use.
3: The insect-folk speak language C, but not always in a way that makes sense to humanoids.
4: Language A is Common; humans and halflings speak it as a first language almost exclusively, while other races generally know it as a first or second language.
5: Language A is written using a short curvilinear alphabet; it used to be written boustrophedonically (ie back-and-forth) but is now written left-to-right and punctuated.
6: The bardic colleges are based in a faraway land whose native language is language D; few who are not specialists in the arts speak or write it around here.
7: Language D is written using ideographs; the groups of words that are hyphenated in the transcription are written in cartouches in the original script.
8: Language E is Dwarvish; it is spoken by the majority of dwarves as either a first or a second language, and is written in runes.

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Coming soon

Geography

How shall we devise the world map?

1: Use a transformation of a real-world map
2: Use a transformation of a weather map
3: Draw our own somehow
4: Something else

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.

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.

History and Mythology

How long-settled is the region?

(Question from Kelly Pedersen)

1: It's a wild frontier, being inhabited for the very first time. Adventures in the area are heavily weighted towards exploration and dealing with wilderness threats.
1b: As above, except that it's a frontier being re-settled after a very long period of being uninhabited. Adventures like the above, but with a salting of "exploring ancient ruins" and "figuring out why the region wasn't settled before."
2: The region has been settled for a few generations, but the frontier is still close by. Adventures can involve exploration and wilderness threats, but they also feature the growth and development of society and the interactions between communities.
3: The region was settled many generations ago, and is far from any frontier. Adventures usually involve the interactions between well-established communities, with feuds, old grudges, long-standing alliances, and known quantities featuring heavily.
4: The region is a cradle of civilization of the overall area, with settlement stretching back to the beginning. Adventures can involve interactions between established communities, but these relationships are so stable at this point that the outcomes of conflicts is often pre-ordained. Many adventures will instead involve exploring various relics of civilization - the tombs, fallen temples, or burned palaces of those who have gone before.

Miscellaneous

What is the campaign's starting level?

(Question from Metal Fatigue)

A: 1: I like the full zero-to-hero experience, and don't mind how squishy 5e chars can be at first level
B: 3: I like zero-to-hero but let's start with our archetypes picked out and slightly less squishy
C: 6: It's the next triangular number after 1 and 3, and also a good midrange level
D: Something higher

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