A World A Week: the Islands of Stragea

 

 This setting is nothing new, just refined and still cool. So on the world of Elder, about ten days travel, eastward, with favorable winds, from Athebes, are the islands that make up Stragea. Made up of thousands of islands, with sixteen of them being very large. They are a mixture of a group of oceanic islands and corral islands thrown together. Marine biology aide, it they occur in a spot of the world that has been rather hard to get to by the humans of the Marshoom and Akog continental conglomeration over the last three millennia so here be the odd stuff for fantasy roleplaying.

Now like many a GM/Author, I have been working aquatic adventures for a time now. Unlike most, my little housebrew of rules work awesomely. I have been working on this stuff for a while now. Meanwhile in other scenarios I have been working on scenarios dealing with other atypical environments for the average FRPG-minded adventure gamer tabletop. That means places like aerial spots, high mountain, active volcanoes, and swamps. I suppose, I have covered cliffs, ravines, and beaches in what I think of as my "Gravity Salad" pieces (ask my T&T crew about those). Overall,  I love PC discomfort. 

In case you, seated reader, haven't noticed, I also like species. Kindred, races, costume-suggestions, or what has one, I dig the non-human sentient beings. As more of a fan of Larry Niven than Tolkien, my folks are fitted into these differing sorts of environments. I like to think that once again, I really enjoy PC discomfort. When it comes to Stragea, I move from my other love of just putting weird heads atop human bodies to going.. well, just alien. Giant squids that can walk on land and like to make themselves look as humanoid as possible because, they want to fit in. I won't even go into my fantasy kin tribute to tuna fish; the fishes not the canned meat. At the same time, there are plenty of aerial and treetop dwelling creatures that can use some coverage in fantasy adventure works as well.

From the Middle then Up-and-Down-wards.

The Otgan- Okay, otter-people. Why try harder when you're hit perfection?  Seafaring humanoids that are equipped to live in water. From temperate to warm waters they travel in tribes and to places where the fishing is easier for them it is than sharks.

The Kuda- These barracuda-styled humanoids only come to bother surface and surface-breaking peoples when they are forced to. When they do though, they are something to be feared. The basis for my Kodoan spacefaring species.

Muckra- Incorporeal intelligence that can assume forms made out of swamp muck to fight against or adventure with humanoids.

Gremlins- Semi-corporeal beings that resemble goblins when young and then turn moth-man style entities when mature. They enslave harpies and other flying species using their telepathic powers.

So while the Islands of Stragae evolved into the perfect underwater scenario over the years, they have resumed being my Petri dish of all sorts of things. I don't want to go too much into detail here as this world is this close to publication and usual creator paranoia creeps in, but the various bits have been published before in my works as well as others where I am credited.