A World a Week: Many Worlds This Time

This is the Lands

 
So this is a gathering of differing spots that I have been running in with my players, but haven't really tried to to tie it together for them. They're no even certain if they want would want me to. But from Gonzop to Zark (which is actually called "Zarka"by those that know how to read maps, or just read in general) , it is about 3/4's of a hemisphere of an Earth-sized planet. The East-to-West of this map is a curving line that comes the upper left corner of the page and somewhere just above lower right corner. True north is somewhere along the left edge around the 2/3 page down part.

Gonzop in the farther eastern areas of the Lands, as they are referred to as, while Gonzop and its neighbors are in the west. Somewhere in the Graptak wastes is the Western Pole where even fairies are frightened about the things that live there. In the frosty oceans of the north near the coastlines of Greater Barbaria is the North Pole, which we'd recognize from our own world, except for maybe all the frost giants and Santa Claus being there.

Meanwhile the distance from the tip of Forestia the southern part of Zark is about from Maine to Colombia. Since December, distances have come to the forefront of my mind. Well they always have been. Even in Eighth grade in my most "American" of years as a kid, I new that the distance from Berlin to Moscow was the same as Detroit to Washington DC. I also always got that Maine was closer to Morocco than Florida, hence the curves that I put this map into. I have been traveling a whole lot this year beyond the tank of gas range that most of us the road-trippers do, while not sky-hopping from one specific locale to another but seeing only ninety miles of any place and only briefly at that like the jet-set is prone to do. Travel in my Lands is felt, even when the PCs get to sky-hop. 

Now humans are not really humans. They are clones of humans from our own world. Even when they make babies the natural way, something, let's call them nanobots, implant memories that the Player-Characters' players have. But as we're learning today algorithms for artificial intelligence are rather dumb, so the memories aren't perfect by any means. A guy might've been an architect, but he thinks that he is good at airline piloting because of a nanobot confusing building capacity with boarding gates which he designed. And that is on top of whatever the player really knows in life.

For the not "fish out of water" trope, I have various kin, that's races for you D&D-heds, for those that really want to do some role-playing.

There is the Nimby, Imby, and Bagger, which you all have heard about over the past couple of years. Nimbys, big and tall with pouches to carry any nimby young that need carrying. They change gender characteristics over the years, from kid (androgynous) to female to male, into even grumpy old puss but androgynous once again. This way I can express and the player can think about fluid gender dynamics and the roles that people play within their society without the PC having to be lectured by folks about sexuality. Imbys get the pouch and keen senses, but are too short and cute to be anything but indigenous sorts. Baggers, they get a lot of strength and smarts but get ill and die quickly. Their four toes helps them climb with a quickness when needed. Their six-digited hands (two thumbs) give them an edge with hands-on technologies.

My favorites are the Otgan. These are the ultimate surfers. Because of their heat retaining body hair and body fat, they can live entirely in water if they must. Still they are above water air breathers, fresh water and love cooked food. Even in land, one will find them hanging out with beavers and otters more than elves.

I have about a billion Mods. Mods are mostly animal-people but they can be straight up mutated human-like species. From armadillos to zebras, I got them. Yes there is an aardvark-kin as well, but no one has ever wanted to play one or thought it was kewl when I brought one in. I have 231 outlined so far. All with spiffy names. The animal-like ones are now called Therions, thank you Thess (See Uprising at Buzzard's Gulch) . I used to just call the "fuzzies." The others tend to be called mutants. These poor beings are often discriminated against by other more dominant kin around them.

I might or might not be working in the various subgenres that I write about into the take.