More Unfocused Thoughts on Arklyrell

It's been a while since I messed around with this, but I've had a bunch of ideas I haven't articulated so here they are:

• A lot of this setting will be based on The Sword's Album Warp Riders.  They're both set on a tidally locked planet of science fantasy nonsense, so I thought they fit well together.
• The south is ruled by the Chronomancer, a pseudo-immortal God-Lich of immense power.  He trades minerals and other natural resources with the civilizations on the campaign map that are mined on the Day Side of the planet.  He does this with a horrid, skeletal work-force.
• The Chronomancer is probably equal amounts machine and undead.
• The Elves on the Night Side get more tribal as it gets colder.  The ones closest to the sea are (comparatively) hospitable.
• One of the cities in the icy part of the map is totally going to be Vornheim.
• System will probably be LL + AEC so that I can have some of the doofier classes like Illusionist and Assassin in there.  I'll also add some weird races like Ghuls.
• Equipment list will include a giant, white dragonfly that you can purchase as a mount.
• I might get rid of the Roc nests, but I'm not sure about that yet.  They provide a good excuse for the large citadels.  It's sorta like Might & Magic 1 where the people live in underground cities to avoid being burned to death by dragons.
• Treasure tables are totally going to include Mutant Future artifacts.
• I need to work the Fuel-less Fire in there somewhere. (In case you haven't guessed from the other posts that mention it in passing, the Fuel-less Fire is a sentient patch of radiation).
• I bet I'd use the Fiend Folio pretty heavily when making wandering monster tables, but that's just a guess.
• There are ruins on both the Day and the Night Side.  No one knows how they got there.
• I've pretty much settled on the human settlements on the islands being grunting, Mycenaean types.
• Dwarves are gross, genetically engineered degenerates who mine precious things out of the mountains on the islands.  Rumor says that a strange, dark skinned race of Dwarves lives on the Day Side, but that's probably impossible.

That's all for now.  I'm probably not going to do much more with this, but that stuff had been in my mind for a while.

City States of Arklyrell: Mystara Style

click to embiggen

A few months ago Jeff suggested using City States of Arklyrell as a campaign map.  I then posted some thoughts on using it as a setting.  I found that the images of the map on the internet are a bit hard to make out, so I decided to provide the above map for those wishing to use it.

The "glacier" hexes at the top represent a wall of ice that covers the frozen side of the planet.  Any terrain off the map either to the North or the South is completely inhospitable to life (other than Elves in the North and Undead in the South).

I may post more ideas on the setting later.

Unfocused Thoughts on City States of Arklyrell

Jeff Rients, who I imagine needs know introduction, recently commented on the suitability of City States of Arklyrell as a campaign map.  One of the commenters, rorschachhamster, suggested that the setting could be in the twilight zone of a tidally locked planet in order to explain why there is so little space between the frozen north and the desert in the south.  This fired my imagination pretty much instantaneously so heres some notes on how I'd use the setting.

• The "clear" hexes are brown, so I'd imagine they're more like Mediterranean shrubland than what I typically mean by "clear" on my maps.  That gives me kind of a Ray Harryhausen Sinbad vibe, so let's run with that.
• I've also been watching a lot of original Trek, so I imagine that the habitable zone of the planet looks like this:

• Since it's already tidally locked lets just say that Aklyrell is the name the inhabitants give Gliese 581 g.
• It's unlikely that humanoid life would develop on such a planet, so maybe the inhabitants are the descendants of Earth colonists in the far distant future.  The colony probably got cut off in a style similar to Tekumel, but maybe without getting ripped out of the universe.
• That means some of the dungeons might have ray guns.  Let's make those phasers.  In fact, let's make some of the races and monsters descendants of Federation aliens.  I wouldn't really stress it, but it'd be there.
• The cold side of the planet would probably be called the Night Lands.  Don't know what I'd call the hot side yet.
• I'd probably use Labyrinth Lord or BECMI for the rules with some AD&D monsters.
• Elves can see in the dark because they come from the Nightlands.   How they exist in the extreme cold is a mystery to humans.
• Even if I use BECMI the setting will be covered in Morlocks.
• I'll probably use the Monster Manual II's system for random encounters over BECMI or Labyrinth Lords.  When you have that many forests in such a small area it's important that you make sure they feel different and encounter tables are a good way to do it.
• Theres probably some non-Sinbad looking barbarians running around.  They look like this: 

• I won't add any other settlements.  All of the humans live in fortified citadels that look like Mycenae in order to keep out the monsters (including the Rocs!).
• I would add some monster lairs though to compliment the bigger multilevel dungeons.
• The hexes would probably be 10 miles across, with a party able to cross three clear ones in a day.

Thats it for now.  If I think of anything else I might post it.