In the background, quietly, as my Yoon-Suin 2nd edition projects nears final fulfilment, work has been going on in relation to The Great North. Behold, some more glorious Tom Kilian art:
Not bad, eh?
Creator of Yoon-Suin and other materials. Propounding my half-baked ideas on role playing games. Jotting down and elaborating on ideas for campaigns, missions and adventures. Talking about general industry-related matters. Putting a new twist on gaming.
In the background, quietly, as my Yoon-Suin 2nd edition projects nears final fulfilment, work has been going on in relation to The Great North. Behold, some more glorious Tom Kilian art:
Not bad, eh?
Do you know about the Japanese kids' book phenomenon, Kobito Zukan? Literally translated it means something like 'dwarf encyclopedia' or 'gnome encyclopedia', but all of the English translations of kobito aren't really satisfactory because they come with too much baggage. Written and illustrated by Nabata Toshitaka, the conceit is that there live alongside us very many species and subspecies of little people, who have evolved to fulfil particular niches; each book describes some kobito and their habits and behaviour, in the manner of an old-fashioned reference volume about animals or dinosaurs that one would once have found in one's local library. The main commonality between all of the varities of kobito is that each has a tentacle, or tentacles, on their heads, called the touchin, which they use to manipulate objects, put on displays and so on.
Kids love the idea because it is suggestive that there is a hidden world of little people living alongside us and who are often responsible for much of what we experience in our day-to-day lives, whether by putting the nasty mildew smell into a wet towel or making loud thumping noises on the roof during a rainstorm. But adults love it too because it is so wonderfully imaginative and evocative, and often hinting at mysteries waiting to be discovered:
One of the best ways to come up with a campaign setting is to get down to ground level and imagine the miniature landscape in one's immediate vicinity scaled up to 100 or 1000 times its actual size. Let's call this method, 'Small Worldism'.
Earlier this week I visited Iwaisaki, an cape of unusual rock formations off the coast near my wife's hometown. In an earlier life, she and I spent hours swimming in its stunningly clear waters, occasionally stepping back onto dry land to lazily drink beer and sunbathe. Now, with two young kids in tow, we mostly spent our time there chasing them around making sure they didn't slip or hurt themselves. But I did manage to take some low level photos to illustrate what I mean.
First, then, the overview. What we see here is clearly a vast lagoon, perhaps dozens of miles across, and surrounded by mighty rocky cliffs. At the base of these cliffs are many sea caves within which can be found entire city-states - their inhabitants trade and war with each other with armadas of vessels that continually traverse its vast expanse. (There also, naturally, here and there lurk pirates, too.) Higher up these cliffs lurk monsters, dragons, harpies, and the like. In the depths of the lagoon are crab-men, sahuagin, aquatic elves, tritons - the whole marine shebang. And on top of the cliffs are huge expanses of arid, barren badlands populated by savage tribes, outcasts and outlaws, and dotted with - natch - lost civilisations and ruins.