The Independent Islands

Here are some of my notes for this region of the Broken World, which is where I intend to start my campaign. 

INDEPENDENT ISLAND REGION

This region is referred to as the “Independent Islands” because they are independent of the large empires that surround them; the Confederacy of Agrivaar, the Dragon Islands, and the Titan Empire.  There are groups of islands in this region that are part of kingdoms or nations, and there are islands that are independent even of these.  This region has the advantage of being somewhat isolated from the other regions by a gap of aether that is wide enough so as to make aether travel more difficult.  That gap, which is referred to as the Gulf of Vaag after the explorer that discovered it, is also plagued by turbulence that makes traversing it even more treacherous.  Finally, the Gulf of Vaag is home to enormous and ferocious aetherbeasts that are very protective of their territories.  Despite these challenges, it is possible to cross the Gulf of Vaag, but it is an aethergraphical advantage that the Independent Islands do enjoy.

NOTEWORTHY ISLANDS AND NATIONS

Thelos: This is the cultural center of the Independent Islands and is also the hub of the largest organized religion, the Church of the Trinity.  The Crystal Cathedral was built on this island and is located just outside of the capital city, and is, in and of itself, a small city.  Thelos is very centrally located in the Independent Island region, which makes it a strategic location for trade and commerce as well. 

Furvoria: The orcs of the Broken World are strange creatures.  They are not true breeding humanoids; instead they spawn from the earth of the island of Furvoria, and nowhere else. Nobody knows how or why this is, but the orcs have always accepted it as how their race persists.  Of course, they don’t have any written histories, so all of their knowledge is from oral tradition.  It is also not known what prompts the island to produce more orcs. 

The Dwarven Kingdoms: There are many islands in this region whose population is predominantly dwarves.  These are organized into kingdoms, each ruled by a dwarf king or queen and all of the kingdoms overseen by a high king or queen.

- Thorak Ruum Bor
- Thorak Grogg
- Thorak Magrom
- Thorak Bromar
- Thorak Ardrin

Oceana: An elemental water node, probably the remnant of an ocean from the old world, this area is a large body of water that contains some islands floating within and on the surface of.

The Beastlands: A series of islands that are closely situated and are mostly populated by beastfolk – anthropomorphic creatures that come from various animal stocks.  The islands have a variety of environments, many are heavily forested or jungles, swamps, and some with rocky terrain.  A few have lakes and rivers and one of the larger islands has a small sea.

Mystos: This is the isle of magic, which is where the Ordo Arcanis maintains its primary headquarters.  The island is in the center of a nebulous cloud that makes finding it difficult.  This is by design and the reason why the arcanists of the order decided upon this particular island.  

Fringeport: A fortress that was built after the Aetherwar to ensure the provisions of the Treaty of Vaag are upheld by the Confederacy, the Independent Islands and the Dragon Islands. The ensure equal support from the three regions, the fortress is maintained by ambassadors from each region.  Each region also supplies aether warships to police the Gulf of Vaag and each warship is manned by representatives of all three regions. 

Kingdom of Everus: A human kingdom that spans dozens of small islands and has the most powerful fleet of aetherships in the region.

Crowmark: A small island along the trade route that is a popular place for the many scoundrels and pirates to frequent.  The island is run by the Enclave, a powerful merchant guild that is also the region's most powerful thieving guild, the Dark Tide.

Necrador: This dead island is populated by legions of undead and ruled by a lich queen.

Gob: Home of the goblinoid races.

Queendom of Archus: A nation with a matriarchal society.  Women outnumber men 5 to 1 and the ruler is always a queen.

Kingdom of Karthar: The chief rival and adversary of Everus, this series of islands is ruled by the Witch-King Kathar, who is rumored to be in an alliance with Necrador.

ENVIRONMENTAL PHENOMENON

Aquia: Water elemental node.

Forge of the Ancients:  Fire elemental node.

Deadlands: Earth elemental node

Phlogiston Morass: An area of the aether that is filled with a highly volatile gas, making travel very dangerous.

Which System To Use?

I haven’t blogged much about The Broken World (TBW) campaign because I’ve been playing a 5^th Edition D&D campaign called the Age of Worms for almost a year now and that has kept me pretty busy, but I have been working on my TBW campaign in OneNote.  I’ve come to a point where I’m seriously considering using a different game system for my homebrew campaign and that system is Shadow of the Demon Lord (SotDL) by Schwalb Entertainment.  I originally started designing TBW to be played using D&D rules, but I had some problems reconciling some things in my world with how D&D works.   

The main thing I had a problem with is the magic system.  I really want magic to be a unified system in TBW, so having “divine” and “arcane” magic doesn’t work for me since, in this world, there are no gods.  The great thing about SotDL is that its magic system IS unified and, in addition, the way that the system is set up with Traditions instead of schools of magic make is very easy to customize characters to be the kind of magic-user the player wants to run.  In D&D, you have to take levels in a divine class to have access to divine spells, despite the fact that divine spells have schools associated with them, which you would think would be accessible by a specialized arcane spell user.  Nope.  

Some other things I like about SotDL over D&D include the class system, called “Paths”, which allows for some great customization that D&D simply can’t match.  I also like the Boon/Bane mechanic better than the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic of D&D. 

Of course there are some things about SotDL that I don’t like so much.  I’m not entirely sold on the Initiative system.  The Slow/Fast turn sequence has been a little confusing in my few times running SotDL, which may be just a familiarity issue with me, but it seems to slow things down unnecessarily while people decide if they’re taking a Slow or a Fast turn.  I like to have as few decision points as possible once game play starts because each decision point delays and slows encounters.  I’m also not sure about the replacement of Skills with Professions, as the latter seems to be almost too loose and undefined and require the players to basically convince me that their profession should be considered in whatever skill attempt they are making.  I do like the simple “10” target number for all tasks, but I can see where that may be too simplistic at some point.  That one will have to wait until I’ve had a chance to see it in play more before I pass final judgment.  I’m also disappointed that SotDL doesn’t include Armor as Damage Reduction and, instead, basically emulates how D&D handles armor.   Finally, I dislike that SotDL only uses a D20 and D6s.  I like using all of the polyhedral dice in my RPGs and, in fact, I’m still looking for a system that has found a way to incorporate the D30 (I may have to invent that system myself).

SotDL isn’t perfect, but it seems to be the better match for me.  I still need to run it more to fully decide.  I’m hesitant to drop D&D 5E altogether because it is a system that is near and dear to my heart.  I could probably house rule D&D to make it what I want, but that would be too much work and I really just want to use a system that is already built and mostly meets my expectations, which SotDL seems to do.   I plan on running a SotDL mini-campaign this year and once I’m done I should know whether or not that system is the best fit for TBW.  In the meantime, I still have lots of world building to do that doesn’t require a game system to work on.