Diputs
Knight
Welcome to Eras, a collaborative writing project based of the thread I previously had the pleasure of running called Worldbuilding.
In Eras, there is no overall goal or way to win save those you set for yourself. You will not be controlling every aspect of a single character, but writing about the history and culture of a race or nation, following them through economic difficulties, wars, colonization, technological advancement, and diplomacy. Players are encouraged to focus on the details and truly come up with a unique world.
Many thanks go to Lord Tim, player of the previous thread who got this one rolling and will be in control of transcribing things to our wiki, found here: http://eras.wiki-site.com/index.php/Main_Page
Send him a PM of thanks and a case of beer and your lore will likely get put on the wiki faster (or not, if he decides to open a bar with all the excess and becomes a millionaire).
Eras is ‘played’ by writing the lore for your nation over the course of fifty years (decreased from the hundred year steps normally taken in the original Worldbuilding). I’ll announce the start of a new section every so often with a post, and will also put up a poll with options to select telling us whether you posted your work. Turns will progress fairly slowly, giving everyone time to write even if you have a busy schedule, and allowing us to pay attention to detail. To make this easier to go through the thread, try not to post sporadic, small updates, and instead focus on getting a good page or two down. In addition, mark posts that have lore, and make it obvious what you’re intending, via a bolded “This is my lore for XYZ years” or something.
In addition, using PMs are encouraged between players when an event that affects the two of them occurs, such as a war or the proposal of an alliance, or if one becomes a vassal of the other. This is to keep the main thread from getting too bogged down with deals and counterdeals, after an agreement has been reached the players they may then have one of them write it up or have both sides write a slightly different version with the same outcome, the truth of the matter likely somewhere in between.
The world we’ll be playing in is low fantasy, magic doesn’t exist but if you can explain away something as alchemy, biological processes, or a form of science not normally used, you can get away with things such as different races, long lifespan, and so on.
The planet itself is assumed to be like Earth, single sun, moon, same size. The map we’ll be using is here:
With a blank version to use for Political right here:
You can copy the files to your computer, edit them in paint, and then show them here, or just send me a PM and I’ll try to edit the map for you. Major geography is set, so we can avoid the problem we previously had with islands appearing and disappearing like a brother-in-law at Christmas, but if you want something like a forest or river moved, that can be managed.
Now, on to Diputs’ random collection of tips:
Think long term.
Have a cool idea, like a little kingdom that survives in the ruins of an old empire, using buildings they don’t know how to build and drinking wine that’s had a few hundred years to age? Well, rather than starting as that kingdom, try to start as the empire, tell who they were and why they fell, and why they put statues up of a man with a crooked nose. We have a long time before we get to the modern era, so don’t worry about technology making something obsolete.
Think about consequences.
So, you have a nation living in the middle of the forest. They do all sorts of nationy stuff, like have a group of nobles who tell everyone else what to do, make war on nations that they don’t like or who started it first, and trade with ones that they do like or just like the gold of. How are the people affected by their environment, status, and culture? Well, if they live in the woods, they have a lot of lumber, and there’s probably animals, so they have those two to trade and fight to keep; but there isn’t really much space to grow crops, so that’s what they trade to get or raid from their enemies.
It’s easy to decide, ‘Ok, I want my nation to be a democracy now,’ and write up a civil war that ends with the king dead and election posters stapled to trees. What really makes it interesting is when you think about how that changes the way of life for the people. What if they don’t have any idea of democracy, no one around them has thought of it? Where does the idea come from then? It could be a revolution started by a peasant with just a little learning and some galaxy-sized testicles, or a merchant who thinks the guilds might be able to control the government by secretly merging their votes for someone who increases tariffs.
This goes for races too. Say I come up with a race that doesn’t have the need to eat, or they can eat something that is plentiful and cheap, like dirt. How would that affect society? For one thing, they wouldn’t have first started coming together as farming communities, they might instead have first started society for protection or companionship. How would that affect the way they view others? Well, everyone else could be shunned, ‘Oh, what’s that, you’re starving? I can’t hear you over the sound of your stomach growling’ or they could be respected, ‘Look at that. Those people were so hungry, whatever that means, that they came together and made cities while we were living in tents. I guess being hungry means you’re motivated to get stuff done.’
Try to be unique.
That’s what this game is about, really, creating a world of our own, so while it’s fine to base your nation off a real world or other fictional one, it’s much more satisfying to come up with your own government and culture. Besides, then you get to come up with stuff like a society that headbutts people as a friendly greeting, or a nation that has a legal requirement that everyone have a pet monkey. Or one that, you know, has a different handshake or something. That’s cool too.
Most important: have fun. It’s what we’re doing this for anyway, after all.
In Eras, there is no overall goal or way to win save those you set for yourself. You will not be controlling every aspect of a single character, but writing about the history and culture of a race or nation, following them through economic difficulties, wars, colonization, technological advancement, and diplomacy. Players are encouraged to focus on the details and truly come up with a unique world.
Many thanks go to Lord Tim, player of the previous thread who got this one rolling and will be in control of transcribing things to our wiki, found here: http://eras.wiki-site.com/index.php/Main_Page
Send him a PM of thanks and a case of beer and your lore will likely get put on the wiki faster (or not, if he decides to open a bar with all the excess and becomes a millionaire).
Eras is ‘played’ by writing the lore for your nation over the course of fifty years (decreased from the hundred year steps normally taken in the original Worldbuilding). I’ll announce the start of a new section every so often with a post, and will also put up a poll with options to select telling us whether you posted your work. Turns will progress fairly slowly, giving everyone time to write even if you have a busy schedule, and allowing us to pay attention to detail. To make this easier to go through the thread, try not to post sporadic, small updates, and instead focus on getting a good page or two down. In addition, mark posts that have lore, and make it obvious what you’re intending, via a bolded “This is my lore for XYZ years” or something.
In addition, using PMs are encouraged between players when an event that affects the two of them occurs, such as a war or the proposal of an alliance, or if one becomes a vassal of the other. This is to keep the main thread from getting too bogged down with deals and counterdeals, after an agreement has been reached the players they may then have one of them write it up or have both sides write a slightly different version with the same outcome, the truth of the matter likely somewhere in between.
The world we’ll be playing in is low fantasy, magic doesn’t exist but if you can explain away something as alchemy, biological processes, or a form of science not normally used, you can get away with things such as different races, long lifespan, and so on.
The planet itself is assumed to be like Earth, single sun, moon, same size. The map we’ll be using is here:
With a blank version to use for Political right here:
You can copy the files to your computer, edit them in paint, and then show them here, or just send me a PM and I’ll try to edit the map for you. Major geography is set, so we can avoid the problem we previously had with islands appearing and disappearing like a brother-in-law at Christmas, but if you want something like a forest or river moved, that can be managed.
Now, on to Diputs’ random collection of tips:
Think long term.
Have a cool idea, like a little kingdom that survives in the ruins of an old empire, using buildings they don’t know how to build and drinking wine that’s had a few hundred years to age? Well, rather than starting as that kingdom, try to start as the empire, tell who they were and why they fell, and why they put statues up of a man with a crooked nose. We have a long time before we get to the modern era, so don’t worry about technology making something obsolete.
Think about consequences.
So, you have a nation living in the middle of the forest. They do all sorts of nationy stuff, like have a group of nobles who tell everyone else what to do, make war on nations that they don’t like or who started it first, and trade with ones that they do like or just like the gold of. How are the people affected by their environment, status, and culture? Well, if they live in the woods, they have a lot of lumber, and there’s probably animals, so they have those two to trade and fight to keep; but there isn’t really much space to grow crops, so that’s what they trade to get or raid from their enemies.
It’s easy to decide, ‘Ok, I want my nation to be a democracy now,’ and write up a civil war that ends with the king dead and election posters stapled to trees. What really makes it interesting is when you think about how that changes the way of life for the people. What if they don’t have any idea of democracy, no one around them has thought of it? Where does the idea come from then? It could be a revolution started by a peasant with just a little learning and some galaxy-sized testicles, or a merchant who thinks the guilds might be able to control the government by secretly merging their votes for someone who increases tariffs.
This goes for races too. Say I come up with a race that doesn’t have the need to eat, or they can eat something that is plentiful and cheap, like dirt. How would that affect society? For one thing, they wouldn’t have first started coming together as farming communities, they might instead have first started society for protection or companionship. How would that affect the way they view others? Well, everyone else could be shunned, ‘Oh, what’s that, you’re starving? I can’t hear you over the sound of your stomach growling’ or they could be respected, ‘Look at that. Those people were so hungry, whatever that means, that they came together and made cities while we were living in tents. I guess being hungry means you’re motivated to get stuff done.’
Try to be unique.
That’s what this game is about, really, creating a world of our own, so while it’s fine to base your nation off a real world or other fictional one, it’s much more satisfying to come up with your own government and culture. Besides, then you get to come up with stuff like a society that headbutts people as a friendly greeting, or a nation that has a legal requirement that everyone have a pet monkey. Or one that, you know, has a different handshake or something. That’s cool too.
Most important: have fun. It’s what we’re doing this for anyway, after all.
