Races of the Elemental Borderlands

Last week, I wrote a general overview of the setting of Fronteira, the Elemental Borderlands. This week, I will discuss the five dominant sapiens of the setting.

There are five major races in Fronteira: halflings, humans, elves, orcs, and dwarves. In addition, in those regions on the edge of the material realm, proximity to the elemental energy of the borderlands occasionally causes a child to be born as a genasi.

Halflings

The halflings of Fronteira are a nomadic people. The majority of them make their home in the frozen tundra of the north, closest to the borderland of Air. A smaller number live in the cliffs of the Godscar Canyon that marks the southern border of the tundra.

The tundra nomads are a hardy people, Not only do they make their home in one of the harshest regions of the world, they do so with lightweight and portable shelter: tents made of animal hides, or more elaborate structures with lightweight wooden frames and paper walls. If it can't be packed up and carried with them, the halflings won't bother.

On the plains south of the tundra, where a warmer climate allows, the halflings raise horses. A halfling destrier is unmatched. The larger races often remark on the irony that the smallest folk raise the largest horses.

Those halflings who dwell in the canyon are, by necessity, less nomadic than their taiga-dwelling cousins. This sedentary lifestyle doesn't mean they stay in one place for their whole lives; it is common practice for a cliff-dweller to spend a few years traveling with a nomadic tribe.

The primary religion practiced by the halflings is the worship of Mother Sky. They believe that the world is the child of Father Sun and Mother Sky. While the Sun's light makes life possible, for a people who live in a world of ice too much direct sunlight can lead to slushy terrain or, worse, avalanches. As such, Mother Sky shields her children from Father Sun's direct gaze.

Humans

The humans of Fronteira are sailors and explorers. They live along the coast to the east, or among the islands of the Hinansho archipelago. However, as explorers, they are the most widespread race; it is not uncommon to find a human living among the elves or orcs.

Much of the world's trade is made possible by the humans' mastery of ship-building. Many of the river barges that carry goods long distances are crewed by humans. As such, humans make natural diplomats as well.

The ancient stories of human myth tell of a time of turmoil, before the world was settled by the sapient races. It was a time of war between two groups of gods, the Hitogami and the Jakugami. The Jakugami sought to subjugate all mortals and rule the world, as was their right. The Hitogami fought them, defending the freedom of mortals to live their own life. Eventually, light won out over darkness and the Jakugami were banished from the material realm, deep into the elemental borderlands where they plot their inevitable return.

The average human, however, is not overly religious. Of the five races, they are the least spiritual. Their priests wield as much power as those of the other races, and are respected and well-loved, but most humans view gods and faith as a distant parallel to their lives, rather than an integral part of it.

Elves

In the southeast of Fronteira lie the primordial forests, influenced by proximity to the elemental borderland of Wood. Here, the elves make their home.

Elves, as in most settings, build their homes among the trees of the forest. They seek to have as little impact on the natural world as possible; where humans colonize and adapt their surroundings to suit their lifestyles, elves do the opposite. They build their houses in the forest canopy, sculpting living wood into buildings.

To elves, the world is alive. Everything, from trees to grass to rocks, has a spirit, called shen. This divine energy permeates everything, even manufactured items such as buildings or weapons. By coaching a shen to grow in strength, the elves can channel this divine energy to assist them in their daily lives.

Chief among the disparate shen are the five great spirits, the Daishen. Where a rock may have a fairly weak spirit, a mountain's is mighty. The strongest spirits are groupings of many weaker, related ones. The Rising Stone is the spirit of the earth itself. The Great Sea is the soul of all water, whether in the ocean, the rivers and lakes, or even just small woodland streams. The Thousand Trees is the spirit of all wildgrowth, not just forests. The Surging Flame is the spirit of fire, from the mightiest shen of the sun to the souls of volcanoes and underground magma. The Roaring Wind is the spirit of the sky, of wind and clouds.

Elves build their homes around shrines to these spirits. Ancient trees are the most common, as most elves live in forests, but some elves build villages around large boulders or hills. A few elves, far from home, may build shrines atop a mountain.

Orcs

In most settings, orcs are merely monsters to be slain. Not so, the orcs of Fronteira. A proud culture of warriors, orcs call the most infertile lands home: the deserts and scrublands of the southwest.

The orc mindset is one of power and progress. Even moreso than humans, orcs seek to conquer the land they call home, to bend it to their will. This is a necessity, as the lands in which they dwell are not habitable in their native state. Many technological advancements have been brought to the world by the orcs, such as irrigation or the use of gunpowder.

Strangely, orcs are also the most spiritual of the five races. Rather than connect to the spirit of the land around them, as elves would, orcs look within. Their faith teaches that each orc houses divinity, the spark that gives them an intelligence greater than the beasts of the world. How they reconcile this with the existence of the other races varies: one orcish nation teaches that all races house divinity, and thus encourages cooperation with their brethren. The other nation sees non-orcs as impostors, beings forged from the souls of evil gods rather than the good gods who have granted the orcs their souls.

Orcs view their emotions as an expression of this divine spark. Each of the five primary emotions - Fear, Grief, Joy, Lust, and Rage - is a gift from another deity, one to be cherished. By experiencing a powerful expression of one of these emotions, an orc remembers the long-dead god that made such power possible. Some orcs strive to balance these emotions, doing what they can to experience each in roughly equal amounts; others pick a favorite and dedicate their lives to honoring the memory of the associated deity.

Recently, one of the orcish nations raised a massive army and invaded inland, seeking to expand their territory. This was driven as much by a need for more fertile lands as it was by the orcs' sense of superiority. Understandably, this has led the other races to distrust orcs. Unfortunately, this includes even the orcs who did not partake in the invasion; even those orcs who fought to oppose their invading kin aren't fully trusted.

Dwarves

The dwarves of Fronteira are an isolationist, even xenophobic, people. Whether this is a consequence of making their homes in remote mountains to the west, or a natural circumstance of their religious beliefs, non-dwarves can only guess.

Dwarves do occasionally trade with the other races. Some dwarves even choose to leave their mountain strongholds and dwell within the borders of foreign nations. These dwarves are the exception rather than the rule; the dwarves didn't even come to the aid of the humans, elves and halflings in the war against the orcs.

Dwarven religion encourages this xenophobia. They believe that only by achieving balance can a soul transcend this world and reach the paradise that awaits beyond. The other races simply lack the capacity for balance: only a dwarf can truly understand zakon.

Dwarves are death worshipers. Svet, their unknowable god, is lord of the afterlife and has the job of judging the souls of the dead, to determine whether they are worthy of joining the host of honored ancestors. The only way a living dwarf may know Svet's will is through one of the intermediaries, the souls of ancestors who have passed through the veil into death. To commune with one of these ancestors, a dwarf must allow her to possess him; this is achieved during great parties which celebrate every aspect of life.

At the head of the dwarven nation is a council of three leaders: one living, two dead. Whenever a living king dies, his body is mummified and then reanimated through use of a sacred ritual. Upon achieving his second life, he replaces the oldest previous dead king, and a new living king takes his place in turn.

Genasi

Finally, much rarer than the five races listed above, are the genasi. These are mortals who have been imbued, by proximity to the borderlands, with elemental energy. Each borderland produces genasi of a different type: the Verdant Borderland turns elves into green- or brown-skinned genasi with the power of the woods in their veins, while the Zephyreal Borderland turns halflings into white- or icy-blue-skinned genasi touched by a chill wind.

At the far reaches of the world, where the elemental borderlands meet the material realm, the genasi are cautiously accepted. Further inland, however, they are misunderstood and thus shunned. Few genasi, therefore, live far from the elemental borderlands.

Genasi have no culture of their own; there just isn't a large enough population. A genasi coupling is not guaranteed to produce a genasi child: only exposure to the raw elemental energy of one of the borderlands has a chance to do that. Most genasi are born to non-genasi parents, and are therefore raised in the culture of those parents.

Race to the Finish

That is, in brief, a look at the races of Fronteira: their faiths, culture, and the lands they call home.

Join me next week, when we'll get away from Fronteira and its Elemental Borderlands.

Enter the Elemental Borderlands

My favorite aspect of GMing is worldbuilding. Whether it's a new idea for a magic system, a new fantasy race, or an entire setting, I enjoy the act of creation.

So I'm going to share one of my fantasy settings: the world of the Elemental Borderlands.

This world was created for use with D&D. As such, it is more generic than most of my creations: it's got elves, dwarves, standard wizards, and the like. In other words, it is relatively familiar, and thus a great starting place for sharing some of my ideas.

The Elemental Borderlands

It is a world in the midst of elemental chaos, where one is capable of physically traveling into the elemental planes just by heading in the right direction for a while. In the material realm, at the center, the five races (humans, elves, orcs, dwarves, and halflings) rule; further out, the world descends into raw elemental energy that is unfit for mortal habitation. At the borders between material and elemental, occasional incursions from the denizens of the elemental realms cross into the material realm and seek to spread their influence ever-inward.

Even with a persistent external threat, however, all is not well among the mortal races. The xenophobic dwarves isolate themselves in their mountain strongholds, their religion claiming that foreigners are unclean and thus to be avoided. The orcs, sick of scratching out an existence in the resource-poor desert and scrubland, dream of the day when they can expand their territory, all the while licking their wounds from their recent failed attempt to do exactly that. Humans struggle against the spirit of exploration which tempts them to make increasingly dangerous incursions into the elemental realms.

And the elementals watch, waiting for the perfect time to strike.

Welcome to Fronteira, the realm of the Elemental Borderlands.

The Five Elements

The elemental realms are divided into five regions of roughly equal size. Each region is in a fixed direction with relation to the material realm, but once a traveler crosses into the elemental realms all bets are off. A group of halfling nomads may track their prey into the frozen realm of Air in the north, only to turn around and find themselves in the realm of Fire south of the material world. More dangerous than the chance of getting lost, otherworldly creatures born of pure elemental energy stalk the realms, defending against incursions from the mortal races.

Most dangerous of all, the very essence of these elemental regions is anathema to mortal kind; traveling too deeply into the realm of Water, for example, causes the surface to vanish, leaving only crushing depths with miles of water overhead. Even the locations relatively close to the material realm are dangerous, though livable.

Air

To the north, beyond the frozen tundra, lies the Zephyreal Borderland, commonly called the elemental plane of Air. At first, the only indication that one has crossed into this realm is the starkness of the landscape; everything is flat and white, an endless expanse of snow and ice unbroken by any noteworthy landmarks. Traveling deeper, the wind picks up into an eternal storm of snow and ice; at the same time, the ground begins to soften, hard-packed snow melting away into solid cloudstuff.

The farthest reaches accessible to the mortal races is this floating world of clouds. Beyond that, even the clouds drop off in a great cliff and only creatures capable of flight may continue. At this point, the raging whirlwinds are so harsh that even if a mortal were able to obtain the gift of flight, only natives to the realm of Air (who are immune to even the harshest winds of their region) may continue.

Water

Continuing clockwise, the Littoral Borderland lies to the east. Commonly called the elemental plane of Water, it is reached only by sailing across the mundane ocean of the material realm. In fact, it is almost impossible to notice when one has crossed from physical to elemental; the first clue is a misty fog that clings permanently to the water's surface.

Deeper in the realm of Water, the fog thickens and the air becomes so saturated with water that it feels more like breathing liquid than air. Eventually, further travel becomes impossible without some magical means of breathing underwater, as the fog thickens to such an extent that it becomes water, and the surface vanishes entirely. In the great depths of the realm of Water, the weight of endless water overhead crushes any living thing other than the native denizens of Water.

Wood

To the southeast lies the Verdant Borderland, sometimes called the Choking Jungle but most commonly known as the elemental plane of Wood. It is impossible to miss the border between physical and elemental, as it is marked by a thick hedge of vines and thorns, brambles and bushes. Pushing through this barrier, a traveler finds herself in a vibrant jungle full of life, both animal and vegetable.

At first, the plants and beasts are recognizable; most are obvious relatives to their counterparts in the material realm. Eventually, however, the chaotic nature of the elemental realms makes itself known as the creatures and vegetation become increasingly alien and hostile. Additionally, trees and vines grow ever-closer together until deeper travel becomes impossible; even before reaching this point, however, most explorers are picked off by the variety of ferocious predators native to this hostile realm.

Fire

Southwest of the material plane, beyond the scorching desert, lies the Calescent Borderland. Better known as the elemental plane of Fire, this is widely considered to be the most dangerous of the five elemental regions. Crossing from material to elemental, the temperatures surge even higher than those found in the bordering desert; worse, there is no respite as the temperature remains high even at night.

The landscape is marked by pools of molten rock and twisted mockeries of trees wreathed in eternal flames. The pools of molten rock grow more common the deeper one travels into the realm, and the temperatures continue to soar. Eventually, the land itself falls away into an endless lake of molten lava and the temperatures become high enough that most materials begin to spontaneously combust; travel beyond this point is impossible for any other than the native denizens of this realm.

Earth

Finally, to the west of the material realm and directly counter-clockwise from the realm of Air, lies the Hypogeal Borderland. Sometimes called the Underworld or the Underdark, more often simply called the elemental plane of Earth, this is a realm that exists entirely underground; attempting to climb over the mountains at the edge of the material realm quickly becomes impossible as they continue to stretch ever-higher into the sky.

A maze of pitch-black caverns, tunnels and caves, the realm of Earth is dangerous more out of risk of getting lost than of any inhospitable nature of the terrain. As the caverns are ever-changing, it is impossible to map this realm and thus every incursion carries of risk of being unable to find a way out. At the deepest reaches of the realm of Earth, the caverns thin out and eventually vanish entirely; only the natives, capable of swimming through solid rock as if it were water, can continue beyond this point.

Next Week

Join me next week to continue exploring the world of the Elemental Borderlands. We will discuss the five races: an overview of their cultures, religious beliefs, and homelands. Xenophobic dwarves, nomadic halflings, and more await!

Linear Design Is Not Railroading

It is undeniable that words change over time. A word once meant as a compliment can, over centuries, come to be an insult. This is a side effect of language being a living, breathing thing.

On occasion, a word takes on too much meaning and effectively becomes meaningless. This is the poor fate of the term "railroading". It's not uncommon for a player to declare that his GM is railroading when all she is guilty of is maintaining the verisimilitude of the setting, or telling a linear story.

It is time to reclaim the meaning of railroading.

What is Railroading?

Railroading is the act of negating the choices a player makes. Nothing more, nothing less.

This can occur in a variety of situations, and takes several different forms. Sometimes, it's done outside of the game; a GM says "no, you can't do that". Other times, it is baked into the game; invisible walls spring up, trapping the players within the path that the GM wishes them to take. On occasion, it's done without the players being any wiser; if, regardless of whether they take the left path or the right at the fork in the road, the players will wind up at Dangerville, the GM is railroading to some extent.

As an example.

GM: You pass the first few cottages on the fringe of Dangerville, and people stop their work to stare at you. If the rumors are to be believed, this town is not as safe and secure as the name would lead you to believe.

Player A: I stop to talk to one of the villagers. "Hail, and well met. Is there a place where a thirsty stranger can find an ale?"

GM: Uh... The villager just stares at you and says "You should go talk to the Dollmaker."

Player B: Dollmaker? Sounds boring. Is there a pretty woman nearby? I want to try my Seduction skill.

GM: All of the other villagers ignore you. (To Player A) The man gives you directions to the Dollmaker's shop.

Player A: I ask him directions to the tavern. The Dollmaker can wait.

GM: He walks away.

Player A: Fine. I'll look for the tavern myself.

Player B: Yeah. I'm sure one of the barmaids will be interested in my charms.

GM: The town doesn't have a tavern. But you do come across the Dollmaker's shop...

Clearly, the GM is railroading. The players are trying to do their own thing, and the GM keeps shutting them down and pointing them back to his plot. By disallowing, ignoring, or rendering impossible any other path, the GM anchors his players to a set of rails from which there is no escape.

Other times, railroading can be more subtle.

GM: The Dollmaker's Clockwork Complex on the edge of Dangerville looms ahead of you.

Player A: I'm going to try to sneak in close and get a good look at what we're dealing with.

GM: Uh... roll your Sneakiness skill.

Player A: (rolls) Alright! That's a result of 29!

GM: Wow. Uh... unfortunately, that's not good enough; you needed a 30. The Dollmaker's Clockwork Cavalier sentry spots you and sounds the alarm. Roll initiative!

The GM allows the player to try a different approach than the one he'd planned, but the result is predetermined. Since the GM counted on them fighting their way into the Clockwork Complex on the outskirts of Dangerville, the player's attempt to sneak into the complex is destined to fail.

Now let's step away from railroading for a minute and discuss something else.

Linear Story Design

Imagine you're planning a short campaign in which the players will end up saving the world. You create the following outline.

A: The players hear rumors about a Dollmaker in Dangerville who is building an army of Clockwork Cavaliers.

B: The players track down the Dollmaker in his Clockwork Complex.

C: The players destroy the army of automatons and confront the Dollmaker. They discover that he was working for the Jealous Bard.

D: The players track down the Jealous Bard, atop the Spine of the World.

E: The players stop the Jealous Bard from singing the final verse of the Worldsong and destroying all of creation.

This is a linear story. From any given point, there is a clear path along which the story continues, ending at a predetermined conclusion. So is it railroading to run this story?

No.

Linear Storytelling is not Railroading

Many of you are probably vehemently disagreeing with me right now. "Of course that's railroading! The characters have no choice in where they take the story!"

But I'm here to tell you: it's not the same thing.

That's not to say that a linear story never coincides with railroading. I'm not even going to deny that there is a strong correlation: most railroading occurs within the context of linear stories. Yet it is entirely possible to run a game with a linear story without once railroading your players.

Take our above example. In order for the story to work, the player characters must travel to Dangerville, somehow stop the Dollmaker and his Clockwork Cavaliers, and then travel to the Spine of the World to stop the Jealous Bard. Yet, within that framework, the players have many choices.

When invading the Clockwork Complex, do they favor a frontal assault or a more sneaky approach? Do they go in alone, or rally the townsfolk to storm the place with them? Do they try to lure the Dollmaker out, or maybe wait for him to leave the Complex before striking?

When confronting the Dollmaker, do the players try to negotiate or simply attack? Do they destroy the Clockwork Cavaliers, or try to somehow turn them against their creator? Do they capture the Dollmaker, or kill him? Turn him over to the authorities? Let him go free? Forge an alliance? Try to enlist his aid against the Jealous Bard?

Before pursuing the Jealous Bard to the Spine of the World, do the players seek out more information? Potential allies? When climbing the tower, do they move quickly and destroy any opposition, or do they attempt to infiltrate it in disguise? Maybe they even try to scale the outside of the Spine, rather than taking the winding staircase within.

Before confronting the Jealous Bard, did they manage to discover his motivation? Do they know that he seeks to end the world in a fit of rage, angry that its denizens have for decades considered him useless just because he is a bard?

And, of course, how they handle the encounter with the Bard can go a lot of different ways.

Within the linear story, the players have a lot of wiggle room. Even something as simple as a "travel from point A to point B" story allows for several choices along the way, with each having some impact on how the events of the story unfold.

Why This is Important

A lot of voices in the gaming community are all too quick to jump on a GM for "railroading". "Anything less than a pure sandbox is railroading! The only correct way to run games is to allow the players total freedom, adapting to their choices on the fly!"

This is problematic for two reasons. One, not all GMs are comfortable with the level of improvisation required to run a game in that manner. Particularly when it comes to newer GMs, it's demoralizing being told that they're doing something wrong by not allowing the players to do literally anything they want.

Second, linear stories are a powerful tool in a GM's toolbox. Linear stories often have much stronger themes and plots, and can be more consistently entertaining than a sandbox style of gaming. By lumping linear storytelling in with railroading, we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

So don't be afraid to design a linear story. Just make sure that, within the context of the story, the players still have a variety of options.