Help me out /tg/
I'm going to use a DnD-esque holiday game for some people, and I need help with the setting. Pic related is a WIP map, most of the world is going to be taiga, tundra, frozen desert etc.
What should I call the places? The only one I got in mind right now is a town called St. Nicholas, but there's going to be more
What gods, creatures and people dwell on this world? Keep in mind that everything is cold as fuck
Also any other suggestions are really appreciated.
>>43888888
Holy shit these hexes(?) should be a sign of goodluck
>>43888902
It's notable, sure. But it doesn't make me any better at coming up with names. My best technique involves modifying captchas.
>>43888888
Good thread
>>43888888
Nice meng
Witnessed and checked.
Thread derailed even before the first reply. This must be a new record.
>>43888888
Yetis, Trolls, Frost Giants and Bears. Pretty much anything with thick fur or high resistance to cold for obvious reasons.Where there are huge expanses of tundra without any sort of timber or hills it will probably be very windy - consider air elementals as well as water elementals in some of the less populated regions. You could consider adding an Underdark portion but if you don't like Drow it could just be a place where those escaped the harsh climates from above, maybe due to some heat that is within the area from some sort of split in the ground - something like hot springs or a lava flow. Whatever floats your boat.
Probably a heavy reliance on fish so a number of ports, probably most of the villages, towns and cities that have high influence will be on the coast. Smaller villages and towns could probably survive off roaming herds of elk or other less dangerous beasts that could survive the weather, but you'll probably want to add a few forests, maybe some plants that can survive the weather but still bear edible food.
If you're going for your own gods then you can make some perhaps dedicated to an animal that the locales heavily rely on and other cold elements, but otherwise probably a storm or sea based god that is regularly worshiped in hopes of bountiful harvests of fish.
Most humanoids could probably survive the climate but probably the hardiest (or the most stubborn) would be out in the farther reaches. I imagine Humans and Dwarves, maybe Half Orcs. Anyone could probably be found in major cities or towns on the coast.
>>43888888
You could use descriptive names for places and just translate them.
Say "-drav" denotes a places as being build around a ford, and "Vel" means hill. So the town on a hill near some river is called Veldrav or Hillsford, whatever works better for your players.
Look at some real place names(old European stuff works well), see where towns were build and take name components from there.
>>43889081
Thanks for these suggestions!
Hadn't thought of fishing yet. Whaling could probably be a big time job, since they're very nutritious.
>>43889108
Yep, I've looked at some Scandinavian names, but I'd like to add the special holiday feeling to those towns, since it's going to be a holiday campaign.
>>43888916
This is what I do for names in D&D.
Pick some word that has particular meaning for the character, item, or place - for example I want to make a paladin from the frozen north who has a wolf as a sigil, so I pick Direwolf.
Go to the Wikipedia page for the word. See on the left side of the page where there is a list of languages this article is available in? Mouse over those to see the same word in different languages, and pick one that sounds cool. It looks like direwolf is "Skrekkulv" in Norwegian, that sounds pretty cool, that becomes my character's name.
This works for a lot of words, but not all.
>>43889213
This is a great suggestion, thanks so much!
>>43888888
The gods should be something they would NEED the favor of to survive. God of sun/fire/warmth to survive the harsh weather, god of frost/winter/storms to make sure he doesn't go full fuck force on the settlements and freeze everything over, god of hunting/fishing/gathering so the supplies are abundant, god of commerce/trade/crafts to wrench some extra goods from visiting traders, god of adventure/travelling/paths to ease the journeys in the harsh wilderness and so forth.
Map progress! Should I do the isles in the south or not?
>>43890051
Is there an easy way to get there and are they important to the story or economy of the lands? If not, just say they're dead islands with nothing but ice and rock
>>43890376
Maybe some shipwrecks or glaciers.
>>43888888
Wait, how long is this 'holiday game' going to be? Because you might not need a whole world/continent/nation map for a thing that will last just two or three sessions, you know.
>>43890376
I was planning to make them breeding grounds for seal-like creatures. They're hard to reach, but pelt hunters travel there.
>>43890456
It's going to be online, and I'm planning to make it last until the end of december. But if it's really fun I might continue it
How's this for a map?
>>43890583
Nice! And has a great graphic too - did you use a program or have you done it manually?
The names are quite funny.
Are you going for a fairytalesque adventure in the nordic lands with some Christmas nods, or a half-serious story that revolves entirely around Christmas-related imagery?
About monsters...
Wendigos and dire elks /wereelks sound like Christmas to me.
Courts of dark fairies always give a nice Nordic fairytale touch.
You could have Nicholaus as a lich that has been exiled in the far north, and if you do so, an army of undead elves would be pretty fitting for him.
Alternatively, you could have deranged 'elves' that for some strange reason kidnap people to turn them into sick, twisted toys.
I wouldn't suggest elementals, since they would kind of ruin the fairy - tale atmosphere, but if you want to prank your players you could go for snowman ice elementals.
>>43890924
I used http://inkarnate.com, a free online tool for mapmaking. It's hard to use at first, but once you get to know the ins and outs of it it's wonderful.
It's not going to be an overly serious game, but instead of directly calling christmas stuff by its name, I'm going to hide it a little. It'll still be recognizable though.
>>43891093
Lovely suggestions! Though I'd like to make Santa the good guy, or at least neutral
Bumpty Bump
>>43890583
Goddamn, that's a lot of fjords. Much more than the map in OP, in fact. Is that intentional?
>>43893911
Yep, it is. The coastline in the OP was only partially finished, and I like the idea ofmost of the southern coast to be hard to access. Also, cities built in and on cliffs/fjords look cool.
>>43893911
Lovely crinkly edges.
