In the process, I have streamlined the rules so that one simple chart and one simple dice roll will affect much of your fate – whether it is spell casting, melee combat, trying to get a contract from that badass mercenary leader, or just hanging onto the rope for one more round.

I have to resist the temptation to move on to the next continent (so MANY goodies waiting there) and keep grinding on what I already have.

The first experimentation with a Republic concept in TIRRA, Hillport is a large capital set amid the hills and peninsulas on the northeast coast. Claude, the Proconsul, rules Hillport with political help from his cronies in the Senate. Nearly twenty years ago the Republic was founded with a great deal of internal fanfare – and much ridicule from the neighbors.  Claude and his co-founder Kervis had many uneasy days until Kervis committed suicide by drinking poison after the eighth year anniversary celebrations (12 years ago).

The rough area of the official  Hillport boundary can be marked by the Bertram River to the east, the Baldtops to the north, and the sea along its coastline – between two peninsulas.

Hillport is ridiculously wealthy, since it has various successful mines.  The heavily fortified mines are in the hills, and a carefully guarded state resource. Most people who venture there don’t come back – or they end up working in the mines to ensure the state secret. The streets of the capital are lined with statues, temples, obelisks, and opulent decorations for the purely decadent at heart. The local gold coin (the “wheel”) is proudly on their banners. Their bathhouses are elaborate miniature palaces, fit for socializing or entertaining.

With that wealth comes a large army and navy for an area that is essentially a city-state. This is strange since there are few rivals and nobody threatening. The old men are gossiping about war plans these days. Perhaps an invasion soon, of Malthos or Kaloram?  Hillport troops also roam Narzil, providing all defenses for that small country.

The wealthiest live in villas that are warm in the winter and breezy in the summers. The floors are built up so that the servants can make fires below to heat the floors and outer walls, which also provides hot water for the baths.

The other thing going for Hillport is their invention of concrete. With this strange mixture they are now able to build arches, streets, buildings, columns, and other more artistic persuits. The secret of the concrete is being jealously guarded and each mixture of the substance borders on being a religious ritual.

The sad thing about Hillport is that they have leveraged their way into taking people into servitude from outlying city states or nations. Some are outright slaves, and others are working off debts that were incurred and sadistically increased due to government sponsored merchant dealings in the area. These are the miners, street sweepers, house servants – performing all of the mean, dirty jobs nobody else will do.

There is no TL,DR version.

TIRRA is a continent and several related islands on a planet roughly earth-like. It is elf, dwarf, and orc-free. There are three races of humanoids and three races of lycanthropes. It has nearly twice the area of the North American land mass, as well as extreme terrain, new creatures and plants, politics, and… Well, sorry. That’s all you get for a TL,DR section. You’ll just have to start reading.

What’s so different about TIRRA?

The main difference is that you’re not going to find iron or steel. There just isn’t any to be found. Most of the iron that is available is from meteorites, and these bits get used as compass needles, magnets, or door stops.  Iron is so uncommon that steel has not been developed. Iron is smelted into cast iron, but this is brittle – meaning that iron really isn’t of much use anyway.

Technology therefore is the science of what is possible with this planet-wide handicap. There is no steel to support an industrial revolution. The people here are smart enough to figure it out, but there just is no iron available.

Since you’re going to ask, yes! The planet has a magnetic field, and that’s a good thing for navigation and keeping the solar radiation out. If you want to find the source of the magnetic field though, you’ll have to dig an extremely long way down into the core of the planet where molten iron is available.

This lack of steel will influence your choice of weapons, armor, friends, and other attitudes. Things that you may have done in other game environments need a nudge in a different direction in TIRRA.

Is there magic?

Yes, moreso in some areas than others. Some areas of Tirra are very technology (tinker) centric and they have developed clockworks, small steam engines, and anything from music boxes to devious traps – all based on physics, chemistry, or some other branch of learning.  Other areas of Tirra are very magic (wizard) savy, and magic and alchemy are preferred, as are all the old ways.

To which era from earth’s history can Tirra be compared?

The closest approximation is probably the Renaissance.  Art can be very realistic. Music can be very complicated. Buildings can be full of surprises and a variety of building materials. Politics, intrigues, and a tension between magic and technology. And don’t forget the four churches and their interests!

Is Tirra steampunk?

Not exactly, though in some areas it can be played that way within the limits of available resources. The rule of thumb (subject to your game referee’s guidance) is that if Leonardo Da Vinci could conceive of it, you can try to build it, buy it, or use it. Most brass, bronze alloy or copper versions of things that may come to mind may be heavier or more cumbersome than you’d like, but there is no iron available – so get over it already.

• Area maps of the continent and nearby islands (working on some graphics conversion issues but it is coming)
• Descriptions of the people, nations, cultures, weapons and armor.
• The calendar in common use.
• Star charts showing the constellations that inspired the calendar.
• The alphabet and number systems as written and samples of the TIRRAN language.
• General descriptions of the game character classes
• Notes on the Mythology behind the world and full descriptions of deities.

The accompanying game (not required to enjoy the world book) is a class and skill-based approach to RPG gaming. Character classes are templates, but players will be able to create their own character class if they so choose.  Skills improve with success, and a lack of success may reverse your fortunes for a few days. After all, why should you advance in a skill you’ve never used?

Magic will include a priest class, wizards, warlocks (elemental manipulation and control), as well as the familiar warriors, knights of the church, rangers, rogues, and the list goes on.

I’m working on getting more content available in this blog, and also getting content ready for publication – on top of a demanding day job. Please be patient!

Ardzin's Banner

They feel kinship toward their neighbors in Steed Shire, and there is an alliance between the two countries.  Ardzin has no major cities, but the largest town and seat of government is Harken, which is located between the Stallion Run and the Sinder rivers, and close enough to the rest of the coast to not worry much about the goings on “up east”.  Ardzin is mostly forested, and a lack of good grazing lands inhibits good horse herds.  If you’re traveling on the rivers in the north, the sailors and barge masters are more likely from Ardzin.  Ardzin is formally known as the Barony of Frie, oddly enough, and currently is in the custody of Baron Johann of the House of Frie.

The ages each have meaning. TIRRA is lacking in iron, and therefore must make do with copper, zinc, nickel, and tin and so on. Swords made of bronze may look impressive, but they really just don’t hold up very well against an armored opponent.  Unless you are very good at only attacking soft spots on your opponents armor, your sword will dull and/or break eventually.

Which is why swords are reserved for unarmored opponents, and are becoming a symbol across large swaths of TIRRA as symbols of repression.

This then is the age when governments are sometimes finding advantage in slavery, and in forcibly keeping populations at fearful and oppressed.  Who will win – the swords or the peasants?

Tirra is a large continent on a world called Talia, a world that has a large number of different kinds of peoples who are spread across TIRRA and two other continents, and several large islands.

One sun crosses the brilliantly blue sky each day, and there is one smallish moon that has a bluish tint to some areas of it.  Weather patterns and tides are predicatable to a certain extent.

One thing Talia does not have is an abundance of iron.  By whatever act of the gods (you can blame Narvad if you’d like) or evolution, creation, or random visits by asteroids long ago, iron is nearly non-existant for the average person.  Thankfully, there is a plentiful supply of copper and tin so that bronze is easily made. This makes any iron (or steel) extremely expensive, as it is in high demand. Those governments who can afford it are purchasing iron for their armories and weaponers.

It’s a pity really, because many areas would have seen an industrial revolution by now if iron had been available. As it is, the people are doing the best they can with bronze. They can make engines that run on steam, machines of intricate gears and cams, or deadly traps.  Mass production is difficult, and therefore most clockworks, engines, and other devices are painstakingly hand made, which is also quite expensive. For this reason they are often passed down through family lines as a proud heirloom, or gifted to the community in remembrance.

Sometimes you have to take a walk.

Sometimes I have to go someplace entirely different.

Adrian Lark, founder of Mars3D.com, has created a virtual ‘flyover’ video of the martian landscape using image data collected by NASA’s HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment), the most powerful camera ever sent into space.

The stunning animation shows Mars’s southwest Candor Chasma.

I had to go digging for it, but there is another thread over here describing how alien worlds might actually exist, and whether or not they may be useful in fiction descriptions.  Some of it is far fetched, but some if it may be useful.  If you’re on a ringed planet, did you know that the rings may alter their angle against the sun at different times of the year so that you may be in the shadow of the rings for half a year or so?  This is why you don’t go sunbathing on Saturn.

I was taking a tour around the ‘net, and I stumbled onto this video.  It is a 1927 colour film of London.

It’s absolutely stunning. If I were trying to describe 1927 London, I’m quite sure I would have gotten it so completely wrong as to be laughable. But then the odds are we are all in that boat.  Now at least there is a sense of the city.

And of a little girl selling peanuts.  That just started writing a story for me right there.  And the old boat on the Thames.

Evocative.  I’m really glad I found this video.  I think I’m nearly rebooted now!

I started thinking about anachronisms this week. I was walking near a military facility, and I overheard a guy behind me complaining, “It doesn’t rain IN the Army, it rains ON the Army, so you better just learn to deal with it!”  From his strident tone (and yes, it was raining) I was expecting some young person, probably in uniform and walking with a colleague.  I slowed down and adjusted my umbrella because I wanted to see if my hunch was correct.

Yes, I do odd things like that sometimes… But I was very incorrect. Both men were in their 50s, a bit rotund, and obviously reminiscing about having to endure rain while in the service years ago. Neither one had a jacket and it was quite chilly.

While this wasn’t exactly an anachronism, it got me thinking about timelines.  If you’re stuck on a story line, maybe it would be more interesting in a different time.  Let’s look at some modern trends and see if we can jazz things up.

Vampires.  Teens eat these stories for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Goth is still quite popular, and the entertainment industry is sucking it for all it’s worth.  But let’s face it, the urban fiction angles have been about played out haven’t they?  Why not think about your vampire story as set on a space station or planetary outpost.  Or better yet, how would Neanderthal tribes have dealt with vampires?  Would they have figured it out or would they just be free food?  Is that what wiped out the Neanderthals?

If your book deals with politics, why stay with today’s headlines?  Why not move everything back 200 years?  Or better yet, find a nice timeline of maybe the Hundred Years War and set it ahead to maybe 2015.

I started a novel once that set a couple of modern guys back to an age that was somewhere between high fantasy and steampunk.  I never finished it because it got too wierd (yeah, even for me).  It was a hidden area where some magic still lingered, but steam power was used as well.  I think about that setting often, and wonder sometimes if I shouldn’t dust it off.

What I’m trying to say is – no matter what you’re writing, if you are stuck just throw it into a different time and see what you end up with.