TIRRA
I’m building a planet, and you’re invited to come play.
TIRRA is a continent on a planet that I am constructing as a fictional story resource and an RPG game environment. The current plan is to release TIRRA as a World Book, a game Rule Book, and a Critters Compendium of some sort. I may need a little help with some graphics at some point, but I hope to get this all published in 2011.
The World Book is being finished up first. In it you will find places, peoples, cultures, and history – hopefully real enough to spark your own creativity for game play or fiction writing. Throughout the World Book there will be short fiction examples to hopefully jumpstart your scenario, or possibly give you fully-developed NPC characters to throw into your mix.
TIRRA is a continent that essentially has very little to no iron to mine. Iron is more precious than gold. This makes many things that we on Earth take for granted – such as the Industrial Revolution – impossible. Armor and weapons are made of brass and bronze alloys. Weapons and tactics will be different. A wide variety of armor will be available for your characters, but nothing like iron plate.
TIRRA society has developed along two lines of technology – whatever can be conceived of and created with the available materials, and magic. If a horseless buggy is coming down the road and making some noise, there is a chance that it either has a djinn trying to get out of his magic box that is powering the vehicle (or a couple of fighting elementals); or that there is a steam-powered engine chuffing along moving the buggy slowly down the road. Any technology advanced enough can be thought of as magic by the uninformed. Also any magic advanced enough can be thought of as a technology by the uninformed.
The Rule Book is an independent project complete with stats for players, armor, weapons, magic, and all things TIRRAN. The result will be a skills-based approach with increases for skills actually used (and used very successfully) and setbacks for skills that fail more often or not. The overall balance is going to be characters that move forward through life without mentors, training (and related costs) or inexplicable increases in a character’s abilities where a skill has never been used. The rules are not based on any other game system.
I only have a few entries in the Critter Compendium at this point. There are more to come. The aim is to provide a fresh new set of monster encounters, without the fully predictable creature encounters.
This blog therefore is shifting to supporting my TIRRA effort. Ideas are welcome, as will be play testers when the rule book is further along.
