West of Westerlands

A big part of worldbuilding for me is being able to see/visualize the setting. Fortunately there are very talented and generous artists like Geoff Nunn and Feanaaro who churn out amazing maps, and graciously allow me to use them. The members of cartographers guild really are great people.

The Westerlands are the main setting of my Realmwalkers campaign because of Geoff's amazing map. But the more I fleshed out the world and it's history, the more world I realized I needed. Ironically there is land west of the Westerlands. It is this map.

If I leave it in its original form the southeast island could be the tip of the archipelago in the southwest of the Westerlands, but that means the two are very close. Or maybe I'll flip it so the coastlines look like they match up (happy accident!) I can't really decide. I like the way it looks reversed, but I don't know how close together to place the landmasses. I figure the sea between them will be like the Atlantic Ocean dividing the Old World from the New World. It stands to reason that eventually that great unknown will be explored.

It will be added into my homebrew later as an "expansion" of sorts. I know in the frozen north of the Westerlands there are barbarians and giants, the south is the jungle home of the Draken, the desert dwelling Grimalkin live in the southeast, and the Red Wastes in the east spawn Orcs and necromancers. But the primary humans of the Westerlands are the last remnants of the once great Atilaen seafaring people who moved inland when the oceans rose and drowned most of their culture. They have no idea that more of them survived and fled west across the waters. I just need to ponder it some more to figure out how different they are from their eastern cousins. Definitely something to think about.

The other issue is what to call it. The artist asked I not use the name he gave it, which is completely fair.

I think maybe I'll call it/them the Sunset Kingdoms. The largest island is the real seat of power, and each of the other islands is governed by a duke/count. They are constantly vying for more power and thus always in conflict. Their religion still worships the sea and some worship stones - this causes its own internal strife. When they come into contact with the sun worshipping, generally peaceful Westerlanders (I think they'll call them Dawners) war is practically inevitable. When some Westerlanders learn that there are people practicing the ancient religion of the sea, they too want to go back to their roots and leave, causing a rift within their own lands.

The Age of Man

As was covered earlier, there are various core races to the Westerlands (aka Realmwalkers). But just how do the lifespans of these fantasy denizens compare to humans? Well I'm glad you asked. Arranged from eldest to youngest they are:

*An update: I recently came up with a possible age progression of elves compared to humans. Elves mature and grow at the same rate as humans until their late teens. From then on an elf only ages physically about 1 year for every 3-5 human years. Thus when a human reaches very old age of 85-100 an elf of the same age will only look in their late 20s or early 30s.

Elves: 500-800, although they still refer to the Eldar who would be thousands of years old had they remained in humanoid form.
Gnomes: 300-400, considered to be very old and gifted if they live beyond 350.
Dwarves: 250-350, being a people of action and productivity, once a dwarf passes age 300 they consider themselves too old and infirm to keep up with the younguns.
Half-Elves: 200-250, barely half the lifespan of a full blood elf, these hybrids are still more than double the average human life expectancy.
Humans: 80-100, actual life expectancy in the Late Middle Ages for the average commoner was about 40-50 tops, but because we don't want players/NPCs keeling over too soon I've stretched it to a full century if they're very healthy or if they have some magical talent that keeps them kicking.
Half-Orcs: 80-100, they might live as long as humans, but because they're a warrior society they seek a "good death" in battle preferably before 75. So if you're ever invited to a Hork's 80th birthday party, respectfully decline.
Grimalkin: They're catfolk. So do they actually have 9 lives? I was thinking more along the lines of reincarnation of the soul. Their physical bodies age and die at about the same rate as humans, but based on their karma and conscience they come back again and again in various forms. Mayhap their nirvana is being reborn as a star with full recollection of all previous lives. The brightest stars could be the best souls in the heavens, constant reminders to be as good as you can to achieve immortality.
Draken: I want them to be very old as well. I think 350-500 would give them a respectable run with much time to hone their skills and wisdom. Maybe they too get reborn -symbolic of shedding old scales - but they don't retain memory of complete life, just important lessons learned. Priests are literally more learned than warriors. Fighters are "young souls" who haven't yet settled down and embraced higher learning.

Vampires: well obviously they're immortal
Lycans: They maintain the normal lifespan of their original race, minus a bit because of their highly active hunter lifestyle.

Think of what this all means in terms of remembering and recounting events as we know them. In the last State of the Union address, an elderly woman was spotlighted for her devotion to civic duty - voting. She waited in line for hours and hours to cast her ballot.. She was 102! That means she was born during William Howard Taft's Presidency and would have been eligible to vote for Calvin Coolidge. She would have been just a few years older than me when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. She was 55 when JFK was assassinated, and 58 when Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot.

The Land of Nod posted an interesting timeline back in April. It goes a little something like this Core Race Memories

[Un]natural Magic & Elf Legend

If you're interested in what Brandon Sanderson has to say about magic systems, check this out

 Realmwright: Nullus Deus Ex Machina

The magic of the Westerlands is definitely a soft system. It's nature based in the 5 elements of earth, water, air, fire, and spirit/energy. I thank Robert Jordan for planting that seed years and years ago. I chose this specifically so people would be awed by nature, but able to manipulate it as well. People (or in the gaming case, players) either have a natural aptitude for magic or they don't. Some have very little spark and must fan it into flame through years of careful study and practice. Others have dangerous, raging torrents of magical ability and strive to control it so it doesn't kill them.

The realm of Spirit is entirely unexplained/unexplainable. A very rare few are gifted towards this "element" and it allows them unpredictable powers like telepathy or an ability to see the dead. If they practice practice practice they can eventually commune with the dead via their thought process. This is never entirely clear; however, as the conversing with spirits leads to flashes of premonition either waking or in a dream state. These "dreamers", if noticed at all, are generally identified as very young children who have "over-active" imaginations, talk to "imaginary friends", or flat out tell people the converse with the dead or bluntly and unexpectedly tell people what they are thinking. As is understandable, this freaks a lot of people out to have a little kid say aloud what you're thinking as you think it. One character/player [Laurie's] in particular must meditate long and hard, which is both physically and mentally draining, to reach the necessary trans-trance.

Such practices are revered by some and absolutely forbidden by others. Almost everyone is curious to know more about death and the other side, but lots think you shouldn't go monkeying around with it either. The spirit world knows no sense of time or physicality, but recently passed spirits remember more of their living lives. Ancestral spirits recall less an less as they "age" (while not actually aging) on the other side. This meshing of the incorporeal spirit realm and the tangible physical reality is very mysterious even to one who has devoted their life to its workings.

When I first knew that I'd be using an elemental system of magic I wasn't sure if wood would be one of the schools/talents. As I thought about it more and more I decided that growing things would be a combination of every other magic. Trees grow from the earth, drink up water and sunlight (fire), and breathe air. There is no doubt that they are alive: therefore, contain an unexplained spirit. Trees are basically thought of as ancestors to the elves. In fact, the legend is that the Eldar (near ageless elves from the beginning of time, and the greatest mages ever known) implanted (pun kinda intended) themselves into trees when they felt their time in the emerging order of the world was at an end. They were so in love with the earth and their time upon it that they transmogrified their wise and eternal souls into trees. Had they not done so, life as it's now known could not have arisen because the trees wouldn't exist to produce the air all life breathes. Wind in the trees is eerily called the Breath of Death, when it is in fact the breath of life. Elves judge that those made afraid by a forest wind are evil and/or ignorant of life's magic. Those that revel in the clean smell of earth and leaves are good/pure souls.

Today exceedingly fewer and fewer of the Eldar Trees remain. The elves are of course fiercely protective of them in particular, and consider it a heinous crime against nature to cut down/harm a living tree. A tree that has died naturally is okay to be used for firewood. To cut down a living tree for shelter or tools is less offensive because it is giving its life to improve another's. But to truly avoid offense the cutter must ask the tree's permission to use it, give it a clean and respectful death, and they must plant a seedling (preferably from that very tree) to replace the life taken.

Autumn is a very sad time for elves because the falling leaves (especially red ones) remind the elves of the Eldar blood that was shed to settle the world. The skeletal trees of winter are stark reminders of the death and bygone glory days of the first elves.