Category: Worldbuilding

  • rovers’ end

    rovers’ end

    Rovers’ End is a small village on the three-way border of Dwarven controlled mountains to the west, human domain to the east, and largely uncontested wilderness to the north. This was a once prosperous village but has fallen on hard times.

    I originally used the watabou city generator to make this map, but it’s undergone a few revisions and additions since then. This is the most recent redrawn version.

    Rovers’ End

    The Town Square has a well in the middle and hosts a monthly market where farmers from the outlying areas come to sell produce. Dwarven merchants often come into town at market time to sell pots and pans and the like.

    The Council Building is where the council meets and is also where town records are kept (although births, deaths, and marriages are recorded at the church). There is almost always at least one council member present here.

    The Baker uses locally grown grain ground at the nearby mill and produces good quality bread here. Nothing fancy, but tasty. Villagers buy directly from the baker, but the inn is the bakers’ main customer.

    The Local Inn is the social heart of the town. Food, drink, lodgings, as well as basic adventuring gear can be purchased here. In more prosperous times, the inn would have often been full, but now many of its rooms sit idle. (I’m using Dyson Logos Wooden Duck Inn map for this.)

    The Manor House is where the local lord used to live. The town prospered under his patronage for a while, but strange events cast a shadow over the house, and people started avoiding the town which led to the current decline in the towns fortunes. After the lords’ death, the house has been locked and uninhabited.

    The Mill uses a water wheel drive by the river to grind locally grown grain.

    The Blacksmith is a gnarly old dwarf with a sour disposition but makes excellent quality metal goods. He typically mends pots and forges plough sheers, but has a small inventory of common weapons for sale to the occasional passing adventurers.

    The Docks used to see a lot more use than they do today, with shipments of grain and other goods being sent downriver to the larger towns. Today the docks sit idle a lot of the time except for harvest time, or when the occasional traveller arrives by boat.

    The Church is the spiritual heart of the village. Olaf, the head priest, has presided here for many years and is a strict but kind patriarch of the village.

    Orchard. Fresh fruits grown here.

    The map above is the 72dpi version. The map below is a 300dpi version.

    Creative Commons License

    This work by Lucien Stals is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

  • a list of 5e domains

    a list of 5e domains

    I was goofing around with adapting some D&D deities from various sources (Forgotten Realms, Greek Mythology, some homebrew stuff, and various others) for the game I’m running and got to wondering what godly domains I could be using for them. This led me down the rabbit hole of trying to find a comprehensive list of domains to use for D&D gods.

    “Greek Gods Serie” by Dilem Serbest is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

    Looking at real-world examples was particularly interesting. Some gods have very broad domains (from Greek mythology, Poseidon is god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses), while others have unusually specific domains (Doushen is a Chinese god of smallpox).

    I like the idea that in addition to several heavy hitters, you can have a heap of little gods that could add colour to a game. I keep thinking of Haku from Spirited Away. He’s a river god for one specific river, the Kohaku River.
    I can imagine a new god called Vano, the god of eels and fens. I might use him in my game 🙂

    Here is the list so far…

    Agriculture
    Air
    Ale
    Animal
    Arcana
    Art
    Autumn
    Avarice
    Balance
    Battle
    Beauty
    Bestial
    Blacksmithing
    Cavern
    Change
    Chaos
    Charm
    Child Birth
    Children
    Civilization
    Cold
    Commerce
    Communication
    Community
    Corruption
    Courage
    Cowardice
    Craft
    Creation
    Darkness
    Day
    Death
    Deception
    Demonic
    Desire
    Destruction
    Diabolic
    Domesticity
    Dragon
    Dragonborn
    Dreams
    Drow
    Dwarf
    Earth
    Earthquakes
    Elf
    Envy
    Evil
    Family
    Farming
    Fate
    Father
    Fertility
    Female
    Fey
    Fire
    Fishing
    Fog
    Food
    Force
    Forge
    Fortune
    Freedom
    Glory
    Gluttony
    Gnome
    Gold
    Good
    Grain
    Grave
    Gravity
    Greed
    Halfling
    Harvest
    Hatred
    Healing
    Hearth
    Herbal Medicine
    Heroism
    Home
    Hope
    Hunting
    Human
    Illusion
    Insects
    Inspiration
    Justice
    Knowledge
    Law
    Learning
    Life
    Light
    Lightning
    Love
    Luck
    Lust
    Madness
    Marketing
    Marriage
    Maternity
    Medicine
    Male
    Mentalism
    Messages
    Metal
    Mind
    Mist
    Moon
    Mother
    Mountains
    Music
    Nature
    Night
    Nobility
    Ocean
    Orc
    Order
    Pain
    Patience
    Pestilence
    Plagues
    Planning
    Plants
    Pleasure
    Poetry
    Poison
    Portal
    Pride
    Prosperity
    Protection
    Psionics
    Purity
    Rain
    Renewal
    Repose
    Retribution
    Rivers
    Rune
    Scalykind
    Sea
    Secrets
    Sex
    Sexuality
    Shadow
    Skill
    Sky
    Slavery
    Slime
    Sloth
    Snow
    Speech
    Spell
    Spider
    Spring
    Spirit
    Stone
    Stories
    Storm
    Strategy
    Strength
    Strife
    Suffering
    Summer
    Sun
    Temperance
    Tempest
    Theatre
    Thieves
    Thunder
    Tiefling
    Time
    Torment
    Trade
    Travel
    Trickery
    Truth
    Tyranny
    Undeath
    Understanding
    Underworld
    Valleys
    Vengeance
    Virility
    Volcanoes
    War
    Water
    Watercourses
    Watery Death
    Wealth
    Weaving
    Wilderness
    Wind
    Wine
    Winter
    Wisdom
    Wood
    Woodlands
    Wrath
    Writing
    Zeal