The Train master - Idea

[NykylaiHellray]

Hmmm waldi I am slightly tempted we should push back the serperation of the tribes even earlier.

I think we should give the Aruxco a good thousand years of culture.


Also why dont we base there main city on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan

I think we could make a good few pages detailing the culture of the Aruxco, as unlike the other tribes who were nomadic. The Aruxco settled.

I think we should give them knowladge of advanced mathmatics, magic and astromony.

Maybe they knew that in the future there culture would one day falter, so they enginerred the transferance into dread to give them a some kind of immortality. E.G. like the mind flayers know one day they will rule.

Maybe the Aruxco know the future, and have tampered with events to lead to there eventual rise again.

[Waldi]

Hmmm, thats a very good point. 1000 years more time for the development of Aruxco are a quite a great idea !
Perhaps, the golden age of Aruxco was already over, when the conquistadores came.
I would think, the great time of the Aruxco-Empire ended, when the climate changed dramaticly after the Plains fell to Ravenloft.
I also like the idea of the prophecy !!!

[NykylaiHellray]

I need to get back to writting more for this =/.....


I am going to try and compose a document comiling all info from this thread soon.

Maybe create a new topic when I create the compliled version.

If there are any futher idea people post them noew=)

[Manofevil]

Still working my way through the posts.
I'd like to add a few of my own ideas to Prosper. Some of you may recognize pieces of Stephen King's 'Desolation'.
The gold in Prosper was first discovered by a wandering white immigrant who entered the wilderness seeking his fortune. Starving, ill, harried by natives, He stumbled into a cave in a rainstorm and lit his last match. He discovered the walls literally lined with gold. He was rich beyond his wildest dreams....and he was dying. He managed to cobble together a torch and explore the cave until he collapsed. As he realized he was dying. He cursed and cursed. He swore that the gold was his and ONLY his and would be noone else's. He would stay there and guard it for eternity. This he swore as he expired. Later the heavy storm caused the roof above him to collapse.
When the gold was later discovered and the town founded. One of the groups of immigrants to follow the stories of gold came from one of the orient based RavenLoft domains. (Sorry I can't remember their names ) Since there were many of them and they couldn't speak the language, the greedy mine bosses put them to work round the clock for fractions of the regular wages and in very dangerous conditions. This led to hostility and later open racial violence from everyone else in the town who didn't much care for those 'chinky boys' to begin with. It was these miners who, one day unearthed the body of the wanderer in the mines. Almost the minute they did, a feeling of intense greed and resentment possessed them and they turned on the mine foremen who had been so cruel and brutal to them. Having massacred the foremen, they then turned on each other and free-for-all riot ensued. Two miners who managed to keep their heads raced for the mine entrance and caved in the mine behind them. Perhaps because they realised what was happening or perhaps because they thought it would be the easiest way to kill everyone else in the mine and claim the gold for themselves.
Whatever their reasons, The other miners (at this time in it's history, Prosper is more mining camp than town) rose up to lynch the two survivors as the instigators of the riot and destroyers of the mine. Whatever the reasons had been for causing the cave-in, The two survivors were now overcome with rage. As the nooses were placed over their heads and the wagon pulled out from under their feet, they cursed the miners, the mine, and the gold. The looks of sheer raw hatred on their faces caused more than one miners eyes to widen. As their necks snapped, a gold nugget fell from one of their pockets. Several men dove for it at once and another 'greed riot', as they came to be known, broke out. The miners brutally massacred each other in the same way the ones below had. The only survivors of the riot were the ones who were lucky enough to be struck unconscious. The mine was never reopened. Other mines were opened, however, and the gold mined again. What noone realizes or refuses to accept is that the gold itself is, in fact, cursed. The greed of the original wanderer and the miners who unearthed his remains bleeds outward from that first shaft through the very gold itself. Anyone who mines it or comes into contact with it becomes obsessed with keeping it. More than a few more 'greed riots' have broken out since and noone goes into the old shaft. At least, noone whose been heard from again.
Now having written this, it occurs to me that this background can fit into the story of Jebediah Holmes in several ways. Perhaps he was the original wanderer....Or perhaps he is a descendant who founded the town and survived the first 'greed riots'...Or perhaps this gold fever curse is a curse that gets passed around like the one in 'Carnival of Fear' and, like the Puppetmaster in the book, Jebediah Holmes is just the latest recipient of it. So many ideas.

[Waldi]

Whoa ! Cool idea !! That would fit perfectly to the story of Prosper.
Reverend Holmes would be a kind of inheritor-darklord. Somehow, he managed to overtake the domain from the former darklord. Perhaps, the original darklord was the wanderer....But i don´t have any idea yet, how Holmes could take Prosper over....

[NykylaiHellray]

been a while...been busy with course

found this image which matches grand central pefectly

http://blog.stung.org/archives/images/m ... -thumb.jpg

[Waldi]

Wow, a cool picture !! I think, it fits more than perfectly !!! It´s just like beeing painted for Grand-Central !!
Where did you find it ?

[NykylaiHellray]

on google, i was searching for steampunk, a style which seems to fit our world quite well =)

edit: found the source http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread. ... did=120051

bigger pic http://features.cgsociety.org/galleryim ... erdido.jpg

mmmmm maybe we should ask for permission to use this pic =/

random pics for ideas

http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/h4d/imgs/e/0/e0f3b075.jpg
http://www.3x6.net/sf/images/daddylonglegs.jpg (river train for vitsorian england)
http://www.neutronbot.com/model/rolypol ... ypoly1.jpg


I really need to start writting for this place again =/


Hmmmmmm i was thinking of introducing apparitions into grand central, there sceming and intellects seems to match this place very well.

I like the idea of mind flayers being controlled by the train master, and maybe a beholder running a underground assasin society

[Waldi]

Great pictures !!!
The mindflayers are quite a good idea !! I think, there are quite a lot ways to include mindflayers into the Plains.
My first thought was to give them a certain lovecraftian feeling (thanks to the fact, that we create a "Mock-USA" and US-horror-literature is unthinkable without H.P.Lovecraft ) Perhaps some of this would also work:

- millions of years ago, the plains where home of a strange mindflayer-civilisation and certain evil artifacts can still be found...
- the mindflayers made home in the eastern ocean (near Illsmouth)
- strange cults are workshipping mindflayer-gods underground
- somewhere in the deserts, there is a lost mindflayer-city (just think of "Mountains of Madness")
- mindflayer-invaders have found a way to cloak themselves as humans and infiltrate mankind.

[NykylaiHellray]

Hmmm maybe the first ancient settlers before they divided into the indian and aztex type tribes fought a war against the mindflayers.

Using there latent magical powers they managed to seal to destroy the mind flayer city and seal them away.

Years after in recent times, mining caused by the gold rush and mining has caused for them to be unleashed.


Campaign hooks:

Either if you are allready in ravenloft, or going from great wheel to grand central.
"You walk along the dark woods, and see a light only a little way ahead. You are surprised, as no settlement appear on the map. The closer you get the wierder it becomes, till the sight of an odd building is seen. You walk up to a man who stands behind a counter next to the building and he asks "will you be travelling to grand central today?". The sound of a horn is heard and a train rolls towards the station"

[NykylaiHellray]

Inhabitants of Grand Central

Name: Madame Cat tail
Age: Unknown
Occupation: Fortune teller
Bio:

Name: Mayour Grubwich III
Age: 64
Occupation: Mayor
Bio: The Mayour of new glenwhich is a greedy pussball of a man, currupted and fed by the money which
endlessly flows into his pockets, from taxes and from his employer and master.

He runs the town for the trainmaster, provides a face, somthing to fool the poulace that
they as a group have some control over the running of the city.

He is Glutunnous as he is greedy, and often has food stains covering his shirt, his belly
rasing obesisity new hieghts (and widths).


Name: Margret Lodd
Age: Unknown
Occupation: Pie Maker
Bio: A evil dragon who prefers to take on a human apperance. She makes fine pies which
are known throughtout the demiplane of dread, one may even be tempetd to be trapped in
the demiplane just to taste one of her legendary pies.

Rumour has it though that the ingrediants she uses are not natural. She has been said
t extract peoples fears and lusts just to give her pies that little extra flavour. It
is also said that her pork pies contain human flesh.

They say she has baked at least one of everything in a pie at one time or another.

Name: Oliver Reily
Age: 34
Occupation: Wizard
Bio: A young wizard, who has white owl who is called Yamec Reily


other inhabitants
Constructs are well known in grand central, often used as the slaves to power the machines
that the city has throughtout its mass.


Lines of grand central


necropolis railway - This is a special service made in conjunction with the morticians of
the demiplane of dread. The train provides a transport for the dead, and transporting them
to the various cemetaries that cover the land.

The train starts at grand central, and the end of the line is the dread elemental plane of
graves.

http://www.tbcs.org.uk/railway.htm inspeation for this line

[NykylaiHellray]

I have been absent a while due to family stuff, I was wondering if anyone would like to help retstart this project?

[Lord_Pruitt]

I would, but between work and family and trying to do an on-line comic, I have very little spare time. But I would like to see this idea further developed.

[Manofevil]

Did anyone ever finish this?

[Scarycount]

Yeah, did they?