Wildlands and Men

[Ail]

Hello,

in your games, do the Wildlands ever have any location at all inhabited by people, or do you stick to the animal-only canon version?

If there are only animals there, what kind of adventures or campaigns can be played there? Is it merely a going out into the unknown dangerous jungle?


Personally, I'd like the wildlands best if some recluse human village could be found there, still living pretty much in communion with the wild, like the indians in the amazonian jungle or the primitive peoples in the african one. I tend to picture the jungle like we read in Tarzan and all those tales of explorers of the beginnings of the 20th century. It is mostly impenetrable, but you can have some contact with humans there, albeit very different from your known civilization.

What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks all.

Ail

P.S.: Sorry for the text. I feel it is pretty incoherent at times, but I'm not at my best thinking today.

[Jasper]

I like to run the wildlands like a twisted verson of the Jungle book. The intelegent animals IMCs have a socaty similer in many ways to that of the humans with each animal species having a diffrent human characteristic-

EX: The gorrilas are the stoic warriors. Slow to anger, quick to kill
The snakes are the tricksters and lakeys. They will lead the human prey into a trap by the Tigers for a piece of the remains.
The birds are vendictive and vain. Charm one and they will tell you anything , cross one and they will only find your bones
The tiger is perfect hunter. Fair, noble but will kill you in heart beet
The panther is the noble judge. Obey the jungle laws and you may live, break them and your screams shall echo for ages
The Elephant is the raw brutish power. When they start to run its allready too late.
The rodents are the thieves. If it is shiney and not nailed to your bones its fair game.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

What about the lions? Tigers aren't natural to the Wildlands, after all.

There are no human settlements there, but Sri Rajian hunters have made treks into the domain.

[Ail]

What about the lions? Tigers aren't natural to the Wildlands, after all.

There are no human settlements there, but Sri Rajian hunters have made treks into the domain.

It depends on the kind of jungle that fills the wildlands. If it is like the Indian Jungle, then they're should be tigers and not lions. If it is rather a kind of savannah-nearly-desert, you'd be more apt to find lions than tigers. Plus, lions live and hunt in packs, they need a huge open territory to move. Closed jungle, as I think is the case of the wildlands, doesn't suit them.

Still, I'd change it in my games for the African savannah. We've got indian jungle already in Sri Raji.

Ail

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

It's based on African plains.

It states in Islands of Terror that the lions are indiginous and the tigers only appeared after the Mists descended.

[Jakob]

MY Wildlands cover the entire spectrum of natural habitat.

Near the border of Sri Raji, for example, there's a plateau with a jungle resembling Indian forests, which change into an african jungle and then transforms itself in a savannah, a praire and so on.

I adhere to canon, since there are no humans (aside from Rajian explorers) and no snakes.
I made the life more abundant (in contrast with Island of Terror, I assume all the high vertebrate have their birth rate doubled), but the bite of the fly is much more insidious, since the disease they deal Wisdom damage too. Hence the madness of many animals (in particular of the savannah. The plateau, home of the gorillas, is too misty and frigid for the fly to reproduce).

Of course, there are no cold (let's say polar) environments.

EDIT: I use a configuration of the Verdorous Land presented on a map of the Mordent Cartographic Society, in which the Wildlands is between the Saragoss and Sri Raji.
Here is the link.

[Lucius]

A little idea I had:

Nosos is a floating domain, it can travel to other domains and harvest the forests and natural life of these places. So, and if Nosos reaches the Wildlands and the people of Nosos starts to destroy the fauna and flora of the domain?

[Jakob]

Nosos is a floating domain, it can travel to other domains and harvest the forests and natural life of these places. So, and if Nosos reaches the Wildlands and the people of Nosos starts to destroy the fauna and flora of the domain?

I think we'd see a "Fatal Error" message on the screen of our Darkpowervision 2000, since the curse of Malus Sceleris and that of Crocodile would conflict.

[Ail]

Nosos is a floating domain, it can travel to other domains and harvest the forests and natural life of these places. So, and if Nosos reaches the Wildlands and the people of Nosos starts to destroy the fauna and flora of the domain?

I think we'd see a "Fatal Error" message on the screen of our Darkpowervision 2000, since the curse of Malus Sceleris and that of Crocodile would conflict.

Please, could you remind me what those curses are? I have DoD, but not with me at present. I could read about Malus there, but not about the Croc.

Also, anyone knows what happened to Alanik's site? It had a list of DL's curses, but it seems to have disappeared. Anyone knows if it was relocated? Thanks.

Ail

[Stygian Inquirer]

The snakes are the tricksters and lakeys. They will lead the human prey into a trap by the Tigers for a piece of the remains.

I thought there were no snakes in the Wildlands because they escaped from King Crocodile before the Mists descended.

[Jakob]

Nosos is a floating domain, it can travel to other domains and harvest the forests and natural life of these places. So, and if Nosos reaches the Wildlands and the people of Nosos starts to destroy the fauna and flora of the domain?

I think we'd see a "Fatal Error" message on the screen of our Darkpowervision 2000, since the curse of Malus Sceleris and that of Crocodile would conflict.

Please, could you remind me what those curses are? I have DoD, but not with me at present. I could read about Malus there, but not about the Croc.

Also, anyone knows what happened to Alanik's site? It had a list of DL's curses, but it seems to have disappeared. Anyone knows if it was relocated? Thanks.

Ail

It was just a joke about the the two domains being total opposites (a lush and vibrant land vs a "modern day" industrial city).

Anyway, since Malus Sceleris can feel the very presence of every single leaf of grass in his domain, I think he'd just go crazy in the Wildlands... While King Crocodile is not really fond of diseases.

Anyway, for all I remeber:
Malus Sceleris: hates nature but knows he cannot kill it. He can even hear the plants and animals talk in his head.
King Crocodile: a fiendish crocodile who has the powers of all the beasts in the land (?), except for the snakes' (who fled the domain before Ravenloft sucked it in) and flies (he rejected their strenght, since he saw no use for it). Now he suffers from sleep disease (carried by the flies), and could be helped only by humans, but he HATES humans.

Of course, this to explain it REALLY fast. ^_^

About Alanik's site, I tried to find it (I LOVED the "How many darklords you need to screw a bulb" section ), but I think it's lost in the Mists of the Web.

[Gemathustra]

Anyway, for all I remeber:
Malus Sceleris: hates nature but knows he cannot kill it. He can even hear the plants and animals talk in his head.
King Crocodile: a fiendish crocodile who has the powers of all the beasts in the land (?), except for the snakes' (who fled the domain before Ravenloft sucked it in) and flies (he rejected their strenght, since he saw no use for it). Now he suffers from sleep disease (carried by the flies), and could be helped only by humans, but he HATES humans.

Actually, you're very wrong: King Crocodile loves humans, medium rare with sauce to match his mood.
He also loves speaking human languages so much that he's forgotten how to speak crocodile.

[Jakob]

Anyway, for all I remeber:
Malus Sceleris: hates nature but knows he cannot kill it. He can even hear the plants and animals talk in his head.
King Crocodile: a fiendish crocodile who has the powers of all the beasts in the land (?), except for the snakes' (who fled the domain before Ravenloft sucked it in) and flies (he rejected their strenght, since he saw no use for it). Now he suffers from sleep disease (carried by the flies), and could be helped only by humans, but he HATES humans.

Actually, you're very wrong: King Crocodile loves humans, medium rare with sauce to match his mood.
He also loves speaking human languages so much that he's forgotten how to speak crocodile.

You're wrong too.
Since the Wildlands have LC 0, there would be no sauce.

[Mortepierre]

Aaah, the Wildlands. My second favorite setting after Har'Akir. Just as I changed the latter to feel more like Egypt (with a settlement of historians, archeologists and treasure hunters from other domains), I've changed the Wildlands to make full use of the Nyambe setting (from Atlas Games).

For one thing, that accessory has dozens of creatures which will turn the life of would-be explorers into Hell. For another, Kanuk - the pseudo-lich from the Dire Spirits adventure - makes a great would-be usurper of King Crocodile's power.

I haven't introduced any native humans (since that would conflict with the basic idea of the Wildlands) but there is well-hidden ruin in which a Samat sorcerer (think "yuan-ti ancestor") lies in magical slumber. But the ancient spell is slowly running out of power...