The Wild East

[CaptainPenguin]

[CaptainPenguin] 4:23 pm: It's reverse-America-
[CaptainPenguin] 4:23 pm: the settlers go east and get diseases from the natives
[CaptainPenguin] 4:23 pm: Well, but if I can, I would like to downplay a sort of technology-vs-magic outlook.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:24 pm: I don't necessarily want to make this an "old ways vs new ways" game.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:24 pm: How about this-
[CaptainPenguin] 4:24 pm: the natives have more powerful magic.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:25 pm: In addition, the Easterners' magic is tied to objects- enchanted pistols, charmed playing
cards, clockwork birds
[CaptainPenguin] 4:25 pm: (I'm a big fan of balance.      )
[CaptainPenguin] 4:25 pm: Why?
[CaptainPenguin] 4:26 pm: Because that's what civilized powers do, of course... Plus, they want that #$%^&*
Eastern Expanse, and they're sure as hell gonna' get out there before the blasted Creoles, or whatever.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:26 pm: They want the resources, or they want land...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:26 pm: And there's gold in the East.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:27 pm: Gold miners
[CaptainPenguin] 4:28 pm: Well, remember, only part of it is big bayous and Lousiana swamps...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:29 pm: Ooh, I like that..
[CaptainPenguin] 4:29 pm: I was just about to say
[CaptainPenguin] 4:29 pm: big insects on the northern plains and such
[CaptainPenguin] 4:30 pm: Oh, I'm with you on the swarms of flies.     
[CaptainPenguin] 4:32 pm: Well, most of it will not be sandy...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:32 pm: Most of the Wild West is rocky desert, there's very little in the way of sandy desert
[CaptainPenguin] 4:32 pm: Yes, sure.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:33 pm: Yeah, sure.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:33 pm: Like Arizona.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:35 pm: Oh, I'll have all kinds of animals of that sort...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:35 pm: So...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:35 pm: We have the East...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:35 pm: Where there are settled places...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:36 pm: Then there is the Lousiana-ish bayou-land, the vast swamp
[CaptainPenguin] 4:36 pm: swamp/jungle
[CaptainPenguin] 4:37 pm: And north of that you have arid rocky plains and mesas, possibly Arizona-like
[CaptainPenguin] 4:37 pm: And north of that you get the Northern Plains, and then the Big Mountains (pine forests,
et cetera)
[CaptainPenguin] 4:38 pm: (Note- pseudo-Lousiana verges on a sea)
[CaptainPenguin] 4:38 pm: Mmmm...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:39 pm: On fallen civilizations, you can have the farthest-northeast explorers discovering the ruins
of ancient cities on the northeastern plains
[CaptainPenguin] 4:39 pm: Artifacts... Native stuff, and the Easterners have charmed items
[CaptainPenguin] 4:39 pm: Sacred locations.... We forgot about religion!
[CaptainPenguin] 4:40 pm: Well, I would assume that tombs are sort of included in ruins...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:41 pm: You mean like the Anasazi?
[CaptainPenguin] 4:41 pm: That's great!
[CaptainPenguin] 4:41 pm: I dunno'...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:41 pm: Hmmm
[CaptainPenguin] 4:41 pm: I think I'd probably just do monotheism for the Easterners...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:42 pm: So, clearly, the bayou-gamblers have been here longer.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:43 pm: But perhaps instability in their capitol and central provinces has prevented them from
expanding much.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:43 pm: Life is hard and rough and dangerous- gold miners and horse gangsters are throughout
the region, living in ramshackle boomtowns
[CaptainPenguin] 4:43 pm: Seeya, sparK!
[CaptainPenguin] 4:44 pm: There isn't much in the way of large settlement in the arid areas-
[CaptainPenguin] 4:44 pm: Just these rowdy towns
[CaptainPenguin] 4:44 pm: Yes
[CaptainPenguin] 4:45 pm: After a couple generations in the swamps, the swamplanders simply don't like the arid
areas, and tend simply to go to the more southern towns in it to gamble and swindle the miners.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:45 pm: Sure.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:45 pm: Easterners are bayou dwellers, and in addition, the miners and horse folk...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:46 pm: The miners and horse people and gunslingers come from a nation north of the home of
the bayou people... They have frequent border wars.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:46 pm: Perhaps the northeast nation has declared the East "open for the taking"
[CaptainPenguin] 4:47 pm: So...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:47 pm: Easterners have two factions- northerners and bayou people... (Northerners are
American/Yankees and the Southerners are Creole-French/Southerners)
[CaptainPenguin] 4:47 pm: The natives have all kinds of tribes
[CaptainPenguin] 4:48 pm: Fair Folk?
[CaptainPenguin] 4:48 pm: Yes, we should have some other power like that
[CaptainPenguin] 4:48 pm: Something supernatural
[CaptainPenguin] 4:48 pm: Maybe out of the northwest, where all the ruins are?
[CaptainPenguin] 4:49 pm: What, the Fair Folk?
[CaptainPenguin] 4:49 pm: No, they just kind of seep in
[CaptainPenguin] 4:49 pm: They come in where they can.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:49 pm: Oh, mine.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:49 pm: Okay...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:50 pm: Well, I'd like to figure out what the "X-Factor" is, first.     
[CaptainPenguin] 4:51 pm: Mmmm... I prefer corporeal, or perhaps a mix of the two. Not like an army of ghosts or
anything like that.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:51 pm: Hmmm... Supernatural, I guess?
[CaptainPenguin] 4:52 pm: Human-ish
[CaptainPenguin] 4:52 pm: Hmmm...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:52 pm: There's a tough one...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:52 pm: Well, let's say they were the cause of the fall of the northern ruins
[CaptainPenguin] 4:52 pm: Is their motivation to
[CaptainPenguin] 4:53 pm: Yes, that'd be good
[CaptainPenguin] 4:53 pm: Perhaps they are servants of the Old Gods
[CaptainPenguin] 4:53 pm: Who the northern civilization displeased
[CaptainPenguin] 4:53 pm: But then the civilization died and the things ran amok
[CaptainPenguin] 4:54 pm: Mmmm
[CaptainPenguin] 4:54 pm: Perhaps
[CaptainPenguin] 4:54 pm: Umm
[CaptainPenguin] 4:54 pm: Well, the natives could worship *some* of the third factor
[CaptainPenguin] 4:55 pm: Perhaps the third factor are sort of Cthulhic... In that they come in a lot of bizarre forms,
and some are more powerful than others
[CaptainPenguin] 4:55 pm: I would go with a Conan-ish option-
[CaptainPenguin] 4:55 pm: These demons or creatures are simply summonable by magic...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:55 pm: Yep.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:56 pm: We could even go slightly toward the "space aliens" option0
[CaptainPenguin] 4:56 pm: This is definitely Cthulhu...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:56 pm: And even Howard hinted that some of his demons were aliens.. In his mind, demon and
alien are not necessarily exclusive.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:56 pm: Yeah!
[CaptainPenguin] 4:56 pm: Perhaps...
[CaptainPenguin] 4:57 pm: Perhaps the Northern Civilization called down the Things From Beyond The Stars
[CaptainPenguin] 4:57 pm: No, Cthulhu aliens
[CaptainPenguin] 4:57 pm: Tentacled beings that drift around planets destroying sanity, not UFOs.
[CaptainPenguin] 4:57 pm: Yeah...    
[CaptainPenguin] 4:58 pm: Okay, g'bye, AG!
[CaptainPenguin] 4:58 pm: Feel better!
[CaptainPenguin] 4:59 pm: Mmmmgoood

That's the last bit of the conversation... Stay tuned, kids

[CaptainPenguin]

By the way... I think I might have gotten confused...

The "civilized" people are WESTERNERS not Easterners... Easterners are the natives.

[Ria Hawk]

It would be slightly less confusing if we had the whole conversation, so that we know what you were responding to, half the time. 
Also, you have to work Cthulhu into everything, don't you?  (Not that I'm saying that's a bad thing; goodness no.)

[CaptainPenguin]

Oh, don't worry about the rest of the conversation... That has the essentials in it. That's really just so I don't forget all the ideas.

THE BASICS:
This is NOT the American West. But it has a similar style and flavor. It is a fantasy setting, make no mistake.

The setting: The unsettled Great Eastern Expanse, the Far East, the Open East, the Wild East.
On the west most of this frontier is blocked by the massive Thunderhead Range. At the end of the Thunderheads, at the line called T'ho's Parallel (after the F'lorine explorer T'ho Mu, who was one of the first to pass the Thunderheads at the parallel), there begins several hundred miles of open territory, stretched between the Thunderheads and the swampy coast of the Whispering Sea. In this area are wedged the two Great Western Nations, the Republic of F'lor and (as yet unnamed).

[CaptainPenguin]

Basically, you could say that the real frontier is at T'ho's Parallel. Below T'ho's Parallel (running west-to-east along the latitude of the bottom of the Thunderheads) there are the Western Nations and the most thickly settled areas.
Along the border between the northern nation and the Republic of F'lor is the Armed Border. This is a region of constant skirmishing between the F'lorines and their northern neighbors. F'lor and the northern nation are almost constantly at war or at tense standoff.

[CaptainPenguin]

The F'lorines

Phenotype
F'lorines, though generally of the same Eastern stock as their northern neighbors and the majority of the settlers of the Eastern Expanse, are of more mixed complexion and race. As the first settlers and explorers of the Expanse, they have sizable permanent settlements on the bayous and swamps of the southern coast, up to Orange Crab Bay, and have to a large extent mixed with the local populations of the coast and southern East, who have become subsumed into the F'lorine culture and population.
F'lorines are typically between 5'8" and 6'2", and tend towards slim muscularity (they are often described as being "trim"). They have high foreheads and noble brows, with aquiline noses and full lips. They typically have a bronze-brown skin tone and very dark, soft hair that tends to look slick, and which turns stark cotton white as they age. They have brown or green eyes. Men usually have long fingers and broad shoulders.

[Ancient Gamer]

Resources: How do a swamp dwelling people fend off another nation? How do they get food, iron, etc? They need to have something in the swamp, or on the ocean, that makes them strong... Or at least strong enough.

Or is the northern nation weak?

[CaptainPenguin]

The portions of these nations which are in the Wild East are NOT the entirety of them. The bulk of both actually lies on the western side of the Thunderhead Range.

[CaptainPenguin]

Here's the second version of the map...
Try right-clicking and opening it with paint if you can't see it... That's all that works for me.

[CaptainPenguin]

Well,  I know I don't have a lot yet, but does anybody have any feedback so far? Comments, concerns, questions, words of wisdom?

[Ancient Gamer]

Not really. It looks good so far. Just waiting for more y'know

I think I will create a plot for the setting when stuff is more complete. Not a detailed plot, but a general outline... Cuz I like the setting.

[CaptainPenguin]

Aglaians:
"Show your worth"
Collectivist society
Eglatarianism (everybody works, the best get ahead)

F'lorines:
"Take what you can get"
Individualist society
Classist society (some people are just born lucky)

[CaptainPenguin]

Bull Tribe- Conan-esque, worship Shedu the Bull-headed God, opposed by snakes. Snakes are their concept for evil.
Strength, honor, fierce warriors, huge, muscular dudes with axes, wearing bull masks, and with swirling Maori-esque tattooes. They raise cattle and live in cliff cities. They have an all-female priesthood, and have one leader, King Tchungaira. They are constant raiders of the Westerners' nations. They are the "Apaches" of this setting.

Skundar- They are a culture of territorialistic hunters. They are organized into extended-family units who rove about their region; when a family becomes too large, it splits off. They are famed bow-snipers, and they use unusual weapons. They are fiercely territorial and unfriendly, very mistrustful. (Inspired by the Drow from Eberron, not your typical drow)

Fort Final- the farthest Westerner settlement

[CaptainPenguin]

The Coach Road- the road the first settlers followed. It extends off into far distant regions of the East which remain largely unexplored, carved by unknown wagons

The Plague Line- Westerner settlements burgeoned in the regions just north of T'ho's Parallel in the first years of the frontier, but there came the Great Plague, when strange Easterner diseases ravaged the frontier population. Much of the land north and just south of T'ho's Parallel is now ghostly abandoned territory. The line of the plague's farthest-southwest spread is called the Plague Line.

"shoot-up money"- money procured by violent means; typically, when a gunslinger or horse gangster wields large money, it is assumed to be shoot-up money, taken in a gunfight or robbery

Mannist- obscure Occidentalist sub-religion revering "The Man", the mortal incarnation of God who walked into the desert.

[CaptainPenguin]

"gold hunters"- vagrant gold-diggers who do not work for a mining company. Equivalent to many of the early gold-panners and '49s of the American gold rush.

"plater"- One who wears a thick metal breastplate to stop bullets. Among many horse gangsters, it is a term of derision, equal with "yellowbelly".

"jilly"- Used to refer to a lover with whom there is no true emotional connection. A sexual partner or prostitute.