I'll do it fmra. 8) This is a thread for the discussion of how we're going to do this. I'm thinking of an analogy to the Classical period for the base. A time with fully developed states and cities, though some functions and services of the city aren't present yet or barely emerging (public works). Before that period, I don't see many communities being able to coalesce into anything structured enough to be called a nation (just nomads, villages, and city-states). But that is only an idea... I noticed the great seperation between current nations (in some cases the wilderness between is larger than both nation's area combined). I don't know if we want to close the board, but I don't think it'd be a good idea. Something to think about though in the mean time is a sort of territorial ownership of empty spaces. A area claimed by the nations to fill in that could be easily given up if and when others join. An example (Sano: I'll remove shortly after everyone has seen it so as to not spring confusion...) If done with finesse, the political intrigue, trade, and growth of nation RPGs can be fun. But if done poorly, it becomes a sort of volleying of dimplomatoid jibberish about "My country sends this moose to yours for trade. we expect three apples or we'll war on you". It tends to fizzle out from boredom or explode into a flaming world war and dies. Maybe while We are working each on our own Nation's specifics and history, we can start a thread to figure out the mechanics of play... :) EDIT: As to the above paragraph, While I was researching how to create my conreligion, I found a webpage dedicated to the RPG Harn. The creator (who shall remain unknown, since I cannot find the page again) published quite a few articles (understatement) on his personal version of Harn. I've been thinking that this is labeled as a collaborative conworld, and rather than take it totally in an RPG-style direction, it might be more rewarding to stick closer to that ideal. If everyone has a general timeline for their nation (founding of cities, internal conflicts, revolutions), then neighboring nations can intermingle these so that they either war with each other, or some facet of an internal war in nation A causes a famine or something in nation B. I'm not excluding the possibility of a Nation RPG, but concentrating on the collaborative construction of a conworld. With even just this many people, we could start fleshing out an in-depth conworld full of history, scientific knowledge, political and economic theories, everything a real world would have. Just a different possibility... I like the territories idea, I was just wondering how we were going to do that. I'd like to see that page about Harn. Googling now... Dang, nothing. I'm not sure where you're trying to go with that thought though... I like the idea of making a timeline. Perhaps we could do something like this - someone puts an event for their country on the timeline, someone else puts an event for theirs, etc. This would be in a 'timeline' thread. Newcomers could have their nations founded in the middle - makes it seem realistic. (copied from collaboration thread) Sorry about the Harn thing, I started drifting. I was trying to get at the point he had written quite a number of articles down to details such as harvest time customs, household design, etc. If I had been inclined at the moment (and not at work) I might have been able to explore his world on what could be considered an almost personal level. Something similar to his endeavors could be accomplished here, but on a greater scale, because there are more cooks in the kitchen (so to say). The territories thing could be worked in this way. the solid blue is the core of my nation (Tekann). the dotted blue is its territories. Tekann doesn't really have any real control of the territories, just a nominal claim, but it does open up or create a neighboring border to Sano's nation through which I could build trade routes and such. Since I do not really control the region between my solid blue and Sano's solid red, if a new player decides to join and claim that land, they can. We just write it into the timeline as a "barbarian" uprising, or colonial revolt and *poof* a new nation is born. I would recommend not making up too much about peoples or places in the dotted regions, as someone might want something completely different, but simple/vague things should be ok. Note: for a collaborative timeline to work, we should pick some arbitrary event to set a year 0, so that our timelines can be aligned. This, of course, doesn't lock anyone into calculating their own nation's present year a certain way. Yeah, I was thinking we would set the beginning of the timeline as Year 0. Maybe it could be like a natural disaster or something, like a massive volcano eruption that everyone thinks is the End of the World. Just a thought. It doesn't even have to be a pan-cultural event. The fall of an ancient culture on the eastern continent could still make a null point for all the timelines, even those on the western continent. Their personal calanders would have far different years, but Sano's year 1365 and David's 2016 could be shifted to match the global timeline for when they actually fought in WWIII (global year 1515). Or we could pick which culture founded the first city and start there. If Tolkien Freak has the oldest city, its founding day could set the zero, regardless if any other culture would personally recognize that as year 0. I was thinking about it later and that's what I was thinking. I would choose against using the oldest city as year 0, because I had some ideas that involve pre-zero years. Perhaps ZY (zero year) could be based on a large schism of an 'ancient' or at least pre-ZY country/culture? Or we could just pick a random date and call it ZY for no reason. Any event or non-event will do for a ZY, as long as all other timelines can be matched up to it. I like the idea of some kind of event, but I'm open. When I get home from work, I'll try to sketch out a quick timeline for Tekann and drop the global ZY somewhere and we can start matching up (or move the ZY if preferred). Or we could just pick a random date and call it ZY for no reason. Any event or non-event will do for a ZY, as long as all other timelines can be matched up to it. I like the idea of some kind of event, but I'm open. When I get home from work, I'll try to sketch out a quick timeline for Tekann and drop the global ZY somewhere and we can start matching up (or move the ZY if preferred). A combonation of these ideas sounds like the best option to me. I think, when fmra has his timeline sketch, we all tweek/add to it and use it as a primer for our own timelines... something like this: Is that a timeline you're using? If so, what's it for, and where is ZY on it? I'm working on mine now. It'll just go up to about +150 or so. Ok, So here is a basic overall timeline of Kye'itsjuyunn history, including the Tekann ZY and its relationship to the global ZY (The Tekann calender is 670 yrs ahead of Global time). (The Tekann calender is 670 yrs ahead of Global time). Ok, so Tekann 670Y = ZY? Yes. At Global year zero, The Tekann calendar year is 670. This particular timeline ends at the Tekann year 1440. Hmm, maybe we should actually just bring our timelines up to YZ and start from there - YZ being the year in which, say, the two continents discover each other. Here's a quick sketch of mine: EDIT: Forgot to say Raitoliri ZY is only 42 years before Global ZY. The timeline ends at 42R. Ok, so it seems we have a general agreement on how the ZY will work to coordinate each separate timeline. Assuming Madrigal and dreaminjosh turn up, we can start experimenting with some cross-over histories. (I divided the territories assuming a mostly landlocked view, which at this point strands TF on another continent, though this doesn't have to be). Sano, if you have a general idea of your nation's timeline, we can difinitely start developing. Regretfully, David is away for now, but I hope he's keeping up so he can jump right in as soon as he returns. I understand we don't really have much of an idea of where to take this, so I think we should just start piecing things together and see if some kind of working convention can be found along the way. Also, how should we organize this in a thread-based forum medium? I've thought of a couple options (and welcome any other thoughts) a) have seperate threads for cross-over histories: Tamega-Osteni Tamega-Raitolia Raitolia-Osteni b) keep each nation's history in the current nation threads and just make references to to other histories (possibly with links). I'm seeing that we may have to rapidly shift over to a wiki if there is no satisfactory way to keep from mangling or losing stories... Maybe someone more html savvy can help layout a flowchart for the wiki (Rik). Ideas? What I had had in mind was a single timeline thread, something where you would post an event or something and other people would post events in the same year or diplomatic responses to that event or such. Thoughts? What I had had in mind was a single timeline thread, something where you would post an event or something and other people would post events in the same year or diplomatic responses to that event or such. Thoughts? This is like to be the best idea, similar to the map(s). When one timeline is added to (using the same color as your map color for the text) it's posted and used for reference. Yeah, I like that. My original idea was sort of like this (as a post format): Year X - Nation Events Diplomacy Maybe we could update the timeline after, say, every 10 years? Not a bad idea, especially the color coordination. Its a good place to start until we need something more flexible (thread posts are only sequentially accessible, so inserting points and cross referencing become impossible or complicated). Instead of decade increments, maybe we should do centuries (at least to push through past events, and switch to decades at ZY, or not). Who has the oldest civilization so far? Also, with some players attendance frequencies so low, we might have to wait for them (unless we can re-order posts within a thread... I don't know how). I think centuries at -Ys, decades at +Ys (I'm using + and - signs, so we don't have to type out b.z.y. and a.z.y..) Define 'oldest civilization'. Do you mean first here (on the board), oldest continuous government, or oldest culture? And maybe we could have a 'minimum attendance frequency' - if someone doesn't post for X number of years, they get a warning of sorts, and afterwards, their government is considered 'in anarchy' until they return. Not really sure what I meant by oldest, I was just looking for a starting point everyone could regress to. Another reason to move to a wiki... I don't like the warning system for infrequent players, though I do understand it. It's hard to read a post that refers to something weeks old and keep everything cohesive. People just tend to start leaving giant holes to keep up. A wiki could be a "come as you are" type thing where links would easily refresh memories of old events. Since I don't have a concountry in this world, could I be in charge of diplomacy? That is, can I oversee or maybe just advise the crossings and minglings of different concountries? Since I don't have a concountry in this world, could I be in charge of diplomacy? That is, can I oversee or maybe just advise the crossings and minglings of different concountries? Actually, I think not. The main reason for joining this project should be that the individual wants to have a nation and develope it. No one, not even me get's to be the "dungeon master" et al. Everyone who has participated up until now is falling into their roles quite nicely, but they should also have a working nation, just to keep everything fair and equal. ok, so these numbers are more or less arbitrary and your culture can read them as you wish... 28 Earth hours in a Savukk day 357.33 Savukk days in a Savukk year Your culture decides on how days are divided into hours and how years are divided into months. I think I may have found a place to put this thing. Its fairly simple to use, easy to learn, will keep information organized in an intuitive fashion, and its free. You don't have to sign up to look around, and please do. If y'all like it, We can move in permanent-likes. Better than the above reasons, though, is that it is non-linear, meaning it is very flexible and can be shifted around. It also updates in almost real-time (2-5 second lag between two tabs on my firefox), so multiple updaters can work at the same time (don't get dizzy). http://kayuda.com/ And look at this one specifically, to see how it might be useful to us. http://kayuda.com/workspace/id/458# If you like the idea, sign up and let me know, I'll invite you into the workspace so you can start adding/editing. EDIT: Here is a Q&D example I put up. (only italicized tag have more to read underneath them) http://kayuda.com/workspace/id/1612#pos=-700.79,-203.37 That's all of the important bits.

I was woundering if anyone has made maps of savukk showing the different climates, types of vegetation, and natural resources? I think those will come in handy for me and anyone new when we are trying to figure what our culture will be like.

Here are the models I used for the clothing, in case you're interested. Beware that the color palettes were altered before I got them and you may need to tweek with it to avoid semi-grey scale if you want to have color.

Pics saved. When will we the samples of your clothing?

Already posted in Tekann (as an edit)

Has someone thought of the tides? The might play a huge role... :? And how modernized is this world? Any example of a European period?

Though its very general, I think the major European-esque time period we're playing in is somewhat Roman times. We're playing a variable timeline, though, so if you want to say that you're civilization develops hover cars 2000 years in the future, go for it. Somewhere, there are postings of timelines. You should look into doing one and scaling it to match up with the others (reference Global Year Zero). We haven't come up with tides, and since we haven't settled on number of moons and such, I can't do anything about them. We're open to suggestions though. :) the currents map I did was mostly for sailing and climate determination (refer to it to see if the climate you've posted actually matches what could be there). :)

I had wondered about that also. Since tides depend on the effect of the Moon on the Earth, would it be safe to assume Savukk has atleast 1 moon also? If we had to decide, I'd go for a number between 1-3, depending on the size of the moon(s).

I think a Luna-sized moon and a Phobos-sized moon would work.

Not sure what you mean, Aleco. I was saying Rome Empire -like technology level. What do you mean Middle East?