Properly, the web enhancement is called Mahasarpa and it’s available as a web enhancement from WOTC here. Please bear with the misspelling.

THinking about Masharpa (from WOTC) and India flavored articles from old Dragon magazines.

Then came across Inkwell Ideas’ generators for city names: http://bit.ly/6H6lYC and http://bit.ly/4BvC2z about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

Then thought about adding an area with India-like flavor for BFRPG setting. Would use Anti-Paladin Games format of one-page descriptions. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

Of course, when creating a new setting, I start with the language so that I know what to call things. Most of the time, it’s English. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

This time, I want something Sanskrit-ish. I turn to my favorite tool, Yould, which I helped document. http://bit.ly/7PvMfM about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

Firing up Yould, I realize that I prefer transliterated texts to work up a few ideas. You see, Yould requires texts to “train” the generator about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

In a perfect would, I would use documents written in Sanskrit and generate from there (Yould is UTF-8, works with anything) about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

But I am looking for ‘good enough’ because I do not want to get bogged down in my linguist OCD issues. (Yes, I love languages) about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

Not finding any larger transliterated texts that I could use easily, I take a readily available English text and use google translate about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

Google Translate provides “romanization” of the English to Hindi translation of my long passage. I use the romanization to train yould. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

After some work, yould has a masharpa engine I can use to make Sanskrit-ish words. Decision: generate 100 words and choose the best ones? about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

Or create a name generator similar to the ones I saw on Inkwell Ideas. I decide to create a name generator similar to the Chinese City one. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

I generate small words to correspond to same concepts used (directions, geologic features, pleasant adjectives, colors,etc) and expand list about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

Final Generator has Five Colums with 20 entries per column. Roll D6 twice to choose which colums. Roll D20 to find entry. Viola! about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

Final Generator produces names with the flavors I want, as well as provide 100 vocabulary woods for the setting. Will post on sycarion soon about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

Example results: Vanataane, Lahekan, Prekham, Rushaim, Apharuen, Pahrahta, Itashaya. 38 minutes ago from TweetDeck

Life is good, I feel like I can make some one page writeups of various areas. 38 minutes ago from TweetDeck

As far as acheiving balance, though, I began to think about how races are defined in Microlite20. Most races are defined as a bonus or penalty to one of the three attributes. Humans get a +1 to all skills with no adjustments to attributes.

The balancing mechanism is that all adjustments total 2. For humans, having a +1 bonus to all four skills is equivalent to a +2 Attribute adjustment. For example, Elves get a +2 MIND adjustment, Half-Orcs get +3 STR and -1 MIND, Half-Elves get +1 MIND and +1 to any two skills.

With three attributes and four skills to fiddle with, M20 seems to be the perfect place to look at the mechanics of creating new races easily. To limit the number of options, I decided to set up a few parameters for this exercise:

• There can be only one penalty and it can only be a -1. This could a -1 to any attribute or -1 to any two skills.
• The largest bonus will be a +3.
• Avoid setting specific skills to receive a bonus or penalty. It should be an adjustment to any 2 skills or to all 4 skills.
• Add in as many pre-defined races from the macropedia that still fit within the above parameters.

The result is the attached spreadsheet below:
Racial Template Options

Looking through the results, some are quite interesting. For example, a race that receives a +1 to Mind, +1 to all skills and a -1 to STR. This would mean that there is a race that is just as adaptable as humans, slightly smarter, but slightly weaker physically. Of all the possibilities, the one that appealed to me was a somewhat evolved human.

Others have definite possibilities, especially a race that would receive a +1 bonus to all attributes, but a -1 to any two skills. (This may seem like a cheat to get a super character, but M20 is a skill-based system.) This creates a race that is smarter, stronger, and more agile than a typical human, but less adaptable. This makes me think of the invading aliens from In the Balance by TurtleDove.

This only takes care of the mechanics. For those that tend to look for how a race can benefit them in combat, not much more needs to be done. For others like me that get into the fluff, getting this part nailed down provides suggestions for what a race is like without removing many possibilties. Using a good random generation like this one can fill in some of the details.

I admit, I’m a nut when it comes to fluff like this. I think about the form and function of a different race. For example, giants in my world have a different material in there bone makeup. It is stronger than regular bone material by an exponential factor. This makes them feared adversaries, but also threatened by others that seek to harvest the hardened bone material. The reason for this change is that a 12 ft tall human could barely walk and would break bones at the slightest movement.

I have other examples, but I hope this provides a good baseline for creating new races. I hope to detail more of these just to see how far it can go. If you find any entries on the spreadsheet you find interesting, let me know.

In any case, here are the latest idea sketches:

Self-healing wood:
Black Birch creates the most BTUs per cord. It is an American wood. The difference between it and the closest type of wood available in Europe/Asia is about 8%. What this means is that certain wood from the North American continent will be the most prized and the most expensive.

Coal is a more efficient fuel than regular wood. It is lighter and it generates more heat than wood. Self-healing wood is a popular option, but there is still a place

The other key to self-healing wood is that it cannot be grown. It can only be created from normally harvested wood.

Self-healing wood and cannon don’t always go together. You can sink a ship made of self-healing wood, it will sit on the ocean floor, pristine and intact. Wood heals, but not fast enough to keep water from coming in. Once underwater, it will continue to heal. It will not allow barnacles or other things to attach to it.

Open D6:
Since the Septimus announcement, there has been buzz about what fans and vendors will create under the D6 engine. ComStar, no surpise, has expressed interest. More than a few fans are showing up eager to use D6 to go where other systems cannot.

I like the ideas around a creature compendium and conversion from other OGL systems. I’m not so much into the special abilities as much as templates (like classes in d20), bestiary (already stated), and spells (although many will be redundant).

After the one page dungeon, if I can finish by tomorrow, I’ll start on some of that. I’m typesetting D6 Fantasy Creatures (much harder then D6 Fantasy Core book), so I’ll add on my conversions later.

Big thing for me is the very large stat block required each creatures. I would like a shorthand stat block, but I can’t figure out a way to do it.

There’s more, but I’ve lost some of my notes. More later…

As I pondered it, I found that I was thinking more of a magic + steampunk scenario instead. I had the rough idea in my brain of an engine that had two dimensional portals, one to a dimension of fire and another to a dimension of water. It produces steam, and thus provided locomotive force for any kind of vehicle.

It seemed so simple and too complicated at the same time. I didn’t like the idea, but I couldn’t figure out why.

No matter, I said to myself, just some crazy ideas that come and go.

Then I was on Twitter talking to Stargazer when he mentioned a steam fantasy setting he had worked on. More because it was twitter, I shortened it to magipunk, a term we both seemed to like.

I presented an idea or two of how magic and steam power could mix and left it to percolate for later.

I came back to that goofy dimensional engine I mentioned earlier. I figured out that it was too magical. It would require permanent openings to two different dimensions. No sane person would create more than one, much less mass produce these things!

Still, magic can serve to tweak an engine and deal with issues. What kind of ‘just enough’ magic system could improve an engine?

Thinking about locomotives, one of the main fuels, before coal or diesel, was wood. A wood burning locomotive and coal burning locomotive were built largely the same way. Improving the wood burning locomotive through magic seemed an appealing idea, so it was time to research.

Dimensional fire is silly, however, creating heat through magic should be fairly common. The d20 fireball is a huge source of fire and heat – taking that much energy and spreading it out over time seemed a reasonable and lower magic way to provide the fire.

Then I thought, “what if the wood was self-healing”? In other words, as it burned, it healed itself, making it possible to burn the same piece of wood almost continuosly.

The wood would have to heal slower than the rate at which it burns, otherwise it wouldn’t produce much heat. That would mean a train couldn’t run continuously, but after a night time stopover, the fuel would have completely regenerated, allowed for a quick exit.

So far, so good. Self-healing wood as a long enduring form of fuel. Ash, red oak, white oak, beech, birch, hickory, hard maple, pecan, and dogwood are good hardwoods that produce a lot of heat and little smoke. Get some magically treated, self-healing hickory or white oak, and you have a train that can go pretty far. Eliminating the fuel car provides a little more tractive power because it’s weight that is unneeded. No need for manual stokers to shovel wood, it is self-contained.

This gives you a train that requires very little crew, has great range, and can get started quickly.

In a different way, thinking about self-healing wood lead me to the creation of seamless ships. In other words, build a ship out of wood, and over time, it would form into a solid block.

With two major uses for magically-treated wood, there was now a commodity that could make folks quite rich, it tweaks, but doesn’t entirely replace two major forms of transportation, and it has that ‘just enough’ amount of magic that it could just work.

More details later, just jotting down notes so I don’t forget them.

This gem is precious because

• it is the only gem found in the space between
• it cannot be magically created
• it cannot be created from protomatter in the ether.

The rush on the asteroid belt is bringing all kinds of new folks to the space between planets. Larger asteroids that have an atmosphere are springing up boom towns.

Unique Treasure:
Gold, platinum, and silver still have some value. It is particularly useful as currency on planets that do not have ether travel, yet.

One unique magical treasure item is the Gold of Many Faces.
Each coin in this chest is presumably from a different planet. Thousands and thousands of coins each have a different face on them. Each coin is unique.

Each coin also grants a boon or a curse to those that possess it. Regardless of effect, owning two or more coins negates their properties.

No one has assembled the entire treasure – it is scattered all over the etherverse, and more than likely, a few planes as well. It is rumored that assembling the entire treasure will grant its possessor limitless power.