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what fun would you have settling Shark Island?

>>58048279
The soil wasn't as form as expected and buildings break down during fall.
Cattle runs away.
The brook dries up during summer.
The cats get sick and rats become numerous

It's pretty easy to fuck up a new settlement.

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>>58048279

This thing being sighted somewhere in the foothills surrounding the settlement, could be good or ill, depending on the settler's tastes.

C R O A T O A N
R
O
A
T
O
A
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>>58048359
yeah, but if I make a list of shitty things to happen I'll miss the obvious stuff like that.

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>>58048388
perhaps the remains of an older settlement with that carved into a doorframe...

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when I run out of pictures of villages I'll start posting pictures of approximate tech-level structures...

>>58048389
Good idea!

Forest fire
Nomads come along and like your stuff more than they like you.
You offended some spirit/minute good by selling there and now all your account are born with 2-4 heads and die soon after birth.
There is lead in the river water.
Parasites.
The young men get "recruited" for war.

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perhaps its a good settlement for the silk trade?

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there could be...

flooding
rock slides
earthquakes...

>>58048842
>You offended some spirit/minute good by selling there and now all your account are born with 2-4 heads and die soon after birth.
Jesus, what the hell.
You offended some minor deity your spirit by settling there and now all your newborn animals are freaks that die soon after birth.

something comes at night and steals newborns

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>>58048279
>indigenous peoples are angry
The solution is clear.

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>>58048279
You can establish commerce with the natives. This becomes a source of info on local medicinal herbs, appropriate water sources, eldritch tombs to be avoided. In turn, you provide them with, say, steel axe heads or glass mirrors. Colonists and tribals might even have parties and go to war together.

On the other hand, have you checked if your gods can actually influence things in your new region? They might have geographical limits. One might need to worship new local gods.

You can also find out your colony was meant to fail due to intrigue and exiled rival aristocrats. So the lateness of supply ships is intentional.

An internal conflict between the colonists might result into a new village nearby.

Possible sources of wealth for the settlers: furs, timber, salted fish, export crops like sugarcane.

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>>58049988
Oh yes, try to play "King of the Dragon Pass".

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>>58049988
I won't dip too far into that in my game.

players are just the designated protectors of the colony. I wont intend for them to govern, but I will have things going on in and around the place that will need their attention.

they will be expected to help out in a flood, or protect farmers from natives and wild animals sort of thing.

now, if they pick up a trade or become patrons of craft they might dip more into those particulars.

still, all solid ideas.

>>58050064
never played, how is it?

>>58049866
hard to do with a party of 4 versus a tribe of possibly hundreds

>>58049739
oh definitely

>>58048279
Syphilitic madness

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>>58050202
only if the governors manage to come to peace with the natives

a cleric will see to it that all the people that go out to the colony are clean...when they start...

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I wonder what creepy/odd stuff could go on out that far from people...I don't want to run FULL HORROR but a little light horror might be interesting

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paraphrased ideas from *1372 roadside encounters*

>a local canyon contains a bog filled with toxic, flammable gas.

>A small group of kneeling, lifelike statues, frozen in fear or supplication are found. they are all facing the same direction.

>Partial eclipse of the sun. villagers declare it an ill omen.

>a group of villagers has taken to tipping outhouses.

>an angry group of villagers tries to lynch a party member

>A spreading sinkhole is destroying the structures and making nearby terrain precarious.

>A well-spoken bugbear wearing fine studded leather armour is trapped under a
fallen tree. He implores the party to come to his aid.

>The village starts finding neatly severed body parts discarded in the square. An ear,
then a finger, then a tongue. nobody reports missing these parts.

>gambling in the town leads to a proto-kingpin

>Cloying, wet mist makes fires difficult to start, papers soggy, bows unreliable,
sword handles slippery. It also puts everyone in a sour mood.

>>58049070
[autistic screeching]

>>58050202
Worse: ergot in your wheat.

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>>58048279
now the next thought
WHAT WOULD A COLONY GROUP BRING IN TERMS OF TOOLS AND SUPPLIES?

assuming 150-200 persons.

there would need to be tools.
how much/what would be assigned to farmers?
how much breeding livestock?
what for the smiths?
woodcutters/millwrights?
surveyors?
carpenters?(I'm gonna set it close to a body of water so maybe shiprights?)
masons?
tanners?

>>58057000
???
is it really THAT badly laid out?

>>58057027
oooh I LIKE that...
what are the symptoms of ergot? hallucinations, paranoia, what else?
going full-salem might be fun

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>>58057132
Nothing in that picture makes sense. Like, pic related, why? What would ever be a reason?
The "village" is actually a sizeable town with TWO MILLS and a goddamn fountain. Do you have any idea how expensive fountains were?

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>>58057481
>2 mills
a grind mill and a wood mill?

>fountain
some rich fuck wanted one?

>pic related
appears to be a cartwright shop

not saying it isnt retardo, but it might still be functional...

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ALL RIGHTY THIS IS HOW I THINK I'LL START
(players each build {1 level 5} character(PC), and either {5 level 1} or {3 level 2} characters(follower NPCs)(no wizards)

you are [adventurer] and [adventurer] having gained some fair renown for your exploits you were offered the job of serving a proposed colony effort in an unexplored land. your primary concerns are as security leadership, peace keeping, and general Troubleshooting. you have been allowed to select assistants for this end-goal. the colony has a governor and a handfull of aides assigned, and technically they are in charge of the colony and its inhabitants(aside from your chosen assistants and any colonist conscripts).

>the party, the appointed governor, and their aides attend this briefing.
travel will consist of our company wizard opening a temporary portal to a linked traveling mage who discovered the location. until the masons accompanying you finish constructing the Permanent Arrival Pad you must keep the traveling mage alive as he is vital to opening the portals. in the event that he dies before activating the pad you will be stranded and out of communication until we can get another traveling mage to you the long way. he intends to retire to a nearby mountain peak should your pad break.

area is reported as uninhabited, heavily forested, mountain foothills, near a very large freshwater lake. according to the assayer and surveying team with the wizard there is a fairly significant amount of arable land. apparently they found a very good location and have set to clearing it for construction.

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>>58057662
>cont
...
>transit happens without a hitch
>word comes back 2 days later that one of the governors aides is wanted for treason/murder/jaywalking
>the next morning the aide is gone, as is his young wife, and their horses.
>the travel-mage is dead, and his apprentices are dead and critically wounded respectively.
>the settlement has 5 "emergency messages" they can send. no more than 1 page of text each that will return to the companies "receiver" scribe.
>there is no way for them to receive messages
>welcome to the forest

>>58048279
>SUPRISE mineral wealth

Great for a city or country, not actually that good for a settlement.

Depending on the fertility of the land etc, in Generic Fantasy Europe it takes nine peasants working to make about enough food for ten people. That means for every nine peasants, you can have one non-peasant specialist doing something else.

So if you find mineral wealth, every person mining won't be doing other tasks that need doing.

Now you can solve this problem by purchasing food elsewhere with the proceeds of the mine, but that'll let other people know you have mineral wealth and they're quite likely to be assholes - look for example at what happened in the Klondike gold rush, that place was a shithole to live in because "fifteen miners for every saloon wench" is a terrible fucking demographic catastrophe. Even if you don't get a lot of raping, you do get a lot of very frustrated miners who are very angry that all their gold still leaves them TFWnoGF because somebody else has even more gold and there just aren't that many girls to go around.

>>58048279

The local forest/spring/hill spirits are happy/chill/mad about new people showing up

Forest/steppe fire depending on terrain

The weather is wetter/drier than is optimal for the seeds you brought

The travelling merchant you told about your new settlement dies or for some other reason doesn't make it part of his route

The travelling merchant *does* make it part of his route and in fact it turns out you're very conveniently located as a mid-trip watering hole between two otherwise-isolated areas so you can expect a lot of trade to start passing through.

Somebody saw or did not see goblins/kobolds/whatever to the north/south/east/west so we probably need to get working on the palisades faster than we planned. Can we do both that and get the harvest in?

Local animals provide exceedingly fine fur so you have nice trade goods

Fucking nothing provides anything so you are the most generic village on earth, the only thing you can trade to passing merchants is food and rest before they move on.

>>58048279
One problem that could specifically affect a new settlement would be being abandoned/forgotten by those at "home" - it's less an issue if they were expecting to be independent, but if they were planning on having communication, trade and additional settlers and materials coming from their home nation, a far-off decision to leave them be, or to stop sponsoring colonists, might be devastating - not just in a practical sense, but also very demoralising.

99% of really serious events in smaller societies such as villages and settlements were actually clan feuds over land, husbands/wifes and marriage compensations, and matters of fame/infamy. It's incredibly sad how people seem to entirely forget that those used to matter.

Things like:
A daughter of one family marries a son and another. After few weeks/months, the daughter runs away claiming the husband is abusive/smells bad/snores. Que a feud about how to solve this and what kind of compensation should come from that.
Or: One farmer collects a water from a spring not far from his field.
Another farmer claims that spring and thus water actually belongs to his lands. Cue lenghtly and occasionally bloody feud that might drag on for generations.
OR one guy claims another guy is a cuck while they are both in pub. The other guy beats him senseless few days later. Cue a long-lasting conflict for honor that can divide the entire community.
Or one guy brings home a corpse of a dog, claims that he had hunted it.
Another guy claims to have seen the exact same dog lying dead in the forest a day later, it was apparently dead by natural causes.
Cue a massive infamy accusation, social ostracization etc...

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>went to bed with not much
>woke up to a small thesis
fantastic.
bumping to read this in a bit.

In native society, it is customary for young men with no wife to leave home and Only return with adult Children, if at all. The colony is surprised but delighted of the few native men joining them, although the colonies scarcity of women is becoming a problem.

>>58061322
Actually, this has not historically happened that often. Not that history and reality are always all that important in fantasy scenarios, but young men leaving the village has only became a common phenomenon in modern era West (occasionally it happened in late middle ages, but not very frequently, and the men usually did not come back home - they left to colonize a new region and establish new homestead) - or it did happen in polygynic societies, where the problem of female scarcity was generally greater.
Otherwise, male line usually remained home (we call this patrilocality), they were usually the ones who provided "space to live in", while it was the women who moved around, left their homes and occasionally returned back home to take care of their parents after they raised their children.

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>>58058244
>9 farmers to 1 non farmer
is this mitigated at all by either very good fishing, or very good hunting, or very good forage?
I might tweak it down to 5-6 to 4...

>TFW no GF
starting out with a better spread on gender, not quite but close to 1:1
this colony was going to be the "establishment force" to get the area ready and begin preliminary work on several projects.

>>58058897
>One problem that could specifically affect a new settlement would be being abandoned/forgotten by those at "home" - it's less an issue if they were expecting to be independent, but if they were planning on having communication, trade and additional settlers and materials coming from their home nation, a far-off decision to leave them be, or to stop sponsoring colonists, might be devastating - not just in a practical sense, but also very demoralising.
see >>58057733 and >>58057662
not abandoned or forgotten. but very cut off.

>>58058370
looks good deff gonna use some of this or make notes at least.

>>58058973
>feudin'
sounds more flavourful, but the party IS gonna be peace-keepers so there is that as a flavourful addition.

>>58061466
>>58061322
>a suprising mini-lecture on...what would this topic be called??
anyway, this is interesting enough to make it in maybe...
D&D type fantasy might mean this could be some flavour of humanoid race different enough to make it interesting.

especially if I combine this with feuding over available poontang, racists, etc...

>>58061801
>sounds more flavourful, but the party IS gonna be peace-keepers so there is that as a flavourful addition.
Actually internal feuds in societies are pretty good plot-hooks especially if the players themselves found in the area either on some kind of official business (send there by a governor) or have some kind of natural authority (one of them is a mage/priest etc...). Since these kinds of local feuds often can drag on for ages and result into generations of hostilities, many of these small societies would turn to outsiders (as long as they were people with some kind of authority) to help them resolve them. A small trial-esque adventure where player are trying to gather as much evidence, and hold a public trial trying to at the same time appease the locals and offer some kind of fair solution can always make a welcomed alternative to murder-quests. Plus, what starts like a seemingly banal local feud can grow into rather interesting proportion and link into another series of quests and challenges.

>D&D type fantasy might mean this could be some flavour of humanoid race different enough to make it interesting.
As I said: pretty much any form of polygyny basically forces this kind of situation, because the local wealthy guys basically "buy out" all the available local girls ready for marriage, literally forcing the young boys to leave the place and seek their wives elsewhere. Might become particularly funny if you focus on the problem of locals "these assholes are coming from their fucked up societies and keep dragging our daughters away" type of story - you could both go the comedy route, as well as the more traditional damsel in distress "solving the case of kidnapped local girls" scenario.

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>>58062103
>many of these small societies would turn to outsiders... to help them resolve them.

not likely, in 14th century England people were generally paranoid and fearful of "strangers" people that were not from the local community, now charity and hospitality were virtues that people stressed over so as travelers, the party you wouldn't be immediately turned away when they seek lodging and/or goods and services, but since the locals don't know if they are robbers, bandits, murderers, or rapists, they well likely suspect them of being all of the above. Incidentally if anything bad happens in the community during their stay, the locals will IMMEDIATELY suspect the party of being involved, if not directly responsible, when that happens the PCs better be ready to start saying where they come from so that the people of their hometowns can speak as character witnesses for them, and god help the PC who's player wrote some tragic backstory that involved the destruction of the PC's home town.

>>58061466
Im basing it on animals like deer boar wolves etc, not humans

>>58062591
Yes, that is where the state of "authority comes from". Being send out by an official, or being part of a recognizable institution of authority (such as priesthood or other scholarly group) played a major role. Which - at least in the way I tend to shepherd my groups, is almost always the case: even "adventurers" in my campaign usually either travel on some kind of official blessing, or at least one of the members of the group is part of some respectable institution - a wiseman (sage, wizard, traveling priest).
The guidance of an external authority has always been quite desperately sought out. It's how Taliban established it's influence in middle east, it's what wandering priests or employees of the magistrated were for in historical Japan, in Europe it is what visiting priests, knights and noblemen, as well as local governers used to do.
Sure, if your group is a bunch of literal murderhobos and nobodies, people would regard them with serious mistrust, but the reality is that in most campaigns, even if the GM does not recognize it, there is usually at least single character that should have a role of public authority. Again: priest, wizard, monk, paladin, you name it.

>>58063127
Does not change a thing, really. Even if you have them vaguely animal-like characteristics, they are going to be based 90% off some particular human characteristic, custom or culture.

>>58063233
Theres definitely been weirder cultural deviations than a society with less available women compared to the bachelor population.

>>58048279
Depends on the surrounding geography. Mountains? The pass gets closed up, stuck for winter, with no communication. Plains? Tornado season picks up. Or maybe a dust-bowl. There are reports, from early in the colonization of the plains, of swarms of birds and locusts miles long. Costal? Flash-floods caused by not respecting an angry spirit. I’d throw in some “Indian Burial Ground” type stuff.

One of my earliest campaigns was actually something pretty close to this. Ask if you want details.

>>58048279

The original society that sent you out all dies off of plague or something, and you’re the only ones left who have a history of your civilization.

>>58061801
>is this mitigated at all by either very good fishing, or very good hunting, or very good forage?
>I might tweak it down to 5-6 to 4...

Yes absolutely. It is also mitigated by, you know, magic. If a magic forge lets a smith be twice as productive, he can spend half his time farming and only need half as much food from other villagers. A priest might count as ten peasants all on his own if he can reliably get the blessing of a fertility deity on the crops.

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>>58062591
ah, but the PCs are of small renown as not-shitty individuals. still, the paranoia might be fun in the game as I have built it.
>thousands of miles from home
literally EVERYTHING will be the target of paranoia.
just one doppleganger will make literally EVERYONE FEAR EVERYTHING

>>58063199
the party is appointed by the backers of the colony effort. and as written they ARE the authority, second only to the governor so unlike most games they are some of the only people the villagers CAN trust. it'll be fun running with that...

>>58063340
>Ask if you want details.
you don't know me, but I ALWAYS want details

>>58064939
I want to be pretty low magic.
BUT
I might send them with an artificer or two to maintain and construct things like trip-hammers for smiths, McCormick Harvester(s) for cereal farmers, mills for grain and wood, seed drills, etc.

no steampunk, nothing self-powered, nothing you can only make with heavy industry. little crutches to a village that heavily improve the output of farmers.

cause to me, those are what allowed significant fractions of previously agricultural people to change career to other crafts or skills. but then I always think of tech as being the answer.

Somebody post one of those "best threads on /tg/" images, because I think we need it.

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>>58065524
its turning pretty good, but its probably not the best

>>58049100
Veal is pretty tasty

>>58061801
It's worth noting due to the seasonal nature of the work, being a farmer need not be one's only economic activity.

>>58066298
live-stock isn't so seasonal though, its relatively constant.

>>58066298
This. This is more Chinese history, but late-Ming farmers would work in the cities in the off-season. Sometimes nobles would even farm for extra security and income.

Bump

>>58066254
That mindest works for one year, then you notice that to keep your breeding stock, you actually need to breed animals into adulthood.
Also do oyu think that anybody will buy your cursed cow ?

>>58048279
>BAD
Due to the greed and laziness of the settlement's founders it is built on an ancient burial ground dedicated to the remains of human sacrifices. The next viable location for a settlement is too far away for moving to be an option with out abandoning almost everything to the angry dead.

>>58048388
Except thats the name of the native tribe that the settlers joined when they realized they sucked at being settlers and is in no way a spooky mystery.

>>58048372
The entire town is tittycrotch lactose intolerant.

>>58048842
>recruited for war

Thats a fun idea. The far away ruler(s) have decided that even your far flung dirt heap has to give up some fodder for his aggressive political fuckeries. Press gangs made up of hard-eyed, cruel men begin drifting into town from time to time, taking more and more of the capable men(and women, I don't care how your fictional land deals with sexism and shit) off to die in nameless lands.

>>58068469
But women make new soldiers, that war has to go pretty fucking bad.

>>58068568
Eh, there's always other women, just don't take too many and try and take any that already have had kids.

Bump

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OKAY NEXT THOUGHT
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
this being D&D or a similar game set at the juncture of a massive lake, mountains, and deep deep forests it makes sense that there should be at least 2 races at war if not a 3rd aquatic one too, and they all are in competition for resources.

I like the idea of reasonably friendly sahuagin in the deeper parts of the lake, then maybe a very few gnolls in the forest and lots of kobolds deep in the mountains.

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>>58071779
>apothecary
>widower living alone on the far edge of the village
>starts disappearing for longer and longer times into the forest collecting herbs
>people start to notice things
>the frail old woman has a fully stocked woodpile.
>she seems to hunt so well her larder is always full, cataracts and all.

This art is really comfy

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>>58073469
yeah, this is a game I want to be a little comfy once it sets out and gets going.

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>Strange noises come from the ground.

>A cattle stampede

>A roc has roosted nearby. PCs witness it taking cattle

>A dryad weeps in a meadow.

>A sudden snow storm blankets the colony without warning

>You stumble upon an old scroll case wedged between a tangle of tree branches. Inside is a village's charter of rights and freedoms.

>prostitutes

>Sickly green foam flows down a nearby hillside, dissolving
everything organic in its path.

>>58050184
I mean being outnumbered 4 to some hundreds worked out for the spanish: get native allies who are angry with the angry natives.

One small team of men can take a country if they make the right allies and pull the right strings with the locals.

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>Crashing branches and undergrowth ahead stop suddenly as a young child bursts out in front of you. He looks wildly in your direction and pleads, "Help me please they're coming!"

>A huge, magical, glowing rock sits in the path. It hums louder when approached...

>The warm rain that never seems to stop threatens the quality of goods

>A dead lion lays in the forest, the victim of a swarm of wasps.

>A single stone has been recently erected in the center of the village by unknown persons

>You awake to find everything you own has been removed during the night. Fearing theft, a quick search reveals sets of tracks, lying in the middle of your campsite, a smoldering pouch of herbs that, when you sniff them, make you feel slightly drowsy.(adjust for thieving local peoples)

>A trans-dimensional tinker.

>a patch of forest like this http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-143 (but possibly with pine needles instead of cherry-blossom petals)
>what other SCPs would be fine as encounters in a game of D&D?

>>58075027
well, I intend for there to be 3 different kinds of natives that dislike eachother a little in a 3-way conflict over the

>>58068338
t. spooc

>farmhouse on fire.

>A man or creature falls from the sky.

>in certain areas the tops of the trees have been drawn and woven together forming nearly rain-proof thickets of branch, vine, and leaf

>whispers in the forest, whispers not everyone hears.

>a tree is found with its branches hung with chimes, bells, or rattles.

>#440

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>Island village

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>>58048279
An Echo, Resounding has good systems for this kind of thing.

>>58048874
Man that’s a good and bad.

The spiders are poisonous and aggressive.
The silk is incredibly valuable and can be traded easily and readily with just about any trader.

>>58062405
Where is it?

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>>58048279
catsplosion

>>58077808
I think that pic is from norway/sweeden

>>58077808
It's Innerdalen in Norway

>>58076380
I'll have to give that a looking-up.

>>58076455
perhaps an added twist could be that the indigenous peoples of the area make all their cordage from the spider silk. making them prone to innovations that hinge on high strength cordage?

>>58077854
>some uncertain rodent or bird proves extra tasty to cats
>catsplosion

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putting this here so I can find it later when I return to my regular computer...I may find a way to make use of this in setting...

Bamp

>>58058244
>in Generic Fantasy Europe it takes nine peasants working to make about enough food for ten people. That means for every nine peasants, you can have one non-peasant specialist doing something else.

Keep in mind, these peasants aren't farming full time - some of them are kids, some of them are too old, some of them are working on other things that are necessary for running a farm.

It's slightly more accurate to say that nine peasant families will support one non-peasant family, or one group of people equivalent to a family, so e.g. if there's a lonely witch in the forest, a black smith with an apprentice in the village, and let's say a priest instead of a flock of kids.

Another nine peasant families and you have enough food to support a tavern owner, a tavern wench and an average of three guests per day (probably fewer on a normal day and more on a market day)

There also isn't any requirement the peasants live in the same village as the people they're supporting - you can have a town of 100 non-peasant families if they're supported by 1000 peasant families spread out over the nearby terrain in ten villages of ten peasant families each. Each village won't need their own black smith if there's a town nearby - and indeed, might have the price of their ironwork go down because that might mean several iron workers working together more efficiently in town so they can work more iron in less time.

Sectarian violence due to no common outside enemy

>>58048279
Some form of ancient magitek excavator has reactivated and is causing periodic seismic trouble.

Serious rust or other defect found in metal goods brought from the home country before their own new production has been ramped up.

While digging a well workers have pierced the ceiling of a cavern. The air coming out of the hole is horrifyingly chilly

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POST VEHICULAR ACCIDENT PAGE 10 BUMP!!!!

NICE TRY GOD!

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>You come across a rock which demands you worship it.
>2 of the settlers want to get married. have fun planning a wedding for 2 meets.
>A tree is cut down while clearing fields. A cloud of bees incapacitates some of your farmers.

>>58048279
Just go watch VVitch. It's a nice combination of natural and fantastic things that can happen or go wrong.
Turns out a lot of shit can kill you and having probably witch stalking you is the least problematic

>>58092810
>Posting Bronze Age settlement

>>58108788
tv show? movie?
netflix?

>>58108716
I like that
>wedding
I even intend for there to be an issue about the gender imbalance of singles in the population.

>>58108882
is that what thats a recreation of?
I just like it cause its relatively primitive while still looking really nice...

look at all the shit that befell new world colonies

>crops don't grow like you expect
>dysintary!
>iodine levels are high and your children are deformed
>in the path of a migratory animal that is dangerous
>everyone eats a common plant that slowly poisons them

>>58109788
>in the path of a migratory animal that is dangerous
what was that?
I don't remember that in history classes...

>WHAT AWFUL THINGS CAN BEFALL A NEW SETTLEMENT?

A horde of rapist refugees flood into the settlement. Their gods are violent and tyrannical, and their homelands are desert wastelands. What do you do?

>>58109845
wonder how they crossed thousands of miles of ocean and forest filled with thing that think people are tasty...

>>58109825
that didn't happen in real history

but locust plagues aren't very different

also mice plagues like in Australia, where nonnative animals exploded on the ecosystem

Run away mice population, people bring cats, becomes run away cat population, cats kill all the birds, becomes run away insect problem, eating all your crops and stores of food

so aside from farmers, what other professions are essential to a colony expedition?
what things could be expected to be covered by farmers in the off seasons?

>the list I have so far is
Apothecary - acted as pharmacist, doctor, and dentist
Barber - cut hair; also was a surgeon
Blacksmith - made things from iron and repaired weapons
Brickmaker
Carpenter-joiner - built interiors of ships and houses
Chandler - made candles
Cooper - made containers of wood, such as barrels
Farrier - shoed horses and acted as a veterinarian
Mechanic - maintains farm equipment
Midwife - a woman skilled in the birthing process who assisted other women with the birth of a child
Millwright - a planner and builder of mills or mill machinery
Ropemaker
Saddler - made saddles, harnesses, and other leather items
Sawyer - a person who cut timber into logs or boards
Shoemaker
Silversmith
Tailor - a person who made or repaired clothes
Tanner - a person who cured animal hides into leather
Weaver
Wainwright - made wheels and carts

>>58110144
ah I see.
now the questions I can make use of...

>can you eat the insects in the swarms?
>what things in the Monster Manual would migrate?
>what useful things could be extracted from migrating creatures?
>are there stats for dire geese or dire woodpeckers?

cause I want this to be an interesting colony for the players to have to guard

>>58048279
>middle-high fantasy setting
What exactly do you mean by this? Just a little confused...

>>58110431
magic is not rare.

persons that can do magic(basically any flavour of mage) are very rare.

magic monsters and plants are relatively common(many have mundane weaknesses).

leylines have a significant effect on events in the areas they pass or intersect.

raw belief can feed certain entities and cause certain things.

setting I want is just a little pre-industrial(useful machines, but no mass production), with no or limited gunpowder usage.

did that answer your question?
do you have another?
does this sort of game, as described in this thread, seem interesting to you?

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>>58110568
not that anon, but this kind of campaign sounds really cool. I enjoy my cozy settings and having a settlement to take care of is probably something I'll build my next game around.

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neighboring races
(cause indigenous races and the conflicts between them can lead to interesting situations)

lake-people
>amphibious
>live in the middle areas of the really large nearby lake
>no metals
>have a sort of viable hydraulic cement(dries underwater as well as above it)
>access to a rubber made from aquatic plants
>[common craft???]
>hunts fish and "dry game" on islands and coastal areas
>hates mountain people

mountaineers
>climb speed
>live in caves in cliff faces
>copper known
>highly flammable, intoxicating, corrosion resisting, disinfectant, water repellent, plant-distillate.
>coal, Iron, sulphur, copper, and other useful minerals are all present
>tends to work in stone
>domesticated goats, cause they like how they taste.
>hates lake people

forest peoples
>some beastly race(or just civilized owlbears)
>nomadic wanderers
>no metals
>stone, bone, and wood tools
>surprisingly advanced rigid-composites(laminate layers)
>[valuable resource owned?](>>58083845)
>cordage and weaving(spider silk?? bark-strip)
>eats a lot of bugs, also hunts, but mostly lots of bugs
>not overly motivated to hate anyone or anything too much(but easy to outrage a whole tribe for short periods of time)

>>58111630
yeah it appeals to me.
and feel free to take any ideas you spot in the thread that you like.
cause while I may never run this game(or any game). I still like assembling campaigns...

>>58110568
>persons that can do magic(basically any flavour of mage) are very rare.

Gonna longpost about this. Back in some number of minutes.

>>58112014
>Gonna longpost about this. Back in some number of minutes.

You write "basically any flavor of mage" and I want to make a note:

"Mage," the 2E AD&D class ("Magic-user" in earlier editions, "Wizard" in later) is a thematic mess that mixes up two very separate archetypes into one class for game design purposes.

One is the scholar of lost or hidden knowledge, who knows the rituals and words that will cause things to happen.

The other is the master of mental discipline, who through mastery alone forces the world to bend to his will.

The problem occurs when you take the first kind of magic and makes it a class feature - only Wizards can cast Planar Binding.

The problem disappears when you take that magic away from wizard class features and make them a property of the world.

For example - still in D&D - it is actually possible for every class to summmon a demon: Speak the name "Pazuzu" thrice and a demon will appear before you.

Where is the magic? The fighter has no Supernatural or Spell-Like Abilities?

The magic is in Pazuzu the demon, who wants to appear in the world.

If you take this approach and run with it, you can have powerful wizards without having any "Wizard" class - they are the people who know the secret world.

Nobody can wave their hand and cast teleport - but if you have read in an old tome that for his temerity in travelling to heaven before his death, the gods cursed Morkiran to never never find rest but always travel, and you know from that same book that Morkiran now travels everywhere through strange paths known only to a traveller of his caliber, and you know that Morkiran has a fondness for wine - then you can buy a bottle of vernan red and call upon Morkiran who will happily accept a bottle and companionship in exchange for taking you with him as he walks from your mansion and straight to the Dark Continent in the span of only a few minutes.

There are no "mages."

But the world feels magical as fuck.

>>58112139

Jesus how did that take twenty minutes to write.

But anyway, you get my point:

If ogres have a sixth sense that lets them sense hoards of money but only when there's so much that it's coins stacked in fifty layers -

And if you *know* that fact -

You are now a powerful witch who can curse a village with Suddenly Migrating Ogres by digging a little hole 'round the back of the tavern and carefully stacking fifty copper coins on top of each other before covering the hole.

If you know that a broken mirror brings bad luck, you can perch a mirror precariously over a half-open door that you know the asshole innkeeper goes through all the time.

You are not magical. Your class levels are in Fighter or Rogue.

But the world is magical, and if you know the tricks, you're a wizard Harry.

The witch dies before her apprentice is ready

The well was dug too close to the midden.

One of the specialists that was brought along (blacksmith/witch/whatever) turns out to be extremely lazy or r9k levels of socially awkward.

>>58112139
>>58112204
>There are no "mages."
>But the world feels magical as fuck.
yes, this is what I mean.
there ARE things that any person can do that are magical.
but
1.) nobody really knows most of those tricks
2.) people that DO KNOW these tricks are unwilling to share them.

the example I always liked was Tolkien's "mithril" a metal of nearly impossible properties that could be made by mortal mundane smiths of sufficient skill and trade secrets.

another magic I liked was "ley lines" or localized sources of raw power

>>58113460
then I guess his only access to female companionship will be via one of the 3 hookers sent by the backers of the colony enterprise. and that he will die without an apprentice.

means I might have someone expendable that can die to some external threat to the village.

>>58112880
actually, I intend this of the mage that makes the colony effort initially possible. the one really capable source of magical knowledge is gonna wake up with a knife in his back leaving a couple of apprentices that aren't knowledgeable enough to do his job.

>>58113066
a solid problem I'll probably make use of

>the settlers find an abandoned village
>its architecture isn't local, it actually resembles their own
>thinking about it, the resemblance is uncanny, from the layout to the, now half collapsed, buildings

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>the celebrations of the colonists are witnessed by indigenous locals
>confused locals are disturbed by dances, feasts, and fireworks
>violence and misunderstandings ensue

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WHAT CREATURES COULD INHABIT THE GREAT LAKE, FOOTHILLS/MOUNTAINS, OR THE FOREST?

>>58075254
>well, I intend for there to be 3 different kinds of natives that dislike eachother a little in a 3-way conflict
Find the way to make gnolls genocide the kobolds for you and you can take the area with a few men that are actually yours. If you want to go full spain allow the gnolls to continue ruling themselves. The gnoll chief is considered to be an equal to [homecountry] nobility and gets to decide what gnolls work in the deadly mines/fields and which ones get to chill in Gnolltown doing gnoll things.

>>58129637
>gnolls
until I can find something more amusing I have replaced gnolls with partially civilized owlbears

>Genocide
I need to put that in when I make my "local governor attempts diplomacy" random roll chart.

>full spain-aztec
might be neat and deff worth a look

I want all the local races to definitely not be human so none of that plague blanket nonsense has a chance to get pulled...

>>58129695
Well it doesn't need to be full genocide, but tribal conflicts can really escalate fast and become bloody to the point of extermination if one side gets a sudden big advantage.

>>58129801
an advantage like, say, a trading partner that can upgrade stone and wood weapons to heavy leather and steel?

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>someone brought along a little bit of the lycanthrope cause you have 'weres all over the place...

>>58129821
>an advantage like, say, a trading partner that can upgrade stone and wood weapons to heavy leather and steel?

Armor

Steel spear tips are better than stone spear tips but if you're not wearing armor the difference is not actually big, both will ruin your day when thrust past your sternum.

But steel armor is miles better than non-steel armor. Just. Enormously.

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>>58130203
well you see, I gave each race a tech bonus.
forest people can do rigid composites(plywood, fiber+resin, aggregate composites). mountain people distill something like drinkable Napalm. lake people get a latex analogue, and hydraulic cement.

so the forest people already have a very good rigid armour for stopping attacks

so the forest has communal Owlbears
the mountains have Satyrs
and the lake has Sahuagin

this after some running through the MM 1...
I also now have encounters for the area I intend to be running

still going to go through the MM 2-6 to be sure though

>>58130479
>communal Owlbears

I'd read that doujinshi

>>58108909
It's a very, very good thriller. As in - really fucking good. And most importantly, it can be also watched as para-documentry on how fucked up settling the frontier can get in no time, especially when you are in the wilderness all on your own.
Won't discuss it in detail to not spoil it, but it's a movie that can get few completely different interpretations by the end, all of them related with OP's question about what can kill settlers.
If you never saw it, go search for it. The full title is The VVitch: A New-England Folktale. That's not W, but two V

Fancy seeing you again !
Funny story, but the main settlement that my players created during their expeditions in my Bloodbrew campaign had a wood problem; beasts were draining the life-force of the area, making the trees extremely fragile and improper for construction and crafting, which, when added to the climate created several issues. Having no way to solve the problem due to the fact that the beasts weren't directly affecting the trees (it was more of a corrupting "influence" of sorts), they decided to work toward a city on the boarder, effectively setting up a trade route through negociations

>>58130891
wood that existed/was used prior to this event did not suffer from this situation however, this only applied to the recently cut wood

>>58130891
>>58130905
ahhhhh
yasss
man, it strokes the ego to hear things like this...people are STILL using bloodbrew
also saved for the document

>>58130722
how convenient...my now very-angry Gf happens to have a copy, and I apparently turned her down on seeing it before saying "it doesn't sound like something I'd enjoy" but now I have that on the list of things she wants to bring for movies.

>>58048279
>WHAT AWFUL THINGS CAN BEFALL A NEW SETTLEMENT?
all of them

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okay so I have an initial pool of available monsters I think wouldn't roll the party TOO hard or that are climate appropriate. not listed are Dragons, vermin, or regular animals. I do intend to go through the other monster manuals and possibly other bestiaries from other games for interesting monsters as well as brewing around. what do you think? additions?

EVERYWHERE

Allip
>spooky shit yo

Dire Rats
>where people are, so can be rats

Doppleganger
>give it away once or twice to spike paranoia in the colony

Elementals
>because elementals can drive events (rockslides, forest fires, storms, etc.)

Ghosts
>cause unfinished buisiness

Mohrgs
>creates zombies, (subject of a lynching?)

Shadow
>dark hearts of mortal men
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
FOREST
Assassin Vine
>grabs kids and livestock

Dire Badger
>because Dire Badgers?

Dire Boars
>BIG PIGGIES

Dire Wolves
>a fantasy staple

Dryad
>gotta have that Maple Syrup

Ettercap
>Monkey Spiders

Giant Owl
>tameable

Pseudodragon
>companion creatures(potentially found by children? or have I read too much Anne McCaffrey?)

Spider Eater
>because something keeps the spiders in check
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
HILLS/MOUNTAINS
Bulette
>eats livestock

Choker
>narrow mountain gorges instead of underground

Dire Weasles
>ANGRY TUBE RATS

Giant Eagle
>tamable

Roc
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
MARSH ACROSS THE LAKE
Chull
>tasty tasty mud-bugs

Grey Render

Hags(plus followers)

Harpies

Hydra

Manticore

Ochre Jelly
>eats living things only

Shambling Mound
>angry compost heap
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
LAKE
Dragon Turtle
>bumpin boats and biting people

Kraken

Sea Cat
>Territorial danger

>>58133779
spectacularly unhelpful...but then I could interpret this as throwing lots of problems at them all at once

>>58048279
I believe you've forgotten the classic
>native burial ground

>>58144345
You are 100% correct

All of these beautiful houses and cottages: They were built insufficient to the local weather by the first settlers who hadn't tried the local monsoon/heatwave/winter storms.

>>58151787
and this is why I keep bumping the thread, the off chance for little ideas I missed

One of my first campaigns turned into a settlement builder, though it wasn’t a middle-high fantasy. I’ll type it up anyway, if you want.

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>>58109845
hmmmm

>>58147729
dang,where's this

>>58152748
Looks like Lake Louise, in Alberta

>>58152726
I certainly do want yes, if you would be so kind.

>>58152767
Damn, that's Berta? I thought it was Montana.

Neat, means I can visit it.

>>58152741
What’s the best part about Jihadist sex dolls? They blow themselves up.

>>58152773
Will do. Give me a bit, though; there’s quite a lot to it.

so I'll be running this in D&D
>for those that play better games exclusively, a "Dire Animal" is one that is several times larger and usually more violent than normal.

The Dire Curse/Disease
>unlike anywhere in the known world this region has Dire Animals
>why?
>may also cause lycanthropism in extreme cases

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>>58065235
I recall someone having a pretty good estimate of farming and menial labour being 10-20% more effective than in real life during equivalent time period thanks to magic and other fantastical elements, so I could see you getting slack for having 7-8 people working to feed 10.
Also following this thread and taking notes, as I'm currently running the prologue of a campaign which will have the players become settlers.
Here's some trouble and other stuff:
>The local flora/fauna/indigenous people spread a disease to the villagers
>Someone among the settlers is covertly trying to undermine the settlement's wellbeing
>Another adventurer party passes through the settlement. Could they be of help? Do they mean trouble? Or do they just want to be left alone?
Also, I would imagine the new settlers would be provided enough supplies to last at least over the first winter.

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>>58110382
Here's something to read for figuring out more on the occupations.
>>58112139
>>58112204
I really like this idea of sort of "folklore magic".

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>>58157976
>Also, I would imagine the new settlers would be provided enough supplies to last at least over the first winter.
I intend to give them that much

>Another adventurer party passes through the settlement. Could they be of help? Do they mean trouble? Or do they just want to be left alone?
I want the settlement more remote than even that...

>10-20% more effective than in real life during equivalent time period thanks to magic and other fantastical elements
I actually want to raise the tech level a little to compensate too. ox-drawn automatic seed-drills, harvesters, ploughs, tilling discs, possibly geared-up traction engines(the ox walks 10 miles and the engine travels 5) to get other jobs done.

I have a personal dislike of Steampunk, so no steam power.
BUT I LOVE mechanisms, and you can accomplish a SHIT-LOAD of work with some pretty basic stuff and someone who can do rudimentary mech-planning. blocks and tackle, sheave wheels, wooden gears, levers, wheels etc. you need metal tools for those, but they can VASTLY reduce labour required for certain tasks.

so proportionally a lot of the non-farm workers will be more mechanically capable.

>>58158517
>"folklore magic".
pic related might pique your interest.
a collection I got out of a thread a long time ago.

>demographics
I'll give it a look

>>58144345
This can work two-ways. First, you've got a curse and supernatural bullshit. Second, in case of no supernatural, you still have super-pissed natives

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>>58158618
Same person behind both posts, posted the first one before realizing how long this thread had gotten.

That's a really cool pdf, I'll be definitely saving it, thank you.
Upping the technology level would boost the effeciency of food production well over 20%, so it'll allow for more "specialists". Water mills could be a decent source of mechanical power, as there's bound to be a river somewhere along the lake.

Have some inspiration for kobold tunnels too, eg. an outpost in the foothills of the mountain range.

>>58158659
oh yeah.

>>58158799
>before realizing how long this thread had gotten.
I ghost-bump a LOT for a thread like this.

>water mills
there's one really big river I plan on, and water mills for powering smiths(hammers and bellows), lumber mills, grain-grinders, lathes, saws, etc. will probably line the river. wind powered water pumps, for local water and more.

>>58074861
>prostitutes

Well played anon, well played

>>58159617
being aware of the potential issues of a colony, the group funding the operation specifically acquired an organized group of "ladies of the evening" that were also cross-skilled as entertainers, midwives, cooks, and brewers...

>>58152891

Bump for this anon's storytime.

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>there could be safety in the trees

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so, across the great lake will be a swamp. in that swamp will be a great many things like shit-loads of Bog Iron, also various and sundry really horrible monsters

will you go with the smiths apprentices and several workers across to gather that almost certainly vital metal?

>>58048279
Heavy rains in late July
Nothing kills harder than that

>>58151853
>and this is why I keep bumping the thread, the off chance for little ideas I missed

Probably twenty of the posts are mine, adding whatever little thing I can think of to keep the thread fresh.

This time: The settlement is in an excellent location for fresh water. Nomads who've been travelling this circuit for decades know that too - they don't mind that a village has sprung up on their watering spot but settler/nomad tensions can run pretty high some times.

>>58166267
This.

Forget supernatural, monsters, psychos, cabin fever and what not. If your crops literally rot right before harvest, you are fucked.

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>>58174479
oh is that what >>58166267 meant?
where I live (cotton)harvest is in middle june...
and even the heaviest rains in July can only be a good thing...

but it'll force the population to more aggressively hunt and gather and fish and trade with the indigenous peoples.

who don't really like eachother very much

>>58174648
Un... anon, rain in June means wheat and oats rot. Which means you don't have food and fodder. Assuming the rains stay until early August, your maize is going to rot too.

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>the average tech-level of the forest people
>until they pull out plywood and press-molded composites

>>58174763
like I said, the primary crop I see local is harvested in july, we only do fodder crops as part of rotation.
I'm an engineer by education, not a farmer.

>>58174648
Sorry, meant July

>>58174902
I'm neither. It's just common sense, woes of my grandfathers when they were alive and applying harvest time of certain crops. August in my language is literally "Harvester". Heavy rain in July fucks things up like you can't even imagine.

>>58048279
>D&D

A single level 2 monster walks into the village and kills literally everyone

>>58174902
>engineer
suddenly everything is explained

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>>58174958
>August in my language is literally "Harvester"
to me its just another stupidly hot month, named after an old roman.

>>58175014
see above postings about folk magic, creatures can be repelled. and the party gets to build a fairly-large collection of NPCs to serve as guardians. I also intend to advance members of the general population with PC class levels.

a lvl 2 monster walks into town and gets WRECKED

>>58175023
hey, if I want to go through the headache of simulating the micro-managed governance of a colony thats fine. so long as I boil out all the autism so the players can enjoy the parts that are actually fun thats better.

now are you gonna actually put forward something useful or keep talkin shit.

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a tech advancement of the mountain people.

they produce just one thing in their distilling. but that one thing has several dozen uses.

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and while the owlbears of the forest have their composites and adhesives

and the mountain satyrs have their oils and distillates

the deep lake-people have rubber of exceeding quality

now, what else can you use these techs for?
cause I need ideas for cool shit in case the colony befriends one or more of them.

bump

>>58057733
Looks a bit like Tail Spin's Louie's Place

>>58120850
I wrote a story where one of the fights happened here. Strange that I can recognize it six years later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunnottar_Castle

>>58180061
???never heard of those, what are they?

>>58180319
yeah, sometimes weird things stick in the mind.

I wonder...given 3 native races, there are of course 3 native tongues.

how long do you think it would take for someone in a fantasy setting to learn a new language? much less 3?

>>58181351
I'd say it depends on the prevalence of magic in the setting, The more magic, the fewer people you'd need to tend crops and cattle, the more people could be left to study the local languages.

>>58181408
less magic more tech, most of the people have jobs to do though. and the natives are skittish...

>>58181549
I'd say a couple of years to a decade then, to get a line of communication open. Possibly longer to get the locals to be open to any kind of trading.

>>58181708
hmmmmph...that timeframe wont do, I will perhaps have to finagle some other shenanigans for this specific setting.

perhaps its a pre-req for the explorator teams that find colony locations...they might have to have either a gift for languages or know several or some other thing.

I just don't want for there to be a spell of some kind

>>58181849
You could fudge some things in the party's favor, let the face man for the party do some non-charisma based things that would ingratiate them with the locals. Leaving a portion of the harvest or killed game near a known hunting path of one local tribe or another with something that only the settlers would be able to make, using stealth and perception to find a tribe's village and spying on them to find out what they might be willing to trade for etc.

>>58181931
at first, I was actually going to go down the rout like this.

forest
>the apothecary goes out gathering herbs
>finds a wounded forest person
>its clearly a person and not [an owlbear]
>splints its leg and plies it with healing herbage
>befriends it without a word
>treats its kind in exchange for gifts
>diplomancy.jpg

oceans
>storm-tossed boat loses a fisherman
>roll dice to see if he's saved
>and again to see if he's a prick
>the ocean people deposit him a week later on the shore
>DIPLOMACY?

mountain
>miners or quarrymen in the foothills
>find jugs of "mountain dew" on crude plinths outside camp
>eventually grumpy looking figures start throwing rocks from the cliffs
>persists till workers leave
>last ones to leave find more and larger jugs of the Dew
>actual diplomatic missions begin
>diplomacy?

>>58181931
>>58182104
but active politicking might be another very viable option.

>>58182129
I'm just saying that to help your party feel more involved in the politics of the setting, even if they are just guards for the settlement.

>>58182201
getting them involved was my intention, but how to do that was the hard part. those were the best options I could come to

>>58182252
Honestly, the best thing that you can do is let those things happen naturally.

>>58182346
I thought so too, its why those are essentially random occurences and I guess "random encounters" for the whole of the colony. diplomacy happens slowly unless the party gets involved.

I'm also gonna pull a very slight "Dragonsdawn" with them, some child will just start walking around town with a pseudodragon perched on her head

>>58182371
WITH OF COURSE, RANDOM CHANCES TO RESULT IN SUDDEN HOSTILITIES

>>58182391
Makes perfect sense. They're new players in a new area; they may offend one tribe only to unknowingly ingratiate themselves with another by merely having pissed off a rival tribe.

>>58182454
I even programmed that into the interracial interactions.

the deep-lake people hating the mountain people
>(for what I don't know yet)

the owlbears just hate conflict. so they avoid both sides and their disputes.

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if I feel generous this is the sort of setup I might let the people have. but for all kinds of things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbegal_aqueduct_and_mill

>>58048279
Manhunting corgies.

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>>58185698
>in these dark times
>when the corgs hunt the dark forests
>only a true hero can save the colony

>>58185698
Replace corgies with yorks and it's a bane of early stage of Rimworld - a group of 10+ tiny dogs overwhelming your settlers. York is THE weakest "predator" in game and a bunch of herbivores are more dangerous, too

>>58108788
FIRST OFF THAT MOVIE WAS FUCKIN WEIRD
second, it did give me some ideas.

families banished for crimes against the colony

abducted children

fostering children across families(esp, female children)
>prevents inbreeding?
>learning craft and trades

children wander off trying to help
>why?
>what in the woods could eat them? EVERYTHING

small group paranoia leading to violence.

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>>58048814
I was hit by a sudden sadness upon seeing this picture. Is this what nostalgia feels like? Oof

>>58125989
stealing this, thanks anon

>>58194905
go for it.

>>58194716
probably not nostalgia
might be general Melancholy?

>>58048279
Natural cataclysm
Unnatural ie. magical cataclysm
Mass animal migration to or away
Restless dead

>>58192165
There are also:
Food poisoning, malnourishment, cabin fever, paranoia, religious-tilted paranoia, being shitty farmer, too proud to ask for help or forgivness, witches, lack of witches (I still insist that there was no devil or witches and Thomasin simply went completely insane after murdering her mother) and let's not forget good old lost in the woods problem.

>>58202894
>All those wheels
>All of them being utter shit due to being the worst efficient design possible
It will never stop to amaze me how much Romans were pushing for waterwheel and in the same time being so fucking incompetent in the design of wheel itself.

>>5820518

What's wrong with the wheel?

>>58205535
It's not the screw.

read up on the early settlements in Darien (a textbook of how not to settle somewhere) Jamestown, and Roanoke Colony.

Personally, my take would be:

there's no such thing as unclaimed territory. So you are invariably encroaching on someone or *something*.
As such, your colony will instantly develop some form of territorial conflict, as it establishes itself. That may be natives, that could be wildlife, in a fantasy fame, could be monsters or worse.

Your first task therefore, will be to set up a zone of control, a territorial area which can be defended. in simple gameplay mechanics terms, how much power projection, vs how much force projection the existing inhabitants can project. the local pack of wolves are unlikely to be a high enough threat against a settlement with watchtower and walls to make an attack... but they might chase down an unwary settled who goes beyond the settlements' zone of control down into the forest for firewood...
But a local clan of oh, goblins, or natives, with a catapult and some incendiary arrows, under the cover of night, might feel they have enough force projection to attack the settlement itself.

As GM, I would assign threat levels, and speed of response (you settle on Day 1. the wolves might attack on day 2. those goblins might attack on day 2, but may be more likely to attack a week later, after watching all week trying to work out if the settlers are staying.) as a simple mechanic to track effectiveness - so player actions, like building a palisade wall, or building a moat, or a watchtower, a town bell, etc will each serve to aid in upgrading the level of defence, and the resulting likelihood of threat from territorial infringement.

>>58206726

The second part of that is, the larger the settlement, the larger its zone of influence. A lone settler in a cabin is at threat from the wolves in the area of forest, 1000 settlers in a boat, on the other hand, is at threat from the warlord who sees it as a threat to his empire.

Now, from there the logical follow up to that is diplomacy.
Your characters have established the initial zone of control, such that they are no longer at immediate threat of attack, or eviction. the second stage of that is establishing links with those in the region. potential difficulties there could be language (do they get an interpreter) and cultural, as well as greater or lesser levels of hostility.
Diplomacy also links to trade - how are they interacting with any pre-existing forces in terms of economic trade will in turn impact that zone of control of their settlement - that's a double-edged sword. the settlement that is rich may be tolerated, as it brings trade goods from other places to the region. but it also makes the settlement a target, as it has trade goods from other places, rich for the taking. Balancing the two sides of that will make a challenge for the players.

from there, you've pretty much addressed the incursion of the settlement into an area, so you're then starting to turn towards other types of threat of difficulty that a settlement might encounter. I'll post some thoughts there in a bit.

>>58205182
>incompetent in the design
I don't know, enough of those wheels and you can get a load of shit done.

that, and those might be like that in the drawing because the archaeologists couldn't find a remnant and just decided the wheel would look like that?

>>58206726
>a territorial area which can be defended.
>instant territorial conflict
I was thinking they'd set up in a nomads off-season location. means they get a measure of time to get dug-in before the tribes move back into the area.
>lake people can care less about my intended location(because the settlers don't have gills) and to them its just another patch of beach
>the mountain people don't notice because the lake people fight them very hard if they come near the lake or its feeding rivers.

>how much power projection, vs how much force projection the existing inhabitants can project
pole-walls for defense versus stone bone and wood tools used by the froest dwellers.
the forest people ARE Owlbears AND they have pretty gud armor-tech so even that wont be enough

>chase down an unwary settled who goes beyond the settlements' zone of control down into the forest for firewood...
yes, but these settlers are being sent by a company with some standard practices for new settlements, this will reduce but not eliminate this form of casualties.

>As GM, I would assign threat levels, and speed of response
thats a fantastic idea and I am gonna sit and ponder that sort of thing a while.
though with the forest ones the speed of response will be rather high cause nomads aren't there when the settling happens.

>>58206747
>the larger the settlement, the larger its zone of influence.
200-250 people.
initial protocols say stick together, buddy system everywhere, and build heavy on the walls

>interpreters
actually they kind of do get them(discovery dependant)
>greater or lesser levels of hostility
got that thought out a little

>>58206747
>Diplomacy also links to trade
the appointed Governor get to do all the basic slow diplomacy but the players get the fun of being linchpins for all of it.

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>>58048499
>>58057534
>>58136614
>>58147729

saved

>>58048829
Castle of Cagliostro?

what was the state of natural philosophy around colonial times?...

and I wonder what "starter set" of tools would be given to every colonist/family regardless of other trade or skill related kits

>>58211934
>What was the state of X over 300 years
Gee, anon, definitely static and easy to sum up in single, simple sentence!
>People getting "colonist kits"
That's not how it works. That's not how any of it works at all/

>>58208356
Not the anon you are replying to, but that's the exact problem with Roman-era water wheels: you need a whole lot of them to get anything done at all. The diagram posted itt? You could literally replace it with a single water wheel from 17th century, operating a flour mill.
Despite their renown as superb engineers, Romans were almost extremely incompetent when it comes to hydro-engineering and especially water wheel construction and use. They never tried to improve the design itself, but instead just multiplied the amount of wheels working, which in turn greatly increased the costs of the entire operation (since you need multiple wheels along with mechanism for them) AND just as greatly limited number of spots that could be used for water wheels (since you needed a specific type of slope to install few wheels).

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>>58213112
>That's not how it works.
they aren't going to issue shovels, hammers, felling axes, rain gear, basic cooking utensils, or other universally useful tools?

to a shareholder-sponsored colony effort?
really?

and the first question was sort of an opener if anyone had any ideas or comments on the subject that might be of use for me in this game

>>58213239
now THIS I find useful.

now the question. with the higher efficiency 17th century wheels. how many useful things could you possibly power with a setup like this?
foundry bellows?
trip-hammers?
lumber mills?
carpentry shops?

>>58213241
>they aren't going to issue shovels, hammers, felling axes, rain gear, basic cooking utensils, or other universally useful tools?
Who and why should do so? Entertain us, namefag.
>to a shareholder-sponsored colony effort?
Then you are sending up a completely different type of "colonists". Most likely you are establishing a militar(ised) outpost in some wilderness up north, for trappers to have a place to start their operations and for locals to trade with without endangering the entire operation. Nobody is going to send settlers in such place.
Alternatively to that, the only other shareholder-sponsored colony effort is going to be about establishing plantation(s). Which means no settlers again, but just a tiny bunch of people to clear the land and then start getting slaves, because lo and behold, nobody is insane enough to leave Old World just to become a serf working plantation.

tl;dr nobody is going to provide any "kits" for anyone. If tools are going to be expended at all - which is unlikely - then they will be the property of the company setting up the place AND treated as such, rather than personalised or personal belongings/private ownership of people. As in - you break it, you pay for it and you pay for it a lot, given the realities.

>>58213348
...and people think *"I"* have the autism...

the intent of the effort is to establish a community that will exploit as many natural resources as possible over time and bulk-ship them back home in exchange for transport, initial supply, and finished goods supply. that bulk-shipment to be sold for the benefit of the shareholders that hold the only sure shipping route(a magic portal) between the colony and its output, and the "old world" and its access to higher order finished products.

why would people go?
perhaps
as exile for crimes?
its this or the draft?
overpopulation/cowding?
cause the govt says people need to go?

>>58213310
You can use water wheel of any efficiency for those, the issue will be about the amount of generated power and work done. So you can use the shittest wheel imaginable, but as long as it generates enough energy to move your machinery at all (doesn't matter what it's going to be), you can power whatever.
Just mind the low efficiency.

Jokes aside, the true change was in 18th century, thanks to works of Smeaton. He literally reinvented the wheel. While all previous inventions and improvements with water wheel design were either accidental or gradual effect thanks to practice and so on, Smeaton science the shit out of a lot of already existing mechanical inventions, while also spending most of his life on hydro-technology. You know, portland cement, water wheels, water locks and pens, the works.
Thanks to simply measuring things, applying proportions and ratio of the paddles on the wheel (along with optimal angle and shape), Smeaton managed to quadruple output of a single wheel, and then provided know-how on how to increase it further with additional elements and sheer size of the wheel. To put that into perspective - imagine someone today just like that figured a way to make all engines burn four times less fuel, while performing the same amount of work.
With Smeaton's application, you can power whatever the fuck you want with water wheels, including modern machinery. There is a reason why 1st industrial revolution relied so much on water wheels, rather than steam engines - they were cheaper to make, easier to maintain and weren't burning anything at all, making them essentially "free" to run, while delivering same or greater power.

Also, for what water wheel can power:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1cH-hl0A9Q
Set it around 2:50. Been there, seen that, shit's just amazing.

>>58213541
Not him, but I think you are making very, very weird assumption that is the basis for all the shit going after that.
Namely, you assume anyone actually conducted planned, controlled and well-organised colonial effort. Or that anyone gave a fuck about how shit's done, rather than the end profit - and that's assuming we are talking about profit-oriented operation, like already mentioned plantations.
In reality, pretty much entire colonial "effort" was conducted by people who literally packed their things (or didn't pack anything, being too poor for even that) and then either sold their asses to indentured serviture (easy money, but more importantly, making life easier, since it's not you having to plan things or maintain your own stead) or just went with what they owned, thus bringing their own tools, assuming they were smart enough for that in the first place and could afford it after paying for shipment over ocean. Most people just took bare essentials.
So your entire stance of someone conducting some sort of well-organised, company-ordered colonial effort falls flat against reality. None of this happend, because a lot of reasons. Mostly due to insufficient skills of the organisers themselves and the fact it was considerably cheaper to organise the operation when you "hired" people with their tools on them AND skills on how to use them, essentially hiring, say, 5 carpenters and 15 lumberjacks, rather than looking for 20 random people to use for your settling operation. That was in practice even in pre-WW1 20th century, in mines. Ever heard this song?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIfu2A0ezq0
Replace context of miner with colonial enterprise and you are home. Colonists in such configuration owned shit plus with debt slavery, but were pretty much stuck in the most literal sense within the charter of the colony, since there was nowhere to go in 9 out of 10 cases

>>58213541
I was reading your post and was planning to write serious reply, but then you mentioned magic portal and suddenly I've lost interest.
So you are saying there is a setting of yours that has stable, reliable and apparently affordable bulk matter transmitation, but for whatever reason relies on colonial charters?
Are you insane or just stupid? Or simply keen D&D player, thus unable to see functional magic as anything else than ability to throw nukes around

>>58083845

I never remember/think of bee keepers for fantasy stuff

>>58213827
>falls flat against reality.
well thats okay, this is a fantasy setting.

>Namely, you assume anyone actually conducted planned, controlled and well-organised colonial effort. Or that anyone gave a fuck about how shit's done, rather than the end profit
then I depart from reality at this point a little and hope that people can suspend their disbelief a little

>it was considerably cheaper to organise the operation when you "hired" people with their tools on them AND skills on how to use them
there is some useful datum. as opposed to hiring "warm bodies, to work as the organizers need"

>song
I like this, its catchy.

and this is actually fixing how I set my game.

>>58214043
>stable, reliable and apparently affordable bulk matter transmitation
its none of those things till the masons and the 2 uniquely skilled(as in no player can do this) mages spend a very long time setting up the "free" end. a year or more at most. until then its only a couple of uses in case of emergency.

>thus unable to see functional magic as anything else than ability to throw nukes around
I always hated that, its why I don't intend to let the party have much, if any, magic.

>insane or stupid
you missed the option that I might be ignorant.
and aside from the portals there isn't a lot of big obvious magic that I'll allow out and about in this world. and most of that will be the work of monsters or spirits.

I have never liked HIGH magic settings. this one's gonna be middle at best.

>>58214571
there are lots of crafts that can get to be quite interesting if you do more than scratch the surface of them.

I actually got to that document like this
>natural fibre composites
>adhesives/matrix materials
>sources[insect?]
>shellac
>how shellac is made
>insect products.pdf
its like The Hitler Game, but with ideas and google.

I like all the things I learned about mortise and tennon construction I learned looking up stuff on old carpentry techniques.

It's late in the year, supplies are low, and people start to freak out when they hear stories from the natives about the bad things that stalk in the dead of winter. But they're only stories... right?

>>58219885
this is especially good if combined with "by the pricking of my thumbs something this way, migrates"

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FUN FACT; septic technology came about in the 1860s

I wonder how I'd motivate my players if there is no access currency, or very much in the way of enchanted loot.

potions?
food?
a home base?
a trade of monster loot for cool stuff?

bump

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a product of the natives?
their composites come out swirly and colourful?

>>58228527
Maybe as a type of resin that is almost as strong as bronze?

>>58217674
Autism embodied. Also, nice reddit spacing
>inb4 it's easier to read
It's fucking worse, because you have just single line each time.

>>58230980
for the record I have never used or posted on reddit. never figured out how the place worked

and easy to read be damned, its easier to keep track of the reply.

The way how this thread lingers for past 2 days or so without producing anything useful anymore reminded me why namefags are cancer.
Nobody gives a fuck about your project, so let the thread just die, you stupid shit.

>>58231119
>Never posted on reddit
>Contunues to use reddit spacing for no reason at all
Yeah, sure

>>58231141
>without producing anything useful anymore
wrong.
the last couple of text walls, have actually been very useful to me, even through the insults and butthurt.

>>58048279
>WHAT AWFUL THINGS CAN BEFALL A NEW SETTLEMENT?

Literally and unironically anything.

>>58231154
>reddit spacing

Nigger the only reason correct parapgraph spacing is associated with reddit is because you idiots decided to call correct spacing "reddit spacing."

Consider fucking off.

I would have never known reddit has a culture that uses correct spacing if you faggots hadn't brought attention to it.

>>58205786
>It's not the screw.

And a honda civic is not a kia rio, what's your point?

>>58238945
>Correct spacing
>Single sentence in each line followed by empty line, bloating the post for no reason at all
>Correct
Consider eating a bullet already, namefag