Examples of Adapted Polyhedral Pantheons

A-Z 2015 "X"I’m calling ‘Examples’ close enough for ‘X Day’ of the A-Z Blog Challenge.

The last couple of posts have been about ways the Polyhedral Pantheons mechanism can be adapted to other purposes. In this post I’ll start applying the adaptations.

Adaptations of Polyhedral Pantheons

I’m going to start with just the initial work, assigning some attributes and seeing what comes out. I don’t plan to do much detailed interpretation at this point, but I will make some notes and some idea of what the results might mean.

I’m going to work with the icosahedron, the d20, for all examples below.

Physical Geography

Point Primary
A Forest
B Dwarves
C Aberrations
D Goblins
E Ruined
F Hills
G Purposed
H Mountains
I Plains
J Resource
K Cities
L Magic

I’ve applied four terrains (Forest, Hills, Mountains, Plains), three creature types (Goblins, Dwarves, and Aberrations), three modifiers (Ruined, Resource, Magic), and two civilization (Cities, Purposed) attributes. Altogether I get the following faces.

Face Attribute Attribute Attribute Notes
1 Forest Dwarves Aberrations
2 Mountains Resource Magic
3 Forest Ruined Hills
4 Purposed Plains Magic
5 Dwarves Purposed Mountains Power centre? Moving to engage goblins?
6 Ruined Plains Cities Also destroyed during aberration arrival? Invaded and abandoned?
7 Forest Dwarves Goblins  Counteralliance against dwarves+aberrations?
8 Hills Resource Cities
9 Aberrations Ruined Plains Initial catastrophic arrival location? Invaded and pillaged?
10 Goblins Hills Resource
11 Aberrations Purposed Plains Power centre
12 Goblins Mountains Resource
13 Dwarves Aberrations Purposed  Shared power centre?
14 Plains Cities Magic
15 Dwarves Goblins Mountains Counteralliance against dwarves+aberrations?
16 Ruined Hills Cities
17 Forest Goblins Hills
18 Purposed Mountains Magic
19 Forest Aberrations Ruined
20 Resource Cities Magic

Every pairing above appears twice, each with a different third attribute. I’m going to look at the populations first.

  • Goblins are matched to (Forest, Dwarves), (Hills, Resource), (Mountains, Resource), (Dwarves, Mountains), (Forest, Hills).
  • Dwarves are matched to (Forest, Aberrations), (Purposed, Mountains), (Forest, Goblins), (Aberrations, Purposed), (Goblins, Mountains)
  • Aberrations are matched to (Forest, Dwarves), (Ruined, Plains), (Purposed, Plains), (Dwarves, Purposed), (Forest, Ruined)

The faces provide elements relevant to the geography, not necessarily those who live there. The inhabitants of the region are attributes of the region, not the other way around.

Just on writing out the relationships above, I see a struggle happening. I’m going to say that because the aberrations are associated with regions that are mostly ruined and/or purposed, they have somehow ‘arrived’ (from below ground, over the sea, or outer space, doesn’t matter yet). I’m going to give in to temptation here: they are allied somehow with the dwarves (or possibly have infiltrated or subverted them). I think I’m going to say the dwarves have since made overtures to the goblins, looking for peace, and possibly an alliance against the aberrations.

I don’t know yet what all of the above means, but I’m guessing someone is going to get screwed pretty bad.

This accounts for thirteen of the twenty regions. I’m going to assume they’re fairly contiguous. I’m guessing the three factions are arranged in a more or less triangular arrangement, with the goblins and aberrations aware of each other and the dwarves heavily interfaced with both. The remaining regions are probably fairly closely linked to those sharing attributes. A ‘forested hills’ region is likely adjacent to another ‘forested hills’ region, or at least one that has forest or hills.

Because I decided some of the relationships and inferred an arrangement of the regions, I’m not going to randomize the placement or relationships.

I don’t know everything yet, but I think I’d be prepared to take this as a start.

City Wards

Point Primary
A Craft
B Large
C Academic
D Commercial
E Magical
F Prosperous
G Transients
H Impoverished
I Religious
J Industrial
K Minority
L Military

This doesn’t tell me much so far. I’ve got seven ward types (Craft, Academic, Commercial, Magical, Religious, Industrial, Military), then a mix of other attributes: size (Large), wealth (Prosperous, Impoverished), and population (Transients, Minority). This gives me the faces below.

Face Attribute Attribute Attribute Notes
1 Craft Large Academic
2 Impoverished Industrial Military Road builders?
3 Craft Magic Prosperous
4 Transients Religious Military  Paladins on quest, crusaders?
5 Large Transients Impoverished
6 Magic Religious Minority
7 Craft Large Commercial
8 Prosperous Industrial Minority
9 Academic Magic Religious Temple quarter?
10 Commercial Prosperous Industrial
11 Academic Transients Religious
12 Commercial Impoverished Industrial Dockyards?
13 Large Academic Transients ‘Academic pilgrims’? University?
14 Religious Minority Military
15 Large Commercial Impoverished Thieves’ Market?
16 Magic Prosperous Minority Elven quarter?
17 Craft Commercial Prosperous High-end markets?
18 Transients Impoverished Military Recruitment and levies? Training grounds?
19 Craft Academic Magic
20 Industrial Minority Military

I suspect some of the attributes need clarification. The ‘Craft’ attribute indicates artisans and other skilled workers, while ‘Industrial’ tends to be ‘more work’. You might expect smiths would gravitate to Craft wards and docks are more likely to be found in Industrial wards. Dockyards, on the other hand, where they actually build ships, might have one or both of the Craft and Industrial attributes.

‘Academic transients’ suggests temporary training schools, where students attend for a time before moving on (training complete or to other training). ‘Religious transients’ might be pilgrims or those on quest.

I’m not going to arrange these in any particular order. I think I can find explanations and descriptions for most of these, and then apply Last Gasp Grimoire‘s In Cörpathium dice drop mechanism to determine placement within any particular city.

Closing Comments

I think I’ll stop there for tonight. I skipped the Planar Geography adaptation for now because I want to consider further how it differs from Physical Geography. The Megadungeon and Campaign adaptations have attributes that are too abstract at this point. I’ll want to spend more time fleshing them out.

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  1. Pingback: Z-A Challenge 2015 Index | In My Campaign - Thoughts on RPG design and play

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