Designers Diary – Easthalen Chapters

Until I can get or find software that meets my requirements, I’ll be making the last two weeks of each month, on the Wednesday and Thursday, article days. These will be related to my planning and design of both Easthalen and the USG (Unnamed Scifi Game – I still need to think up a better title for this but will use it as a working title), plus anything else I can come up with, from ramblings, rants, suggestions on how to use EG products, reviews or anything else I can think of. The Chunks series will still be going on, but for the first two weeks of each month.

Now, on with today’s article…

So far I have the following rough ideas for chapters for Easthalen, in the approximate order I feel they should go:

1. Introduction/Overview
2. Timeline/History of the world
3. Races & Classes
4. Nature of Magic – Considering the nature of magic in Easthalen this is very important and needs to be high up the chapter order
5. Gods and Spirits – Related to the above, the nature of the gods requires this to be high in the listings
6. The 12 Great Houses and the Major houses and minor houses (needs a better name for this chapter)
7. World Details/Geography
8. The Barrier and The Bleed – This may end up being a sub-chapter of World Details/Geography. It’s a major, if not the biggest feature in the game world and is the reason why things are the way they are.
9. Flora and Fauna – Covers the animals and  plants and others things that call this place home
10. Equipment & Items – Pretty simple, covers artefacts and items unique to Easthalen
11. The Nature of Technology – Covers technology and to what level etc it is used. May end up being a small chapter or part of the previous chapter
12. Places Beyond – A brief overview of other known planes or realities connected to Easthalen
13. Other – This is a catch all for anything else I can’t think of right now.

The main book will assume the following:

1. There is a separate rules system the game is designed for and you have the rule books for that – This will be more of a campaign setting
2. That player and GM know the basics of how to play RPGs
3. Core things, such as equipment, monsters etc, are assumed to be present as well, depending on the core rules used. If there are any changes or variations, these will be mentioned in one of the above chapters

The chapters should be considered to be guidelines and are, of course, subject to change, not only in name but order and existence.

I’ll go over the planned chapters for USG tomorrow and expand further on how the two games will be linked.