DMs Only: Floating City module brainstorming

Ancients/Crying Woods Conversations – Fall 2003

JAN Jan's Dreaded Two Cents -

This was my take on it when I wrote the very first module (I'll call the Incas - Ancients)

A VERY long time ago - the jungle and the Ancients existed together - a symbiotic relationship - I wouldn't go as far as to suggest they were completely dependant on one another, but perhaps they enhanced one another other - living in harmony - and then - "something" happened to their relationship.

But what? No one knows.

The ancients are dead - long gone - and somehow the jungle is extremely hostile to outsiders - anyone it considers a threat. Why? No one really knows. Was the jungle always sentient, or was it developed by the ancient horticulturalists to a point where it became 'aware'?

I attempted to make the following observations in the module -

The ancients had a VERY good knowledge of the forest, and could manipulate it extremely well. Forget druids and rangers - this was something else. They could make trees grow the way they wanted them - perfectly symetrical if they so chose. I described a 'perfect' tree on a 'perfect', immaculately cut lawn, that grew around and above one of the ancient's tombs. Was this like Japanse Bonsai, where things are force grown? Or did the jungle want to do this of its own accord? We don't know.

The ancients had a different look - they were green, with skin as smooth as shiny leaves. They had extra appendages to help them move through the forest - to swing, and to climb. It begs the question - Who came first? The ancients, or the jungle?

I didn't touch on any other creatures apart from the caretaker beetle and the parrot. But both these creatures have a protective aura - they're safe from hostility, because everything's working for everything else. The jungle needs them, they need the jungle. The plants, I used as weapons - strangling, hurling projectiles, sucking blood, poison. I figured that a sentient jungle would have control over those more than anything else - they're directly part of itself. Creatures are more indirect.

I also attempted to show that it wasn't all bad either. Some of the plants (and animals) were beneficial. There was good mingled in with the bad.

So - was everyone living happily ever after, until there was a big showdown between jungle and ancient? I think thats where we were heading, but if I remember rightly, we didn't want to just spell out what happened, certainly not so soon in the jungle's discovery or development. We figured there should be a lot of whys and hows asked - that it should be a huge puzzle. I did have the characters feel some kind of hostility - very acute - coming from the jungle and directed at the ancient's burial site - a piece of the overall puzzle perhaps. We only just touched on what the ancients were capable of, too. There's a ton of stuff out there waiting to be discovered ie. developed.

We came up with a hand-held magic item, found in the hand of a dead ancient, activated by sound - we suggested that it also might be a key - to what? We don't know - yet.

I guess in player character terms - its a bit like coming across the Titanic undersea, and not knowing the history of what happened to it. Perhaps eventually some of the salvage would help piece together a story, but it would take time.

Its the same here. I tried to leave everything as wide open as I could. That way it could be developed in the future as Anthony and the DMs saw fit.

Phew, okay :) I'm not sure whether that helped or not, but if there's any doubt about who's page we should be on - Anthony's is the default.

ANTH Ok what does Jan have? I thought that the "Incas" were of a diffrent race entirely, a dead race and they live in complete harmony with the forest until the forest was tricked into thinking the "Inca" broke their accord. The "Incas" tried their best to put it right as the forest was their baby however it was to no avail the forest exterminated them, to the last. Should the forest ever be able to be comunicated with and the explination of what really happened and how mistaken the forest was might send the magical jungle insane. It has killed is parents in rage for something that they were blamed for, the "Incas" sacrificing themselfs for the life and sanity of their child.

Is this what we decided Jan am I way off? Lots of people have tracked through here and it was before we cemented anything so there may be aLOT of missunderstandings. This was before we gat as organized as we are now, Wich is in no way organized enough but it is better.

ANTH Ok this is what I remember and then the framed aspect came from something I was planning but never go to because I had to do other things....

JERRY lol....Nothing new here Mike. Usually we all remember things the same way more. :)

The incas should be a different race, somehow, I like that part. I also think we'll combine ideas again. Common knowledge will be that the incas got powerful and self destructed manipulating the forest and the forest had it's revenge.

Secret knowledge is that someone set up this and the incas were innocent as Anth stated. How's that?