DMs Only: The Southern Continent

The Southern Continent Jericho Notes

An Out Of Character Rendering Of the Rationale For the Design Of the Southern Continent

By Jerry Phelps

During the Claudia Saga, the local group players went through one of those special, as well as terrible, times when the game became so serious and large that players’ emotions became overwhelmingly strong. The role-playing was at a very high level, but this over time brought on stress and fatigue. One can only role-play at that level for a time. When the campaign continued at this high level for several months, the local group, then known as The Gold Dragon Gaming Troupe decided that we needed to take a step back and leave the story line behind for awhile as well as the current characters. We had been enjoying these characters for years, but it was time to try something else.

So I began to ask them what they wanted to do. First, they wanted to do something original. Second, they wanted it to be D&D. Next, they wanted to be constantly exploring new territory rather than revisiting the same locales. They also wanted it to be an addition to The Wold so that the time spent creating the place would not be wasted. We would create a new place, never heard of or seen before and place it somewhere on the Woldian planet.

So we settled on creating a new continent, tentatively called The Southern Continent. A few players, who also take their turn behind the DM screen, said that they wanted to create areas that would be their own. I readily agreed, but saw a problem. If they wanted to constantly explore, eventually it would mean backtracking to find an area that had not been visited yet. This problem of backtracking to get to new territories would continue and get to be “a concern” as well as defeat the reason we were creating this new continent.

So I hit upon a somewhat bizarre idea. What if we simply shuffled the territories around from time to time so that everything was new again. This was not received too well since it was kinda strange, but all were eventually sold on the matter, especially when various ones of us came up with competing rationales for in-character explanations as to why it happened.

…And so the Southern Continent was created. There hasn’t been a shuffle or as some Southerners call it, A Grand Migration, yet. I’m looking forward to the first one.

Several areas were developed at the start: The Gateway Downs (a place to start by yours truly), Dremoria (Scott Marley’s Elven Forest), Hook City (Anthony’s city where magic is used for money), The Plains (a Dune-like Grasslands area), and The Dwarven City-Nation of Turak-Nor.

We did later add some additional elements to the “migration” concept. One change was that not every country or territory would have to move in a shuffle. The other was that the grand mystery was created concerning the Migration. It would be the centerpiece of a story line at some point. The location of the answer to the mystery of The Grand Migration was to be found in the exact center of the continent--wherever that was. It was impossible to actually travel there as it has always been isolated by magical and physical barriers. In this central location would be certain isolated kingdoms, including the mythical Cith of Powers which, according to legend, contains the Zone of Power at it’s center where The Powers reside.

The Powers are a collection of immortals who control the migration as well as the destiny of the Southern Continent.

No “continent” map was ever made, as it would be rendered useless should “migration” occur.

No details have been developed at this time for the Power Quest. Perhaps I can make this so intense that they will want to go to the “comfortable” Northern Continent of Yrth for a break from the heavy action in the Southern Continent!