General Notes:

[Wright Frazier <khelek@ns1.cioe.com>]

Just a couple of general notes on Geleia.

1) General overal flavor: Celtic, 1300's 1400's Earthish
		Watch Braveheart a few times.

2) Is there a central government?  No.
	There is the "Kingdom of Geleia", but it does not rule the
	entire island, or even most of it.  It is primarily in
	the central mountains, and part of the eastern coast.
	
	Most of the rest of the island and surrounding isles are
	ruled by kings, families, or the odd merchant lord group.

	Southham is ruled by beauracracy under the control of some
	very nasty and corrupt merchant lords.  Its a fairly
	machiavellian venice type place.  Not really in culture, just
	in how things are.  Beauracracies, assassinations, poisonings,
	etc... not a nice place, but it's a town full of opprotunities,
	for both the evil and the good.

	Liston/Devon.  These two cities are pretty firmly under the
	control of a VERY powerful family called the Barrits.  They
	are a nasty bunch.  They aren't evil persey, just very very
	determined to see that their vision of the world comes to
	pass.

	Most of the rest of Geleia is fairly clannish, with may be
	the odd self appointed king, or lord.  The local government
	is really left up to the area writer, so long as its not
	to outlandish.

	The Southern Pirates: No idea what Kris is doin with them,
	but I doubt they are a bunch of girl scouts.

	Grunslop: Matt described this place as a fairly large, craggy
	island.  It is mainly human, and its people very reminisant
	of the Scots.  I personally was thinking of may be having
	had the Black Legion's remnants being located here, or one
	of the more fanatical band of anubians.

	Other islands, up to GMs if they wanna write one up, if its
	good, you'll get a pile of eeps for it.

4) General notes to GMs for the future.
	a) When I came up with the idea of assigning places to folks, it
		was so the major actors in the region would be run
		with consistancy, and well run.  i.e. not major actors
		that are throw aways.  As Kris said, the odd cameo of
		of a big actor is okay, just do not make it a habit,
		or do much of anything in detail.

		The big actors are just that, the big folks, and when
		I think of a big actor, I'm thinking someone like
		the lord of a city, a big general, a major pirate king,
		the head of a temple, etc...  Someone that will rarely
		if ever be seen by the players, they are usually just
		too busy doing other things.  That way if a player on
		your adventure goes looking to have an audiance with
		General Skippy of the 1st Southham Lancers, its
		perfectly reasonable he'll be told to come back in
		a few days, if not longer.  May be the General is
		out and about, may be he's just too busy to see'em.

		I hope that clears up what I mean by don't go tearing
		up other people's terrains.  Leave the big boys alone,
		they have plenty of underlings to deal with.
	b) Dealing with the underlings.
		Underlings make great bad guys, esspecially if they
		are members of a fairly large organization.  I'd like
		to see us avoid using disposable actors as much as
		possible, victory doesn't have to mean the guy dies.
		Also, if your players do cause serious harm to a
		fairly high up underling, or to an org, the Org should
		turn its attentions on them, and make life uncomfortable.

	c) When you are running a game in someone else's territory, please
		give them a fairly detailed writeup of what you did.  Anyone
		offended, anyone pleased, any changes to the environment,
		etc...  That way the writeups for a place can stay
		consistant.  Kris is discussing the possiblity of an
		online reference and submission for this, so it stays
		fairly accurate and up to date.

5)
Guidelines for writing up a city/town/village
Here are some things that should be answered for the min writeup on
a city:

Name:
Location:
Map:
Who Rules it in name:
Who really rules the place:  Might be the same guy as who rules in
				name, might not be, could be a king
				or some underworld guy, etc..
Allegiance:if any.
Population
Major Products
Armed Forces
Notable Churches
Shrines
Adventurer's Quarters:  A couple of inns and taverns, along with
			proprioter, quality, and cost.
Shops: A couple of important shops, if any.
Important Characters in Town: Any big NPCs, and a small blurb on'em, make
				sure to note if they are famous or not.
Local Lore: Any points of local history or color.


6) Populations:
	Cities in Geleia are small, not really even close to the
	behemoth of a city that Karfelon was.  Southham will be
	the single biggest city, at about 20,000 or so people.
	Kraelthon: ~10,000
	Devon: ~7,000
	Liston: ~6,000
	Kieron's Watch: ~4,000
	Northham: ~4,000
	Grahmshire: ~3000
	Brinshire: ~3000

	Granted there will be many more people in the surrounding areas,
	in villages, towns, etc...  But remember, there has been 30
	years of war, populations in a state of war for that long
	get reduced.  Also remember that we aren't dealing with
	the more sprawling cities of modern america, so 3,000 people
	sounds very small by todays standards, but when you are
	pacted within a wall, that is a lot of people.  Some place
	the size of say Liston, wouldn't be a whole lot bigger than
	the Purdue Campus.

	General population ratios for Geleia.  They will of course
		fluctuate by area.
		Elven: 40%
		Human: 30%
		Dwarven: 15%
		Orcan: 10%
		Lizard: 5%

		Once you get off the mainland, you will see a noticable
		increase in the number of lizards.

	The only real population of Dwarves is at Kieron's Watch, but
		there are dwarven settlements scattered around the 
		island.

	The only population of lizards is near liston, around what use
		to be the cavern home of the Dragon of Liston.  They
		dominated religiously by a perverted cult of Dessus.
		They worship dessus as the god of snakes, reptiles,
		lizards, corruption, and dragons, and viewed the
		Dragon of Liston as a god or at least near avatar
		of Dessus.
	
	Orcs are primarily concentrated in the southern plains between
		the southern forests and the central mountains.  There
		they are roaming tribes of marauders and bandits
		primarily.  This has lead a lot of folks to having
		dim views on Orcs.

	Elves are of course the dominant race, and rule pretty much
		everywhere outside of Southham and Liston, both of
		which are ruled by Humans.

7) Weather.
	The weather in Geleia is fairly chilly, and it rains a lot.
	I've asked Joel to write up a good system for handling 
	weather in Geleia.  It also definately snows in the winter.

8) Dress.
	Varies by location. i.e. make it up on your own.  Its a
	big enough place for dress style to vary considerably.

	For my part, the elves of Kieron's Watch will favor the more
		earth tones, and their clothes will be of heavy wool.
		This is because dyes are expensive, and it gets cold
		in the mountains, as well as wet.  Wool is warm even
		when wet.  Clothes styles will be more of breeches,
		shirts, coat, and cloak.  Possibly some of the more
		rural areas favoring kilts(wearing your bedroll is
		definately a benefit).  I'm thinking the military
		will favor kilts as well, seeing as I said before,
		wearing your bed roll is a benefit for space.

9) Local foods and drinks.
	What do the locals like for food and drink in your area?
	Ale? Beer? Wine? Mead? Beef? Chicken? Spicy food? etc..

	Generally speaking, we have a lot of land to work with,
	so large land animals, like cows, pigs, and sheep are 
	more of a livestock possibility, so instead of a guaranteed
	diet of fish, you might have beef or pork.

	I'm thinking Kieron's Watch will favor mutton and venison.
	Those come from more hearty mountain animals, which would
	have an easier time surviving the cold and wet.

	Southham would have just about every kind of food and drink
	avaible, with the individual going where he wants.  Its
	a big trading port, so its all there somewhere. 

	In a swamp like Aelran, may be rice is the big thing?

10) Local views on religions.
	Are there any wierd or nonstandard local views on religions?
	Is Scrogg utterly hated and not accepted? or is he the number
	one guy.

	Note: Anubis is the predominate religion of Geleia.  Its in
		close running with Mysticism.  Following soon
		after is the worship of Ra, then Orus.  Tarus's religion
		is far from dead here, and didn't have the vicious slant
		it did in Lojem and Centralia.  

	Also note there is a major split in the Church of Anubis.  Its
	pretty much the Orthodox, led by Kyle Barrit, against the
	less well organized Priests of the Holy Sepulcher of 
	Chambrai(the reformed).  The major difference is that the
	Orthodox anubians are proponants of the Wheel of Destiny,
	and use it.  They also believe they help in selecting when
	its a person's time.  The Reformed sect, started by Chambrai,
	believes the opposite pretty much.

	The major HQ of the Orthodox Anubians is in Liston.  The 
	reformed in Kieron's Watch.

	The center of Orusian worship is also in Liston.

	Torites have a much different role in Geleia than Lojem.
	They are not the law, less a writer wants to make them such, but
	generally speaking they are not.  What they are in your area
	is up to you, but please do talk to Matt Fahler about it, I
	think he has some good ideas.  In Kieron's Watch, they are
	the body guards and advisors of the King and the Royal Family.
	In Southham, they'd probably be more of a semiunderground
	vigilante group trying to bring justice to a nasty city.


11) Dissimination of Information.
	Not everyone needs to know everything about your area. 
	I.e. game stats for big actors or monsters, in my opinion
	shouldn't be given out to someone unless YOU deem they should
	know it.  There are a couple of reasons for this.
	a) keep the mystery.  If you as a GM know that Baron Igor
		Tamerlane is only a rate 30 FM, then you won't
		be nearly as intimidated by him, as you would be
		if you had no idea what his capabilities were.
	b) to keep people from running people they shouldn't be.
		If someone has decides to run an adventure dealing
		with the Dragon of Liston they might seriously
		bullox it, and he dies.  But he's been my actor
		for 5 years now or so, and they wouldn't know
		what they are doing with him, because I have the
		only writeup for him.

12) Monsters.
	If you can think of any new or different monsters you'd
	like to see in the Geleia setting, please make'em up and
	we'll use'em.  Don't make'em too wierd. =)  I'd like to
	see more commonly known monsters.  *shrug*

I guess thats it, sorry if the formatting sucks and the numbering is
	wrong. =)

Wright