Settlement Template

'''This template is used when making anything from a simple barbarian encampment to a intricate kingdom of massive scale. When creating something in the world of this roleplay, under guidance of a mod, you have ownership. That means if you create a village, you control the npc's who live there.''' '''

When making a template, there are some very important sections that are often ignored or overdone in such a way that all sense of direction is lost. As such we ask you to make sure you read the following two sections carefully as well as the example that follows.

"The First Glance and Layout sections are a crucial part of this roleplay group. They prevent the needless reposting of the same information. The First Glance section allows someone to walk up to your settlement and know what it looks like, and if he/she can simply walk in uninterupted. If so then the Layout section will give him/her a basic yet precise set of descriptions regarding your streets, shops, notable locations and more, allowing them to go where they want to before you're forced to make reply to them. (Keep in mind that you are free to post-in an earlier point too.)

First glance:
The first glance section describes what, say a random roleplaying traveler, would see when approaching your town, or castle, or farmland etc. It describes what prominent features begin to stand out more the closer one gets, and it describes what someone sees when entering, or walking up to the gate, etc.

If entrance into your location is forbidden, then describe how and say who’s protecting the gate and how they are doing it. Perhaps the doors are permanently shut? If so then what stops anyone from climbing over them? How high is the gate? Are there any guards? If so then what are the regular questions asked to someone unknown walking up to your gate, or will there be a violent response? etc etc etc. (Arrows fired from the wall the moment someone comes within 20 yards of the gate).

Even with this, someone may find a way, or look for a way, to sneak inside or talk his/her way into the back of a corrupt merchants cart. If this happens, it's up to you to write up a reply to attempts as such.

Layout:
Here you’ll describe, whether in a complex or simple form, each and every street in your village. Give them names, numbers, or whatever markers in order to make it easy for you and the reader to keep up with which street connects to which. It is highly recommended to give them names, as you can have these streetnames exist in roleplay. However if you are living in a camp of barbarians who don’t assign any names to the mudpaths connecting their tents, you can simply assign numbers to each path within the description, and refer to these numbers in brackets whenever referring to a specific path within rp. The brackets will let everyone know that the number is an OOC remark, that can be questioned/elaborated on within rp.

Example:
-Player one is the owner of a Barbarian camp. -Player two roleplays a single travelling knight.

Player 1: Two barbarians walked into the village they knew best and turned the first left corner (5) to walk into their favorite whoretent aptly named “The lusty Breasticles” as the sun set behind their backs.

Player 2: After having stalked after these barbarians for the last weeks, a sweaty knight takes a knee behind the protection of a nearby tree and clenches the parchment detailing a bounty placed on the head of each of these barbarians. And a mind-boggling sum for their red haired leader. The knight waits until night falls before sneaking into the village and looking around at all of the paths that are hard to see in dark. (Does the 5 refer to a specific path within this encampment? If so then where can I see which paths lead out of the entrance etc?)

Player 1: By now completely hammered, the barbarians engage in acts that shouldn’t be detailed this publically, while the massive tent hosts several drinking competitions and sporadic fights: the noises of all this would surely draw attention from any a stranger. (Indeed, 5 refers to a specific path. In order to see the layout of this encampment visit this website www.wikia.tba.com//barbarian-encampment)

Player 2: Hearing the loud proceeding on the background, the knight diverts his attention and continues to look around before letting his eyes fall on a small white tent to his right (3) where sat a surprisingly beautiful blonde maiden. Slowly, he began to approach her. (I noticed there was a slave girl that often sat outside her tent, when I read the description of part 3, awesome stuff!)

Player 1: The girl looked up at the knight with hope filled eyes, eyes that then grew frightened and sequentially relieved as she looked around and found no barbarians looking at them, she by now should’ve known that they were out to rob travellers, raid small villages, or whoring and drinking. As she came to stand within a yard of the knight she stepped in to hug him, at which she’d begin crying while begging him “Save me”. (Appreciated! Never expected something like this to pop up from a random slave girl, but I got a cool idea for a storyline! Happy roleplaying!)

From here on out the OOC-chat, which entirely happened in brackets, would most likely come to an end as there is nothing more to discuss regarding the rp, and compliments and respect have been given. As such it would continue as awesome roleplay that you never guessed would’ve happened simply because of a layout of the barbarian camp; surprising both players and giving them both something interesting to invest time in. I’ll give you a small example of how this could pan out before continuing to the next subject.

Player 2: The knight held her firmly and promised her “I’ll set you free” before looking back over his shoulder (looking towards path 5), as he came to a mental dilemma of securing lifelong fortune or saving the woman of his dreams. But as soon as he looked back into her eyes he knew for sure. Grabbing her hand tightly, he pulled her along as he ran out of the camp and drew his black bastard sword in right hand, ever wary of his surroundings as he feared a barbarian could jump up at any time.

Player 1: as they ran away, little seemed to stop their road to freedom and fortune. At least not until a loud roaring was heard in the background (3). The owner of the slave girl, none other than the barbarian chieftain, was heard throughout the entire encampment and even beyond. “WHERE IS SHE! WHERE IS THAT LITTLE WITCH! HER GURAX BELONGS TO ME ALONE!”. (Gurax, as some would know, is the barbarian word for what’s commonly known as ‘The Gift’). As she heard this, the girl looked up at her knight in shining armor with a questioning gaze. Worried as to whether the knight knew what the barbarian chieftain was referring to, and if so… what the knight’s reaction would be. After all… she only found hatred and envy within those who learned of her “Gift”.

-The end-

Unfortunately I can’t waste too much of your time, so I’ll end our little story here. But as you see this can go a large multitude of ways. The girl, however, could also have been a regular farm girl, a princess, or even an actual barbarian that was set up to lure the knight into a trap. The approaches are limitless.

Adding substance!
As can be seen in the prior example, heroes can be born out of many situations, and in many shapes and forms. As the owner of a village, or kingdom etc, you have the power to create such amazing experiences for other roleplayers as your land can be home to a large number of individuals (npcs/rpcs) for people to interact with or for you to take the initiative with. These inhabitants, controlled by you, are known as npcs. Each place will have a limited number of starting mages, (npc), based on current population/background/etc (Almost always 1, but never more than 3.). As seen in the example, the slave girl was a mage that was captured by the barbarians. She would count as one of the starting mages for this barbarian compound, and would most likely be the only mage there.

As the owner of your village, kingdom etc, you may pass control of an npc over to another roleplayer, or even a mod! But only one roleplayer, whether original owner or not, can control a specific npc at any given time. Whoever has control of an npc has the power to pass that control onto someone else. (If this leads to un-beneficial situations, mods can always step in as a last resort. At this end of the day these rules exist to give a feeling of ownership over a character that’ll hopefully lead to more involvement and responsibility.) There is no limit on how many different npc’s someone can control, but the moment you can't keep up with posts for more than a week Mods will be forced to step in and remove/change control of those npc’s.

"You don't have to start out with a complete/big/fully-described list of npcs. Keep it simple to begin with, add where needed, and with time you can build up a NPC Directory to be proud of."

Each npc needs at least a one-word description such as; Baker, farmer, soldier. But can have anything ranging between that and a complete character biography, usually depending upon importance of said npc. Keep in mind that making a large biography, and publishing it on the wikia, may give away things you might want to keep secret in which case it might be better to keep to a smaller description for the time being that may be expanded upon at a later time.

Everyone can only have one rpc! This rpc is you, or your fantasy, or whatever you want it to be. This is your character, you brainchild, at least until he/she dies and you make a new one at which you are always free to seek mod-permission to convert a npc to your rpc (this requires the blessing of whoever controls that npc, unless you control it yourself.)

The actual template!
Name:

Short description:

Population:

Known for:

Important figures:

Lesser known figures & commoners:

Size: (In yards)

First Glance: (Copied to the forum introduction thread of your village/kingdom/etc.)

Guard Protocol:(If any) (Copied to the forum introduction thread of your village/kingdom/etc.)

Lay Out: (Copied to the forum introduction thread of your village/kingdom/etc.)

Economics: (How much wealth does your average joe posses? how much money is there in the royal vault? what kind of trade are you involved in? etc etc. This can be as detailed as you wish, or kept extremely simple, but remember that a wealthy kingdom, or even a village, needs to have amassed said wealth at some point and most likely still continues doing so.)

Type of rule:

Type of Hierarchies in place:

Religions/Ways of life:

Main Deity, if any:

Coat of arms:

Army information:

Common apparel:

Physical traits:

Allies:

Enemies:

Actively recruiting:

Actively banned from entering:

Relics:

Optional: Add whatever else you think should be added.