Author Topic: The Balaria Thread  (Read 67982 times)

LilWolf

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Re: Something you might enjoy
« Reply #15: October 30, 2011, 10:23:02 AM »
Just noticed this; looked over the map, calendar, races, history, etc. Started reading the longer narrative. Being an avid fantasy world maker myself, I very much enjoy this sort of thing.

You asked for comments, so I'll give you a few of my thoughts:

Very much appreciated :)

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1. Why do you call months moons? Are they actual lunar cycles, but the lunar cycles vary in length. The idea of a lunar calendar is neat, I'm just curious why you decided to use a lunar word for what does not immediately appear to be a lunar calendar.

To be honest it just seemed like a sensible name that did not sound like it was forcefully invented.

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2. Regarding "Common Date," that's a reasonable enough convention for your use, and, in Balaria, for "scholars." But could you flesh out the race-specific calendars? I'd be very interested to see those as well; and fleshing them out could allow some interesting setting material for characters, if they consistently refer to their own calendars. You introduce "Common Date" as being originated by scholars; would folk calendars really have vanished?

Other calendars are something I've got on my to do list. Just had to start somewhere and it felt best to do the simple calendar that ties everything together in an easily understandable manner instead of putting out the ten thousand year elf calendar and then the dwarf calendar next to it or some other more complex monstrosity.

The other calendars have certainly not vanished, but the CD calendar just has taken over in many places, especially in many of the human kingdoms where they tended to tell the year by how long a ruler/family had ruled.

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3. Why so many two-syllable names? Your city names are remarkably conventional, across cultural and national lines. This might be intentional, I don't know; it just seemed worth commenting on.

I originally scribbled the map about 10-12 years ago. At the time I just put down names that popped into my head. I didn't really have any other plan for the map or the world than to use it in a AD&D game with my friends. Come to think of it, we never did get to play the game I had planned :/

The first parts of the story I wrote in 2006 or so. Again, I just used names that popped into my head. Maybe my mind is just a two-syllable machine?

In the later chapters I've referred to online name generators so hopefully the names will have a bit more variance in that regard.

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4. Did anything happen between 0 and 2426 CD? I was curious about that time period; it seems like it is probably significant, but it's a gap in the timeline.

Certainly. Probably a few kingdoms falling, wars and stuff like that. I just haven't completely decided what. Work in progress and all that :)
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