Thither Pellatarrum?

One question which I have not been asked (to my great surprise) is "Why would I want to use Pellatarrum as a setting? It seems like a lot of work."

And to that I have to reply, "No, it's not a lot of work, it's supposed to be the antithesis of work. What you perceive as work is just a high weirdness threshold."

There are many, many things which players and game masters take for granted about their game worlds, usually through a combination of convenience and familiarity. Sometimes these things are good; since all humans on Earth are used to 24 hour days, nearly every fantasy setting has a 24 hour day, because the effort involved in creating and then implementing a different-length day would not be worth whatever benefits such a thing would give.

Sometimes these things are neutral, like a moon in the sky. Moons are nice because they provide light at night. Every setting I have seen has at least one moon; Dragonlance's world of Krynn has three. I have yet to see any setting without a single moon*, perhaps because removal of such would bring up such questions about lycanthropes, tidal forces, and possibly even fertility cycles.

And that's where the problem creep in, because now you're forcing scientific problems upon a fantasy world, where they have no place at all. You'd be surprised just how many scientific assumptions you bring into your fantasy game without realizing it.

Does it get colder the further north you go? Why?  Does the spirit of ice live there, or do you just take for granted that the world is a globe that rotates upon its axis and the colder regions are where the poles are? To me, this is terribly hidebound thinking. If you can accept the existence of dragons and magic and gods, then why must the setting be so boring? The north pole can be the source of all wind and chocolate if that's what you like, and your players have no place to gainsay you, because FANTASY, that's why.

Once you learn to let go of these preconceptions and accept the weirdness, you as the GM gain massive amounts of freedom. Put a glacier right next to a scorching desert if that's what you want. Fantasy should astound and amaze, and having everything be exactly the same as on Earth except with magic isn't especially fantastic.

As a word of warning, however, I would caution against creating a world that makes NO sense, because that will frustrate players (unless you're all into that sort of thing, in which case go for it). As I told a friend of mine:


"Pellatarum is a world that deliberately doesn't make scientific sense. It makes poetic sense.


How does this translate into the antithesis of work? Well, once you've determined why things work, the hows either fall into place or become irrelevant, and that means greater flexibility for incorporating other material.

Do you really like parts of the Forgotten Realms? Put 'em in Pellatarrum. Yank out what you like of Dragonlance and Greyhawk and Dark Sun and whatever else you like, and put them right next to each other if that's what you want. Make a fantasy version of Battleworld if that really suits you.

That's one reason I made the disk of Pellatarrum's Material Plane infinite: it gives me (and you) the ability to put whatever terrain we want, where we want it, without having to account for things like ocean currents and prevailing winds and rain shadows.

If it makes sense to you, put it there. Figure out the why and the rest is easy. That's the opposite of work.


*I would LOVE to see a setting where in place of a moon, the campaign world has a ring system like Saturn.