A fantasy setting collaboration?

[BingTheWing]

@The Harbinger of Ferocity Would you be interested in implementing the Snow Elves in your history? Given their secluded geography, Altgarde could have also been a rebel state against Khaver.

Also, we really need a map.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

I imagined some coming from parts of the Northern Reaches and parts where no humans dwelled deep in Altgarde's wilderness, @BingTheWing. If that sounds appropriate, I do not imagine much reason they couldn't be present as it seems the most likely place to find a snow elf.

[BingTheWing]

Indeed. Haithorost could be the Elvish name for the Northern Reaches. I wonder how the human attitude towards their extremely pragmatic culture would be, though. Indifferent? Consistent with their own?

[Oak7ree]

A few thoughts on time keeping, history and calendars:

In the past, elves have ruled of Kaledan, but as climate changed for the wotse, their kingdoms waned in power and as humans came to the scene, they where pushed back little by little. These conflicts have caused friction between the modern humans and elves.

What if elves used lunar calendars and Azter-like calendar, using, for example, a century-long (or other similar period) as a basic unit of a cycle and naming it after a major historical event. As they live longer than your avarage human, they have a better perspective on history, and would refer different times as Ages.

Humans have used solar calendar for centuries, similar to the Gregorian calendar, but of course, with a different name.

Edit: we also need some kind of timeline. It can be rough, but I'd like to include such factors like immigration waves, formation of kingdoms, wars, importan individuals, founding of towns/cities/castles, royal houses and such.

[BingTheWing]

There needs to be a current threat/problem/general mentality when making this universe. Is a great prophecy about to take place? Are we slipping into a new ice age? Are political feuds the norm?

Honestly, I wouldn't like it if we went all edgy GoT-style on this. I'd prefer a more mystical universe, but one that is losing its touch - as if we live in a period directly after the golden age of magic and adventuring.

EDIT: Found a plausible map.

Map

[Oak7ree]

@BingTheWing I'd like to have a Witcher or ASOIAF-like universe - there can be prophecies, but I'd make them ambigous at best.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

Making the threats numerous, ambiguous and not readily explained offers much more ground to build upon. If not everything is known or understood, it makes any danger just all that more mythical. You have to ask yourself then, even as a reader who has the "eye of God" view of the story, "What is actually happening here?"

I have no doubt there are prophecies and legends, fantasy would not be the same without them as we are all well aware, but putting a spin upon them as potentially filled with error or "not quite true" makes them more novel, more fascinating. For example, the submission I put forward has no real answer; everyone who did know is dead and those who truly knew are long since dead. Some people believe they know, but are too afraid of the answers because it challenges their beliefs - they would rather live in the perceived safety of their beliefs despite contrarian evidence.

Spelling nothing out for certain short of the obvious, such as places, peoples and personalities does well to these ends.

[Oak7ree]

I've tried to compile some of the ideas and thoughts on this thread. Of course, it is not word-to-word, but some retelling and ideas on my part.

A new history of the world

The ancient times

Thousands of years ago, the continent was the home for the races of elves, dwarves, gnomes and halflings. The gnomes were supposedly the first one to settle on the continent, followed soon after by halflings. Often travelling nomads and hunter-gatherers, they lived off the land, hunting then abundant mega-fauna and other wildlife.
They had arrived at the end of the latest ice age, and although the northernmost parts of the continents were still icy tundras and glaciers, the gnomes and halflings traveled northwards as the ice receded. Their origins are shrouded in mystery, as they've been residing in Kaledan for millennia. After them, came the elves and dwarves, founding the first towns and bringing the agriculture and bronze working with. Their tribal societies formed the first kingdoms and societies, which often relied on religion and segregated castes. For example, the Order of Seers was founded during this period, and they claim to have had an access to a divine truth or prophecy during their founding. The elven communities are thought to have been ruled by a caste of mages, as magical affinity runs strong in their veins. Many of the greatest mages of world's history have been elves.
The elves became the dominant race of the continent for centuries, and they warred against the dwarven kingdoms. The races relied in different things when waging wars. The dwarves relied on engineering, alchemy and metalwork, while the elves used magic. The dwarves developed the first magic-inhibiting substances through trial-and-error, seeking new ways to combat magic, and ever since they have kept these compounds a well-kept secret. Both races live long, and their greatest warriors have become folk heroes among their respective societies, and their exploits are often repeated by storytellers, bards and poets even today.
It is said that several tribes of elves live in the Northern Reaches as nomads, like their ancestors have done. They are said to be more wild and animalistic than their southern relatives, more suited for the cold climate. Pragmatic and believing in the survival of the fittest, they've traveled upon this Earth for ages, and are said to do so until the Earth crumbles into nothing.
The cultured elven kingdoms separated history into ages, and believed that history is a wheel. All things have happened before, and would happen again in endless cycles. The elven religion of ancient history was based on this thought of world's cyclical nature and that their ancestors were looking down on them from the heavens beyond the stars. They often referred the place of rest, where the souls went after death, as the Beyond. They also believed that their magical power came from the Beyond, and thus it was important to keep the ancestors content by making sacrifices and honoring them in prayers.
The dwarven kingdoms were much smaller than the elven nations, but the dwarves are still known for their stubborn and prideful natures. Like elves, they live long, and they remember long every good and bad deed done to them, or as is often said, never scorn a dwarf, for it will be your end. They perfected working bronze and had started to grasp working iron, as the humans arrived to the continent.

The beginning of an end

Almost one-and-half thousand years ago, the first humans are said to have come to the continent by great ships, but in the Northern Reaches, there are traces of older human habitation. The elven kingdoms had entered a state of decay, and they weren't as strong as they had been. A short ice age had diminished their numbers, and an age of faltering magic had descended upon the world. The elves saw this as the wrath of the ancestors, and tried to please them in any way they could. Humans exploited the weaknesses of the elves by conquering their cities and converting them into their own. Many modern human towns are in fact based on ancient elven ruins and cities. They aren't as majestic or grand as they were in the ancient times, but they'll do the trick
As the elven kingdoms diminished, the humand kingdoms became stronger. Compared to elves, humans mature quicker and breed in greater numbers, and as the humans allied themselves with the dwarves, they won victory after victory against the elves. For centuries, humans fought against the elves.

Geography

If one starts from the north, there are the Northen Reaches, also known as Haithorost in the elven tongues. In the Reaches, life is harsh and tough, as winters are long and summers short. Agriculture yields poor crops, although wildlife is plentiful. The kingdom of Altgarde was once in power in this region, although, thanks to a period of cold known as the "creeping cold", when the climate became even harsher than usual. The locals called this phenomenon in their own tongue "Wvalgentar Wuden" – a term that roughly translates as "winter's war". A bit dramatic, but quite fitting the severity of the weather.

[Oak7ree]

@ClocktowerEchos, here's my take on the Glade of Lost Knights. Sending thousand knights to find one man would be wasteful, and the nation's army would be thousand knights short in the next war. Instead, how about a few knights, a dozen or less, setting out to find the royal offspring across the four corners of the world. In the end, they would end up to the Glade, and died there, the place's powerful magic reanimating their armours and weapons.

[ClocktowerEchos]

@Oak7reeAnother idea could be that they where and army of a long forgotten kingdom, marching back to a kingdom under siege that awaited their return but their heroes never came.

[Oak7ree]

@ClocktowerEchos How about Teutoburg Forest-like battle? An army lost to an ambush of guerrillas. The army was marching through a hostile terrain, a forest in this case, and a smaller force ambushed them destroyed them completely.

[BingTheWing]

Should we start setting specialties? I can do elves and all things elvish.

[Oak7ree]

@BingTheWing I've already aired that idea a few days ago, but the conversation carried on.

[BingTheWing]

Sorta WIP history for the elven nation:

Hider

Anor’nurath

The Fallen Realm

Known as the NORNUR DOMINION to outsiders

The sigil of the Great Tree, the symbol now used to represent all Elvenkind.

Long, long ago, when the world was barren and devoid of life, there was the Great Tree. It was, is, and will always be the ultimate Source of all things that draw breath from its sacred airs. There it stood, tall and shining, its leaves shimmering with an ancient light in the midst of an immeasurable dark waste. And with one twist of its ancient branches, it created green grass beneath its feet, soil to nourish its many children, a blue sky, a flaming sun, and a silent moon to envelop and watch over its creation. It created life, life in the purest form, a purity which will never be recreated by human ambition or dwarven machination in the days to come.

This was the Age of Life - when only creatures blessed directly from the Great Tree itself had the privilege to perceive the primordial beauty of the world. A great Wood enveloped the land, and within that wood lived deers the size of houses, bears that could crush a dwarven ballista with one swipe of a claw. There dwelt bulls the size of small castles, and small pea-plants that could tear through armor in their choking branches. The smallest birch tree could house an entire nation of halflings. The world was alive. The Tree perceived its creation, and it perceived it was good.

Then the Tree decided that its creation should be given sentience beyond that of mere animals. It wanted things that could not just enjoy the fruits of its labors, but also contemplate it, and honor their Creator. Thence, the Tree created the winged Fairies from its leaves, and the great Guardians from its sturdy trunk. The Fairies were naught but the size of a small pebble, but their enchanted whispers could still beasts ten thousand times that size. The Guardians defended the Woods from threats from the great Beyond, from the deities whose intentions the Great Tree did not know, and feared.

But some of the fairies did not fear these deities. The lure of power, of knowledge, that the presence of these Beyonders entailed enchanted these fairies. They lusted to be outside, to explore the lands outside the Wood, to be outside the influence of the Tree that governed the very air they breathed. The Beyonders granted strength, dominance, the ability to conquer and rule a creation that was beyond the reach of the Tree. These fairies sat, and plotted. They communed in secret with the Deities, gaining their secret knowledge, until one fateful day, a portal to the world which the Beyonders ruled was opened.

The Tree perceived this new hole in its creation, and it screamed. A loud, billowing scream, encouraged by the pain that the portal tore in its very being. The fairies, not looking back, leapt into the great unknown and closed the portal. The scream was the last they heard of their home, the place where they truly felt life.

When the rebel fairies arrived at the realm of the Beyonders, they were greeted with a barren wasteland. The trees only reached up to the size of houses, and the animals were the size of ants. Life did not flourish here - there was nothing to live for. The animals regularly preyed upon each other, and ripped each other to shreds in a melancholy bloody struggle for life. This was not life - this was death, death on a daily basis. But they could not come back to the Tree, nor could they appease it. They could only make their current home livable. In penance for their rebellion, they called themselves the ‘elphiror’ - the fallen, and their new home the Fallen Realm. Forever these fairies - incorrectly called ‘Elves’ by other races - cursed the Beyonders, spited them for their treachery and their visions of gold and power. Now the elves retreat into the forests, connecting with the sparse attempts of nature that were only shadows of the Wood, attempting to commune with their Great Tree, the only home they will ever know.

[Oak7ree]

Some new country building questions: what kind of economy it has? Agriculture? Do they export a lot of goods? What do they export? How about import? Are nobles exempted from taxes, because they supply the king with troops? How taxes are levied? How about famines and epidemics?