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[Man of Paper]

With my month of bullshit finally behind me, it's time to start up something I wanted to begin as part of my New Year's Resolution:

LET'S MAKE A MAP!


Who?
You! All of you! But nobody else.


What?
You heard me, we're making a map! For, of all things, a very special Arms Race! You don't have to be interested in playing the Arms Race to participate in the Map Making process, but as the game will be between Bay12 and a second community, the larger the collective voice representing this niche community, the better!


When?
Now! Starting from the moment I hit post, you will all have 24 hours to come up with and vote on your favorite terrains for the prompt you are given. You will then be given another prompt to fulfill, and the process will repeat over the course of 7 days.

 
Where?
Here, on the forum! While it is not necessary, you can also join This Discord Server where I will ping people when there are updates.


Why?
With the coming of the new year and two people demolishing my will to continue my previous Arms Race, I decided I'd do something I'd always wanted to do: throw the two communities I enjoy engaging with at one another in a devastating fight to the death. Normally I'd just set up an Arms Race and fire it up, but you guys here have something the other side doesn't: hella experience actually playing arms races. In an effort to provide some level of balance without providing favor to one side, The Black Pants Legion will be using the coming week to determine what sort of proposals receive a natural +1 bonus from the setting. Mechs, chemical weapons, bolt-action rifles, wizards...the parameters of the bonus will be entirely up to them. Both sides will receive the bonus, and it will be notated properly with each result, but the Bay12 team will never be explicitly told what the bonus applies to. But then I thought about how it might be nice to also let you guys have a say in the final battleground. For the sake of being thorough (and not Thoreau), regardless of what receives a bonus, the tech level and setting will be knocked around relative to World War 1.


How?
I'll write a small prompt, and you guys will write up proposals that fulfill any requests made in said prompt. If you like a prompt, you can vote for it using a quote box that includes a name for the proposal, a tally for number of votes, and a list of voter names as follows:

This Land (2): Toady Two, Tarm
That Land (0):
Your Mom (1): m1895

Note that, while I will be prioritizing using the most popular choice, I will be making a few rough drafts for the final map and may throw some variables in if a vote is very close. Once the seven days are complete I will present the rough drafts for one final vote before we move on. While I hope to start the game itself soon after the map is complete, we will need to wait on making sure the BPL has the proper infrastructure set up and has had any basic beginner questions about Arms Races answered.

--------

The First Natural Barrier/Border

Before defining the land you will be desecrating, we must determine what lies beyond it. For the next 24 hours, you will discuss and determine the following:


What is the natural barrier?

Which direction does it sit in (use cardinal and/or intercardinal directions)?

Provide a brief description of what sort of terrain sits beyond the border.


This first barrier will determine the terrain on the extremes of one of the flanks. The terrain beyond will determine a little fluff for the Arms Race itself, but nothing more.

[Powder Miner]

"This first barrier will determine the terrain on the extremes of one of the flanks"

For clarity's sake: Does this mean that, say, this barrier would not be central to the map but might rather carve off one of the corners of the map?

[TheFantasticMsFox]

My first thought is a very large asteroid impact crater on the Eastern edge of the map, with the barrier itself being the sharp and sudden drop off of a cliff. Beyond, is a small bay / inland sea.

[Maximum Spin]

It sounds like we're describing a corner or edge, eg, a coastline.

The desert of 'Amit shrouds the west in heaps of dazzling white sand. The evening winds stir up sharp, stinging sandstorms which scatter the light of the setting sun - an eternally popular subject for landscape artists, who in good weather can often be seen daubing their canvases at a safe distance. Through the heat haze, you can sometimes glimpse the peaks of the Anti-Cholades mountain range, in whose rain shadow 'Amit wallows, grasping at the far horizon.

[Doubloon-Seven]

My god, it begins.

Al-Qaliy (Arabic, "The Ashes")

There is a range of mountains to the south. The Pillars of the Lord, whose place in creation, the priests say, is to hold up the dome of the sky. The surveyor's instruments say the highest peaks rise to thirty, forty thousand feet above the barometric datum. No man has summited them, their breath would wither and die in the cold, thin air. Those that live lower, in the foothills and valleys (though their presence is sparse and tentative) have resisted the control of the great nation-states for centuries. The land is regarded as ungovernable.

While none have summited the peaks, some daring explorers have ascended into the passes and navigated a trail to what lies beyond. And what is there?

Death.

An endless salt pan, as far as can be seen. A flat crust of blindingly white alkali salt extends to the limit of optical technology to survey, and most likely beyond. Perhaps all the way to the equator. Expeditions have not penetrated past that frontier; if one survives the heat and dryness, the toxic salts will be the end of it. Besides, what would be the point of exploring further?

Though the hill tribes have oral traditions that point to an origin from the far south, and the geologists cannot explain such a presence of heavy metals with the current understanding of geochemistry...

[Man of Paper]

"This first barrier will determine the terrain on the extremes of one of the flanks"

For clarity's sake: Does this mean that, say, this barrier would not be central to the map but might rather carve off one of the corners of the map?

Corner or edge. Usually ocean in every arms race ever, but this should give us some variety.

[Doubloon-Seven]

Corner or edge. Usually ocean in every arms race ever, but this should give us some variety.

Hence, I think we should go for a desert. I'm feeling an arid vibe. :)

[Devastator]

The World's Edge.  A fourteen-thousand meter tall wall made of gray artificial stone.  Slope is about 80 degrees, and high-altitude photography reveals it to be several hundred meters thick at the top.  The wall defines the near edge of the inside of the world.

[crazyabe]

The dead Sea
To the west is what is colloquially known as "the dead sea"- an expanse of desert so wide no man has seen the far edge of in many eras- where the land twists, sinks, and rises all within the hour- burying anything unfortunate enough to try traveling through it, where there's not a drop of water to be found- yet still strange beasts slither forth from it on occasion to hunt man and livestock equally.
Rumor and legend hold that far beyond its edge, one would find the ruins of eld- shining towers of glass and steel that once were home to the gods, before the great exile.

Asteroid Crater (1) TheFantasticMsFox
Desert (2)
  -> desert of 'Amit (1) Maximum Spin
  -> The dead Sea (1) crazyabe
Mountains (1)
  -> Doubloon-Seven
A wall (1)
  -> The World's Edge (1) Devastator

[Maxim_inc]

Hence, I think we should go for a desert. I'm feeling an arid vibe.

I agree with the arid vibe, however-

El Río Rojo: Cutting through the sandy shrubland of the western portion of the region is El Río Rojo (The Red River) which in centuries past provided irrigation for more traditional farmland in the area and in the present feeds a vast brick industry from its red clay deposits that give it its name. Besides its main course the relative flatness of much of the area around it gives a rather unique obstacle for travelers and those that which to settle in the region. During the rainy season where the river is full it forms hundreds of tiny tributaries that turn the land around it into clay marshes for miles while in the dry season the sun bakes it into concrete like terrain nearly impossible to dig through. Beyond even this to the west is a great mountain range that makes up part of the greater coverage of mountains around the region preventing rain from falling in great amounts making much of our basin into a sparse sandy shrubland.

[Doubloon-Seven]

Things I like about other peoples' ideas:

The asteroid impact has cool implications for the world's near past. Maybe inspiring a Mesoamerican kind of vibe, on account of the Chicxulub asteroid? Very tropical for sure.

I like that Amit has sandstorms. Seasonal weather events would be cool for an Arms Race, though I'm not sure whether MoP intends any kind of thing. Maybe an alternating monsoon/drought pattern, with the former having (rain) storms and the latter (sand) storms? The idea of romantic landscape artists as storm chasers is lovely.

The wall gets points for sheer strangeness. Maybe the world with the wall is constructed. A ringworld, or an Alderson disc, or something.

The Dead Sea hits a few of the points that I put in my suggestion: great big desert, implications of past ruination, but with the flavor of sandworms instead of toxic playa dust. I was thinking of Nausicaa when I wrote my suggestion, were you as well?

El Rio Rojo is certainly rough terrain, but I think its ideas would be better served as interior map terrain than a border. The ideas of the seasonal transition and the riverine terrain with major settlement seem like great fodder for the "central borderlands" role things like Harren City have taken in MoP's past ARs.

And finally, to put forward my arguments for my own post (can't be purely selfless, no?)...

Mountains of Madness vibes with the super-Himalayan mountain range, offering interesting background flavor for a tech era roughly encompassing the heroic age of polar exploration. Nausicaa vibes with the toxic desert and the implied ancient disaster. Outlines the border not just as a physical obstruction, but as a place of socio-cultural transition away from the metropoles of the dueling powers.

[Maxim_inc]

Things I like about other peoples' ideas:

The asteroid impact has cool implications for the world's near past. Maybe inspiring a Mesoamerican kind of vibe, on account of the Chicxulub asteroid? Very tropical for sure.

I like that Amit has sandstorms. Seasonal weather events would be cool for an Arms Race, though I'm not sure whether MoP intends any kind of thing. Maybe an alternating monsoon/drought pattern, with the former having (rain) storms and the latter (sand) storms? The idea of romantic landscape artists as storm chasers is lovely.

The wall gets points for sheer strangeness. Maybe the world with the wall is constructed. A ringworld, or an Alderson disc, or something.

The Dead Sea hits a few of the points that I put in my suggestion: great big desert, implications of past ruination, but with the flavor of sandworms instead of toxic playa dust. I was thinking of Nausicaa when I wrote my suggestion, were you as well?

El Rio Rojo is certainly rough terrain, but I think its ideas would be better served as interior map terrain than a border. The ideas of the seasonal transition and the riverine terrain with major settlement seem like great fodder for the "central borderlands" role things like Harren City have taken in MoP's past ARs.

And finally, to put forward my arguments for my own post (can't be purely selfless, no?)...

Mountains of Madness vibes with the super-Himalayan mountain range, offering interesting background flavor for a tech era roughly encompassing the heroic age of polar exploration. Nausicaa vibes with the toxic desert and the implied ancient disaster. Outlines the border not just as a physical obstruction, but as a place of socio-cultural transition away from the metropoles of the dueling powers.

Agreed on the asteroid.

Amit is cool too, good point about seasonal events.

Walls.... idea.... (see bellow)

On the Dead Sea I also like the idea of adding a bit of lore too.

Yeah I just figured I'd put in the river since its good to workshop it even if it doesn't win.

I also got the Nausicaa vibes, I like it too.


Feel free to laugh at this one, its inspired by some real world stuff, a little bit of legend and I think you can assume the rest...

The Walls of Nikase: During the conquests of Queen Nikase of Heliopolis to forge her Empire of the Sun she found herself in a land, our land (us and the other team ofc) ripe for conquest being displaced and half destroyed by wars waged apparently against ourselves. It was only a few weeks of campaigning in our land did she learn the truth. The Anakemites, great towering giants ranging from as tall as a stout oak to many dozen meters tall that came from over the mountains to feast upon the land each generation. Nikase and her hoplites barely managed to survive the feasting season of the Anakemites, though with their bellies full on the flesh of man they once more retreated beyond the mountains to their homeland. Scarred from the battle and understanding the threat to her nascent empire the Anakemites presented she gathered forth her regiments and marched the grandest army the world had ever seen beyond the mountains. They barely survived, fifty thousand soldiers clad in bronze went over the mountains and barely ten thousand returned from the slaughter.

The kingdoms of the Anakemites were beyond the martial prowess of Nikase and the strength of her regiments of hoplites. There was no chance to conquer them, so Nikase sought to at least secure her realm from the hornets nest she had now kicked. The Nikase mountains, that she named after herself, that the Anakemites crossed over to feast had great bodies of water on either side of them, today known to be inland seas, could be fortified to withstand their assault. So she gathered the great architects of her Empire to design a palisade worthy of repelling the titanic foe, and she gathered the tribes of the region, our ancestors included, to build it. Promising the land to forever be in our ownership under her fealty if we built the wall and garrisoned it. We agreed, a generation of construction went forward as the walls were built higher and higher each year to withstand the enemies beyond them.

Nikase and her Empire are long gone as are the Anakemites, but we remain and so do our portion of the Walls of Nikase, we built the interior section of the wall far from the seas at the ends and it stands as a proud example of our heritage. [Location, SouthWest/West/NorthWest portions of the map being a small mountain range fortified with walls reaching up to 40 meters in height constructed to with the intention of throwing back invading armies of long gone giants from ages past.]

[Man of Paper]

Before you guys snowball into ludicrousity:

Remember that the other team is engaging in their first arms race. Any crazy stuff you guys write about in the writeup is going to be passed off as myth and legend and largely swept under the rug.

Also, while ideas like the wall are cool and valid, they’re not going to be man-made, as you might be able to figure with the title of the game for this prompt (there’s an important word in there).

[NUKE9.13]

Asteroid Crater (1): TheFantasticMsFox
desert of 'Amit (1): Maximum Spin
The dead Sea (1): crazyabe
Al-Qaliy (1): Doubloon-Seven
The World's Edge (2): Devastator, NUKE9.13

Ringworld? Ringworld. Maybe.

[Kashyyk]

I think I like the "endless expanse of desert" options the most

Asteroid Crater (1) TheFantasticMsFox
Desert (2)
  -> desert of 'Amit (2) Maximum Spin, Kashyyk
  -> The dead Sea (1) crazyabe
Mountains (1)
  -> Doubloon-Seven
A wall (1)
  -> The World's Edge (2) Devastator, NUKE9.13