Official ICE Forums
Gamer's Corner => Fan Created Worlds => Topic started by: Skaran on July 24, 2006, 04:40:17 AM
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Just to let people know that I have started putting on-line some of the stuff from my world of Karnorthe game. The setting itself dates back to the early 80s so there is a fair bit to come.
The world has mostly been played using RM2 but has been used with other systems too.
Comments and suggestions are welcome.
It is found at
http://karnorthe.skaran.net
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In my continuing slow progress. I have just uploaded some details of the principal deities to be found at Karnorthe.
As per usual you can find them at
http://karnorthe.skaran.net
Antony
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I have now uploaded a few details of the Thocracy of Maladon to my Kanorthe site.
Find them at
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/people/maladon/maladon.html
Antony
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I have just updated some details of the kingdom of Nuril Ka from my Karnorthe setting. You can find them at;
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/people/nuril/nuril.html
Antony
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Thank you for this stuff guy !
I'll take some time to read and tell you what i think about it !
best
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A few things uploaded to the site this time. Apart from some details of the tragic tale of the Cities of the Plain which the resent rest wiped details of, find them at
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/knowledge/citiesoftheplain.html
I have uploaded a couple of small village maps to
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/people/torthe/settlement.html
Be patient with this page as some of the files are a little larger than I like. The villages are at the bottom of the page.
Some details of the most common calender in use in Western Ethryn at
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/knowledge/calender.html
Some details of the structure of the Church of Karnorthe at
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/knowledge/church.html
I have also redone some of the other maps of settlements, so have a wander through Karnorthe :)
PS If you find any broken links let me know.
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The latest update to the Karnorthe site consists of some details of the duchy of Acsynae at
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/people/acsynae/acsynae.html
plus a brief note regarding Tarentel the home of the gods at
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/knowledge/tarentel.html
8)
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Uploaded the latest update. This time basic details regarding the kingdom of Salkasan
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/people/salkasan/salkasan.html
Once I have covered the basics for the realms on the continent of Ethryn I intend to start putting more detailed information up.
Comments are as usual welcome. :)
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While strictly speaking not to do with my Karnorthe game, some people may be interested in a minor update in the Tekumel section of my site.
I have uploaded an enlargement of part of Western Kilalammu and put up an illustration of the mountain pass known as the Path of the Gods.
Find them at http://karnorthe.skaran.net/tekumel/kilalammu.html
Scroll down the page to see the new map. :)
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You know based on the view counter an awfully large number of people look at my update notices.
Are people that interested in Karnorthe?
If so what would people like to see, either on the site or posted here or both?
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I think people are afraid to reply. :)
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It's perfectly acceptable to reply. I havn't bitten anyone for ages and in ancy case it is not a full moom. ;)
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I have just uploaded some details regarding the kingdom of Pathe located on the eastern side of the bay of Veer.
You can find this at
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/people/pathe/pathe.html
Also for those who are interested I have transferred my Tekumel content on to its own subdomain at
http://tekumel.skaran.net
:)
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Just to let anyone interested know. I have uploaded a revised map of the kingdom of Telorthen Ty Taros to
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/people/torthe/torthe.html
Over the next few days I will be uploading further items to the site.
Si if anyone is interested - stay tuned
Antony
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Seems you have to renew something with your domain Skaran. The link you give does say so.
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Yep, looks like I forgot to renew the domain and did not receive any notification about it.
I have been trying to renew but the registrar seems to have lost this option from their site! So I have had to contact them directly and am still waiting for a reply. Hopefully not too long as the amount of stuff waiting to be uploaded is growing.
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Good luck wih that, and let us know when it is fixed again
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Just checked and the Karnorthe subdomain [http://karnorthe.skaran.net/] is back up now. So as mentioned earlier I will be uploading a fair amount of stuff over the next few days, including the updates to some of the older maps. :)
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Just to let anyone interested know. I have uploaded a revised map of the duchy of Acsynae to
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/people/acsynae/acsynae.html
and the kingdom of Maladon to
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/people/maladon/maladon.html
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What RPG system do you use for your setting?
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Sorry for the delay in replying it is tax time in Australia.
The world was originally designed for use with Chivalry & Sorcery 1st edition! way back in 1978. But for many years we have been operating in this world using Rolemaster 2nd Edition with some bits brought in from Standard Edition.
The world is an ongoing concern and I am running a game in it every second weekend.
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Just to let anyone interested know. I have uploaded a revised map of the kingdom of Nuril Ka to
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/people/nuril/nuril.html
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Something of a long posting this time. This basically gives some information regarding the current game I am running in this world. I blame this plot line on the Dooms Imprecation spell.
The Curse of Athynika (The Imprecation of Doom)
Once the realm of Telorthen Ty Taros was larger, once it was an empire. The empire of Taros once covered the land from the northern borders of Pathe to the coast of the Deral Peninsular, modern Acysnae. All that changed.
It was in the later years of the reign of Malathk II of the house of Kelan, now some three centuries ago that the seed was created that would sweep away the empire of Taros. A seed that continued to grow, becoming a dark plant with tendrils throughout the territory of what was once the Taros Empire. Even now this plant continues to produce dark fruit to blight the region.
The origins of the dark tendrils are not hard to discern for those of wit and who have looked into the past of Telorthen Ty Taros. Some parts can still be discerned in tales told in inns. Others lie scattered around the old Taros Empire.
Rough Timeline (Telorthen Ty Taros)
Year Events
1 Foundation of the city of Taros Torthen
220 Birth of the Taros Empire
501 Civil war in the Taros Empire, loss of the provinces of Maladon and the north east (modern Nuril Ka)
505 Plague from Pathen sweeps through the former north east provinces of Taros and on into the central regions (modern Telorthen Ty Taros)
520 Former Maladon Provinces of Taros become the kingdom of Maladon
601 Start of 2nd civil war in Telorthen Ty Taros
701 Start of 3rd civil war in Telorthen Ty Taros, also spreads to encompass the ruined north eastern provinces of the former Taros Empire.
758 Birth of Erak Kelan ruler of Telorthen Ty Taros
774 Clerics of the dark trinity (Sharkan, Urmash and Niona) seize control of the kingdom of Maladon killing or driving off much of the old aristocracy.
778 Political exiles from the Morchaniti Empire land on the Deral Peninsular where the locals welcome them as liberators. The exiles found the duchy of Acysynae.
781 The Dark Theocracy of Maladon makes its first attempt to destroy Acsynae using an army of undead and conscripted peasants.
791 Erak Kelan assumes throne of Telorthen Ty Taros
Nuril Ka founded by clans of ship people who passed through the Gorgrin Tuvess. They absorb the remnant populations still living in the area.
794 Civil war in the Theocracy of Maladon erupts. The old Maladon nobility being supported by Acsynae and Telorthen Ty Taros.
800 Current year.
801 Prophesied 4th and final civil war in Telorthen Ty Taros
Rulers of Telorthen Ty Taros
Ruler Born Ascended Died Notes
Malathk I Kelan 430 461 491 House of Kelan comes to power
Malathk II Kelan 455 491 501 Last Emperor of Taros slain in battle
Veerak Kelan 482 501 501 Only child of Malathk slain in battle
Falkar I Kelan 458 501 501 Eldest Brother of Malathk assassinated
Tesson I Kelan 457 501 509 Youngest Brother of Malathk
Halrak I Kelan 480 509 520
Kalthan Kelan 500 520 535
Tesson II Kelan 524 535 585 Regency from 535-543
Erak I Kelan 550 585 599
Malathk III Kelan 574 599 601
Helaka Kelan 597 601 602 Eldest son of Malathk III. Killed in battle
Falkar II Kelan 599 602 603 Youngest sone of Malathk III. Killed in battle
Genrak Kelan 578 603 627 Brother of Malathk III
Kelthrak I Kelan 600 627 640
Halrak II Kelan 627 640 669 Regency from 640-645
Lanathka Kelan 655 669 678 Regency from 669-673
Falkar III Kelan 657 678 696 Brother of Lanathka
Thanathka Kelan 677 696 729
Erak II Kelan 699 729 734
Tesson III Kelan 725 734 774 Regency from 734-743, Killed in battle
Halrak III Kelan 747 774 774 Assassinated
Falkar IV Kelan 745 775 776
Kelthrak II Kelan 747 776 791 Assassinated?
Erak III Kelan 758 791 - Current Ruler
Erak IV Kelan 780 - - Heir
To lift the curse a number of conditions must be met
1. The remains of lady Athynika must be recovered and properly sanctified so she may enter the realms of the dead. She lies somewhere amidst the ruins on Kaltha Isle where Malathk II imprisoned her.
2. The remains of emperor Malathk II must be found and the crown removed from his head and destroyed in the First Forge of Siloth. He is not in the Kelan crypt in Taros Torthen. (There are a number of barrows located west of Deslin
3. The house of Kelan must be removed and replaced with a new house.
Failure will result in continuing problems to all the realms now occupying territory of the old Taros Empire. The prophecy regarding a 4th ?civil? war in the territories of the old Taros empire lead scholars to believe that the region will be destroyed if such a war erupts and lasts for more than a few months.
So far my players have managed to fulfill condition 1 and are partway through condition 2 (they are currently searching for the ancient First Forge of Siloth.)
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It really would be nice to get some comments now and again.
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It really would be nice to get some comments now and again.
Yes this section of the forums can sometimes get a little slow. But on the other hand at limes it is a flury of activity. One thing that has an impact is that school is started here in the states for some and quite a few are getting ready for school.
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Well I shall continue to persevere and certainly from the view counter a lot of people look here even if most of my posts simply inform of updates.
I could put more content here directly but that may clutter things up. What do people think?
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I am a bit tied down right now but by Sunday this week I should ahve some time to take a more closer look. I have a motherbaord problem right now as well as a couple of other hardware issues that I need to find a solution for then I will have some free time to go over it.
MDC
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Ah yes hardware problems, the computer I normally use won't start without crashing first. Not sure if its the motherboard, cpu or memory that's the probem. Though once the fan note drops back to something normal (it sounds like a heavy truck when switched on) the system becomes stable.
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Ah yes hardware problems, the computer I normally use won't start without crashing first. Not sure if its the motherboard, cpu or memory that's the probem. Though once the fan note drops back to something normal (it sounds like a heavy truck when switched on) the system becomes stable.
Have you blown the dust out of the computer latly. I have had quite a few computers set on the floor have problems because of dust picked up by the fans. I also had a friend who lost a computer to a fire that started becaues he did not clean the inside of his computer and the dust and cat hair collected on the MB and started the fire.
IMO it is a bad day when you site down and work on your computer and the smell smoke and look down and see orange flames from inside your computer box.
MDC
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Had worse than that I was sitting next to a computer when its power pack actually exploded. A big bang and a very impressive flame. As for my machine, it is relatively dust free but I am beginning to think that the cpu fan may be the culprit. Does the cpu heat up fast enough that if its fan is lagging a bit it has "unstable" behaviour until the fan reaches cruising speed?
It's times like that that a good old fashioned repair spell would be handy. :)
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Had worse than that I was sitting next to a computer when its power pack actually exploded. A big bang and a very impressive flame. As for my machine, it is relatively dust free but I am beginning to think that the cpu fan may be the culprit. Does the cpu heat up fast enough that if its fan is lagging a bit it has "unstable" behaviour until the fan reaches cruising speed?
It's times like that that a good old fashioned repair spell would be handy. :)
It can depend on the age of the MB and how you have it set up. You can check in most BIOS and see what the temp of the CPU is or there are some utilitues that can also give you that info. CPU fans can go bad but IMO the fan is lagging to allow the CPU to heat up because it performs better at a specific temp. There are and were a lot of heat problems with CPU's before the first Intel duel core CPU's came out. For ecample my CPU is a 650 90nm I think and I have 7; 60 or 80 mm fans in my case to keep it cool. That CPU line was very prone to over heating and the line was at the end of its cycle. The duel core's had beter heat dispensation and used less power so not as much of a problem and did not need as much power.
Another problem can be your GPU and how powerfule it is and if you have more than 1 GPU. I have seen some duel Nvidea GPU's run fine and have no heat problems but put that into another computer and it gets the blue screen of death do to the excess heat.
So the short answer is maybe yes maybe no and depends on the conditions in which th ebox is located and what other componets you have in your machine.
MDC
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Time for the Creation Myth of Karnorthe
In the beginning there was Karno and the Void of Chaos. There was no time, no elements, no life, only Karno and the Void of Chaos.
Since there was no time Karno was instantly aware that there was nothing save Karno and the Void of Chaos.
Since there was no time Karno resolved instantly that this should not be and since there was no time Karno instantly expanded to encompass as much of the Void of Chaos as was possible.
Since there was no time Karno instantly erupted into and through the Void of Chaos mingling with its substance which was not substance.
Almost instantly things changed for at that instant time began.
The beating heart of Karno, the purest part of Karno became the heart of the world Karnorthe, so named to honour the sacrifice of Karno. The rest of Karno, commingled with portions of the Void of Chaos created the elements of the universe, the gods and other life forms which were the first manifestations of the universe.
Some of the newly created elements with portions of the Void of Chaos incorporated into their essence fell upon and surrounded the heart of Karno forming the world. Onto this world and others formed at the start of time fell other essences with varying proportions of Karno and the Void of Chaos. Some became forms of life some became other things but all are made of the mingled portions of Karno and the Void of Chaos.
But great though Karno was the Void of Chaos was not completely consumed and somewhere lies a remaining pure portion of the Void of Chaos as a balance to the pure Heart of Karno.
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Just uploaded the creation myth to
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/knowledge/creation.html
Yes I showed it here first!
Much more to come.
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I have not had time to read all the information, but i have taken a brief look. The amount of work you have put into the world is impressive.
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Stacks more to come since we game every second weekend on this world. Now I am having to do family trees for the chief nobles of Telorthen Ty Taros since the players are working on removing the current ruling house and need to know who is in line of inheritance.
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Time for another update.
I have posted to the Karnorthe site details of the rulers of Telorthen Ty Taros, Maladon, Nuril Ka and Acsynae as well as correcting a few minor errors and adding a tweak here or there. The rulers details can be found at;
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/people/acsynae/ruler.html
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/people/maladon/ruler.html
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/people/nuril/ruler.html
http://karnorthe.skaran.net/people/torthe/ruler.html
You know just doing these can generate a lot of potential history for your campaigns.
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Given the discussion in another part of the forum on Self Discipline penalties for elves I thought I'd post my game notes (not a complete writeup) of the Halmyri of Karnorthe in case anyone is interested (I could be mistaken). They are based on RM2s High Elves with a dollop of Michael Moorcocks Melniboneans thrown in.
Halmyri
The Halmyri have deteriorated in human tales to bogiemen, things to frighten small children with. If you don?t do your chores the Halmyri will come, carry you off and eat you. If a sudden plague erupts a Halmyri was responsible. If a terrible monster appears a Halmyri has let it lose. What humans have forgotten is that at one time these stories were true. Perhaps luckily for humans for the last thousand years or so no Halmyri has been seen on the continent of Ethryn, were dwell most of the world?s humanity. But the Halmyri are not yet gone and who knows whether they will again notice the masses of humans on Ethryn the largest landmass on the planet.
As for the real Halmyri;
They are bipedal, somewhat taller and more slender than the average human and effectively unaging though not immortal. Halmyri do not die of natural causes. Most Halmyri die as a result of political struggles, something which still interests their leadership. If one believed there would be a political advantage in involving humans or one of the other races on Ethryn in a struggle then the Halmyri would return.
Once great craftsmen and magic users they have gradually falling into ennui (SD penalty to start anything) and have lost much of their older lore. Much of their old craft remains in the form of artefacts and here and there ancient libraries with books few Halmyri can now read.
Their cities on the islands of Kilrayath are ancient and decaying. But people should not think that this race is ?done.? It takes time for a Halmyri to start anything, due in no small part to a belief that they have all the time in the world, once a Halmyri does start something it is carried through to completion with great skill.
The Halmyri deal a lot with various demons (humans would claim that the Halmyri are either demons themselves or descended from them). They also now use their magical skills to ?create? new monstrosities. (They may have been responsible for the creation of ?Minotaurs,? which they delight in showing off to each other (perhaps they need new ?stock? for such a contest?)
Use Race Abilities modifications for High Elves.
The SD penalty is applied as a bonus to Hide and Moving Maneuver type skills. It remains a penalty for Caving and other skills. With one exception. If an SD roll has been successfully made to initiate a goal future SD rolls for this project (GM call) are applied as a bonus until the project is completed.
Preferred occupations;
Arms Users,
Archmages,
Channelling and Mentalism mages (no pure Essence users) such as
Sorcerer (channelling/mentalism variety)
Chaos Lords
Warlock (a channelling version)
Mentalists
Warrior/Mage (channelling version)
Magus (channelling version)
Weapons in use;
?Elven longbow?
Kynac and long Kynac,
Longsword
Longsword/Shortsword two weapon combos.
Spear, pikes
Armour
Chain in common use
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I like the 7 herbs and spices of the flavor text. It does have a "sorcerer rooster king of chickenhawk isle" feel to it.
And taking time to actually explain why so many "monsters" are running around always helps.
"being attacked by a gelatinous cube! what, the wizard couldn't read the directions on a box of Jello?"
Back story always helps and your 30 year campaign (!!) has it in spades. Awesome job!
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Now a brief description of one of the races from the world.
Wyrana
6’ 0†tall; 100-110 lbs;
15’ wingspan
The Wyrana are a tall though slender humanoid race. The Wyrana dwell in high mountain regions in eyries carved into cliff faces and steep slopes. The upper back and shoulders incorporate a wing structure. The wings are made from a tough membranous tissue covered in a velvety fur of a generally golden or light brown shade. The wings fold up when not in use. Skin colour tends to be fair with hair of again a golden or light brown shade though other colours do exist. Eye colour tends to be also of a golden hue though both green and blue eyes are found.
They are a generally long lived race with a natural life span of around 200 to 250 years though most do not die of natural causes, accidents being the most common cause of death. The Wyrana are very clannish each eyrie being the home of a number of related bloodlines. In case of desperate need members of various eyries will meet to try and overcome problems.
The Wyrana care for the elderly and infirm within each eyrie but many Wyrana who lose the ability to fly will often leave the eyrie and either join settlements of the “flightless†or commit suicide. Children who have deformed wings and are unlikely to fly are placed in the settlements of the “flightless†when they are old enough to fend for themselves or are taken in by foster families already dwelling in such settlements.
The Wyrana do practice magic and seem to have a greater aptitude for magic of the realm of mentalism. They are also excellent craftsmen and their eyries are not rough hewn caves but carved and decorated places of beauty.
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Here are the extended stats and race ability ratings for the Wyrana
Wyrana
[(ktcf)-(@A)-6]
Level: 3C
Movement Statistics
Base Rate: 90 Max Pace: Dash MN Bonus: +25
Speed (MS/AQ): MF/MD
Size/Crits: M/-
Hits: 50D AT(DB): 1(35s)
Attacks: 50 Melee/50 Missile/Spells
Encounter Statistics:
Encounter Number: * Treasure: *
Bonus EP: C Outlook/IQ: Varies/AA
Expanded Race Abilities
Stat Bonus Modifications:
ST +5, QU +10, PR +5, IN +0, EM +0, CO +5, AG +10, SD +0, ME +0, RE +0
Resistance Roll Modifications:
Ess -5, Chan -5, Ment -5, Poison +10, Disease +20, Soul Depart 8
Healing, Injury and Misc.:
Stat Det. 0, Recovery X 1.0, Lang 3, Dice Type 1-8, Max Hits 110
Char Generation:
BGOs 3
RLO With BGO 1
RLO Without BGO 3
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Just to let people know;
I will be taking this site down in the next few weeks to concentrate on a new version. The main continent from Karnorthe has been transferred into a new setting so there will be a number of adjustments.
The new world is Arana and if interested the start of it can be seen at
http://arana.skaran.net
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Well in the end I havn't taken the site down, but this and Arana's will merge in the longer term.
In the meantime I have put together a basic outline for one of the nations from my campaign which some of you may like to have a look at. It is not completely stand alone, some of the information being on other parts of the websites.
The nation is Acsynae. You can find a pdf for the outline at
http://arana.skaran.net/pdfs/acsynae.pdf (http://arana.skaran.net/pdfs/acsynae.pdf)
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For what is going on here refer the last post under Arana.
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Just letting people know that I have updated some of the maps done of towns on Tekumel. You can view these via the subdomain at
http://tekumel.skaran.net
The actual locations of the updated maps are
http://tekumel.skaran.net/tekumel/alasum.html
http://tekumel.skaran.net/tekumel/kilsum.html
http://tekumel.skaran.net/tekumel/sirsum.html
Sirsum was sanctioned by the late professor Barker while the first two are unofficial.
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I can see I havn't posted here in awhile. For the time being the website for Karnorthe will remain up.
Here is a glimpse of the world as it currently exists. Comments welcomed.
(http://www.skaran.net/jpgs/karnorthe1.jpg)
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After a long absence; here is an image of the kingdom of Masra map. Obviously at this scale you cannot see many details but it gives you an idea. Masra is located in the south west of the Sea of Zirsis region. On its western border in the mountains I have placed a hobgoblin settlement which raids into Masra. I do have a question regarding this. How big a hobgoblin population should I place there? The entire kingdom of Masra has a population of around 260,000.
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Personally, I would look at the area they occupy (in square miles) and then ask how they support themselves (e.g. do they farm? hunter-gatherers?).
If they are hunter-gatherers, maybe see this:
https://persquaremile.com/2011/08/17/hunter-gatherer-populations-show-humans-are-hardwired-for-density/
And increase maybe by 50% because I think hobgoblins are smaller than humans.
If they use agriculture, goblinoids are usually assumed to occupy poor quality lands, so maybe population densities around 10-20 per sq.mile.
Storywise, it has to be a big enough population that Masra can't just wipe them out, but probably you don't want them to outnumber Masra enough to conquer it either (although hobgoblins lack organization, so there's some margin there). So maybe 30,000-300,000. How big a threat do you want them to be? Should it be a disaster if someone comes and unifies the hobgoblins?
Of course the settlement right next to Masra will be smaller than that. I personally imagine hobgoblins having trouble maintaining stable local groups bigger than a couple hundred, unless someone strong is able to hold them together for a while.
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The hobgoblin centre of Hnamasta is located a scant 25 miles from the human town of Highreach, seat of the baron of Highreach. This town has a population of 1500. The territory under which Hnamasta exists has an approximate area of 1600 square miles of which about 220 square miles can be used for grazing etc. tended to my slaves so a maximum of 1380 square miles under mountains. Another small mountain range is found around 60 miles further west so I could place more hobgoblin settlements there.
Looking at just Hnamasta; Hunter/Gatherer does not feel right as this is a permanent settlement, though hunting does play an important part. Assuming the settlement utilises all of the grazing lands and about 10% of the area covered by the mountains I have 220 square miles with a population density of 3-40 people per square mile (say 20) and a population beneath the mountains of about 10 per square miles. This would give a total population of the order of 4,400 on the grazing lands and 1,380 beneath the mountains for 5,780 total. I am not sure whether to include slaves in this total as they are also food sources for the hobgoblins. Obviously by altering the density the population totals can balloon fast. At 20 per square miles underground population goes up by another 1300 odd hobgoblins which seems reasonable.
Interestingly if I use the old Chivalry & Sorcery Red Book it gives this number of hobgoblins about a 100 Ogres, 100 Cave and 100 Mountain Trolls as “protectors” plus a Balrog! Now that is a threat.
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You've got some wiggle room in terms of deciding the productivity of the land. The hobgoblins probably supplement their own resources by raiding, and probably various types of violence (both between the hobgoblins and in their raids against the humans) kill off older hobgoblins while not having much impact on the children, so there are a disproportionate number coming of age at any given time. That makes things worse than having a human culture parked on that land.
I think these kinds of calculations are useful to get a sense of what's "normal" which allows you to then push things in whatever direction you want, generating new ideas. Underground productivity is a good example of that.
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One of the things that sprang to mind was from the book "The Mote in Gods Eye" where thre Moties essentially use war as a population control measure. So perhaps every now and again the hobgoblins and goblins also if they are there too have a population explosion. It is then that they attack their neighbours in force, not so much to conquer though they would accept that, but to reduce their populations to a more manageable level. As to why they have a periodic population explosion, perhaps a particular alignment of the worlds moons and the other star (it is a binary system)
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If during a population explosion, you get a roughly equal number of male and female offspring (which isn't necessarily the case but it's not unreasonable), and during war mostly you kill off the males (which also isn't necessarily the case but is quite plausible), then it would make sense if right at the same time the males are going off to die you also have a similarly large generation of female goblins who are producing children. War would happen when those children are all reaching maturity around the same time. So maybe every 15 years or so? You'd probably also see an uptick in raiding right before that war (because with all those children growing up the goblins are resource-limited) and of course a decrease right after that war.
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That's pretty much what I have in mind and into this I would drop the pc's who are looking to make a name for themselves. Maybe get rewarded (if successful) with some border lands.
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Playing around with the populations I came up with approximately 7500 hobgoblins which produced about 3,100 assorted hobgoblin fighters in that one tribe. Up against this is the barony of Highreach with the small Barracks of the Order of Karinak (a religions fighting order devoted to individual fighting prowess). These two areas have a total population of 12,900 which with a 100% call out of all the regular and feudal levies could raise 2,383 troops of which a third are peasant levies. So about 18% of humans (if they all turned up!) would be in the defenders forces while nearly 41% of hobgoblins are fighters. So if I want a major threat from the hobgoblins I do not have to raise their population by much and that does not include any tribes further west.
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So as a sort of introductory adventure something like this;
The number of raids by hobgoblins in the Highreach area has been increasing. The barony is relatively low in resources and the baron of Highreach has headed for the capital Almabury to ask for the aid of the king, a journey of nearly three hundred miles as the crow flies. During his absence the steward of Highreach has become further alarmed when a patrol made by the Barracks of Karinak vanished just west of the village of Larham, a mere 10 ½ miles from Highreach itself. The steward had also sent a message to the outlying villages of Eyrie and Garnet Delving but has had no reply.
The adventurers are requested (ordered if any feudal obligations to the baron or the knight commander of the Order of the Barracks of Karinak are owed) to investigate the region from Larham to Eyrie and possibly beyond. The mission to estimate the number of Hobgoblins in the area, determine their intentions and if possible, thwart them without revealing their own presence. (ie if they are spotted by hobgoblin scouts the scouts must be killed before they report back) the barony is not yet ready to fight a massed attack. Then report back.
A lot of this will be on the adventurer's own initiative. If they can weaken the hobgoblin forces sufficiently to cause a significant delay, then it is acceptable to be revealed.
The steward will want this information to decide whether to contact the baron and or summon the levies.
The steward can provide a small crate containing four homing pigeons (these are normally sent in pairs) trained to head for Highreach.
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Here is the final (possibly) map of the kingdom of Masra. Obviously to keep size down this is a reduced resolution version but it will give you an idea of where the mapping has gone.