I also want to echo the (much) earlier suggestions to make Denna the Walking Forest a non-planeswalker.

Yeah I gotta say she probably has a lot more potential as a planebound character aaaaaaaaaand now I feel like an idiot for not having her and Jade run into each other when Jade was on Cyrea D: god damn

oh well I can write that story later with all this free time I have ha ha

It would probably avoid a potential future problem since we already have Denner and Daneera who have similar enough names without Denna being added to the mix.

Yeah, that one's on me. I...honestly don't even know what I was thinking when I named Denner. I think, at the time, I never had any intention of them interacting. Funny how that worked out...

I'm against changing Ameran's name, simply because there's already a story written there.

So, what needs changed:

The Faskerian countries need to be more defined. There's barely a paragraph to describe each of them, and it's hard to tell the difference.

As other have said, the culture of the sentient races in Afresa should be focussed on more. Maybe with a couple different tribes of each species (snakefolk, fae, vedalken and Kurvesh) to give an example of something to draw on. This is especially true in the case of the Kurvesh, that are a new species.

The Japanese elements in Gentev. I actually wouldn't mind this if the Orochi and Nezumi been some distinct culture of their own, that was then conquered by the ruling Indian-themed culture. Samurai, rather than be associated with the third Varna, could become a word used by a dissident faction, seeking to return to the old ways.





As for interaction:


What if we have the current timeline be a period of convergence? In the past, the five continents were always so far apart, that they rarely ever met, and the existence of the other continents became either history or ancient mythology, depending on their last meeting.

But now, they're all drifting together, similar to the story in the roleplay. Basically, it's a Conflux-like event, but one that's much slower. Rather than these landmasses dropping out of the sky and landing together, the drift is taking place over the period of months or years. War is likely coming, but there will be an uneasy peace, first. Cyreans may sell tech to the Faskerian factions, causing the stalemate to finally be broken. Explorers from other continents could enter Afresa and never return. A cult in Ameran sees a war is coming, and begins to militarize its golem fighters.

Where Conflux was all about the chaos and the war, Sertaria's story could be the build-up to the inevitable. And the slow build-up actually works much better for us, with a lot of different writers who can slowly fill it out.

I'm hesitant about giving Sertaria a Conflux-like story because it's already explicitly Bizarralara.

Good point about renaming Ameran. Too bad, 'cause it's a poor name.

Which is why we go a different route. Focus on the growing tensions as the continents are getting closer. Rather than be about the war itself, Sertaria's story arc could be about the changes this causes internally in each continent, leading up to the war. Are the Vampire hierarchy in Gentev too preoccupied with the external threat they allow the Dissidents to gain a foothold? Do the Dissidents use this to their advantage, launching false-flag attacks against them, under the guise of Faskerian soldiers? On the surface, this looks very much like Alara, but the way it unfolds will be very different.

And, at the end of this event, the continents could just drift apart again, just like was planned during the roleplay, rather than permanently connecting.

Considering how we have Sertaria set up, I think it would be reasonable to have the continents drift closer over a period of, say, 10-20 years (a generation or two, basically), and then drift away with the same speed. The image that comes to mind is that these wouldn't be something you notice on the horizon; this would be something that fishers or sailors days out to sea and with no land on the horizon suddenly notice in the wrong direction. Subsequent scouting missions would find the continents drifting closer, and panic would probably come to the ruling parties of each place.



I'd also like to note that, while this thread came about in response to Sertaria needing some retconning and corrections, but it was never really my intention to make this thread be a "how to fix Sertaria" thread.

P.S. I wanted to work on it in secret, but it's looking increasingly likely that I won't find the time to do it, so I'll tell you all what I wanted to contribute: Some Planeswalker's Guides to the Sertarian continents, as compliments to the style guides.

I think how Faskeria deals with this will be very interesting to see. In the Roleplay, the Faskerian nations were going to unite, and I think that would lose a lot of what made Faskeria interesting. Seeing how they deal with new continents, making alliances with, or trying to conquer, these new lands to gain a strategic advantage in their own war would be the funnest part.



I feel bad for the poor Ameranian taking a stroll by the beach when a Kurvesh jumps out .



Definitely. Cyrea is really the chaotic element. They don't go out looking to conquer others, but with their more advanced technology and magic, they will bring about the most death and destruction of any of the continents.



Another interesting scenario to see. The Gentevian Dissidents will finally have a place to go to escape the Varna system. But is freedom what they really want? How would a people, who have lived lives where creativity of any type was squashed, make lives for themselves in a land where a lack of creativity is viewed as the equivalent of laziness. Not to mention that they would face discrimination for having not been apprenticed in their trade, as we seen with Kirsh in Dominian Nightmare.







If you don't think you'll have time to do it yourself, what about making it a community project? It could be like the Dominian Cabal members, only, instead of just creating characters, we're submitting characters, places, groups and objects. The turn out for that was pretty good, and I'd bet we could replicate that for this project.

Also... I already have a high-ranking Dissident character worked out...

I have a planebound character I've been wanting to set loose on the plane for a while >_> <_< >_> but I'd almost want to... well... push this a bit further than even the Dominia Cabal and get some more stories out of it. (Though I still have high hopes that eventually we'll get more Cabal stories the way we've gotten more Vasilias stories over time)

The only one I really feel like I could help in any way with is the Cabal and Zhiran's interaction.

I think that every continent would experience something of a cultural break, not a full-scale "crisis" like the Industrial Revolution but a partial break from old ways of thinking as new people, new ideas, and new possibilities that nobody had ever considered or imagined before suddenly become part of life.

In Ameran I envision this leading to an explosion of new artistic concepts and maybe even some experimental new art forms.

In Cyrea it would presumably lead to new avenues of research, and possibly "scientific" expeditions.

In Gentev it might lead to more people questinging the Pistra because for the first time, other ways of life are actually observable instead of unthinkable. But at the same time the higher Varnas are likely to react by trying harder, almost in panic, to clamp down on dissidents for fear that the new whatever, which is all outside their control, will take away their control over the Pistra.

Downtrodden refugees from many continents might try to flee to others... Faskerian Kor and Vampires, any of the Dissidents of Gentev, etc.


Which leads me to ask about the current racial make-up of each continent. You have to think that the continents have occasionally gotten close enough to exchange people in the past. Yet as written, most species only exist on one continent. Were enclaves all killed, or do they exist but haven't been mentioned, or what?

You could also feel bad for the Kurvesh. Combat is one of the many Crafts on Ameran.

Huh... I kind of wonder about Ameranian fighting. I imagine that their fighting would be more stylized, much like a dance, where the fighters focus on dramatic performances. While victory is the ultimate goal, they would want to win in a spectacular way. How would that pair against the brutal fighting style likely adopted by the Faskerian soldiers, or the savagery of the Afresan predators.

I'm curious, do Ameranians fight to the death, or are they like Bant, where all their fighting is purely ceremonial. I actually see it going both ways, depending on the region.

The way I see it, Craft isn't just about being stylish. It's about perfecting something. I can totally see one region's combat Craft being centered around having fights to be over as quickly as possible, whereas another region focuses on style.

Yeah I think at this point anything that gives us more regional variation is good...

What I REALLY want to see though is a Kurvesh vs Homarid fight. Homarids are sort of the odd, excluded race on Ameran and there's something about the idea of Homarids being the only thing that stands between Ameran's coast and an Afresan invasion that really interests me.

The Three Combat Styles

In Ameran, countless combat styles exist for dueling. However, most of those styles fall into the following groupings.

Lightning:
Lightning styles are quick. Practitioners of these styles open up rapid flurries of movement, attempting to end the duel as fast as possible. This art is about efficiency. Where victories in the other styles may be defined by how spectacular the duel appeared, victory in Lightning styles are defined by how quickly their enemies are dispatched. By the majority of Ameranians, these styles are seen as brutish and barbaric. At the same time, fans of the Lightning styles criticize the others for caring more about showmanship than the Craft, itself.

Steel:
Steel styles are the exact opposite of the Lightning styles. They focus on defense and stamina, blocking opponent's attacks, until their opponent is worn down enough to finish. Against a Lightning duelist, this usually doesn't take long. Assuming the Lightning duelist doesn't take them out within the first few seconds of combat, they will have expended much of their energy in that initial burst. Meanwhile, two Steel duelists have been known to fight for hours until one finally wears themselves out.

Flare:
Flare uses a combination of Steel and Lightning. Victory is defined by the cheering of the crowd. Flare is about blocking early on, and slowly increasing speed. These styles also tend to involve a lot of quick body movement, dodging, jumping and rolling. And at the end, they launch into a rapid frenzy of motion, like that of lightning style, risking everything on one final assault. These are the most popular combat styles, but are difficult to master. In fact, only one practitioner of a Flare style has ever won the dueling tournament at the Phiggan Games. This has done nothing to discourage new duelists from these styles. In fact, it encourages them, each attracted to the fame they could obtain by winning through a style often regarded as being an underdog.

Nice.

There should also be a Johnny Combo equivalent style of absurd acrobatics and flourishes.