Tellus: Language

Tellus doesn't really bother with realistic linguistics, as generally speaking JRPG seems just fine with everyone speaking a common language and understanding each others just fine, safe for some quirky accent or something silly. The only time language comes up is when it is meant to convey that someone or something is some other, often as a plot point.

What Languages Does My Character Speak?

Its a fairly easy thing to guess, as it depend on your character's race:

• Common (or Ulmes Standard) is a Cypher Language of English with some fairly simple and generic 'fantasy alphabet' should I ever need to have it written down. Much like how D&D has a 'common' Language, the language of modern day Tellus is also called Common and all characters speak it. It is the default tongue spoken by just about everyone and while there might be regional dialects or quirks for the most part it is a single, unified language which of Ulma origin and is their main language. All characters speak Common at character creation.
• Dragon Clans have their own language, whose modern form has been heavily simplified for the purpose of trading. It is a harsh, guttural language with angular and aggressive-looking runes derived from their older and more complex alphabet. Dragon Clans speak Dragon Tongue at character creation and those with a higher intelligence may begin play knowing its Ancient Variant, which is still used in older texts akin to Latin.
• The language of the Sky-Folks is written very differently from that of other races, using an extremely complex, centuries-old system of pictographs and hieroglyphs which changed drastically over said centuries. Sky Folks speak Sky Tongue at character creation and often also know Dragon Tongue. Only a Cleric or Wizard of the Sky-Folks would know the basics of Ancient Sky Tongue, whose true depth is now a memory.

So all in all, a pretty simple system that is cruelly bare bones but should make things easy. As a result I might remove Comprehend Languages and similar spells as its not needed, since the only thing a character would be unable to read are ancient scribbling found in some ancient tomb, which could reveal too many mysteries.

Tellus: Making a Gigas Character

Lets end the year on a strong note for Tellus! This is just as much blog material as its the resource I will directly show the players when creating their characters. Rather than start with the three more common races I've decided to give focus to the least developed of the bunch: the fearsome children of the planet, the Gigas.

The Gigas

Strongest and longest-lived of all the mortal races of Tellus, the Gigas are not born 'naturally' but are rather a mortal emanation of the life energy of the planet's environment. Fearsome and wild, they live in isolated pockets away from civilization and rarely, if ever, truly interact with other races. However from time to time they find themselves dragged into the affairs of other races and at other times they even wage war against them.

Conceptual History and Setting Role

Art by Ricardo Yuji.

The Gigas draw both the most and the least from JRPG in their own weird way. When designing Tellus I wanted to cover all the basic archetypes covered by the more basic fantasy races such the city-dwelling humans, the industrious dwarves and the two archetypes of elves: wood-dwelling hippies and pretty, smug elusive magical beings on the decline. The latter is best embodied by the Sky-Folks (and the Moon Folks, but these guys aren't playable by default). However the whole 'guardian of nature' angle was left to be covered. Drawing inspiration from various sources in JRPG, such as the Gigantos (name should be a cue), various 'Beast Men' races and the Yaksha of Vedic mythologies I constructed the Gigas. They fill in both that 'strong guy' role, the 'barbarian' role and the 'hippy guardian of nature' role at once.

Where other settings have effete Wood Elves and stupid Gnomes, Tellus has the towering and terrifying (yet possibly soft-hearted deep inside) Gigas: a race which doesn't really draw from any clear source but its setting role feels oddly archetypal nonetheless.

Who are the Gigas?

To be born a Gigas is to be paradoxically more connected to nature and at the same time less. Gigas, unlike other living beings, lack parents: they are born from a confluence of magical geomantic energies in wild locales, they are born from this 'cocoon' of plant, rock, sand or ice and raised communally by the tribe which inhabit said locale. There is something rather bare bones about Gigas communities: people only speak when they need to, only forge weapons and armors when needed (and pass down any spares to whoever needs it) and meals are incredibly basic with only the crudest of agriculture. Even then most Gigas is expected to grow or raise some of his or her own food and not bother the community. This can make them appear to be dull-minded and even anti-social to outsiders: in truth, Gigas have a strong inclination toward primitivism and self reliance and treat most aspects of civilization as a luxury and not a core component of their societies.

Given their long life span and low 'birth' rate, Gigas society is inherently stagnant and dull. The only real hierarchy are based on age and one's ability to wield magic to support themselves and their community (but only in time of needs). There is always the risk of a young (relatively speaking) Gigas becoming curious about the extremely complex societies of the greater world. Those who return to their dull, naturalistic communities are welcomed back without any real punishment: being forever different from their simplistic kin is punishment enough by itself.

D8	Personality Quirk
1	You never speak unless directly addressed/asked a question. The only exception to this is when you inform your allies of something of interest. Unless directly addressed others can talk about you, in your face and you don’t seem to care.
2	You dislike being inside any building more complex than a simple tent. You will instinctively gravitate toward the windows and door for a quick exit should trouble manifest itself. You are also far too big to escape by windows but that won’t stop you.
3	You have developed mild paranoia about hurting those smaller than you, possibly due to troubled interactions early on. For someone so massive you have extremely focused, deliberate and delicate movements to minimize the risk of breaking someone or something.
4	Your emotions are very potent, which appears quite at odds with your normally relaxed and mostly expressionless face. Your outburst of joy, fear or rage are sudden and utterly baffling to others.
5	You have an artistic side. Too bad others can’t appreciate the joy and wonder of fungal artistry, plant ball-spitting painting, beard root-weaving and other rare forms of Gigas artistic styles.
6	You don’t appreciate the food of the ‘civilized people’ and will prefer eating raw, uncooked meat, chew on roots or stuff your face full of raw, live bugs. You completely lack the ability to see why this is seen as ‘weird’.
7	You enjoy gathering food and feeding your fellow party member as you believe them buying rations and eating in inn to be a sign they are too inept to properly feed themselves, akin to a young child.
8	You’ve become convinced that ‘civilized people’ are weak and/or morally reprehensible, making you boastful about your primitive ways being more honest and true. That you take people’s gold and spend it on booze doesn’t appear dishonest to you at all!

Physical Appearance

Gigas are large and heavy, with even the smallest of their kind being larger (and much heavier) than the average Ulm or Dragon Clan. Beyond the raw mass there isn't much any Gigas has in common with others of its race, as each is somewhat unique in the various physical traits they manifest. A Gigas' body is partially plant and/or mineral-like, often in somewhat baffling ways. Horns, tusks, scales, plant-like hair or beards or even stone protruding from their skin are commonplace.

Gigas Appearance
D6	Eyes	Skin	Feature
1	Gold iris, black sclera.	Earthy brown and mottled. High amount of body hair.	Bony or stony brow spikes.
2	Dark brown, almost black.	Grey with stony scabs. More stone-like at extremities.	Tiny antlers growing out of head.
3	Pure green orbs.	Dark green, with an almost leaf-like texture.	Hair and/or facial hair is plant-like.
4	Pure gold orbs.	Covered in short, small stubby spines.	Overly broad torso, longer arms and shorter legs.
5	Wolf-like.	Bark-like in texture despite being fleshy.	Large hands and feet.
6	Raptor-like.	Unnaturally dry and dirt-like.	Hair grow down to the middle of the back.

Note that this table is for the more common Mountain or Forest Gigas, which use the default Goliath or Firbolg stat block. Variant Goliaths would replace these traits with something similar but themed to their element, such as snow-white skin for cold-dwelling Gigas or glowing red eyes for those tied to volcanic places. Underground-dwelling Gigas would likely replace the plant and tree-like elements with mushrooms.

Gigas Names

There isn't much of a culture to the Gigas, at least not one which produce the wealth of names with religious, mythological and historical meaning which Humans (and other fantasy races in other settings) have. After all, in most languages names have a meaning. Gigas cut the middle man and simply give names which are description of an individual, be it some physical descriptor of some title which hint at their function.

Gigas Name
d10	Descriptor	Function
1	Barkback	Strider
2	Stoneskin	Hunter
3	Plantface	Protector
4	Weedhair	Wanderer
5	Stonebeard	Teacher
6	Flowernose	Warrior
7	Bushbrow	Guardian
8	Treeback	Keeper
9	Gnarlhands	Grower
10	Mushroom	Loner

Choosing A Class

Compared to the other races, Gigas are a lot more limited in their possible education, limiting them to classes which can be used to represent their innate gifts or simply self-teaching: which is even less common than it might appear, especially for the more complex use of magic. This does, however, leave Gigas with a somewhat pessimistic and determinist mindset. While there is some truth to this (such as magic gift or lack thereof), Gigas would produce much better warriors and spellcasters if they understood relying on knowledge and understanding rather than raw instinct or gifts.

• The Druid class is the most obvious pick for Forest-dwelling Gigas and, indeed, this is the class most associated with the race as a whole. While there are Druids among other races, the origins of Druid themselves are found among the Gigas. Most Druid Circles work for the Gigas race.
• The Sorcerer class may initially appear as an odd pick but it has several Bloodlines which are well suited to representing a manifestation of the innate gifts of the Gigas race. The Fury Magic is a good example of the 'barbarian' side of the Gigas made manifest through magic. Any Bloodline from the Children of the Wild homebrew/third party works well too.
• The Barbarian is the fairly obvious martial option for Gigas, representing their more destructive and primal side breaking loose. Indeed it is the race most associated with the class. In theory nearly every Barbarian Path could be used.

Of course these are but a small sample available to Gigas. Being naturally focused (but also ferociously destructive) beings make the Gigas well suited to any 'martial' class which make use of their brute force and, size and innate cunning.

Tellus: Upcoming Material for 2020!

Arty by Igor Burkalov.

So why exactly has there been so much war gaming content lately (beside the fact I really enjoy it, of course)? The truth is I've been working on Tellus quite a bit but haven't gotten to finalize any of the current content into a form which would be satisfactory to post. Tellus is getting closer and closer to a state where I'd be ready and willing to run it IRL in spite of constantly flip flopping on whether I should run it with 5e or its own homebrew. Of course, none of this really matter to the content which is being worked on. Namely:

• Name tables for all the major races! I'm going to need standard name for each race, as this is useful to both players and to me, the GM, when it come to naming some NPC on the fly. I've worked on name tables before but never managed to really figure out a thematic for some races which I was satisfied with until recently.
• The starting zone for my IRL campaign, which is a smaller island which would be roughly equivalent to the 'early game' of a JRPG before the player leave this starting area composed of a few town and dungeons for the main quest. This is probably going to be a 'point crawl' albeit a bare bone one.
• Some basic and common monsters and some crude ecology. I say crude because JRPG usually (especially the older titles) don't really give a damn about a world which make sense. Nevertheless this conflict too much with my GMing style so some semblance of sense will exist...if only for the really weird monsters to be even more random.
• More potential character concepts to offer to players in need of ideas.
• A list of everything the players would expect their character to know, representing all the basic knowledge of the world needed to 'get' it.
• Probably a starting soundtrack for the campaign even if its music taken from other sources.

This stuff is all bringing me closer and closer to have Tellus in a functional, playable state. Tellus is definitely going to be the main focus for early 2020 on the Amateur Dungeoneers.

Grimdark Future: 'Fluffy' Human Defense Forces Army Lists, Part 2 (3000pts)

The Imperial Guard is manifold in the form its regiments can take, with the tabletop RPG Only War giving countless options on what forms, organizations and gear various regiments can take. If not for Games Workshop neglecting the Imperial Guard in favor of the Space Marines they would be the most visually and mechanically diverse army.

Drop Regiment: Death From Above!

Harakoni Warhawk by Diegos Gisbert?

Space Marines aren't the only Imperial Force to use drop maneuvers: there are Imperial Guard regiments which make use of a variety of techniques to drop down upon the enemy, from grav-chutes to simple modern-day styled parachutes. Combining their forces with the Aeronautic Imperialis they drop down from the sky and bring death to the enemies of the Emperor!

Light Gunship [1] x4 (1020pts)

2x Heavy Machineguns

Heavy Gunship [1] x2 (780pts)

Drill Sergeant [1] x4 (160pts)

Veterans Drop Troopers A [10] x4 (760pts)

4x Grenade Launcher

Grenadiers

Veterans Drop Troopers B [5] x2 (230pts)

2x Fusion Rifles

Grenadiers

Tactics: Beyond its gimmick, this is a fairly simple army. Load the Drop Trooper squads into the matching aircraft (five-men squads into Heavy Gunships, ten-men into Light Gunships) and strafe the enemy, dropping down the troops on the first pass to wage war. Smaller squads are equipped with anti-armor weapons in the form of Fusion Rifles. There are four Drill Sergeant to assign, by default they go with the ten-men squads but this isn't necessary.

Armored Regiments: Iron Skirmishers

Mercenaries: Feudal Guards

The Hellhound living up to its namesake.

These regiments are organized for mobility, combining light and agile vehicles with mounts to quickly move around the battlefield and harass the enemy formations. Eschewing the heavier main battle tanks of the Imperial Guards can be a bit of an issue but even the lighter vehicles remain deadly if used correctly. This is achieved with the highly versatile Chimera and its variants, namely the Hellhound and Devil Dog

Calvary Squad [5] x5 (475pts)

1x Grenade Launcher

Feudal Cavalry Heavy Calvary [5] x6 (780pts)

Energy Lances

Attack Vehicle Hellhound [1] x4 (820pts)

Dozer Blade

Machinegun

Attack Vehicle Devil Dog [1] x4 (860pts)

Dozer Blade

Fusion Cannon

Machinegun

Tactics: An infantry-less list built for mobility, it make use of two different types of calvary: the versatile, if weak basic Calvary with each squad carrying a single grenade launcher and the heavier Feudal Cavalry with its brutal use of Impact. The Hellhounds and Devil Dogs both provide heavier weapons and defenses. They also both have Strider.

Grenadier Regiment: Grenades Galore

Death Korps of Krieg Grenadier

How much Grenades can a single army fire? How many Grenade Launchers can one buy for their troop without going toward complete cheese? Interesting questions which will be answered by this list! Grenadier Regiments, as the name implies, specialize in the use of explosives which form the primary weapon type of this army list. While not as powerful as the portable Rocket Launchers used by the towering Astartes, the humble Grenade Launcher fills a similar combat role in Imperial Guard regiments and its blast effect can be used to achieve amazing results against densely packed enemy ranks. Grenadier Regiments  can deny the enemy any advance, be it from infantry fire or from artillery platforms and tanks.

Infantry Squad [10] x3 (630pts)
2x Grenade Launcher
+2x Heavy Weapon Platform (Missile Launcher)

Special Weapons [10] x6 (1380pts)
7x Grenade Launcher
3x Plasma Rifle

Armored Truck x4 (820pts)
Cargo Space

Tactics: Another infantry list and one heavily focused on a particular weapon type. Fortunately its a very versatile one. These ten men Special Weapon squads may be Guardsmen but they are nothing to laugh at, as each squad is composed of seven grenade launchers and three plasma rifles for backup. The default infantry also join in the rocket fun, with two grenade launchers and a pair of weapon platforms. The key here is the sheer volume of fire (and number of potential wounds) generated by either Blast or Deadly depending on the situation and target.

Artillery Regiment: Big Guns

An aging classic mini, the Cadian Heavy Weapon squad.

Artillery Regiments, as the name implies, are built entirely around artillery tanks and weapon emplacements. Now in the 'proper' 40k lore, a full Artillery Regiment generally never see action as their role is to stay far behind the lines and to pound at the enemy with massive cannons. Obviously this doesn't work for a tabletop wargame and thus this list is a more 'close up' army.

Drill Sergeant Artillery Sergeant [1] x10 (400pts)

Ogre Squad [3] x3 (525pts)

Mini GLs

Heavy Shields

Weapon Teams A [1]  x5 (650pts)

3x Mortar

Weapon Teams B [1]  x5 (725pts)

3x Laser Cannon

Support Vehicle Griffon Mortar Carrier [1] x2 (310pts)

Dozer Blade

Artillery Cannon

Heavy Machinegun

Tactics: Assign a Drill Sergeant to each Weapon Teams and use whatever Battle Drill is useful to the situation. The Mortars are anti-infantry while the Laser Cannons are anti-tank. They are three-men squads and should be able to maneuver decently if used correctly. The Ogre Squads should be positioned where a charge is expected to deter enemies. The Mortar Tanks stay behind and pound away at the enemy.

Grimdark Future: 'Fluffy' Alien Hives Army Lists, Part 2 (3000pts)

There are many, many more Hive Fleets out there which we only have bits and pieces of information about which, nonetheless, is quite interesting and unique. These are the Army Lists of these less-famous, but still deadly, Tyranid Hive Fleets for Grimdark Future.

Hive Fleet Ouroboris: Flying Terrors

Oddly enough their only art depicts
a wing-less Warrior.

According to their lore, Ouroboris may have been the first Hive Fleet encountered by the Imperium before even figuring out what Tyranids are. Now there have been many, many speculation on the how and when the Imperium truly first encountered Tyranids which are disputed in and out of universe. In M36 there was an attack of winged monstrosities and relics of that era show bio-plasma burn similar in pattern to that of Ouroboris. Their favorite tactics is aerial combat.

Winged Grunts [20] x3 (1155pts)

1x Acid-Gun

1x Shock-Gun

Adrenaline

Shadow Hunter [1] x4 (740pts)

Serrated Claws and Sword Claws

Shock Hooks

Rapacious Beast [1] x3 (990pts)

Twin Heavy Barb Cannon

Spore Bombs

Tactics: The Rapacious Beasts are biological bombers, aircrafts carrying a payload of bombs with the Blast effect. They should start the game on a course toward infantry clusters and just carpet bomb everything. Then the survivors are picked off by the Winged Grunts. If the infantry tries to split up to avoid carpet bombs, pop in a Shadow Hunter to punish them.

Hive Fleet Gorgon: Toxic Love

More poisonous than online politics.

The Tyranid of Hive Fleet Gorgon love poison and toxin-based weapons. It is at the core of their strategy and very DNA, using their potent and extremely adaptable biological poison and acid to destroy any opposition. Mere contact with a weapon symbiote of Hive Fleet Gorgon can be enough to spell one's demise.

Prime Warrior [1] x2 (600pts)

Whip Limb and Sword Claw plus Heavy Acid Cannon

Poison Hooks

Hive Warriors [3] x3 (675pts)

2x Twin Bio-Pistols

1x Acid Cannon

Poison Hooks

Assault Grunts [10] x4 (680pts)

Adrenaline

Toxic Bite

Artillery Beast [1] x2 (1000pts)

Acid Bio-Artillery

Tactics: A mixed list with powerful ranged options, Hive Fleet Gorgon exist to lay down a heavy rain of whatever nasty biogun the unit has equipped. The Assault Grunts will charge into melee and are expendable but in that one charge will potentially generate an insane amount of hits. The Hive Warriors can handle a mixture of targets as does the Prime Warrior while the Artillery Beasts will destroy any enemy tank and heavies with a single bio-mortar.

Court of the Nephilim King: Tyranid Warriors

Hail to the King, baby!

A truly bizarre Tyranid army, indeed it isn't even a Hive Fleet so much as a splinter of Hive Fleet Behemoth, the Court of the Nephilim King is a weird bunch of Tyranids which Imperial Knights saw as a twisted reflection of themselves. Fielding large, fierce and independent creatures, it fights more like an army of Imperial Knights or Space Marines than a constant swarm of lesser creatures. Indeed these Tyranids do appear to be oddly organized in some monstrous feudalism with the aforementioned Nephilim King himself at the top. Why do they do this? Nobody knows.

Hive Lord Nephilim King [1] (495pts)

Whip Limb and Sword Claw plus Piercing Claws

Tail Pincer

Bio-Recovery

Prime Warrior [1] x3 (780pts)

Whip Limb and Sword Claw plus Piercing Claws

Tail Pincer

Shredding Hooks

Hive Warriors [6] x6 (1650pts)

6x Piercing Claws

2x Barb Cannon

6x Shredding Hooks

Tactics: This is an elite, close quarter army with Rending up the ass. It wants to get into close combat as soon as it can to roll as many of these Rending attacks, disabling the toughest of enemies and making mince meat out of even Custodes and Plague Marines (who both have Regeneration in this system).

Hive Fleet Arachnea: Armor-Killers

This 3rd edition guy will do for a color scheme!

Currently we have very little lore on these guys as they lack even a color scheme. Introduced in 8th edition they are currently battling Necrons. This inspired the idea of a Tyranid army list which is strong against them which then spiralled into a general anti-armor list. One can extrapolate this as being plausible and thus 'fluffy' because...well, if they weren't evolving to be strong against the all-metallic, regenerating Necrons they would already be extinct now wouldn't they?

Grunts [10] x3 (525pts)

9x Bio-Spike

1x Acid-Gun

Hive Warriors [3] x3 (630pts)

2x Bio-Spitters

1x Acid Cannon

Shadow Hunter [1] x3 (525pts)

2x Smashing Claws

Shredding Hooks

Carnivo-Rex Gunfex [1] x3 (1260pts)

2x Heavy Acid Cannon

Tail Pincer

Battering Tusks

Tactics: A mixture of different unit types, this list use its Monstrous Creatures not as battering rams but as living tanks using the twin Heavy Acid Cannons to eliminate other tanks or heroes. Should the Gunfex ever be forced close to melee range they are equipped with tusks to use Impact (auto hits on a charge) and a Tail Pincer with Rending. Shadow Hunters have a similar anti-hard target role. Meanwhile the Hive Warriors deviate from this role by being better against general infantry and should be used to protect the high-priority targets that are the Gunfexes.

Random World: What I'm Keeping/Salvaging

Last year I worked on something called the 'Random World': it never got a name or anything, it was an attempt at fleshing out a setting simply off the names and randomly generated geography. With nothing but a landscape and some rough and/or previously abandoned setting material I ended up crafting a setting which was both generic enough to be usable with any version or derivative of D&D (but especially OSR systems and OSR-derivatives) but which still had some interesting and usable ideas (do note that it doesn't mean creative or original ideas, really). In the end the setting was phased out as I set out to work on Tellus and left the nameless Random World to wither off as a thought experiment.

Probably the best part of the Random World was the fleshing out and categorizing of the many low HD 'monstrous humanoids' of D&D (plus other monsters) into a system where there is a general origin and more importantly purpose and role to monsters often deemed interchangeable.

• Goblins are creatures of the dark and/or wild places, like caves, the underworld and deep forests. They are akin to fey creatures and, indeed, many beings we'd label as fey-like are actually part of this category, such as Hags. They are physically weak (barring those with magical powers to enhance this), mischievous, malicious and cunning. Dwarves are also a type of Goblins, as are Gnomes. In combat they will either use mobility, trickery, the terrain or magic which cause non-damage effects. The low HD monster role is taken by goblins, hobgoblins and fey knights.
• Trolls include all manner of Giant-Kin, taking cue from the ancient word Eoten. Like goblins they are somewhat tied to nature but the more primal, feral and powerful side. Even the smallest of these creatures is taller than the average man and should they display magical properties they will either be passive (troll regeneration, camouflage by turning to stone) or destructively potent (earthquake, fireballs and ice breath). Their low HD monster role is taken by Ogres and Ogre-kin, which are fairly small by Troll standard and non-magical by comparison, basically just big dumb brutes. They are, however, shockingly cunning and vicious in battle as they feel the need to compensate for their small size.
• Orcs may appear similar to the other two categories but are completely different in origin, born of black magic used to raise armies of cheap, obedient and biologically immortal soldiers. They are all ugly, lopsided and inhuman creatures born of mud and filth. They lack a soul and most orcs are mostly personality-less beyond being belligerent and nasty. Most are goblin-sized but a few 'Ogre Orcs' could exist. Orcs which consume the flesh of a particularly gifted being and/or a spell caster may steal some properties of their soul, cannibalizing enough to become full individuals who their master must placate and please to keep loyal. They tend to be the least likely to have more than a few HD (barring exceedingly skilled chieftain with a stone soul) but unlike Goblins they are innately organized and proficient in battlefield tactics and the use of weapons. This is to be expected as they are born as soldiers and minions.

Tellus: Core Setting Assumptions

Beside its inspiration from JRPG, Tellus has drawn inspiration both from the 4e World Axis and from The Original D&D setting. In many ways, making things odd/incoherent is part of the JRPG-esque experience as many older titles had some bizarre and whimsical worlds which were not designed as fully fleshed-out and in depth settings and more as a backdrop to adventure and cool/weird things.

• Tellus' dominant race are the Ulma: The most widespread sapient race in the current era are the Ulma (or Humans). As such I'd say 3/4 of all villages and cities are Ulm settlements.
• Tellus has three other major races: Dominant doesn't mean the only race, just the most widespread. The other two races with a civilization are the winged Sky-Folks and the mighty Dragon Clans. The third major race are the wild-dwelling Gigas, who do not form any extensive civilization.
• Tellus has room for most, if not all core classes: The setting may have some unique metaphysics but it was built on the idea that all core D&D 5e classes can be integrated into it.
• Tellus is ancient: This is an unchanged assumption from most D&D, nay, any fantasy setting. There are many ruins of past civilizations, include abandoned Sky-Folks and Dragon Clan settlements as well as ruins of ancient Ulma civilizations which clashed with them.
• Tellus is full of magic but this magic can be difficult to work with: On the whole there is a lot of magical shenanigans going on but even as civilization grows and expand, magic remain a difficult form to properly harness. Most settlements, at best, have one or two magic-related device or geomantic setup which help them survive.
• Technology is advancing: There might have been a time, in ages past, where technology and magic was incredibly advanced yet this era has faded mostly into myths, reverting the world to a faux antiquity/faux-medieval tech level. This is slowly changing, however.
• Tellus is full of monsters: The high amount of latent and active geomantic energies on Tellus shape how life functions on it. Mundane animals can become, either as individual or whole populations, monsters either through geomantic or spiritual transformation. Odd creatures which can be very hostile to people are the norm.
• Half of Tellus remains wild: There have been parts of the land which have become more and more tamed but about half of the land remain difficult, dangerous or mysterious with only perhaps roads and a few cities connecting said roads cutting through huge swath of wilderness.
• Magic may be common, but the truly divine is difficult to observe: The gods of Tellus may not fully exist as anthropomorphic individuals and may very well be forces/concepts beyond mortal understanding. Divine magic is real but somewhat distinct from other magic and more rare. The power of the Gods exist not in clear, concrete divine answers but in cosmic forces and mortal-derived theology and philosophy. Most Gods are generally held to be benevolent archetypal spirits...although this doesn't discount the possibility of evil Gods.
• A blend of East and West: As befitting trying to emulate a genre so heavily connected to Japan (even if Japanese-made RPG these days aren't limited to the classic JRPG style) there is a mixture of Western fantasy (the sword and sorcery aspects, the medieval castles and the monsters that seem out of a D&D module and all that) with Eastern aspects namely a dash of Wuxia (such as the monk). In addition, many of the metaphysical aspects are derived from Daoism and Buddhism.
• Things sometimes don't make sense: There is a good chance that for every coherent setting element there is a monster, a dungeon or even a small population of an odd race which just seemingly exist for no reason. There might be a complex, in universe explanation but it will never be addressed. It might also not exist because JRPG are full of weird, inexplicable crap.
• Tellus is generally PG-13 at best: In order to keep that console oldschool JRPG feel, the game and setting will generally shy away or gloss over the truly disgusting subject matters such as war crimes or substance abuse or other subject matters which would net a game an M rating by the ESRB. This mean quite a bit of my more beloved, more grimy elements of Sword & Sorcery will have to take a backseat as this isn't the kind of world where barbarians disembowel degenerate cultists huffing some mutant lotus plant to summon their tentacled demon-god with virgin sacrifices.