Mythosa Design Notes I: Introduction

The new Mythosa wiki (ready to be uploaded after the proofreading is finished) contains the latest incarnation of my world. Some people like to create new worlds; I tend to remake the same one, carrying on the best elements of the previous version. Fortunately, the time between recreations has been lengthening as time goes on; this may be the last, final version. But...we'll see.

So, what spurred the change this time? Well, the previous version had gone in a direction I wasn't particularly happy with. I have a tendency to create for creation's sake without considering whether what I'm doing is necessary (or just cool enough it needs to be added). Much of the old Mythosa was like that. In the end, a lot of that detail was wasted. The other impetus was actually 4th Edition. I didn't change Mythosa for 4E. But I'd been thinking about doing it for quite some time. When 4E and its release date were announced, it seemed as good a reason as any to do something I'd been thinking about doing in the first place. It would have happened regardless of the 4E announcement, probably just at a later date.

In any case, I've decided to post design notes about the world. I've never included them in the past but I thought it might be useful to help convey a better feel for what Mythosa is supposed to be like. I try to refrain from real world comparisons within the content as much as possible but here I'll be listing inspirations and models that I used in the new design (though some are no doubt obvious).

My notes, in no particular order, will follow.