This featured entry is going to be consumed by The Steamshaft Chronicles!
Perhaps the best part of world building is found when you get to concept sketching little details. The pick and pickaxe is an important symbol and tool of life in the Steamshaft… a source of income, a weapon at need and indicator of wealth or heritage. So I’ve been spending some time thinking about how each race approaches the pick, even the Elves who would rather not dig any deeper (or outwards for that matter) have ornate and less functional incarnations.
The pick claw is a concept for the ratkin, a small race who maintain and have access to areas of the steamshaft that larger races could never hope to reach except by calamity or intentional destruction. I like the idea that PC ratkin could have modified pick claws that act as grapplers or at need, a crude projectile weapon.
The Inheritance pick is something I’m considering as a rarity, a very ancient/powerful/unique/racially significant item… it should be the sort of pick you see on a particularly distinguished or important NPC. The source of quests or campaign reward.
Ideally I want a GM to have an idea of a basic pick/pickaxe for each PC and NPC race, followed by a crafted version and lastly a few inheritance designs, I fully expect a GM to give thought to designs between these three tiers.
As I continue to blog about the world, it should make a bit more sense and you can connect dots between previous articles and newer ones. Hopefully by then I will have sorted the mini-site with a collected body of information, in essence the beta of the free ebook.
As always I welcome comments for good or ill, even if it just alerts me to the fact I have people interested in what I’m doing as opposed to running this as a ‘Howling at the Moon’ exercise.
-Tompl
Tags: concept, Pen & Paper RPG, pickaxe, picks, Roleplay, The Steamshaft Chronicles, World building, World setting
