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With /u/Menno_Ghetto giving us a preview of chapter 1, and referencing "clamp lizards" (which I assume are alligators), it got me thinking:

What other beasts do our protagonists and antagonists encounter/fight across the land of Ontelong? While the existence of actual "monsters" might be debatable, the "chupacabra" idea in the fringe thread is a place to start. Also, since humans don't exist in this world- every animal that humans directly caused to go extinct is possibly still alive.

We should probably address these topics. As we develop more history and folklore, we will need to construct timelines. If this going to become a novel, series, or other serious project, we'll need a framework to organize plots and events.

Some questions/concerns:

• Will all Ontelongian societies be on the same time ie Ontelongian Time?
• Will there be a universal calendar in play?
• What will the calendar(s) be based on? 12 months/year? 4 seasons/year? Moon phases?
• Does time as we know it exist in Ontelongian societies? Do they have the concept of weeks, days, hours, minutes? Do they have sundials or something else to keep track of time?

That's all I have for now.

ONTELONGIAN TERRITORIAL MAP 1 <<< Link to map in imgur gallery.

ONTELONGIAN TERRITORIAL MAP 2 <<< Link to .png file for RES users and non-imgur folks.

I've been working on a map for the past few days. Some deets:

• It is a map of North Ontelong, Central Ontelong and South Ontelong. You'll notice that Ontelong looks suspiciously like North, Central and South Americas. ;)

• The map is color coded. Each race has its own color. I used gray for areas that may be inhabited by other races. I used orange for territorial areas that are under dispute.

• Disputed does not mean that no race lives there or that there are active wars taking place. It just means that either no tribe or multiple races/tribes claim the area in question. Sometimes there is active war, most of the time not.

• Other races may live, work, travel and visit other areas that are not under the jurisdiction of their own race. They may have to pay or be at risk of attack. Thus far there aren't any rules saying that race X can't live in Y territory, so let's assume the borders are open at this point.

• This map is on the small side. 800x600, IIRC. I made this based on a small outline and did some parts of it by hand. I'm on a 13 inch laptop so working with huge image files is difficult.

Let the discussion commence. :)

I came across THIS thread over on /r/UnresolvedMysteries this morning and thought it may be interesting to incorporate it into Ontelong.

The link talks about the mysterious 'vortexes' or 'portal to the gods time gateway'. There is a lot of freaky folklore surrounding the concept. Basically, there are these rocks all over the place with holes in them. The stories say that if a living thing goes through those holes, they disappear.

Do such things exist in Ontelong? Since it's fantasy, then we should at least consider the notion that even though magic doesn't exist, the strange, the unexplained and good ol' made up bs will.

The sun rose over the gentle crackling of harvest and sloshing of water. Emerging from my crudely rushed nest, I wiped the crust from my eyes and looked over the swamp. The workers were up early this morning, having decided to try and get a head-start on today’s progress. Their goal by evening was to have an eel trap set out by one of the marsh’s intake streams to set up a sustainable food supply, and to finish the last of the family rooms that sprawled across its surface. A large tree came to a thud next to me, brushing the side of my head.

“For all of droppings Gravec! If you wanted my wood, you could have just asked!” The nest I had just left was now split in halves, with the roof crumbled like soft leather under the weight of the fallen cyprus.

“My apologies Praceth, but the basement nests didn’t build themselves!” came the familiar voice of the finest clearer of all Ractec kind. I knew that Gravec didn’t intentionally cause the tree to come down on my nest, but he did have a point. After all, clearing all the roots and muck from the bottom, constructing the under-water shell of the bottom chambers, and sealing it to be water tight was a time consuming and resource demanding task. Giving me a nod of acknowledgement as I carried on my way, the lean and mangy-haired Ractec wiped his slobbery, bark covered maw and ordered his workers to continue harvest on the surrounding trees. Upon reaching the outer edges of the swamp, it was easy to see now what had been done since we had first arrived in this area. All along the water’s edge, trees had been cleared and uprooted for their chamber-building lumber. It was hard for a proud clear-stamper such as myself not to smile. After all, there was nothing more beautiful in all of Ontelong than a forest tamed, having its wood transformed into the mighty fortresses and homes for Ractecs from all paths of life. I felt the wet soil where dozens of trees had been before, squishing the clay between the webbing of my fingers. Though I would not be given credit for this new settlement, nor would I be granted leadership over it, it felt good to know this was all because of me. Because of me, Ractecs of days yet to come would now be able to live farther from the home of our ancestors than ever before. This was the thrill and blood of a clear-stamper, to venture into the unknown bush and claim what will always belong to Ractecs. Of course, it wasn’t like I discovered this land like my father of father had with The Village of Three Lakes. More or less, all I had done was pushed my luck by leading my group farther into what was theorized to be Chorger owned land. Having circled the swamp, I decided I would take one look inside the new nests before moving on. Descending into the tunnel that would lead beneath the swamp’s surface, I took my time to appreciate each corner of wood, roots, and mud that had been carefully placed to hold back the weight of the water above. Though I had done this routine with countless of settlements before, it still mattered to me that I looked through every single chamber I had indirectly made. Planks of lumber creaked and moaned as I passed by workers sealing the walls with mud, each step creating a room filling echo. Despite the structure missing the homely smell of maple, the swamp wood had done its trick with making hundreds of rooms for traveling Ractecs. Climbing up a laddered pit that led to the above-surface nests, I could hear that the workers had gotten distracted with something. Reaching for my skull-denter, I rushed through the barren and empty bridges and pathways that streaked across the above surface dwellings. The cries of commotion got louder, as I finally caught up the source of it all. Near the branch constructed barrier that formed the edge around the community nests, was the sight of five workers trying to pull a sixth out of the water. This was the problem with clear-stamping through the swamp- you often came across clamp lizards. Pushing aside onlookers and diving into the water below, I looked for the struggling worker. With the thrashing giving me the advantage I needed, I quickly located the brawl and thrusted the skull-denter tip into the hide of the clamp lizard. Clamp lizards difficult creatures to kill, due to their thick, scaly hide and sheer aggressiveness. Still, if one were to land a quick jab through the lifted arm of a clamp lizard's under-shoulder, they would notice that the beasts are not too fond of that. Allowing the trapped worker to surface first, I later emerged with the large clamp lizard hung lazily by the tip of my skull-denter. It pathetically let out one final hiss before going completely limp, and resting it neck and massive head on the spear tip that laid inside it. Throwing the creature down on the wooden deck, I excepted the cries of thankfulness and relief, only interrupted by the sound of clamp lizard hide being torn by tools, teeth and hands. Nudging aside a butchering worker, I took a clamp lizard leg, and continued on my way. Wresting on a large rock, I finished my pre-travel meal while inspecting myself. While the attacked worker had gotten some fur and flesh torn out in a nasty wound, he had lived, and I had made it out with no injuries at all. I glanced to my red-stained skull-denter. It was easy to forget that such a device was made with nothing but wood, as the almost mythic properties of the tree it had been forged out of had allowed it to survive years of hacking, stabbing, and as the name told, skull denting. I felt along it's smooth, splinter free shaft, all the way up to it's prongs at the end. Starting from a hand's width away from the weapons spear tip, was the terror that granted to it the title of skull-denter. Modeled after the jaws of mighty Ractecs warriors, it's two thick, curved, wedge built piercing appendages were the perfect instruments for collapsing the wicked minds of Chorger raiders. Thankfully, it had not snapped off when it went through the clamp lizards body. I wiped my tail of the swamps slime and scum, it’s stray and thick hairs clinging on to every morsal. In all the conflicts I’ve fought in, I was lucky to have not lost it’s tip.

Expanding the list of events and history that has lead up to current time Ontelong (cto... I like abbreviations they make life easy)

I want to get this off the ground, this is a little base work we need to do.

We also need a flair system for each race