Cantr II Discussion Forum

My experience says they are.

The English most of us know. I use it as referense even my experience of it mostly is from the forums. Probably it differs alot in different islands.

The swedish is as I see it much more characterized by achievers. (read this thread). http://www.cantr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11744
Most characters work hard to reach goals in their life, make maps.
The zone is an arcipelago. So a most locations is by water and most characters have boats. Probably the swedes is the most sailing population, this wuld be interesting to see statistics about in next zine. Now some maps of island close are spread and the mainland is significantly effected by that. Even thou the number of characters is alsmost the same as many cantr years ago. The population "at home" is maybe half. My guess is that 40% live in mainland. Typically 3-5 characters in costal locations and 0 in inland locations. Before we had 3 or so population centers of about 15 characters. 30% live in "new territories" i.e. the area before populated by turks and other islands close to the swedish mainland. And 30% more or less live on boats. The typical swedish newspawn by an experienced player go to a forest. Find partner. Builds longboat. Travel around and get limestone, coal/propane and hematite. Makes iron/and steel. Makes sloop or raker. Sets off to find a new home.

The turkish is what i have seen very cooperative.

I would say that the Swedish enthousiasm to seafaring is originally due to the gorillas which made it too dangerous to live on land. And also because the resources for iron were located on three different islands. But a newspawn there shouldn't know it is/was impossible to rise above stone age by being stationary, not until they hear about this from other characters or read about it on notes. Building a note and being off to search for iron just because you as a player knows that it's the only way to success is just plain wrong - and besides, who knows there might be towns developing on good spots. I've seen some, though I can't know if they're still there.

My character has never made iron himself... still sailing in a snail-speed longboat and was happy to have finally been able to construct a bone spear - moments before he was handed a longbow for free. He's been thinking about getting a sloop one day, but most likely going to try trading for iron rather than building a whole damn smelter.


About the English region, it's wide enough to have lots of local cultures. And all sorts of people. So there is no national mentality that may be seen in the smaller language groups.

About the "typical swedish old player newspawn" I have noone myself, but I have as a player observed 4 or 5 of more or less this type of pairs of characters. What did put the idea ine their head I don't know, but I think it is a good picture of what the area created culture is about in sweden. By the age of 25 or so. A pair of characters could easily go from newspawn to ok equipped sea explorer. And only with hard own work, and some normal trade. I think that the swedish islands is very good indeed in that way, and I do like the mix of characters there. Still ofcourse I miss some of the good roleplayers that obviously have quit.

The K islanders have a mentality, although I shouldn't try to explain it (for I am dumb in this matter)

I'd be interested in knowing the conditions in the Spanish and Esperanto areas...I've been meaning to polish up my skills in both languages, but if there's some good cantring going on I'm of course going to put some more priority on it.

SekoETC wrote: About the English region, it's wide enough to have lots of local cultures. And all sorts of people. So there is no national mentality that may be seen in the smaller language groups.

You're -kidding- with me right?

The english area is dominated mainly by christian principles. The majority of people trust everyone else until given reason not to, and are kind towards just about everyone. They also seem to be governed under a strange cross of communism and feudalism. Each town belongs to itself, and all output from that town goes towards benefitting the lives of those in the town, whilst the towns are run by a leadership system, usually one man, often with other ranks below him that are above the rank of normal citizen.

Each town then has its fair share of normal characters, but at least one or two completely insane gimmick characters, some of whom can develop and therefore add to the towns richness and some of whom don't and die.

On top of this it will often have a grumpy character, although not always, who is the opposite of this, they do not hold christian principles and therefore is rude and doesn't trust anyone unless they give them a reason to.

Conflict almost always arrises from when one particular person in a slightly lower rank than the leader of a town wishes that power for themselves, or when two leadership forces collide, for example a business and a town. Very, -very- rarely it arrises from inter-town wars however unnaturally this is slim. Our towns tend to ignore one another

In coastal towns the conflict is often from pirates who used to dominate the waters but don't so much anymore.

Lastly, we treat any other language people, or people from within the language who are different with the same christian principles, be kind to them, try to value them, don't be afraid of them and therefore try to kill all of them, because that would be wrong and we're english so apparently we don't do that sort of thing (Which is a shame)

Anyway, there you are, a brief description of the English language area

Wow...and all this time I thought thats how all languages did it. *shrugs* I really need to finish learning spanish.

Chinese zone is pretty much a free roaming area. You go where you want to go, the laws arn't enforced (if any exist), and no one claims anything is their own unless it's a boat because those have locks. We try to help each other with our primitive language skills

english zone is different, I'll agree with deadboy that we live on christian morals.

I'm so glad you started this thread, SCUBA, because it's something that I've been wanting to ask for a while but didn't know how to word it. After reading the accounts of the interactions between the Swedes and the Turks in the CRB thread I was even more curious about what the different languages and societies are like in Cantr.

I have a degree in Religious Studies (the study of World Religions) with an emphasis on the Anthropological/Historical aspects so these are the kinds of things I would really like to know about the parts of Cantr I never experience. It would be really cool if someone from each language wrote an overview of what thier areas and societies are like. Then they could be translated into English and both versions printed in the newsletter.

I'm going to make a confession here. A very, very bad boy gave me a copy of the world map - which I deleted because it's really more fun not to know (so don't ask me for a copy!) [--- REMOVED BY STAFF ---]

It makes me kind of sad to hear about one language group trying to wipe out another language group. It seems like a CRB in and of itself, somehow.

I would disagree with that thing about the english place to a small extent ( JHON CRAPPER I SOUND SO OFFICIAL!! must be that i'm part of the resourse departnment now...)

*cough*

We do take notice of other towns to an extent of national priority (don't know if that makes any sence to anyone exept me...) Such as with blackrock and k island, you take notice of them when they are enimies. Although one reason people don't take notice of other towns could be that maps aren't political yet, and nobody has tought them anything, and institutions haven't been made. of course there are cities that are verry noticed, such as kwor, doryiscom, and the like, wich do have institutions and higher forms of governments.

But I have to say that you must have been in cantr for a while deadboy.

And also, it isn't all christiany, take some towns, with wich if you don't have a name (as one of my carries found out) you'le be sabred and asked to leave. can't remember the name of this one... i think it was a stone knight town. but i don't know...

Is it a part of Christian morals that most newspawns who act annoyingly are instantly hacked to bits? A true Christian morality would lead to trying to teach them to see their actions are wrong, and try to make them regret and play nice.

You can't claim that all English settlements were alike. We have high-tech places like Siom with lots of people and trade and industry, and then we have the poor backlands towns where people are toting bone spears, there's no organization whatsover.

I would say Kiii is pretty unique compared to the other joints. A totalitarian system. Maybe you've just failed to notice how it functions, deadboy, by playing the must-have gimmick character.

The morality of the English area is very much an OOC event.


But it's not necessarily Christian, or, if it is, it is only because the generally adhered to morality of the west has a Christian heritage. I would argue that contemporary Christian morality is much more divergent from accepted norms due to the changing nature of the Christian religion in our society. But that is another discussion.


But, I agree, the English area is too nice. Whether you put this down to subconcious importing of morality, to large and distant IG communities who have little reason to generate tension and friction with one another, or because English players would rather safe and comfortable (read: Boring) RP, doll's tea party style, than anything else...

I, personally, feel that the great distances (recently discussed) have a lot to do with the lack of tension in the English language area.

That, and the complacency that comes with a safe and prosperous environment.

As far as I have seen it (I have currently ten characters, the oldest ones about 30) there is a very strong difference between the English and for example the German language area. The English areas seem much more lively and dynamic. But I doubt that's a matter of mentality, it's a thing of population density. In the German and Esperanto area you can wander through two, three or more locations without meeting a character of your language group or someone at all. I can't imagine there are fertile spots in the English language area without a settlement, in the German areas there are plenty.
To sum it up, the English areas are pretty civilized and ideal for characters who love social interaction. If you like cartographing and doing expeditions to places never seen before, I would recommend the German or Esperanto areas. (The Esperanto mainland is quite well mapped though, but you can still do oversea expeditions)

Not all places on the old English islands are settled. Take the Hills of Hilloi for example, there's a lot of animals, no precious resources and no food (unless you have means of cooking barley or meat). Then there are some desert locations with just sand and maybe salt or oil if you get lucky. Huge distances and no food. Ok you could cook with dung but how many desert animals give dung? There's snakes and tortoises... Mulof/Zhift region used to be pretty much savage country due to the lions killing anyone who would stay outside for a moment, but now that the lions are killed, some development might be expected.

The Spanish island is quite active tho the main towns (those that can produce iron and steel) take most of the people. They are usually leaded by several people with one prominent chief, or just remain in anarchy. Authoritarian town leaders aren't quite a trouble since they usually don't get many followers.

The island is big enough so there's plenty of low populated areas between towns. There's quite some effort put on communications and commerce, most towns but the most isolated ones are aware of what's going on in the island and sailing activity is growing as several groups are settling in the wild and low populated French/Dutch island for their resources. Some explorers are even going after lands of other language groups after contacting sailors from there and trading maps.

There aren't conflicts with the small German and Dutch communities, which are usually just ignored; and most towns are just too busy developing their industry and looking for resources to worry about war or expanding.