Baedoor Introduction - Toma400/The_Isle_of_Ansur GitHub Wiki

What Is Baedoor?

Short overview

Baedoor is fantasy/steampunk/sci-fi world being created by me (Toma400 aka Tomasz Stępień in real life) since around 2004. It is parted into different continents, each having different civilisations, traditions, culture and impact on universe. Its history has about 4 thousands years and three eras, which range from ancient/medieval fantasy theme ("Pre-Era"), through late medieval and early steampunk ("Old Era") to late steampunk and some dieselpunk influences ("New Era").

This is how you can label my universe within typical scheme, if you want to. I'd personally suggest reading some of my personal notes further to understand why I perceive that differently, but of course, labelling has its advantages and rights (especially as Baedoor was never made out of context and it was strongly influenced by many games, books, music and other things I enjoyed at the time). If you want to hear my story, read on.

Author's perspective

Since that world became my obsession and life-long journey, I prefer to name myself an "archaeologist" of it, not the creator: just because creation process had several parts, ranging from my extreme childhood (I was 7 y/o when I started) to now. Therefore now, when I try to make Baedoor universe more public and organised, I do not only need to fill the holes of what I created recently, but I also discover my neverending notes from childhood, being written in dozens of notebooks. A lot of this knowledge I have forgotten and I rediscover it now, making me feel like I no longer create my universe: I encounter it by dreaming about it and find traces of elder civilisations living in the times when I didn't really have consciousness of what I'm doing. Or did I? I will never fully know. And I feel like it truly makes it beautiful, shaping my person in more thoughtful way than it would do being written from scratch. I'm now sharing it with you, with hope that you will find your place in universe that I, fully understanding what that word means, can call my forever home.

What Is Baedoor RPG System

Baedoor RPG system is RPG system similar to other RPG systems, such as Dungeons & Dragons or systems used in cRPG games, like Morrowind, Skyrim, Gothic and so on. It is main system on which I based a lot of gameplay for my games.

You can read more geeky details on that section

Short History of Baedoor Universe and RPG System

Baedoor RPG System was firstly introduced in three games introduced by me in my childhood, when I liked to create my own paper-based games and started creating Baedoor Universe. They didn't have strict name, being forever "work in progress" in fact, but I refer to them as "Lands", "Other Lands" and "Baedoor" (being made around 2004, 2005 and 2008, but these dates can differ, being ~year earlier/later, I don't remember that precisely).

First game introduced mostly universe - being, in fact, strategy with loose rules, where player hold power over Ghlodd Empire and several other civilisations. Second game was basically the same as first one, but it was done not on notebooks, but cardboard, using plasticine. Third game, from which whole system and universe take name from, introduced more RPG-aimed alternative for first one. It took place in - in that time - separate world, introducing whole Baedoor continent. For roleplay purposes, RPG system has been made, but it was aimed to be very open for player's initiative: player was both Game Master and Player, therefore all actions was dependent on him and his will - rules were just small guides to be followed, but not strictly, if that contradicted player's will.

There was several iterations of Baedoor RPG games introduced by that time, each one showed also new lands (respectively: Baedoor Island, WesternWald, Vershation Highlands, Northern Isles, Arennan, Rossevette). They didn't change RPG system a lot though, so we can say about versions such as 1.0, 1.1 etc. Eventually, since I felt bound to the universe more and more, I decided to merge separate universes (Baedoor, Ghlodd Empires, Old Continent, and so on) into one, making it only one universe with separate continents. This, again, wasn't decision which I fully perceive as mine, because in all "universes" I tried to refer to older and newer ones, so merging them seemed rather as logical consequence of my previous path. Lore-wise it even helped that universe, making it more consistent. But, as the decision was mostly caused by me trying to write more mature stories within the universe, it also helped with that a lot. In the meantime, New Era was born. It became main era of me using the universe, since I didn't feel that writing brutal or depressing stories in this era will destroy what I once created, being a bit more innocent (eventually it didn't matter, since newer stories take place in various eras and lands, but it mattered for me at the time).

The real change for RPG system came in similar time, with Between Shadows and Lights, being my study project to pass lessons. It was written in Python in 2018, using most basic elements of it, such as condition and loops. Nevertheless, for the first time, it tried to conclude Baedoor RPG system within some real boundaries. It suffered from my coding knowledge though, so it resulted in scrapping a lot of ideas, just to make system playable. This is, in historic view, Baedoor RPG System 2.0: very limited and poorly introduced, but definitely more official take on what was limitless before.

BSaL was rewritten after half of a year, but since it was only a bit more stable and code-advanced, it was early abandoned due to frequent crashes and lack of motivation. None of these scrapped features were actually introduced back in 2.0. Both 1.0 and 2.0 version weren't publicly available, though, since first one wasn't made for public use, and second one was extremely badly made and could be declassified easily by any other similar game. Rewritten BSaL, though, was fully done in terms of completeness: you could actually visit Ansur Isle, do quests, fight, create your character. It also had its .exe file with amateurish icon. But even if I would like to publish it, language barrier was a thing, since it was written entirely in Polish.

Baedoor universe then became my universe where I tried to write stories more frequently: abandoning cRPG ideas, I decided to focus on stories, which I had written before, but never finished. In late 2019, I wrote short story called "Wolf", which told a story about outlaw gunslinger being lost on Vershaton deserts. It was purely experimental piece of paper, being terrible in technical side, but very personal and I perceive it as one of the most straightforward prose I wrote. Experimental style also lead it to become almost "art cinema" style of uncertainty of interpretation, which I always see as an artistic success, even if poorly made. In the same time, I also expanded some universe aspects - both by finding old notebooks with notes, and by writing it from scratch (such as West of Moon Continent, which history is strongly inspired by historical book on Japan I read back then). It led to Ghlodds having its distinct, really weird language, in which I even tried to write some lore-based poetry, using the name of poet Nansaai Narayana (and somehow, I also included it in "real-life" poetry, such as in this poem which uses Ghloddish title).

The last part of Baedoor universe expansion - by the time I write this - came with Wastelands of Baedoor mod for Minecraft, made in MCreator in 2020, and remade from early 2021. The idea appeared mostly from me being frustrated that you can't farm sand in vanilla game, but it quickly expanded to several other features I wanted to include in my mod. After all, I decided to make it bound to my universe, since I tend to do that all the time with a lot of my creations. It also helped me with deciding which features and items should go into WoB, because Baedoor universe had grounded features for a lot of time - my work was only to make it Minecraft-friendly.

Once WoB got released and I received positive feedback on it, I decided to part it into at least three pieces, explaining in more detailed way the lore, and including mechanics that would make WoB unbearably huge mod other way. And since I felt burned out lately, I decided to also renew BSaL - making use of my modding experience from past year. To make it distinct, I decided to go with new name: The Isle of Ansur. IoA is, though, fully what I wanted BSaL to be, so calling it just "Between Shadows and Lights: The Isle of Ansur" is not a mistake. I can make another isles available as vanilla expansions for this game, so it is possible that I will use new titles as add-on names. As of now, Baedoor creations can be listed as such:

[2004] Lands not official
[2005] Other Lands not official
[2008] Baedoor not official
[2018] Between Shadows and Lights not official
[2021] Wastelands of Baedoor
[2021] Between Shadows and Lights: The Isle of Ansur upcoming
[2021] Spires of Baedoor upcoming
[2021] Civilisations of Baedoor upcoming

After all, Baedoor universe now became something public, which I find both terrifying and exciting. I will try to show you as much of this universe as I can, and I hope that you will find yourself excited to wander on its lands and do whatever you like - even if it's just "another fantasy/steampunk world". Or maybe you find yourself seeing this universe as something close to your heart, as I do.

Future

I do not know where future will lead me with my projects - whether they will be my free time stuff or something I do more "officially". For now, I will try to finish my current projects (WoB, CoB, SoB, IoA). There may come some English poems or stories within this universe too, although I can't guarantee that, since I don't feel as thoughtful writing in English language. I also plan to write several Baedoor-related concept music albums.

In my dreams, there's idea of proper cRPG game, being in vein of Arcanum: Of Steampunk and Magick Obscura, or even Skyrim... but that's just loose idea for the future. When I have enough money, coding knowledge, maybe even people helping me with this project. But I'd love to make such big, sandbox game based on Baedoor universe. This is partly why I decided to make IoA.

If you want to be up-to-date with any news, join my Discord server, where I cover almost all my art. And this is the end of our journey, but I'm glad I took it. I hope you too. As lunatris would say farewell: "take care, my brother!"