Aokoa

Aokoa is the seventh shard of the CreateThisWorld saga. It was officially opened on January 13, 2019. The world of Aokoa is a beautiful and wondrous place, it is similar to Earth, although 80% of the surface of Aokoa is covered in water. There are few large continents, and arible land is dominated by mini continents and numerous archipelagos. All sorts of remarkable and diverse peoples populate this shining blue world who have built up equally diverse civilisations, even Aokoa's vast oceans team with life, some of it quite advanced. The peak of technological advancement in Aokoa is roughly equivalent to Earth's Napoleonic period (c. 1800 CE).

## The World

### Map

World Map located on Imgur.
Big thanks to our map guru /u/ophereon for putting this together, and to map mistress /u/technicolortraveler who is going to be keeping the map updated for us as we go forward.
Aokoa has a functionally Earth-like climate. Equatorial region in the middle, getting colder as you move north or south. There are different biomes, and I hope the textures on the map are self-explanatory for indicating what those are. Be mindful of the max claim size for land-based claims. If you have an aquatic claim, then max size is double that.

### Leylines

If you look at this map you can see the leylines. These are lines of magical energy that run and intersect all around the surface of Aokoa. These won't affect your lives too much, except that magic energy is stronger on these lines, so be mindful of that when you're buying real estate for your coven. There are also several points where the leylines connect into a nexus. Those are pockets of extremely concentrated magic, and are best avoided if you want to keep your limbs and don't want to grow any new ones.

### Ruins

There are also 100 ruins scattered around the map. Those locations are hidden, but if you make a claim on top of a ruin, you will receive a prompt about it. Each of these ruins has a specific custom description attached to it. One of the mods (i.e. Tech) will send you this prompt, and then it will be up to you to make a lore post about it. But because we are going to be busy managing claims right at the beginning, don't expect to receive any ruin prompts for at least a week.

## Technology

### General Technology

Each shard we do is defined primarily by its technology level. For Aokoa, we voted on a Napoleonic technology level, which means that the world is roughly equivalent to where Earth was in the year 1800. That means that you can assume to have access to technologies that existed on Earth before 1800 in your claim right from the beginning. Major technologies: Steam engine, hot air balloon, microscope, telescope, germ theory, anaesthesia, power loom / spinning jenny, powder rifles, steamboats.

But we don't like to stagnate anywhere for too long. Players are free to continue developing technology in the world, introducing new improvements and innovations as they go. The usual way to do this is through a Weird Science Wednesday post. Over time, Aokoa will advance, just like a real world would. But we don't want it to happen too fast. Certain major technologies are going to be held in reserve. These are referred to as tier 3 technologies. They will be allowed in the shard eventually, but the moderators are waiting until a certain amount of time has passed before allowing players to develop them. Tier 3 technologies: airships, cameras, rifled artillery, electric lighting, screw propellers.

### Naval Technology

Since this shard is so heavily based around oceans and islands, obviously seafaring is going to be a major part of almost everyone's operations. That raises the important question: How do boats?

We have decided to jump a little ahead of Earth history for Aokoa to say that steamboats already exist. However, they are a very recent technology. That means that they are still clumsy and expensive, and not desperately well-suited to long open-ocean voyages. They are also strictly driven by paddlewheels at this point, because screw propellers have not yet been developed. At this point in time, sail-powered vessels are still by far the most common way of getting around, so keep that in mind when you are writing about your own fleets.

We have at least six months to play in this world, and the plan is to continue developing steam power piece by piece as we go. So if you desperately want to have a massive fleet of ironclad steamships and zeppelins, I promise that if you stick with it, you will get there. But it's no fun if we start things off like that.

## Magic

### General Magic

What is CTW without a bit of magic? We voted on this and decided our magic level should be medium for both power and scope. For those of you who are returning, that means magic will be roughly the same as it was in Whend. If you are joining us for the first time, I will explain.

Medium power means that you can have your standard mid-level D&D mage. You can throw fireballs, brew potions, enchant objects, perform spells, etc. Your magic just can't be world-breaking. Your mages can't be totally indestructible, they can't take on entire armies by themselves, and they can't use magic to summon an entire army (be it demons, zombies, or blob monsters). If we use X-Men as a comparison, you can have Magneto but not Dark Phoenix.

Medium scope means that magic is common enough that people aren't surprised that it exists, but it is still rare. The number of magic-users in any population is between 0.1% and 1%, and the number of powerful magic-users is rarer still. Non-mages can still interact with magical objects, but magic cannot be ubiquitous in something your whole population uses (apart from your racial quirk).

### Racial Quirk

Everyone's claim is permitted to give their race a special magic attribute. This allows you to skirt the magic rules a little bit by giving your whole population one thing they can all do that isn't explained by normal biology. This attribute can give them an advantage, but not a huge advantage. It shouldn't be anything that sounds like an X-Men power.

## Claims

Please read the New Player's Guide for information on how to claim and interact in our current shard.

1. ↑ Note that it is placed within The Holy Conclave of Exemplary Personas to Act as a Guiding Light for All that Seek Salvation from the Dark Unknown of the World.