Dungeon Fantasy: Beastmen

[b-dog]

The beastmen are creatures that are humanoid animals. Some say that they evolved in the mundane realm yet others say the animal spirits created them. Scholars say that the animal spirits guided the evolution of beastmen. The mundane realm was said to be created for humanity and the animal spirits were jealous and created rivals for humanity. Fishmen, lizardmen, reptilemen, dinosaurmen, catfolk, frogmen, ratmen, serpentmen, coleopterans, and numerous other animal humanoids were the result. Many of these creatures lived long before humanity and developed civilizations that lasted eons. But eventually humanity evolved and soon displaced the older races.

Once humanity was established, the animal spirits tried once again to influence the world. They began giving gifts to the early humans and the humans worshipped them and built totems in their honor. The animal spirits granted powers to allow the early humans to turn into animals, often with animal skins to help with the magic. Later, no skins were needed as the animal spirits had grafted onto the human DNA. These became the lycanthropes of legend. Many of the early lycanthropes were nature lovers and they lived in harmony.

It is said that at one time the faery realm was ripped apart and part of it was cast into Hell. Many nature spirits lived in the faery realm and were cast into Hell as well. These spirits became corrupted by the evil and they began to change into wicked creatures. Some of the lycanthrope line were affected, particularly the aggressive hunting animal spirits. These became evil werewolves, weresharks, wererats, wereleopards, werecrocodiles, werejackles and many others.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by b-dog

Scholars say that the animal spirits guided the evolution of beastmen. (...) Fishmen, lizardmen, reptilemen, dinosaurmen, catfolk, frogmen, ratmen, serpentmen, coleopterans, and numerous other animal humanoids were the result.

A strong cross-genre mix of modern day biology with aliens ("animal spirits", here) guiding the evolutive progress from their UFOs and such . . . for Dungeon Fantasy.

Fantasy doesn't need the horizontal evolutive chain, but the vertical Chain of Being, where all different beings of the universe are deemed arranged and being manifested from the "archetypical world" (Atziluth, and Briah, too) in a non-evolutive way.

[Fabricati]

I don't think that it's always necessary to have worlds-within-worlds as a fantasy concept, though, Demonsbane. You keep postulating that, and I've been silent up 'till now, but it's not necessary to the fantasy genre. It may not even be necessary to the 'mythlogical' genre.

I understand the history of it, and why it's important to understand it, I just don't see why it's the be-all and end-all of the fantasy genre.

[RedMattis]

Dungeon Fantasy-type worlds are quite famous/infamous for often being complete Fantasy Kitchen Sink, but for this particular genre I think it is suitable. It gives you more variety of things to fight* with your sword and sorcery ;)

*Or play as, of course! =)

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Fabricati

I don't think that it's always necessary to have worlds-within-worlds as a fantasy concept, though, Demonsbane. You keep postulating that, and I've been silent up 'till now, but it's not necessary to the fantasy genre. It may not even be necessary to the 'mythlogical' genre.

Hi Fabricati:

While you say you think a non-modern cosmology isn't needed for Fantasy or even Myth, you don't add any reasons for that.

A given cosmology is the cornerstone for all further developments, always. Worlds Within Worlds is the shared cosmology for most ancient cultures having something to do with mythology. You can't do meaningful Fantasy without it, nor without something like its legitimate "variants" -none of them really changes nothing. Without "that" cosmology, all that remains is the current modern science Weltanschauung, what is Ok for modern settings or science fiction ones, but definitively isn't suited for Fantasy nor Dungeon Fantasy.

Fantasy isn't simply "the land of weirdness" and "all is allowed". Sure, today that can be in that way for children . . . At the contrary, it has its own logic and consistency. In details, sometimes it may seem loose -as Folklore- but that doesn't mean Fantasy is arbitrary by definition.

Lacking of Worlds Within Worlds, you can't use Plane Shift in your Fantasy setting (*). Spirit beings doesn't exist -there aren't "spirit" or "astral" world -Yetzirah. You can't summon demons (from where?), beings from the underworlds (again, a portion of Yetzirah). Dungeon Fantasy Celestial template isn't available because there isn't Briah -the origin and world of celestial beings; lacking of an ultimate transcendent domain equivalent of Atziluth, Magic couldn't exist at all due the supernatural wouldn't be real; Higher purpose, Blessed, doesn't work (Blessings come from upper worlds, in "downwards direction"), nor Curses. Unholy Altars would be merely decorative, etc . . .

I understand "the history of it", and "why it's important to understand it" I just don't see why it's the be-all and end-all of the fantasy genre.

If that is so, then something isn't working properly. On the other hand, the understanding you are mentioning by no means is automatic nor "by default".

If you don't see why that is essential to the fantasy genre, ask yourself how the modern world-view (all what lefts if you cancel a WWW cosmology) can have some to do with a mythical reality, when the materialist world-view by definition excludes any metaphysics and supernatural features, resulting in the non-mythical way of seeing reality.

Originally Posted by RedMattis

Dungeon Fantasy-type worlds are quite famous/infamous for often being complete Fantasy Kitchen Sink, but for this particular genre I think it is suitable. It gives you more variety of things to fight* with your sword and sorcery ;)

Of course, RedMattis, but for that "suitable assortment of creatures" (if really you want that!) no one needs modern science conceptions in Fantasy worlds. Any of them -of course including biology- does implies a materialistic cosmos with a single plane. The chain of Being already includes all sort of imaginable creatures deriving from the archetypical world (Briah); a biological and evolutionist chain doesn't add nothing really, and in fact, both can't coexist in a logical way in the same setting, being one chain the denial of the other.

No one needs *to believe* in the Fantasy genre . . . But it shouldn't be too hard to accept logical structures of thinking even if personally one doesn't agrees with their postulated source or axiom -Atziluth.

Cheer


(*) "Materialism" only can regard a single "plane", the material one.

[b-dog]

This was just an idea for a fantasy world I had, it does rely on DNA or science. In the beginning the animals were first to arrive and each type of animal tried to create a being of their type to be a ruler of the world. This was supposed to be how insectmen, frogmen, dinosaurmen ect. came into being. They also had a long history in the mundane world before humanity arrived. This was for the lost civilizations to explore and such. Durring this time spirits, demons and faeries came to the mortal realm from time to time but they remained as spirits. Once humanity came, humanity began to dominate and push the animalman race to remote locations. Then the faery realm broke open and this brought the elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, ogres, trolls, and goblins to the world. These faeries became mortal because they lived in the mortal realm. The greater faeries were either able to return or they relied upon strong magic to sustain them in the mortal realm. Sidhe, fomor, nymphs, leprechauns, fauns, and pixies were these types of faeries so the needed mana to survive in the mortal world while lesser faeries don't.

[RedMattis]

Originally Posted by Demonsbane

. . .

fan·ta·sy (fnt-s, -z)
n. pl. fan·ta·sies

4.
a. Fiction characterized by highly fanciful or supernatural elements.
b. An example of such fiction.


You can do Fantasy however you feel like it, and I have myself played Fantasy several times without any 'worlds within worlds'

Also spirits can be simply Insubstantial, without being in a different plane of existence. Bound together by spiritual/magical energies which would just be another pile of laws into your book of physics.
Maybe Celestials are spirits formed from a form of various spiritual energies which seek positive emotions?

Also, who says that for example Planeshift even exists in a given setting?
You can create fantasy in a million different way, and no one way is more "right" or "wrong" than another. Why? Because fantasy is just that Fantasy. A work of imagination.

Fantasy isn't simply "the land of weirdness" and "all is allowed". Sure, today that can be in that way for children . . . At the contrary, it has its own logic and consistency. In details, sometimes it may seem loose -as Folklore- but that doesn't mean Fantasy is arbitrary by definition.

If you want there to be logic in your setting, you make up something that makes sense. There is no One True Way.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by RedMattis

fan·ta·sy (fnt-s, -z)
n. pl. fan·ta·sies

4.
a. Fiction characterized by highly fanciful or supernatural elements.
b. An example of such fiction.


You can do Fantasy however you feel like it, and I have myself played Fantasy several times without any 'worlds within worlds'

But we are talking about traditional fantasy and Dungeon Fantasy too, not just about "any fantasy", Redmattis.

On the other hand, the definition the dictionary or encyclopedia provides of the world, isn't the first, last or even the definite saying about the things. It is just a convention, usually the favored one from the Encyclopedists. But it is difficult to remain anchored in the the narrow conceptions of that ideology own of the XVIII century, while we are in XXI century and a lot of things have changed, including tons of perceptions about the ancient worlds.

Also spirits can be simply Insubstantial, without being in a different plane of existence. Bound together by spiritual/magical energies which would just be another pile of laws into your book of physics.

Spirits can be just insubstantial, and that does implies a "plane" of existence being qualitatively different than the physical or substantial material one. Follow the line from any characteristic examples of Fantasy and you only can have Worlds Within Worlds at the end. You can't escape from that. The only way for "lessening" that is to ignore the consequences of having insubstantial spiritis around, and to avoid to think about the subject.

Maybe Celestials are spirits formed from a form of various spiritual energies which seek positive emotions?

The existence of emotions and thoughts as being something different than mere "brain chemistry", as being "real by themselves" and able to being the object of objective interactions by external subjects does imply the reality of Yetzirah, or psychic world.

Again, the only choice about this is you can go deeper in that, or to remain willingly at the surface, only concerned about psychic phenomena just as the so called "paranormal investigators" usually do.

Also, who says that for example Planeshift even exists in a given setting?

It isn't needed the existence or availability of Plane Shift. But any demon, or celestial, or non-natural monster (and a monster never can't be just natural) does implies -again- the structure of different worlds arranged in the cosmos. Qualitative (essential, not just substantial) distinctions of beings own of these different worlds (monsters, angels, man, elves, elementals . . .) do align them with the Chain of Being. just denying the equality of material parallel ones.

You can create fantasy in a million different way, and no one way is more "right" or "wrong" than another. Why? Because fantasy is just that Fantasy. A work of imagination.

What today is called "Fantasy", earlier had the meaning of "Imaginatio Vera", and the feeling for what is "traditional fantasy" comes from that.

Out of that meaning, "Phantasy" only had negative connotations, related, by way, with "Phantoms" and hallucinatory and unsane states of the mind.


Redmattis, I was speaking about "the pattern" only because very often people seems unable or unwilling to think about Fantasy without adding utterly anti-fantastic elements to the "mix", making the whole edifice to fall. The awareness of Fantasy as genre is a thing needed of maintenance. Iconoclasticism, relativism, scientific philosophies, an almost total dedication to children . . . all that and not only that contributes to kill it year after year. For instance, D&D is going astray more and more, and that perception is possible only from the awareness of Fantasy having some fundament. That isn't evolution, but substitution of an existent and full-fledged thing, for another entirely different and even opposed. Only in this context is needed to talk about "the fundament of Fantasy".

That is the sense I'm talking about. And there are reasons for 4e Fantasy having that name, while 4e Space, despite being in a no small measure "fantasy" too in the precise sense of the dictionary, don't shares the name by the lack of that essential component what is fabulisimilitude, or consistency with the fundament of Fantasy. And if "Fantasy" would be just "any fantasy", writing 4e Fantasy would had been impossible to do, because the implied lack of any definite criteria for selecting and ordering the information.

If you want there to be logic in your setting, you make up something that makes sense. There is no One True Way.

Traditional Fantasy has his own way. And Dungeon Fantasy is a development of Traditional Fantasy. There are some variations about it, but by no means infinite.

On the other hand, I'm not defending the idea of the cosmology of a roleplaying setting should be transparent, evident and straightforward fixed for PCs or NPCs. At the contrary. The GM should, generally, to willingly blur a lot of things for avoiding the feeling of "the pattern" can be a handicap for imagination. Anyway, WWW is enough ample . . .

[vitruvian]

But we are talking about traditional fantasy and Dungeon Fantasy too, not just about "any fantasy", Redmattis.

Yet both of these are in large part inspired by sources such as Moorcock's Elric and other series, Leiber's Lankhmar stories, and numerous other stories in which there apparently are multiple material worlds. One of the inspirational *games* for Dungeon Fantasy (I bet you know which one) had multiple physical planes or worlds within the 'Prime Material Plane' at least since a module called Queen of the Demonweb Pits.

Therefore, on the face of it, your assertion that any 'meaningful', 'traditional', or 'Dungeon' fantasy setting must of necessity partake of the concepts of Worlds Within Worlds and the Chain of Being exactly as you have explicated them, is and must be invalid.

[vitruvian]

Redmattis, I was speaking about "the pattern" only because very often people seems unable or unwilling to think about Fantasy without adding utterly anti-fantastic elements to the "mix", making the whole edifice to fall.

The insertion of the 'anti-fantastic' has a long and fine tradition in the source literature as well. I am thinking here of such sources as pretty much any of DeCamp's work (e.g., Incomplete Enchanter stories with Fletcher Pratt, the Pusadian and Novarian cycles), that of many other contributors to the short-lived but much-beloved magazine Unknown, much of Leiber's output, Zelazny's Amber series, and as mentioned before, Moorcock as well as Vance, Chalker, Wolfe, and many others.

Basically, neither Moorcock's Conjunction of the Million Spheres nor Zelazny's multifarious realms of Shadow fit neatly into your interpretation of the Kabbalah and its four distinct realms or levels. Nevertheless, both the Elric and Amber series are classic fantasy in terms of the literature, and apt sources for FRPGs.