[Banestorm] How different is your Yrth?

[sjard]

I'm having my elves and dwarves have considerably shorter life spans. Dwarves have always had an average lifespan around 125 years. Elves started losing time on theirs after the banestorm... Except Dark Elves (it was their spell after all, and I modified it to include what they didn't consider to be True Elves).

Thus normal elves have lifespans on par with humans by the late 1800s, stabilized to human average. They still get all the other benefits of being an elf, the magical aspects, skill bonus, etc.

Because of this, elves are much more mixed into human society, more along the lines of how goblins fit into the setting in general.

[Voltron64]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf23k

I've been pondering making a lot of substantial changes to the world of Yrth for my next potential campaign; expanding on the Map, adding new races, some changes to the cultures of Yrth, that sorta stuff.

What changes have you made to your version of Yrth?

I just typically go with most of whatever you write up, Lone. :)

That and elves aren't immortal, they have the lifespans of D&D elves instead, meaning that I suppose they live up to around 700 years, I believe.

That and Yrth is a gigantic World of Badass. (But then any good roleplaying game setting should be, am I right?) ;)

[Astromancer]

First, I explain the Medievalism of Ytarria as a fashion. The Romantic Medievalism is the product of self-conscious romantics.

Second, the Banestorm took people from many Earths. The Church's doctraine's are more varied. Alternate Korans exist, and cause trouble/crisis.
Non-humans aren't monocultural.

Third, Technology continues to advance even with the ban on gun manufacture. Ytarria is Tech Level 4 slowly moving to five.

Forth, their are other continents and they are beinging to come into contact with Ytarria bringing change. Hobbits with flying ships are being to trade with Ytarria (mainly Cardiel and Cathness). There are Gaelic Celts, living on Islands to the East of Meglos who discovered new lands and are undergoing a renaisance. Arraterre is beinging to trade with "Chinese" and "African" contenents.

My Yrth is a land on the brink of revolution which sees itself as perfectly stable and unchanging.

[Diogenes]

A more general/abstract note: I find the "it's your game, your world(s)" approach of SJG very, very ... reconciling. Other companies have their metaplots, timelines, projects, whatever, and strive to make people stick to it. I won't name any company; you know what I mean. Sometimes I think that they are afraid of giving the world away, but they did at the moment of publishing it as a game world: A single PC created for it changes it, and so does its fates when a campaign runs its way.

And yes, "Aztecs" are missing on Yrth, but Yrth is stranger than you think ... :)

[simply Nathan]

Elves are foxes(high elves are gray, wood elves are red, dark elves are arctic), humans are wolves, and dwarves are huskies. Half-Elves are coyotes. Halflings are banned from the world for copyright reasons(if they can't be honest-to-goodness Hobbits, there's not much point in having them). Ogres and Sahudese are felines.

Racial templates basically consist of "Fur[1], Acute Smell 2[4], Sharp Teeth[1], Blunt Claws[3], Temperature Tolerance 1[1]" in addition to whatever else would be there: the DF racial templates.

Muslims lost hard early on(it's hard for dog-men to follow that religion with a straight face anyway). Nobody believes in Islam anymore. Al-Haz is the Theme Park Version of an Arabian Nights setting, but its inhabitants are Christian. Other Muslim lands are filled with orcs and reptile men instead.

For that matter, a Catholic from 1989 brought a copy of the Catechism when he was Banestormed in; the place is now Vatican II compliant.

Vampires, ghouls, orcs, and reptile men are Always Chaotic Evil, and Not Even Human. No exceptions. Their game purpose is to be killed by the good guys.
For that matter, orcs have pig faces and are no stronger than humans. There are no half orcs.

Guns aren't forbidden; they don't have to be, because they're impossible.

[ArmoredSaint]

Originally Posted by Apache

I ran a Clockpunk game set in Yrth, set in the year 2020 (yes...I called it Clockpunk 2020....).

Had dwarven airships, spell engines (blatantly stolen from Falkenstein), Araterre breaking off from Megalos (the Engineer Revolt has begun!) and fighting a seemingly never-ending war as a result, special operation teams galore, black-powder Gatling guns, Ministry of Serendipity strike teams, and, of course, the Demon Emperor of Megalos.

All hail the awesomeness in this post. Now I want to play this!

[Gef]

My "Yrth" is so different, it's not even called that, but you can still see a few remnants, like Bales, and at this point I'm saying they're no relation to Yrth at all, but parallels caused by "cosmic resonance." I'd suggest, if you're going to change things radically, that if you will piece by piece change everthing about it except the names of the cities, well, you might as well START by changing the names of things. -GEF

[Michael Cule]

The Christian Church has female clerics. They know there are timelines where this is not true and there were even refugees from some of them who made it to Yrth. But the people from the timeline where Mary Magdalene replaced Judas among the Apostles won out in the early church councils and the 'Masculinist Heresy' is suppressed in most places.

(The Archbishop of Tredroy is female and there was nearly a nasty scandal when her illegitimate son was kidnapped.)

There is One Big Secret Conspiracy behind all the suppression of technology.

The Caithness Civil War fizzled early. The idiot King has only just got around to marrying Bronwen and it's not a love match. Not on her part anyway, not yet. She listens a bit too much to the advice of her Jesuit chaplain.

Speaking of which they've got themselves disbanded again after being discovered to be behind the hideous fungal demon thing that was infesting the Blackwoods. (An honest mistake: they thought they could control the whole deal but you know...) The core infestation was recently destroyed with the aid of a dimension travelling version of Stephen Hawking.

The Demon Emperor is dead and succeeded by his son. He's facing a Civil War though as the Templars did not want to come quietly and assist in the investigation of how the demon got onto the throne in the first place. Other groups are taking advantage of the confusion.

The first two points are GM fiat (because they amused me). The last three are the result of PC actions.

[The Cardinal]

My Yrth has a "Europe+NorthAfrica+MiddleEast+Russia"-like continent as a counterpart to the "NorthAmerica"-like Ytarria: The templars suspect/know of this and plan (or have already started) to colonize it...

...oh, and my current incarnation of Yrth is also a World of Badass

[LoneWolf23k]

I'm loving the ideas pitched here. Here was one of my own.

One of Ken Hite's past "Suppressed Transmission" collumns, "Justinian and Arthur: High Historical Fantasy" involved a High Fantasy conflict between King Arthur's Britain and Emperor Justinian's Byzantine Empire, with Justinian actually being a demon-prince in human guise with a sorceress wife, both corrupting the Empire with their wicked plans.

The only changes needed to this concept for an Yrth game are switching the names around, and emphasizing Conall's Arthurian overtones, really.