Vote up an Urban Fantasy Setting

[tantric]

Originally Posted by nondescript handle

Actually I thought of the opposite: dragons can shapeshift into human form, but only with the Projected Form limitation. This would let them operate in mundane society while maintaining the 'masquerade' (this is a hidden weirdness setting after all), but having to guard, hide, and feed their big dragon bodies would still be a real liability.

That would be *really* hard to manage. I was thinking of humans who co-exist on the astral plane or whatever with a dragonform there, whereas fairies are purely creatures of that plane. If you have leylines or places of power, that gives a dragon lair kinda thing. Eastern dragons as personifications of rivers and mountains - hmm, can we make that work without it turning into a Werewolf the Granola Apocalypse thing? What if cities are landforms with their own genius loci ?

[Johnny Angel]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Yep.

Creatures of the Night 32

Dragons 47

Enchanted beasts 36

Other 35


Dragons wins. My vote won't alter that, so I abstain.

Your vote might still matter. I had thought we were voting on which three monster categories would make it?

If you're abstaining, it looks as though Dragons would be first; with Enchanted Beasts and Other being distant second and third.

Originally Posted by my votes

NEW POLL: TECHNOLOGY

Please rate these options from 0-5 (Note I included zero). 0 means you don't want it, period. 5 is your first pick.

• TL 8 Retro trends, possibly some regression in what's commonly available 2
  
• TL 8 baseline/like today with some new gadgets but no major changes 3
  
• TL 8 with one area (computers, mechanical engineering, power generation, weapons, etc.) advanced a TL 4
  
• TL 9 with no superscience but everything else from UT at that TL 1
  
• TL 9 Cyberpunk Path (more advanced stuff in computers, VR, cyberware, holography, etc.) 0
  
• other--Specify (if it wins, we do another poll on tech) 5

My "Other"
TL 9 (including some superscience) for the most part, but weapons (i.e. guns) and armor (i.e. body armor) still at TL 8. However, TL 9 technology for advanced forms of ammo, optics, and other such things which are accessories to a weapon are available; the base weapons (guns and such) themselves are still at TL 8 though. In the case of the TL 9 ammo, cost would be +50% over normal cost.

[samd6]

5 other--Specify (if it wins, we do another poll on tech) Dragon-tech or some other kind of weird science
4TL 9 with no superscience but everything else from UT at that TL The future should feel like the future
3TL 8 with one area (computers, mechanical engineering, power generation, weapons, etc.) advanced a TL Feels less near-future and more modern
2TL 8 baseline/like today with some new gadgets but no major changes see above
1 TL 9 Cyberpunk Path (more advanced stuff in computers, VR, cyberware, holography, etc.)Get Shadowrun out of here
0 TL 8 Retro trends, possibly some regression in what's commonly avaiable What part of future is hard to understand?

[Joe]

Originally Posted by nondescript handle

... dragons can shapeshift into human form, but only with the Projected Form limitation. This would let them operate in mundane society while maintaining the 'masquerade' (this is a hidden weirdness setting after all), but having to guard, hide, and feed their big dragon bodies would still be a real liability.

Originally Posted by tantric

That would be *really* hard to manage.

Do you think? I like this idea! Since we're going with Dragons, and Dragons are big, scary, unsubtle things, this seems like a good way to make the whole thing do-able - without just making Dragons something else entirely.

For my part, I much prefer real, massive, physical dragons who sit in caves on mounds of treasure and inspire awe and terror through their sheer physical majesty.

To me, it's dodging the problem to have largely metaphorical "Dragons" who exist on the web, or the astral plane, or just hang out in certain people's auras, or something, instead of in the real world. Much more fun to have real, live, flesh and blood dragons, and then try to hide them.

Just my two cents. I defer to the voting, of course!

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Johnny Angel

Your vote might still matter. I had thought we were voting on which three monster categories would make it?

If you're abstaining, it looks as though Dragons would be first; with Enchanted Beasts and Other being distant second and third.

No, it's which one out of that list counts for the "Other" on the earlier list.


Dragons joins the winning categories of fairies and witches.

note- I'm inclined to read those as broad groups. We may see plenty of variation within each category/family.

Future votes will decide the particulars.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

• I'm not sure why the hard-sci-only TL9 is a predefined option, but unrestricted early TL9 isn't.

That's because weird science/super tech did not win on the power sources vote.

[Langy]

If I could I'd vote for Steampunk, maybe TL5+3 or something like that. That'd be awesome with dragons.

But since I can't...

• 1 Points - TL 8 baseline/like today with some new gadgets but no major changes
• 2 Points - TL 8 with one area (computers, mechanical engineering, power generation, weapons, etc.) advanced a TL
• 3 Points - TL 9 with no superscience but everything else from UT at that TL
• 4 Points - TL 9 Cyberpunk Path (more advanced stuff in computers, VR, cyberware, holography, etc.)
• 5 Point - Other - STEAMPUNK!
• 0 Points - TL 8 Retro trends, possibly some regression in what's commonly avaiable

[ericthered]

EDIT: Vote changed and displayed in a later post

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Langy

If I could I'd vote for Steampunk, maybe TL5+3 or something like that. That'd be awesome with dragons.

But since I can't...

• 1 Points - TL 8 baseline/like today with some new gadgets but no major changes
• 2 Points - TL 8 with one area (computers, mechanical engineering, power generation, weapons, etc.) advanced a TL
• 3 Points - TL 9 with no superscience but everything else from UT at that TL
• 4 Points - TL 9 Cyberpunk Path (more advanced stuff in computers, VR, cyberware, holography, etc.)
• 5 Point - Other - TL 9 with FTL superscience - using dragons to power the jump drives!
• 0 Points - TL 8 Retro trends, possibly some regression in what's commonly avaiable

You can vote for steampunk with Other. The dragons might have a different tech level than humanity.

You might do it as Other:
mature TL 8 humans
5+3 dragons

That won't make the whole setting steampunk. The hidden dragon stuff would be steampunk.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by ericthered

5 -TL 8 +1 advance. actually in the future!
3 -TL 8 - quite managable
3 -Other - I'd like more than one field
0- TL 9 unrestricted - bleh, any time the ultra tech book gets put in whole sale it makes a mess.
0 - Cyberbunk - No! urban fantasy is not cyberpunk. No! No!

I didn't make it 100% clear, but I'd strongly prefer if numbers weren't repeated.

Can you fix that, please?


Ditto for SamD6.