Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Agreed. It wouldn't have been given the same value even by the guildsmen and burgers.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Mordor:

In Infinite Worlds this name was given to a world was a dream of a real world author except in this one Sauron found the ring and plunged Middle Earth into Darkness. If the Valar exist they have not shown up openly. The Dark Lord's tyranny rules all of Middle Earth and Elves, Dwarves, Men and Hobbits are helpless slaves.

Infinity would rather NOT try to interfere but there are some who have said that the Dark Lord's capture of the Three can be perverted into giving him the power to jump worlds. In any case it is the PCs job to enter a world where the Dark Lord has lifted his hand over dead sea and ruined land.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

This is basically Bill Stoddard's "Under the Shadow" campaign with the addition of extra-dimensional refugees who wound up in the worst place imaginable.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

If they have to intervene, Infinity will try to get help from some magically capable group. The historical change has already happened, and the new situation has to be dealt with.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

I've just heard Ray Harryhausen(sic) wanted to do another Sinbad film; SINBAD GOES TO MARS! Given the Medieval Arabic literary scholars knew of Lucian of Samosata's THE TRUE HISTORY and enjoyed that kind of over-the-top satirical fantasy, it would have been less of a crossover than it sounds.

Blending the tropes of the Arabian Nights with Pulp Sci Fi (which used the Arabian Nights as a major source of inspiration anyway) would be a blast. Lovecraft, who's DREAMQUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH involves very Dunsanyan reworkings of Arabian Nights tropes and Space Travel should be a useful resource too.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Elventower:

There is a mystical lighthouse. No one knows how old it is. It's light was made out of a crystal that reflects the firelight over miles. The fire burns continuously and no one knows what makes it work. The fuel is magic and no one in Mortalland knows anything of it, as far as we know. But it is running out. The last warden died months ago and it has continued working on it's own. But the m

The secret is that this lighthouse is a passage to Elvenhome. The lighthouse was built by the Fair Folk in thanks to a mortal hero who had slain a Kraken that was troubling them and is powered by oil from the fat of that Kraken. Someone must go into Elvenhome and either slay another Kraken or find another source of fuel. To know how to get to Elvenhome one must look at an ancient tome in the towns archives-which contains nothing but riddles. But if this fails, the fishers will not be able to supply the town, the coasters will not visit with foreign goods, and the town will die.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Try this idea. In traditional fantasy settings other species have hats. Elves have the wise, noble, ancients hat. (With merriment sprinkles). Halflings get the honest stalwart farmer folk hat. (With trickster sprinkles). We get gruff dwarves, brutal orcs, whimsical fairies, silly malevolent goblins, ect. Humans don't get a hat... normally.

But try this idea. The human that would be social skills. Most of these other species are rarely depicted living in cities. Only Halflings and Dwarves are routinely depicted living in towns. Picture a world were social skills above IQ-2 are only a human thing. Only Humans can found cities. Halflings and Dwarves can live in small towns. Elves and Faeries can live in courts that are basically large bands living comfortably because of magic.

Humans having larger and more functional communities would be a massive advantage and explain human dominance in most fantasy worlds.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Humans have a higher Dunbar's Number than other species?

(I'm not at all sure that Dunbar's Number is a real thing but it would do for worldbuilding.)

Once humans become aware of this difference between the species they would start to show off and develop elaborate names for types of connections ("He was in my high school cohort but we're not actually sworn brothers." "She is my cousin twice removed...") They would also look down on/pity the poor sods like me who just can't remember people.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Right there, that could also be a reason why elves and faeries didn't develop civilization as we understand it.

So, your entire community has a minimum of Magery 0 (and usually higher) and averages IQ 11. Food and Plant magic take care of the obvious questions of food, clothing and shelter (or they can skip the latter two, learn the Warmth and Cool spells and go naked), more Plant magic can make any wooden tools they needed out of Essential Wood, Earth magic can make stone tools, and whether you'd make fine precision tools out of Essential Obsidian or learn metalshaping is up to you. Your basic needs are trivially met at zero infrastructure in a TL(0+4)^ society, leaving you with most of the day to spend on art, song and leisure.

So what, exactly, do you need cities for? According to your tastes, you'd either live in a nomadic band or a small settled community (still a big band at most, though). You grow or conjure your food whenever you want and shape fine cotton into fancy, almost silky clothes (though your crazy aunt makes a point of "eating only air" and casting Monk's Banquet, and a lot of the younger elves don't see the point in clothing when the weather's always fine). Art's still a thing, so you might travel to gift some of your own art to someone else or petition an artisan for something fancy ("my brother lost his leg to a wandering monster, so we need to get him over to the woman two villages over who knows Regeneration"), but regular centers of trade make little sense (though there might be market-fair towns). Likewise, while people have children when they want to, children are not vital economic assets like they are for TL1+ human societies, and obviously contraceptive magic is going to be something every mother teaches her daughter. So fertility is much lower than humans.

And then five hundred years later, the elves look over at those clever "humans" who'd been settling between those rivers last time they checked, and they start wondering how they bred so fast, how they put so many buildings in one place, and why there's hundreds of humans running at them with spears?

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

The Wonders of the Western Wild...

When Seventeenth century English people started settling North America they reported many things we modern people dismiss out of hand. Unicorns were sighted in the Hudson valley, Tritons were seen in the waters off Cape Cod (Lovecraft had fun with that), one minister seems to have sincerely believed that the Native Americans were elves. Let's go with that.

The Mesoamericans and the peoples of the Andes are ordinary humans however the Native peoples of North America north of Mexico are elves.

Tritons (it's irresistible not to have them be Deep Ones) do live off the coasts and plot to bring ruin to the elves. However the elves have a plan. Turn the people coming to their lands from over the eastern seas into elves.

To do this will require both far better knowledge of these "Englishmen" and the cooperation of a few friendly members of their people.

The North America of this world has both the Dragons and Unions reported by 17th century settlers but also the Mammoths Thomas Jefferson thought lived out West. This is a print the legend version of colonial America.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

"Full Fathom Five"

What happened to me? I don't have a tail!

Actually..

No I don't! This is a nightmare!

Then wake up.

I can't! I can't.

You were swimming in the sea and the current dragged you away. You fell off a dock. You were walking by the sea and a sudden wind blew you into the sea. However you got here you didn't choose it, you were chosen. Now you're a triton, a mer person, or something stranger. The sea folk who found you explained that that's how it happens. The sea kingdoms are at war, they really aren't good at raising kids. So the gods of the sea ordained that mortals from the land, doomed by fate to die soon, would be taken by the sea and become sea folk.

Basically, you were a normal 21st century human who has now been thrown into an undersea sword and sorcery world. PCs are first created as ordinary PCs for a contemporary campaign. Then explain what's going on and add a few hundred points of changes to make them into undersea Connans and aquatic mages.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Mage: the Ascension and several other games have made Mad Scientists a type of Mage. The delightful web comic Girl Genius explicitly says that Wizards got hold of engineering and science and upgraded their powers. Let's run with that.

Picture a version of 18th century Europe were Mad Scientists are becoming a thing in the 1740s. Meanwhile Witches (female and male), Warlocks (they command spirits so they can be whatever gender they like so long as they don't kill me), Sorcerers (the book element in Path/Book) all are somewhat taken aback.

Picture a cold (icy) war between Mad Scientists and traditional Mages. This isn't M:tA. Reality is not at stake, but people have killed for bragging rights.

Assume Magery is vital to being either a traditional Mage or a Mad Scientist. At Magery-0 Mad Scientists can create tech level five supertech (TL5^). Each level of Magery adds plus one to the tech level the Mad Scientist can create. Thus a Magery+3 Mad Scientist could create tech level five plus three supertechnology (TL5+3^).

The magic used in this setting is Path/Book. Magery+0 equals Ritual Aptitude, each additional level of Magery functions as a level of Ritual Adept.

Magery plus three is the limit in this setting.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

The Demimonde

You're new here.

That obvious?

Yes. But it always is. Why you leave Alfhame? Or Mag Mell? Or wherever.

It was beautiful but something was missing. It turned out to be my life.

The PCs are Elves, Faeries, Goblins, even a few Angels and Demons. Basically, you PC is a defector from timeless dreaminess. Of course living in dreamland does not prepare one for modern life.

The PCs are innocents trying to join the human race. This leads to comedy and chaos.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

The Wizard's Newground

The basic idea is simple. A half Elven Wizard finds his way to the Earth in early 2022. Earth is mainly a Low Mana realm but with about a quarter of the world Normal Mana and about three percent High Mana.

The Wizard, after a few months of study, decides that this world is perfect for him. He appears to be a handsome man in his forties. He explains his pointed ears as something his Dad did when he was a kid. Claiming not to know if his Dad was in to Tolkien or Star Trek. Generally the elf passes as an Irish man who was born in the states but raised in Ireland. The Wizard's accent fits this.

The Wizard settles down in California a little South of San Francisco. Which he assumes will make him harder to notice. He's gathered resources including a fortune and an impressive library. Now he's looking for students. He wants to bring magic to Earth.

Basically, the PCs are talented young people (more talented than they know) being recruited to study magic.

At first the comedy of being inexperienced mages in a resolutely Un magical world would be the campaign. But remember, the half elf found his way here. Other less pleasant folks might find us too.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

It's simple, but how does he find people with talent?

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Magic, I would think.

Actually, how do people in fantasy setting usually identify mages? Just keep casting Aura (or the equivalent in their magic system)? Have a magic item among as set of mundane ones, and get them to pick it out?

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

I've always assumed that people with a lot of magical talent will display it with some kind spontaneous ability. In settings where being a magician is a respectable career, I could see parents wanting to have their children tested for aptitude.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

He goes from house to house announcing: "You're a wizard, Harry!" even if their name is George or Peter.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

You win the prize!

This is a low girt setting meant to start as comedy. You can take it were you please.

Example: Picture that the Half-Elf is simply wrong. There are scads of mages on this Earth, but the native Mages can only access power if they accept enslavement to a hostile and malignant being. The magic taught by the Half-Elf is a form of Realm Magic. It takes talent and skill. The Malignance (the nasty creature I spoke of) fears any of its slave developing any kind of talent or skill. The Half-Elf's magic is slow going to learn but powerful. Relatively few people even with talent can master this path. The "gifts" of the Maliginance are weaker by far, but quickly learned by anyone willing to degrade themselves and willingly become the slave of an anti human monster.

The Half-Elf group is small, but with vast capabilities and potential. The slaves of the Malignance are many if weak and lacking that very individuality they sold off.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

How about like knows like?

It would be like the psi corps in B5. Or the Janissary corps. The mage's guild would hunt adolescents in the villages to see which showed gifts and then pick them and school them according to their own ideology. That way they keep control of magic.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Try this idea. The old gods have fallen, but the new gods aren't especially nasty. In fact they mean to give some of the old gods new chances.

Pick the God you'd like to play, Thor, Hermes, Bubastis, Brigid, Thoth, Mannanan Mac Lir, whomever is a deity out of a job. They are now Saints in the new order and sent to distant worlds to aide in the survival of Space Colonies!

It's a wild mix of Planetary Romance, Space Opera, Golden Age Sci Fi, and Social Western. The "Old Gods" have suitable powers and skills that follow their myths and archetypes. The Empire back home, basically Byzantium backed by Saints and Angels sends a small but useful amount of help.

So Mythic Superheroes in space fighting pulpy aliens worlds and actually Byzantine politics back home.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Has anyone done anything with Ken Hite's magnificent Azoth-7? It's a truly wonderous and highly original Alchemical Sci Fi/fantasy setting. Has he or anyone else developed it?

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

The Ars Magica kickstarters (they're launching a definitive edition) has me thinking of historical fantasy. Start with a seemingly "normal" Medieval Europe circa 1180AD (the PCs might want to get rare Greek texts from Byzantinum before it's sacked). Then simply (for an odd value of "simple") introduce the Order of Hermes. It can be the one from Ars Magica, the one from Mage: the Ascension (the second is derived from the first but they aren't the same), or your very own version of the Order of Hermes. The Catholic Church was far more flexible and open than most people think. It's the nobility that would be the problem.

Basically, this is a political game with plenty of glamor and fun.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Not according to the gurps wiki, which is usually good at cataloging infinite worlds.

I'll admit this world always struck me as incomprehensible. I don't know what these angels are like how they are controlled, or what the alchemy can do besides turn "everything" into gold, which is actually not terribly useful for much after everyone has gotten used to "Gold is now plentiful"

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Azoth-7 is drawn both from 18th century Robinsones, classic space opera, Blake's mythos, and European (especially alchemical cabala) occultism. It is truly unique. Hite needs to develop this one further.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

How do you mean 'introduce'?

As in "they've always been there and the Church just got hold of copies of Bonisagus' works'

Or as in "the Church has this wonderful material to work with but someone is going to have to come up with a modus vivendi for all those Gifted people".

I did something like the latter with a game set in Restoration England after Isaac Newton did something unwise with the structure of the universe. Such games are intensely political, ethical and philosophical. Be warned that this is a specialised taste and you should make sure that either all of your players are as interested in that as you are or that you are providing enough other material to keep the ones who aren't interested.

I ran it with my regular group and it was fun while it lasted but it crashed hard against one player's extreme fedupness.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Perhaps just introduce the OoH to the awareness of the PCs. If people become aware of things they didn't know about (the changes in astronomy in the late 16th early 17th century would be an example) how they see the world transforms. Giving the Roman Church an awareness of magic and some of its complications and practitioners would change the politics of Europe in general and the Church in particular.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

I mean, this sounds like a campaign I might go for. Mages have "always been a thing", but now there's a bunch of very smart people in places like Bologna who are developing a theory of magic (including a proto-scientific revolution) in 1180 based on the works of Bonisagus, Michael Psellos, Hildegard of Bingen et al. How are they going to handle this power?

Of course, one of the key reasons that the Order of Hermes is the way it is is because the Gifted have a -3 to reaction rolls. If that's a factor, it'll indicate one route, while court wizards are more likely if the Gift isn't an automatic hate stick.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

A three order game in the Ars Magica setting might be interesting. The Order of Hermes you know.

The Order of Saint Nicolas is a group of clergy folk, who are Mages and Hedge Wizards, trying to turn the Order of Hermes into a Christian Monastic Order. They might settle for partnership and making sure the Church both has its own Mages and means to tap the resources of the Order of Hermes.

The third Order is the Order of Augustus. They are also learned mages, who, if less powerful and flexible than Hermetic Mages, are powerful in several areas. Whereas the Order of Hermes wants to be left alone and the Order of Saint Nicholas wants to serve the church and the people of Christendom, the Order of Augustus wants to rule the world. Openly would be preferred, but power however you get it.

The back and forth infighting could be gaming.

Note: You might want the add in the Norse/Baltic mages et al, the people who the Hermetics call the Order of Wotan. Although the political structure that crowd uses is wildly different.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Wizards as superheroes seems like a fun thing. Around 1940 you could run into Doctor Occult, Doctor Fate, the Spector, Zatara, Merlin (no relation), Johnny Thunder and his Thunderbolt, Phantasmo, Fantoma, Green Lama, Green Lantern, the Black Widow, and Starlight the Superwizard! That's a very incomplete list.

Picture building Supers with the Super Normal rules but add in Ritual Aptitude and Ritual Adept and also IQ+2 in Ritual Magic. Two fisted Mages in a Hard Boiled setting.

Reactions?

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Seems related to this thread, so you might want to have a look.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

A very useful heads up Prince Charon.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

The Elizabethans thought they were on the verge of a fuller understanding of magic. This attitude was maintained until the 1670s. The Restoration wanted to discredit magic. Although the Royal Society was founded by a practicing ritual magician it helped to associate "magic" with fanaticism and superstition, and to label "magic" a lower class thing.

Why not place a magical revolution in the time period when people were looking for one?

Both the 1590s and the 1640s are great periods to just add in magic. Assuming the breakthrough to a fuller understanding of magic takes place in England there would be a storm of spies coming to steal the secrets.

Read Phil Masters' Thaumutology:Age of Gold. The "rediscovery" of magic can be made to be something that comes from improved classical studies. Many people, including John Dee, thought and improved understanding of classical antiquity would lead to a return of magic.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

This works pretty damn well. Phil Masters ran a excellent GURPS campaign using the Mage: the Sorcerers' Crusade secret history background. The log is here. Sadly, it ended because one of the players' multiple sclerosis got too bad.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Poul Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest would also make a good sourcebook.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

The Lord Darcy series by Randall Garrett are a world where Richard the Lionhearted lived and magic was worked out and is common. That might have some inspiration also. Set in the 1960s but with magic as the main technology.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

The Healed Lands

This idea rifts off of the ending of the film Wizards by Ralph Bakshi. The child Blackwolf had by the elf woman has grown to maturity. Like his father and uncle (Avatar) he is a wizard. He's unlike his father in NOT being evil. He's unlike his father and uncle in rejecting the notion that science/technology and Magic/nature need to be in conflict.

To the land of Scortch Duairc (Blackwolf's son) brings the cults of several gods. The two most important are Flora who heals the land and renews it's fertility and Bona Conceptio who allows the mutants to have children with reduced birth defects, and fewer each generation.

Finding the remnants of Blackwolf's technology, Duairc works to rebuild the city his father ruled. But he isn't interested in war or conquest. Duairc wants to build a city that supports his people without burdening and polluting the land.

As the mutants have healthier children (those that follow Bona Conceptio's rituals of faith conceive children who didn't get their parents bad genetic traits) and the land heals further with each festival of Flora, the new prosperity of Scortch come to the attention of Weehawk. Weehawk's memories of Blackwolf's wars are bitter and his emotional wounds still raw. He fears the changes in Blackwolf's old city now renamed Maidan (morning).

More later...

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

I don't have much interest in straight fantasy, these days (been there, done that...) but I might play in this one.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

I'm always interested in doing things in Ralph Bakshi's Wizards setting...