Re: TL2 Fantasy Tips
 

Ah, yes - I was assuming that the theological definition would be at the bottom of the list these days. Still, if you want to get all Eric Von Daniken about it and wonder if The Tower of Babel might have been a beanstalk and involved in a civilisational collapse (perhaps due to its anchor being accidentally dropped into the Earth's gravity well?) that might be cool as well. But no, I was thinking of a more mundane collapse.

"know oh Prince, that between the time when the waves swallowed Atlantis and the rise of the Sons of Arius, there was a time undreamed of..."

Re: TL2 Fantasy Tips
 

If it interests you at all, I was thinking of having a collapse, but I am not sure when and why yet. Theological collapse was something I was experimenting with, as in "The gods are dead, and we killed them".

Re: TL2 Fantasy Tips
 

The closest Western civilization has ever come to an actual apocalypse was the Fall of Rome (which, to be fair, was pretty apocalyptic -- albeit in a slow motion sort of way), and that continues to inform our views of such an event.

It also works well as a model for a Fantasy Role-playing setting, which frequently includes the theme of "life amongst the ruins in a fallen world."

As for magic, one of the ideas I like best is the notion that ferrous metals disrupt magic, lead is impervious and magically inert, but copper and tin and other Bronze alloys, as well as organic materials, mostly don't interfere and can take enchantment.

However, because Bronze requires incredibly rare tin, and iron ore is everywhere and iron implements become readily available once people figure out how to work it, the slow adoption of iron destroys the magical underpinnings of the former glorious age. Once the ignorant barbarians learn to work iron, the magical empires face endless conflict they may be ill-equipped to handle.

Re: TL2 Fantasy Tips
 

That sounds sick! Are you running a campaign like like that right now, or have you just had those ideas floating around in your head? That's a lot more creative of lore than I have made, seeing as so far I just have the barebones basics about the clans around the area along with the gods and basic governmental system.

Re: TL2 Fantasy Tips
 

It's the set of ideas that underpinned my last campaign and guided my decision-making when I did my setting design.
It germinated from the old idea that iron was anathema to fairy, and then got another refinement when I read the explanation for that in R. Talsorian Games' Castle Falkenstein game.

What if, instead of just disrupting the complex patterns in the energy matrix that form the minds of fairies (and frequently causes them to fail catastrophically), ferrous metals disrupted all magics and grounded them out?

So, in my campaigns, iron and steel cannot be enchanted, and a mage chained and manacled in iron is pretty screwed.

By contrast, orichalcum is made from an isotope of particularly soft copper which, when alloyed with tin (or, in more modern metallurgy, aluminum) results in a hard metal with particularly useful magical properties that, in my last campaign, formed the basis for the techno-magical machinery that powered some of the secret societies that drove events.

Also, in keeping with that theme, powerful magic and strong electrical fields cancel out each other. The electrical fields generated by living things were the strongest that could exist in a magical setting.

Re: TL2 Fantasy Tips
 

Interesting. How did that end up playing out?

Re: TL2 Fantasy Tips
 

No thunderstorms or lightning bolts? No legends of Zeus or Thor or Indra?

Re: TL2 Fantasy Tips
 

Now that I think about it, not being able to have a Thor-type god (my personal favorite deity) would be a slight let-down in that world.

Re: TL2 Fantasy Tips
 

For your own world, I assumed the gods you named earlier are takes on Slavic gods, with your Peryn being Perun (the Eastern Bloc Thor/Zeus). Would that be right?

Re: TL2 Fantasy Tips
 

Yup! One second, let me pull up what I have written down for him.

Thought I should add that Peyrn and Volos are the higher gods, with Dazhbog, Zvaroz, and Mokosh being lesser gods (although technically the three are part of a family)