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Old 11-16-2022, 09:21 PM   #161
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Default Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.

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Having the Faeries realize that humanity is being controlled by a conspiracy of wizards and sorcerers could work too. Especially if the faeries decide this time they're the heroes and stage a rescue.
That could make an interesting setting by itself, although the version drifting through my head at the moment is more superhero-y.
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Old 11-17-2022, 01:29 AM   #162
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New Neighbors
Sounds like Harry Turtledove's Opening of the World trilogy. Two cultures separated by an impassible mountain range until a glacier melts back.
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Old 11-21-2022, 08:13 AM   #163
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The Five Cornered Square

Who dressed that little boy in pink?

Back in the day pink was the boys color. Little girls wore blue, like Alice and Dorothy.

That's weird.

Not at all. It came from soldiers giving their sons their old coats. Red fades to pink. Pink was a mark of young manhood.

The past is a foreign country.


The park was built in 1780 and the new bypass went through in 2054. What no one knew when they built the park was that it was built in a soft place. The nature of this soft place was set when the Masonic Lodge set up the sun dial at the center of the park.

Individuals walking around the sundial sunwise/clockwise can move forward one year per completed trip around the sundial. Those going counterclockwise can go back in time at the same rate. Only full years can be traveled and you always are in the park. (A public space).

Only those with Magery-0 or an equivalent or better advantage can do this. But they can take people with them. It only works in plain sight of the sundial.

As written this is set in London. But any city were a city park might last 274 years could work. The idea is to link as many interesting places and times together as you can.
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Old 11-24-2022, 10:55 AM   #164
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Mythic History

You're telling me that you've found an inscription that's twenty-eight centuries old for "New Troy Town"!

Calm down, and yes.

Not only is that pushing it for Homer poems being composed, Virgil wouldn't be born for centuries. It would make Geoffrey's chronology possible!

Nothing would make the History of the Kings of Britain possible. But we have a wild mystery here.

Maybe something real inspired Geoffrey's fantasies.


A reality quake has hit Britain Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britannia is now Great Britain's past. With all of the supernatural machinery of Arthurian legend in tow. Suddenly Wiccans have access to actual ancient lore. Folk customs have magical effects. And still more madness.

Basically, the setting blends T.H.White's Once and Future King with Doctor Who: The Daemons. If the PCs are running away from dragons one moment and angry old ladies protesting hedgerow clearance the next, you've got the right tone.

Note: The British Isles are now High Mana.

"Five rounds rapid, the chap with the wings."
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Old 11-27-2022, 11:45 AM   #165
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The Otherkin

Why move here?

Because we can't live in the forests anymore. There aren't enough deer to live on nor can the women gather enough from the woods.

But live in town with the big folk?

Town folk don't believe in faeries. They'll never find us here.


Basically, this setting takes the long discredited notion that the faeries were a type of European pygmy and runs with it. The faeries moved into the larger cities in the 17th and 18th centuries. The faeries pretty much started with low skill jobs but over the decades became mainly skilled tradesfolk. Tailors, coblers, sutlers, bookbinders, smiths, bakers, etc. any job where skills mattered more than background.

Many of the faeries are part of the demimonde. As with their more respectable brethren, they gravitate to skilled trades. Pickpockets not muggers, burglars not highwaymen, con artists and forgers rather than thugs.

Both the honest and less honest faeries still tend to have "gifts." ESP (the sight), precognition, and Dream Omens are fairly common. Path/Book Magic is rarer than it used to be, but far more common than among humans. Luck advantages are very common as is the ability to inflict bad luck for short periods.

The faeries in this setting tend to be four inches shorter than humans of the same sex and strength. Although almost always pale skinned, the faeries almost always have black hair and eyes. The faeries tend to be slender. The faeries have plus one to both Dexterity and Constitution. The faeries also have plus three to perception and the Sensitive advantage.

As written these faeries are meant to be part of a low magic or hidden magic steampunk setting.
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Old 11-30-2022, 01:45 PM   #166
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Destroying all the Ladies...

When we marched down to Fernario, /
when we marched down to Fernario, /
the Captain fell in love with a maiden like a dove/ They called her by name pretty Peggy -O

What will your mother think pretty Peggy-O/
What will your mother think pretty Peggy-O/
What will your mother think when she hears the guineas clink/
The soliders all marching before you-O

In a carriage you will ride pretty Peggy-O/
In a carriage you will ride pretty Peggy-O/
In a carriage you will ride with your true love at your side/
As fair as any maiden in the area-O

Come skipping down the stairs pretty Peggy-O/
Come skipping down the stairs pretty Peggy-O/
Come skipping down the stairs combing back your yellow hair/
And say goodbye to Sweet William-O

Sweet William is dead pretty Peggy-O/
Sweet William is dead pretty Peggy-O/
Sweet William is dead and he died for a maid/
As fair as any maiden in the area-O

If ever I return pretty Peggy-O/
If ever I return pretty Peggy-O/
If ever I return, all your cities I will burn/
Destroying all the ladies in the area-O!


Basically, a faerie tale version of the old West. The song, (look up the Joan Baez version on YouTube, the name is Fernario) transposes the events of The Maid of Fyvie-O from medieval Scotland to the Old West. I suggest using the setting of the Old West for a fantasy campaign. Retain the Tech Level of five, keep swords (they did use them in the Old West) add six-shooters. Either use the supernatural creatures of Western folklore and Native American myth, or simply have the Native Americans be elves. (If you do the latter give them the wildness of Elfquest elves and the dignified grandeur of Tolkien's elves).

Blend Western plots with high fantasy plots and the action and intrigue of the Anglo-Scots border wars. (In many ways the Old West was the Anglo-Scots borders transposed to North America).

I'd suggest either normal or high Mana. Just have the railroads beginning to come into the area.
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Old 12-03-2022, 09:57 AM   #167
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Strange Seas

The enchantress was a granddaughter of Dione herself, her curse placed us in a two thousand year slumber. Dione, deciding her granddaughter was cruel, sought the aide of Poseidon, Proteus, Amphitrite, and Medea, to transform us to hide and protect us.

That's why we're underwater and most of us are merfolk?

Yes my Lord.

Can the gods undo this?

If we could speak to them I am sure they might. But the gods seem to be missing.


The western city fell into an enchanted slumber just as the news came of Troy's fall. Now they are awake again and it seems that Athens and Rome have come and gone. Plus the seas are stranger than in ancient days.

Basically, the PCs are heroes sent out of their city to explore the mysterious realms of the seas and rediscover the lands they city-folk came from.

The PCs look like ordinary humans (most of the city-folk are merfolk now) and can survive equally well on land or sea. They are totally ignorant of the world of 800AD. And the seas are as mysterious to them as to surface folk.
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Old 12-05-2022, 03:42 PM   #168
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We Hidden Ones

Once these were our lands, now we hide in shadows and avoid the sound of bells.

Basically, this takes the discredited theory that the faeries were a pygmy people living in Europe from ancient times and either dying out or marrying in to the dominant groups in their areas at different times between the end of the middle ages and the early 18th century. The fans of Margret Murrey's Witchcult in Western Europe still support this theory.

Basically, assume a TL2 people living in Britain and Ireland in the late 1400s. The adults of this group are about a foot shorter than ordinary humans of the same ST. This can vary. Being able to pass for an ordinary human should be a Perk. Being instantly spotable as one of the "Little People" is an Unnatural Feature .

The faeries use whatever magic system your fantasy England uses. They use it far more often than ordinary humans, but they are more primal/primitive in how they use magic. The Faeries always have special talents with illusion and invisibility.

As faeries the PCs are trying to survive both as individuals and a tribe. They make sure to avoid the officials of both Church and State.
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Old 12-14-2022, 12:08 PM   #169
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The Renewed Well

Sally is a cousin of ours from America, a great great Uncle, or something like that, married a Welsh Woman and moved to America. Any way, Sally's father works at the US embassy in London and her mother is at Cambridge for something involving science. I think someone mentioned British Rocket or something like that.

Anyway, Sally is always wanting to explore the estate like it was something exotic. Maybe it is to her as an American girl from Berkeley in California.

To get back to my story, she was exploring that totally boring Roman villa ruin down by the river bank. She was looking at the ceremonial room, or that's what the archeologist called it. She said she heard a voice from the well. So she went and pulled up the stone that blocked the well.

Even for someone as stubborn as Sally Kelly that took some doing. Sally, who's better at Latin than you'd think an American girl would be, talked with something from the well. I didn't get all the details, our school focuses on Greek and Modern Languages, middle class boys take Latin, and I will be a Baronet.

Anyway, Sally says the magic is coming back and the old gods with it.

It could make the summer interesting.


Basically, Sally Kelly has opened a portal to other worlds in early 1960s Britain. Her distant, and somewhat distainful, cousin Neville Mandeville, thinks it may be mildly amusing. Already his family estate in the Cotswolds has Normal Mana, Sally and Neville have gained Magery-5 but are only slowly becoming aware of changes in themselves, which both of them being twelve, they assume have other causes. Everyone else living on the estate has gained Magery-2. The entirety of the Cotswolds is now Low Mana, but rising. The area of Mana is spreading. Every time an area of Mana is enveloped (this world was No Mana with areas of Very Low Mana scattered around the landscape at points where the locals localized legends, haunted houses, wishing wells, etc.) that area of Mana becomes a new source of Mana leaking into the world. This slowly but surely speeds the process up.

Note: The nymph of the well likes Sally. She might want to turn Sally into a nymph as well. The Nymph thinks Neville is dull but likely to be handsome later. When he's old enough, she might snatch him. Until then she's friendly with the kids and wants to teach them magic.

Further Note: As the nod to British Rocket suggests, this world could have certain features of British popular culture be real. Are Sapphire and Steel ready for Sally and Neville?
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Old 12-16-2022, 12:49 PM   #170
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Theomachy

This movement among the mortals.

You mean the Romantics Allfather?

Yes Thurd.

It has better possiblities for us. The Theoi of Olympus gained much from being symbols of the Enlightenment. But the wars with France have dimmed their luster.

And you think we can become glorious again?

Having learned from your blood brother Loki, I made sure that a book of ancient poems about the Aesir will be discovered. Soon the Northern folk will have their own glorious Myths again.

Granddaughter you do me proud.


Basically, four Pantheons of deities are struggling for influence and glory in Europe. The Theoi of Greece, the Aesir of the Nordic lands, the Tuatha Danann of Ireland, and the Netjer of Egypt. Each is trying to hold a place in the minds and cultures of Europe as a path back to being worshipped and powerful.

More later.
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