So I gave more thought to the background for Sunken Realms and here's what I've come up with: There's an elemental cycle, and currently the cycle is in the Water Age. Each race is associated with a certain element. Currently I'm thinking of mixing the classical western elements with the eastern ones (Wu Xing), so the elements and their (tentative) pairings are Water (Halflings), Fire (Orcs), Wood (Elves), Earth (Dwarves), Metal (Humans) and Air (Gnomes). Right now the last two pairings are something I will have to think about, because I'm not sure if they fit. And I'm also not sure what associations to give to each element. That will be for another time.
The cycle suggests some interesting potential plot ideas and or colour for the world. For example, cults of the next element in the cycle could spring up, trying to hasten its arrival... or maybe the previous element hasn't quite been stamped out yet.
I also idly mused that the magic system would be different for each element. But this seems really ambitious for a thirty days, and also gets away from core D&D as well. I still haven't decided how close I want to stick to making it a straight up D&D game, but in that case I would be required to think of the interaction with the regular fire and forget system. Certainly something to keep in mind.
I'm also not sure where to stick certain effects. For example, where should lightning go in this system? How do bards and clerics fit in?
Other idle ideas that came to me in brainstorm mode:
- There is a massive permanent storm, that slowly travels about the world. Inspired by Jupiter's Great Red Spot.
- There is a God of the Storms, and his twin sister is the Goddess of gentle rainfall.
- There was an advanced civilization that was destroyed at the end of the last age and its great cities have been swallowed by the seas, the majority of its wonders lost. Clearly an Atlantis analogue, and a handy source of dungeons and lost artifacts.
- I need to add in rules for naval travel, and research different ocean phenomena.
- There are a lot more variety of elementals that need to be written up.
- Aquatic races should be more common. Mermaids, Sahaugin, etc.
- Still need to find a place for dragons...
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
Setting Challenge, Day 2
So Sunken Realms was pretty much the most vanilla of my ideas - it was pretty much plain-Jane Dungeons and Dragons with boats. Now's the time to flesh it out some what.
So the elevator pitch was basically: Water world ruled by a mighty Spanish halfling empire.
Why a water world? The exact idea is lost to the mists of time; as far as I can remember it just seemed like a cool idea at the time. If I had to guess, it's from the monoclimate school of design (Black Sun, etc). So I'm going to pull inspiration from Water-world, the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Pirates of Black Water, Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, etc. I'm imagining a world dotted with islands, with weird magic and swashbuckling action.
Well what's with the mighty Spanish halfling empire? I like Halflings. Especially D&D 3rd Edition's rendition of them. Not exactly sure why that is and why that appeal doesn't move over to the other small race in the game, gnomes. At the present I'm planning with sticking with the default races so gnomes are still in, but that may change by the end. But the other thing is just the unlikeliness of the small guys being out on top.
I suspect the Spanish thing is because I was taking Spanish courses at the time. I'm not sure how blatant this will be. I think it adds a nice exoticism but avoids the "tonnes of z's and apostrophes" syndrome that can happen in a lot of fantasy. Of course if it goes too far the other way, it pulls you out of the world and reminds you of the artifice. So I think this will have to be on a case by case basis.
So the next question that comes to mind: how did the halflings become dominant in a world where pretty much every race is bigger than they are? What I've come up with is that they have access to potent magics, which give them an edge in the nautical environment. Currently I'm thinking that it's an elemental magic system, and the halflings are masters of Water magic. The world is currently in a Water Age - hence the reason the world is covered in water. So the magic system will need a lot of re-thinking - I need to decide if I'm going to add a new magic system beside the existing one, replace it completely.
So the elevator pitch was basically: Water world ruled by a mighty Spanish halfling empire.
Why a water world? The exact idea is lost to the mists of time; as far as I can remember it just seemed like a cool idea at the time. If I had to guess, it's from the monoclimate school of design (Black Sun, etc). So I'm going to pull inspiration from Water-world, the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Pirates of Black Water, Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, etc. I'm imagining a world dotted with islands, with weird magic and swashbuckling action.
Well what's with the mighty Spanish halfling empire? I like Halflings. Especially D&D 3rd Edition's rendition of them. Not exactly sure why that is and why that appeal doesn't move over to the other small race in the game, gnomes. At the present I'm planning with sticking with the default races so gnomes are still in, but that may change by the end. But the other thing is just the unlikeliness of the small guys being out on top.
I suspect the Spanish thing is because I was taking Spanish courses at the time. I'm not sure how blatant this will be. I think it adds a nice exoticism but avoids the "tonnes of z's and apostrophes" syndrome that can happen in a lot of fantasy. Of course if it goes too far the other way, it pulls you out of the world and reminds you of the artifice. So I think this will have to be on a case by case basis.
So the next question that comes to mind: how did the halflings become dominant in a world where pretty much every race is bigger than they are? What I've come up with is that they have access to potent magics, which give them an edge in the nautical environment. Currently I'm thinking that it's an elemental magic system, and the halflings are masters of Water magic. The world is currently in a Water Age - hence the reason the world is covered in water. So the magic system will need a lot of re-thinking - I need to decide if I'm going to add a new magic system beside the existing one, replace it completely.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Campaign Setting Challenge
So years ago, Wizards of the Coast launched a Dungeons & Dragons setting search. Basically, they put out a call to their fandom for original campaign settings. You didn't have to be a professional designer - if the panel of judges at Wizards decided that you had a pretty cool idea, you could eventually see your work in print. Eventually, Eberron was the proposal that won. Which is fine, because Eberron is pretty cool.
Anyway, like just about everybody who knew about the contest back then, I had a bunch of ideas. I never submitted any of them, the ideas being pretty crude and unrefined, but I did give it some thought. Talking with some friends of mine, reminiscing about this contest. Eventually, we came up with a challenge similar to Script Frenzy or NaNoWriMo. Write 50 pages of RPG material, all in one month.
So my contribution will be to dust off one of my old campaign setting ideas and see if I've learned anything about design in the last decade. For this I've chosen the most straightforward of my settings, Sunken Realms. I plan on putting my thoughts and ideas as a sort of "commentary track" as I work on this. The pace seems like it will be much easier to maintain than the other competitions of this sort that I've done in the past (I only need to do less than 2 pages a day to hit my target) so this should be completely doable.
It might seem a little like cheating to dust off an old idea for this, but:
1) I'm going to be writing everything from scratch, and
2) What I *do* have is pretty thin.
Sunken Realms can pretty much be described as a water world run by expansionist spanish halflings. See, I *said* it was pretty thin. Hopefully over the next month we can flesh this out so that it's at least somewhat interesting.
Anyway, like just about everybody who knew about the contest back then, I had a bunch of ideas. I never submitted any of them, the ideas being pretty crude and unrefined, but I did give it some thought. Talking with some friends of mine, reminiscing about this contest. Eventually, we came up with a challenge similar to Script Frenzy or NaNoWriMo. Write 50 pages of RPG material, all in one month.
So my contribution will be to dust off one of my old campaign setting ideas and see if I've learned anything about design in the last decade. For this I've chosen the most straightforward of my settings, Sunken Realms. I plan on putting my thoughts and ideas as a sort of "commentary track" as I work on this. The pace seems like it will be much easier to maintain than the other competitions of this sort that I've done in the past (I only need to do less than 2 pages a day to hit my target) so this should be completely doable.
It might seem a little like cheating to dust off an old idea for this, but:
1) I'm going to be writing everything from scratch, and
2) What I *do* have is pretty thin.
Sunken Realms can pretty much be described as a water world run by expansionist spanish halflings. See, I *said* it was pretty thin. Hopefully over the next month we can flesh this out so that it's at least somewhat interesting.
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