A few sketchy ideas for settings/games
PLAGUE BEARER
Throughout the worlds of the galaxy, life thrives in billions of forms, each more beautiful and novel than the last. Though no two species are the same, all living things are united by one quality: life is eternal. Whether corporeally or spiritually immortal, no being will cease to exist before the end of the universe itself.
Or so it was, until the ape-creatures of the planet Earth climbed out of their world's gravity well and met their neighbors. Greeted first with friendship, these beings are now shunned and feared by the entire universe: for everywhere they go, they carry a sickness, a plague that is named "Death."
TABULA RASA
This game starts with every player creating a species of intelligent life, according to certain rules. Through random selection, one species is chosen; players then create members of this race to play, as in most RPGs. The player who created the chosen species starts the game as the GM; the game begins in an era during which the player race has invented some form of space travel.
During gameplay, the player characters explore the universe. In the course of their travels, they find signs of other intelligent life: the other races which were created by the players. They also discover that it is, apparently without exception, extinct. Whenever the characters are exploring a planet that once held an intelligent species, the GM job shifts to the person who made it up.
The game should play out kind of like a heavily obfuscated, futuristic version of Clue. There might be systems in place to allow for the generation of extinction events, without any of the players knowing what happened beforehand. Alternately, one or more possible methods of extinction could be devised by each player during the species-generation phase. While it might be desirable to stipulate that every extinction had the same or similar cause -- providing the player characters motivation to investigate it -- it might not be necessary. The game could be played as a "Who Killed the Universe?" murder mystery, or it could just be an excuse for archaeology-themed adventures.
If the space-exploration theme isn't to your liking, you could easily devise a variant which takes place on a single world, with races or cultures that for some reason have never come into strong contact with each other (rose and fell in different historical eras, were separated by impassable natural barriers, &c).
COURT OF FLOWERS/COURT OF GLASS
Fairies are magical, quasi-allegorical beings who reside in a place similar to, but apart from, the mundane world. Some wish humans well, others wish them ill, but they are all captivated by the lives and passions of fleshly beings, whose souls are imprisoned in gross matter. The Fair Folk themselves are almost purely ethereal; in fact, their minds are incapable of perceiving material objects in the same way that corporeal beings do. To a fairy, a thing can only be important if it possesses an anima, the spark of divine fire which differentiates things which are alive from things which are merely... things. They can perceive inanimate objects, but all such things look the same to them.
If a human closes his eyes, he becomes invisible to fairies, because they can no longer see his soul (though some may still be able to smell the life on his breath).
All fairies have wings, which reflect the nature of their souls. The Fairy Queen, Titania, has the glowing wings of a luna moth.
Gremlins are a new kind of fairy creature, which rose with the advent of modern technology. Their dealings seem mysterious and sinister to fairies, since they swathe themselves in unliving matter which conceals their animas. Like their winged brethren, they show great interest in humanity, but seem drawn to people which are off-putting to the Fair Folk: scientists, financiers, clockmakers, computer programmers. The parts of the real world they most visit are modern cities, whose hearts pulse and hum with an energy fairies do not understand, and which is amplified a hundredfold in the realm they call home, a place of steel, glass, and glowing phosphors.
Gremlins invariably dress in the fashion of modern humans. They always wear masks which hide their eyes, and give names which sound false to all who hear them.
Some believe that gremlins are not a new kind of creature, but rather fairies who have changed in some way, choosing to hide their wings and souls. Few fail to note that their advent coincided with the disappearance of Oberon, the King of Fairies.
Throughout the worlds of the galaxy, life thrives in billions of forms, each more beautiful and novel than the last. Though no two species are the same, all living things are united by one quality: life is eternal. Whether corporeally or spiritually immortal, no being will cease to exist before the end of the universe itself.
Or so it was, until the ape-creatures of the planet Earth climbed out of their world's gravity well and met their neighbors. Greeted first with friendship, these beings are now shunned and feared by the entire universe: for everywhere they go, they carry a sickness, a plague that is named "Death."
TABULA RASA
This game starts with every player creating a species of intelligent life, according to certain rules. Through random selection, one species is chosen; players then create members of this race to play, as in most RPGs. The player who created the chosen species starts the game as the GM; the game begins in an era during which the player race has invented some form of space travel.
During gameplay, the player characters explore the universe. In the course of their travels, they find signs of other intelligent life: the other races which were created by the players. They also discover that it is, apparently without exception, extinct. Whenever the characters are exploring a planet that once held an intelligent species, the GM job shifts to the person who made it up.
The game should play out kind of like a heavily obfuscated, futuristic version of Clue. There might be systems in place to allow for the generation of extinction events, without any of the players knowing what happened beforehand. Alternately, one or more possible methods of extinction could be devised by each player during the species-generation phase. While it might be desirable to stipulate that every extinction had the same or similar cause -- providing the player characters motivation to investigate it -- it might not be necessary. The game could be played as a "Who Killed the Universe?" murder mystery, or it could just be an excuse for archaeology-themed adventures.
If the space-exploration theme isn't to your liking, you could easily devise a variant which takes place on a single world, with races or cultures that for some reason have never come into strong contact with each other (rose and fell in different historical eras, were separated by impassable natural barriers, &c).
COURT OF FLOWERS/COURT OF GLASS
Fairies are magical, quasi-allegorical beings who reside in a place similar to, but apart from, the mundane world. Some wish humans well, others wish them ill, but they are all captivated by the lives and passions of fleshly beings, whose souls are imprisoned in gross matter. The Fair Folk themselves are almost purely ethereal; in fact, their minds are incapable of perceiving material objects in the same way that corporeal beings do. To a fairy, a thing can only be important if it possesses an anima, the spark of divine fire which differentiates things which are alive from things which are merely... things. They can perceive inanimate objects, but all such things look the same to them.
If a human closes his eyes, he becomes invisible to fairies, because they can no longer see his soul (though some may still be able to smell the life on his breath).
All fairies have wings, which reflect the nature of their souls. The Fairy Queen, Titania, has the glowing wings of a luna moth.
Gremlins are a new kind of fairy creature, which rose with the advent of modern technology. Their dealings seem mysterious and sinister to fairies, since they swathe themselves in unliving matter which conceals their animas. Like their winged brethren, they show great interest in humanity, but seem drawn to people which are off-putting to the Fair Folk: scientists, financiers, clockmakers, computer programmers. The parts of the real world they most visit are modern cities, whose hearts pulse and hum with an energy fairies do not understand, and which is amplified a hundredfold in the realm they call home, a place of steel, glass, and glowing phosphors.
Gremlins invariably dress in the fashion of modern humans. They always wear masks which hide their eyes, and give names which sound false to all who hear them.
Some believe that gremlins are not a new kind of creature, but rather fairies who have changed in some way, choosing to hide their wings and souls. Few fail to note that their advent coincided with the disappearance of Oberon, the King of Fairies.