I've Been Thinking
Ok: now that I know I'll be staying through the summer, I kind of want to run a game. Before I got on the D&D train this spring, I'd been cooking up a somewhat less (or more?) traditional fantasy world. Patrick and Sam Finer should remember the one-shot I ran two NonCons ago - were you the only Vassar students in that game? It was a set-up and test run for the magic engine I was hoping to use.
I don't know whether the summer is already choked with campaigns, though. Sonia is planning one, and so is Anthony, if I recall correctly. Is there anything else coming together for the summer? If not, I might want to know who'd be interested in this game. My motivation, back when I started designing this in the summer after freshman year, was to get back to the dried-up fantasy tropes that had been done to death by D&D and a host of poorly written novels. Basically, my complaint was that, hey, they might have been done badly a thousand times, but by gum that just means it's time to do them right!. I wanted to reach not for the D&D stock features, not even for the stock Tolkien cast list, but for the folklore behind it. So: goblins and elves are practically synonymous, dragons are something the approaching horde might have hired to sack your city but you've never really seen, and - most importantly - the world is a big, scary place about which you know practically nothing besides what's in your prayerbook, and it's all out to get you.
"Oh shit, is that a dragon?"
The setting isn't much like the Bronze Age/magic-heavy setting that I tested in the one-shot. This story takes place in the same world, but at least a thousand years later and on another continent. The central country is on a land mass that runs parallel to a larger continent - imagine Europe folded back around Asia - and stretches latitudinally from a southern tip just temperate enough to catch ice in the winter to a northern tip that touches the tropics. Most of this long, skinny land mass is controlled by a religious empire devoted to a Sky King, Gnaeus, who led his worshipers here centuries ago and then told them that he'd return "when all mankind is united in My worship, and has renounced the foul works of magic and subdued those who practice that blasphemous art". He taught a few ritual secrets to the clergy, to be used only in the service of defeating a larger source of magic. The clergy thus has a militant wing devoted to rounding up magic users and any creatures that use magic.
There are any number of sentient races, all of whom seem to have some form of magic use. Many humans and other species spontaneously manifest magical ability; these are the foremost targets of Gnaeus' hunting parties. Others use ritual magic, as the clergy do, which is less of a threat but still blasphemous. Just about everything, with the possible exception of the Dwarves in the chilly southlands, falls into the "bump in the night" category. The great western continent, which is mostly plains and a bit of forest before the mountain ranges on the far side, is on the far side of a shallow sea, but the other human kingdoms are on the far side and barely accessible through land or sea trade routes. The oceans around you are shot through with ship-crushing serpents and who-knows-what else that lurks in their black bellies.
If we run a game this summer, the player characters would be witchhunters in the service of the great Patriarch. I'd send you on a few local missions, and over time, I have an arc in mind that the plot might follow. I'm also open to having one or two characters who aren't on the Inquisition boat, but they'd have to arrive many weeks in - I have a specific adventure in mind - and the power dynamic would be kind of weird. One option is a guide tolerated out of necessity, but the other - a little more interesting - is a prisoner that the team might escort at one point. Either character could be enjoyable, but neither will necessarily even be in the campaign. I considered using the Warhammer Fantasy system, since it's a similar universe, but I think that I may prefer the fluidity available in the One Roll Engine so that I can build my own magic system (Sam and Patrick should remember the Wild Magic version, but there will also be Ritual Magic for the players). If we ran Warhams, I'd take four players; if we ran ORE, I'd take five. Interested parties can read the disgustingly authoritarian, patriarchal religious documents I wrote last year. Most of the chapters posted there will be relevant to the game in one way or another, whether for character and setting background or for tiny clues to the world's actual history, of which this second document is one attempted recounting. Of course, remember that you're reading English versions of a hypothetical translation from a hypothetical root language. This is my excuse for inconsistencies and incoherencies.
Do you think there's time or interest for this summer?
I don't know whether the summer is already choked with campaigns, though. Sonia is planning one, and so is Anthony, if I recall correctly. Is there anything else coming together for the summer? If not, I might want to know who'd be interested in this game. My motivation, back when I started designing this in the summer after freshman year, was to get back to the dried-up fantasy tropes that had been done to death by D&D and a host of poorly written novels. Basically, my complaint was that, hey, they might have been done badly a thousand times, but by gum that just means it's time to do them right!. I wanted to reach not for the D&D stock features, not even for the stock Tolkien cast list, but for the folklore behind it. So: goblins and elves are practically synonymous, dragons are something the approaching horde might have hired to sack your city but you've never really seen, and - most importantly - the world is a big, scary place about which you know practically nothing besides what's in your prayerbook, and it's all out to get you.
"Oh shit, is that a dragon?"
The setting isn't much like the Bronze Age/magic-heavy setting that I tested in the one-shot. This story takes place in the same world, but at least a thousand years later and on another continent. The central country is on a land mass that runs parallel to a larger continent - imagine Europe folded back around Asia - and stretches latitudinally from a southern tip just temperate enough to catch ice in the winter to a northern tip that touches the tropics. Most of this long, skinny land mass is controlled by a religious empire devoted to a Sky King, Gnaeus, who led his worshipers here centuries ago and then told them that he'd return "when all mankind is united in My worship, and has renounced the foul works of magic and subdued those who practice that blasphemous art". He taught a few ritual secrets to the clergy, to be used only in the service of defeating a larger source of magic. The clergy thus has a militant wing devoted to rounding up magic users and any creatures that use magic.
There are any number of sentient races, all of whom seem to have some form of magic use. Many humans and other species spontaneously manifest magical ability; these are the foremost targets of Gnaeus' hunting parties. Others use ritual magic, as the clergy do, which is less of a threat but still blasphemous. Just about everything, with the possible exception of the Dwarves in the chilly southlands, falls into the "bump in the night" category. The great western continent, which is mostly plains and a bit of forest before the mountain ranges on the far side, is on the far side of a shallow sea, but the other human kingdoms are on the far side and barely accessible through land or sea trade routes. The oceans around you are shot through with ship-crushing serpents and who-knows-what else that lurks in their black bellies.
If we run a game this summer, the player characters would be witchhunters in the service of the great Patriarch. I'd send you on a few local missions, and over time, I have an arc in mind that the plot might follow. I'm also open to having one or two characters who aren't on the Inquisition boat, but they'd have to arrive many weeks in - I have a specific adventure in mind - and the power dynamic would be kind of weird. One option is a guide tolerated out of necessity, but the other - a little more interesting - is a prisoner that the team might escort at one point. Either character could be enjoyable, but neither will necessarily even be in the campaign. I considered using the Warhammer Fantasy system, since it's a similar universe, but I think that I may prefer the fluidity available in the One Roll Engine so that I can build my own magic system (Sam and Patrick should remember the Wild Magic version, but there will also be Ritual Magic for the players). If we ran Warhams, I'd take four players; if we ran ORE, I'd take five. Interested parties can read the disgustingly authoritarian, patriarchal religious documents I wrote last year. Most of the chapters posted there will be relevant to the game in one way or another, whether for character and setting background or for tiny clues to the world's actual history, of which this second document is one attempted recounting. Of course, remember that you're reading English versions of a hypothetical translation from a hypothetical root language. This is my excuse for inconsistencies and incoherencies.
Do you think there's time or interest for this summer?