I'm a
gamer. This much must be obvious by now; and I've decided that I want
to run a new OSR campaign in the New Year; I've decided to use the
remaining days of 2013 to prepare the setting I will be using for my
fantasy-related projects next year. You should know that I am
terrible at putting
things down on paper. The 'Triplanetary' setting of Battlecruiser
Alamo mostly exists in my head, I fear...I keep meaning to take some
time to write it down, but there's always something more urgent.
Though I do intend to put some more bits and pieces down next year,
about which more later. With
a campaign, I rather need to do better – and perhaps give a little
window into my design process....
I know
this setting will follow the standard D&D tropes in at least
three ways – room for all the character classes, room for the
demihuman races – so there are Elves, Dwarves and so on – and of
course magic will be a factor. Monsters as well, though I intend to
use the traditional approach of 'proscriptive campaign creation'.
Click on the link; jrients describes it a lot better than I could,
and it's something I always follow when I am starting a new campaign.
Any role-playing book is a toolkit first and foremost, designed to
provide choices rather than constraints.
Whenever
I create a setting, the first thing I do is to work out what I want
to place in it. Here I'm just going for a list of bits and pieces,
settings I want to see. I'll work out where they fit in relation to
each other later. I do
know that for a very long time, I have seen in my head a book cover
where a longship of the Viking style is drifting between icebergs in
the frozen wastelands of the north, so there is going
to be an ice-swept sea. That's absolute and guaranteed. And
people to crew them, so these wastes will be inhabited, as will the
coasts.
I want
'barbarian wastelands'. Principally because I'm old-school enough to
like the idea of a 'Keep on the Borderlands'. No problem there;
wherever there have been borders throughout history, such things have
existed, from the Welsh Borders to the forts that dotted the Old West
of the United States; and I've often thought that is actually a good
model to adopt. Definitely this is a setting for high adventure, so
I'm going to establish a string of them along a 'border'.
I know
that this is enough of a fantasy setting for there to be some sort
of magic, so...let's have them controlled by wizards, and knit them
into a loose alliance, independent of the kingdoms they are
protecting. Conflict is good, and
the more I can throw in, the more seeds I have for adventures and
stories. They need to be defending a natural border, so mountains are
the obvious choice; these lands now have big natural borders on two
sides – icy ocean to the north, mountains to the – let's say –
west. (If you want to see what they look like, either watch Lord of
the Rings or go to New Zealand.)
Now,
what are they defending? I think there need to be two answers to this
question, because I want a variety of nation-states here, and it
would take some effort to set up the border forts and establish a
magical nobility to garrison them, so the original
answer was some sort of continental empire. It fell, perhaps in a
civil war, and now the lands are in a Dark Age, the greatest levels
of knowledge and magic gone, a few tattered remnants surviving. Some
sort of 'Magical Roman Empire', though perhaps looking a little more
Egyptian. I can keep the details vague for the moment.
As for
today, I know that I
want a Druidic Kingdom that uses Rangers as 'Knights', so that needs
to be a fairly major player. One of my favourite ever
setting elements in any fantasy RPG is Port Blacksand, so I need an
equivalent of that here as well – presumably once the 'Rome' of
this setting. A remnant empire sounds like it might be fun, so
that's going to be dropped in. I'd guess they are in conflict with
the border wizards. Pockets of barbarian settlement in the northern
coast as they slowly begin to settle in a Saxon/Viking style in the
north could be interesting places to visit.
I know
I want a 'Port Blacksand', and anyone who recognizes the name will
know why. A fallen Roman Empire needs a Rome, of course, and this is
a nice fit for it; I think the population levels elsewhere are low
enough that it's the largest surviving city, and a 'country' in its
own right. There will be large areas that aren't really governed at
all, as well – lots of space in between the countries. I want a bit
of a 'Wilderlands' feel – plagues and other curses have really hit
the population here hard.
As for
the demihumans? Well, I think they are largely integrated. Elves I
think have their own enclaves in the deep forests and high mountains
– being a magical race, I can see them being hit hardest by the
fall of the Magical Empire. Probably split into several different
factions, even sub-races. Dwarves would probably have their own
kingdom, isolationist and xenophobic, so let's put that in.
Halflings? Well, if you read any set of D&D rules, they're damn
ninjas! They live in human settlements as a seedy underclass. Gnomes
– see Elves, but probably worse. I need to think of something good
to do with them. The half-breeds? Yes. Which means Orcs, but then I
need bad-guys, and they are traditional. For the moment – they
exist. I will work out what to do with them later.
So,
the early stages of a structure have formed, albeit subject to
change. I think I've made a good start; more later.
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