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Another interesting idea I've seen from a friend (Corey Reid) and DM is the "list of cool things" approach to building a campaign. While this falls outside the aegis of the Dungeoncraft system of campaign building, it's also a good idea and worth mentioning, at least. So, I'll add it as a short "postscript" to Day 2, if that's alright.
The idea isn't too different from finding the "twist" concept (described in some detail on Day 2) except that it potentially leads to more radical departures from traditional fantasy than even "the twist" would lead you to expect. The process is pretty simple: get a blank piece of paper (or a blank word processor screen) and start typing up a list of things you think are cool. This can be as big or as small as you like, although you want the list to be manageable. My list is probably stretching the limits of what can reasonably be integrated into a single setting. These items can be as disparate as you want; the point is, you can combine them into a single setting. Having disparate elements actually helps to give your setting a unique feel, although it also means you have to give some serious thought to how to blend the elements together into something cohesive.
Without further ado, let me present my list, and then I'll discuss a few things about each of the items on it and what I plan to do with them. There will be some overlap between this and what we've already done in days 1 and 2 obviously. Many of them are ideas pirated from prior settings I've developed partially but never fully integrated.
List of Cool StuffTM for Dark·Heritages Campaign Setting
- Therapsids and thecodonts
- Mars-like terrain, complete with super-sized volcanoes, canyons, craters, etc.
- Floating Islands
- Firearms
- Some Japanese influence
- Steampunk
- "Lovecraftian" horror
- Warhammer-esque chaos daemons
- Undead
- "Bred" humans
- Giant mushroom forests
- Death cults
- Understated religions
- The Inquisition
- Dangerous and unreliable magic use
- Flying airships
Now, if the list itself is the bare bones setting elements (and you should recognize many of them from the last two installments) then I need to take a moment or two to flesh them out and see how they integrate into the campaign setting. Let me make another list, this time with room for some comments on each of the items.
- Therapsids and thecodonts: Ok, this one in particular probably needs some explanation. I wanted an alien set of animals here, at least for significant portions of the megafauna. Because I'm lazy and I'm not Phil Tippit or Stan Winston, or one of those guys famous for creature creations in Hollywood, I decided to raid a pretty alien set of prehistoric animals. Therapsids and thecodonts, neither one of which is truly a correct term to use anymore, are respectively the ancestors of mammals and dinosaurs. Both lived during the late Permian and early to mid Triassic, but by the end of the Triassic both had essentially been phased out in favor of their descendents: true mammals replaced therapsids, and dinosaurs and crocodiles replaced the thecodonts. However, the nice thing is, I can rob pictures of these creatures from various books and websites so I don't have to create them whole cloth, but they will look and feel very alien to anyone not familiar with them.
- Mars-like terrain: Covered in Day 2 already.
- Floating Islands: OK, this isn't really an original idea either, but for the better part of 15 years or so, I've been toying around with the idea of a world that's really made up of a bunch of islands suspended in space. I've never really completed development of any such world, but because it's a "cool thing" I've wanted to use for some time, now's the time to pull it off the shelf and dust it off. This doesn't necessarily work against my Mars-like world idea; the main action will take place on a huge floating continent, which will have the characteristics described above. However, as the PCs eventually make their way to other floating rocks, they may see terrain that's quite different. In fact, I'll add a secret at this stage (albeit a fairly predictable one, unfortunately): the world was once a normal world that was shattered in a magical cataclysm of divine origin. The fragments of the world are kept in a somewhat loosely bound configuration in spite of the laws of physics, also by magic. I can give some more thought at a later date to this secret; who keeps the world together and why. In fact, I think it'd be neat if this shattered world were actually a large earth-like moon of a gas giant or even a brown dwarf. That way a large, very colorful object hanging perpetually in the sky is introduced. This potentially has some problems I need to give some thought to -- a world like this won't have any rotation, so it won't have a regular night and day. However, I could do some calculations and have erratic nights as it rotates to the far side of the gas giant in its orbit, for lengthy solar eclipses that will be night-like. Anyway, clearly some more details need to be worked out, but I like the idea and always have. In fact, I once drew up a map -- more like a rough schematic without too many details, and I scanned it in -- here's how the idea looks.
- Firearms: Already covered in some detail, I'm talking about early-style flintlock types of things; they'll help add a swashbuckling feel to the setting.
- Some Japanese influences: I just tossed this in sort of as a whim; I don't want a too-European traditional fantasy feel, so why not some Japanese stuff here and there? Katanas, some Oriental demons like bakemono making appearances now and then, maybe borrow some social structures -- I haven't decided what exactly for sure, but this will also give the setting a slightly exotic flavor. Now, I don't want the campaign to feel Japanese; if I've done that, I've gone too far. I just want a few elements of spice to spruce it up.
- Steampunk: This is already somewhat covered, but coal-powered "clanks"; magically animated golem-like tools, will play a prominent role in the setting. I don't want it to feel Victorian, or Old West though -- I don't plan on adding trains or Dr. Moriarty or anything like that, but the sooty, gritty, Industrial feel is an important feature of the setting.
- "Lovecraftian" horror: For the rare gamer who isn't at least passingly familiar with the works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, his particular brand of horror is part of what spawned the "weird tale"; a genre of "cosmic horror" set in alien landscapes. Forces that are beyond human comprehension, and which tend to drive humans insane to know for that matter, are a strong feature. This will actually tie in well with the next point, which borrowed a fair amount from Lovecraft anyway...
- Warhammer-esque Chaos daemons: The Warhammer world has four chaos powers that lurk in the north as an everpresent threat to humanity and its allies. However, although it does come down in ravening hordes to threaten all existence from time to time, the true horror of the Warhammer daemons is in the subtle, insidious way in which it corrupts and makes insane.
- Undead: I didn't pick Undead as an antagonist hook for the campaign, but here and there I want a real dark, gritty and horrifying Undead presence. Not as a main thrust of the campaign itself, but certainly as something that is encountered from time to time. I've also thought about integrating Undead and the Daemons into a single threat somehow; that's not a completely novel idea to link the two, and it's only been in recently that demons and undead have really been considered two seperate entities in the first place.
- "Bred" humans: Already fairly well covered; the different racial choices are really like chihuahahs, collies or German shephards -- they are breeds of humans developed by their former overseers and masters to serve a particular purpose and function.
- Giant mushroom forests: I don't know how to integrate this one yet, but it's a cool idea. I'll make sure somewhere that a forest with giant mushrooms (instead of trees) features in the campaign.
- Death cults: I've given some thought to making death cults that aren't evil; maybe a group of humans that fights a particularly insidious Undead threat, and will die rather than be taken. This is seperate from the creeping menace of underground daemonic cults, of course...
- Understated religions: We'll cover religion on another day, but the fact that there are no clerics or other divine spellcaster makes religion automatically more understated than it is in some campaigns. I do want to have a Church, but it is more of a political power rather than a strong influence in the daily lives of the people who populate the campaign setting.
- The Inquisition: Part of the reason for the distrust of the Church may be the Inquisition. I want this to be exactly what you'd expect it to be; a bunch of dangerous zealots that the PCs (and people in general) are probably better off avoiding.
- Dangerous and unreliable magic use: Already covered in the house rules section of Day 1, but I'll give some thought to why exactly magic both a) exists in the first place, and b) is difficult and dangerous for PCs to use. My thoughts so far are as follows: magic is made possible by the releasing of the raw divine energy implicit in creation when the world was shattered. However, because magic is therefore raw and chaotic by nature, it's difficult and dangerous for mortals to attempt to manipulate it. The Midnight rules I've incorporated depict this quite well, but I might want to also give some thought to the gradual degredation of sanity that comes from too much magic use. In fact, I was torn between using the Midnight system and the Call of Cthulhu d20 system, but opted for the former because it's open content. I might yet whip up some kind of Sanity rules, albeit somewhat tamer than Cthulhu.
- Flying airships: Clearly if the fragments of the world are floating around in a loose collection, all surrounded by a breathable atmosphere, then airships are necessary to get from one to another. Haven't give too much thought on how these work, though.
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