Well, we’ve got a world concept… now we need some people on it.
We also need a name for the world which is, sadly, something I do not excel at (any suggestions?)
So, races for this world. Iron Heroes actually makes this easier, since it largely doesn’t muck about with races – most characters are human, and any customization is cosmetic, or done through picking different Traits (in the core book).
However, I’d like to slip a specific non-human race for this one. One of the things that I usually do when I’m working with a new world is that I look at mental images I have for the game – scenes. Well, one of the things that I have going through my head is a world that has airships – galleons sailing through the sky overhead on great oar-wings, ornithopters carrying single passengers, a world that has, to some extent, the fantasy-world equivalent of advanced technology. Adapting that sort of idea in, most worlds would use elves as the people to develop that sort of technology. Despite that… well, frankly, I don’t really like the idea of just trotting out elves again. Instead, I’m going to swap in another species.
The Greys.
Yeah, those little guys we all met in Close Encounters – the fellas with the spaceships and the anal probes. What would they be like in a fantasy world, albeit a low-magic one? They’d be masters of the sort of fanciful, clockwork machines that Davinci designed. Given materials that would behave the right way (which, of course, we can create), they’d be able to make airships and the like – and all sorts of other ‘fun’ toys.
In the interests of changing the name up a *little* bit, we’ll rename them the Gree (modified from the French for ‘grey’) – I’ve actually got some ideas for ways to put that name to use later on, too.
Given the description of them – scrawny intellectuals – we’ll give them a -2 to Strength, and a +2 to Dexterity and Intelligence. They’re great watchmakers, not so hot as blacksmiths. Their large eyes give them the benefits of Low Light Vision, but they also suffer a -1 penalty to all skill and attack rolls when in bright light, unless they’re wearing protective eye gear (which we can design later.) And, in keeping with the creatures of alien-abduction lore, they’re telepathic – they don’t normally communicate verbally, but instead with any intelligent being who speaks a shared language within 100′. In keeping with their Davinci-era technology, I’m going to have them dress accordingly.
I’m going to work on a class later that lets their advanced tech work, but that’ll take a while – not going to worry about it for now.
So, in game terms, here’s what we’ve got:
The Gree (Humanoid)
-2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence
Low Light Vision (Ex): The Gree can see twice as far in low lighting conditions.
Light Vulnerability (Ex): In bright light (daylight or brighter), the Gree suffer -1 on all attack rolls and skill checks.
Telepathy (Su): The Gree don’t speak a normal language; instead, they communicate telepathically with any intelligent being that can understand a language they do. They can hear just fine, and are capable of speech, but they typically communicate telepathically for the sake of expediency (and because they’re more used to it.)
Description:
These short (4′ average), smooth-skinned individuals look like classic “Third Kind” aliens – their name is based off the French for Grey. Rather than hyper-advanced individuals, though, the Gree are based off of “Davincian” technology and culture – they live along coastlines, in the mountains, and in forests, and craft exquisite artwork there. They also craft intricate clockwork devices and machines that blur the line between science and sorcery. Gree sky-galleons are a fairly common sight, sailing through the sky on the winds, massive sails billowing in the jetstream, oar-wings beating to steer the ships. Smaller vessels, powered by pedals or delicate springs, carry individual passengers, while the galleons are used to move trade goods, money, and the feared war machines of the Gree.
Oddly, the Gree refuse to live in jungle regions, or do business there – nobody’s entirely sure why, and they get touchy whenever somebody asks about it. However, the general theory is that it has something to do with why a largely peaceful race that deals in high-stakes trade and diplomacy has put so many resources into incredible war machines that allow handfuls of men to wipe out small armies.
This technology is made possible by three key ingredients – incredibly light yet resilient woods (darkwood), and metals (mithril), and the fantastic ingenuity that the Gree are renowned for.
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I’ve been asked by a couple people how I build a game world when I’m working on it (mostly my brother, who’s trying to break into game design, but it’s a good place to start). So, for a little fun, and to talk about my world-building ideas with examples, I’m going to walk through the world-building process that I use.
Now, I know that some guides suggest you start small, and work out to get bigger from there. But when you’re coming up with the world’s basics, you need to start a bit larger… for example, what game system are you going to use?
I’m going to opt for three, actually – Iron Heroes
, Pathfinder
, and Arcana Evolved
. Why three? Because they’re all variants on d20 3.5 – my main focus, at this point, will be on the Iron Heroes era.
Iron Heroes is a very low-magic, high-”heroism,” version of 3.5. There are magic wielders, but magic is very dangerous to use. There are no clerics channeling the power of the gods to heal the sick and raise the dead. The world that it works best for is, thus, one that doesn’t use a lot of magic, one where it’s still a very young science, rather like chemistry in the first millennia… or, if not a young science, then one that was only recently rediscovered.
That idea appeals to me, actually. There was a time when magic was more common – however, for whatever reason, it went away, or at least regressed. This isn’t a young world, it’s one that’s very old… and that had a massive catastrophe in the past.
I’m actually going to delve into two different sources for inspiration here. First, questions about how the moon of our world was formed. Second, one of my favorite inspirational sources, Lovecraft.
Earth’s moon is an oddity – compared to all other worlds, it’s far, far too large… and too lonely, being the only one. Astronomers simply aren’t quite sure how it got there, or where it came from. Well, I’m not going to go for *exactly* that set of issues – I like the idea of multiple moons – but I will go ahead and raise the question of where the moons came from.
The ancient civilization that came before did have a moon in the sky… but they raised more. Why did they bother to put that much effort and time into building new moons? Obviously, because there was something that needed to be put Somewhere Else. Maybe cities, maybe creatures… and that’s where Lovecraft comes in.
Lovecraft’s work is rife with ancient, eldritch beings that can only be contained, not defeated. It’s also full of cities that are hard to reach, and parts of fantastical worlds – Kadath, for example, or R’lyeh. Let’s say we’ve got a world that *had* a series of wars like the ones Lovecraft outlines in Shadow Out of Time. Ancient beings, Aberrations in d20 terms, warring against each other… and, eventually, against their own rebelling slaves. Eventually, our ancient races managed to score a victory, but they couldn’t destroy their former masters entirely. Instead, they wielded powerful magic, that sent their cities into the sky, encased in massive orbs of stone, imprisoned for eternity. Of course, such powerful magic always exacts a price – the sheer amount of magical energy involved in such an act largely impoverished the rest of the world. What magic does remain is used at a potentially disastrous price – it weakens the bonds holding the Old Ones in their prisons. Worse, after so much time, the very energy of magic has been tained by the evil of the Old Ones – those who use Their power are slowly warped and changed by the exposure.
So, that’s the Iron Heroes (core) magic system explained, in this world. It also gives us things to build on later in the game.
At this point, our world has been rebuilding from the ‘cataclysm’ brought on by the loss of magic. Without magic, people have had to learn to maximize their skills and abilities – to do for themselves what wizards and clerics used to do regularly. This explains the pumped-up abilities of the classes in Iron Heroes.
How we tie this into the other systems later… I’m getting some ideas, but those are for much, much later.
So, are you getting any ideas? What sort of things would you like to see in this world? Let me know – maybe I can work them in through later posts.
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No, not the film from a few years back. I’ve avoided that one. I’m talking about the Pathfinder RPG, my favorite thing in gaming at the moment.
First, a bit of history. Back in the 1970′s, Gary Gygax (and others) put out Dungeons and Dragons, and started TSR, long one of the leading companies in the industry. A decade or two of controversy later, D&D was *kind* of getting to be accepted as a harmless, if geeky, pasttime. Then TSR was bought out by Wizards of the Coast, producers of Magic: The Gathering and the Pokemon CCG… the two games that many people feel did the most to murder the RPG industry that TSR had started. Wizards was later picked up by Hasbro, and remains a subsidiary. In the meantime, WotC put out D&D 3E – Third Edition – and 3.5, AKA “yeah, we kinda screwed up the first one, and we want some more cash, so we’ll put out a full-scale re-release knowing you’ll all lay down the $100 to buy the new books.”
I know, that makes gamers sound gullible. But think about it – just how much do WoW enthusiasts spend a year on their particular crack? At least most gamers interact, in person, with other gamers during their hobby time.
Throughout all of this, TSR, then Wizards, produced Dragon and Dungeon magazine, sources of optional material for the game. Eventually, Wizards dropped their magazine department, and the folks running it started their own company, Paizo Publishing, which licensed the two magazines from WotC… until Wizards decided that they wanted to produce a fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons (AKA D&D: WoW Without the License). Wizards refused to renew Paizo’s license, and Paizo found themselves without their primary products. So, what did they do?
They made a new one, the Pathfinder Chronicles. The Pathfinder Chronicles took one of the most popular features in Dungeon – their new Campaign Paths – and married it with the articles from Dragon Magazine. They created a new world setting, and began producing materials for it. They recently put out an entirely new version of d20 3.5 (the latest ruleset that was associated with Dungeons and Dragons, before 4E came out), so they can re-jigger a few of the issues with the old game and continue supporting it themselves.
And I love it. Not for the rules, though those are good. I love it for the setting. Pathfinder, the world of Golarion, is what a mature role-playing game should be. So many RPG’s try to say that they’re for mature audiences by slapping a pair of boobs somewhere in the artwork, and including unnecessary references to things that most people would call inappropriate.
Pathfinder? It does have mature content. The first adventure features a mad woman, the child of a celestial (angel) and mortal who has decided that she wants to be a demoness due to a miserable childhood and miscarrying a half-fiend child. She burned down the church with her emotionally abusive adopted father in it, and a good chunk of the city, and fled, to come back five years later with great plans, and a new demonic patron. All of it makes sense, and makes the evil character (while still evil) seem a little sympathetic… and raises mature subjects. The emotional abuse she suffered? It was at the hands of a good and noble priest who wanted her to remain pure for the clergy (of a non-celibate order, oddly). She suffered it because she got knocked up by a handsome gypsy boy (literally) who took off when he found out. Her child was born as a monster because of where it was conceived… and her subsequent madness made all too much sense, when everything was taken in context.
This blurring of the lines of good and evil is something that most RPG’s have tried to avoid, or handled incredibly poorly when they did let it happen. Priests of good gods were always themselves good guys, or if not, it was only because they were being manipulated/misled by evil beings, or were too obsessed with law to follow good.
While you could argue that this is what happened here, the basic message is much more clear… that good people can do bad things, despite having good intentions.
Also, through several adventures, you come across some very chilling serial killers, a group of inbred mutant ogres (paging Tobe Hooper… paging Tobe Hooper), and cannibalistic ghosts. But what’s my favorite element?
The little things. Not plot elements, but the things that exist outside the plot. The very first issue won me over completely, because they did something I haven’t seen in any other role playing supplement I’ve bought in over a decade of being a gamer.
They had a gay couple, who weren’t considered deviants, who weren’t secretly villains, and who weren’t defined by being gay. One of them is a theater producer, yes, but he’s not a flaming stereotype – he’s a theatrical fellow who still has contacts in the city they were driven from years before. He’s flashy, but because it’s his job – he isn’t speaking with a lisp, rambling about fashion designers, and draping himself over every lovely man who trips across his path. The other one is an ex-paladin. Yes, an ex-paladin… because he retired to run an import/export business, not because his deity rejected him for being gay. They’re both very popular men in the community, except for one conservative family that would run them out on a rail, but they’re generally well-liked enough that nobody really cares (technically, they don’t know, but it’s an open secret if ever there was one).
Also, there’s a brothel in the town… and the Madame has a relationship with the Sheriff that isn’t, in any way, unsavory. It’s just because the two are attracted to each other. He’s not using her, she’s not using him, they’re just a couple. And her workers are very well taken care of, and protected… and all of this is covered in about two paragraphs out of the book.
It’s a pair of very small things. Combined, they get less than half a page of coverage.
And that’s exactly how it ought to be handled. Little notes here or there – little things that set these characters aside as being a little different. Not something that has to be explained as a grand plot point. Not things that have to be demonized. Just part of who the characters are.
I was incredibly grateful when I saw that, especially the gay couple. Back in the WotC days, there was one depiction of a lesbian couple in a book.
They were a pair of terrified succubi being menaced by a female half-orc paladin with a vaguely disgusted look on her face. The caption said “a paladin must decide between destroying evil, and allowing love to flourish.” But the picture itself sent across a different message. It said “it’s better to be an ugly straight chick than a hot lesbian.” I’d post the pic, but it’s hard to find on Google with search terms I’m thinking of right now. Even the included caption has a double meaning, since ‘destroying evil’ could mean demonesses, or it could mean an ‘evil’ form of love.
Before this, Hero Games recreated the Vandaleur brothers… who were absolute, evil narcissists to the point where they were also a couple.
And before that, we have several suggestive pics, including the infamous cover to Pools of Darkness.
Why am I mentioning this? Because I want to make the point that, on the rare occasions RPG’s acknowledge gay characters, it’s rarely in a positive manner. Usually, even if it’s hinted at, it’s in evil characters. When it’s clear that they’re gay, they’re almost always evil in some manner. On the few contrary occasions, they go the other way – they overcompensate by making them so obviously pure and good that it’s cartoonish.
Pathfinder doesn’t do that. They have characters with sex lives… and it’s perfectly okay. They have characters with alternative sexualities… and it’s no big deal. They have characters who disapprove of this… and it’s not their disapproval that makes them evil, if they are, it’s their other actions. They have good people who do bad things, they have bad people who do good things, and it’s not an earth-shattering thing. It might be for their specific lives, but in general… it doesn’t change the world, not directly.
And all of this is over what has become one of the most fascinating game worlds I’ve seen in years.
If you’re into tabletop RPG’s, you owe it to yourself to check out Pathfinder. I don’t care if you’re an Indie Gamer who can’t bring himself to touch anything ‘polluted’ with the d20 system. You need to check it out, because it’s that damn good.
www.paizo.com
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