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RPG Setting Concepts
16 years ago
Alright. Here are some random ideas for settings of a potential RPG.
Once, long ago, a game company called White Wolf had published a game about Magic in the Modern World, called "Mage: The Ascension," and previously, games about vampres and werewolves in the modern world. Then, in the same setting, with all the cosmology they'd already established, they annouced they were producing something called "Changeling" about you know, the stuff of fairytales.
The way I developed it was very different from thier published version. In my scheme, there were several related germlines of alien races lurking in the backgroud of various human families. Alien races ala Lovecraft, really. Differing concentrations of alien blood, and the degree to which it was "pure," were the essential variables that made my Changelings tick. The results included degrees of 1) inherent social alienation, non-neurotypical types, for example various autism spectrum features, tourette's, etc, 2) tremendous beauty or disturbing ugliness 3) Various physical abilities and abnormalities, up to and including in extreme cases, enormous or tiny size and wings, 4) affinity with "trods," or pocket dimensions where laws of physics were different, often connected one-to-the-next, 5) delusions and neurosis, and 6) a feature (not unlike Mages' Arcane and Werewolves' Delerium) that made some of the blood difficult to remember accurately.
A second setting concept... or really a pair of concepts, are more specifically furry. One element is: the Ael. Somewhere between Angels and Greys (aliens, I mean), the Ael are the analogue to humans in a strong-anthropomorphic (all large warm-blooeded vertebrates are anthropomorphic) setting. For me, this has often settled certain uneasinesses I've felt when contemplating the far corners of the transformation necessary for a strong anthropomorphic setting.
Then, there's also this: what if instead of going with a strong/fantasy anthropomorphism in a setting, you paired two completely un-alike origins for anthropomorphic beings deeply in the setting? On the one had, vestiges of an advanced and now reclusive civilization (humans-- or now, Ael-- living perhaps in terrestrial invisible cities, aka "Glass Mountains"), who are understood to be responsible for having created, and even for currently maintaining, siginficiant populations of many animal species in anthropomorphic form (but which have special difficulties breeding), AND at the same time, in the deeper wilderness, sort of ala-Princess Mononoke and Fritz Leiber, mystical beings that are likewise anthropomorphic, spirits or godlings in their own rights, based on many animal species. What I like about this is it offers a broad range of possible ways for an individual to view his anthropomorphism vis a vis nature and some sort of "humanity," without being either a complete cop-out ("it's just a fantasy, who cares?") or really being a whole lot harder to swallow than one unusual premise.
Once, long ago, a game company called White Wolf had published a game about Magic in the Modern World, called "Mage: The Ascension," and previously, games about vampres and werewolves in the modern world. Then, in the same setting, with all the cosmology they'd already established, they annouced they were producing something called "Changeling" about you know, the stuff of fairytales.
The way I developed it was very different from thier published version. In my scheme, there were several related germlines of alien races lurking in the backgroud of various human families. Alien races ala Lovecraft, really. Differing concentrations of alien blood, and the degree to which it was "pure," were the essential variables that made my Changelings tick. The results included degrees of 1) inherent social alienation, non-neurotypical types, for example various autism spectrum features, tourette's, etc, 2) tremendous beauty or disturbing ugliness 3) Various physical abilities and abnormalities, up to and including in extreme cases, enormous or tiny size and wings, 4) affinity with "trods," or pocket dimensions where laws of physics were different, often connected one-to-the-next, 5) delusions and neurosis, and 6) a feature (not unlike Mages' Arcane and Werewolves' Delerium) that made some of the blood difficult to remember accurately.
A second setting concept... or really a pair of concepts, are more specifically furry. One element is: the Ael. Somewhere between Angels and Greys (aliens, I mean), the Ael are the analogue to humans in a strong-anthropomorphic (all large warm-blooeded vertebrates are anthropomorphic) setting. For me, this has often settled certain uneasinesses I've felt when contemplating the far corners of the transformation necessary for a strong anthropomorphic setting.
Then, there's also this: what if instead of going with a strong/fantasy anthropomorphism in a setting, you paired two completely un-alike origins for anthropomorphic beings deeply in the setting? On the one had, vestiges of an advanced and now reclusive civilization (humans-- or now, Ael-- living perhaps in terrestrial invisible cities, aka "Glass Mountains"), who are understood to be responsible for having created, and even for currently maintaining, siginficiant populations of many animal species in anthropomorphic form (but which have special difficulties breeding), AND at the same time, in the deeper wilderness, sort of ala-Princess Mononoke and Fritz Leiber, mystical beings that are likewise anthropomorphic, spirits or godlings in their own rights, based on many animal species. What I like about this is it offers a broad range of possible ways for an individual to view his anthropomorphism vis a vis nature and some sort of "humanity," without being either a complete cop-out ("it's just a fantasy, who cares?") or really being a whole lot harder to swallow than one unusual premise.
