I thought of something an hour ago and I want to get some record of it down. So, here goes (I'll try keep it succinct).
I was reading some Shaintar today (a Savage Worlds setting). Its quite good. Its also very high fantasy. A bit high for my taste but the game has enough going for it for me to keep giving it my time every now and then. One of the things I like is all the Empires and Societies that it has scattered around its world. It also integrates the different races of the world quite well. They often co-inhabit without killing each other. But its still too high fantasy (HF) for me, I much prefer the idea of a Swords and Sorcery game with more factions and less loaming evil and cosmic campaigns. I don't like the idea of loosing the other races though. Which got me thinking.
Many HF games have the race of Elves and Dwarfs dieing out. They were big an age ago but are now depleting. Some games (LotR) also have the idea of half elves. But what if this idea was taken further. What if we took LotR and advanced the clock another Age, but instead of the Elves and Dwarfs and Orcs having died out, how about having them absorbed into the Human Gene pool. Characters could then have linages (much like Artesia) instead of being a race. I think this would help with a few problems. First, it wouldn't mater if you had a lot of non humans in your group. It would also lower the power level of such races a touch. In turn this would let you add in a Wheel of Time of L5R or Game of Thrones type setting on top with reasonable ease. I donno, might not sound great but it appealed to me a couple of hours ago.
Lastly, I thought I'd add a logical extension of this. Instead of Elves Orcs and Dwarfs you could go more mythical. Angels and Demons, Minotaurs and Satyrs, Mermaids and Fairies, Vampires and Werewolves, Dragons and Giants. What if they existed ages ago, and as the world grew up, the myths faded. But lived on in the gene pool. Everyone would still be human but some people might show strong aspects of the mythical beginnings......
....just and idea....
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A long time ago when I was doing my short story writing course I had an idea for a series of stories about people who had inherited abilities from ancient elemental beings through genetic inheritance. The elementals now being long gone.
ReplyDeleteIt would start with 4 stories about people with just enough blood of one element to become something special. Then have a round of 2 stories with the children of those 4 (two couples) that had more abilities and final with their children who had all 4 bloodlines. Basically it would be about the growing mystical power of the bloodlines and how it effected them as they go from peasants and merchants to lords and then emperors.