Setting

Hello all. This thread is for discussing the kind of setting we want to play in.

EldritchFire suggested using A Spark In Fate Core to create the setting, and it does look like a nifty little book to help put things in system.

Cool...I read Spark when it came out. It is a very cool world building system.

If its not to forward I will go ahead and throw my media out there..
The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan (and Brandon Sanderson)

The element I like is the "Fates repeated through the Ages" the main characters deal with.

If we're throwing out elements, I'd like to put forth the Stargate franchise. Gates that go between planets. For a fantasy game, it would be the equivalent of teleportation gates.

Wow cool ideas and they seem they can merge together well.

I have sparks of Fate and will read it, but for now I will ride the others posts to understand what I have to put down.

So, now, media...
Jack Vance "Demon Princes"...very old book, one of the first I read of sci-fi.
What I like: revenge theme to be taken out on POWERFUL and evil (or just selfish) lords/warlords or whatever. Some mistery and exotic cultures with strange and sometime unsetting uses. (that I think would merge very well with the suggestions of EldritchFire and foolsmask.

p.s.: for anyone who don't have me on g+/facebook:
G+ : https://plus.google.com/+GiorgioDeMichele/
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/giorgio.demichele
my artgallery: http://erebus-art.deviantart.com/

Considering the date my pick is 50 shad... nope... can't even joke about it :P

But as I've just started a new marathon watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the start I'll choose that. I enjoy the scrappy, rag tag team standing up against what should be overwhelming odds versus "big bads", stopping the Apocalypse one joke at a time.

So far I am loving this set-up.

Are we just waiting on Locke? Does he know about this forum?

Sorry for not responding earlier. I've been lurking without much to add. :)

I've been playing some Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning lately, and coupled with my love of the Dresden Files, I'll toss out the faerie courts as my setting element (Summer and Winter, mostly, but we could add in Spring and Autumn, if we feel like it).

So here is what we have so far

Foolsmask: Fates repeated through the ages
Eldritch Fire: Teleportation Gates
Erebus: Revenge on powerful, evil Warlords
Furmyr: Rag tag band standing against the Apocalypse
Locke: Faerie Courts (at least 2 maybe more)

So does anyone have any other inspirations to add in? I think this is a good list but we can keep going.

As for Genre...we all jumped on board for Heroic Fantasy...so I don't think there is much discussion needed there. The "Descriptor" is eluding me though. The book doesn't provide much detail on how to decide on that.

Thanks for summarizing foolsmask. Descriptor just seems to be a word to describe the focus of the game. Like: Urban, Post-Apocalyptic, Steampunkish, Wartime, Jungle.

Fantasy is a pretty wide genre so it could be it warrants a discussion to narrow it down some.

I see your point. I guess my brain was stuck in the default of the Heroic Roleplay descriptions. We could go another direction, It doesn't have to be "High-Fantasy" but that is my default position.

I was expecting something closer to high fantasy, too, though I'm open to other ideas. More Faerun than Eberron, though, if that reference means anything to you. :)

I agree with high-fantasy reading the setting that is coming out from the inspirations!

Okay, looks like we'll go with heroic fantasy.

Then we'll just have to come up with a descriptor.

Well...based on what we have so far we could go with something like "High Fantasy facing an impending Apocalypse". It grabs an idea from Furmyr's Buffy idea and leaves room for the Evil Warlord & Faerie Court ideas to be woven in.

I'm down with that!

Great!!

Sounds good to me.

Okay. Then we just need to determine scale. Should we stick with one city, region or world hopping.

Considering one of the ideas was teleport gates, we could have a setting with lots of travel with a fleshed out homebase as well.

I agree. The adventure can span worlds but having a strong home base we have to comeback to is a cool idea

I'd like to have a home base. With the teleportation gates it's easy to do the "world-hopping" but come home. Like in Stargate ^_^

Yeah I agree, let's world-hop and keep a home base.

Some images for inspiration:

It doesn't even need to be world hopping. In a fantasy setting transportation is limited, so a teleportation circle that takes you to other parts of the world could easily save days, weeks, or even months of travel time. I imagined all the circles on the same planet, just a shortcut. Otherwise even an airship(or other magical conveyance) could take weeks to travel the same distance…longer if you have to travel on the ground.

I was mainly thinking within the same world myself. But multiple worlds will give more possibilities, but this being a fantasy world there could be plenty of fantastic locations within the world from the lava seas of Vartan to the icecapped Tsiuri moutains where the giants dwell.

Now...maybe this is a "Question" that should be answered in the next part of the process...but what if the different faerie courts have overplayed their realms onto different parts of our world? Then our missions would revolve around freeing this places from Faerie influence. Putting them back to normal so to speak. This could involve defeating the ruler of that court...aka the evil warlords of Erebus's media suggestion.

As long as the places are varied, "normal" transportation between them difficult (or just plain too long), and the cultures are different and interesting, I'm ok with both versions (world-hopping or just on the same planet).
Plus being fantasy there could be cloud-cities, underground realms, realms set partially in another dimension or like the unseelie court that can be seen and entered only at particular times, the Garden of Eden, etc.
Pretty different worlds without moving to another dimension/world. But I'm also ok with world hopping.

My Shadow Lords campaigns often involve a lot of world-hopping, sending agents to different realities to catch interdimensional criminals :D

I suggest we start with the Establish Facts phase to flesh out the world, and can decide the limits of the gates if and when they come up as questions :)

Everyone gets 2 tokens:
EldritchFire 2 tokens
Erebus 2 tokens
foolsmask 2 tokens
Furmyr 2 tokens
Locke 2 tokens

My question is: Who controls access to the teleportation gates?

PAYING 1 TOKEN

The quick answer is "The Fae Lords, who hold the keys...for now." Meaning, each gate has a key. Currently they are held by the Fae nobility (except maybe one...just to get the PCs rolling?). While a person holds the key to a specific gate they control what non-Keyholders come and go. If a person has a key they can travel through their gate to another...but the Keyholder will have to allow them to go back through the gate to get home. And one of the PCs goals is to get all the keys away form the Fae Lords.

My question: What is the nature of the looming Apocalypse and how do we know?

PAYING ONE TOKEN

NATURE OF THE APOCALYPSE
The fae Lords meddled for years with the mortals' world and magic spawned everywhere changing lands, people, cultures. That's why the gates and the keys were created, to regulate the flux of magic energies and give stability to the world.
But someone don't likes this status quo and wants to destroy the gates and open them as wounds in the tissue of reality, mixing the worlds forever in an ever changing sea of chaos, maybe undoing (or redoing) creation.

My question: who is he and who are his minions and generals (our main enemies)?

Oh, maybe that spawns also the question of who built the gates and where he is now?

PAYING 1 TOKEN
Not 'he'...they. The people who created the gate where powerful heroed trying to prevent the destruction of the world. The process to create the gates was taxing and required then to infuse some...sometimes all of their life essence into the gates. That energy is what sustains the connections and allows travel.
Now that the gates are threatened, these great heroes are being reincarnated in PCs, bound to protect the world again as they have done countless times in the past. Sometimes they remember who they are, other times they don't, but they always appear when something threatens the world. It has been ages since the last appearance of a Gate Hero, so the PCs are something special. There is even a quasi religious order that seeks out reincarnated Gate Heroes and invites them to gather and train. Some go, nsome don't. The Order of the Magi believe that they are best suited at training and preparing Gate Heroes, but they can't force the issue because Gate Heroes are to powerful. ((Note: I intend to use the "teacher/leader" definition of Magi...not the "wizard/magic user" per se.)) Gate Heroes come in all forms. Fighters, wizards, farm girls, stable hand, kings and paupers. Just because your soul used to belong to a Gate Hero doesn't mean you are immediately better off than anyone else. I'd also like there to be people who dislike the idea of Gate Heroes. They don't believe they are reincarnated heroes, but actually cause the trouble they claim they exist to fight. The people don't see any problems, then all of a sudden a Gate Hero shows up and bad stuff happens. This isn't everyone, just a large, sometimes very vocal minority.

So the short answer is "The ancient Gate Heroes, and they have returned."

Sorry if answering again so quickly was a breach of protocol, but it was the perfect setup.

Paying 1 token
A disenchanted faerie lord (primarily known as the Autarch), who grew tired of the cyclical nature of his kind's nature. He wants the power to remake reality, to free his people from their "burden" and assure their rule over the "lower" races. He recruits primarily from among the fae, though he will stoop to using the mortal races for foot soldiers and cannon fodder. Though there may be a few trusted lieutenants among the second class citizens of his army, none occupy positions of much authority. Those who are entrusted with leadership were also given the promise that they will be remade as fae when the Autarch's inevitable victory arrives.

My question: How far—and how deep—are the Autarch's agents embedded in the rest of society? Are they a passing fad, a dangerous cult, or an invisible evil?

Forgot to put my question with my last post, so here it is...

Who are the Fae Lords and what are their crimes (besides The Autarch)?

They have managed to infiltrate the highest echelons of society. It has taken several decades, but anyone could be a secret agent of the Autarch. Many of his agents are unaware that they are working for him even.

Question: What is the system of government in the world (at least the main part where the PCs start out)


EldritchFire 2 tokens
Erebus 1 tokens
foolsmask 0 tokens
Furmyr 1 tokens
Locke 1 tokens

PAYING 1 TOKEN

The main system of government is a mageocracy. Those who wield power are the ones who, well, wield power. The mages in the PCs locale are pretty fair and not full of themselves, so it's a beneficent mageocracy.

QUESTION: How populated, busy, and important is the PCs home town/base area?

Highcrest as it is named is an important center of trade being situated on the coast and at the mouth of a large river. Being a center of trade, it is a also a haven for scum and villainy, and the saying is that if you can't find it here you're just not paying enough.

Hundreds of years ago it used to be the home of the royal family in the old days, and while there hasn't been a king for a century or more, there are still remains of them now, chief among them the royal palace that sits on an island in the middle of the river.

Question: Why have the royal palace not been reused by anyone else for more than a hundred years?

EldritchFire 1 tokens
Erebus 1 tokens
foolsmask 0 tokens
Furmyr 0 tokens
Locke 1 tokens

I considered not asking a question in order to have foolsmask's question above, but having two questions is fine. In the end we'll end up with one unanswered question, but we can survive that. It may go faster if we have two questions available for people to get ideas about.

I agree. The dangling question can be used or not used at GM discretion in my opinion.

Paying 1 token
Just after the old king's downfall, the new regime attempted to take over the palace, only to be driven out by strange supernatural occurrences: food rotting spontaneously, shadows of hanged bodies appearing randomly, even full-bodied apparitions attacking the residents. Each wizard and necromancer who investigated the palace and its "ghosts" has been driven insane, and without answers or solutions, the palace has been left to decay.

Question: What happened recently to upset the local peace?

Paying my last token

Obviously this is the first sign of reality collapsing because of the mixing of the worlds.
The whole complex of royal palaces became a warpgate of sort, a chaotic rift that opens randomly to the most extreme of realities, places where demons and maybe even worse awaits.
A mysterious and for now undisclosed entity has thus taken home into the "warped halls" (new name of the palace) and is now the "king" of those halls...

Question: who he/she is and what are his/her goals?

Last token:

It is an interdimensional entity that is looking for a new home. It doesn't understand the denizens of this new reality too well, but it thinks it can find a place to live…if it can figure out how the rules here work.

So, it's off to the next step. Coming up with a title. Anyone with any good ideas?

Realm Walkers.

Works with me :D

I'm fine with that.

Yeah...that's pretty good.

That name works for me :)

Time for Sparks. Everyone gets to create a spark.

We also had another applicant to the game, so welcome Bluedanoob :)

Spark: Some Order of Magi, the ruling council of Highcrest, want to militarize the whole population and fight the Autarch.

Spark: A group of Fae Lords who are trying to remain unaligned in the fight against the Autarch have fled their homelands and are attempting to displace the native peoples of the lands they seek refuge in.

Spark: A group who calls themselves "The Locksmiths" are in the process of acquiring a portal-key to try to clone it. So far, no one believes they've succeeded.

Spark: a group of non-fae scholars who dabbled in esoteric matters discovered that they could get powers akin to those of the fae by consuming a strange purple substance that is found in subterranean grottoes below the now-ruined royal Palace where IT has taken home.
What they don't know is that the purple substance is a waste-product of IT inscrutable processes and that the true source of their powers is IT: he gives them powers but also warps their minds and uses them to "explore" the new world he has found.