ghelmberger Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 As I've mentioned on these boards, I'm working on a fantasy game that I intend to play VOI/VTT and (hopefully) podcast. I'm also thinking about putting the setting out as a monograph/published product if it comes together as well as it's started to. I hope to use these forums as a sounding board to help me make my game better, and I'd love your feedback as things progress. Basically, I'm not shooting for a "standard fantasy" setting with knights and orcs and whatnot. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just not what I want. Instead I'm going for a Heroic Age feeling, like The Iliad or Beowulf. The PCs are members of a people called the Urdak, who are horse-nomads (reminiscent of the Magyar, the Mongols, the Huns, the Sioux, etc.) who've conquered a rich river plain. They're on the cusp between barbarian and civilized, retaining the mentality and attitudes of barbarian warriors even as they grow into the responsibilities imposed by having rich land and subject peoples. There are nonhuman races in this setting but they're not the "humans in funny costumes" a lot of fantasy games use -- they're alien, so different from humans that their motivations are difficult to comprehend, and some of them go back hundreds of thousands of years or more (I freely admit I cribbed this bit from Cook and Erikson). Here's the history document that the players will see. I elected to write it in a semi-lyrical style rather than the straightforward way setting histories normally get written, focusing on the things the Urdak themselves would consider important (such as the feats and fates of great heroes) and not providing any "objective truth" on the events. This is their history as they see it. The problem is I'm not 100% sure whether it worked or not and I'd love some feedback on it. Please let me know what you think. Quote A million hitpoints and maximum Charisma Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogspawner Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 Not so keen on this as the rules - sorry. I wasn't gripped, and only got through The Earliest Days. Maybe it's better later on... Anyway, 32 generations is a long time to stay somewhere - wouldn't they have gone soft & civilized? Less words, less shaggy goat stories and more deeds of the legendary heroes, please! (Shouldn't each generation turn up at least one hero - or villain - worthy of note?) Quote Britain has been infiltrated by soviet agents to the highest levels. They control the BBC, the main political party leaderships, NHS & local council executives, much of the police, most newspapers and the utility companies. Of course the EU is theirs, through-and-through. And they are among us - a pervasive evil, like Stasi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghelmberger Posted December 3, 2009 Author Share Posted December 3, 2009 Not so keen on this as the rules - sorry. I wasn't gripped, and only got through The Earliest Days. Maybe it's better later on... Anyway, 32 generations is a long time to stay somewhere - wouldn't they have gone soft & civilized? 32 generations is a long time. I don't necessarily think it would have made them any softer than living next to the Chinese for 800 years (roughly the time span in question) made the Mongols soft and civilized. When the Mongols took the Chinese over, yes, they quickly became assimilated, but even that analogy is imprecise in this case because (at the end) the Urdak destroy the civilization they conquer instead of just taking over as a ruling class. They are moving toward civilization though, which is one of the central conflicts in the game. Less words, less shaggy goat stories and more deeds of the legendary heroes, please! (Shouldn't each generation turn up at least one hero - or villain - worthy of note?) These are good points. I was going for a semi-lyrical tone, sort of as recited by a bard, but I'm unsure as to how well it necessarily came out. As for the second point, that's a good thing to point out. I was viewing this as more of a "capsule" history and I was planning to do a longer version, but I hadn't necessarily been planning to expand greatly on the deeds of heroes. I will now though. :-) Quote A million hitpoints and maximum Charisma Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogspawner Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 I don't necessarily think it would have made them any softer than living next to the Chinese for 800 years (roughly the time span in question) made the Mongols soft and civilized. True. I guess it's not the number of generations, it's the conditions. But this was 32 generations in the 'Place of Rich Grasses'... Quote Britain has been infiltrated by soviet agents to the highest levels. They control the BBC, the main political party leaderships, NHS & local council executives, much of the police, most newspapers and the utility companies. Of course the EU is theirs, through-and-through. And they are among us - a pervasive evil, like Stasi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghelmberger Posted December 3, 2009 Author Share Posted December 3, 2009 True. I guess it's not the number of generations, it's the conditions. But this was 32 generations in the 'Place of Rich Grasses'... True. :-) Maybe that's why they got their asses kicked by the Gerelani? Quote A million hitpoints and maximum Charisma Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogspawner Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 Q.E.D! And maybe the '32 Generations' is just barbarian hyperbole... (I really should learn not to take what some people say at face value). Quote Britain has been infiltrated by soviet agents to the highest levels. They control the BBC, the main political party leaderships, NHS & local council executives, much of the police, most newspapers and the utility companies. Of course the EU is theirs, through-and-through. And they are among us - a pervasive evil, like Stasi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghelmberger Posted December 3, 2009 Author Share Posted December 3, 2009 Q.E.D! And maybe the '32 Generations' is just barbarian hyperbole... (I really should learn not to take what some people say at face value). That's another thing I was thinking. Oral histories can get pretty fanciful once they get beyond living memory (and even before then!) and this is essentially the Urdak creation myth -- basically they spent a long time in a place they thought of as paradise and got kicked out due to past misdeeds. But since I was saying it in a lyrical style from their point of view, I couldn't just come right out and say that. Quote A million hitpoints and maximum Charisma Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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