Veeky Forums Creates a Fantasy Setting

If we go for 4 or 5 or whatever families or what have you, we could do an not!elemental theme, ala Avatar? Like, an Aquatic family, Earth/Stone family, Avian/Flight, something like that?

I agree with this.

Mannish races: Humans, halflings, giants, half-giants (idk what to call big but not really big people, with elves as the farthest outlier of this group. With maybe an underground variety that's really derived and your normal different nationalities.

Reptilian races: Snake people, lizardmen (maybe two or three different varieties based on different types of reptiles. Crocs, standard lizards, ???), reptilians that look almost human save for a few small features, sentient raptors (??)

idk about other groups but there's some stuff.

Only if we switch some up. I hate the standard Earth Wind Fire Water shit.

Perhaps elemental could be a family of races.
I agree with this. Lightning or ice is a good start, but lets get creative. Acid, maybe? Metal? Or is that straying too far from elemental.

I say we keep 3 of the original elements, then two outliers. Personally, I would scratch earth, since its not very specific

Maybe we could figure out a way to fuse these?

Plains: Men, beige elves, hobbits, big guys, horse guys

Forest: Slow moving ancient moss guys, nimble woodland bird guys, green elves

Water: 100% underwater fish guys, shallow water crocodile guys, coastal snake dudes, blue elves

Mountain: made out of stone guys, nomadic windsurfing guys, solitary eagle guys, family focused cave guys, grey elves

okay but what if instead of elements we did seasons.

Fuck yeah, that's a good ass idea, and isn't just not!elements

I'm fully onboard for this

This is a dope idea, what would go under each one? We should try to keep it to maybe three or four max per Season

I'm fully onboard with this, but I see issues with it: all of them are going to exist in all seasons. What are Summerfolk going to be like in winter? hibernating? Or weakened? Or just pissy about the cold?

The underground cave dwellers are inexplicably geometric in shape

Seeing as how this is High Fantasy with low fantasy demeanor, could be the seasons are frozen, thus conflict arises. Doesn't really explain their creation, though.

Maybe during their off-seasons, the other races treat it like a winter, where they hunker down and stay in their hovels, where they try to regulate their environments. Blankets and fires for summer folk, deep caverns and cold springs for winter folk. Maybe fall and spring can thrive in all seasons?

I imagine each Family is strongest during their respective season, and perhaps slightly weakened during their opposite season? By unspoked mutual decision, people don't constantly invade eachother during their power season, as they historically are counterinvaded by other Families while they're overextended during someone else's power season.

If you want to go full insane they just cease to exist.

to go off this user's: races:

Spring:
>Nimble woodland bird guys
>coastal snake dudes
>100% underwater fish guys
>Summer:
>Horse Guys
>Shallow-Water Croc Guys
>Big Guys
Fall:
>Humans
>Hobbits
>nomadic windsurfing guys
Winter:
>Made out of stone guys
>Family Focused Cave Guys
>Solitary Eagle Guys
muh mystical lost season of the Fae:
all those Elves

I have some bad ideas about that:
>1 seasons are geographical
go over the river and you wind up in Winter. Storms push spring into areas that were once summer. Some magical shenanigans can change what season a small area experiences

or maybe

>2 seasons are labels based on historical "ages"
spring races are "new", summer races are "conquering", fall races are "complacent", and winter races are "dying"

Is any one keeping records of this?

Filling in summer:
>Basking lizard types
>gazelle dudes
>proud lion tribes
>Sandshrew like fellows

also
>Seasons are Geographical
I love this. They shouldn't be fixed in place either, they should shift around, ebb and flow.
>Legend tells of a time when a single Season would dominate the World for months at a time, and chaos reigned. One day, the mightiest spirit-masters and druids of each Season rose together to divide the Seasons so that all of the Families could live simultaneously. It was the greatest day of cooperation between the Families.

We can archive this thread when it starts to die, once we have things more set in stone we could throw together a wiki?

I like this sound of this. They've magically terraformed their respective territory to be more suitable to them, but are still affected by natural seasons. (Lets keep in mind season are relative to the planet's tilt. It can be winter somewhere and summer elsewhere.)

Perhaps there's one family of neutral races that helps keep the peace between the seasonalfolk?

I think we're still in the spitballing stage. Nothing's concrete yet, but we should be keeping track.

What is the main conflict of this setting? I feel like it should be inherently tide to the seasons

>
>
>(Lets keep in mind season are relative >to the planet's tilt. It can be winter >somewhere and summer elsewhere.)

Why didn't everybody become nomadic then?

well it's low fantasy in high fantasy trapping, so the conflict is just

youtube.com/watch?v=ST86JM1RPl0

Is that a problem?

If we actually do this guy's little writefaggotry, there could be a sort of Steward people that live at the site of the Season-splitting ritual? Like Republic City from Avatar, perhaps.

Overarching conflict could spring from the incompatibility of the ephemeral and fluid nature of shifting seasonal borders, and the rise of the idea of nationhood/borders?

>implying this is a planet

Doesn't seem to encourage conflict, which might make for boring history. Though you're right, I guess there isn't really anything problematic with that

I thought the thumbnail was the world being flat, but that's kinda awesome

Dryads that are crazy mean about their territory but totally great when it comes to exporting trade goods to others.

Putting on a name just so we have some sort of vague centralizing force.

Do we feel good with races divide by Seasonal Families, and Seasons being separated geographically?

This is absolutely dope.

Yeah. Really like this

Post what we've got, and we'll let you know if you missed anything.

Dogmeat is the most popular ranched meat.

Perhaps certain races are magically tied to their seasonal areas and their power and influence diminish while leaving?

Then humans could be a non-seasonal race, looked down upon as this would mean that no God or some outcast God claims them as children or whatever, or that they lack access to the magick of the seasons.

Humans could be nomadic or scattered, with their own magic unlike the others.

And races can expand their season geographically by conquest and mystic conversion in terrible wars.

Okay, so here's a vomit pass at what we have so far:

>High fantasy (eg., magic, many races, etc), but with a low fantasy mindset (racism, geonicde, general bad vibes)
>Races are divided into four Families, each connected to a Season
>Humans are a Fall race, and are very much a minority
>Seasons are seperated geographically rather than temporally, but shift around, ebbing and flowing

What did I miss?

Have we figured out what the other races are yet? Are we going standard high fantasy races (dwarves, elves, orcs...) or something else?

World is flat!

It is possible the inhabitants do not know this.

Had some ideas

Beastfolk
>Summer: Equine / Reptilian
>Spring: Avian / Insectoid
>Winter: Ursine / Lapidary
>Fall: Canine / Feline

Humans are unpopular because of the high fantasy esque prophecy that they will inherit the earth and are the chosen folk. Due to this many conspire to genocide or keep them down and enslave them.

Oh, and the world is flat!

An non posted a list of tentative races, most of them non-Tolkeinian.

Here's what's been proposed:

Spring:
>Nimble woodland bird guys
>coastal snake dudes
>100% underwater fish guys
Summer:
>Horse Guys
>Shallow-Water Croc Guys
>Big Guys
Fall:
>Humans
>Hobbits
>nomadic windsurfing guys
Winter:
>Made out of stone guys
>Family Focused Cave Guys
>Solitary Eagle Guys

How do we feel about these so far?

These threads usually have a lot of neat/interesting ideas that are poorly connected, but I'll bite:

" True" Magical power is something you can only inherit by blood, passed from generation to generation upon the death of the oldest member of your families dynasty. This mostly helps preserve the status, power and elitism Of the nobles and lords, while the plebs need to rely on "fake" magic using fetish totems, familiars and runic tattoos to manipulate, rather than control, the energies surrounding them.

>Lapidary
Like...rocks?

I meant Lagomorph.

Fall should be were-fox. With more beat tendencies than man, but generally tricksters and easy going

Then you have the occaisonal spontaneously True Magical being, called a "Starmarked". The nobles generally detect and acquire these people as members of their house to try and avoid inbreeding.

Sure. There can be more. I like the idea of each season beig like unto an ecosystem of its own, but with a magical sense of fidelity to itself, so multiple beastfolk kinds is fine.

True Magic is something that occurs in the Highfolk, who believe in reincarnation and trace their soul-lineage to the gods and heroes of the Old World where the seasons flowed naturally.

A Highfolk looks like another race but has taken on an elemental aspect of its season, and this increases as time goes on until they basically become their older selves.

For a Highfolk to be slain upon another season's soil means their soul will reincarnate in that season's province instead.

I honestly like one race per season so here's my vote.
>Spring: Either woodland birds or Insectiod
>Summer: Reptilian or Giants
>Fall: Humans or Feline
>Winter: Golems

Magic being hereditary is a good way around the whole "why doesn't every marginally affluent person become a wizard" problem, spontaneous "True Magical" beings shake things up, and are highly sought due to their drastically higher levels of natural power?

Having a human-ish race for each Season actually strikes me as a pretty cool idea, one of the overarching conflict possibilities could be a pan-Seasonal human movement?

One main race is good. Definitely should have different ethnicities. Maybe could relate to magic?

For example mud golems and stone golems. Mud is better at one type of magic, stone the other. Both are winter season though

Had we not already decided on multiple races per Season/family?

I say then that it be
>Spring: Birdfolk
>Summer: Reptilefolk
>Fall: Mammilian beastfolk
>Winter: Golems

But also having humans exist as a nonseasonal element.

The "False Magic" that anyone can learn is strenuous, difficult, and more often than not sinply involves being marked by or using the relic of a True Magician, so I prefer ethnicity being geographic and familial.

Would there be multiple "species" in each race?

Expanding on fake magic I think it should be like Wizard Apprentices from Brandon Mull's Candy Shop War series - they get transformed magically by a True Magical entity and get limited magical power of their own from that. It can be given, but never retracted.

But adding to that you also have tools which are enchanted that grant magical powers which can be used by anyone and are rare and coveted - and True Magic highfolk want them out of the commonfolk's hands.

Such relics and gifts allow one to use another season's magic. This is considered blasphemous and unnatural.

That way we can have a broad theme while still allowing for identity.

Dwarves would be considered creatures of myth and legend, were it not for the great statues of heavily armored warriors dotting the land.

Tales speak of them as fiends who owed only allegiance to themselves, seeking to control and order the worlds seasons by capturing their "essences" and enslaving them to their will.

They created the Orcs out of crudely wrought metal as mass produced shock troops, and they waged war in ages past against the other races before being eventually defeated and supposedly exterminated.

Though no living Dwarves exist, the whispers of exotic travelers tell of the ancient underground Necropolis, where the Dwarves laid their dead to rest for all eternity, and where the Sorcerers of the Dwarven race enacted foul magics in ages past to still an unknown effect, for few venture that deep who live to tell about it.

3ish races+humans per Season has already been sort of established, as said, but if we have one "race" per season with multiple permutations, that could be good.

I personally am not a fan of humans being a non-seasonal thing, but I'm not in charge so if you guys want it, so it is!

I gott say I like the idea of True Magic/Inherited Magic/False Magic

Like, True MAgicians are born with it and are by far the most powerful. Bloodline magic is reliable, but much weaker than True Magic. False Magic is unreliable and dangerous, regular people clutchign at the trailings of the universe.

Perhaps Dwarves could be responsible for the conversion of Seasons into geographical rather than temporal divisons?

I'm up for clever, refined ratfolk.

Hm. I think standard tolkenien beings should be part of the Old World of natural seasons.

The Highfolk of the "New World" trace their reincarnation lineage to them and believe themselves to be their natural successors.

Any living Old World being would be considered a myth embodied, a legend made flesh - for those were the days when all had potential for True Magic.

The Old World ended because of Melsorn, a human, attempting to fulfil the prophecy and inherit the world - in the desparation of the conflict, the other races used a great ritual to freeze the wheel of the seasons - preventing time from marching naturally and stopping the Red Prophecy from being fulfilled so long as the seasons do not turn as they once did, as well as forcing souls into reincarnation.

Any human True Magic are considered "Children of Melsorn", withh the dangerous potential to restart the seasons and thereby herald the end of the seasonfolk.

False "magic" is more akin to manipulating the currents that surrounds you to bend to your purpose, while with True magic, the person themselves are the sources of magical essence, and as such can use it with far greater ease. That doesn't mean False magic is neccesarily weaker however.

False magic is dangerous and difficult to use if you don't have a conduit, which can take years of study to successfully create. Usually, this is done through magical runic tattoos they have inscribed permanently, but one can also use the skull of an Ancestor or a family heirloom. The most time consuming, but also one of the most powerful would be via familiars, who they develop exceedingly strong bonds over many years, culminating in a soulbinding ritual, where the lives of both creatures become intrinsically linked, to the point that one cannot live without the other.

Perhaps It's mearly a legend and the Dwarves mearly faded away quietly into history, the stories told as ways to slander them by their former enemies. None can currently say, the only mark of them ever existing that we can see being enormous statues wrought from the cliffs of mountains, created long before most races even developed writing.

Vampires have formed their own kingdoms where they can live normal lifes without being hunted by humans, some kingdoms are wealthy and poweful, others are small and pretty much small city-states.

The kingdoms are openly vampiric and engage in diplomacy and trade with non-vampire kingdoms if possible.

Alchemy has found alternatives to blood, but some vampires just pay willing poor human peasants for some of their blood.

There are sentient machines from the moon who have created small colonies in the world, they sell moon rocks wich are a great source of mana in exhcnage of metals from the earth, that they send back to the moon using steam-powered space galleas.

This is exactly why shit like this fails is often. An idea gets established, then a bunch of people completely ignore it and start throwing out random shit until everything's a big mess with no real core.

Humanity being outside the Season cycle cracks of "HFY" tropes, especially with the "prophecy" thing combined. Vampires, how would they even fit into the Seasons? Multiple races per "family" or Season was established right form the get go, and shouldn't change. There being a race outside of the Seasons is a neat idea but should be a one off; either ancient extinct Dwarves or robots from the Moon that come to visit.

At least the magic stuff has been cohesive and good.

Well we can ignore the vampires if they just cant fit.

Also I vote to keep the robots as the ones who are outside of the seasons since they are not organic.

I personally like the moon robot merchants thing, perhaps their ancestors could have left the weird, inexplicable monuments, rather than dwarves?

Uhm maybe, but then we would have to tide them more with the world, I was thinking about them as pretty much outsiders who are rather mysterious, outside of the season system and pretty uninterested about local politics.

Or we could just say that the robots from the moon were first made by the dwarves who wanted to break away from the seasons and after they went extinct the robots just decided to move on on their own as far away from the world as they could, but ended just reaching the moon before running out of fuel and resources, so they ended up having to trade with the locals.

Open to suggestions.

So the Witcher universe?

Perhaps the current humans are the old dwarves, and everyone just forgot.

I wouldn't call them robots, it borders the realm of Sci-FI too closely. Id keep their origins mysterious and have them be humanoid golems rather than actual "robots".

I like this, but I propose a change.

A cabal of powerful sages from all races assembled following the defeat of the last Dwarven stronghold. Using their magic, they mind-wiped the captured Dwarves who survived after the war, and using biomancy, reshaped them so to be less resistant to magical influence, making them more subservient to themselves as a result. This created not humans, but the race known as hobbits, who'd come to serve the Fall.

No one barring the sages themselves knew of this, and they were all killed eons ago. Everyone assumes hobbits just sort of "sprung out of the ground".

user, will love the RPG I am going to publish next year.

Follow-up: Closed Beta Testing starts tomorrow, illustrations have already been commissioned, it's all taking shape. If you want to do it yourself, you need to hurry, I have at least 1 year of a headstart. :^)

No. Worse.

But the category is so broad that we could both make things and not realize who the other is.

That is true. I am really delighted by this thread because it indicates that there might be a potential customer base out there.

>Alchemy has found alternatives to blood, but some vampires just pay willing poor human peasants for some of their blood.
Lost me there

>Big Guys
Are they also red and muscly?

>coastal snake dudes
And dudettes?
>Thread now ruined by waifufags