What kind of aesthetic do you love in your settings? For me it has to be Japanese/Far East. Shit really gets me

Renaissance. Like, with all the works. Everyone stops just shy on their timelines and it disappoints me.

Hellenistic, veterotestamental and Persian aestetics are godlike.

>anime
>shit aesthetics

You do realize aesthetics are subjective right user? Right?

I love native american stuff, it's why I've spent so much time in-character in NAN territory in Shadowrun

I generally go with sort of 70s prog rock album cover aesthetics

(pic semi-related)

Yes, and my subjective opinion is that the only fantasy anime with aesthetics I like is Berserk, and even that was a manga first.

I love me some Arabian aesthetic. Shame about modern times though. There's a rich history and mythology to dig through.

Probably some blend of Elysium and Aliens, at this point.

Bronze age IN SPACE

Popful

>I like Berserk, its dark and edgy for intelligent individuals like myself

>imagine if this happened
>BUT THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN!
>that's why I said "Imagine"

All I said was I like its aesthetics. Don't put words to my mouth, user.

Besides, all that other Japanese fantasy contains the sort of dark shit it makes Berserk look like a preschool fairytale, and you know it.

user said it like it was fact

>all that other Japanese fantasy contains the sort of dark shit it makes Berserk look like a preschool fairytale
Spoken like a true expert on Japanese fantasy.

I don't know whether I'd be allowed to hold the opinion on disliking literally 99% of all Japanese fantasy aesthetics if I hadn't actually read through a fair number of them.

I love the Japanese aesthetic. But you know what works well with it? Medieval German. Gothic is really fucking cool too, as is art nouveau and art deco.

For fantasy, I like an eclectic mix of bronze age and early medieval with some small anachronisms from pre-renaissance years which make for fantasy staples. I'm inspired by old skool D&D art.

Bronze Age Mediterranean shit

I'd love to use Moebius' sci-fi style in a game one day.

Not!Iran

I'm a sucker for the end of the 19th century. Shitton of cool themes and aesthetics to play on and every part of the world had something cool happening.

please tell us more about those other mangas
type moon bullshit ?

I like strange

I like Mediterranean, Caribbean, and other various tropical settings.

Higurashi: When They Cry, Ubel Blatt, Now And Then Here And There, Fire Punch, and of course Goblin Slayer immediately spring to mind. All drawn in the same bland insufferable bright-eyed pointy-eared style, all at the very least as dark as Berserk is.

I have no idea what Japan is smoking, nor what the younger me was on to read or watch them all.

There's probably a whole lot more I haven't actually read but that're probably even worse.

that's pretty much regular Texas wilderness

well berserk is not only old-school dark/horror fantasy, it is also well written
and gorgeous
i don't think there is much better in the west, it's always one or two chef d'oeuvres that topple the rest

>What kind of aesthetic do you love in your settings?
I, I have no idea how to communicate the aesthetic that I like, at least in a way that will be accurate.

I just like what I like.

The sea. And islands.

You're doing a great job of proving right about you being an obnoxious edgy fuck. You claim to hate them but you're more than happy to rattle off the long list of dark fantasy crap you know, and you're still ignoring the huge swaths of the Japanease fantasy milieu that aren't dark at all (probably because they don't appeal to your edgy teenager sensibilities).

My Nubian friend

>>well written

Get a load of this lolicon

Malifaux.
I donno why but I love the setting.

"Green apocalypse" stuff really tickles my pickle, especially if there's lots of water. CATastrophe is a good example.
Psuedo-Indian surrealist stuff I also really dig too, like Kill Six Billion Demons. In fact pretty much anything surreal is a thumbs up from me.
Combine water and surrealism and I love you long time.

The Steppe, Tibet, the Emishi/Ainu, and Heian are all influences that get me going, even when they're diluted.

My most recent campaign takes place in a medieval middle eastern setting and I am surprised by how much I am enjoying describing it's visuals
>Berserk.
>Well written.
Kek.
Berserk is edgelord tier.
You are only allowed so many rape scenes before it stops being dark and starts being funny.
Good art though.

>You claim to hate them but you're more than happy to rattle off the long list of dark fantasy crap you know
You can hate things while still knowing about them, user. In fact, I'd say you're only allowed to hate things you know of - else it's just ignorance.

>you're still ignoring the huge swaths of the Japanease fantasy milieu that aren't dark at all
I was only asked to list a bunch of the really dark stuff, so I didn't bother with the lighter bits.

The Golden Age arc was pretty good.

My group has gotten so used to playing in my not!Ancient Mesopotamia fantasyland, they make all their characters with Sumerian or Assyrian names before they even know what the setting is.

I've been struggling with this fucking question for a year now.

The picture I have in my mind is the forests of Europe mixed with the Bamboo forests of China and the mangroves of the Caribbean, combining the people, weapons, armor, etc. of the first two.

It's perfect in my head, if I was less of an autistic retard I'd actually be able to make headway.

That's not really applicable, since Disney basically does the same genre - some would argue the same film with a different sheen of paint - over and over, whereas anime isn't one genre or made by one company.

Also, most TTRPG players in Japan would expect cartoony stuff. Almost all their pen & paper stuff has an animeish aesthetic. To them something being 'cartoony' doesn't really have the same connotations as it has here. A lot of their advertising and media is basically cartoons.

Goblin Slayer was okay for the first two chapters then it just was eh.

>berserk
>well written
pick one. berserk is baby's first edgy manga. step up your game senpai. even the art has been downgraded recently

Not the user you are replying to but you listing off baby's first edgyshit isn't indicative of your """knowledge""" of dark manga.

>old school
>gorgeous

It is interesting, but these are just buzzwords that do nothing more than create a false image of the manga. The best thing to do is watch it for yourself and determine whether or not you like it.

Can you anons present some well written stories that we can all read and enjoy then?

this aint /r/ or a recc thread user. just get some taste

Yes, well, I was asked specifically for darker stuff than what Berserk does, and Berserk is already pretty edgyshit.

>people hating on Berserk
>pretending it isn't well-written
>pretending it's standard edgeshit

Yes, you're all very special and contrarian, thank you for letting us now.

look at my post again. you might be better received if you didn't post entry-tier newfag shit.

>Fire Punch
confirmed for TERRIBLE taste
And fuck you mean "younger" you? Some of these manga have only been out for a year or two, you autist

who are you quoting?

It would be fucking awesome.
>stoic, valiant knights instead of shitty brooding GoT protags
>cooky whitebeard magic users
>

I just want to point out that this post effectively acknowledges that there's nothing at all wrong with the proposed situation in reality, only in a totally imaginary situation that exists nowhere but user's fevered mind.

What do you want from me exactly?

I said the only Japanese fantasy aesthetics I enjoy is Berserk, and was unjustly branded an edgefag for it even though I didn't even specify whether I like it or not.

I pointed out that there are darker (or babbyedgier, I suppose) mangas out there that are nonetheless drawn in your standard plain expressive Japan style, the one I dislike. I provided a few.

Then you move the goalposts and say I should instead tell you of something little past entry level. You could've mentioned that from the start, you know? You would've even known that Berserk isn't that edgeshit by comparison to them, right? Really what was even the point of all this?

>posts chibi drawings of hitsugi no chaika as a counterpoint
nice cherrypicking faggot
youtube.com/watch?v=9p7UUAll7OY
not to say that this "makes Berserk look like a preschool fairytale" by any means, but using chibi fanart of this series is pretty clearly a poor counterpoint. Use better evidence next time.

I don't actually think Berserk is bad. It's still mostly good and has some simply ingenious moments (like the Lucine saga).

Problem is: it is stilly perfectly right to laugh at its bad moments, 'cause they're pretty bad.

Examples of better writing in manga abound, and yes, even in fantasy (I dunno, Witches by Igarashi, out of my mind).

>at least Miura did save his loli pissing moments for Gigantomachia

nothing to offer eh?

>ahahahha epik 40k meme!!!!1
fuck off.

...

>memegenerator

There's something about rain or a setting where rain is a common almost every day event that invokes deep emotion in me. It bring back alot of memories and I always like to use rain sound effects when shit gets real.

Even when i ask each player 10 questions about their character, I always include
"(character name) is caught in the rain, what is their reaction?"

Not really aesthetic I'm sure, but i fee like it can become an important staple to the general image.

>inspired several of Light Novel writers and anime.
that were shit ?
Except for that one I can't remember the name now

>What kind of aesthetic do you love in your settings?
Western europe 16th century.
1890's Japan.
I like times when shit really changed.
Except the 50's and 60's, those sucked

Love Hina

>not!
Ugh.

youtu.be/bdqbW6MXzsI
rainymood.com/

ooh wow thank you kind user!

>Japan/China/Korea
>cyberpunk/dystopian, run-down megalopolis
>tropics/beach/islands
>worlds covered in water where everybody lives a migratory life on old warships and the only "land" that appears with any frequency are other ships

Where did fandom communities pick up that convention, anyway? Is it from coding?

Your mother

Old-school Sword & Sorcery type shit where men are men and magic is magical.

...

(OP)
As far as aesthetic goes, I absolutely LOVE the feel of Symbaroum's official setting. The misty, ancient world full of mystery and danger, with secrets and horrors of the old world lurking behind every corner, is exactly up my alley and gives me a massive nerd boner.

The aesthetic was super heavy on the Castlevania 4 sort of vibe, but it shifted to divine tropic paradise halfway through.

Vagabond

Black Swordsman was the best arc.

Eh. Art wasn't so good yet, Guts acted like a retard, but the Count was the best villain.

>Ugh.
BBEG

not!Romania, I think it's fun to incorporate folktales and the like into the lore. Not only that but I can show hellenistic, turkic, and slavic influences in monster and faction design. Also its fun to have not!dracula as an NPC.

My absolute favorite aesthetic to sprinkle into my games is a very saturated Rococo-French, specifically for high elves.

Nothing provides a better backdrop for the inhumane cruelty of the fae than decadent layers of pastels colors, lace, and porcelain. Perfect, perfumed elves that shape their chateaus and wigs like cakes, drowning each other in the blood of servants

You should re-read it. Guts acted completely in character in regard to everything we later learn about him. The art quality did however increase dramatically through the Golden Age and kept improving untill Miura switched to digital.

>Guts acted completely in character in regard to everything we later learn about him
What about this bit?

Fire Punch is hilarious for just how edgy it tries to be. It's the Shadow the Hedgehog of manga.

I wanna set my next campaign in the not!Carpathians, any tips for me?

Think mountain strongholds, and slavicized greek gods. But I use the mountains like that as the home for giants and witches. You can still do dracula and the like but think more along the lines of Baba-Yaga.

R O M A
O L I M
M I L O
A M O R

Can't go wrong with the old classic.

>Japanese works well with Medieval German
Eren pls.

I don't have a name for it.

Core elements:
>Main colors are dull, dark, and faded, predominantly blacks, greys, browns, and reds
>Highlight colors (like eyes, items, clothing trim/buttons, insignias, blood) are bright and contrast heavily with clothes and the environment
>Gritty, rugged, and battle-worn European design, weapons and armor are realistic but more dark, washed-out, and damaged than they should be
>Warriors wear a lot more decorations (tattoos, dyes, fabric, stylized armor pieces, symbols/insignias)
>Everything is pretty worn out including people, warriors are covered in scars (a setting-specific extension of this are hydras, organisms that can live in human blood and give them regenerative abilities, however heavily scarring and discoloring the user, eventually turning them into a scar golem)
>Magic is dark and edgy, science is entwined with magic and mysticism

Pic related is the most flashy and magical something can get, but when you reach this level of magic, there are clear downsides. This is a red mithril sword. Mithril is an infusion of steel, silver, and alchemical materials, which is then coated with extremely rare magical oils to protect it (without regular touchups, the blade will corrupt and go to waste). Red mithril in specific uses an oil containing crushed ebony, which releases severe heat when it consumes blood. The blade can be used to create scalding burns, but it can easily burn you too, and its user will have burns and discolorations. Plus it isn't much better than the regular sword, in fact it's worse. People use them because they are cool and convey enigma, wealth, and ability. Magic tends to work like this, people mostly do it to be cool.

Scar golem? How edgy can one fantasy setting get?
>red mithril sword
Jesus christ man

looks like I succeeded