> A historical setting, but the religious myths are all true, that is to say, every deity/idol is real and influencing the world, but it's impossible to know which mythological origin story is true.
> The setting takes place shortly after the fall of the Roman Empire, while mortals wage war to fill the power vaccum, the reinvigorated old pagan deities, the fading but still strong Roman deities, the tiny and esoteric mystery cult idols, and the lone but mighty Yahweh do battle for the heats and souls of men.
> All of the fighting occurs in the heavenly realms, which are separate from the mortal world, to influence the mortal world, the deities must interface through an extremely devoted mortal, and doing more than using them as a mouthpiece requires a hefty amount of power, which can only be granted through the devotion of mortal souls.
ITT: We post setting concepts/setting genres
> *hearts and souls of men
Nice kitties you have there
>Sci Fi setting, humans have colonized hundreds and hundreds of planet in relative harmony for decades until war broke out among them and tore apart the galactic government.
>setting takes places on a planet that has lost FTL technology (but it can be found again by the players during the campaign)
>the planet is in a state of constant conflict but people have forgotten why, just listening to the old (malfunctionning) AIs that keeps shouting orders from the time the war began.
>Some people start to rise from all sides to recreate peace by repairing/destroying the AIs of faction
>Setting has some advanced technology but in a WH40K kind of way where people don't know how to make it or advance it any further
Something in the ball park of Warframe, Eclipse Phase, and Prophet the comic series. The entire Solar system is colonized but split from war between sentient machines, clone clades, and uplifts. Science and mysticism have become one with the degeneration and losses of knowledge and culture. Biomechanics are the prominent aesthetic.
Certified dope idea
> There is hard evidence that somewhere in space God is waiting for humanity to arive. Religion is generally considered to be a fact of existence, although we cannot really understand it. After we invent a rocket capable of traveling far into space, we send a crew up there. They arrive and find a planet sized chair of black stone floating in space, it is empty. Something keeps answering our prayers.
>It's the Kaaba in space.
Damn.
We need some space Qarmatians up in here.
> Set the OP's setting around 25 AD so the Jewish heroes likea not!Samson can have squabbles about foreskin with Christian Heroes who have been Literally anointed by Christ.
Metal Messiah Jesus best patron, Pagans Get out reeee
>post apocalypse setting, the rapture and final war turn earth into a wasteland
>madmax with demons and angels forming their own gangs
>the angels are just as dangerous
>A post apocalyptic future where the earth has been blasted by nuclear hell-fire, and the only traces of civilization left are the massive city sized Tanks, the cultures have reformed as the monarchies and nobility re-assert themselves, ruling over the Cloned Prole masses.
>When tanks meet on the dusty salt plains, war is fought as it had been for generations.
>Drop Pods are fired onto each tanks superstructure, the cloned troops with heat rays first dig trenches of metal in the typically 6M top armour of the tank.
>Conventional Troops arrive and set up combat trenches.
>Defenders file out and do much the same.
>Blue Blood Officers in their extravagant outfits strut around killing men with their ancestral sidearms, and getting into usually non-lethal sword duels with other officers admist the maxim fire, no clone trooper would dare shoot blue bloods of any tank-nation.
>While all of that is going on, Dog Fights are being waged in the air, as planes are being built on board the tanks and pushed out almost constantly, the greatest Born-Aces racking up hundreds of clone kills.
> Parasite tanks swarm out the Massive launch bays of the mother tanks, Hundreds of tanks slug it out between the two mother ships, slugging it out.
>The Two tanks eventually pass each other, the dead are counted, the plane wrecks are burned, the tank carcasses dragged up, and a winner is declared, the spoils unclear.
Me and best friend came up with it during highschool at P.E.
>Different cultures are VIOLENT stereotypes.
>The Albion officers will actually stop fighting at 12 to sit down and have tea, even in literal No-Mans land on top of the tanks.
But have wicked strong defensive Air Game.
>The Holy Roman Empire's Clone-Troops are even more suicidal than normal. And the officers never laugh. Their smaller tanks are widely considered the best though, IF and WHEN the transmission doesn't break.
>The Tsardom has extra cloning facilities aboard it's tank and so can absolutely swarm ground troops.but replaced most of their air factories.
Occasionally, Enough Noble lines get too many branches, and (Because this is actually a post-scarcity society, because energy to matter or something shutup.) A New Mother tank is made, and they are sent off on their own.
Meaning you can have crap like the Confederates fighting Soviets, or something.
Honestly, the though of Passchendale, Kursk, and the Battle of Britain happening all at the same time over and on top of Super-massive Land-Battleships gets my dick adamant.
user, I recommend the 'Mortal Engines' book series, Its basically what you have just described.
> Essentially the Wild West genre, but with supernatural martial arts and mystical blades instead of firearms, and it's set in Eastern China several hundred years after an apocalyptic cataclysm brought back magic and filled the world with monsters.
> China is split between a dozen feuding kingdoms, the invading Japanese Samurai and numberless Indian hordes threaten the whole of China, and with the Techno-Mongol tribes looting and pillaging their way across the northern kingdoms, and it's only a matter of time before a warrior strong enough to unite them into a Khanate arises.
> Adventurers are those who wander the hellish wastes in search of honor, riches, and worthy foes. Combat is highly lethal, and at higher levels, the PCs and their foes are walking weapons of mass destruction.
Literally Godbound.
>Set in 2117
>Rather than Nuclear Weapons the world continued to expand on the use of chemical weapons after WWI
>It all reached a head during WWII when a massive chemical bomb released over England started a chain reaction killing 2/3rds of the human population.
>Society Collapsed and devolved back into Feudalism and mysticism
>Main Setting is is the area formerly known as Chicago
>The Area is now ruled by an evil Seer who sits at the top of his tower looking down upon the masses.
> Set within Neo-Paleolithic/Pre-History Time
> Perhaps somewhat like the Ancient Egyptian idea of the Afterlife being life after death but on earth
> No soul goes to heaven or hell. Neither exists
> All souls simply remain
> Which is a problem since now the souls of the dead roam the earth
> As in semi-corporeal mammoths, giant fucking sea creatures, megasloths, big ole fucking post dinosaur-proto-birds reside on the earth
> Cause havoc, wreck shit, make life fucking miserable for all living things especially for proto-Man
> Players assume the role of tribe members who utilize magic and anti-spiritual/anti-incorporeal weapons to fend them off
> Goal is simply to survive
> Maybe have some sort of overarching plot about creating heaven/hell by digging really deep into the earth
>Post-Apocalyptic setting
>The Cold War actually went full nuclear
>100 years after the nuclear fire society begins to spring back
>In this new world the greatest commodity isn't Gold or Silver, but Vinyl
>Vinyl records become not only a luxury item but are seen as scripture from the vast Empires that ruled before the end of the world
>Vinyl Hunters now scavenge the ruins of the world in search of glory and wealth.
>set in the late 1900's
>small town, almost stereotypical
>inhabited by quirky, lovable characters
>it's rather normal and down to earth
>sans the fact that people can have "evil spirits"
>these evil spirits have random abilities from healing things to making them explode
>the party is a group of these people with "evil spirits", using them to protect the town
>the main villain is an evil spirit user who murders people
>just wants a quiet life
Could have just said JoJo part4
>post-apocalyptic setting
>dark and lonely
>weird cthulu-esque beasties
>strange magical effects
>people live mostly in small houses made of sheetmetal and wood, in little walled villages
>plenty of guns leftover, ammo is manufactured
>nothing too special but it has a particular kind of feel that I aim to evoke
>Egyptian setting, deserts/the whole 9 yards
>towns/cities are clustered around rivers and oasis's
>Because of the Amonkhet planeshift, figured making orcs/half orcs minotaur/ram race instead. Aven be aarakos replacer, and naga as a yuan ti replacer. And trying to figure out how to make dwarves, halflings and gnomes workable in a desert enviroment???
>Undead and necromancy are not considered evil by the main populations, but is outlawed and frowned upon in certain cases and places.
>Magic is widely used
>cult under a wizard that turns cultists into warriors of Set (god of darkness and sandstorms)
>warriors of set are imbued with a magic ore and they can transform back and forth (like barbarian rage) (mtg eternals as example...)
>cult wants to wipe out all that opposes the "will" of Set.
>party tasked with finding artifacts in tombs/crypts to beat the cult in realizing their goals, in order to deem themselves worthy of glory and afterlife.
>adventurers seek glory of afterlife and praise from the Egyptian gods.
>Backdrop is near future with some anachronistic features. Think Alien / Aliens, mixed in with that overall late 80s / 90s vibe. Guys running around with big clunky OICWs, Extremely expensive railguns on an Abrams, 4k CRT monitors, so on and so forth.
>FTL travel is a thing with spaceships that look like what we'd have now.
>"Inner Core" worlds (Mars, Moon, moons around Saturn / Jupiter) fall well within earth government jurisdiction (countries still exist, and many inner-core space colonies are within national jurisdictions)
>However "Outer Core" worlds (Proxima centauri, Gilese, etc.) are Corporation-Stans (tm) mostly dominated by large Energy / Mining / Military-Aerospace / Terraforming megaconglomerates
To be continued
>New planet is found. Turns out it's terran, and has a bustling population of (insert your choice of races here) with civilizations, a rich history, so on and so forth)
>Now 'soft' industries, namely those in service, culture and arts, finance, retail (think McDonalds, consumer electronics companies, Wal-mart, fashion and design), they all want to get in on monetizing the new planet and its huge potential market
>They create a large, rival conglomerate and leverage power in earth governments
>Megamining Conglomerate who thought the planet was theirs, now find that their settlement rights are in dispute / the other walmart conglomerate got the rights to make first contact
>Corporate McWarfare (tm) kicks off, with mining conglomerates trying to sabotage their rival by covert means
As for the new planet:
>On average, has a tech level around 1600s Europe, with a few things behind, other things far ahead. Distribution of technology widely varies as populations cluster around capitols. There's even some small-scale industrialization, although still in its infancy.
>Planet that is being fought over has many kingdoms unified under one capitol, after having fought long and bloody wars.
>Magic is mostly relegated for petty uses, but is uncommon and mostly unpopular. The magical aura of the realm has been greatly subdued, because...
>The holy wars. The independent used magic against one another, until it awoke and then fed unspeakable evils that once had been banished by the ancients. Then the holy wars were fought.
>After having to unite to fight off BBEGs, the kingdoms sign accords and allow themselves to be ruled by heroic, religious figures (initially heroes and saints who fought in the great anti-BBEG wars)
>As time passes, people think evil has been banished, grow increasingly complacent and also start resenting the loss of their kingdoms autonomy, increasing domestic tension
Moar?
>Transcended aliens have become literal star beings in that they have become the stars themselves
>Create celestial bodies around their orbits that can support different types of life forms
>Create gate technology to help accelerate the tech advancement of whatever species finds them.
>Tricks them into sending people through the portals into their personal solar systems then closes it off.
>Several Human colony ships are now trapped this way along with several other alien races spread across the several Star beings.
>No know exactly knows why the Star Beings are doing this to begin with.
Dropping in to say that is the cutest thing I've seen all week. In exchange for the smile, I'll contribute.
> A Mad Max-esque Atompunk Fantasy setting, but the war wasn't nuclear, it was fought between two cabals of wizards of godlike power. The world is frozen and undergoing a second ice age, vast swathes of magic pollution mutate and disfigure all within it, and technology is either patchwork and primitive or ancient and irreplaceable.
>timeline divergence occurs around the 2001-2006ish period.
>The divergence is a few gods suddenly appear fighting in a few cities, the fight bounces from city to city over the globe.
Considering the gods to be maybe a fight between a few war gods of a few pantheons.
>Gods have been active and such.... But not in our world, most of the myths occurred... but in parallel earths.
>In reparations and such a bunch of gods give manuals on how to use magic.
>Magic can pretty much do anything but it requires more energy for more laws of reality being broken, thus wizards will often know a bit of physics to conserve energy on a spell.
Thus instead of just going flat out 'fire cannot hurt me' they will go for 'The heat does not hit me'
>As a result of this certain elements for spells are easier to do : Fire is easiest along with anything that can just be put down do 'I change or meddle with energy' Hell a simple fire spell can simple turning ones mana into heat or just bunching a bunch of heat energy up.
>Gods are powerful and almighty..... In there own 'spheres', spheres are basically pocket dimensions were gods can dictate how things work and how things go, think places like the various underworlds and thrones of gods, These are were myths that were a bit 'fuck physics' occurred like thor drinking a ocean and all that.
>Gods are still far more powerful than any mortal typically outside of there 'spheres' but get weaker the further they go from the sphere and worshipers.
I made the sphere idea so certain myths dont run roughshod over others like the mahabarata vs say a lot of myths.
>The norse gods are not around due to ragnarok occuring a few 100 years back, but some survivors are around like small populations of dwarves and elves and the gods that did survive it.
>Various other races like Lamia and Arachne (Born from the original Arachne) are around in various parellel worlds.
There's an Amonkhet D&D setting out there now released by Wizards. Might be helpful to you, user.
>The world is flatter than the average loli waifu
>But fuck the upper surface shit's boring
>Civilizations hang off the underside of the world
>Rope bridges and waterfalls abound
>Chalcolithic sortition-based democracies war against slave-based tyrannies
>There's an oligopoly burrowing down from the top side seeking out converts for its market-based religion
>Aliens too, maybe
>TFW you recognise the artist, he does so much bbw art.
>Because of the Amonkhet planeshift
I think that is why he did it and how the races are on point
D'aww. Here's a concept:
> Knights on motorcycles
>World ruled by a council of Mages who hold a tight grasp on the only large cities on the continent
>Eventually they allow the citizens to try and run their own city
>The city falls victim to a natural disaster
>Corporations use Warforged and newly created firearms
>with Mundane support and use of firearms and a few anti-magic relics the corporations slowly but surely annex all the cities
>Corporations install rulers of the cities and fill cities with their products
>Products are all magical objects being passed off as innovative technology
> Corporations gain power and adoration of the public as saviors of the mundane world
>All magics beside Divine magic is forbidden
>Magic users,Warlocks, and Magical creatures are hunted and exterminated or taken back to who knows where for experiments
>Mages in hiding still following the council of magic users who ruled before and managed to escape
>Druids fight against corporate expansion into the forests
>Clerics and Paladins try to help whoever possible without invoking violence upon their temples and followers
I feel like it's kind of Shadowrun-like. Opinions though?
I really wish there was more modern fantasy.
Not really a complete setting but an idea I had for a noir short story
> Post-Industrial, Prohibition-Era world where certain fluids are prohibited (originally conceived as alcohol but can be any sort of macguffin or unobtanium/phlebotinum)
> Why? Because fungal-parasites and symbiotes can mature in the fermented liquids which create alcohol (or whatever you wanted)
> Government enlist a 'gangster squad' of troubleshooters to bust up distilleries, moonshine operations, bootlegging rackets, etc
> Like a shitty, uninspired ripoff of I guess Lovecraft, Dick Tracey, Reefer Madness, Humphrey Bogart, Al Capone
>modern earth
>all natural disasters are replaced by monsters
>hurricanes, storms, tornados and tsunamis come as kaiju
>wildfires, famines, droughts and floods are swarms of smaller monsters
>plagues are boogeyman type monsters that tend to lurk in the shadows
Mad Max?
The Maddest Max
Sir Eric the Enraged?