Let's build a dark/low fantasy setting

Let's build a dark/low fantasy setting.
Keep it grim...and avoid the tropes

No.

>do something that follows a specific subgenre, but don't follow a specific subgenre

Are you feeling all right, OP?

Which tropes?

---

Magic is very rare, and only in the hands of a select few indivduals who are the stuff of historical legend. Think Excalibur movie, where only Merlin and Morgana le fay had any sense of magic and while it was low level stuff like casting fog, creating a disguise, making magical armor, or healing wounds it could still prove decisive. Also magic always comes with some kind of price.

Trope. Trope, tropetropetrope, trope, trope, trope, trope trope.Trope.

Rare magic is *the* low fantasy trope, as that's generally what makes it low magic. So avoid it, OP says.

It's an alternative reality where OP wasn't dropped on his head as a baby by his negligent parents.

Healing magic exists, but it has the drawback of lingering in your body for years afterwards and reanimates your corpse if you die with it still in your system.

Magic cannot be learned, taught, or inborn. Magic must be stolen from those creatures which have it, and to do so, one must capture them and draw off the magic though their blood, and consume the magic in the same way.

This does not result in any kind of undeath or blood dependent vampirism, but it does indelibly mark those who manage the practice. their eyes become blood colors, and their skin and hair go white from the shock. The magic thus gained is not flashy or grandiose, but manifests in the ability to turn the fortunes of other either fair or foul, and only for a short time.

Creatures that are inherently magical are very rare, and guard their secrets jealously, taking great pains to ensure that mortals regret coming into contact with them at all.

>Magical ability is actually really common and anyone can become a practitioner, but most people don't do it because magic is extremely hard to control and just as likely to fry you as it is to fry your opponents
>The few who manage to master magic need to have incredible willpower and usually don't make it with their faculties fully intact
>As such, proper practitioners are rare and people avoid them unless they get desperate

As others have pointed out, it's kind of hard to avoid tropes entirely, what you can do is implement some of the tropes in a different or imaginative way, or try to bend and twist some of the tropes a bit, but you'll still end up with some familiar tropes.

hmmm, I've always thought of low fantasy as just magic is not that very powerful but still widespread.

*as that's generally what makes it low fantasy

I need a nap.

That's one way of implementing magic in low fantasy, but the typical scenario is magic being extremely rare

both the light and dark are filled with creatures of unthinkable machinations and dimensions unknowable.

Elves exist but their fates and wills are intrinsicily bound to the machivellian schemes of their duel pantheons play with the elves as their pawns.

Humanitys gods are dead at least somewhat and human prayers fall on deaf ears though Humanity does not know it nonetheless they pray to them regardless.

Dwarves are twisted vile creatures that live underneath the earth haunched and furtive, they keep no gods, elven scholars say it is because they hide in the accursed places beneath the earth and that no god knows of them to take them as their own.

Orcs keep dark and profane gods as bloodyhanded as their culture allows yet Orcs are no stranger to civilisation and have built grand cities of their own though they have all crumbled into dust as their gods demand a constant flow of blood and care little of whos.

The main religion isn't just Catholicism with the registration number scratched off.

Elves are scheming, arrogant dicks in nearly all fantasy settings though. Seriously, I can't think of one where they're actually portrayed as likable.

did you miss the part where it was not in fact the elves but their gods who are the dicks?

It's actually Islam, with the registration number filed off.

>Djinn cannot manipulate the mortal plane unless a mortal allows them to
>To this end, they tempt mortals with wishes, but secretly use those wishes to fulfill their own agenda
>The wishes they grant inevitably go sour and cause widespread misery

Virtually all of the monsters you encounter have origins of being people once. Some were cursed into these forms by evil witches, or were possessed by eternal spirits. Others did it to themselves in their search for power or everlasting life. Some people just end up warped by their obsessions and desires for reasons no one understands, their humanity being lost in the process.

This makes fighting monsters unpredictable and dangerous, as many of these monsters are essentially unique, ad their powers and weaknesses can only be discovered by trial and error. For the aspiring monster hunter, tracking down accounts of previous murders and battles this monster has taken part in are key to success. Perhaps, in the maddened whispers of the survivors, you will find some clue for your victory.

>"The black ones rule over the land now"
>Whys they called the black'uns?
>Cause they came from the black aint it? black of the night and all

> BUT the djinn hide this misery from the mortal that made the wish often enough that the reputation of getting a wish from a djinn doesn't go too sour

As in, most of the time you wish might end up causing total misery or death for 1000 people, but its not people you know so you are not fully aware of the consequences. Or, at the very least, it comes back to bite you in the ass long enough after the wish that it just seems like random chance.

The ones that get screwed over by their wishes in more obvious ways are said to have simply made poorly worded wishes or otherwise fucked up. Not like me, aspiring power hungry wish summoner. I"M going to be one of the SMART ones. MY wish will go just fine.

You have to have at least the illusion that djinn summoning can work out for the summoner a decent amount of time, otherwise people will just stop doing it.

I have an idea around Magic. In order to cast spells you need to charge them with blood of humans. So the Mages of the world kidnapped children and take them to the wizard towers where they do blood sacrifice in order to gain magical powers. The reason why the king isn't stopping them is because the Mages are necessary in order to fight the supernatural creatures of the land. So stuff like ghosts, Wraiths and demons you need magic, you could potentially use a sword as well if it has been blessed in holy water or made of silver but in general magic is the best method. Mages can also enchant items such as the gems in rings and necklaces to hold one charge of a spell and they give to the nobility of the land in order to continue their operations of child murder unopposed.

What do you guys think?

Why murder the children? A consistently blood dispenser is probably more efficient than constant kidnapping, unless magic requires A LOT of blood

Underneath every continent a long-forgotten dead deity slumbers. Or at least their ghosts. Except for the southernmost pole, their dead deity fucked off into space.

>captcha sez: south piovega
And thus it will be, the Southern Deity's name is Piovega.

I hadn't thought about that. Maybe the person has to die for the ritual to count?

But what if the person is neither dead nor alive - but still drips blood?

Well if magic requires a sacrifice for every ritual, it becomes really counterproductive for protection, especially if silver is an alternative

So the elves are dicks because their gods make them do it. Practically the same end result, as you still end up with elves acting like dicks.

Okay, let's make elves a beacon of hope in our setting. Genuinely nice creature who use their power/magic to help mankind against the forces of evil.

For example if a human necromancer binds the spirits of a village and forces them to serve him an elf would come there to ease the dead's suffering.

The holy place of pilgrimage is being slowly tainted by the cultists of Peacock Angel

Nice. I'm also getting berserk vibes from this.

EVERYTHING'S A FUCKING TROPE YOU ASSHAT FUCK YOU AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The sun has stopped and the world is basked in perpetual twilight.

>as that's generally what makes it low fantasy
Low Fantasy just means the story takes place in the real world. High Fantasy is defined by taking place in a fictional world. Harry Potter is Low Fantasy and A Song Of Ice And Fire is High Fantasy.

What you’re thinking of is High/Low Magic. High Fantasy can be Low Magic and vice versa.

I like this

>dark fantasy
>grim

This stinks of tropes and cliches already.

On the nonmagical side of things, the era's tech has been stale for so long that it has been near entirely mastered. Equipment is generally readily available to those who commit to soldiery or even mercenary work.

In addition, a society of martial tutors exists and is funded by near enough every realm, even those of questionable morality and standing. This society is seemingly apolitical, though rumours are rife regarding their vast riches and mysterious leadership.

Nigga what. In the tgsphere, at the very least, low fantasy very heavily implies low magic, having nothing to do with if it is set on Earth or not. By your definition, the Supernatural tv show is low fantasy, and fuck that shit, that is high fantasy as fuck, stakes of the world, all that. By your definition, fucking LotR is low fantasy, and doubly fuck that!

The defining feature of low fantasy is a more grounded world, not where it takes place. The fewer the fantastic elements the lower the fantasy.

The contrast to high fantasy heroic fantasy. Conan and its ilk, SoIaF, Dresden Files, etc. The stakes are lower, preferably on the level of characters and their struggles.

High fantasy, meanwhile, lies somewhere in between a large number of fantastic elements, and fuckhuge stakes of failure.

The monsters and magic has only started since the twilight age began. That was long enough ago that this has become the new normal, but recent enough that the very elderly remember a time of day and night.

Just make it like European mythology

That’s dark fantasy at it’s best

Everyone in the setting has predisposition to using magic, and soon enough, with rapid development of spells, arcane nukes were created. After arms race, period of political tension and a few explosions, world has yet to recover after the war. Since worldwide agreement that came after the cataclysm, use of magic and possessing catalysts or components is forbidden.
I'm sorry

Big black cocks are the source of all magic