Modern Fantasy

I'm waiting for the scion early access text to come out. Modern mythology stuff, basically every major pantheon is represented in some way. It might just be the fact that I have nothing to do but the wait is killing me

If I were to do modern fantasy, I would try to keep a modern aesthetic, have things look more normal than fantastical. Like seeing a short goblin in a suit, riding the subway to get back to his apartment after a 9-5. I know that might not sound exciting, but that's what I would want out of modern fantasy as a kind of atmosphere and backdrop. Just the fantastic couched in the normal. It's part of the reason why I like Bright so much, even though Bright isn't a great movie.

They have any Mesopotamian, Cherokee, Christian, or Slavic pantheons? I haven't followed the Kickstarter in ages. I was interested if they would cover any of them.

Swords and business suits.

Your body guards can materialize weapons and armor around them (so can you). When you've turned your would be assassins into a bloody paste on the sidewalk outside the club you get on your phone and call your lawyer to tell them you did nothing wrong and tell the club owners to suck dick for lax security then get in your limosine where you astral communicate with your side bitch get some booty because fighting gets you all hot and bothered and you tell her you're breaking out the good champaign just for her.

Don't know. The running total is 13 right now I think, 10 in core, 3 in companion, and from what I understand they plan to add more in demigod and god, though I really doubt its going to be another 10 per. I have no idea how you would do a christian pantheon, but the closest they have is the yazata, the archangels from zoro whatever whatever anism

Oh yeah, and no slavic pantheon yet but I think that was used as an example in the 1e companion for something or other, so I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it show up later

I figured they could do Celestial Choirs, Archangels, or Saints. That's cool. I guess I'll go look at it

The devs have commented on the idea on the forums before. It's a tricky situation because of course you wanna be at least a little respectful, if not because you care then because pissing off Christians is a terrible idea given how many of them there are. Basically the gods are all supposed to be kinda equal and having a capital G omnipotent in the setting is very definitely a no no, so it would have to be done with care.

So...that saddle implies that someone is meant to ride her right?

See
You don't go with the extra-capital G, you go with the Archangels, the Grigori, the Saints, the Choirs, the Patriarchs (well you would pissy of other people with that one) Nephilim would be a great way to do it. Angel blooded mortals trying to do good, some the descendants of Fallen, fighting Titanspawn, like Behemoth, Leviathan, spawns of the Beast, or sons of the Serpent etc. Stuff like that one guys artwork of the Virtues & Deadly Sins

Those are both me.
And the problem I was trying to get at is that the very existence of said angels/saints implies that the capital G god is out there. So you gotta tread the line between
>All these other gods are fucking huge chumps and this one god is better then them all
and
>The angels/saints are huge chumps and the thing they worship doesn't actually exist
The direction they would probably end up going is that the deity at the center so to speak is kinda in primordial/other divine force territory and isn't nearly as personal or active as the related religion would imply, but again you gotta be REALLY careful how you do that for fear of posts going around facebook moms about how this is the devils game and its gonna corrupt the youth into doing drugs.

Sorry I meant I understand but it's possible.& I think it would be neat

2070, officially, so not TOO far-future.

Huh. I guess thats what I get for being a filthy casual who's never read the books, but for some reason I had the impression it was like full space travel, independent AI, laser weapons and the like

There's a fair number of so-called "Urban Fantasy" settings, which are more modern takes on magic, as opposed to Shadowrun's Cyber-run aesthetic.

Most of them are based on the variety of Urban Fantasy novels, about which I can give some basic ideas.

First, though, at least 2 Urban Fantasy settings HAVE official RPGS:
Dresden Files RPG, which is derived from the FATE system,
and Unknown Armies, which actually doesn't exist BEYOND the RPG.

So, those two noted, let's talk the basics of the various Urban Fantasy settings I know of:

First, some general notes:
-Hidden. Almost every Urban Fantasy setting utilizes some form of secrecy, hiding the general population of the world from the magical one. Sometimes this is nominal, for instance, with Nightside books, where the city's location makes it essentially a microcosm, and therefore there is no concern for enforcing the secrecy, versus say, the Dresden Files, where multiple times the plots specifically note how hard acting against the supernatural hurts mortal characters, because the secrecy involved means they don't have good reasons/excuses for their actions.

Second, they all contain a "focus point": in that, despite many settings explaining just how many factions there are, how many pantheons are real, etc, the characters will almost always be primarily tied/opposed to a single faction.

That out of the way, some summaries.
(cont)

The AI bit is right, and I think there might be some laser weapons.

It helps to remember that the setting was started in the late 80's, early 90's so they were more optimistic on what we'd achieve in 100 years.

In general, it's more "direct feeds from drones" "cyber-enhanced assassins" and "Oh yeah, also magic".

Dresden Files: a big name in the genre, and one with official RPG materials, Dresden Files was originally a fusion of Pulp-style Detective and Fantasy. Hence why the same system that powered Spirit of the Century was chosen for the RPG.

It's pretty much locked physically in Chicago, with little discussion about other regions outside of the Paranet Papers supplement, and deals a LOT with Wizards, a specific type of magic-user in the setting, and their laws and powers. This is because, well, the main character of the books is a wizard.

A notable and potentially useful idea from this setting is that Magic is harmful to technology: Throwing around magical power essentially cause localized EMPs. This helps maintain secrecy, and also stops Wizard characters from solving all their problems with cell phones.

Another potentially interesting fact of the setting is the idea of a variety of Vampires: officially, there are something like 7 "Courts" of Vampires, each with different weaknesses, Power sets, and appearances. Black Court are your traditional walking corpses with Dracula style powers and weaknesses, teh White Court are more Anne Rice, beautiful creatures who feed on lust, despair, or wrath, and the Red Court are based on Camazotz: terrible bat-demons of the Maya, who can wear "skin masks".

Unknown Armies: the second RPG supported option, UA is based on a simple premise: first, that only crazy people would believe in magic, and therefore, magic only works for the insane, and also, It's All Your Fault. There are no vampires, no werewolves, no trolls in the world, just human beings who may have chosen to BECOME those things. You gain magickal power either by following an Aspect (one of the 333 secret "characters" in the human subconscious) or by tapping into a paradox-fuelled magickal school. Like, Entropomancers, who can manipulate chance...but gain their powers by relying on dumb luck and bad odds to make major decisions.

(Cont)

UA has a roll-under percentile system that requires failure to advance skills, and some really neat ideas burrowing under its skin of madness.

Some raw Urban Fantasy settings you could rob from:

The Cal Leandros Series: Follows the adventures of Cal "Caliban" Leandros, who is the only Half-Elf in the world. Because Elves, also called the Auphe, also called "Grendels" are fucking terrifying in this setting, being essentially the Cenobites mixed with The Predator: they want to taste the hot blood of every creature they meet, hear their screams, and generally desire nothing except destruction.

A notable idea from here is the Auphe themselves: the idea, somewhat like in Harry Potter, of a seemingly childish mortal notion being deathly serious in the mystic world.

Features minor gods, trickster fairies, vampires, and so forth.

The Iron Druid Series: Follows Atticus O'Sullivan, the last Druid on Earth, who escaped the Roman Pogrom of his people because he was hiding from a pissed-off Love God at the time.

Atticus partly owes his continued existence to having made an ancient pact with Iron, and tattooing their pact on his person, imbuing his personal Aura with Iron, making his very touch a bane to many fae creatures, and making him resistant to many forms of magic.

Two Notable ideas:
Ancient and Terrible: Many creatures in this world ascribe a level of prestige and respect to a being's age. A vampire of 400 years bows to a witch of 600, for example. This is due to the fact that, in essence, the older you are, the harder you must be to kill. When Atticus's true age of roughly 2,000 is revealed, it naturally causes his enemies some level of discomfort.

Second, I particularly enjoy the portrayal of Elementals in the series, who speak in a sort of "logic-gated" manner, like a Hanar or robot might, since they communicate by concept, eschewing grammar.
"Can you find the man?"
"Certainty. Completion: one cycle. Remain."

(cont)

Actually, I gotta handle some other stuff, so I'll just blitz out the last couple ideas:

The Nightside: uses a magical city "beside" London, a neutral ground between Heaven and Hell. Like the City of Sigil for a modern age.

the InCryptids: Series premise is the magical world exists, but a secret order of knights has been slowly murdering all of it, to "protect humanity". Turns out, they're maybe a little more into the "killing things" bag than "saving people". A member of their order goes rogue, and creates a family dedicated to, actually finding out how these creatures think and act, and solving issues peaceably, essentially becoming a family of Steve Irwins for magical monsters.

Those are the series I have direct experience with, if the thread's still up later and there are any questions, I can answer them, but hopefully there's some usable ideas in there, OP.

While I read the Iron Druid novels, I also kinda hate them. Atticus is a shitty person with no redeeming qualities & acts like a hippie millenial. Also sometimes his books drag forever without much actually happening except him telling his dog bath time stories & him banging hot chicks.

First off do you want Urban Fantasy aka Fantasy elements inserted into an otherwise normal modern day Earth

Or do you want a Contemporary Fantasy where it is a fantasy world with Modern elements

>Or do you want a Contemporary Fantasy where it is a fantasy world with Modern elements
I don't see this one anywhere near often enough and it saddens me.

I don't think he has no redeeming qualities, but I agree Atticus is definitely not a great person.

He does state in one of the books that, since he was being hunted by a God that knew every time he used his magic, that he's basically had to run and hide from every fight that came his way for the last two millennia.

It's almost a kind of learned villany: He doesn't like to help people, because he's had centuries of knowing he couldn't.

I think the author leans a little too hard on him "evolving" through this by saying "Looks like I don't have a choice" to himself in the later books, rather than just taking some time to unpack that shit and move on.

Yeah, a fantasy world with modern elements is what I was going for.

I see.

Then you're looking at something more like Perdido Street Station, or the Craft Sequence

I'm certain there are others, but I haven't particularly run into them.

You could always watch Bright.

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>tfw ''modern fantasy'' makes you think of how fantasy as a genre is presented in the 2010's, instead of magical shenanigans in contemprorary urban environments.

Operator 28 is cool.

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