Modern fantasy settings always come down to two silly ideas...
>A: There is a secret world happening in the background in which vampires, werewolves, monsters, wizards and whatnot exist hiding in plain sight all over the world but all stay hidden from the normal peoples.
>B: Lets throw Orcs and Elves and shit on it into modern Chicago/Tokyo/London/whatever and hope it all fits together somehow.
We can do better guys.
Certainly, but who wants to dedicate the time and effort to figuring out how the past 2000+ years of history would change if elves and orcs were around back then.
>We can do better guys.
No we can't. Because I'm not going to write anything. And you certainly fucking aren't or you already would have instead of bitching about it. You want people to do work for you, you lazy fuckstain.
Christ, even your bitching is retarded. Either the fantasy elements are secret or they're not. It's a dichotomy. There's no third option, you waste of spunk.
>We can do better guys.
Sure, for money.
Why not just do a fantasy setting that has advanced to the modern age?
Because people go REEE as soon as you talk about fantasy in the post-medieval periods.
Well, that's an interesting idea that will take way to long. Still gonna try though.
>198BC
- Roman legionaires, composed of various species as per the Roman custom of moving people around their empire, fights a climactic battle in Gaul against a small village of elven, orkish and human defenders. Their druidic shaman provides considerable aid.
>33AD
-Orkish deciple Peter denies Jesus 3 times.
>1212AD
-The childrens crusade, composed of people of all races, marches on the holy land
Why not start with a big but simple premise with a clearly defined entry point? Like what happens in Dragon Maid and twisting it a bit.
Giant, powerful Dragons appear in several major cities around the world. But no attacks take place, since no government wants to risk nuking itself, and the Dragons can be talked to and negotiated with. They are after something, though, something important and they might not all be looking for the same thing either. How does a town and the people in it adapt when a massive Dragon is looking for something in their neck of the woods.
Somebody-Else-Their-Problem Field
Yeah, it's their problem, but how does it affect life if they take up residence in a city or some rural areas? Do they vote to widen the road? Get it a Driver's License when walking down the street? How friendly can you get with one?
What happens if other monsters start pouring over?
here's one I've been fiddling with(well it was originally meant to be set closer to the origin point of the weirdness, but a more modern setting works too);
>sometime in the middle of the 30 Years War
>a Mercenary Company while sacking a town in Germany interrupts a would be Wizard's ritual
>it's unknown what the ritual was originally meant to do
>what it did do is cause the world tree Yggdrasil to be reborn into existence, alongside the other 8 worlds besides Midgard
>turns out Ragnarok had occurred in the past and had erased almost all evidence of the supernatural in the process
>Yggdrasil covers up a chunk of Europe about the size of modern day Belgium
>for the first couple decades of it's new existence most of Yggdrasil beyond it's base is inaccessible
>eventually contact is established with those who live in the other 8 Realms(and on Yggdrasil itself)
>turns out that during those decades time was accelerated in Yggdrasil and the 8 Realms, so what was only about 30-50 years on Midgard was a couple centuries for the other Realms, allowing them to develop civilizations of their own
>while a lot of Norse terminology is used to describe Yggdrasil and it's inhabitants, this is a new creation only loosely tied with the first World Tree
>due to Yggdrasil's rebirth(and contact with it's inhabitants), Magic once again becomes common on Earth
and skip forward to the present(original concept was to have the present be in the late 18th century or early 19th century)
obviously there's some tweaking needed but I think the core concept holds up well enough
Why the fuck would they do that if they intentionally sought out a modern fantasy setting?
Read more books nigga
>>A: There is a secret world happening in the background in which vampires, werewolves, monsters, wizards and whatnot exist hiding in plain sight all over the world but all stay hidden from the normal peoples...also magic ruins technology by proximity
Because those are the two main options? What else is there to do? Keep in mind "Orcs and Elves and shit" are the core of fantasy. If you want to do a modern world with something different like Youkai and Kami then you're basically trying to reinvent the wheel. It's possible you could do this and basically be as good as Tolkien with completely new material, but I'd say highly unlikely.
>We can do better guys.
Try it.
I have some ideas too:
>Different Chinese dynasties had different viewpoints on races
>Some, like the Ming, encouraged cooperation, and the royal family often intermarried with other races to maintain peace
>Others, like the Qing, focused on the superiority of one
>The Yuan Dynasty was an invasion of centaurs into the Chinese lands. Even today, the north of China has many centaurs living in it
>The South of China is mostly orcs, as the hotter climate was more well suited to their darkened skin. Some humans live here, however.
>The North of China is mostly humans, with centaurs not being uncommon either
>The Western portions of China are mostly elves, who were originally Turkish peoples who came to China long ago
>The City of Nanjing has many districts with distinct subcultures, but they all mourn on December 13th each year together.
>The Korean War was famous for it's mass charge of Chinese ethnic centaurs upon American lines, driving them back
>Politically, being a centaur is a huge drawback in China. Centaurs are not trusted much due to both the Mongols and the Manchus, both centaurs, being known as invasive rulers
>Elves are treated much the same, as it is felt their loyalties are to Turkish elves and not to China as a whole
>Deng Xiaoping was an Orcish leader, and because the South of China developed faster than the north economically, many felt he was only helping his own people
Not as fun because typically you'll end up with "The Human Empire", "The Elven Empire", "The Dwarven Empire", etc, where just us humans managed to split up in over 200 countries and thousands people.
Or you could just not do that? A setting that has only one kingdom or empire for each race is shit whether it's modern or medieval.
This user has a point, Rome, China, Mongolia, and Russia all had empires of multiple ethnic groups and cultures.
That always annoys me in scifi. Unless you've established the species is a hivemind, its silly for every alien race to be a monoculture.
>We can do better guys.
Yes, how about medieval fantasy?
I can already see people just doing the
>roman humans
>germanic elves
>slavic dwarves
Or other shit. Or will start arguing with me that dwarves are germanic and elves slavic. Instead of actually creating unique cultures that are inspired by their fantasy stereotypes.