Highly Fantastical

Just so everyone knows, there is an Edit After The Fact for the Additional Conversion Rates (Among Other Things) post.

Something has been hanging around in the back of my mind as I ponder my campaign and listen to other actual plays. Can I still do high fantasy?

I used to say my campaign was steampunk, but that is kind of dependent upon where you are in The Known World, and the PCs have opted to go to one of the two hot spots of sorcery on the continent, kind of a low tech place. Steampunk isn't the right term for what we're playing at the moment. Neither is high fantasy though. High fantasy to me is core DnD, where there are pluses and glowing weapons bursting forth from every orifice on every character, dragons are magic, elves are all wise and naturey, dwarves are earthy, etc. I don't think my campaign world is high fantasy. I dunno what you'd call it though, high fantasy doesn't feel right, but maybe I'm wrong. Not that a classification of the campaign's type matters at all.

I've just been wondering if I can still do the whole elves are elves and goblins are goblins and magic swords are glowy and full of bright shiny pluses thing. I don't know that I can. Mechanically, I really dig 4th Edition (not more than GURPS or Pathfinder though), but I almost want to vomit when I think of the magic item economy and the constant need to upgrade all your shiny friendly magical whatsits, the dragonbewbs, etc, etc, etc.

I like Tolkien depictions of fantasy. I'm fine with talking trees and immortal elves and balrogs and whatnot. I should say that I've only ever read The Hobbit and watched the trilogy of films, so those are what this opinion is based on. I really dig that Gandalf isn't this firehose of arcane power in the films. I enjoy that most of the magic you see is subtle, like the ability to communicate with certain animals or a light spell. Gandalf only really brings out the big guns against a balrog and the witch king. Even the One Ring, supposedly the most powerful item of magic in the world only ever really makes hobbits invisible. Frodo doesn't just walk around throwing bolts of lightning and melting faces off with it. I believe Eric and I had this conversation a while ago.

I start to think about dwarves and elves and what have you and I immediately think "Oh, I'd change this and this and then this would be this." I just rebel at the thought of a dwarf being a dwarf for some reason.

Recently I was considering throwing a more common depiction of fantasy into my campaign world. Just as a continent the players could end up on if I felt they were pining for the familiar fantasy tropes. A place where magic worked fine and didn't warp your flesh and dwarves were, well, dwarves. My thought process was that there would be this huge obelisk on the continent and it would be a piece of Kaleshmar and there would be these huge ten foot tall skeletal corpses bound to it in chains of grey metal. These would be the bones of conteog that Kalashmar had pulled from the skies and they would stabilize sorcery within a certain radius of the continent.

I started to think of dwarves. Now, the dwenoren of Whurent have a warrior tradition, but it has kind of become archaic and silly to them. They haven't had true warrior schools in a long time, once they committed near genocide on the giants and dragons living beneath the mountains, they didn't really have a need for huge standing armies. Anyway, I thought that dwarves on this other continent could be an offshoot of dwen that had retained their martial traditions. Then I decided they had evolved eyes, but they were crude and misshapen so they weren't good with ranged weapons and still had a vestigial tremorsense type ability from their eyeless past, and it kind of became a new race of dwenoren, rather than familiar dwarves.

I don't know if this is even remotely a problem. We've never really discussed at length as a group what people like and dislike about my campaign world, and I honestly have no idea if they'd prefer something more familiar and more high fantasy. I think Fred digs that I'm trying to get out of the whole elf, dwarf, human, etc. thing, but I could be wrong. I know Jeremy and Eric like the place, and that is swell.

I wonder if it is just some bizarre desperate need to avoid as many cliches and tropes as possible. Cliches and tropes are what they are for a reason though, they tend to work when not overused.

Just some thoughts for the evening I guess.

One last thing, the dude on the mountain, his name is Rhetkhan Kannunn. I'm not sure where the mountain is, or what his exact role is (ok, that is a lie, I know his exact purpose), but he is there and it is someplace on Hekinoe. Heh, that might make for an interesting campaign arc, the group tries to find him. I bet he would be grouchy.

Music: Spiral Architect - Black Sabbath

Music: Killing Yourself to Live - Black Sabbath

Music: Hole in the Sky - Black Sabbath