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View Full Version : Fleshforge Legacy (Community World Building Project Interest Check)



Admiral Squish
2010-07-25, 10:05 AM
So, the other day, when I was half-possessed by sleep I had an idea that I think would make a good Community World-Building Project, but I want to check that the idea is popular enough to warrant it.

The general theme: The world as it stands was shaped by an ancient race of beings that had mastered the arts of biomagic, using it to do everything. Some examples:

Their farming system involves five races of bio-forged beast that continually do so, even in the millennia since their passing. Giant boars with razor sharp tusks first proceed through a ripened crop, thrashing their bladed tusks back and forth to reap it. This scares up a crop of eels that nest in the waterlogged root systems of the stalks. On the far bank of a paddy, the eels beach themselves and die in terror, providing an easy meal for our living sickles. Their eggs survive, however, in the still-standing roots of the stalks. A sort of elephantine creature follows after, it's tusks collecting the fallen stalks as they plow the soil and feed on tubers that grow among the crop. the remaining stalks then flower where they were cut off. Then, come the Seedbeards, sort of anteater-like beasts that eat the eggs of the eels, and in the process, drag their shaggy bodies along the flowers, pollinating them. The flowers resprout their stalks, and through the rest of the year, form a habitat for cropguard lizards. They protect the crops from insects, birds, and other creatures that would feed on the ripening, vulnerable wheat. These five would migrate from paddy to paddy, moving on once their task was finished, through a titanic ring of crops that were perpetually ripening as they moved through them.

The common races were also the results of these bio-magical experiments. (though there may be some changes to stats to represent their specialization)The elves are meant to tend the tall trees of the forests. If you've ever read the animorphs series, they serve basically the same function as the hork-bajir were designed to serve. They maintain the health of the trees and serve as scouts.
The dwarves are miners and builders. Their function eventually began to get replaced with warforged forged from the very minerals the dwarves had mined and the magical machines they had built.
The gnomes were machinists and animal handlers. They maintained the biomechanical workings of the empire as doctors, and the mechanical ones as engineers. Their small size made them easy to fit in small spaces.
The halflings were merchants and spies. Rather then travel themselves, the master race decided they could simply create one to do it from them. The halflings served well as both merchants and spies, their charismatic nature making them perfect for both.
The orcs were enforcers. They served the master race directly as overseers and oppressors. They were the strong arm of the law.
The humans were the 'stock' race. Easy to shape and warp, it explains the abundamnce of human-shaped creatures.
Trolls were used as mass-production. Three main varieties were the shellhide who could shed a suit of armored bone and regrow it rapidly, the boneforge who grew everything from shields on their backs, spears from a set of 'wings', Hammers and swords from their fists and claws, even some could detach their grotesquely elongated forearms to create troll-claw whips, and the fleshharvest, who were little more than titanic sacks of flesh and fat that could regrow the portions harvested for meat.
Finally, a sort of minor illithid that served as living computers and calculators to the lords. Elder Brains were originally simply massive data storage devices that spontaneously developed sentience.
Giants were heavy movers and lifters in a number of environments. Fire giants worked in forges, frost giants in the north where only dwarves and warforged could last long, storm giants in the seas, cloud giants worked as living cranes, and stone and hill giants were more general purpose, like bulldozers.
Dinosaurs, dire animals, and dragons were all manufactured as living engines of war. Tanks and helicopters were replaced with T-rex and Dire bats. Dragons were designed as generals. Intelligent, incredibly tough and strong, able to inspire fear in the enemy forces, travel anywhere in the battlefield, and apply judicious, widespread devastation to enemy forces.

Eventually, something happened to wipe the master race off the face of the planet, not sure if it should be a rebellion of the forged races or some disaster. Perhaps a long chain of convoluted takeovers and oustings? But the matter remains. The master race is long-gone now, and the world continues, it's every inhabitants shaped by this milennia-long cycle of flesh-shaping.

So, what do you think?