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View Full Version : DM Help Cool Idea need help with execution



Sivarias
2014-04-21, 04:47 PM
So I was watching Frozen and I got an idea for what I thought would be a cool roleplaying universe.

4 kingdoms constantly at war, each of them representing one of the 4 seasons.

The royal line in each kingdom has powers that reflect there season.

There is a country with no magic in the middle of the 4 kingdoms that is little more than a battleground.

Weather and seasons are suitably effected were depending on what kingdom is winning the war, it is that season.

Here's my issue. What powers would I give each royal line? I don't want it to turn into Avatar the Last Air Bender, but I would like thematically appropriate powers.

Spring-Life
Winter-Death
Fall-??
Summer-??
or
Spring-Storms
Fall-Camouflage
Summer-
Winter-

Please help me with power ideas and why you think they might be appropriate, thanks!

Calen
2014-04-21, 06:21 PM
Maybe pick a list of thematic powers for each family? So for winter the King might be a Necromage and the Princess might be a Ice Sorcerer. Or for spring the Queen is the Storm-caster and the Prince is a healer, you get the idea.

Eisenheim
2014-04-21, 08:09 PM
I think the best way to add depth to this theme would be to have the seasonal kingdoms all be fey, since there is a lot of support in folklore in general, as well as a little in D&D for seasonally associated fey. That way the neutral battleground can just be the normal world. Using fey makes it, to me at least, make more sense to have the personalities match with the seasonal flavor. A human who uses ice magic has no particular reason to be cruel and uncaring, but a winter fey is supposed to act like that.

Knaight
2014-04-21, 08:18 PM
I'd be inclined to have things vary by individual. Seasons are hardly one monolithic thing in literature, and each is used to embody a whole bunch of different things. Pick a particular embodiment to go with a more archetypical character as you make the character, and call it a day.

Red Fel
2014-04-21, 09:17 PM
... until the Fire Nation attacked?

I think there's a lot you can do with this, although I agree that going Fey is a particularly easy way out.

An alternative is simply to find a race (or races) that epitomize each season. For example, Halflings and High Elves for spring, Drow and Duergar for winter, Shifters and Wild Elves for summer, and so forth.

As for powers, I agree with thinking thematically. I'd advise you again to look at the Unseelie Fey template (Dragon Magazine) for examples of what might be associated with each season. Even if you're not using D&D, the template offers an interesting glimpse of the seasons.

Generally speaking: Spring is the season of growth, comfort and warmth. It is associated with the vibrant earth. It may be associated with healing, life, or growth, and is a good season for hard work and health. Summer is the season of passion and life. It is associated with the blazing summer sun. It may be associated with fire, lust, or general savagery; emotional extremes are common. Autumn is the season of transition. It is a time of in-betweens, and is associated with the setting sun and the changing leaves. It may be associated with in-between states, such as life and death. Spirituality, mystery, intrigue and undeath are common themes. Winter is the season of slumber, death and stillness. It is a time of peaceful silence, both restful in its stillness and merciless in its cruel chills. It is associated with the frozen snow and ice, and the risen moon of long winter's nights. It may be associated with sleep and death, with heartless cruelty and ravenous hunger, or with cold, calculating machinations of plotting minds.
To give examples of each, I might call druids and other nature-worshippers spring-characters, barbarians and other berserkers summer-characters, clerics and other spiritualists autumn-characters, and wizards, scientists and other scholars winter-characters. Earth powers are appropriate for spring, fire for summer, wind for autumn, and ice for winter. Alternatively, healing for spring, mind-affecting for summer, undead and divination for autumn, and sleep and death for winter.

The Oni
2014-04-21, 11:23 PM
I like the idea of the royal-lines being somehow fey-descended. Also, ESPECIALLY because they're fey-blooded (those horny fairy bastards), the royals may have certain indiscretions that have led to some commoners developing the season-based powers as well.

I think...

Spring - channels the power of rapid growth. In combat this would translate to sprouting brambles at an enemies' feet or ensnaring them with vines. Use of these powers may actually de-age the user. Some also use the power of rain, producing a healing or calming effect. As a result, the ruling monarch has been in power for centuries.

Fall - conversely, the power of age or decay. Use of the powers can do everything from kill at a touch to cause a building to crumble in minutes, but proportionally this advances the age of the user. For obvious reasons, there is no shortage of elders in this kingdom.

Summer - Every season-user from the summer kingdom is powerfully built, a race of Conans and Red Sonjas. They channel the power of fire and lightning and their thunderous voices can command others to do their bidding or else send enemies flying (think FUS RO DAH), but they lack control.

Winter - Thin, pale and quiet, the season-users control cold and also the power to project an aura of silence or of sleep; their assassins are therefore feared. Paranoid nobles from the other kingdoms sleep with loudly-ticking clocks, in the hopes that the silence will alert the staff of an attack.

Deaxsa
2014-04-22, 07:38 PM
I think the best way to add depth to this theme would be to have the seasonal kingdoms all be fey, since there is a lot of support in folklore in general, as well as a little in D&D for seasonally associated fey. That way the neutral battleground can just be the normal world. Using fey makes it, to me at least, make more sense to have the personalities match with the seasonal flavor. A human who uses ice magic has no particular reason to be cruel and uncaring, but a winter fey is supposed to act like that.

i REALLY like this idea, i may have to steal it. kinda reminds me of the witcher series.

Aergoth
2014-04-23, 11:29 AM
If you want your folkloric fair folk to take the seasons, look no further than two sources.
Changeling (from White Wolf) offered a number of options for how changelings might organize themselves into seasonal courts.

However, the big one here is the Dresden Files. There's only two courts in play (Summer and Winter) but the other two can be extrapolated. I'm a fan of the interpreation there.

Summer is emotional, it nurtures and fosters growth (not all growth is good, diseases thrive in warm climates) but it isn't always reasonable. Summer is heart over head and may refuse to listen to logic despite there being good reasons to do so. Summer is also associated with light and fire (again not all light is good, sunburns and sunstroke, skin cancer all technically the domain of summer). Summer is a herd animal, powerful united, weak when torn apart.

Winter is rational, reasonable and almost darwinian. Survival of the strongest. Winter is a hunting animal, relentless, striking at the weak, the lame, the old and the infirm. It does not hesistate, it does not give quarter. Winter takes. Winter is associated with air/ice and darkness. It is a cruel season but it is neccessary. Without the killing winter to temper summer's growth things overrun, growth chokes itself out until something dies. Winter is a cleansing element to the rampant growth of summer, while summer replenishes the loss created by winter. Winter isn't all teeth though. It's reason and cold equations. You can't eat everything. You can't take everything. There has to be something left for the next time. And the time after. Winter is patient and precise.

When my group wa\was working on playing dresden RPG, we considered the idea of two minor courts of spring and autumn. The idea being that spring and autumn were splinters or embassies, one season trying to learn the other.

So Autumn: Autumn is a ripe season, it's harvest and feast time. But it's also a season of preparation. You store food and fire ahead of winter cold, you may do autumn planting. Animals are rushing about preparing dens and stocks of food for winter's rest. Autumn can be a warm season, the last gasp of summer, but it's also a cold season, the icy rains and frosts of winter, dying and decaying leaves and plants. For our group, Autumn was Summer learning Winter, tempering the growth with death, storing heat against the cold. Summer learning to be more rational and more guarded.

Spring: Spring is a growing season. The world wakes up after winter and sees what's still alive. Plants grow agressively in spring to make up for the long winter. Animals run around making new animals, plants burst into bloom, it's loud and energetic. But spring is also the last gasp of winter. March goes in like a lion and out like a lamb. You can still get late snows and icy rain in march and april, summer heat isn't quite on the world yet and it's too early to shed all of the warmth you've done for winter. Spring is also a season for work. Planting needs to be done, you need to take off the dead so that the new growth isn't suffocated. Our group suggested spring as Winter learning Summer. Winter learns passion and heat, but doesn't let it over run things. Growth can still be stunted, and spring flooding can kill just as sure as a late frost. Spring still has bite. If you survived winter by the skin of your teeth an unkind spring can be just the thing to take you out of this world.

illyahr
2014-04-25, 05:05 PM
As an interesting twist, my mind immediately went to Sun-Tzu and his five elements, the fifth being Void. Perhaps the middle kingdom isn't so much not having power, but specializing in negating powers? This might be why the kingdoms haven't conquered each other yet as they have to try to avoid tangling with the middle kingdom's Void-based (nullification and debuff?) abilities.

The Oni
2014-04-25, 06:03 PM
Or, perhaps the middle kingdom doesn't have any real powers at all, but has some kind of "void" weapon that nullifies Season-based powers by severing the user's connection to nature. Every season-kingdom fears it, which is why the middle kingdom hasn't been conquered yet, but each season-monarch also wants to obtain it or otherwise see it turned on their rivals.