Indians, Cowboys, and... too much world for my purposes

[LordotTrinkets]

I've been working on a campaign setting with a Wild Western feel to it. You've got a large portion of a continent that's unexplored and inhabited by "savages", and a few races that are settling this world. I have a cosmology and a few ideas for monsters that have a Native American/Tribal spiritualistic feel to them.

So in other words, I have the feel of the "New World" solidified and my problem is... I can't figure out what to do with the "Old World". I mean, sure I could go and flesh out what it looks like and everything, but I'm afraid that the result will be that either Old World will be so cool it eclipses the New World or is so dull that people will ask "why did he make this area of the world anyway?".

Any advice on how to handle the Old World that doesn't equate to "It blew up" would be appreciated.

[Everyl]

I've been working on a campaign setting with a Wild Western feel to it. You've got a large portion of a continent that's unexplored and inhabited by "savages", and a few races that are settling this world. I have a cosmology and a few ideas for monsters that have a Native American/Tribal spiritualistic feel to them.

So in other words, I have the feel of the "New World" solidified and my problem is... I can't figure out what to do with the "Old World". I mean, sure I could go and flesh out what it looks like and everything, but I'm afraid that the result will be that either Old World will be so cool it eclipses the New World or is so dull that people will ask "why did he make this area of the world anyway?".

Any advice on how to handle the Old World that doesn't equate to "It blew up" would be appreciated.

I can't quite tell if you're talking about sci-fi, fantasy, or a mashup, so I'll offer a variety of ideas.

One-way trip: the "Old Word" still exists, but isn't readily accessible. The settler/invaders came by colony ship from a distant star, through a magic portal that is one-way or has since closed, or sailed across a sea that is too wide to make a return trip across without considerable cost and preparation. They brought enough of their tech/magic along with them to establish a firm foothold and growing settlements, but, at least for 98% of them, going 'home' isn't an option.

Political collapse: The "old world" still exists, but society there has largely collapsed. Infrastructure is failing, governments are defunct, and regional warlords have sprung up, dividing what remains amongst themselves. The settlers, unified by the external threat of the natives they're busily displacing, are actually among the most politically cohesive groups descended from their fallen homeland.

Prison colonies: The people sent to settle the "new world" consist largely of prisoners, paupers, and other "undesirables" from the "old world." Many would love to go back, but with their criminal records, they'd likely face execution or deportation to somewhere even less pleasant if they got caught going back. The player characters are all at least second-generation or later, so none of them have first-hand experience in the "old world;" it's become semi-legendary to them.


I hope those ideas are helpful. If nothing else, they're ways you could have the "old world" still exist in the background without having to detail it enough to be either boring or overshadowing.

[LordotTrinkets]

This will be a fantasy campaign. I think a Sci-fi/Western would too easily turn into a Firefly knock-off.

I like the "waste bin of society" idea. I've thought of variants of the other two, but have never been able to justify why the PCs can't just teleport home. But if it's a prison colony, especially one containing the vilest of the vile, it would make sense that the Old Worlders would do something to keep the prisoners from escaping via magic. Not to mention the potential tension it would produce, just imagine how the natives would feel having a bunch of thieves, scoundrels, and murderers dropped off at their front yard.

Thanks a lot!

[Ninjadeadbeard]

There was a collaborative setting probably more than a year ago now, that was set in a fantasy America. Once I am off my phone I might provide a link. But how we dealt with the old world in that setting was to simply say that it was overrun by vampires. Vampires have trouble crossing open water in anything resembling numbers, so it was very simple for the fledgling fantasy Americans to keep them out. This also set up the fantasy Americans as Pius and self-righteous, which for our setting was sort of the baseline we were working towards. It's also true that America was often a very religious nation in its early, colonizing history, what with its Great Awakenings.

EDIT: I just remembered! The quote in my signature by zap dynamic is from that thread. So you could follow that to the source and take whatever you like from there.

[LordotTrinkets]

Ninjadeadbread: Thanks for the idea, but I've already got a story concept rattling in my head based on the prison colony idea. Besides, I think that vampiric nation thing would only encourage adventurers going there. I mean, come on, a continent full of vampires? I might as well call it 'Adventuresgaloria'.

[Xuc Xac]

Any advice on how to handle the Old World that doesn't equate to "It blew up" would be appreciated.

Western stories are about people trying to make their way in the West: settling a new home, prospecting for minerals, building a railway, etc. For most people, giving up and going Back East is always possible but the stories aren't about the characters that take that option. You don't need to blow up the Old World. In a typical fantasy story, you don't need to destroy all farms to prevent PCs from saying "I'm going to quit adventuring and be a peasant."

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Ninjadeadbread: Thanks for the idea, but I've already got a story concept rattling in my head based on the prison colony idea. Besides, I think that vampiric nation thing would only encourage adventurers going there. I mean, come on, a continent full of vampires? I might as well call it 'Adventuresgaloria'.

I believe it was assumed that if a player wanted to do that, the GM of the world would ask for their character sheet and then rip it in half. Because they died. And were eaten. By a billion nearly invincible (but water-soluble) vampire lords. :smallbiggrin:

Well, since you're going with "Prison Colony", what's stopping them from sneaking back? A fleet? A one-way teleporter?

[Othniel Edden]

Can't you just put a distance limitation on teleport for this world? Enough that it may take multiple days/spells that it is prohibitive to going transatlantic? That seems fair.

[LordotTrinkets]

Western stories are about people trying to make their way in the West: settling a new home, prospecting for minerals, building a railway, etc. For most people, giving up and going Back East is always possible but the stories aren't about the characters that take that option. You don't need to blow up the Old World. In a typical fantasy story, you don't need to destroy all farms to prevent PCs from saying "I'm going to quit adventuring and be a peasant."
You know, now that you mention that, I feel kind of silly for not having thought about it.:smallredface:


Well, since you're going with "Prison Colony", what's stopping them from sneaking back? A fleet? A one-way teleporter?

Can't you just put a distance limitation on teleport for this world? Enough that it may take multiple days/spells that it is prohibitive to going transatlantic? That seems fair.
I like your idea Othniel, it seems like a lot less of a cop-out than my ideas, but I think I'll mention my ideas just to see what everyone else thinks of them.

Epic magic: My idea is that the first people sent there as prisoners were guilty of the mass assassination of one of the Old World's royal families, so it would only make sense that powerful wizards would make a joint effort to create a massive anti-teleportation bubble to prevent anyone making it back via magic.

Dark Pact: In this world, the elemental plane of water is also the home world for devils and the ocean is kind of a rift between their world and ours. So it would be possible that the Old Worlders made some kind of deal with the fiends to keep the prisoners stuck there. With this idea, though teleportation would normally take them back home, instead sends people to the elemental plane of water when they try.

Natural phenomenon: Maybe it's just that some natural formation makes it impossible or impractical to teleport that far. (This one actually seems a lot like yours Othniel.)

Edit: Another idea just occurred to me! Maybe the prisoners had their bodies magically altered so that if they enter the New World, they explode or have some other nasty thing happen to them? I remember that there's a familial geas spell mentioned in Heroes of Horror, maybe they were ordered to "Never come back"?

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Those are some good ideas, but I think you can make it much simpler. The old world is an actual other world. The original prisoner generation are the losers of a Civil War. You never need mention what the war was fought about since it happened so long ago it wouldn't matter. After the war, some epic spell casters on the winning side cast a ritual form of Genesis, and stipulated that it would be it's own entire world, complete with functioning physics/magic. The only change they made was adding a condition to the world which said, "no one can leave this new plane". Now that I think about it, they wouldn't necessarily be losers of war, but rather the side who chose to leave after the peace.

[LordotTrinkets]

Those are some good ideas, but I think you can make it much simpler. The old world is an actual other world. The original prisoner generation are the losers of a Civil War. You never need mention what the war was fought about since it happened so long ago it wouldn't matter. After the war, some epic spell casters on the winning side cast a ritual form of Genesis, and stipulated that it would be it's own entire world, complete with functioning physics/magic. The only change they made was adding a condition to the world which said, "no one can leave this new plane". Now that I think about it, they wouldn't necessarily be losers of war, but rather the side who chose to leave after the peace.

A Civil War would be less needlessly dramatic than a mass assassination and a Genesis spell would be less tedious than constantly regenerating an anti-teleportation bubble, so I think I'll keep those ideas. However, I'm going to alter it just a little, so that it fits a little better with the worlds' creations

The New World was created when the campaign's primary pantheon found a crevasse in their world that lead to a vast nothingness. These gods, after chattering amongst themselves about what the world should look like (Thus preventing a "Snarl" in reality), happily went on shaping the world.

The Old World was created by a LG god of perfection, who decided to try his hand at creating a world again after finding his previous creations (the rest of the New World's pantheon) capricious and petty. This god wanted his creations to have as little to do with the New World as possible, and made this material plane so far away it was practically an alternate reality.

Needless to say the inhabitants of the Old World found the other plane, and after creating a demiplane to serve as a sort of bridge, they dropped people off on this world. No one has been able to make it back yet, since it requires a truly epic level caster to cast a Genesis spell in this fashion.