Kami2awa
2016-06-19, 03:25 AM
Firstly, if you play games around the South West of the UK, stay out of this thread :) massive spoiler alerts.
Space. The final adventure. This is the quest of the Astral Ship Cygnus*...
* I'll think of a better name later.
I'm currently preparing a Spelljammer-esque campaign set around a fantasy equivalent of our solar system, based loosely on debunked ideas of how the planets are, as well as many ideas stolen from old sci fi and the steampunk books of Robert Rankin.
The system used will be Pathfinder.
For a very quick summary of the setting, Earth is an industrial revolution, Steampunk world, inhabited principally by humans but fairly cosmopolitan. Venus is a jungle world, cut off by its cloud cover and inhabited by the elves. Oh, and it has dinosaurs.
Mars is a desert world with mysterious canals and pyramids, inhabited by the orcs, who may or may not be the vestige of a lost, advanced orcish civilisation.
The asteroid belt is inhabited by the dwarves - they had a planet once, but it broke up to form the belt (some say it was the dwarves' fault - they Delved Too Deep). The Drow live in ice palaces on the dark side of the moon, because who doesn't want an ice palace on the moon?
So, in summary, Orcs are from Mars, Elves are from Venus :P
Politically, Earth and Venus are colonial powers, with the humans as relative newcomers and the elves as a former, declining power. Their colonies are on the moons of the outer planets, and on Mars (which the orcs aren't happy about). This puts the dwarves in a powerful trading position as the waystation between the inner and outer planets. The outer moons are much more conventionally sci-fi, inhabited by various alien creatures - Europa is the domain of the Aboleth, and they are at war with the humans there. Note all of the planets in the solar system are habitable in this setting - it is all based on Medieval to early 20th century ideas of space. I am still undecided whether or not to put the Earth in the centre of the solar system.
The plot I have in mind at the moment is this: The PCs happen upon a drifting, alien Astral Ship (a flying ship capable of travelling world to world). A survivor on the ship tells them that it comes from outside the solar system, having passed through a gateway between stars (the Astral ships are not capable of FLT travel, although they are extremely fast, making crossing the interplanetary distance akin to crossing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail). The gateway has been created by an invading alien species - the ship, its spirit (i.e. its AI) and its survivors are effectively a refugee from that invasion.
There is a piece of ancient tech on Mars which can close the gateway - this has happened before, and the Martians developed it for this very purpose. However, it requires a power source consisting of a number of items (as yet, undecided as to what form these MacGuffins take). Unfortunately, colonialists from Venus and Earth long ago stole the items - er, sorry, I mean acquired them for research purposes.
So ultimately what I have in mind is a collect-the-set plot. Trouble is, I think these are a little overused, and I've previously been in a campaign along similar lines with this group (collecting pieces of an artefact that would restore the flow of life energy and souls between the prime material and the other planes). I think, however, such a story can be a great way to have a quest across many otherwise unconnected parts of a world. What are people's opinions on this? Is it overused?
Space. The final adventure. This is the quest of the Astral Ship Cygnus*...
* I'll think of a better name later.
I'm currently preparing a Spelljammer-esque campaign set around a fantasy equivalent of our solar system, based loosely on debunked ideas of how the planets are, as well as many ideas stolen from old sci fi and the steampunk books of Robert Rankin.
The system used will be Pathfinder.
For a very quick summary of the setting, Earth is an industrial revolution, Steampunk world, inhabited principally by humans but fairly cosmopolitan. Venus is a jungle world, cut off by its cloud cover and inhabited by the elves. Oh, and it has dinosaurs.
Mars is a desert world with mysterious canals and pyramids, inhabited by the orcs, who may or may not be the vestige of a lost, advanced orcish civilisation.
The asteroid belt is inhabited by the dwarves - they had a planet once, but it broke up to form the belt (some say it was the dwarves' fault - they Delved Too Deep). The Drow live in ice palaces on the dark side of the moon, because who doesn't want an ice palace on the moon?
So, in summary, Orcs are from Mars, Elves are from Venus :P
Politically, Earth and Venus are colonial powers, with the humans as relative newcomers and the elves as a former, declining power. Their colonies are on the moons of the outer planets, and on Mars (which the orcs aren't happy about). This puts the dwarves in a powerful trading position as the waystation between the inner and outer planets. The outer moons are much more conventionally sci-fi, inhabited by various alien creatures - Europa is the domain of the Aboleth, and they are at war with the humans there. Note all of the planets in the solar system are habitable in this setting - it is all based on Medieval to early 20th century ideas of space. I am still undecided whether or not to put the Earth in the centre of the solar system.
The plot I have in mind at the moment is this: The PCs happen upon a drifting, alien Astral Ship (a flying ship capable of travelling world to world). A survivor on the ship tells them that it comes from outside the solar system, having passed through a gateway between stars (the Astral ships are not capable of FLT travel, although they are extremely fast, making crossing the interplanetary distance akin to crossing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail). The gateway has been created by an invading alien species - the ship, its spirit (i.e. its AI) and its survivors are effectively a refugee from that invasion.
There is a piece of ancient tech on Mars which can close the gateway - this has happened before, and the Martians developed it for this very purpose. However, it requires a power source consisting of a number of items (as yet, undecided as to what form these MacGuffins take). Unfortunately, colonialists from Venus and Earth long ago stole the items - er, sorry, I mean acquired them for research purposes.
So ultimately what I have in mind is a collect-the-set plot. Trouble is, I think these are a little overused, and I've previously been in a campaign along similar lines with this group (collecting pieces of an artefact that would restore the flow of life energy and souls between the prime material and the other planes). I think, however, such a story can be a great way to have a quest across many otherwise unconnected parts of a world. What are people's opinions on this? Is it overused?