Grod_The_Giant
2019-04-02, 09:57 AM
I've been thinking about releasing a setting expansion or two for my homebrew RPG, STaRS (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/268061/STaRS-The-Simple-Tabletop-Roleplaying-System). Something along the lines of the Plane Shift articles that have been released for 5e-- ~25 pages, describing the setting, the magic system, expanded rules to use with it, and a sample fractal (a plot hook-laden description of one particular place). I've got a couple ideas in development; which would you most like to see?
The Miasma (dieselpunk): The world was inhabited by giants, before they were wiped out by a still-unknown apocalypse. Now the landscape is haunted by the shattered remains of their cities, and filled with the reality-warping mist known as the Miasma. Survival is really only possible because of the presence of Goliaths, enormous kaiju big enough to support their own city-states. Technology is 1920s vintage, magic is all about commanding ghosts and trying not to go mad in the process, and the region I'd be focusing on is plunging towards the local equivalent of World War 1. I'd probably add expanded rules for sanity, and maybe nation-building.
Overwatch (superhero): Shut up, I named it before the video game came out. My standard superhero setting, used in countless games and stories (https://newpulpcycle.wordpress.com/). The pillars of the world are rocking in the aftermath of a biohorror war that pretty much wiped out South America-- to say nothing of super-genius technology begins to trickle down to common use-- and the arrival of alien refugees. Tonally, it's probably closest to Warren Ellis' runs on Stormfront and The Authority, if that means anything to you. Would by necessity have a *lot* about superpowers and competence levels.
The Swamp of Souls (plane-shifting): In my personal cosmology, there are 377 other worlds, distorted reflections of our own, created in an instant by a man who invented a reality-warping machine. Then he got in a fight with his son, breaking boy, machine, and worlds in that order. The son fell all the way to the bottom of the multiverse and became the ultimate evil, leaving behind a trail of sorts-- a haunted swamp in the center of each world. The same haunted swamp in each world-- you can walk from one to another, if you don't get lost and trapped. I have... no idea yet what the central premise would be (probably a pan-dimensional struggle against said ultimate evil and his attempts to subsume the multiverse), but the product would probably wind up a brief overview of a bunch of different settings, and discussion of translating power levels from one setting to another.
The Land of the Six Seas (swashbuckling fantasy): An ocean-heavy fantasy setting. There's a giant whirlpool in the middle of the world, constant hurricanes sweeping in from the east, a massive dragon in the west that eats anyone who sails there, weird psychic jungle-wookies in the south and the frozen swathes of the Dirge Empire in the north. Multiple different magic systems, and intentional vagueness about whether races like the Dirge are actually capital-R fantasy Races, or just a weird breed of human. Would by necessity have a bunch of naval rules.
Something Scifi, idk: It could be fun to work out good rules for spaceships and mechs. Might build off the world touched on in the "Superpowers of the Rippers" sample setting, for a spaceships-and-superpowers sort of thing. I've got a bunch of ideas for aliens and tech that only need proper glue.
Exalted Knockoff (epic fantasy): A while back I sat down and wrote a creation myth, roughly ending up with a world like Exalted's. If there's interest, I could build that into a broader setting (possibly marrying with the Land of the Six Seas above?). Would need to acquire rules for building nations.
The Miasma (dieselpunk): The world was inhabited by giants, before they were wiped out by a still-unknown apocalypse. Now the landscape is haunted by the shattered remains of their cities, and filled with the reality-warping mist known as the Miasma. Survival is really only possible because of the presence of Goliaths, enormous kaiju big enough to support their own city-states. Technology is 1920s vintage, magic is all about commanding ghosts and trying not to go mad in the process, and the region I'd be focusing on is plunging towards the local equivalent of World War 1. I'd probably add expanded rules for sanity, and maybe nation-building.
Overwatch (superhero): Shut up, I named it before the video game came out. My standard superhero setting, used in countless games and stories (https://newpulpcycle.wordpress.com/). The pillars of the world are rocking in the aftermath of a biohorror war that pretty much wiped out South America-- to say nothing of super-genius technology begins to trickle down to common use-- and the arrival of alien refugees. Tonally, it's probably closest to Warren Ellis' runs on Stormfront and The Authority, if that means anything to you. Would by necessity have a *lot* about superpowers and competence levels.
The Swamp of Souls (plane-shifting): In my personal cosmology, there are 377 other worlds, distorted reflections of our own, created in an instant by a man who invented a reality-warping machine. Then he got in a fight with his son, breaking boy, machine, and worlds in that order. The son fell all the way to the bottom of the multiverse and became the ultimate evil, leaving behind a trail of sorts-- a haunted swamp in the center of each world. The same haunted swamp in each world-- you can walk from one to another, if you don't get lost and trapped. I have... no idea yet what the central premise would be (probably a pan-dimensional struggle against said ultimate evil and his attempts to subsume the multiverse), but the product would probably wind up a brief overview of a bunch of different settings, and discussion of translating power levels from one setting to another.
The Land of the Six Seas (swashbuckling fantasy): An ocean-heavy fantasy setting. There's a giant whirlpool in the middle of the world, constant hurricanes sweeping in from the east, a massive dragon in the west that eats anyone who sails there, weird psychic jungle-wookies in the south and the frozen swathes of the Dirge Empire in the north. Multiple different magic systems, and intentional vagueness about whether races like the Dirge are actually capital-R fantasy Races, or just a weird breed of human. Would by necessity have a bunch of naval rules.
Something Scifi, idk: It could be fun to work out good rules for spaceships and mechs. Might build off the world touched on in the "Superpowers of the Rippers" sample setting, for a spaceships-and-superpowers sort of thing. I've got a bunch of ideas for aliens and tech that only need proper glue.
Exalted Knockoff (epic fantasy): A while back I sat down and wrote a creation myth, roughly ending up with a world like Exalted's. If there's interest, I could build that into a broader setting (possibly marrying with the Land of the Six Seas above?). Would need to acquire rules for building nations.