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ZeroGear
2019-08-04, 06:44 PM
So, I've been pondering on this for a while: How would a world full of monsters and magic develop beyond what it usually presented in the typical setting, and how would it have been different before that age?

For the sake of clarity, allow me to explain:
Many RPG tabletop games (specifically D&D and Pathfinder) tend to situate their settings close to what we consider medical fantasy. While a significant amount of cultural elements are romanticized, almost every setting is constructed around concepts such as feudal monarchies, theocratic establishments, local taverns and guilds, and independent towns that pay tribute to a local lord.
Rarely, if every, are campaigns set before the use of iron and steel, or after the widespread introduction of gunpowder. The closest I've seen to a world set in an age closer to the victorian era than the arthurian one is Eberron, and even then common weapons were still the sword, spear, and axe.
While concepts such as wizard universities and temple schools do slightly straddle the line (because let's face it, the arthurian age wasn't exactly the most literate outside of royalty), I wonder how things would have been different if one would slide the time scale back to the equivalent of the Bronze Age where the known world was split between nomadic communities and early city-states?
Conversely, how would the world change after every part of the world was explored? Would dragons still be apex predators, would they be extinct, or would they be the guiding voices on the council? And would other humanoid races establish themselves as independent nations? How would a kingdom of Goblinoids differ from those of humans and halflings? And would the elves be the pioneers into magic, or would the younger races pass them by?
What do you all think?

(On a minor separate note: While I personally do enjoy the aesthetics of races like Elves and Dwarves, I'm of the opinion that having extremely long-lived races causes too many problems. In my book, while they retain their looks for longer, and will outlive a regular human, reducing the lifespans of such races to maybe 20 years longer other races tends to help in the long run. But that's just my opinion)

Fable Wright
2019-08-04, 08:52 PM
Rarely, if every, are campaigns set before the use of iron and steel, or after the widespread introduction of gunpowder. The closest I've seen to a world set in an age closer to the victorian era than the arthurian one is Eberron, and even then common weapons were still the sword, spear, and axe.

Small sidenote, especially when speaking of 5e Eberron, personal firearms and firing lines are very much a thing. Wandslingers was a concept that's been in the setting since day 1, though 3.5 had difficulty with wonky price rules. Siege Staff artillery + reliable (with training) arcane focuses for firing lines + wand of fireballs to substitute for machine guns put it squarely post Victorian.

Melee weapons are in play for the same reason bayonets are, and also the fact that unlike in WW1, swords can breathe fire in the hands of an experienced user as well as be anti tank weapons.

Inchhighguy
2019-08-04, 08:55 PM
I wonder how things would have been different if one would slide the time scale back to the equivalent of the Bronze Age where the known world was split between nomadic communities and early city-states?

Not too diffrent? No taverns. No roads.




Conversely, how would the world change after every part of the world was explored?

Well, it's not like the default D&D world is unexplored. People, animals and other things live all over the world. Something unexplored is very bias to a single view point. The people of the island of Ar think the Jungle of Zoot is ''unexplored" (by them), but thousands of people do live there and don't think it's ''unexplored".



Would dragons still be apex predators, would they be extinct, or would they be the guiding voices on the council?

Depends on the setting, after all anything might happen.




And would other humanoid races establish themselves as independent nations?

This is already true in the default D&D setting.



How would a kingdom of Goblinoids differ from those of humans and halflings?

Well, in a lot of the same ways any kingdom is diffrent from any kingdom. As even a look through history can show you....there are a LOT of ways to have a kingdom.




And would the elves be the pioneers into magic, or would the younger races pass them by?

Again, depends on the setting.


I should point out that D&D has never been even close to European medieval like world. D&D is firmly a LOT more like a 16th century American world. Just compare:


16th century America vs 11th century European medieval

The vast majority of all people in the D&D world are free. There are no masses of serfs and peasants and the whole Feudal System.

The vast majority of all people in the D&D world have freedom of religion, and in fact the D&D parthenon is HUGE. There sure is no One True Faith with massive control and influence over lots of countries.

The D&D world has literally tons of money in the form of metal coins. Not..well....nothing.

The D&D world has vast, vast areas ''unknown and unexplored" by each culture/nation/etc. It's not that everyone knows exactly what is in every single square foot of the continent.

The D&D world has dangerious wild beasts everywhere. Not a safe and clear continent.

Just about everyone can read and write. Not, only a couple people.

Taverns and inns are common along well traveled roads. Not...well...nothing.

ZeroGear
2019-08-04, 10:31 PM
I should point out that D&D has never been even close to European medieval like world. D&D is firmly a LOT more like a 16th century American world. Just compare:


16th century America vs 11th century European medieval

The vast majority of all people in the D&D world are free. There are no masses of serfs and peasants and the whole Feudal System.

The vast majority of all people in the D&D world have freedom of religion, and in fact the D&D parthenon is HUGE. There sure is no One True Faith with massive control and influence over lots of countries.

The D&D world has literally tons of money in the form of metal coins. Not..well....nothing.

The D&D world has vast, vast areas ''unknown and unexplored" by each culture/nation/etc. It's not that everyone knows exactly what is in every single square foot of the continent.

The D&D world has dangerious wild beasts everywhere. Not a safe and clear continent.

Just about everyone can read and write. Not, only a couple people.

Taverns and inns are common along well traveled roads. Not...well...nothing.

I... don't agree with a lot of these points. While I did point out that there was a significant component of fantasy in these settings, a massive chunk is still colored by how fables described the arthurian age.

Peasants and serfs are much more common that you are admitting, they're just not always brought up because they don't play a massive role in the narrative.

Freedom of religion isn't the same as having a pantheon. Inquisitions, outlawing of beliefs, and shunning of lesser deities is still around in the setting (after all, you are going after cultist and devil-worshippers quite often).

Last time I checked, the 16th century had a system of established banks that dealt with promissory notes rather than coins since they were easier to transport.

And last I checked, people didn't know the Americas even existed before the colonial age. Most of the exploration seen D&D campaigns tends to focus on ruins of established lands, and seldom takes place in unexplored regions. Plus, arthurian europe wasn't really all that safe, considering attacks by wolves, bears, wild boars, and bandits.

Reading and writing... wasn't as common in the 16th century as you may think. Yes, the literacy rate was higher, but only about 12% of the world was literate at that point. This is kinda where fantasy steps in out of convenience.

Taverns and ins existed as halfway houses and hostels all the way back in the 15th century as travel increased with the demand for more cloth and trade goods. sure, they are romanticized quite a bit, but they did exist. Before that, there were individual taverns that filled that role, though I will give you the point that they weren't as organized as most games present them.

False God
2019-08-04, 10:47 PM
So, I've been pondering on this for a while: How would a world full of monsters and magic develop beyond what it usually presented in the typical setting, and how would it have been different before that age?

For the sake of clarity, allow me to explain:
Many RPG tabletop games (specifically D&D and Pathfinder) tend to situate their settings close to what we consider medical fantasy. While a significant amount of cultural elements are romanticized, almost every setting is constructed around concepts such as feudal monarchies, theocratic establishments, local taverns and guilds, and independent towns that pay tribute to a local lord.
Leaving aside that this is a sacred cow issue.... Mostly because this period in history is widely studied and has a significant amount of historical text to draw upon for details. The further back you go in history, the less information we have readily available, and there are notable periods of history where we have little to no information at all. Meaning the results vary widely on what is considered appropriate for that time period.


Rarely, if every, are campaigns set before the use of iron and steel, or after the widespread introduction of gunpowder. The closest I've seen to a world set in an age closer to the victorian era than the arthurian one is Eberron, and even then common weapons were still the sword, spear, and axe.
This is again, a sacred cow issue. But again, it's because there was dramatic change after the invention of gunpowder in the world. The way wars were fought changed. The way governments were operated changed. The way money was made changed. The way the peasantry was treated changed. Many of the changes in setting assumptions also require mechanical changes. Guns and armor become respectively more and less useful.

There's the added issue that with a magic society, there's a question of "would gunpowder follow the same development?", since for a great number of reasons, magic can already do what gunpowder would take centuries to accomplish, and often with superior results. Further, magic and a high craft skill can in many cases Fabricate components in much greater detail than was possible at the time, potentially drmatically accelerating the development of warfare technology (and other things).


While concepts such as wizard universities and temple schools do slightly straddle the line (because let's face it, the arthurian age wasn't exactly the most literate outside of royalty), I wonder how things would have been different if one would slide the time scale back to the equivalent of the Bronze Age where the known world was split between nomadic communities and early city-states?
The change would be less dramatic than most people realize. But information about this time period is less widely distributed and demonstrated in RPGs and even less distributed among the general populace via our education systems. Everyone learns about the medieval times, the glory days of knights and castles and so on. There is much less information distribution on the Bronze Age. Much of the "early civilization" information that is widely available and popularly distributed is about the Roman, Egyptian, Greeks and to a lesser extent, the Persians, which are all set after the Bronze Age.


Conversely, how would the world change after every part of the world was explored? Would dragons still be apex predators, would they be extinct, or would they be the guiding voices on the council? And would other humanoid races establish themselves as independent nations? How would a kingdom of Goblinoids differ from those of humans and halflings? And would the elves be the pioneers into magic, or would the younger races pass them by?
What do you all think?
Good lord this question is so broad. It depends on population numbers, coordination and cooperation (things dragons are traditionally low on). Humanity's biggest asset in much of its developmental history is that it didn't have to compete with any other intelligent species, much less intelligent species that were vastly more powerful than themselves as they expanded and developed around the world. Human enemies were, well, human, their capabilities, their thinking, their strengths and weaknesses all human. There's no elves, smarter, faster, older, wiser; no orcs, stronger, more aggressive; no gnomes, smarter, more clever, more technologically advanced; no drow, faster, more clever, more violent, more underhanded.

In fact it's largely handwaived just exactly how humans, an arguably dumber, less advanced, less wise, shorter lived species became so powerful in the first place. (Handwaiving includes: orcs are dumb jerks who can't build civilizations; elves who are so old they're incapable of creating anything new and all their societies are waning; dwarves who hole up in their ancient kingdoms and ignore the world; halflings who are all just humans but without any aggro elements; and so on.) The game relies heavily on the same wishy-washy mumbo-jumbo Star Trek does: Humans breed like rabbits and as a species practice a long standing "hold my beer" approach to everything.


(On a minor separate note: While I personally do enjoy the aesthetics of races like Elves and Dwarves, I'm of the opinion that having extremely long-lived races causes too many problems. In my book, while they retain their looks for longer, and will outlive a regular human, reducing the lifespans of such races to maybe 20 years longer other races tends to help in the long run. But that's just my opinion)
If you're going to do that, it'd be my advice to just eliminate them entirely from your game, and instead replace them with groups of humans who for XYZ reasons developed isolated from the rest in a Magical Forest("elves"), and Underground Cavern("dwarves") or a Harsh Desert("orcs"). This has the added benefit of forcing you to actually develop cultures for them that reflect their environments, without relying on the standard tropes. "Elves" live +20 longer because of the magic forest. "Dwarves" are short and stocky to better help them spelunking. "Orcs" are tougher because of harsh desert conditions.
(I actually REALLY advise doing this, even if you keep the traditional races, it really helps in developing robust societies.)

---

Anyway, there's no universal answer to most of your questions other than "that's the way D&D was developed, and that's the way it's been". Any more specific answer depends on the world in question.

Lord Raziere
2019-08-04, 11:35 PM
yeah a lot of these questions being asked are incredibly complex, to the point where no one human mind can process all the factors involved and come to a certain conclusion. at such wide ranging and varied changes with so many reactions involved, it can be called safely called chaos, in that no one can put order to it so as to come up with clear process and conclusions to it.

there we have to make some arbitrary assumptions to even begin answering these things. but what arbitrary assumptions to make? what is this sliding scale of which the title speaks?

lets examine this:

So, I've been pondering on this for a while: How would a world full of monsters and magic develop beyond what it usually presented in the typical setting, and how would it have been different before that age?

This seems to be the basic question posed, which to be rephrased is: how would a world of monsters and magic develop in different ages? and possibly how would such a world REALLY develop rather than how DnD arbitrarily makes it develop (which is no development at all, because its static).

I can offer no clear one answer, only possibilities both explored and unexplored, limited only by imagination and the willingness to explore them. to where do you want to do go? what "what ifs" do you want to ponder? this is to embark on a journey across time and space, imagination and reality and we should have some idea where our destination is. :smallwink:

EccentricCircle
2019-08-05, 03:52 AM
This is a subject close to my heart. I think far more settings could benefit from being a bit more creative in what historical elements they draw inspiration from. Its also worth considering geography as well as history. Most settings end up being broadly "medieval europe" flavored while missing many of the elements that actually make medieval europe interesting.
A lot of the standard fantasy tropes which we think of as being medieval are actually anything but. The weapons and armour you see in most fantasy settings are much more like those found in the renaissance, albeit with fewer guns. This is sort of silly since really heavy armour, and things like warhammers to break through it sort of evolved in reaction to the gun. Their precursors in the pre firearms period were somewhat different in style and use to what is usually depicted.

Different parts of the world also had dramatically different cultures and technologies, which can be great inspiration for creating fantasy worlds. My current campaign is based in the jungle, with teh conflicts between conquistadors and indigenous civilizations being at the forefront.

My world has more than 10,000 years of history, but my games are concentrated in four "critical eras"

The Age Before Ages: This is a bronze age setting inspired by ancient Mesopotamia and pulp sword and sorcery stories in the vein of Robert E Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. I've tried to avoid tolkienesque elements, except where elves are concerned, and in those cases I've tried to go with very Silmarillion-y eleven civilisations, at their height in the first age, rather than the declining elves of the third age who usually get copied in fantasy works.
The result is a nice distinct setting, with a much pulpier, "weird fiction" feel. No one rides horses yet, so chariots abound, weapons are bronze or stone, and armour is light. There are also no true wizards, magical "science" hasn't developed yet, so all spellcasters are either sorcerers with unique bloodlines or Warlocks getting their powers from dark gods and great old ones.

The Age of Adventure is the closest to a regular D&D setting, with a sort of 13th century aesthetic, and feudal kingdoms. Its also the most heavily influenced by the Tolkienesque elements with elven and dwarven cultures being significant. There are a few nations who still have dark ages technology, and go viking, but most of the regions are more advanced with market towns, feudal systems etc. That's in the west at least... at this point I've actually run more games set in non western parts of the setting. I've got a long running middle eastern style campaign, drawing inspiration from the 1001 Nights. I've also done games inspired by the empires of medieval north Africa and south East Asia. For the latter I used a selection of races inspired by Indian mythology, which went down well.

That raises one question which you touch on above; Should you use standard fantasy races in every game, or modify them and change things up?
I think there is no right answer to this. I've used elves and dwarves extensively in some of my campaigns, and that means that they should be in the world and show up in others (such as the Age Before Ages, even though thats inspired by a very different milleau where they are not as appropriate. They have to have existed to have evolved into the cultures we see later after all!).
I also dislike having very long lived races, as it means that the perception of how long ago things were is different across different characters. If you want a plot where no one now living remembers an old secret then it has to be proportionally much older than if everyone had a human lifespan. Having 200 year old elves who lived through the reign of the dark empire from your backstory can also cause problems (but also have interesting potential). My solution was more or less to decide that elves were once completely immortal and would live forever barring accident. However down the ages they have lost that element of their nature, for reasons which have been central to several of my campaigns. Thus historical aelven kings have reigns lasting in the centuries, but those in the modern day are less likely to reach 150, only living a bit longer than humans (who are probably mostly dying in their 30s to be fair...)
This has sort of worked, but it can be tricky to communicate to new players who aren't as familiar with the world. I'm not sure I'd recommend it, per se. As it does somewhat dillute the concept of the immortal elven warrior (although I feel that saying that elves live for 500 years rather than forever already does that anyway!) As it stands elves are immortal in my age before ages games, and have more normal life spans in the medieval games.

I then have two eras dealing with more renaissance themed stuff.

Age of Discovery is the aforementioned conquistadors game. This has sailing ships, early firearms and all the heavy arms and armour that comes with them. Its very much a "pirate era" game, drawing inspiration from treasure island and the pirates of the Caribbean, even though technologically speaking its not quite as advanced as either of those. Lots of cultures in the new world have stone or bronze age technology though, and the clash of civilisations is a key theme of the setting.

I then have a final era, set about a century later called the Age of Aetherlight. This is the point where a perfect storm of magical and technological innovation have turned the setting steampunk. Its still culturally renaissance based, with inspiration drawn from the English Civil War, the Three Musketeers, the inventions of Leonardo, and the feuding Italian city states of machiavelli and the borgias. However magitech is beginning to be a thing, magical airships fill the skies and stuff like steam tanks and robotic arms are not far behind. The theme of the setting is very much that of societal change, the end of the divine right of kings, the protestant reformation and so on. Ironically in some ways this feels like my most deeply european setting, since it has a big monolithic church, feudal systems crumbling under the pressure from wealthy merchant families etc.

I think there is definitely potential for another era, much earlier on which draws inspiration from classical civilisations, and the mythology of Greece and Rome. Again if I were doing this in isolation I wouldn't include elves, dwarves and orcs at all, since they don't fit this sort of myth. However I want it to be part of the fabric of my world, which asks the question of what were the elves up to in between the two other campaigns which have elves. I'm thus wondering about athenian elves, or elves in the place of demigods. I'm sure there are a few ways I can go with that, and I'll of course need centaurs, satyrs and all of the more classical myth races as well!

ZeroGear
2019-08-05, 04:00 AM
@Lord Raziere
Ok, I apologize if I wasn't truly clear in my initial post. Yes, you have essentially distilled the question I wanted to ask. This post wasn't meant to be a question for one single answer, rather it was intended to be a conversation starter about how things would change in any given setting if you slid the timeline either forward or backward.
All of the smaller scenarios I listed were just simple what-ifs that one could consider, and weren't intended to reflect a single setting.
My main reason for asking this is that tabletop games offer a massive chance to explore civilizations beyond our own, and I just wanted to hear ideas about how things could be different depending on the era.

@False God
While you do make some excellent points in your post, you're making the similar assumption that these were questions that required a singular answer instead of a discussion.
For example, your point about gunpowder relies on the assumption that magic is easy to learn. In almost all forms of fiction, spell casters are incredibly rare because they require a specific talent to master spell craft. Depending on how widespread that talent is, there would either be a higher or lower number of casters as the era is increased. On the other hand, gunpowder is an alchemical mixture that any person can learn, so while magic is more powerful, gunpowder weapons could become more widespread due to their ease of use. It's the same reason the crossbow was more widely used as opposed to the superior longbow: it required less training to master.
Also, you are kinda handwaving some very important bronze age cultures: Sumer, Inca, Aztec, and Babylonia to name a few. For another, the Roman City-states followed right after this period, as they were part of the iron age, but had a significant focus on crafting bronze armor.
Anyway, the point I'm trying to make here is that in our history we have a decent understanding how we got from point A to point B, even if some of it requires a few educated guesses and speculation. How would the culture then change if we applied those ideas to any given setting?
As for the side not about races... that's kinda the point. Unlike our world, many realms in D&D are shaped by forces of magic, and the races are a reflection of that. The only issue I have with long-lived ones is that age becomes the defining feature of the culture instead of traditions and beliefs. In our world, yes, we only had other humans to deal with, however many cultures were shaped by their environment and could very easily be considered "different races" for the sake of argument. After all, a Hun would be hardier than a Roman due to the climate they grew up in, and could very well be compared to the Orks of the setting (for the record, I don't think Orks are outright stupid. I just think they are perceived that way due to them having very short tempers).The only difference between the "races" of our world and those of D&D is that the gods actually have a hand in how they cameo be.

Lord Raziere
2019-08-05, 01:08 PM
Very well, I shall provide a few possibilities.

going backwards from medieval times into the Bronze Age, it is possible that the world becomes more cosmopolitan, more gods are worshipped in polytheistic, animist manners and magic becomes more mythical and less defined. in this world the normal DnD pantheons don't really make sense and nor does alignment. bronze age myth and its deities weren't really about morality at least as we know it. rather the deities were embodiment of forces of nature, of things like the sun, the sky, the seas, the ground, and so on. such gods were not purely this or that or had a side, they were petty, they were cruel and fickle, because nature itself was cruel and fickle and god is just a word for whatever we cannot control. its possible that due to the gods feeding on belief, that back in these times alignment did not exist yet because they had not started believing that could be good or evil, but that they were simply existed as representations of the cruel world around them. however as a consequence, orcs and such are not inherently evil but there is still the fact that this is a bronze age world where people like the spartans think its a good idea to train your entire life to do nothing but fight forever and slavery is just an accepted part of life. there are probably more demi-gods running being heroes and adventurers but they probably are not as clean or clear-cut in their morality as medieval heroes. magic exists, but its more likely used by sorcerers, druids and bards than wizards or clerics- at this point, perhaps the first wizardry is still being discovered by the philosophers of the time and probably getting a lot of things wrong about it, and the true rulers of magic in this age are sorcerers, the naturally talented who found they were descended from gods and tap into their powers for their own gain. the planes meanwhile aren't really thing you need to teleport you- you just like, use your sailboat to sail beyond a certain point at a certain place and bang your in the afterlife, perhaps the planes got more defined when beliefs changed and they started out being more bleeding into the world at random points.

Going forward, into colonial times means one continent of people gains a great technological advantage over the others. Which people this is can be variable, but since this generally resulted in this massive imperial conquest across the globe and other horribleness this empire is probably the villain, even as it brings industry and trade to the entire world and starts bringing it near to a modern age, but the individual people of this empire probably aren't all bad- its not as if they can help where they were born and raised. given that large empires require discipline and organization there are a few candidates:
human, dwarf, hobgoblin. its also possible some others may form it like the elves but its more likely that the other three would do it first, given that elves focus too much on quality and not enough on quantity, and empires are all about quantity, quantity quantity. its even possible that humans dwarves and hobgoblins are all competing colonial empires trying to expand across the globe for ever more resources. the natives races and peoples of course will not be happy with them doing any of this, and many pantheons will probably destroyed by the march of the imperial races trying to spread their way of life and faith. magic probably starts experiencing better academic unification and start figuring out things to make it more available as well as apply it to industry, wizards are probably going out on expeditions to take whatever magical artifacts they can find across the world and put them in museums like some magical archaeologist, sorcerers are probably all nobility who have tended their bloodlines and marriages for centuries now no longer having any feudal armies and instead are caught up in politics and parties. slavery reaches the height of its horror and many strong brute fantasy races are enslaved by magical mind control spells, while the frontier gets more and more tamed, some fantasy monsters dying out, others getting captured and used for various purposes, and hunting them becomes less of a means of survival and more of a sport. dragons are one of the few things that still give people trouble however. the advent of guns make fighters less and less relevant as time goes by.

The Age of Steel:
Now we move into something much more familiar: the age of radios, guns, trenches, and the horrors of total warfare. whether through magic, technology or both, fighters as a class have become completely irrelevant. they are now replaced by an endless marching tide of soldiers firing bullets, battle mages gassing people or summoning demons to get the advantage (angels refuse to participate the senseless violence), ships of steel and wire in both sea and sky shooting at each other across the world, warfare has become far more impersonal and horrifying than ever before, dragons find themselves being pushed to their limit when fighting flying machines, fantasy monsters bred for war and enhanced by magic are unleashed upon the enemy to devastating effect. adventurers have been replaced by grim war heroes fighting for their nation, as all the places on the map have been discovered. bards sing propaganda of nations to lure more and more people into being soldiers, meanwhile slavery has disappeared after laws being passed, but many racial tensions between fantasy species and cultures remain with many races that lost during the colonial age being treated as second class citizens, even though they have scattered across the globe willingly or unwillingly and no longer hold to the culture they were from but the culture they now find themselves in, some cannot bear their existence and whisper in the dark that their enemies should all die wiped out from the gene pool and make plans to overthrow their governments to implement their plans of genocide.
meanwhile in scientific matters, wizards discover more and more confusing things about the universe, finding it stranger and more non-intuitive than they ever dreamed. and thats on top of the fact that the angels and Good planes seem to be changing and growing more pacifistic and intolerant of violence, and what used to be Good doesn't seem to be Good enough anymore, courage and honor are less valued, while succubi seem to becoming less and less evil as time goes by, but a new kind of corrupter with golden skin and nice suit seem to be growing in to offer unfair contracts for all the money you can possibly want. the world is changing, as the wizards get ever closer to inventing the most destructive magical weapon ever created....

The Modern Age:
Welcome to the modern age. republics are now most the worlds governments. Divininet or Scrynet connects the world, a world-wide network that connects machines directly to divine energies and planes, every Like is now a prayer, gods are now Divininet celebrities, and belief makes the Scrynet go 'round. people communicate instantly to one another but their beliefs clash, many gods enjoy resurgence in the public eye after being forgotten for so long, while new gods rise from nothing by getting enough views and likes, but fame is fleeting and in this new age gods can fall just as easily, becoming shadows of their former selves in just a few years after experiencing their fifteen minutes of fame as a meme.
The world is in a cold war, kept from getting hot by the threat of negative energy bombs threatening to wipe out civilization if they launch. bards now spend their energy making commercials to market whatever product the warlock execs tell them to, wizards have landed upon the moon, built a moonbase on it and are trying to figure out how to break the speed of light or build a spelljammer, the warlock executives themselves make deals with demons to screw people out of their money, and warlock mega-corporations are becoming more powerful than nations, succubi have gone full neutral with some of them even turning themselves good, no longer bound by old beliefs of lust and sex, the upper planes and the angels in addition to their pacifism, have gotten caught up in matters of social justice and privilege, which leads to some of them taking it too far and becoming lawful neutral, the hells are pretty much the same but with more racism, flame wars and hate.
everyone now knows a couple common spells like prestidigitation or light for common convenience.
laws have been passed against using tamed magical monsters as weapons and now they are all in zoos or kept on reservations. druids, a magical tradition that has been dead since the colonial age has had a sudden resurgence in environmentalism to try and heal the world and also the foremost fighters against the mega-corps demonic pollution, dragons now hide in fear of the increasing might of the mortal races machines and dwell in isolated places, wishing only to be left alone, and are careful about flying given that they'll get the blame on the news if they run into an airplane full of tourists.
the war heroes of the steel age have been replaced with secret agents, masked vigilantes, stealth op soldiers fighting terrorist organizations worshiping old evil gods that have yet to die, either stay in single cities fighting whatever crime happens and taking of their own rogues gallery or having globe-trotting adventures searching for secret bases to blow to stop evil plans to take over the world.
Where the world goes from here is unknown, where you will take it?