[World] The Dustlands

[SilverClawShift]

First, the Folians: a fascinating idea for a race, and one that has quite a few possibilities. However, (and I think these are problems that were faced by WotC when they made the Warforged) there are inherent problems with a non-animal PC race, what with all the immunities and lack of a true physiology.

Fully noted and planned for ahead of time, we anticipate the Folian race having an LA of +1, but we're shooting for no higher than that. I'll get into it more when I'm actually putting out the mechanics of the race.

In the Wriek, you seem to have created an actual evil PC race.

No more evil than tieflings are inherently bad, at this point anyway. A more detailed explenation of their 'society' would be good (Races of the Dustland book?), but as a culture they're borderline feral ala the Sliss. They're less 'evil' and more 'wild'. They're definately outcasts though, a Sliss or Wasteling player would have an easier time being accepted than a Wriek, in most areas.

On that note, seeing as how you still have evil in the Wrieks, you should have a good equivelent. however, the remnant societies should hate the good MORE then the wrieks. Armegedon and abandonment should be expected by evil, but GOOD? and thus good is given the real blame.

A final question of the apocalypse: How accepted is the armageddon? Are there some who believe it wasn't the actual final battle, seeing as how there are still people?

I'll need to flesh this out more (and when I say "I will" I probably mean "My DM will") in explaining the world, but there's going to be a rather important note that "Good Vs. Evil" is not the central focus in a place like the dustlands. There IS no such thing as good or evil in questions of raw survival, good and evil are concepts that spring up when you throw sentience into the mix. Now, there are still good people and creatures, and evil people and creatures, of course. But the dustlands greater focus is on issues of chaos vs order. The laws and rules of society trying to maintain a foothold in the face of hostile travelers strong enough to do whatever they want, in a world where absolutely no one is coming to help your struggling town.
Evil in a setting like this could manifest on either side of that line, with violent outlaws tearing through town and taking whatever they want, or with tyrannical sherrifs who know they can abuse their power without answering to a higher authority.

As for beleifs and understandings about the end of the world, bear in mind that a lot of people simply don't have a clue about anything other than the life they're trying to live. They're born, they learn how to make a living, they make children, and then they die and their children do the same.
The result is that most people, most societies and governments (fledgling or full) have no detailed clues about anything. The most intact governments (the city-state of Beltine being one) know that going back in their records, there's simply a place where the records don't keep going. They have nothing to go on other than the point in time where they started keeping records, and laws and warnings about staying to themselves and not going past certain geographical landmarks (which brings up another point on the law vs chaos scale... the fact that explorers beyond certain locations might be breaking very important laws in some socities).

I'll get into THIS part more in the 'Religion in the Dustlands' section, but it's important to point out that people and players in the Dustlands simply don't have any facts about deities, demons and devils, or what happens when they die. They simply don't know those things for a fact. Of course, many people still worship, preach, or fight for their ideals, and divine magic is still accessible to players.
How divine magic is viewed by the general public is skewed though. A lot of people (not the majority, but a good portion) beleive that the holy men of the cloth are nothing more than con-men, fleecing people into following them for whatever reason. People who take that view tend to beleive that divine magic is nothing but arcane magic masked with tricks and prettied up with a friendlier face. The fact that con-men, grifters, and rogues are a big problem in many areas serves to add to that fact, and one of our base classes is even going to leech divine energy from the universe as a matter of course.

I'm trying to stay on topic here and not dart around, but there's a lot of info to organize, and it's easy to get the wrong picture about this world without a lot of little facts and details.

ANYWAY. As for knowledge about the armageddon, that's part of the plot-hook that will drive a lot of governments/wealthy people to hire explorers to search and map out the world in greater detail, sifting through ruins and searching for traces of dead socities. At the time the Dustlands are supposed to currently be taking place, it's a world where people are coming to realize that something bad, something BIG happened a long time ago, and there are a lot of people who want to know just what that was.

I'll throw this into a spoiler tag to try to keep this post a manageable size... but the spoilers here are about one of the first realizations everyone had that something was wrong.

Spoiler

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A few generations before the 'current' time of the dustlands, the three human cities (and one tiny elven society) first came into contact with each other. There was a lot of panic and shock from all sides that there was anyone else 'out there'. The elves had very strict rules about coming down from their isolated lifestyle, and the first who did it were flat out considered traitors and outcasts by many of the older elves. The humans had their rules too, but their curiosity was a lot more powerful, and the idea that there were other people out there to band together with appealed to strongly. (currently, the elves are less hostile isolationists, and elves who leave their land are welcome to return, but non-elves are simply not allowed).
The realization and celebration that they weren't alone turned into an even greater realization, that there might be MORE out there. Against a lot of complaints and objections, the first true explorers of the world set out west.

(Geographical side note: I'll need to upload the map our DM has of this world sometime, but there's a massive mountain range on the east which is largely considered the edge of the world. Knowing that the world is a sphere, understanding logically that there's something on the other side of that mountain range, and actually physically exploring in that direction are two different things. The mountain range peaks outside the atmosphere, ends in an almost sheer cliff face, and is nothing but ocean (as far as anyone can tell). Explorations heading eastward have met with massive losses and no real gains.
Those with long term interest in exploring the world, and knowledge that they are on a globe rather than a disc, figure if they head west long enough, they're eventually come back around...)

The explorers who went north/south/and west came upon a few sudden, and sickening realizations.
The first was that the sections of the world they occupied... the cities that they thought were everything, were absolutely tiny. They were facing a massive world that they had barely begun to chart out.
The second was that the world was a husk. The human cities (and one elven city) are in what could best be described as a temperate zone, a land that more closely resembles what you'd think of when putting together a generic D&D game. When they crossed the natural borders ('coming out of the valley', which is essentially what they're in... one huge valley) and looked out at the world they intended to chart, they saw nothing but grit, scorched stone, and a few struggling angry looking plants.

They headed west, very deliberately staying on an almost perfectly even course (so there was no chance they could get lost and not be able to return to their home lands). They passed a new natural landmarks and areas of terrain that had distinguishing characteristics, but nothing that was really worthy of stopping for. Until they came to the third sickening realization.
They passed through a rocky area, what originally looked like more natural terrain started to show vague, almost illusory signs of sentient craftwork. The illusion ended, however, when they found a small stone 'room', mostly buried in sand, but obviously the work of intelligent creatures. Working to unbury it, they discovered a metal door corroded by the force of centuries of sandstorms. Inside they found that the room was almost entirely empty, except for a single object standing in the middle. It was an almost perfectly kept stone statue, quite clearly of a female elf holding her hands to the sky.

Their discovery marked the end of their first exploration, as they returned to their homelands with the information. Almost immediately, several forces that had at first been strongly opposed to the exploration changed their tune, urging the creation of outposts and guides in the path the explorers had gone, and the creation of a base at the site of the statue.

The statue now resides in a Beltine museum of art, which makes some elves extremly uncomfortable.
The location the statue was discovered in has gradually turned into a very large city (think Tombstone Arizona back in the day, a little larger and more metropolitan, and a little more rowdy). The government buildings of that city are built around and over the stone room they discovered the statue in.
The string of outposts leading to that city is called "Devron's Trail" after the lead explorer of that group.
People now tend to refer to the temperate zone where the elves and humans came from as the "Cradle", reflecting its nature as a hospitable area ready to nurture life.

Cut to current times. A lot of people wonder why those who were strongly opposed to ANY exploration became so eager to build fortified government buildings around the first discovery in the new world.
A lot of people, especially elves, want to know more about the statue found and what it means.
And a lot of government officials would like to see the people asking those questions quietly executed.

Er. Anyway. Back to the post at hand.

Also, you say you will include the PHB races. Why, then, are only humans subject to the corrupting influences of the armageddon. Why aren't there half dwarf/half wastelings, or half elf/half wrieks? (I also think this is a problem with basic D&D, though)

We're not DIRECTLY including ALL of the PHB races. We're simply not ruling out their existance in any meaningful way. Like I said, if a DM wants to include (or a player wants to play) a Shifter, or a halfling, or a goliath, there's nothing stopping them. In fact it's encouraged.
Think of the quote for eberron. "If it exists in D&D, it exists in eberron".
The Dustlands are intended to have the same attitude. It's meant to be a world that can be built up into whatever you need it to be, just with specific thematic elements which can encourage a 'western' game.

There are no Dwarf or Gnome versions of the Wastelings because there's nothing sentient in the bleak north EXCEPT the wastelings. The bleak north is not a welcoming area. To most normal people, it's a violent disturbing place where rotting wolves pace in packs and the sky, land, and sea themselves seem simultaneously dark and pale, as if the life was being sucked out of them. Somehow the humans isolated in this area survived, but in the process, they basically stopped being truly human. They're still similar enough in basic ways to produce crossbreeds, but they are what they are.

As for half-elf/half-wrieks, or halfling half-wrieks, or whatever combination you want to exist, that's really something that's left to the DM and players. As you said, that's a problem with D&D more than any specific setting. "If all these races exist, and can make half-breeds..." no. "But..." no, it's too complicated. "So no half-elf/half-orcs?" not going there.
We could keep piling half-breeds and mish-moshes and twisted mishaps up until the book was nothing but a list of possible player mating habits. We've got other directions to go in though, so for simplicity sake, we're cutting it off there for the same reason the PHB gives you a half-elf, a half-orc, but no combination of the two. It's just too darn much mixing.

That said, if we ever made enough material for expansion books, half-wriek wastelings are something that would deserve a mention.

Also, I have some questions.

How will the western/fantasy aspects be balanced? Would it be more likely to see, say, a conestoga wagon being ambushed by gnolls (western w/ fantasy influences) or knights sallying forth wearing chaps and ten gallon hats (fantasy w/ western influences)? I realize you are looking for a fusion, and these are over simplifications, but I don't imagine the world can be truly 50/50.

How much the game plays as one aspect or another is, and always has been, up to the DM running the game. There's nothing stopping you from playing D&D as is as a western. In fact, my group has done a game that was just that (a small town in a desert under seige by a band of, of all things, elven bandits).

How much western flavor, versus fantasy flavor, you will see comes down to three factors. Location, DM, and Players. The location your game takes place in will have its influence. Playing in the temperate zones of the human cities, forests and city-state kingdoms, will lend more to traditional fantasy gameplay. Playing in lawless desert cities or small towns with a ruthless sheriff will lend itself to a stronger western theme.
But ultimately, the plot the DM throws at you, and the way you choose to handle it as a player, will have more to do with what you take away from the game than anything else. If you're a Sliss deadeye in a floor length duster and spurs, you're going to interpret the world around you through that character. If you're a human druid who's set out into the desert to try to find ways to coax life out of the sand, you're going to remember it as more of a fantasy.
And when the small town lawman rides his horse into a battle and pulls a Smite Evil on a bandit, you'll remember the paladin sheriff who was a little fantasy and a little western.

I think what I'm getting at, is that you can play a Samurai in regular D&D, and you can play a Knight in oriental adventures, if your DM lets you. Your name kind of sums it up, with the "Barroom Bard" thing. A bard playing a tin-y piano in the background and watching a barfight... So the real question of flavor fusion is "What are YOU going to do with the world?"

And as far as the weapons go, what will that look like? Is it a sword duel at high noon kinda thing, or will this 'distinct ranged weapon' you speak of take the form/role of a handgun in the world?

Same as the flavor fusion question, the answer here has more to do with you, the players, the DMs, and what you think works best for your game.
The iconic weapon we're working on is defiantely meant to be the six shooter of this world, but we're putting a lot of thought and work into it to make sure it fits seemlessly into things. It's not a gun, in the traditional sense. It doesn't trump swords and shields just by existing, and it's not such a powerful tool that players will have reason to choose it and only it.
But at the same time, part of the thrill of a western setting is the weapon holstered at your side, the quickdraws dueling in the street, the bar room fights turned into shoot outs.

Our goal (and I readily admit, it is a lofty one) is to create a ranged weapon with more ease of use... more seamless and smooth behavior... than a crossbow or traditional bow. Something that can be drawn and fired without a lot of jumping through hoops. But a weapon that's not so inherently useful or powerful that a good sharp blade or solid hammer suddenly becomes a relic of the past.
As with everything else in the Dustlands, you should feel as comfortable taking this weapon into a fantasy setting like eberron, as you should grabbing a greatsword and swinging away.

I guess I can't say all that and not actually give any info on the weapon itself, can I? I'll detail it better in the Arms & Armor section, but I suppose I need to explain what this weapon is.

The weapon is not based on physical mechanics. The weapon (...tenatively titled, an 'Arcanon', but I'm hesitant to actually name it that) functions on magic.
Physically it resembles a six shooter with no barrel. Instead it has a toothy rail for the barrel to slide down and lock into place. The barrel itself IS the ammunition...
The barrel is a specially crafted 'wand' charged with generic magical energy. The 'gun' itself is essentially a specially designed 'automatic UMD skill-check maker' which can only use the specially designed 'wands'. You slide the charged barrel down into the weapon and lock it into place, pull the trigger, and it pops off a little blip of magical force which deals bludgeoning damage.
Flavor wise, the weapon hits "Like a frighteningly strong fist", not a peircing ball of instant death. On a critical hit (a flat perfect shot) it hits more like a mule kick. On less acurate shots, the force bounces off and dissipates quickly, so a shield is still an effective device against the weapon, but even if you're armored, a straight shot can send you reeling (read, damage).
The weapon won't work in an anti-magic field, but the bludgeoning damage ignores spell resistance, and is basically treated as a mundane projectile for most effects. Monks can even 'catch' it like it was an arrow, causing it to poof harmlessly.
The weapon itself is extremly pricey, and ammo for it isn't cheap (but is reusable, so looting the body of a gunslinger is a good thing).
More expensive ammunition might deal elemental damage, but can be negated by spell resistance. Comparitively MUCH more expensive ammunition might even produce real spell effects (and when you buy a one-use barrel that fires a lightning bolt, and make a reference to unreal tournament, your DM can drop rocks on you and kill everyone ;)). Personally, I'm a fan of the image of a rogue sneaking up behind someone, sticking a gun to the back of their neck, and firing a sleep spell at the point-blank, but don't forget the massive cost with that custom ammunition.

Add in the fact that different cities, towns, and kingdoms will have different laws regarding weapons (you might have a sheriff expecting you to turn in your gun on entering a town, with it only being returned when you leave.... you might be breaking the law simply by carrying it visibly).

Now, we're not foolish. We know that you wouldn't just pick this weapon up and drop it in another campaign without thought. But it's really not going to be that powerful of a weapon, and with its balancing factors, it's not an automatic trump card to other weapons and fighting styles. It's just meant to be a flavorful addition to a fantasy western setting, where you're going to want to have at least one shootout at some point...
Personally, picturing a swordsman charging across a saloon, knocking shots away with a spin of the blade before running the shooter through, leaves me with a big grin. Opinions will vary greatly though...

So the better question is, what would you, as a DM or as a player, put in your characters hands when you start up a campaign? Maybe you'll have a party that opts entirely to be gunslingers, or maybe you'll have a party that thinks nothing beats a good keen blade. Ultimately, it's what you want to play.

And... uh. I'm sorry that this post is ridiculously long. Going to put up some info on the base classes next.