Fantasy Total War (Seeking interested players & GMs)

[NineOfSpades]

As the name suggests, I'm testing the waters to see if there's any interested parties out there who might want to play a game of Total War with a fantasy setting.

For those unfamiliar, Total was is a semi-freeform nation building game. Semi-freeform meaning it's more about narrative and imagination, though with just enough rules and numbers to keep things balanced. Nation building, as the name suggests, is all about running your own Nation. Design a kingdom of your own, and play politics on the global stage.

Previously I've had the privilege of playing in two D&D games using the 3rd Fields of Blood supplement. Though that system also focuses on players building their own empire, it is far more mechanics intensive, which I suspect had something to do with why they ultimately died out.

I've never played Total War before, but I had a blast in those other games, which is what got me on the path towards making this thread. I honestly have no idea if this will garner much in the way of interest, and even less certainty that a prospective GM will be enticed enough to join. But I am hopeful at least that this might get off the ground, allowing for a slower paced game that'll be a ton of fun for everyone.

[Warmatt]

Just establishing my own interest here.



The Deep Trolls

Can you not hear them? The thunder in the deep, even as Mount Caltax burns anew once more? Some say that yonder peak is just another fire mountain, just another volcano. But they have not ventured there, they have not seen. They have not heard. Imagine it if you will, of the pits of hell opened onto the mortal plane, the endless hammerblow of hammers on steel, even as flames belched with the fury of dragons, metal things, interlocked and clattering, rumbling, turning. And above the great clamor, above their unholy machines, that is where THEY stand.

Almost thrice the size of a man, their hides the color of dull steel, they are unlovely to look on, and you can tell just by looking that they are related to those savage beasts of the northlands. But these demonic things? They know. They are cunning, wise in some diabolical arts, craft similar on the surface to the practice of the dwarvish folk, but the scale.....

You ask how I knew this? They are the masters of their domain. They knew I was watching, and so they took me. They showed me the wondrous horrors of their realm, deep below the surface. And they released me to deliver a message, though I know not how honest they are.

Listen O man, they said, and tell this tale to your fellows. We care but little for the surface realms, and your petty and constant strife. We care little for the chill of the open world, nor do we find stench of magic to be appealing to us. Leave us to our realms below, to the realms were a proper civilization and culture may be established, and we shall leave unto you the barbarian wasteland above.

- A tale told by an unwashed hick, told while covered in vomit while in a tavern. A Shepard by trade, he was censured twice for the buggery of his flock. As such, the story is unreliable at best.

[Pol Detson]

It looks interesting. Watched.

[NineOfSpades]

That is a solid idea Warmatt. I'm planning a race of Vikings myself. Potentially Giant Vikings, but we'll see.

[Thiassi]

This seems like a lot of fun, I love nation games. Posting interest. I'm playing around with building a fantasy setting myself, so I've got a few concepts that I think would be fun to play. Thinking an empire that would be what would happen if you plopped Austria-Hungary into a D&D world, and perhaps added a bit of Mordor into the mix.

[Shadowz1797]

Posting interest

[St.Just]

Haven't played in one of these in quite a while, but absolutely posting interest. Probably going with a nation based heavily on djin binding and pact magic-think the Alin from Rise of Legends or the Bartimaeus trilogy.

[Shadowz1797]

Haven't played in one of these in quite a while, but absolutely posting interest. Probably going with a nation based heavily on djin binding and pact magic-think the Alin from Rise of Legends or the Bartimaeus trilogy.

loved the Bartimaeus trilogy

[St.Just]

loved the Bartimaeus trilogy

Was a favorite of mine growing up, yeah. I'm honestly a pretty huge fan of the whole mixing of Enlightenment/Victorian aesthetics with magic, but if that's too dissonant with the general tech level of the setting I'll go for either an Arabian Nights or Renaissance Italy sort of feel.

[Grim ranger]

Posting interest, should this happen to get off the ground.

[Iethloc]

I'm definitely interested in this.

I've got an idea for a nation, but it'd have some pretty big implications for the setting and I'm not sure if anything's been set in stone yet.

[Kythia]

Interested. Have a few tentative ideas.

[St.Just]

I'm definitely interested in this.

I've got an idea for a nation, but it'd have some pretty big implications for the setting and I'm not sure if anything's been set in stone yet.

It doesn't really seem so, honestly. What were you thinking?

[Iethloc]

It doesn't really seem so, honestly. What were you thinking?

Something like this:

The Last Hive

Spoiler

Show

Imagine that they forge each others' bones. Imagine, if you can bear it, a monstrosity being lain into a cradle of chitin and steel to grow until larger than a man, walking with the entire contraption enclosing its soft flesh for its whole life. Such a thing should not exist, but it does. The hivers are as real as you or me, and worse than a night terror.

They are thinking monsters, however. They have said that they traded with the “two-legs” a long time ago, maybe even thousands of winters. But when the Iron Hives grew too large, they entered a long hibernation to let the world regrow, and awoke to find disaster.

Entire empires of their own raided, hivers killed as they slept. The ones who perpetrated this are long dead, but it does not matter to them. They always preferred a fair trade, and this time it will be a life for every one of theirs lost. Millions of lives, maybe even billions.

Once peaceful, they have now reforged themselves into machines of war. Every tool in their society is designed to support the machine. There is no more culture beyond that of battle. The hivers are after us, and they outnumber the stars.

May the gods help us all.