If you ask me for fantasy, you'll probably wind up with Dancing Princess, NagaWorld, Bah Ke'gehn, or Dungeons & Dragons, and if you're thinking of Labyrinth or The Dark Crystal or Narnia--MJ
This quote by MJ got me to thinking systematically about design as I occasionally do.
This only applies to Fantasy, not urban fantasy either. We'll try to keep this limited.
Let's create three categories: Examples in fiction, the sub-genre, the world setting.
Example:
D20 games and RA Salvatore/ D&D subgenre / I've written Greenwood Forest setting.
Cinderella/ Fairy Tales/ MJ's done The Dancing Princesses and I've done Grim Forest, at least partially.
LOTR, Belgariad, and lots of others/ Epic Fantasy/ I think we need a world for this slot.
Nine Princes in Amber/ Wit and Wine Fantasy/ Isle of Lakraine by moi.
HMMMM/ Socially Aware Fantasy--4th Age Fantasy in Tolkien's scheme/ Orc Rising
Okay, lets hit the pause...I want more brainstorming than an official list....What are the types of fantasy? What are some of my favorite fantasy novels?
Deeds of Paksennarrion is excellent. 4th Age of Man stuff.
Belgariad is fun. Its Heroic Party of Questers stuff.
Narnia.
Just read Sanctuary which is a Thieve's World novel. Its a world of racial prejudgice, big city life, sudden and crazy death via magic, monstrous deities, and weak and paling demigods of good...its heroic fantasy.--Closest thing I have to it is Tower of Rhodes, but not really. You need a nasty, gritty city filled with ancient surprise for this. Rhodes might have th elatter, but Rhodes is suffused with romantic optimism.
Eternal Champion by Moorcock--You're cursed to be an immortal warrior with a bad attitude, a permanent hangover, and a soul-sucking vampire blade, and see lots of your friends die as you wander the Multiverse fighting in senseless wars first on one side and then the other. In ways, Multiverser itself is the superior replacement for this Myth.
King Arthur's tales.
Also Roland's tales.
Christopher Stasheff wrote the inspiration for City-state of Haston.
Conan. Sword and Sorcery.
Deryni. Is it magic or is it psi? Very medieval. And medieval is different than D&D.
I'm sure there are lots more.
Now to grab one that interests me--King Arthur's tales.
If you were to make this a Multiverser world...you could simply change a few things,a nd run with it. You could make a more realistic setting and suppose that Arthur was a Saxon war-chief with a nice steel blade. Or you could have Arthur as a Roman general....the last Roman in Britain...there is a movie out now dealing with something like that...the Last Legion. I hear its terrible.
But, I'd really rather file down more than the serial numbers. What is Arthur's tale essentially about? Might in the service of right, and your personal evil will destroy your land, and the efforts of a small group to impose order and justice on chaos and evil with interpersonal conflicts and a bit of magic and fighting on the way.
The good guys are....Magi on the Hero's Path. Stealing a bit from another idea of mine...Magi must choose one of three courses...1)Renounce their powers. 2)The Hero's Path which is difficult, unsteady, tricky, and perilous. 3)Become a monster quite literally....many magi who chose this route think they did not, they thought they had fooled fate, but in the end, They Chose Poorly. And this is where the dragons, giants, and other hideous beasts come from.
If you survive the Hero's Path, you will be great in Heaven and Earth. Others may enter Heaven by the skin of their teeth, but when you enter in, songs will be sung. Still, a Hero is wary of Pride. He still will throw himself down before the Maker in awe. But then he will be raised up to a place higher than the deva, and given charge of stars.
But the very power and majesty that a Hero Magi gathers makes him vulnerable to tripping and falling, and once he has fallen, he can be extremely dangerous.
Some heroes pause on the path...they take a vacation of a decade or a century. These play the role of the Lady of the Lake, and offer advice to younger still striving Heroes.
In the Isle of the Tribes, there are many different magi of no great power. Each one is infested with Pride. None will bow to another, not even to save their own people's lives. There is no cooperation between villages because each Magi is more concerned with getting to his benefit today, they are Selfish and Short-sighted.
Some of the more talented Magi make war on others to increase their territory, but in the end, they only destroy. Food is burnt by war, and eaten up by warriors. And more taxes are raised for more war. Ambition rides the shoulders of talented magi like a cruel-eyed Hawk with no pity for the common farmer.
In this land, there is an Armsmaster. He has no magic, or so he claims. And yet, he's bested many great Magi with his sword. And then he comes upon a dying king-magi who has fled from a battle. This King is great in power, but not great enough. He carries with him his infant for his enemy has sunk to the point where they would seek out his child to slay him. But he dies now. But upon seeing the Armsmaster, he makes a deal.
"Take my son. Raise him as your own. Teach him your wisdom. Teach him mine. Make him the greatest magi who ever lived, a war wizard non pareil so that he may create a world where children are not hunted by armed men."
The Armsmaster is moved by this vision and complies.
Twenty years later...the war wizard shows up,a nd starts to kick in heads. Things have gotten truly terrible in the land. Poverty is everywhere. Many magi have truly become the monsters they werein spirit, they have become that in flesh, and have left for the Wilds. But day by day, teh Wilds spread.
I'm not sure where to stick the verser...possibly make him the Armsmaster or the guy the king sees...
Eric
Or if you zygote him in as the son of the doomed king, he will be aware of what his happening and able to come back with a vengeance.
Where in your scheme would you fit Bah Ke'gehn? Or is that not "fantasy" by this definition?
--M. J. Young
Or if you zygote him in as the son of the doomed king,
That is an excellent idea, and I may use it if I have occasion to inflict the zygote scenario on a player. Fair warning.
Indeed, it might even be the basis for that "epic fantasy" Eric wanted, since at that point it would tell the tale of the child whose royal wizard father was killed in battle, but who was raised by a skilled warrior and returned to reclaim his throne--and since he was zygoted, he is aging in all this.
Of course, he'd need a cousin or someone to take the throne when he leaves, but that's a side note really. He could adopt an heir as easily as anything, particularly if he marries at some point.
--M. J. Young
particularly if he marries at some point.
Which in turn could give you the opportunity to run any of the myriad stories which begin with a king and queen unable to produce a child. If the verser plans to wait a few years to make his decision to adopt more plausible, and the queen is unwilling to wait . . .
Bah ke'gn is not fantasy by this defintion, but only by this definition. I'm looking at Traditional Fantasy.
Some extremely good ideas here--zygote, and then shifting to possibilities for epic fantasy, and then a clever riff on Guinevre, Lancelot, and Arthur...
For epic fantasy...you'd skip the whole create the Ring of Magi thing, and go for the Find the Major Magic McGuffin and Slay the Dark Lord. Of course, you could have the Search for Excalibur, ahem, I mean, the Unicorn Staff of the White Mage be the Epic Fantasy, and then segue into an Arthurian setting as the War Wizard now tries to set up his kingdom and create order after the Lord of the Monsters (probably some Dragon Giant variant like a huge dragon with two heads) is slain.
So, we've got a two-stage world...and then a romance, and then complications in that romance which leads to marriage problems, and possibly doom upon the land.
Brilliant!
I'd say this world should be preferred as zygote entrance, but I'd offer some other choices as well.
I think I may see about putting one of my players into this world soon as I can.
Eric
Of course, it's also The Lion King with people....
I've occasionally considered trying to put together a collection of alternative Zygote-entry worlds. The third novel, For Better or Verse, has a really out-there fantasy one, I think, but it would work for most players. The basic concept of course is figuring out a setting into which the character can be born that will give him time to grow up and get oriented but still put him in the midst of a serious adventure when he's ready.
--M. J. Young
I like the idea of Thematic Collections of Worlds. I've put together some ideas for Grim Futures (alternate realities from the present), and done SF worlds, and Fantasy worlds, and Placeholder Worlds.
1. For Better or Verse situation.
2. Island of the Mighty/War Wizard
3. WAW where Tadeusz arrived in the sixties or so, and invented D&D--basically allows the player to relive and influence and perhaps take advantage of this time.
4. You could be born as someone famous "I shall call him...Abraham Lincoln..." or famous and evil "Herr Schickelgruber, you have a son!"
5. Any suggestions anyone?
Eric
Since this is a year old I think I'll be pardoned if I don't follow completely but give another Fantasy suggestion. Is there anything like Fantasia (from "The Never Ending Story")?
I think it would be very cool to come into such a world, where virtually everything is possible, and which exists from everything you can imagine. The only two worlds I've seen that resemble that are Aquatica (I think), by Eric and the Dreamworld (I don't know by who), both on RPOL.
That Princess 'Fairy Tale' kind of fantasy fascinates me very much. I was wondering if it would be possible to RP in a fairy tale way. I think it would be a combination of a good world and the willingness to stick to the genre in playing it out. But if you chack out Brier Rose or Snow White, you can see that the 'hero' prince guy, usually is a very shallow character with little or no characteristics. So we'd have to come in as an aid to the hero to make it more real and be able to play an interesting role. I think.
Amanda at RPOL is in something like The Neverending Story, although she doesn't realize it yet. She thinks her world is only the Hundred Acre Wood.
Heartwar is the name of that world, and yah, its one of mine. I really like the interplay between Dream Magic and Spy Novel which is that world.
There's also a Mary Piper based on children's stories (the Jabberwock and Humpty Dumpty if I remember right.) which is kind of close to what you're asking for.
MJ's done a Fairy Tale world (the Dancing Princesses) in one of the Books of Worlds.
One way to do a fairy tale would be to make the verser the only one who can do the rescue. Have some magical prohibition which stops anyone born on that world from rescuing the princess, and then feeling safe, the Forces of Evil rest, but unbeknownst to them, the hero verser arrives....
cool :)
That would be an interesting way to play it. If the Dancing Princesses need to be rescued by someone who will then be offered a fortune and the hand of one of the girls, and you don't want either of those rewards, you can certainly encourage someone to do this, promising to go along to help, disguised as his servant or something. (Extra cool if you can magically disguise yourself as his cat who wears boots....)
On the other hand, those stories aren't generally about the hero; they're about the girl who is rescued by the hero. It becomes every girl's dream that the prince will come. When we cast the verser in the role of the prince, he tells the other side of the story, who the prince is and how he comes to rescue the girl. So it does become an interesting role.
Now, whether you want to do it by magic and medieval weaponry (which is how Chris Jones did it) or by modern firepower with supplemental magic (the choice of John Cross), that's the player's decision. Either way works. The low tech bias tends to make guns less reliable and less effective, but whether you would resort to magic and swords is a personal choice based on whether your character is good at such things.
--M. J. Young