Original Fantasy Setting
- Thread starter -Drifter-
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I've been developing a Modern Fantasy idea, I know this has been done before, most notably in Shadowrun but what I'm working on is a world that had fantasy elements all along. There are two extra continents, one long thin one in the Atlantic and one large one in the Pacific. These continents are where the fantasy races (Elves, Dwarves, Goblins etc.) originated from. The world is divided between Dark Magic and Light Magic and most major conflicts were between countries that leaned toward one or the other. For instance the French Empire was Dark Magic, the British Empire was Light Magic. Neither one is evil or good, unlike most fantasies which make Dark Magic evil. The gods and beasts of mythology are real, but the gods aren't actually gods but a race of extremely powerful aliens, or interdimensional beings (its kept vague on purpose) whose influence has declined in recent years leading to people thinking they were just an old religion, of course Abrahamic God is never stated to exist or not exist but normal modern religions are around.
Biology (and more specific taxonomy) isn't really my strong side but I would say that the use of subgenus is wrong because it isn't used so much in taxonomy (the naming of animals and stuff). I would just use the term species instead, and it depends do you want the breeders to be able to have fertile children with regular humans if so they should be a subspecies of normal humans (Homo sapiens breeders or something like that since humans are called Homo sapiens sapiens). If the breeders can't get fertile children with regular humans they are of another species (Homo breeders).Ragsnstitches said:
wanna hear my idea for a sci-fi movie, or a the fantasy one?
Well my idea for a Fantasy film is something called the Dreamwarp, or the nexus of every dream or thought of humankind lives, and ends with a big old bash as character from everyting (and I mean everything, star wars, transformers, mlp, halo, cod, gears, mairo, Zelda, megaman, etc, everything ever dreant of) Battle out to control the nexus in an endless battle, of which cannot be won, for if one person or side was to control the nexus, the Dreamwarp would cease to exist and dreams would disapper forever.
Sounds good don't it?
Well my idea for a Fantasy film is something called the Dreamwarp, or the nexus of every dream or thought of humankind lives, and ends with a big old bash as character from everyting (and I mean everything, star wars, transformers, mlp, halo, cod, gears, mairo, Zelda, megaman, etc, everything ever dreant of) Battle out to control the nexus in an endless battle, of which cannot be won, for if one person or side was to control the nexus, the Dreamwarp would cease to exist and dreams would disapper forever.
Sounds good don't it?
I could share one of my original fantasy settings, but then I'd have to kill you all to prevent possible copy-right infringement. 
So instead, I'll share one that a favorite author of mine created that you might find interesting.
Hundreds of years after the great war between the Wizards of the north laid the lands to ruin, the survivors have rebuilt society into small farming communities. Trade is carried out up and down a massive river - known as Bluewater - that connects the colder lands in the north to the warmer in the south. The settled areas - where brick and glass are still kind of new-fangled - are fairly safe, but if you stray too far into the wilds, be warned that Blight Boggles (creatures that can suck out your very life - and the life of everything else, for miles around their lairs) lurk in the depths. The Lakewalkers, the surviving descendants of the Great Wizards who once ruled the cities of the northern lakes, are the nomadic fighters who hunt and slay the Blight Boggles. However, they have strange ways, and are best avoided. But if one kills a Boggle in you area, make sure they are well paid, or they might not come around the next time and let you be eaten.
Few have ventured up to the ruins of the ancient cities on the lakes. Those are the dead lands, where the great Boggles of old laid the land to waste. Those cities lie at the bottom of the lakes now, some stretching miles across.
No one remembers the names of those cities anymore. However, if a reader is canny, one recognizes one of them as... Cleveland.
Yes. This fantasy setting (created by Lois McMaster Bujold) is inspired by the farming communities along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers during the 1800s. However, the setting itself is some sort of alternative universe where Cleveland (and the other cities along the Great Lakes) were ruled by Psionic Wizards. Something happened, and they created horrible life sucking monsters (later known as Blight Boggles) and a great war destroyed the five cities and devastated society. Now, the descendants of those original Psions (the Lakewalkers) continue to clean up the mess their ancestors caused. They help the 'normal' humans rebuild and keep the surviving monsters at bay.
Anyway, I like this setting because it uses a location other than "generic Europe". I mean, who thinks about using Magical Society America as a D&D setting? Or making the great city of the ancients "Cleveland." That always makes me laugh. ^^
Edit: Oh, and for those interested - the Sharing Knife novel series (by Bujold) is where this all is from.
So instead, I'll share one that a favorite author of mine created that you might find interesting.
Hundreds of years after the great war between the Wizards of the north laid the lands to ruin, the survivors have rebuilt society into small farming communities. Trade is carried out up and down a massive river - known as Bluewater - that connects the colder lands in the north to the warmer in the south. The settled areas - where brick and glass are still kind of new-fangled - are fairly safe, but if you stray too far into the wilds, be warned that Blight Boggles (creatures that can suck out your very life - and the life of everything else, for miles around their lairs) lurk in the depths. The Lakewalkers, the surviving descendants of the Great Wizards who once ruled the cities of the northern lakes, are the nomadic fighters who hunt and slay the Blight Boggles. However, they have strange ways, and are best avoided. But if one kills a Boggle in you area, make sure they are well paid, or they might not come around the next time and let you be eaten.
Few have ventured up to the ruins of the ancient cities on the lakes. Those are the dead lands, where the great Boggles of old laid the land to waste. Those cities lie at the bottom of the lakes now, some stretching miles across.
No one remembers the names of those cities anymore. However, if a reader is canny, one recognizes one of them as... Cleveland.
Yes. This fantasy setting (created by Lois McMaster Bujold) is inspired by the farming communities along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers during the 1800s. However, the setting itself is some sort of alternative universe where Cleveland (and the other cities along the Great Lakes) were ruled by Psionic Wizards. Something happened, and they created horrible life sucking monsters (later known as Blight Boggles) and a great war destroyed the five cities and devastated society. Now, the descendants of those original Psions (the Lakewalkers) continue to clean up the mess their ancestors caused. They help the 'normal' humans rebuild and keep the surviving monsters at bay.
Anyway, I like this setting because it uses a location other than "generic Europe". I mean, who thinks about using Magical Society America as a D&D setting? Or making the great city of the ancients "Cleveland." That always makes me laugh. ^^
Edit: Oh, and for those interested - the Sharing Knife novel series (by Bujold) is where this all is from.
A world made of stone, where everyone is a living rock (not necessarily humanoid but with moving limbs allowing them to walk and get around). Moss is the only organic thing around. As you might have guessed, being rocks, moss is a very evil thing and living embodiment of all that is bad in the world. Adventures go out to slay it and purge it form the world.
There in two minutes I came up with a fantasy setting while using almost 0 effort. I can haz be writer now plz?
There in two minutes I came up with a fantasy setting while using almost 0 effort. I can haz be writer now plz?
James Bluiter Is A wizard from an ancient family of wizards Having just finished his education At the Australian school of magicary where he was raised for his own protection after the murder of his father he decided to become a Trigai The most feared and respected of Wizard cops just like his father The longer he is on the job the more things get weirder Until it become's obvious A new dark wizard has arrizen But with a power that no others have the power to train magically power from other wizards along with his uncle and his best friend a studyier of magical history he sets out to beat this dark wizard In book two he will meet a old friend of his who dropped from school who seems to have mastered the long forgotten art Of wand talking and magic channelling -By using the right paths in a wand or another magical amplifying tool you can increase the effects of said spell by dozens allowing you to fight longer as it requires less effort the art has been forgotten and most wizards just force the magic through using a lot more effort and having weaker spells beacuse of it
Picture a world where magic is a force that travels, like bacteria. Some objects attract it, storing it in vast quantities, whereas others repel it like two positive magnets. Stone, iron, silver, steel and copper/bronze reflect magic. Gold, obsidian and what's called "magic iron" attract it. Magic is also extremely potent in large doses, causing plants and animals with large exposure to it to be mutated. This is the cause of monsters. Humans evolved into 2 separate species: Tree-dwelling spellcasters who reject civilization and prefer to live among the animals, and humans untouched by magic's disfiguration who evolved as magicless cave dwellers, but now live in stone villae, nurturing small amounts of magic in the name of progress and conquest. Additionally, different cultures of humans live very different lives: there is a race of similar origin and language to the Japanese, but with a culture more like the Vikings. They come from a cold, snow capped land to the east and build fast ships with which to raid the more prosperous neighbouring countries. Their heritage is passed directly from father to son, with a young man's surname being the personal name of his dad. Or the overly weird race of men with pink, blue, green and other various silly hair colours who live in an advanced trade-based society, and look down on those who aren't knowledgable enough with resources to have an unnatural hair pigment. It's a similar status symbol to the powdered wigs of yesteryear, only the race themselves are somewhat Latino. There's also an imperialistic Celtic civilization who crush up gold and magic iron, then use it as a dye for magical skin tattoos that grant them abilities depending on the design.
Basically, some societies are war-like or tribal, some are isolationist and practical while others just can't stop depending on their magic rocks.
Basically, some societies are war-like or tribal, some are isolationist and practical while others just can't stop depending on their magic rocks.
I had this idea that partially came from Yahtzee's inspiration.
Based off a D&D campaign I used to run that got cut off due to life I took the idea of what if the group randomly died or disappeared.
Basically everything goes to shit, magic destroys a lot except for one nation and one human city, everything else becomes a magically infused fallout style apocalyptic hell hole where demons roam freely and an army of slavers and racists roam the land pillaging from the few who try to eek out an existence.
Based off a D&D campaign I used to run that got cut off due to life I took the idea of what if the group randomly died or disappeared.
Basically everything goes to shit, magic destroys a lot except for one nation and one human city, everything else becomes a magically infused fallout style apocalyptic hell hole where demons roam freely and an army of slavers and racists roam the land pillaging from the few who try to eek out an existence.
not too original as i'm sure it's been done before, but it's more of a fantasy sci fi game setting and i think it's a bit cheesy but bear with me
scientists discover some form of alternate dimension or whatever and start working on a way to access it, but while testing it, it causes reality to essentially crack, and all kinds of universes are smashed together and access between realities are eventually established and many realities hold similarities to our fiction (some shit about how someone other realities influenced our imagination) you as a guard for the project where at the centre of it when everything cracked and somehow again the ability to absorb life, so you can absorb powers of whatever foes you choose, however you also gain some of their dna or being so the more power you steal the more you change and if you absorb something strong enough they could potentially overpower you and at the same time, as the balance of time/universe is upset something terrible comes from between the realities and it's about whether you can help defend your reality while still keeping enough of your body to still be called human
man that sounded better in my head, but seems kinda shit now i've typed it out
scientists discover some form of alternate dimension or whatever and start working on a way to access it, but while testing it, it causes reality to essentially crack, and all kinds of universes are smashed together and access between realities are eventually established and many realities hold similarities to our fiction (some shit about how someone other realities influenced our imagination) you as a guard for the project where at the centre of it when everything cracked and somehow again the ability to absorb life, so you can absorb powers of whatever foes you choose, however you also gain some of their dna or being so the more power you steal the more you change and if you absorb something strong enough they could potentially overpower you and at the same time, as the balance of time/universe is upset something terrible comes from between the realities and it's about whether you can help defend your reality while still keeping enough of your body to still be called human
man that sounded better in my head, but seems kinda shit now i've typed it out
Basically, in my fantasy world, the Elves made pretty much everything, they used their power to shape landscapes and created creatures to live in the world they had made. They think the gods have given them these powers and they are the sole inheritors of mankind.
Then they screw up massively, orcs and trolls and all other manner of horrible fantasy creatures are created by the Elves either for amusement or to do menial tasks the Elves now deem beneath them. Of course it doesn't go well, conflict makes things interesting! So what do the Elves do? The only thing they know! Create more species to fix their own problems, wheel in the newly created humans and dwarves, species designed to be tougher and more military than Elves.
So Elves win, release the humans and dwarves and the orcs are defeated? Nope, turns out there's always a bigger fish (which the Elves need an even bigger fish to get rid of) and their new creations start to ignore the Elves, forming their own civilisations.
I just like worlds where everyone is trying to kill each other, there are lots of different religions and magic users are known and seen, but the only human magic users are women. One big feature of the world is The Abyss, the equivalent of hell, except there are ways to enter The Abyss, the souls of the deceased reside in the abyss and you can get the soul out, provided you have a body for the soul to enter and another persons soul to trade, one in one out.
Then they screw up massively, orcs and trolls and all other manner of horrible fantasy creatures are created by the Elves either for amusement or to do menial tasks the Elves now deem beneath them. Of course it doesn't go well, conflict makes things interesting! So what do the Elves do? The only thing they know! Create more species to fix their own problems, wheel in the newly created humans and dwarves, species designed to be tougher and more military than Elves.
So Elves win, release the humans and dwarves and the orcs are defeated? Nope, turns out there's always a bigger fish (which the Elves need an even bigger fish to get rid of) and their new creations start to ignore the Elves, forming their own civilisations.
I just like worlds where everyone is trying to kill each other, there are lots of different religions and magic users are known and seen, but the only human magic users are women. One big feature of the world is The Abyss, the equivalent of hell, except there are ways to enter The Abyss, the souls of the deceased reside in the abyss and you can get the soul out, provided you have a body for the soul to enter and another persons soul to trade, one in one out.
Yes, same. I'm sure it is a very good idea but I think it is quite hard to get the intricacies of the ideas onto a forum post in a way that will do it justice.Matt King said:
Gems, gems everywhere.
Golems, gems being only source of magic, and time setting not being fucking medieval because seriously, that's getting old. Post-industrial fantasy, very weird creatures and enchanted machine guns.
Also the dwarf equivalent is like meet dave where "dwarves" are bronze automations the size of a dwarf that are filled with billions of tiny people who live in the machine and do tasks to keep it working. They send out kamikaze planes at targets from their finger tips that explode en masse on giant human targets. Long, painful death for whoever gets swarmed by those planes for sure.
My idea is very uncreative since I just ripped off meet dave.
Golems, gems being only source of magic, and time setting not being fucking medieval because seriously, that's getting old. Post-industrial fantasy, very weird creatures and enchanted machine guns.
Also the dwarf equivalent is like meet dave where "dwarves" are bronze automations the size of a dwarf that are filled with billions of tiny people who live in the machine and do tasks to keep it working. They send out kamikaze planes at targets from their finger tips that explode en masse on giant human targets. Long, painful death for whoever gets swarmed by those planes for sure.
My idea is very uncreative since I just ripped off meet dave.
First time writing this sort of thing down so bear with the suckishness.
Alright on this world of mine (no name for it yet) it's based on earth where everything is normal on the surface but underneath the crust and towards the core is a whole different world that was discovered by only one man. This man builds robots for a living and always wanted to push the AI further but society would not let him. Upon discovering this empty world underneath he finally gets to create his super advanced robots in secret.
He starts off with two robots very much like an adam and eve story. Now these robots are so advanced they eventually learn to make even MORE robots with the untapped resources in the middle of the earth. Seeing them multiply like crazy the man get's scared and seals off the secret entrance to the world.
Years pass and his robots now have a population of 3 billion and have divided themselves into 3 different nations you could say. You have a group of shamanistic robots who are very in tune with the earth. You then have a religious sort of robot with the two original robots being the leaders and telling of the man who created them, worshiping him as a god. You then have a extremely aggressive robot that wants to keep harvesting resources to create a giant drill to break through the dome overhead and explore the surface.
So it's basically 3 nations of different robots battling one another. The Shamanistic (or maybe druid is a better example) and Religious robots refuse to give up their resources for the giant drill. The shaman robots don't want to harm or disrespect the earth by reaping all it's resources to create this giant drill to punch a hole through it. The religious robots don't want to invade the "heavens" for fear of angering the Creator.
The Religious robots refuse to team up with the shamanistic robots though because of their refusal to believe in the Creator. So along with this whole resource issue you also have a slight religion war going on.
Alright so yeah that's the basic summary of my idea. I should add more about the Creator but this definitely needs polish. Didn't pull this completely out of my ass I always sort of had this idea just never wrote it down before. Tell me what ya think, criticism is welcomed.
Alright on this world of mine (no name for it yet) it's based on earth where everything is normal on the surface but underneath the crust and towards the core is a whole different world that was discovered by only one man. This man builds robots for a living and always wanted to push the AI further but society would not let him. Upon discovering this empty world underneath he finally gets to create his super advanced robots in secret.
He starts off with two robots very much like an adam and eve story. Now these robots are so advanced they eventually learn to make even MORE robots with the untapped resources in the middle of the earth. Seeing them multiply like crazy the man get's scared and seals off the secret entrance to the world.
Years pass and his robots now have a population of 3 billion and have divided themselves into 3 different nations you could say. You have a group of shamanistic robots who are very in tune with the earth. You then have a religious sort of robot with the two original robots being the leaders and telling of the man who created them, worshiping him as a god. You then have a extremely aggressive robot that wants to keep harvesting resources to create a giant drill to break through the dome overhead and explore the surface.
So it's basically 3 nations of different robots battling one another. The Shamanistic (or maybe druid is a better example) and Religious robots refuse to give up their resources for the giant drill. The shaman robots don't want to harm or disrespect the earth by reaping all it's resources to create this giant drill to punch a hole through it. The religious robots don't want to invade the "heavens" for fear of angering the Creator.
The Religious robots refuse to team up with the shamanistic robots though because of their refusal to believe in the Creator. So along with this whole resource issue you also have a slight religion war going on.
Alright so yeah that's the basic summary of my idea. I should add more about the Creator but this definitely needs polish. Didn't pull this completely out of my ass I always sort of had this idea just never wrote it down before. Tell me what ya think, criticism is welcomed.
Central American pre-Columbian setting, gods, and magic. No elves or dwarves, nothing European in look or feel. Ritual sacrifice, summoning feathered beasts through shed blood, jaguars and caimans.
I'm liking some of the ideas i've read so far, I always find it hard to come up with 'original' fantasy settings as I always can't help but think i'm just stealing off of something else, even if it's only vaguely similar. I won't dress up my idea of a fantasy setting and simply lay it out:
10,000 strong society that are on a massive star ship travelling through space, wherever they came from they left almost 600 years ago and generations have been brought up on this ship. Knowledge of why they are travelling was lost, the ship is automated and so these people simply live in the mostly cramped conditions of the ship. The interesting part is the ship has started doing things, areas are lighting up and entire sections of the ship are moving, even detatching. Power starts failing in built up areas, atomsphere is venting and this causes massive social unrest as some areas are fine whilst others have lost everything.
10,000 strong society that are on a massive star ship travelling through space, wherever they came from they left almost 600 years ago and generations have been brought up on this ship. Knowledge of why they are travelling was lost, the ship is automated and so these people simply live in the mostly cramped conditions of the ship. The interesting part is the ship has started doing things, areas are lighting up and entire sections of the ship are moving, even detatching. Power starts failing in built up areas, atomsphere is venting and this causes massive social unrest as some areas are fine whilst others have lost everything.
Thank you for the positive feedback, it's very much in the idea phase with much needing to be figured out. I have a few ideas about what I want to happen/big plot turns but it's whether they are actually good ideas or just good ideas to me. Moreover I don't have much confidence when it comes to my own writing so thats a lovely little hinderance to have.Trilligan said: