Design Goals
From Towers
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I have a lot of small, unfinished projects. I hope this will not become another of them. Most of my unfinished projects are "idea seeds" for new fantasy role-playing game worlds. I hope that Thousand Towers will be the world that glues together many or all of those nearly-lost ideas.
The world should contain (or at least support) a variety of ideas I've been cooking for the last ten or fifteen years. Some of these elements are described below. I've categorized them for ease of reference.
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Goals Removed
The goals below were developed over the course of half a year quite a while ago and adapted to this project. Some of my priorities have changed due to my interest in those things waning or other commercial products coming out with ideas too similar (Eberron, for example). See a list of design goals removed that no longer apply but are kept for reference.
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Goals
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Genre
- Fantasy
- The world should be a fantasy world. It has to support Dungeons & Dragons play or any other FRPG I choose. It needs traditional fantasy elements: kings and castles, dragons, elves and dwarves, swords and sorcery.
- High Fantasy
- The world also has to support high fantasy play — larger than life battles, epic magic spells, swarms of dragons, and so on. If I come up with ideas that are 'low fantasy,' they'll more or less still fit in a high fantasy world, but the reverse doesn't apply.
- Medieval
- Though it's been done to death, I want to do medieval. I want kings and feudal hierarchy and serfs and knights and titled nobles. But...
- Renaissance
- Parts of the world should have an early Renaissance feel. Its people should be reaching back through history to a time when things were bigger and better. The larger cities should be places full of intrigue, as in the movies Dangerous Liaisons or A Dangerous Beauty. Heroes should have the opportunity to explore ruins of ancient civilizations and unearth mysterious artifacts and knowledge. I want a religious Inquisition, courtiers, scheming guilds, and powdered wigs.
- Science and sorcery
- I want wizards and alchemists to mix dangerous reagents and make draughts and salves that perform wondrous feats of magic. Chemistry and magic combine into alchemy. There's a lingering belief that magic can be understood at a rational level but it hasn't been proven yet.
- Post-cataclysm
- There was a great cataclysm (or several) that troubled the world and destroyed civilization a long time ago. This is like the Fall of the Roman Empire in ways.
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People
- Ancient elves and mining dwarves
- I admit it: Tolkien is rooted in my psyche. I am not overly concerned with modeling my elves and dwarves after his to a large extent since those ideas are rooted in the psyche of most other gamers, too. To me, they're part of what constitute the fantasy genre. My elves should live thousands of years, command powerful but subtle magics, and look down on humans as impatient children. My dwarves should be a stubborn but warm-hearted people who enjoy carving cities out of mountains and living in the darkness.
- Kobolds
- I'm drawn to these little humanoid creatures. They're underdogs. Are they dragonlike or doglike? I think they'd make playable PCs. They're way better than gnomes.
- Termite hive race
- I imagine termite-centaurs (half man, half giant termite) who build mile-high mound cities out of the surrounding desert rock.
- Lion-men
- Another anthropomorphic animal race (half man, half lion), these I called the Rargorians in older campaigns. I imagine them as a race of strict warriors with a Roman feel.
- Champions
- I am not even sure what I want, but I have this fuzzy vision of great warriors taking up causes and not resting till they've succeeded. I think I can support this with a game mechanic, too. Paladins would just become one kind of champion.
- Demons
- I don't know why, but I love demons as villains. Devils don't have the same appeal because of the Christian associations. Somehow the infinite potential for variety and the absolute wickedness inherent in a creature that is both chaotic and evil (in D&D terms, anyway) just gets my blood pumping. To me, the Abyss has more evil potential than Hell.
- Spirits
- Spirits are like undead without all the evil. They're lingering souls who help people. Heroes should be able to call on their ancestors for aid.
- Drakes
- I don't think I want intelligent dragons in my fantasy world. Let them be dumb lizards that breathe fire. Make them plentiful. Maybe they fly in a V formation when they migrate south every winter, eating cattle along the way.
- Shapeshifting Kings
- In my old D&D campaign back in high school, I vowed not to overuse dragons. There were five dragons in the world, and they all could shapeshift into human form. They kept that form most of the time, in fact, and ruled nations in secret. I don't know if I want draconic kings (though that does sound cool), but if those of the Divine Blood had animal forms (almost werewolfish, isn't it?), they somehow seem more kingly or queenly to me. True Divine Rule, and they can prove it. Can you change into a lion?
- Scions
- I think it was the Birthright setting that popularized the term 'scion.' I'll have to do something to make scion mean more than just ruler. Scions will be monarchs who are tied to their realms through powerful magical rites. They'll have power over their domains like minor gods.
- Monkey familiars
- Even before Pirates of the Carribbean, I wanted wizards to have monkeys as familiars. Black cats are old hat. Probably minidragon familiars, too.
- Legendary animals
- The forests will be full of enormous elk and giant owls. 12-foot tall buffalo will roam the plains. There will be normal animals of legendary size for hunters to add to their trophy collection (or make into powerful mounts).
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Places
- Huge
- I won't be satisfied with a small world. While a smaller area is more manageable, it doesn't have the sense of epic scale as a large world.
- Wilderness
- My fantasy world should have vast areas of unexplored (and unclaimed) wilderness. Heroes should have places to go where no one else of their race has seen. I want forests of thousand-foot-tall trees, swamps of acid, uncharted islands in the middle of a vast and dark ocean, rolling deserts tossed about by sandstorms, and underground cavern complexes hundreds of miles long.
- Ruins
- This was hinted at in the Renaissance section above. I want heroes to have ancient ruins to explore. The world will have layers of lost ages with a deep history that allows ancient cities to be buried under one another, strange magical shrines, lost races and forgotten languages.
- Glacial settlements
- The world has great expanses of snow-covered lands, perhaps raised in elevation like the Tibet Mountains. It's always freezing cold there but there are races and cultures that thrive there.
- Underworld
- Underneath the surface of the world is a huge hollow world. No, not like Hollow Earth where the whole sphere is hollow, but there's a layer a half-mile down that is like a world in itself. Some places are magically lit but much of it is dark. It's not just a maze of tunnels and caverns; it's actually a huge expanse of area, held up by enormous pillars. The dwarves call it the 'maintenance passages of the world,' saying that it was useful when they were building the earth.
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Things
- Towers
- Towers hold so much magic for me (figuratively). The image of a tower rising over the hills awakens my sense of adventure. My world will have many towers and they will be important.
- Flying ships
- A few years ago, this wasn't a cliche. Still, I love the idea of flying ships being a regular part of a fantasy world, so my world will have them.
- Mechanical automata
- I like Steampunk additions in a fantasy world (though not as a genre unto itself). I want the world to be full of dangerous, complicated machines that solve strange problems with technology. I want mechanics to feel comfortable adventuring alongside knights and wizards.
- Standing stones
- Stonehenge is really mysterious and cool. I want standing stone monuments from the ancient past. They can be gates to other places, conjugations of magical essence, holy sites, and so on.
- Ring gates
- Imagine a vertical stone ring, 200-foot in diameter, hovering weightlessly a quarter mile over the ground. These rings are gates to other places, even other worlds, and their construction methods were lost thousands of years ago.
- Polished stone coins
- The dwarves do mint metal coins, but their pride and joy are there stone-carved coins. These are an inch and a half in diameter and a quarter-inch thick. Their faces are intricately carved with runes and portraits. Each one takes the finest carvers hours to make. The dwarves value these stone coins much more highly than any metal.
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Magic
- War magic
- A lot of magical research focuses on fighting battles. These spells can clear battlefields. Of course, the other side has developed magical defenses.
- Ancestor magic
- Heroes can call on their ancestors for magical aid.
- Blood magic
- The act of adding one's own blood to a spell as a sacrifice adds a scary and dark element to certain kinds of magic. Blood magic will open doors to new levels of power for brave wizards.
- Elemental magic
- The four traditional elements (earth, air, fire, water) will be known as the Quaternion and they will have a strong influence in magical theory. I may add additional elements like life and death, or associate them with colors (green magic, red magic, etc.).
- Words of power
- There are secret words of power that, if mastered, can cause great destruction. These words are the keys to the world.
- Alchemy
- Mix together the right reagents and you can create magical potions, elixirs, and salves that can alter reality.
- Meteor metals
- Meteorites strike the world fairly often. These reap destruction but leave giant rocks that can be smelted down for magical iron ore. This metal has special properties that holds magical essence and the finest enchanted weapons and armor are made from it.
- Astrology
- Forget astrology as wishy-washy horoscopes. In this world, reading the heavens truly can predict the future -- or at least the most probable path.
- Staffs and wands
- D&D relegated the staffs and wands to the role of disposable magic item. I want them to be indispensible to the wizard. They are different versions of the same thing: an arcane focus that allows a wizard to cast spells and channel potent energies.
- Crowns of power
- Middle Earth has its rings. My world has its crowns. These ancient diadems and torcs and scepters and other symbols of monarchial power were crafted long ago and can be used to control their wearers.
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Ideas
- Transcendence
- In my fantasy world, mortals can ascend to divinity. Kings and wizards strive to find the right relic or formula that will allow them to transcend the limits of mortality and become a god worshiped by millions.
- Pervasive morality
- There's good and evil in everything -- not just as moral ideas or potential, but actual substance. Perhaps divine powers struggling against each other have diffused their essences into the world. There is literally good and evil in everything. Note: I am reconsidering this one, but have ideas how it can work.
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Rules
- Racial levels
- If I use the D&D rules, then when a character gains enough experience points to increase a level, the player may choose to increase a class level or a race level. Race levels were introduced (I think) by Monte Cook in Arcana Unearthed. An elf who increased a race level might gain more spooky elf abilities (seeing in the dark, magical effects, etc.).
- Backgrounds
- When you create a character, you should select a background package for him or her. A background package will include lists of skills and things like that to give your character some flavor. So many players just choose the skills that will be useful going into adventures and not a few skills that represent their farming background or their tailoring expertise. I'll offer a game mechanic that enforces this without penalizing characters.
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