Fantasy France - what would it have?

[Shades of Eternity]

also that bizarre relationship between the divine and the demonic makes for serious storytelling. Joan of Arc and Gille De Rais

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Also didn't they have an anti-pope once?

Actually, 7 out of 9 were regular popes, when the papacy moved its seat to Avignon. The schism was resolved in 1417, and two antipopes tried to maintain themselves. The Avignon Papacy and its being under influence of the temporal powers corrupting it is very gameable as well and contemporaneous to the plague outbreak. But it's more historical than fantasy, unless you go all X-men, err, Pope-men.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm noticing the British Isles usually ends up as the default for most fantasy settings.

So what would be the changes and appeal for using France as a basis instead?

Well, you’ve got convoluted nobility, fashion, musketeers, cooler furniture, famous catacombs, but also read up on the Provence area of Southern France, going back to the first Roman invasions, and recall that Druids existed here, too, once.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

yeah I'd love to mix in a healthy dose of Roman Gaul in there somewhere, but it basically seems like it is just Rome with better metalworking.

edit: although I would add a little of the classics.

 

[aco175]

I mostly feel France is a more hot, less rain than England- with musketeers. Generally I find D&D more western Europe as a whole though.

 

[humble minion]

Newly-conquered Roman Gaul is much more interesting than later, more thoroughly Romanised Gaul in my opinion, but that's a pretty awkward fit alongside the more medieval-era stuff that we're also talking about.

I'd be very tempted to push the timeline forward, rather than back, for a setting like this. Not just musketeers, but the beginnings of the Revolution. You can still have the courtly intrigue and glamour (and religious infighting) going on in the circles of the wealthy, but in the more remote and rural regions, or the slums of the cities, things get much more grimy, desperate, and feudal. Not sure if it's quite your thing to build a D&D setting around themes of economic inequality, but if it is, then France would be right up your alley.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think I’d go with a more romantic fantasy, with lots of daring heroines (so many badass women of history are French, it’s wild), and heroes, musketeers and dragoons of noble manner even if not noble blood, and all the pomp and ritual and theater you can muster.

 

[Jack Daniel]

In my Europe-analog steampunk setting, not!France is chiefly populated by gnomes, and it's ruled by l'Empereur Gnapoleon. (In the Middle Ages, it was unified under the great Gnome King Charlemin.)

 

[humble minion]

If you have access to the old 3rd Ed Ravenloft Gazetteers, then the writeups of Richemulot and Dementlieu in volume 3 are very heavily inspired by early black-powder-era France.

 

[Lidgar]

This.