Alternative histories for the Wilderlands?

[der_kluge]

Admittedly, probably a better thread for the Necromancer boards, but I thought I'd post it here.

I must confess that the pseudo sci-fi/fantasy history that the Wilderlands has is a boot cooky. I like the idea regarding the philosophers versus magic-users war that lasted over a thousand years, and the idea that the the PCs could stumble onto advanced technology I do find a little appealing, but only a little. I'm having a hard time swallowing the idea that at some point in the history of the planet, the Federation landed with their Prime Directive, and thus began a long war against Gaia with the Romulans acting as instigators and spies.

Ok, that's not it exactly, but if you've read it, you'll know it's not too far off.

So, what I was trying to do was to create a purely fantasy derivitive of the Wilderlands history that didn't involve Star Trek landing on the planet and spurring a thousand year war.

I think I'm going to need to get, or at least borrow the Player's Guide to the Wilderlands to help me understand all the various races in the book. While I'm cool with having things like Mer-elves, or subterranean dwarves, having moon people is a little goofy for me. So, I suspect that while I may keep a lot of the races described (in theory), many of them I'll probably remove whole cloth.

I may also end up using HARP as my model, and in that sense, I'll need to create HARP versions of all the PC races in the world. Hey, a guy needs a hobby, right?

Anyway, this is what I have so far. I welcome any comments. I still have a few gaps, which I'll cover at the end, and I'm open to suggestions.

In the beginning was Gaia – a sentient “god” that awoke and found that it could control the land itself. This Gaia is in fact a hivemind of consciousness which is a manifestation of the living creatures found living within the world. To destroy it is to destroy all living things in the world.

Gaia existed alone in the world for a period of well over a hundred thousand years. During this time, Gaia explored the intricacies of her world through the rich flora that existed. It was during this time that Gaia found that she could control the world in new ways. She found that she could make mountains that dwarfed the landscape, and forests of trees that were hundreds of feet tall. These forests and mountains still exist to this day.

Before the original races, insects populated Gaia’s realm, and many varieties thrived. Like the forests, Gaia found that she could make gigantic varieties of these creatures. In time, Gaia became very skilled at creating creatures, and soon her world was bustling with animals of all kinds. Initially, she created great dinosaurs, but these were large, stupid creatures, many of whom feasted ravenously on the vegetation of the world, and soon these great creatures perished for lack of food. Gaia was not without her faults. After this, Gaia created many animals, and she kept these smaller. But she created a wide variety of animals, and she learned about balance and the animals all relied on each for survival, and these animals utilized the lands to sustain themselves. In time, however, Gaia grew bored with these creatures. They lacked intelligence.

Gaia then created the original races of the world – fairies (and variants), dragons (all colors), pegasi (unicorns and pegasus), and elves (gray and mer-elves). Treants were also in existence at this time, but these are less creations of the Gaia and more physical manifestations of Gaia represented in small quantifiable states. The treants are older than the original races, and arguably not really a race at all. Treants do breed and maintain their own conscious thoughts, however. Treants do not realize that they are physical manifestations of Gaia, and thus see themselves as a race as any other in the world. Interestingly enough, Gaia isn’t even aware of the Treants. They are a part of her, but spring up as a result of her consciousness. In a sense, they are her mirror image, but stand behind the mirror, just out of her sight. Treants were all but destroyed during the time of the dinosaurs, but were reborn once the dinosaurs left and flora returned to the land, and Gaia’s power increased once more.

For a time, these races co-existed peacefully among the existing flora and fauna. Elves became reclusive, and began learning about the land. They developed cities and they were at harmony with their surroundings. The Mer-elves inhabited the ocean deep, and were at peace with their surroundings. The races of pixies struggled for a time. Gaia had all but forgotten about the giant insects of the lands. To the insects, pixies were nothing more than a new food source. The elves sheltered these pixies and protected them from the feral creatures of the land. Some of these creatures even posed problems to the elves, who often found themselves at odds against rampaging giant insects. For the elves, the dragons became allies. Dragons were the strongest of all the races, and the unintelligent creatures of the land were no match for the physical and intellectual might of the dragons.

At some point in the history of these races, magic began. Elven and dragon scholars argue to this day over which race had magic first. It is probably safe to say that both learned magic at about the same time. The elves taught some basic magic to the pixies. The pixies being an exceedingly shy race, promptly fled the protection of the Elves once they could protect themselves, and thus did so. For elves, magic became an art form, and they used it to further their understanding of the world. In time, they became very powerful. The race of dragons also became very powerful. So powerful in fact, that some dragons decided that there was no reason why they shouldn’t dominate the planet. This caused a rift in the dragons. Some dragons believed their existence was a gift, and that they shouldn’t disrupt the natural order. Others held a different opinion – dragons should dominate the world and every living creature in it. Thus, the first great conflict arose, and the good dragons enlisted the aid of the elves and pixies, and managed to defeat the evil dragons over a period of several thousand years. The remaining dragons fled into isolation. From this isolation, the different varieties of chromatic dragons arose – whites in the arctic, red from volcanoes, black from swamps, blue from the desert and green from the forests.

After this war, the number of elves and dragons in the world diminished greatly. They each retreated into isolation. During this time, the race of men came into existence. Evolving from apes, men had slowly developed over time, receiving little attention from the intelligent races. Pixies noticed them before anyone, but didn’t care. Where elves and dragons measure their life in the hundreds of years, men were a fleeting memory. When elves finally encountered man – a hulking brutish species, they considered them nothing more than clever animals.

During this time, the understanding of magic grew to the point where the races could create other forms of life – even intelligent life. The evil dragons created dwarves as slaves. Elves created gnomes to be protectors of forests.

I figured that, given the life spans of the original races, humans could have developed slowly over time, and maybe their advancement was accelerated by the Gaia for some reason. For Halflings, I was thinking of just adding them, with absolutely no explanation! In that "Tell me about Halflings in your world" thread a while back, someone had mentioned that halflings in their world sort of fell outside the boundaries of prophecy, so they were sort of a wildcard. I could just say that the origins of Halflings are a mystery,and no one, not even the Treants are sure of where they came from.

I also want to make sure that, for whatever reason, the world is basically in disarray. There have been numerous conflicts, or whatever, and that there are still savages and barbarians running out in great numbers. I like that aspect of it.

Any other comments or suggestions?

 

[Grimstaff]

Its not too hard to modify the high-tech aliens into something more disturbing ala the Elder Beings from Lovecraft's work. Technology becomes inscrutable arcane devices, etc. Check out beyond the mountains of madness for inspiration...

 

[trancejeremy]

Yeah, aliens don't have to necessarily be Star Trekian. The "Kane" novels by Karl Edward Wagner basically were a fantasy world based on Lovecraft. The various alien races created servant races, including humans, and the latter eventually inherited the earth. (in the novels in part because Kane himself led a rebellion against them, and was thus cursed with immortality).

Your idea, while perhaps more plausible, seems a bit, well, dull. There needs more conflict.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I must confess that the pseudo sci-fi/fantasy history that the Wilderlands has is a boot cooky. I like the idea regarding the philosophers versus magic-users war that lasted over a thousand years, and the idea that the the PCs could stumble onto advanced technology I do find a little appealing, but only a little. I'm having a hard time swallowing the idea that at some point in the history of the planet, the Federation landed with their Prime Directive, and thus began a long war against Gaia with the Romulans acting as instigators and spies.

Meh. For my own part, considering how truly ANCIENT that history is the likelihood of the players ever wanting or needing to know it is remote. If they do learn of any of it, it won't be much. If it IS much then it still won't be enough to understand much of it. It's DM stuff, not PC stuff so it doesn't much concern me.

I'll probably make up something else as I go anyway.

 

[Mystery Man]

I think the Markrabs were giant (the large to huge category). I could be wrong though.

 

[der_kluge]

Yeah, aliens don't have to necessarily be Star Trekian. The "Kane" novels by Karl Edward Wagner basically were a fantasy world based on Lovecraft. The various alien races created servant races, including humans, and the latter eventually inherited the earth. (in the novels in part because Kane himself led a rebellion against them, and was thus cursed with immortality).

Your idea, while perhaps more plausible, seems a bit, well, dull. There needs more conflict.

Have you read the history? There's even a reference (though not directly) to the Prime Directive in it. It's clearly intended to be very Star Trekian.

 

[Sundragon2012]

The history of the Wilderlands is some of the worst schlock I have ever read in my life. I think the boxed set is cool in a "big bag o' stuff that I can rob for ideas here and there" kind of way. However aliens and prime directives.....puh-leeze....there are no current setting with backstories this weak.

I am all in favor of ignoring what doesn't fit the kind of game you want to run, but IMO reading this alien stuff is such a turn off that I find it difficult to ignore such a seemingly stunningly bad idea.

I know that dubs me a heretic to those who have fallen so deeply in love with this setting but fantasy with aliens now is as dumb now as it was when that old 1e module came out whose name currently escapes me. If you want fantasy with aliens in the past and a real backstory go with Tekumel where there is internal consistancy.


Chris

 

[robertsconley]

der_kludge, if you are interested I can email some of the stuff I did. I used the wilderlands since 1980 and never emphasived the tech stuff. It is a pure fantasy background.

my email is e s t a r a t a l l t e l d o t n e t

you see some of it at http://home.earthlink.net/~wilderlands

I also have some of the original notes that I made in 2000 and 2001 when I first started working on this. Before I contacted Bob Bledsaw my campaign diverage greatly from the original work. Mainly because my current year had advanced to 4453 BCCC from the starting date of 4433.

For my initial conversations I culled from my material any post 4433 addition and returned the gods back to the original entries.

see http://home.earthlink.net/~wilderlands/cs4456.html

Then I found out that Bob had a sci-fi/fantasy background and there was really no way to reconcile my work and his. So for the Necromancer project I just started with a blank sheet of paper, looked at the backgroud stuff that Bob gave and submitted new work.

So I still have all the stuff for my campaign background which is pure fantasy and still explained nearly everything you saw in the wilderlands (except for the tech items).

 

[Marchen]

I don't have the Wilderlands set, nor do I know much about it, but I agree that the only aliens I really want in my D&D game are the Lovecraftian type. Tentacles, chaos, and unimaginable motives.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

D&D and Aliens

D&D and Aliens go way, way back. The original 3 books had rules for playing on Barsoom. It was actually a common theme in fantasy back then. Roger Zelazny used it. The Ultima games had it. And wasn't Metamorphosis Alpha like, the second published RPG?

An early issue of The Dragon had some fiction involving a D&D group being transported onto the Starship Warden. I think it was called 'Faceless Men and Clockwork Monsters.' Another early issue of The Dragon had D&D characters fighting against Nazis with tanks and panzerfausts.

And then there was Expedition To The Barrier Peaks. We certainly didn't think that was lame at the time.

I agree that the prime directive reference is lame, but I don't agree that having scifi in a fantasy setting automatically makes it bad.

And we're talking about like two pages of backstory. Throw it out and invent your own story for why there are spaceships in the Wilderlands.

Ken