So, I'm thinking about rules that support this kind of world. I'm hoping folks will have thoughts on the following, in the context of imagining a product like adventures in middle earth, but for the world we've been discussing.
Add mechanic's tools, more common magic items, guns, and vehicles
make some otherwise arbitrary calls to support genre
Guns hit harder and have better range, but are harder to enchant, so magic items gain a level of rarity when they are guns, as opposed to analog weapons.
maybe missile weapons in general are harder to enchant
ruby of the warmage type stuff is only common for melee weapons
Make coherent magic item tables for cost, and a coherent system for crafting based on those costs
seriously considering replacing spells with magic skills. Other than final fantasy, I think magic skills better emulate the inspiring fiction, and it reduces design work while broadening player freedom
Arcana, Nature, and Religion, gain active uses, like manipulating magitech systems with arcana, communicating with natural spirits with nature, and cleansing a tainted place with religion.
ANyone got any other ideas that you feel would really sell the aesthetic and themes from this discussion?
Re: Technology and magic - could be that the moving parts makes technology hard to apply enchantments to? But you can enchant arrows or crossbow bolts (consumables).
Coherent crafting system - D&D needs it; appreciate any game that has it is A-OK in my book
Re: Technology and magic - could be that the moving parts makes technology hard to apply enchantments to? But you can enchant arrows or crossbow bolts (consumables).
Re: Technology and magic - could be that the moving parts makes technology hard to apply enchantments to? But you can enchant arrows or crossbow bolts (consumables).
Coherent crafting system - D&D needs it; appreciate any game that has it is A-OK in my book
There was the Magic Bites series where magic and technology work in antagonism to one another.
Or go a more Palladium Books in that magic is a natural energy, and can be used with, or without technology.
Chevar: Champions of The Ninth Realm, and a companion document titled Chevar: Shadows of The Ninth Realm, will be published within the year, if my current medical issues don’t blind me (a remote but extant possibility), and maybe even if they do, dammit.
The World of Chevar is littered with ruins, relics, remnants, and rejects, of all the other 8 realms. Everyone from kings to rebels escaping despots, from villains to heroes, and regular folk who found themselves in extraordinary circumstances, have all found themselves in this strange world.
13 moons circle the giant terrestrial planet, which in turn orbits a yellow star, and then in turn orbits an impossibly massive yew tree. In the night sky the World Tree is visible, as are twinkling lights within the boughs of the great tree, which are believed to be the other worlds in the cosmos, and on some nights the ring of Jotunheim can be seen by those on the southern hemisphere.
On especially clear nights, a ring of golden, silvery, and gem-like, stars called the Ring of Jormangandr, believed to be the scales of the infinite serpent which circles the 8 Inner Worlds and keeps them separate from the Outer Realm, The Watching Void, Ginnungagap.
Within the world of Chevar are hidden artifacts past centuries and distant worlds left by accident or by intention by the heroes and monsters of the ancient history of the Nine Realms. Great war-keeps, roads built by long forgotten kings, and many of the fabled treasures of our own myths and legends.
The people and nations of Chevar are diverse, coming from every corner of the Nine Realms. Trolls, satyrs, centaurs, alfar and döragr, dragons, humans, gnomes, puca, shifters, and others gather together in the great cities, and make homes in disparate enclaves throughout the fertile lands of Chevar, and explore the immense wilderness of this largely unexplored world.
Hidden in moonlit glades, river passes, street corners, and the meeting places of various roadways, are the paths between worlds known as Crossroads, leading to worlds that could never otherwise be reached, and to places that can scarcely be imagined.
In the modern day, the people of Chevar have surpassed their ancient ancestors, gathering and harnessing the ubiquitous element known as Aether to fuel great airships, and engines of both war and industry. But danger lurks in these new developments, and the wise tread cautiously, for the world itself is alive, and possessed of intelligence and conscious will, and she will not suffer the devastation that has been seen on other worlds throughout the cosmos.
Many of the ruins in the great wilds of Chevar are the abandoned castles and cities of folk long past who sought to defy the will of Chevar and create grand weapons of war or pollute the skies and waters of the world with unchecked industry, only to find the land itself rising up against them and driving them out, scattering them and their descendants to the four winds.
Still, magic and technology intermingle in this place between places, this cosmological crossroad, and wonders are built in the doing.
The original OP contains discussion of the aesthetic inspirations of Chevar, and some ideas about what sort of games are played there.
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Original text of OP
I've been rolling a set of ideas around in my head for years, and I think i finally have the form they'll take as a coherent concept.
Adventures In Chevar: Champions of The Ninth Realm
So, in the cosmology of my homebrew game, Chevar is "the Ninth World/Realm" in a sort of slightly off world-tree cosmology. The Ninth exists both within and without each of the other 8 realms, and is the crossroad between all worlds, if you can find it. Bvecause of this, it has often been the battleground and staging area of various invasions and conflicts between worlds, such as when the forces of the Void have tried to physically conquer the nine worlds in millenia past.
So, in short, it's a diverse world with many ruins, less dense population, high danger in the wilds, and many of the great secrets and artifacts of the past of many worlds hidden away in secret places.
What I'm looking to mix in this setting, and curious if anyone has thoughts on, cool art related to, spotify playlists of a well suited aesthetic, etc
Aetherpunk adventure with an actual punk ethic, ie subversive social politics (all fictional worlds have social politics, anything -punk should be challenging oppressive and anti-inclusive political structures in some way) with a mix of the grim take of cyberpunk and the hopeful take of stuff like She-Ra Princesses of Power.
Airships, aether-powered or otherwise magical guns and energy swords, maybe airshps that can go into space, at least around the planet. maybe the solar system is encompassed by an aether gas cloud and so there are winds and stuff in "space"?
Elements of Gothic Punk fiction (world of darkness, the crow) in a world more like the early modern/enlightenment era than the 90's, juxtaposed with places like Bright Moon from She-Ra and cool cities like the main starting city in final fantasy 9.
Realms/regions of eternal night, races born of darkness and tragedy, classes like the Assassin and Anathemir (something between the witcher and the abhorsen from fantasy fiction)
Ancient ruins with artifacts of power buried deep inside, relics to uncover and figure out how to use or replicate, new ideas competing with cobbled together reverse engineered ancient devices
Vast wildernesses in a massive planet with nine moons and various planetoids and large asteroids in the solar system
Dragons that aren't just color coded pokemon (can you tell i don't like dnd dragons?)
I'll post more art that gets at what I'm after, and my current drafts of the umbrylar species, and assassin and anathemir classes, later.
I'm curious if anyone has any favorite fiction that mixes any of the above together, or games, or art, etc. Looking for inspiration as well as discussion of what you'd want to play or run in such a setting.
