Fantasy France - what would it have?

[Jd Smith1]

More garlic, less soap, more attitude, frequent surrendering, and a morbid fear of Germans and English.

Little national unity. Endless bickering and feuding between countless factions. Endless invasions and occupations.

Actually, as a historical setting, it hold a good deal of interest. France was a hotbed of trouble for centuries. Remove the gunpowder, and run a campaign of commoners overthrowing a King in the name of peace, prosperity, and liberty, only to end up fighting for twenty years in the service of an Emperor.

 

[CubicsRube]

FWIW, I'm told by French people I've met the stereotype only holds for Parisians (compare stereotypes about the arrogance of New Yorkers).

Which you could work into your game as well. All the best magical colleges are in not-Paris, and rural classes like rangers and druids despise the snooty not-Parisians.

It's true. I lived in Lyon and fit right in. In Paris I always felt like I was being judged.

 

[CubicsRube]

Joan of Arc RPG has some really good setting details around 15th century France, particularly in Burgundy. I'd recommend it.

 

[ilgatto]

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.

Jeanne Hachette
Joanna of Flanders
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Christine de Pizan

and of course Joan.

Don’t forget Julie D’Aubigny (better known as La Maupin)

And the Chevalier d'Eon.

And Jirel of Joiry.

From: Tom Moldvay, Giants in the Earth, in: Dragon 41 (TSR, 1980)

 

[le grand fromage]

I'm a little surprised that no one has yet mentioned Clark Aston Smith's "Averoigne" series (Averoigne - Wikipedia)... You have the gothic imagery and dark forests of a land where you really don't want to stray from the well travelled paths... add some of Jack Vance's Lyonnesse et voilà...

Of course many of the Aurthurian legends have Breton roots, and Wasteland (Département des Sombres Projets) plays on this with a post apocalyptic trope... no surprise they also published Michael Moorcocks Hawkmoon in France...

This is keeping the topic strictly "medieval fantasy"... avoiding the earlier Celtic, Roman or Charlamagne possibilities... or later Musketeer (Cyrano de Bergerac) to Jules Verne and steam punk influences... I must get round to finishing Pierre Pevel's Wielstadt fantasy series (more Germanic in tone than french) and start his Les Lames du Cardinal... (The Cardinal's Blades) - a "Musketeer" type series but with dragons and the Cardinal's guards are the good guys (or at least I think that's the pitch?)...

Then there are all the bandes dessinées, many with diverse fantasy themes, not just french or France related, but each would make a campaign in itself... Les Chroniques de la Lune noire, to name one of epic scope (not a recommendation as such just an example of the potential size of the untapped (in the Anglophone world) reservoir of "french cultural fantasy ideas" waiting to be exploited).... then there's the Cathars of course and... and... oh and...fades into mumbling incoherence....

 

[ilgatto]

I'm a little surprised that no one has yet mentioned Clark Aston Smith's "Averoigne" series (Averoigne - Wikipedia)... You have the gothic imagery and dark forests of a land where you really don't want to stray from the well travelled paths... add some of Jack Vance's Lyonnesse et voilà...

Certainly.

I'll be less cryptic next time.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Re. bad ass ladies, let's not forget Elanor of Aquitaine.