Pitch your homebrew!

[gamerprinter]

Homebrew turning into a publication

My homebrew - I've mentioned here and there is my spin on a feudal Japan setting. However, unlike many homebrews posted here, my will be published this summer. This month in fact, my first 3 part adventure arc will be publsihed OGL, with the intent of republication in August as Pathfinder Compatible.

Kaidan: a Japanese Ghost Story setting, can almost be viewed as a cross between Oriental Adventures and Ravenloft. A dark fantasy world, with its own twisted cosmology that involves an endless cycle of reincarnations - you can't be ressurrected in this setting.

Kaidan: a Japanese Ghost Story RPG campaign setting

It should have its own website soon, to help promote it as a publication.

GP

PS: because I am a professional cartographer, the adventures and setting will be overwhelmed with maps from regionals to encounter scale. Also I am in the middle of purchasing art for the publication. Including some who've painted for MtG CCG - Mark Hyzer, and many international artists in this work, including (not my flavor, but) manga/anime art.

 

[jdrakeh]

Ack! I think you guys just blew my Awesome circuit!

 

[Krensky]

Well, I keep fiddling with a world that was originally tossed together years ago:

Nephos is a world with sensibilities somewhere between the Victorian and Edwardian period. It's a mixture of steam, diesel, and mage punk, with air ships dominating the setting. Largely because Nephos is a world of floating islands (in some cases in the same way that Australia is an island) and literally infinite horizons (well, not litterally, but as far as anyone in the world can tell it's infinite, and for all practical purposes the world is an infinite plane). Basically, Nephos is a livable layer within the atmosphere of a gas giant.

Some view magic as an arcane and supernatural art, others as an act of devotion, and others as just another science. Bumbles and I apparently;y read some of the same material, since the real cause of magic is Clarkian science and the Maker is what's left of the colony's central computer. Nephos is a forgotten project of the Second Terran Imperium, an authoritative post-human polity where genetic engineering and modification are the norm and people are bred for their jobs. The races in Nephos are the result of these genelines, with a few exceptions like the Chripot or the Mekehom. The Imperium is purely background and has nothing to do with the world other then explanation though.

Empires in Nephos include a mash up of the US and UK, a cross between Napoleonic/Restoration France and the Byzantine Empire, a pastiche of polynesian nations, a group of city states reminiscent of Italy and the Germanic principalities with some Holy Roman Empire tossed in, and Russia and Scandinavia. Oh, and the reclusive, xenophobic, and technologically advanced military state vaguely reminiscent of Rome, China, and Sparta.

Political intrigue and swashbuckling are the norm. The group I originally ran this for were privateers for the Anglo-American mash up, but alos were under the thumb of the Queen's spymaster and occasionally did jobs for the Royal Society.

 

[Mallus]

Largely because Nephos is a world of floating islands (in some cases in the same way that Australia is an island) and literally infinite horizons (well, not litterally, but as far as anyone in the world can tell it's infinite, and for all practical purposes the world is an infinite plane). Basically, Nephos is a livable layer within the atmosphere of a gas giant... snip...

Say, that's some good stuff. Reminds me a little of Karl Schroeder's Virga novels (Sun of Suns, et al).

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Ack! I think you guys just blew my Awesome circuit!

As the OP to the thread. It be fun to hear what aspects of people's homebrews manage to "blow your awesome circuit". *Ponders what a weird amalgamation of all those different specific aspects be like*

 

[Bumbles]

Makes me think of Larry Niven's Smoke Ring books.

 

[jdrakeh]

As the OP to the thread. It be fun to hear what aspects of people's homebrews manage to "blow your awesome circuit". *Ponders what a weird amalgamation of all those different specific aspects be like*

Well. . . floating islands are Awesome, Japanese ghost stories are Awesome, and multi-dimensional port cities are Awesome. . . and that only covers the last few posts!

 

[Krensky]

Makes me think of Larry Niven's Smoke Ring books.

Yes, that's one of the influences.

Other notable things that would go in the bibliography or Appendix N:

The Heorot series by Niven, Pournelle, and Barnes.
Xenogears
The Xenosaga series
Last Exile
Laputa: Castle in the Sky
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
The Hornblower series
The Aubery-Maturin series
The Shapre series
The General series by Stirling and Drake
The Diamond Age by Stephenson
The Commonwealth Saga by Hamilton
The Scarlet Pimpernel
Various Final Fantasy games (6, 7, 8, 12 mostly)
The Pirates of the Caribbean films

Probably some others, but that's off the top of my head.

I've been told there's some resemblance to Iron Kingdoms, but I've never read the RPG or Mini's books so I don't know.

 

[Krensky]

Say, that's some good stuff. Reminds me a little of Karl Schroeder's Virga novels (Sun of Suns, et al).

Never heard of it, I'll add it to my list of things to try and read in my rumored spare time.

 

[Pbartender]

In my campaign world, Drow elves have a sort of bizarro Aztec/Mayan/Inca-like culture. They don't live underground, but they live in the deepest darkest jungles of Southern Anaulia, where the sunlight almost never makes it the forest floor, and everything is deadly in its own way. They perform blood sacrifices in great step pyramids made of cyclopean, non-euclidean blocks of vaguely greenish stone, and worship the giant spiders that live amongst the trees and vines.

On top of that, Tieflings are Arabic-Egyptian and related to Efreets and Djinn instead of Demons, and Dragonborn are thoroughly Oriental.

Oh, and Dwarves aren't Pseudo-Scottish, they're Pseudo-Norse.