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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dlsharrock" data-source="post: 4167406" data-attributes="member: 55833">Castle thread: when I think of castles I don't think of any of the ones pictured. For some reason I always think of the rather dull drizzle-misted one from Monty Python's Holy Grail (I fart in your general direction/help help I'm being oppressed) and tend to include them in my games. They are, however, a cliche. As are all castles. Returning to the original thread, a bit: I'd like to see (and may sit down and design after this) a fantasy castle not entirely extrapolated from Eurocentric inspirations (or Disney) but designed for the fantasy milieu within which they intend to be used. Defences against flying beasties. Defences against magic, and not just counter-magic. Defences utilising the surrounding fantasy landscape. A moat of lava might be a good idea, if it wasn't such a bloody cliche.Chosen One Syndrome: this cliche works in literature (for me) only when the chosen one doesn't want to be the chosen one. By definition this tends to be in a satirical context,  though Frodo was none too eager. Douglas Adams' Arthur Dent is probably the best example I can come up with. Fate and the machinations of the Heart of Gold decided he was the Chosen One- though chosen for what and why is still a bit of a mystery to me. And all he wanted was a decent cup of tea.Cups of tea and modern Brits brings me to another pertinent point. Though their medieval ancestors form the mud-swilling, tavern brawling backbone of most fantasy, more recent English cultures are rarely used as a basis for Eurocentric fantasy races. When I wrote the Middlemist campaign setting my city elves were an austere Victorian people who carried sword sticks and requested 'mater' cover the legs of the occassional table lest it inflame unnatural urges! Lots of Elven youngsters were abroad as hippyish adventurers, fleeing the strict lifestyles and whipping sticks of their parents and looking for fun in the wilderness. This gave the hippy elf cliche something of a motivation instead of 'he's an elf, so he likes peace and trees' it was 'he's an elf, so he's rebelling'.</blockquote>

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