The Experiment - Adding Tropes to a Setting

[Jürgen Hubert]

Balance Between Good And Evil - Guardians of Balance (login required)

I was always a bit suspicious of claims that a balance between Good and Evil is supposed to be a "good thing" in certain setting. You can consider this entry to be my personal subversion of the concept.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Baraar Of The Bizarre - Taris

Again a locale related to the blue dragons of the Desert of Thunder. After all, all dragons want to acquire more items for their hoard - so a black market where thieves from the rest of the world could sell their wares would be useful for them to have nearby. Keeping the city where it is located in outside of their own territory gives them a layer of deniability - and also makes sure that no single dragon can control it.

Bedlam House - Kurova

My "sample city" of Dartmouth already had two mental asylums, which I figured was plenty - so I decided to build an entire city around the concept instead. And mental asylums are a staple of Victorian horror fiction, so I set it within the region dedicated to emulating such fiction.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Black Box - Armand

This ties in nicely with my entry for the Flamekeepers above. And, of course, it resembles a classical cargo cult - with the exception that ordinary cargo cults were lucky when their prayers were unanswered.

Bottomless Pits - The Cloud Pillar

Inverted because I already had something similar in the setting. I asked myself: "What's the defining element of a pit? Well, that you fall into it." Having a stable tornado to "fall into" would have a similar effect. True, it's not terribly original, but it never hurts to have some spectacular scenery in a setting IMO...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Are you putting tieflings in your 4e game?

I've finally finished their writeup. You can find it here

 

[Gez]

I was always a bit suspicious of claims that a balance between Good and Evil is supposed to be a "good thing" in certain setting. You can consider this entry to be my personal subversion of the concept.

Me too, I prefer having balance between Law and Chaos; with Good being a state of balance and Evil being a state of imbalance. (It was part of my pet reason why the Celestials are united while the Fiends are fighting their Blood War between LE and CE.)

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Me too, I prefer having balance between Law and Chaos; with Good being a state of balance and Evil being a state of imbalance. (It was part of my pet reason why the Celestials are united while the Fiends are fighting their Blood War between LE and CE.)

I dislike this idea of "balance" even more than I dislike the "paladins must be jerks because they are lawful good" syndrome.

I mean, I use both alignments and alignment-coded outer planes in Urbis. But ultimately, I wanted the reasons for why people do things the way they do to be human reasons instead of something imposed from the outside. Getting smacked around by either gods or Cosmic Forces in the name of a supposed balance is rarely fun - and not nearly as much fun as humans smacking around each other for a myriad of plausible and less plausible reasons.

 

[Gez]

Getting smacked around by either gods or Cosmic Forces in the name of a supposed balance

Oh, this is definitely not balance as I use it. My idea is more of a harmony, a compromise, the proverbial truth in the middle. (Of Law and Chaos. No compromise with Evil.) If it's arbitrarily imposed by Cosmic Forces From Beyond, then it's definitely not balance...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Brother Sister Incest - The Inverted Circle (login required)

Fairly squicky, but then again it would be hard to do this without squick. It gets the more disturbing the more you think about what these people must do to get a steady stream of sacrifices of the "appropriate type"...

Buried Alive - Karmak

At first I thought about some kind of serial killer or other group who'd bury others alive out of malice or religious reasons. But then I thought: "Wait, this is a fantasy reason. What if there is a purely practical reason for burying people alive?"

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Campbell Country - Seventhford

Well, maybe I can do this a bit more evocatively some day, but for now this'll have to do.

Church Millitant - Temple Knights

A bit of a subversion - I wanted to avoid the "all militant church warriors must be jerks" syndrome...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Creepy Child - Princess's Men

This was perfect for fleshing out the "example city" of Dartmouth a bit, and it provides some nice cognitive dissonance - who'd expect an organization of hardened criminals to be led by a little girl?

However, I am worried whether I spelled "Princess's" right...

Crystal Spires and Togas - Tamaras

I probably should improve the writing a bit at some point, but at the moment I'm too tired to think of something better. Having some crystal elves building their own space ark seems like an interesting idea, but maybe I can think of something else when I've slept it over...