Magistrate
2007-01-17, 03:41 PM
One thing that has consistently cropped up in a number of fantasy worlds i've roleplayed in is the use of portals via magic that can span conceivably any distance, even into other planes of existence. But there could be two neighboring states with little to no land barrier between the two and yet they have vastly different cultural upbringings, languages, currencies, etc, and the only explaination for it is 'lawl MAGIC'. Nevermind that these places could be land locked together, is it so inconceivable that these peoples might share ideas, religions, cultural trends? The pull of currency is a strong one and is almost always the root behind why anyone travels to anywhere. So I find this excuse of 'lawl MAGIC' to be as lazy as it is retarded. Yet I find myself doing it every now and then and have to smack myself for it :smallmad: ..
Might I also add that it also unnerves me when I see milennias old ancient races predating all mankind greatly mirroring said younger race that they predate yet giving no hint that either one of them engaged in trade and sharing of said ideas, etc, and in fact they may even hate each other. These milennia old ancient races might even be very isolationist or even xenophobic, yet they mirrior their neighbors so much it's sickening. What makes these milennias old ancient races preadting all mankind at all different from them? Well they sometimes live in trees, have enlongated facial features, have some funny way of sleeping and can see magical doors.. :smallannoyed:
This is all things I am trying to avoid doing when writing my own fantasy campaign setting, yet this same fantasy setting also utilizes magical portals, albeit not in quite a similiar fashion! In the setting I am working on the main continent does have magical portals, but they aren't the kind any Wizard casts. I think the best example I could give would be the Stargate from the movie Stargate, or it's long running TV series SG-1, but nothing nearly so fantastic as to cover the entire uncharted universe. So yes any way we have these magical portals that span roughly a half of the mainland continent that most of the setting will take place. The current denizens of this world have not lost the knowledge to use them, but reverse engineering them has taken decades, if not centuries. The peoples of this world have surmised that they were used by an empire prior to the current time line to cut travelling times for trade and military bodies right out of the equation. In effect, they used it to keep the unity of this emprie together and it made supression of things such as rebellions much easier. As a result, the roads predating this gateway technology slowly began to stagnate, as only the poor would be found on them, and became overrun with the atypical monster scheme. This further compounded things when the empire eventually collapsed as the gates became a bid for power, local principalities and kingdoms arose in it's ashes. Furthermore, it completely changed the way mainlanders fought wars. In some cases, it became their own saving grace, in others they had damned themselves it their strategic hubris when the longranging plains hordes struck them swiftly and from nowhere, with no easy way to strike them back through the uncharted wilderness.
At any rate in the current timeline the political climate is almost cold war in feel. The gateway, much like an atomic bomb, has found it's use as both a weapon of war and one to lessen the burden on humanity. But not only is it a tool by which logistics have become easier ( or more difficult depending on how you look at it :smallwink: ) but it has also been found that tampering with their structural integrity produces cataclysmic results; a resulting explosion that scatters the area about in entropic energies ( chaos, not the decaying kind ) around for miles, annihilating or horrifically reshaping all life there and creating an unstable pocket zone in which doorways to other places, even planes, open up or even blur into one another.
To further conflict the use of these gateways the easterlings ( I'm keeping this as a placeholder name for now ), largely isolated from the rest of the continent untill recently, are clamouring for this same 'technology'. The gates are also maintained by various wizardly Orders and Guilds ( i'm deeply considering Artificer for this, or lumping them into two competing entities trying to outbid the other ), some of them national entities that are state-controlled, others of which declare themselves as non-national organizations, but all of them are important to maintaining and building these new gateways. While some kingdoms will gladly sell these easterlings this technology and in turn gut their treasuries for it, others are having their own internal conflicts with their magely proprietors (sp?) who are against the idea of selling such a valuable asset to foreign powers, much less other, non-human races! ( durr, forgot to mention the Easterners are a mixed stock of 'shortfolk' and 'elves' :p ).
All this crazy gate technology also helps me reinforce the idea and feel of the campaign, one where the outside world is a very scary place. So while we may have dignitaries and officials from the other side of the world traveling within seconds from one end to the other to talk politics, thus achieveing one aspect of Fantasy Generica, in the same token most people are terrified of stepping outside of their own cities, villages, etc, capturing the other feel to it, that of the old evils and entities of cultural folklore and the dangers of travelling.
So now that I think i've finally gotten this ranting tangent out of my system...
How do you handle this kind of silliness?
Might I also add that it also unnerves me when I see milennias old ancient races predating all mankind greatly mirroring said younger race that they predate yet giving no hint that either one of them engaged in trade and sharing of said ideas, etc, and in fact they may even hate each other. These milennia old ancient races might even be very isolationist or even xenophobic, yet they mirrior their neighbors so much it's sickening. What makes these milennias old ancient races preadting all mankind at all different from them? Well they sometimes live in trees, have enlongated facial features, have some funny way of sleeping and can see magical doors.. :smallannoyed:
This is all things I am trying to avoid doing when writing my own fantasy campaign setting, yet this same fantasy setting also utilizes magical portals, albeit not in quite a similiar fashion! In the setting I am working on the main continent does have magical portals, but they aren't the kind any Wizard casts. I think the best example I could give would be the Stargate from the movie Stargate, or it's long running TV series SG-1, but nothing nearly so fantastic as to cover the entire uncharted universe. So yes any way we have these magical portals that span roughly a half of the mainland continent that most of the setting will take place. The current denizens of this world have not lost the knowledge to use them, but reverse engineering them has taken decades, if not centuries. The peoples of this world have surmised that they were used by an empire prior to the current time line to cut travelling times for trade and military bodies right out of the equation. In effect, they used it to keep the unity of this emprie together and it made supression of things such as rebellions much easier. As a result, the roads predating this gateway technology slowly began to stagnate, as only the poor would be found on them, and became overrun with the atypical monster scheme. This further compounded things when the empire eventually collapsed as the gates became a bid for power, local principalities and kingdoms arose in it's ashes. Furthermore, it completely changed the way mainlanders fought wars. In some cases, it became their own saving grace, in others they had damned themselves it their strategic hubris when the longranging plains hordes struck them swiftly and from nowhere, with no easy way to strike them back through the uncharted wilderness.
At any rate in the current timeline the political climate is almost cold war in feel. The gateway, much like an atomic bomb, has found it's use as both a weapon of war and one to lessen the burden on humanity. But not only is it a tool by which logistics have become easier ( or more difficult depending on how you look at it :smallwink: ) but it has also been found that tampering with their structural integrity produces cataclysmic results; a resulting explosion that scatters the area about in entropic energies ( chaos, not the decaying kind ) around for miles, annihilating or horrifically reshaping all life there and creating an unstable pocket zone in which doorways to other places, even planes, open up or even blur into one another.
To further conflict the use of these gateways the easterlings ( I'm keeping this as a placeholder name for now ), largely isolated from the rest of the continent untill recently, are clamouring for this same 'technology'. The gates are also maintained by various wizardly Orders and Guilds ( i'm deeply considering Artificer for this, or lumping them into two competing entities trying to outbid the other ), some of them national entities that are state-controlled, others of which declare themselves as non-national organizations, but all of them are important to maintaining and building these new gateways. While some kingdoms will gladly sell these easterlings this technology and in turn gut their treasuries for it, others are having their own internal conflicts with their magely proprietors (sp?) who are against the idea of selling such a valuable asset to foreign powers, much less other, non-human races! ( durr, forgot to mention the Easterners are a mixed stock of 'shortfolk' and 'elves' :p ).
All this crazy gate technology also helps me reinforce the idea and feel of the campaign, one where the outside world is a very scary place. So while we may have dignitaries and officials from the other side of the world traveling within seconds from one end to the other to talk politics, thus achieveing one aspect of Fantasy Generica, in the same token most people are terrified of stepping outside of their own cities, villages, etc, capturing the other feel to it, that of the old evils and entities of cultural folklore and the dangers of travelling.
So now that I think i've finally gotten this ranting tangent out of my system...
How do you handle this kind of silliness?