Trying out Dark Fantasy

[Yora]

I've spend many years making prehistoric wilderness settings but now I want to try out creating a different world that is much more in the style of fantasy that I usually read and play. I'm not actually looking for Dark Fantasy, but that's usually what ends up getting me the most engaged.
For references, the works I am thinking of are Elric, Jirel of Joiry Kane, The Witcher, Berserk; Thief, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Legacy of Kain, Symbaorum; Princess Mononoke, Alien 1 and 2, Riddick, Metal Gear Solid (particularly the first game), and Metro 2033.
This time I want to approach the worldbuilding free of D&D conventions. I'm not entirely sure about what system I would run campaigs with, but I'm more leaning towards something like Powered by the Apocalypse. To me that mostly means not having something like the armored cleric and robed wizard archetype, and a huge range of monsters populating the whole world.

Here is a few ideas I have, but nothing really fixed yet:

• Good can win. And by good I mean "reducing the overal level of suffering instead of increasing it". Nothing shiny and honorable required.
• The general population doesn't have it too bad. There is a sort of Masquerade/Wulin thing going on where the supernatural takes place out of most people's sight. It's not exactly a secret, but normal folks put the charms on their homes and avoid forbidden places and usually don't get bothered by monsters.
• Humanoid people are semi-human, like Melniboneans, Red Martians, Dunmer, and so on.
• Pre- to Early-Medieval society. A culture and sophistication roughly based on the last centuries of the Roman Empire and the early generations of the Frankish Empire.
• Gaelic and Slavic culture as a reference. I want to avoid Germanic archetypes and the generic English/French/German medieval style.
• Climate and geography focused primarily on central European and North Pacific environments. To get things properly dreary, you need it wet and cold.
• Demons more in a Lovecraftian style than flames, horns, and skulls. Or Japanese youkai.
• Low magic, but high on supernatural weirdness. I lean towards giving heroes very little magic to use, limiting it to charms and herbs that repell and harm monsters and rituals that enable confusing communication with spirits.
• I also like the idea of making the world stranger by replacing the wildlife with fictional beasts. Things that are not found on Earth, but that are ordinary animals for all intents and purposes as far as locals are concerned. Anything with special powers is a spirit or demon. I really like the style of Morrowind and would love to capture some of that creative weirdness.

This is really everything I got so far. A bunch of general ideas but no real plans so far. Throw everything at me that comes to mind where this could be going.

[Geordnet]

I had an idea for something similar enough that it might be adaptable. It was "What would it look like a century or two after the total collapse of a High Fantasy civilization?"

The general concept is that said civ underwent a sort of Occult Revolution where magic was heavily integrated into society (or at least the government/military), giving them the power to stretch their influence far and wide. Until it all came around to bite them.

Long story short, the lost their power and their territories were overrun by barbarian mass-migrations triggered by the global catastrophe. Fast forwards 100+ years (to "present day") and you've got a massive patchwork of feudal states very much like Early Medieval Europe.


Magic is totally outlawed, with two exceptions: Court Magicians/Alchemists, because of course the people in power are going to make an exception for themselves, and the Church, which can perform certain sanctioned rituals (and a few non-sanctioned ones). Maybe there are some Hedge Wizards around too, which are simply too weak for anyone important to care about, but they'll still have to watch out for lynch mobs. Of course, out in the wilderness there are mad Sorcerers that must be stopped.

An average peasant farmer doesn't have much protection. When a child is born or a structure is raised, it'll get blessed (preferably by an actual priest) but that won't stop more than minor supernatural mischief. If something actually dangerous comes out of the woods, which only really happens once or twice a year in wintertime, then the local feudal lord gathers up a militia, some mercenaries, or maybe a few noble friends to subjugate it. At least, that's the way it's supposed to be - sometimes (too often) the peasants are left to fend for themselves.

For wandering treasure-seekers though, the place to go is the ruins of the fallen empire. There lay forgotten stores of gold* and precious materials, but the real prize is any usable fragment of their war machine. Such a find will bring the eye of kings upon the finder, for good or ill.


*Go with realistic gold values. A gold coin the size of a dime is worth ~$100. A silver one, ~$5. Finding a box full of gold is a rags to riches scenario that should only happen after a lot of hard work and a little luck. More often, the PCs will be looting pieces of art, jewellery, old books, or even scrap metal, which they'll sell to wandering traders to barely cover their day-to-day expenses. But when they do finally strike it big, let them revel in it.

[L Space]

Geordnet, I really, really like that idea. Been wanting to do a dark fantasy type of campaign and I think I'm going to take you idea and run with it. A post apocalyptic-esque scenario, but in a medieval (or maybe near renaissance) setting. Depending on the magic used to cause the collapse you could have that explain why monster attacks are on the rise or why they show up in places they never appeared before. Have it very much be humans are on the edge of annihilation.

I know it was to help someone else, but thanks for idea fuel!

[2D8HP]

I had an idea for something similar....

.
Yout ideas are AWESOME! @Geordnet and I hope to steal be inspired by them.

My previous closest take, explored in the
Magic Lost and Reborn
thread, had a few basic ideas (inspired a bit by climate changes such as the 16th to 19th century "Little Ice Age).

1) The power of magic ebbs and flow.

2) A previous magic using civilization existed.

3) With the return of magic come monsters, and old spells, and magic artifacts work again.

4) Humanity has to adjust to a change in the "laws of nature".

5) Human sacrifice (Necromancy) acts as a multiplier of magic.

6) The main way a magician "makes magic" is to summon demons and control demons which inact the change in reality.

7) Demons do not always stay in the magicians control.

Three possible "end games"

1) Humanity fights back against the supernatural, wins and a normal world with natural laws results.

2) Humanity gains control of the demons and magic, creating a magic using "tippyverse" civilization.

3) Chaos/demons/the "fair folk"/wild magic triumph. Hell on Earth.

[Yora]

1) The power of magic ebbs and flow.

2) A previous magic using civilization existed.

3) With the return of magic come monsters, and old spells, and magic artifacts work again.

4) Humanity has to adjust to a change in the "laws of nature".

5) Human sacrifice (Necromancy) acts as a multiplier of magic.

6) The main way a magician "makes magic" is to summon demons and control demons which inact the change in reality.

7) Demons do not always stay in the magicians control.

That's pretty much what I went with, only with the small adjustment that strong magic and weak magic exist in different regions of the world at the same time. Magic is never fully gone, but is mostly concentrated in areas that people avoid to live in. The slow shifting of these regions forces people to abandon cities and resettle elsewhere.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

[*]I also like the idea of making the world stranger by replacing the wildlife with fictional beasts. Things that are not found on Earth, but that are ordinary animals for all intents and purposes as far as locals are concerned. Anything with special powers is a spirit or demon. I really like the style of Morrowind and would love to capture some of that creative weirdness.

I think you can go further than this. High magic setting usually have magic as a thing one does, leaving the objects it interacts with as well as the user more or less intact. What if magic is more a thing one is? Semi-random outbursts of magic deep inside the forest change the plants and animals near them. A rabbit becomes more like a bear, a moose grows a second head and lots of teeth, a small climbing plant starts growing into a giant sentient deathtrap.

In the same vein as that: the most powerful potions/spells/rituals/something take the form of permanent curses. The magic changes a person. But magic by its very nature is wild and powerful, it wants to lash out. Cursed people become werewolves and vampires and trolls, rather then say frogs or small blocks of cheese. And even if a skilled magician manages to cast a spell that only has a limited predictable effect it will have the effect violently so. Someone becomes unnaturally ugly, causing even the cats to throw up when they cross their path. The most stable magic could be something like magic items, for similar reasons. The primary spell had an effect on the object, but the magical energy keeps lashing out. So a warrior could have a half melted sword that produces flames in the heat of battle. Powerful (possibly elder...) scrolls can turn the reader blind regardless of their original intent, simply because writing down a spell or potion recipe as text makes it associated with reading and eyesight.

I'm not sure what keeps the magic from being used to wildly grow flowers everywhere and produce mirrors that make everyone who looks a them happy, but I suppose it has something to do with the link between magic and demons, magic is the energy radiating out from an overcrowded underworld or something, or just plain chaotic and kind of evil in general, because that's what it is.

Maybe some of that helps in making the fantasy dark.

[2D8HP]

That's pretty much what I went with, only with the small adjustment that strong magic and weak magic exist in different regions of the world at the same time....

.


@Yora,

GURPS Banestorm setting had areas of different levels of magic, and may be worth checking out.

Chaosium's Stormbringer had a magic system based on summoning supernatural entities, which I really recommend.

Here is a

review of Stormbringer

thaf seems to go deepest into the "mechanics" that I've been able to find.

I really have a hard time in reading PDF's, but here's a

Quick start Magic World PDF

the rules of which I'm told are based on Stormbringer.