The Campaign Builder's Guild

Hi.
 Here is my current idea, which I am having trouble writing up into something tangible. Right now , like most of my countless jumbles of notebooks is a big mass of scribbles, incoherent thoughts and just plain blah.
 
 Premise: About two thousand years before the current setting, two drastically different races are engaged in an interstellar war. (Cliche #1) There is a battle over a planet named Aldea, and both sides suffer heavy losses. The fleets crash land on Aldea. Both sides decide to ignore the survivors and carry on the war elsewhere.
 
  Alien Race Concept : Kahan
Deadly. Warlike. Naturally violent. It is said if they did not naturally have an aggressive disposition in their societies, that they would outnumber all other species in the galaxy within a matter of decades. They are warriors using large numbers of soldiers. Pack fighters-Roman legionnaire style,short violent lives.

  Alien Race Concept : Drujai (straight from my notes)
The Drujai live for centuries but only birth at about 1/4 the rate of Kahan. They live mature healthy lives for 85%-90% of there life cycle, reaching what humans would call maturity (about 20 yrs. old) in about 5-10 years. Only in the last 10 or so years do they begin aging rapidly. They are generally not warlike, but have the capability to wage successful wars. They focus on small special forces. Samurai-ninja-gladiator.

 Alien Race Concept : Zolo
 Biologically created by the Kahan,they are insect like, but dismiss the idea of a hive mind.These creatures were used as a shock tactic. Aldea's natural radiation levels drastically altered the Zolo, and in about two thousand years they have developed small tribal like societies.

 Alien Race Concept : Akad
 The Drujais rebuttal to the Zolo. Again keeping with the theme of lone warriors. They are large reptilian creatures, capable of short flight, sustaining heavy amounts of damage, and are skilled hunters. When the ships crashed several Akad survived, and consequently thrived on species that had never known a predator such as the Akad.
  The Zolo and Akad both have there strengths and weaknesses. It is said the Zolo can devour an Akad in a matter of minutes if there numbers are great enough. Akads on the other hand can track creatures, discerning their number, direction, location etc. choosing when and where to engage.

   Other things of interest:
 -The battle that took place above Aldea took a heavy toll on the native races. Weapons that missed there targets shot through the atmosphere creating craters. Oceans boiled as hulls of ships crashed to the surface. (I don't know all the science behind atmospheres etc. What can survive an atmospheric entry. But hey, it sounds cool) The races may have thought their gods were angry. Or the survivors were even the;r gods.
 - The Kahan survivors wanted to activate some kind of fail-safe weapon. ( pretty much a nuke capable of destroying everything on the planet) But a subordinate of the ranking officer killed the Kahan who wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, deciding instead to take advantage of the situation. Namely a planet that seemed easily conquerable. This could start a Kahan empire of sorts.
 -The Drujai would probably split up, to cover more ground and infiltrate the natives' societies. I'm not sure if a Drujai would take advantage a species for personal gain, I.E. letting them believe he/she is a god from the heavens. I do think the Drujai would take an advantageous position to ensure it's survival.

 -Other creatures that might have survived the crash(es) might include more docile things like, fungus or germs that change drastically. Maybe some kind of bio-mechanical worker creature that is incredibly fast at repairs/healing w/e.


So thats what I'm working with right now. Whew. Anybody have any ideas about which direction to take? I've never tried a far-flung sci-fi, fantasy mixture like this. I'm also having trouble working out how magic can exist in a universe with space travel. Planet based? People based? It all just seems to spawn more and more questions!

 Thanks for taking a look.

Hi Sarisa!

So this is a setting centered on one planet, colonized by crashed fleets of warring races? That's a fine concept to start with, but you'll need to decide what has happened in the universe outside Aldea, and what kind of interaction goes on with other worlds. A few questions that I could think of:

Did the war end? If so, who won it? What do the Kahan/Drujai homeworlds think about these descendants of their lost soldiers that are now making their home on this planet? Why did the battle over Aldea take place back then, anyway? If the planet was deemed valuable by both sides, wouldn't they make further attempts to capture it? Wouldn't at least some of the survivors from the crashes want to leave Aldea and return to their homeworlds, or at least reestablish communications with them?

Magic and space travel can coexist easily enough. You could actually use magic to justify faster than speed of light travel. Anyway, I think the space fantasy genre works best by not dwelling too deep into the details of how things work, and focusing more on the story and rule of cool. Star Wars does it pretty well :)

who are the native races? and what were their cultural level when the starships crashed?

I think a good way to figure out a rough estimate of how the world would turn out, is to first have some rough frames for how the world looked like before the aliens appeared, and then extrapolate varius scenariors for the impact they have on the worold upon arrival.


magic and science can work together in three way.
1. The star wars approach as mentioned.
2. Another is to have magic be a force that simple hadn't been discovered by the alien races because they simple happened to never have the breakthrough that would lead to that knowledge. this could put the native races at a slightly more favorable position versus the alien races, due to having thier intellectual develiopement going toward the implementation of magic in society, instead of technology in society.
3. Magic could also be uniq to Aldea, the planet itself generating the energy needed to cast magic. think stuff like ley-lines. the impact is the same as option 2, but it's another explination for why the alien races doesn't use magic.
4. magic is known and incorporated into the technology of the alien races. the alien races knows of magic and uses it in symbioses with technology. using the FTL drive example, then a computer might perform all the calculation for where to go, and the calculation adjust the energy and magic of the FTL drive, which essentially is a magical item for travel, with a fusion reactor providing the energy, but a rune-interface changing and transfering the energy from the reactor to the FTL drive.
 
option 2 and 3 might be why the other space nations hadn't returned to Aldea yet. using magic to cloak the planet, something that the aliens would not know about and therefor won't even think is happening and so can't develiope a counter measure to.

Quote from: SarisaAlien Race Concept : Kahan
Deadly. Warlike. Naturally violent. It is said if they did not naturally have an aggressive disposition in their societies, that they would outnumber all other species in the galaxy within a matter of decades. They are warriors using large numbers of soldiers. Pack fighters-Roman legionnaire style,short violent lives.

Alien Race Concept : Zolo
 Biologically created by the Kahan,they are insect like, but dismiss the idea of a hive mind.These creatures were used as a shock tactic. Aldea's natural radiation levels drastically altered the Zolo, and in about two thousand years they have developed small tribal like societies.[/quote]The Zolo and Akad both have there strengths and weaknesses. It is said the Zolo can devour an Akad in a matter of minutes if there numbers are great enough. Akads on the other hand can track creatures, discerning their number, direction, location etc. choosing when and where to engage.[/quote]- The Kahan survivors wanted to activate some kind of fail-safe weapon. ( pretty much a nuke capable of destroying everything on the planet) But a subordinate of the ranking officer killed the Kahan who wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, deciding instead to take advantage of the situation. Namely a planet that seemed easily conquerable. This could start a Kahan empire of sorts.[/quote]-Other creatures that might have survived the crash(es) might include more docile things like, fungus or germs that change drastically. Maybe some kind of bio-mechanical worker creature that is incredibly fast at repairs/healing w/e. [/quote]So thats what I'm working with right now. Whew. Anybody have any ideas about which direction to take? I've never tried a far-flung sci-fi, fantasy mixture like this. I'm also having trouble working out how magic can exist in a universe with space travel. Planet based? People based? It all just seems to spawn more and more questions![/quote]

Magic doesn't void space travel, maybe magic is how they get FTL (faster-then-light) travel. They have magic accelators or magic worm holes or some kinda junk like that.

All this being said, when it comes to science fiction I'm a mostly (almost strictly) hard science fiction kind of person. So that's how I seen this post. Take it as you will.

Quote from: LlumMost ships would burn up in the atmosphere leaving little to no wreckage. Anything big enough for survivors to survive (or just plain old big enough) would do a lot of damage, and not from dissipating heat into the seas. The kinetic energy of a crash would cause huge craters, tsunamies etc.

little nit-picking/devils advocat, since the crashing itself can have a pretty big effect as you have pointed out.
where ever the ships would burn up would depend on where ever or not they have proper heat-shielding, right?
just pointing it out, since I'm just thinking that deciding between smaller ships being able to survive crashing without burning up or only have large ships being able to survive plays a pretty big difference. I guess it would depend on where ever or not the ships are designed for atmospheric entry/ emergency crash-landing.

Quote from: Tillumni

Quote from: LlumMost ships would burn up in the atmosphere leaving little to no wreckage. Anything big enough for survivors to survive (or just plain old big enough) would do a lot of damage, and not from dissipating heat into the seas. The kinetic energy of a crash would cause huge craters, tsunamies etc.

little nit-picking/devils advocat, since the crashing itself can have a pretty big effect as you have pointed out.
where ever the ships would burn up would depend on where ever or not they have proper heat-shielding, right?
just pointing it out, since I'm just thinking that deciding between smaller ships being able to survive crashing without burning up or only have large ships being able to survive plays a pretty big difference. I guess it would depend on where ever or not the ships are designed for atmospheric entry/ emergency crash-landing.

Correct, heat shielding would stop them burning up.. but that isn't a good thing, since it would just mean that there's an even BIGGER object hitting the earth, relaying even more energy causing bigger craters/earthquakes/tsunamies

that's why I refered to smaller ships, though even a relatively small ships would cause massive damage. main reason I bring up heat-shield / emergency crash though, is that it's implied that atleast some of the crashes does have something or some aliens alive.

Quote from: GhostmanHi Sarisa!

So this is a setting centered on one planet, colonized by crashed fleets of warring races? That's a fine concept to start with, but you'll need to decide what has happened in the universe outside Aldea, and what kind of interaction goes on with other worlds. A few questions that I could think of:

Did the war end? If so, who won it? What do the Kahan/Drujai homeworlds think about these descendants of their lost soldiers that are now making their home on this planet? Why did the battle over Aldea take place back then, anyway? If the planet was deemed valuable by both sides, wouldn't they make further attempts to capture it? Wouldn't at least some of the survivors from the crashes want to leave Aldea and return to their homeworlds, or at least reestablish communications with them?

Magic and space travel can coexist easily enough. You could actually use magic to justify faster than speed of light travel. Anyway, I think the space fantasy genre works best by not dwelling too deep into the details of how things work, and focusing more on the story and rule of cool. Star Wars does it pretty well :)

Thanks for taking the time to read Ghostman. Did the war end... I don't know! Certainly the survivors of the battle of Aldea couldn't know, unless they still had communications with there off-world allies. But that would destroy the whole premise of the survivors being left alone for thousands of years, creating the setting.
  I pictured the battle of Aldea as a sudden attack on a far off convoy. (either side being the aggressor, probably the Kahan attacking the Drujai.) Maybe both sides were surprised: "Take a left at Alpha Centauri and Oh. Hey. Red Alert."
 Maybe Aldea was being scouted by one side, or maybe the magics on Aldea drew interest from the Intelligence section of either the Drujai or Kahan. (Hey were getting somewhere.)
 
 As for the survivors motives, it's hard to say. I know in history humans have done some pretty weird things. One thing I was toying around with was the idea of a completely fanatic Kahan Leader, who has with him (somehow) a doomsday device that he wants to set off on the planet. (He knows Drujai survived the battle as well. Maybe he had some kind of detection device on his fancy escape pod.The brass get all the good stuff.) His subordinate, suddenly has a change of heart in Kahan military protocol, (maybe due to his having survived a terrible space battle)and shoots him dead. The doomsday device could be a major theme/quest etc. later on.
 
 
 

Quote from: Tillumniwho are the native races? and what were their cultural level when the starships crashed?

  I'm having trouble with this one. I picture your standard fantasy setting. I don't want to get so far out there I can't round up a game you know?
  I picture a few city states, with kings, paladins, mages, a few guilds, some religious elements etc. Then I thought about all the typical evils in a fantasy setting, the lich, the demon lord etc. (How can we have planes of existence?) This is getting weirder and weirder. Man I like it. Thanks for all the input guys!

Quote from: LlumSo.. from your comment on their disposition I take it they breed extremely fast? Pack fighting legionnair style doesn't work well in space (generally speaking, this can be fixed) for a couple reasons.

1. Ship-to-ship fights, # don't really matter. If a ship has 10 crew or 10 000 crew, if they can do the same thing, its even. Also, more people means bigger ships that spend more mass on living quarters and life support = more vulnerable areas.

Mission Earth[/url] by L. Ron Hubbard, I take the character Soltan Gris as inspiration. Sadistic,manipulative etc. The point being that the commanders of the Kahan really don't care if 10,000 marines get blasted as they have 10,000 more to replace them.

Quote from: SarisaAlien Race Concept : Drujai (straight from my notes)
The Drujai live for centuries but only birth at about 1/4 the rate of Kahan. Samurai-ninja-gladiator.

Sounds a lot like Elves. Seems fine all the same except maybe one thing. Samurai-ninja-gladiator, these three things are not all that compatible. Ninja fight dirty, rarely engage in actual combat and use illusion and fear to win; samurai were super well-trained masters at arms; Gladiators while good at what they do would suck if they fought against real soldiers. They were show fighters, even their traditional weapons were made to make fights last longer and be inefficient.

Alien Race Concept : Zolo
 Biologically created by the Kahan,they are insect like, but dismiss the idea of a hive mind.These creatures were used as a shock tactic. Aldea's natural radiation levels drastically altered the Zolo, and in about two thousand years they have developed small tribal like societies.

I like this, insects without a Hive Mind :D. Seem pretty similar to the Kahan anyway, why were they used for shock troops? Are they particularly hardy? Terrifying?[/quote]Flashbang[/url] grenade. Then when the Zolo have caused enough mayhem on an unsuspecting Drujai strong hold, the Kahan would show up. Could be fun.

Quote from:  flight ability. Same usually with taking damage and still moving (unless they have some kind of healing factor). Just a note, if only several ( <9) survived, it would possibly mean there weren't enough to make a stable breeding population.
[/quoteThe Zolo and Akad both have there strengths and weaknesses. It is said the Zolo can devour an Akad in a matter of minutes if there numbers are great enough. Akads on the other hand can track creatures, discerning their number, direction, location etc. choosing when and where to engage.

Seems to me like the Akad would never engage in a straight up fight :P

True. Unless the Drujai told them too. Then again how sure can you be with genetic engineering? Would an Akad send itself to certain doom on orders of its master? Maybe some Drujai specifically had control of a particular Akad. Maybe those Drujai passed on the secret to there children, and they now stalk the land of Aldea.


  Thanks for the great questions! I plan on giving this a little breathing room and then seeing what I can come up with.
 Input is welcome from anyone concerning specific setting elements! I think this idea might be too big for my one mind. We'll see. Thanks again.

Quote from: SarisaThanks for taking the time to read Ghostman. Did the war end... I don't know! Certainly the survivors of the battle of Aldea couldn't know, unless they still had communications with there off-world allies. But that would destroy the whole premise of the survivors being left alone for thousands of years, creating the setting.
  I pictured the battle of Aldea as a sudden attack on a far off convoy. (either side being the aggressor, probably the Kahan attacking the Drujai.) Maybe both sides were surprised: "Take a left at Alpha Centauri and Oh. Hey. Red Alert."
 Maybe Aldea was being scouted by one side, or maybe the magics on Aldea drew interest from the Intelligence section of either the Drujai or Kahan. (Hey were getting somewhere.)

Hm, maybe the planet is located next to a wormhole, that had just recently been discovered? Both sides would want to secure Aldea as a base to control access through the wormhole, so they send expeditionary fleets there (that would include warships but also ships designed for colonization) but arrive at the same time and so the battle starts. But then something goes wrong and causes the wormhole to be destroyed (or merely disabled).

That would be a good explanation for why they've remained isolated for 2000 years. Even if the races didn't care about the survivors, they prolly would still have sent a scout or two to investigate - but with the wormhole shut off, they wouldn't be able to reach Aldea anymore...

You could also go with Tilumni's idea to make the planet magically cloaked to justify it's isolation. But you'd need to come up with an explanation on who set up this cloak and why. It doesn't seem likely for the natives to have magics designed for such a purpose if their level of civilization is supposed to reflect typical fantasy fare.

Quote from: SarisaI picture a few city states, with kings, paladins, mages, a few guilds, some religious elements etc. Then I thought about all the typical evils in a fantasy setting, the lich, the demon lord etc. (How can we have planes of existence?) This is getting weirder and weirder.

Yeah, it is pretty weird :-p

Perhaps Aldea is a "border world" of a sort, sitting between a magical universe (with planes and elements and all that) and a non-magical one (whence came the Kahan and Drujai)? As the border world it would be the place where the two universes blend, hence the crossover of genres. This could mesh well with the idea about a wormhole (or should that be two wormholes?)

Quote from: SarisaI think the answer could lie in the fact that the Kahan are inherently ruthless. If anyone has ever read  Mission Earth by L. Ron Hubbard, I take the character Soltan Gris as inspiration. Sadistic,manipulative etc. The point being that the commanders of the Kahan really don't care if 10,000 marines get blasted as they have 10,000 more to replace them.

We Have Reserves is workable when you have the numbers and blind obedience, but it still doesn't make sense if there's no advantage to be gained from those numbers. Shipping more soldiers means expending more resources (supplies, transportation, energy, management of logistics), resources that could be better spent elsewhere. Just because the commanders don't care for the lives of their troops, doesn't mean they won't care about material costs. Why engage in such waste when shipping less troops would be just as effective, but cheaper? It would be especially stupid in a massive war where you're literally fighting for survival.

Quote from: GhostmanHm, maybe the planet is located next to a wormhole, that had just recently been discovered? Both sides would want to secure Aldea as a base to control access through the wormhole, so they send expeditionary fleets there (that would include warships but also ships designed for colonization) but arrive at the same time and so the battle starts. But then something goes wrong and causes the wormhole to be destroyed (or merely disabled).

  What if the uber-magic users on Aldea created the wormhole through some ritual gone awry? If they were rulers of a kingdom there people would hate them for bringing the battle to Aldea. Just a thought.