Belle Époque Fantasy

[O Senhor Leetz]

As I mentioned earlier this morning, I'm about on empty as far as Arga goes. I've been working on one version or another of that setting for the better part of 5 years, not consistantly albeit.

That being said, I need something else to focus my creative energies into. Sometime ago, I wrote several posts about creating a "believable" fantasy world going through the throes of modernization and revolution (think the Long 19th Century of Earth's history, 1789-1914, French Revolution to WWI.) I still think that would be fun, taking a generic fantasy world - elves, dwarves, humans, wizards, etc - and fast-fowarding the time frame some 1,000 years.

Ancient cults would exist in the same world as socialist parties, thieves guilds along side anarchists, dwarven clans and banking syndicates, nationalism would be in competition with monarchism, the bourgeousie and the proletariate, the hero and the dragon, imperialism and colonies, world powers and backwards nations.

As far as I know, what isn't that far, I don't think there is anything quite like this on the forums: an industrial-punk fantasy with a heavy emphasis on social and technological change. If anything, the Lexicon project, which I loved, I felt, starting leaning towards this.

Would people be interested in seeing and developing a setting like this? As while I know we should do things because we like to do it and blah blah, we all know creating settings is a hell of a lot more fun when multiple people comment on a regular basis.

[Ghostman]

taking a generic fantasy world - elves, dwarves, humans, wizards, etc - and fast-fowarding the time frame some 1,000 years.

I think it'd be best to drop magic entirely but keep the other fantasy elements. The 'magic meets technology' trope has been done to death already IMO, from various angles. There should be plenty of fun in figuring out how things like dragons, floating castles, giants, mermaids, fountains of youth, etc. would interact with a modernizing world in the absense of industrial sorcery.

[O Senhor Leetz]

taking a generic fantasy world - elves, dwarves, humans, wizards, etc - and fast-fowarding the time frame some 1,000 years.

I think it'd be best to drop magic entirely but keep the other fantasy elements. The 'magic meets technology' trope has been done to death already IMO, from various angles. There should be plenty of fun in figuring out how things like dragons, floating castles, giants, mermaids, fountains of youth, etc. would interact with a modernizing world in the absense of industrial sorcery.

I agree that it has been killed, but I would still like to try it, although with the volume way turned down.


One of the main ideas behind this setting was me thinking, most likely in the shower, why most fantasy settings seemed to stagnate around the medieval period. Even though magic would make many things in life better, it could not, with the assumption that magic in said setting was rare enough to be called magic, make life better for the 90% of the population that didn't enjoy its benefits. I see no reason why farmers wouldn't develop better farming methods, figure out wind- and water-mills, or experiment with irrigation methods. The same goes with the steady march of industry: machines, assembly lines, unions, guilds, etc.

I can imagine a world where the lucky 10% dabble with magic in their literal and figurative ivory towers, while the remainding 90% of the world stumbles along the path of progess.

There doesn't, in my opinion, need to be an inherent conflict between devices that follow the laws of nature and those that work against them. Wizards could shoot guns and machines could be enchanted.

As for "magical creatures" I have this image of a dandy-fied museum with dragon and ogre exhibits, when most of them in the wild have since been killed off, but the rare specimine still hides in forgotten lands and backwards kingdoms.

[Kindling]

As for "magical creatures" I have this image of a dandy-fied museum with dragon and ogre exhibits, when most of them in the wild have since been killed off, but the rare specimine still hides in forgotten lands and backwards kingdoms.

Or they are treated by humans (and perhaps other civilised demihumans) in much the same way that white europeans treated the fauna and/or inhabitants of other continents about which they were only just beginning to learn - mixing superstition with "reasonable" attempts at classification.
This could be an interesting point, actually. I understand that Imperial British anthropologists often classified the peoples they encountered abroad in terms of what they thought they were good at or good for - for example they regarded the Sikhs as a "warrior race." While this seems primitive and offensively over-simplistic in a real-world context, with elves and dwarves and orcs and so on, these race theories might actually hold true. Who could argue, for example, that classic DnD-style hobgoblins are essentially and in almost every way a "warrior race?"
Placing certain demihuman and/or monstrous-humanoid-type races on far-flung continents that the human/elf/dwarf/whatever Europe-analogue is only just starting to deal with, colonise, or what-have-you relatively recently also alleviates some of the problems of vanilla fantasy settings in regard to questions like "how come if elf-land is so close to orc-land they're so different and know so little of each others' ways?" If you had to travel for a month using 19th-century naval technology to reach orc-land from elf-land this would seem a lot more believable.

[O Senhor Leetz]

I'm imagining, like you said, a psuedo-Europe that is inhabited primarily by the elf-human-dwarf axis. But I'm also thinking that the world has not been circumnavigated, as the deep seas are full of things like kraken or something along the lines of the sahaguin. To direct east of the Known World (my take on Old World that primarily focuses on the Euro-like mass) would be a vast boreal realm some what like Russia, backwards and vast.

Beyond that steppes inhabited by centaurs. And beyond that, the "Far East", which would be the realm of the strange orcs. Except I want the orcs to be more like Elder Scrolls orcs than Tolkien orcs, barbaric perhaps, but not stupid.

To the south, I'm not sure yet, but maybe a "Dark Continent".

But your points about race-views is correct, even humans within their own species see different peoples as nearly races as well.

[Superfluous Crow]

I'd normally be loath to use real-world parallels, but the orcs might work well as analogues to either mongols or native americans. Maybe humans have only just made contact with the orcs. Or elves. Some such. 
The monsters-turned-anthropological exhibits museum sounds amazing.

I don't think you should ditch magic, since it is part of your premise to advance the whole of fantasy society, but I can definitely see it be marginalized. Things like plagues, inquisitions and elitism could easily halt the advance of magical progress. Or maybe magic has limits technology has not.
I don't think this has to turn into a conflict at all! Magic could easily live side by side with industry, just as it (sort of) did in the real world through magic cults, mediums and fortune-tellers.

[Steerpike]

I love the Belle  Époque/Gilded Age itself very much.

With regard to races, if you're going to get into the fiddly territory of assigning fantasy races real-world cultural analogues, consider removing humans altogether, otherwise you get deeper into ethnically problematic/insensitive territory.

I kind of like the idea of WWI era German elves modeled after the Teutonic Alfar.

In fact that might be a good way to go - make each society peopled by its own mythical beings? Egypt is full of people with crocodile heads, Greece swarms with Minotaurs, Ireland is a Sidhe realm, etc.  Just throwing out ideas.

[O Senhor Leetz]

The monsters-turned-anthropological exhibits museum sounds amazing.

I don't think you should ditch magic, since it is part of your premise to advance the whole of fantasy society, but I can definitely see it be marginalized. Things like plagues, inquisitions and elitism could easily halt the advance of magical progress. Or maybe magic has limits technology has not.
I don't think this has to turn into a conflict at all! Magic could easily live side by side with industry, just as it (sort of) did in the real world through magic cults, mediums and fortune-tellers.

this is about what I'm going for.

At Steerpike: I agree, I do NOT want the elves to be equal to 19th century Germans or the dwarves to be like the Scottish. Its hard to get across the feel in a couple posts, but bear with me here, it will work out.

Also, what about splitting up dwarves and elves into many different cultures within themselves, like humans are, to avoid have monolithic races?
EDIT: this is not about making a fantasy version of Earth's own Belle Epoque as much as advancing a fantasy world to its own related age.

[Steerpike]

Ah, gotcha!  Cool that you're complicating stuff then!  I realized you weren't setting it on earth or anything.

[O Senhor Leetz]

In addition to world-building, I suppose this is a brain-game for sociologists, historians, and linguists.

[O Senhor Leetz]

Mankind: Power in numbers is the strength of mankind, also called the humans, from the old elven word hiumín, meaning "wild mortals." Through shrewd politics, vast numbers, the ability to quickly change and adapt, and their penchant and luck for adapting and developing the most efficient and effective technological advances, mankind is the undisputed ruler of the Known World. The only consistent defining feature of the humans is that there is no defining feature; physically, religiously, culturaly, linguistically, or mentally.

Elvenkind: An ancient, powerful race far into a slow decline, the elves, as the humans call them, from the old word eulph, meaning "tall-ones", or, as they call themselves, the álnäth, meaning the "blessed children", once controlled a vast empire composed of numerous city-states, princedoms, and nomad bands ruled by wandering witch-queens. Through many wars fought against the monsters of the old world, fledgling human and orc realms, and amongst themselves, the elves have been in decline for well over 1,500 years.

The mortal blow of the elves came in the year 3E1, where elven legions under the command of the warrior-poet Irnäs were defeated under an allied army of humans and dwarves at the Battle of Saint Telmo where the fine-wrought blades and arrows of the elves fell to the crude hand-cannons and bombards of the humans. After the battle, the remaining elves realms were either looted and left to rot or divided amonst the victors, where successive waves of human migrants quickly established realms of their own.

The elvenfolk that still remain in the Known World are loners and wanders, still often persecuted and maligned. Ironically, though, ancient elven culture, language, literature, and music are often greatly appreciated and immitated by the upper-classes and intelligencia amongst human lands.

Elves as a whole are intelligent and patient, but can be cold and even malicious. They are proud and haughty in the extreme. They can live well beyond 1,000, but mental illness often takes hold before then. As a people, they are broken and scattered, many have turned to anarchist or hedonistic societies or to the worship of old cults best left forgotten, if they have turned to anything at all. While many look back to the glory days of their race and still carry heirloom blades or bows older than the kingdoms and nations of mankind, they are not averse to the luxuries that modernity brings or the usefulness that a gun presents.

Dwarvenkind: Hidden and fortified deep within their mountain holds, dwarvenkind has stood steady and fast as a society and culture during the monumental change of the last 640 years since the Battle of Saint Telmo. The word dwarf originates from the old human word duerph, meaning "hunched one". They own name for themselves is Nûrazûm, the "stone-born."

The dwarves have rarely openly involved themselves in the affairs of the mhûrzoth, the "walkers under the sun." However, that does not mean that they have not had an influence. Within their deep holds, they have had access to three important things: gold, iron, and, later, coal. Early kingdoms of manking were inherently founded on borrowed dwarven gold and iron, and the techonological developments of the last six centuries have depended heavily upon dwarven-mined coal. While not as venerable as the elves, the dwarves are long-lived enough to be able to arrange loans of small payments over generations. Many human kingdoms, even today, are still paying off century old bills of iron which were used to forge the pikes and armor that would later found their lands.

As the world has marched forward, so have the dwarves, albeit at their own pace. They have since turned their old family clans into highly structured banking and industrial groups that have their thick, calloused fingers in nearly everything in the Known World.

Quiet, solemn, and slightly xenophobic, dwarven culture and politics are little understood and alien to the nations of mankind. While slightly greedy, they are honest to a fault, and both pay their own debts and expect others to pay theirs. Not a particullary martial race - as the last great batte they fought was 640 years ago at Saint Telmo - they are not above violence, but often take the route of the assassins bullet or the spies poisoned knife.