If only...

[Wensleydale]

This Age

This is the time when empires have fallen. This is the time when whole kingdoms have been forced out of their homes. This is the time when kingdoms are forged. This is the time when heroes are needed to lead the hordes to battle and to forge out a kingdom in a brightening world...

This is a combination between RPG and, somewhat, strategy. There is no evil - it is merely a struggle for survival. There is plenty of land for the taking - but can you?

One half would be similar to 'the World at Dawn' in setup, allowing you to rule your kingdom with intelligence, strength, and a DM-guided plotline to assist you. However, when required or desired, you may step into the world as a hero - a human of unbreakable courage and undefeatable strength, an avatar of the gods, a canny sorcerer - and attempt to change things to work your way.

Magic would be very ritualistic. The Summoner may be able to call fire out of the air, but he has paid a price for this - the blood of an innocent, a hundred hairs off a murderer's head - bizarre components offered to the gods and demons in exchange for a few moments of their power. More frequently, rituals are performed to ask some great favour in exchange for a price - and such are sometimes granted. One who performs no rituals is one to be avoided, for he has probably bound some kind of spirit into his body - and such creatures are not to be trifled with.

The player would begin with several hundred thousand people, a nation on the move, seeking lands in which to settle. There might be already settled peoples and other hordes wandering the map, and these would be controlled by the GM. There would of course be stats and other factors - Piety, Militarism, Agriculture and so on - but these would only aid the GM in his decision making. There would be little dice-rolling involved, unless the GM wished it so.

In-player, I would envision a classless system, or one that included three 'archetypes' (the Summoner, the Warrior, the Assassin?). Depending on the piety of the nation, it is possible that the player would also occasionally be able to take control of godly incarnations, angels etc - terrible creatures with awesome power. Stealth, Combat, and Magic would each play a part, and your hero would probably increase his Stats of each kind to increase his level in each (classless, think Oblivion) or have certain stats he had access to to increase. Various levels of ability in each stat (Summoning, Swordplay, Resistance etc) would grant you access to further talent trees, as well as those you either chose initially (classless) or were granted to you by your archetype.

... wow, I should make this actually.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

LARPG World
A world designed to serve as a place for incredibly powerful beings to play LARPGs in.  But this isn't one of those worlds that acknowledges its RPGness and allows you to make metagame humor.  Instead you are essentially omnipotent beings who have collectively created a place which you can go down into and LARP.

Other possible titles:
LARP of the Gods
Ultimate LARP

[limetom]

NOS DESERVIT
God has forsaken us, the Tribe of Judas.  To most, it doesn't even matter: Our will be done in Heaven as it is on Earth.  However, things start to happen that none of us could have ever foreseen.  Some fall to evil.  Some descend into nihilism.  Some realize their folly.  Some try to correct it.  A campaign in this setting could take place in two distinct areas: Annihilation and Apocalypse.

An important note is that this setting implies a specific conception of the divine, mainly that God is Good and in some way necessary to the Universe.  Otherwise, there is a lot of wiggle room in the specifics here.

Annihilation would occur just as God is leaving, when all of the initial "weird" things occur.  Possible ideas here could be the cessation of death (bodies would just fall apart or become undead; additionally the dead would rise as undead), the angels slowly fade away, cursing humanity for their folly, along with many other possibilities.  Of course people would fight amongst themselves: some because they blame each other, others simply taking advantage of the situation like looters in a riot.

Annihilation leaves many different ways to play open: perhaps as a choir of angels, or perhaps as an evil group, trying to take over amongst the chaos, or perhaps as a pious group dedicated on getting rid of the non-believers whose fault this was, or even a group trying to bring God back.

Apocalypse would occur long after God has left.  By this point God is a long lost memory, and the world is an entirely different place.  Only a few people are actually left, those who fell to evil destroyed each other long ago.  The planet is a wasteland, ruined for those who are left.  Luckily, most of those who are left are intent on either only survival or trying to bring God back.

Fewer play options are left in Apocalypse: perhaps the last of the angels, or the last of the believers trying to bring God back, or a hardy group of survivors.  Or Mad Max.

(The Latin means "He Has Forsaken Us.")

[limetom]

Oh hai.  I've been looking for this.  Have a bump.

[Steerpike]

George R.R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle's

[/b]

W I N D H A V E N

[/b]

You play as flyers, the gliding, errant messengers of a storm-wracked world of rocky islands, where the seas are haunted by scylla and the skies teem with the silver-winged nobility.  You might be flyer-born, inheriting your wings, flexible wind-sails fashioned in the distant past from the skin of a huge spaceship.  Or perhaps you are a one-wing trained at Woodwings Academy, one of the common folk who earned their right to wear wings in an aerial tourney.

Since the world lacks written script flyers possess imacculate memories; and though altering a message (or bearing arms through the skies) bears a penalty of death, some passionate one-wings have been known to trespass on these centuries-old taboos.  Play would involve little if any combat, rather revolving around political intrigue between the islands and the elaborate, ornately ceremonial flyer-tournaments, competitions to deem who is worthy of the wings.

Many adventures would be simple message deliveries complicated by storms, rivals, political turmoil and upheaval, and hazards of the air (pockets of still air, etc).  Stylized air-born duels somewhere between races and ballet would be commonplace.  Themes would include crises of degree, tradition versus change, class struggle, and humanity versus a very inhospitable nature.

I actually once started writing a d20 version of this setting but abandoned it - I'm not sure d20 is the best system for it anyway.  The flight rules could either be very detailed or very stylized depending on what sort of campaign you wanted to play.

[limetom]

Posthuman Space Pirates/Gypsies.

For reals.

[limetom]

You walk into the great hall, burning your way through the cobwebs that stretch from floor to ceiling with your torch, when suddenly: Mormons! Thousands of them!

I am not exactly sure why, but this sounds awesome.

[Nomadic]

You walk into the great hall, burning your way through the cobwebs that stretch from floor to ceiling with your torch, when suddenly: Mormons! Thousands of them!

When I read that I just about squirted my drink out my nose.