Setting - Brane

[Yodra]

I've been working on a world setting for a campaign for a little while now, and I'd really love to see what people think of it. The essential premise is the the world follows the laws of physics, but magic is a natural force that responds to complex cognition. I have a fairly complex system for determining how Magic works and what people can do with it, but I won't bore you with that ;P
Also there are five sentient races: two species of birds, elephants, and dolphins. In the modern era, which is analogous to our current day, they live pretty evenly mixed in with each other, except for dolphins.
The starter campaign I'm imagining is a kind of small-town adventure, mostly free-form, with a slice-of-life sort of feeling, but I can imagine a lot of potential for different kinds of plots.

Anyway I basically don't know what I'm doing and would love to receive any kind of input.

[Weave]

Sounds interesting, but you haven't given us much to chew on. I haven't heard of many settings that try and tackle current day 2015 fiction, let alone with such a colorful cast of races (why birds, elephants, and dolphins?). I have a bunch of questions, but I think rather than barraging you with them it might be wise to first get a little more info from you. If I were a player in the campaign, what would I need to know?

I'm looking forward to hearing more of this - it sounds very unique (and I say that as a good thing).

[LD]

The premise sounds interesting.

Since you mention this is a campaign world- have you considered how PC dolphins could exist outside of water (technology or magic?), and how communication would work, or why the animals attained sentience.

I suppose one next step is essentially to answer weave's questions- why those races, why no humans, how did they attain sentience and how does playing as one differ from another? e.g. do they have different cultures, etc. E.g. Why would a Player choose one race over another.

You could approach the world from a player's point of view. Ask yourself: Why would I choose X, What might I want to do as Y, and then design to fill out those elements.

[Yodra]

First, to clarify about the player races: I should have said I meant those races in addition to humans. Dolphins would be limited as a PC race, basically only allowed with GM permission and a good background as to why they'd want to undergo the fairly complex and long magical processes to be able to survive on land. I chose the species I did because in real life they are the species closest to human-like intelligence, as determined by scientific study.

I would describe the races as follows:

• Dolphins - seen as enigmatic, almost alien, because of their usual habitat which necessitates isolation, and because they still live mostly in loose hunter societies. However they are really a very social and playful species, with a penchant towards what humans would consider hedonism.
• Elephants - they have a reputation for sexism that may or may not be deserved, and a tendency towards strict traditional social structures. Most elephant cultures also put great emphasis on fashion and display, partially because of human customs encountered early in their cultural development. Elephants are the species that have been living with humans the longest.
• Magpies - magpies are the only carrion-eaters of the intelligent species, and also the shortest-lived. As a species they are generally considered inquisitive and dramatic. Their cultural history of hunting has brought about controversy.
• Parrots - they're known to be anxious and prone to neuroticism, but are also very social and deeply loyal. Can be clannish, and are more prone to phobias.
  
• Humans - the last species to discover magic, thanks to our eminently useful opposable thumbs. Humans had a strong influence on the development of integrated society because of our propensity for technology and tendency to spread out.

Thanks to the joys of Magic and medical science, as well as natural talent in the cases of parrots and magpies, modification to allow physically easy speech in any species's languages is a common and minor procedure, and one that most modern-day citizens have as young children. Most people in the modern world speak Teltok, a kind of pidgin of many kinds of speech that has become a language in its own right (analogous to the origin of English).

These races achieved sentience because the existence of magic provided a greater selection pressure for intelligence, evolutionarily speaking. For one thing, minds that are capable of storing magical energy - that is to say, minds capable of somewhat complex cognition, even if they are not sentient - will release that energy in a kind of explosion upon a violent death. This provides a natural defense to animals above a certain level of intelligence. Secondly, the existence of magic negates the strict need for opposable digits to develop technological culture, since one can move and manipulate objects with magic.

Also, there is a kind of constant mild telepathic field due to the effect a mind has on the magical field. It's usually very fuzzy and not really useful for complex communication. This is most notable in the ways that it affects interpersonal and person-to-pet relationships, because the closer your bond with a person or animal, the better you can understand the telepathic signals they give off. Furthermore, one can immediately feel the difference between a smart-but-not-sentient animal and a sentient individual, which helped greatly with first contacts between the species.

As far as differences in play style, elephants are strong, humans are dexterous, both bird species can fly, and dolphins are aquatic. Also elephants and dolphins both have natural long-range communication, and both bird species have mimicry abilities.

[LD]

Thank you for the explanation!
-
A technical issue: do elephants have a shrinking spell? (Or are all elephants dwarf elephants?) How would a PC elephant not be separated from the party when they enter into a house? Will this be a gameplay problem?

Also, health... is it significantly different between races. E.g. Parrots v. Elephants. If not and your players are okay with it that is fine- otherwise, you may have situations where the parrots will be dying with a gunshot and elephants are absorbing extreme amounts of damage... it may depend on your players whether this is a problem or not.

[Yodra]

Public spaces are built to accommodate elephants, since they make up a significant portion of the population, but they can't enter most human houses, and humans and dolphins can't enter bird houses. This generally isn't a big issue in-universe.

Health is indeed different between species. For now it's not much of an issue, since this campaign is focused mainly on roleplaying and not combat, but in the future I intend to have the bonuses of flight and agility balance out the strength and durability of elephants. :)

[Weave]

Could you give an example of what kind of adventures you see people playing in this setting?

Also, are there any other species that became sentient besides the two species of birds, elephants, and dolphins? Octopuses? Tigers? Chameleons? I know you mentioned you chose the ones you did because of the study, but I wondered if anything else was affected by it. Did the pressures for natural selection (as you mentioned) weed out any other species, intellectually speaking? On that basis, have any species been driven to extinction due to this magical involvement?

Is there a general history of the world you have? Is this just an alternate reality of our earth, or a completely different world that happens to involve humans? Why the name "Brane"?

Also, what sort of inspirations have you drawn from? Sometimes, a lot can be told from a setting based on the inspiration alone. Are you picturing something light-hearted and fun, like Zootopia but with humans? Or something else entirely? I'm still a little in the dark about the whole setting, to be honest.

[LoA]

Could you give an example of what kind of adventures you see people playing in this setting?

Also, are there any other species that became sentient besides the two species of birds, elephants, and dolphins? Octopuses? Tigers? Chameleons? I know you mentioned you chose the ones you did because of the study, but I wondered if anything else was affected by it. Did the pressures for natural selection (as you mentioned) weed out any other species, intellectually speaking? On that basis, have any species been driven to extinction due to this magical involvement?

Is there a general history of the world you have? Is this just an alternate reality of our earth, or a completely different world that happens to involve humans? Why the name "Brane"?

Also, what sort of inspirations have you drawn from? Sometimes, a lot can be told from a setting based on the inspiration alone. Are you picturing something light-hearted and fun, like Zootopia but with humans? Or something else entirely? I'm still a little in the dark about the whole setting, to be honest.

Yeah is this supposed to be an Urban setting.... I know this is lame but every time I read this thing, the Bojack Horseman theme song plays in my head. Is that where you got the idea for this?

[Yodra]

All good questions ^_^ Sorry if I'm being obtuse, I've never really talked about my worlds with other people before, I kinda don't know what to include...

Anyway: Only those five species are sentient. Most species closely related to those that are sentient have been out competed, just as most early hominids were. Most animals are more intelligent than they are in real life, which leads to a mechanic of animal companions that I have yet to really flesh out...

This is indeed an alternate history of earth, although of course events after the evolution of sentience are quite different indeed! I'm still working on the background history, but in many ways it's roughly analogous to our own. Brane because in one variant of the many-worlds theory of physics, all worlds are membranes - branes for short - next to each other like slices in a loafers of bread.

Tone... I guess realistic? I want to make the setting seem flexible, sometimes awful, and sometimes ridiculously amazing, like life. Different places, eras, and stories would have flavors of their own.

The current day is indeed urban, but I have no idea what Bojack Horseman is. Edit: upon looking it up: not inspired by that, but it sounds brilliant.

[LoA]

All good questions ^_^ Sorry if I'm being obtuse, I've never really talked about my worlds with other people before, I kinda don't know what to include...

Anyway: Only those five species are sentient. Most species closely related to those that are sentient have been out competed, just as most early hominids were. Most animals are more intelligent than they are in real life, which leads to a mechanic of animal companions that I have yet to really flesh out...

This is indeed an alternate history of earth, although of course events after the evolution of sentience are quite different indeed! I'm still working on the background history, but in many ways it's roughly analogous to our own. Brane because in one variant of the many-worlds theory of physics, all worlds are membranes - branes for short - next to each other like slices in a loafers of bread.

Tone... I guess realistic? I want to make the setting seem flexible, sometimes awful, and sometimes ridiculously amazing, like life. Different places, eras, and stories would have flavors of their own.

The current day is indeed urban, but I have no idea what Bojack Horseman is. Edit: upon looking it up: not inspired by that, but it sounds brilliant.

Cool! Always down for alternate history. Just how far does history diverge in this timeline? Having elephants on a battleground, dolphins in the ocean during war, and bird spies would probably drastically change the course of history. Also how did these races manage to come into being without developing genocidal attitudes and competition?

Also if you have Netflix, WATCH BOJACk!! Cannot recommend highly enough.

[LD]

Re: Certain events being different- -- were the animals predominantly on one side during certain wars? Or were they evenly distributed between sides? If they were on different sides, are there cultural differences between say, Eastern European Elephants and Western? Is there a Communism/Capitalism dispute or other ideological disputes and if so, are the animals evenly distributed between parties?

[Yodra]

The non-human species spread early in pre-history, so they're pretty evenly distributed. There are plenty of cultural differences between different regions, species really doesn't play all that big of a role - of course, the very existence of multiple intelligent species affected how culture developed, but it's not like all the members of one species shunned all the members of another. I'm still working out some of the history, not quite up to the communism/capitalism debate yet, but I do plan to draw lots and lots of inspiration from real life history and culture.

[LoA]

The non-human species spread early in pre-history, so they're pretty evenly distributed. There are plenty of cultural differences between different regions, species really doesn't play all that big of a role - of course, the very existence of multiple intelligent species affected how culture developed, but it's not like all the members of one species shunned all the members of another. I'm still working out some of the history, not quite up to the communism/capitalism debate yet, but I do plan to draw lots and lots of inspiration from real life history and culture.

Okay, so how much does this effect the history in terms of our time line? Does Hannibal manage to win the war against Rome because of his amazing badass elephant brigade? Does this change Hitlers hierarchy of racial supremacy to include the "Honarary Aryan Animals", or are non-humans on the same level as Jews and Gypsies? Does the Union Army lose the war against the confederacy because of grayback dolphins?

Or is history completely different? Which makes more sense honestly.