Alacaron Campaign Setting

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

I have to say that the Zone idea sounds very useful.  You've set yourself up to be a resource for easy mix-and-match, which is something I wish there was more of in published settings.

But I'm going to have to ask this: Why are your dark elves bog-standard evil?  (At least what it seems like so far.)  This isn't necessarily all about the repeating of a trope: I like your fairly standard vikings, you've so far managed to capture what's fun about them being standard.  But I'm curious as to what you intend yourself and others to get out of yet another kind of evil dark elf.

[Ariel Hapzid]

hmmm... not sure about the dark elves. My hope had been to have a nice area for an Evil Campaign. Because lets face it, Good is dumb. :D I will have to think a little more about it, right now all I know is that there is an evil Pantheon.

[Ariel Hapzid]

oh and thank you for the comment about the zones. I know its hard to get the full idea of the campaign with only the few scraps of placeholders i have written. I really like the Zone idea and think its what is going to make my setting unique.

[Ghostman]

I love the Zone idea. I might have to steal it :D

The interesting thing about the Nords is their magical shaping of ice. Could they do something cool with icebergs with that kind of magic? As a fan of Clark Ashton Smith, that was the first thing that sprung to my mind.

[Ariel Hapzid]

I WANT you to steal the zone idea.

I'm glad you like the Nords, so do I. The idea was that they could keep the city from melting into the ocean. So I really like the idea of them carving a glacier into the two mile across image of Yord.

[Ghostman]

While your elves seem rather traditional, the Hawaiian-themed wild elves are a nice, fresh idea. Never seen that kind of take on the race before. The steampunk-dwarves are also fairly interesting.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Okay, your dark elves as super-haughty rather than evil is definitely better than the impression that I had before and definitely a much more interesting quality of what you can do with them.

Again with the steampunk shield dwarves you seem to do something with an idea that's been seen before and still make it sound interesting.

[Ariel Hapzid]

Thank you guys. Thats always the idea, I love to take normal Fantasy tropes and either take them to the extreme or do away with them and do something that hasn't been done before. I had originally envisioned the Gold Dwarves to be evil. But instead of just a plain evil, I went for something that was a little different. They are very similar to the economic woes we are having today. the wanton greed that we see on Wallstreet is just like the Gold Dwarves. They believe in making money, no matter what the cost to others. So in the long run, most people dislike them and dislike dealing with them. When you deal with a gold dwarf you always lose. However, sometimes they just have something you need, which is the only reason they succeed as an economic force.

[Ariel Hapzid]

There are several other subraces that you are going to see that are going to be similar but different. For example:

Halflings: I really like the idea of putting some in the Emerald Islands and having them live in the side of a cliff like the anasazi. How do they get up there? two words: Dire Seagull.

Gnomes: I really like the idea of a race of thieves/pirates. And with the dwarves producing guns and cannons, I can see the gnomes as being able to take that roll and run with it.

Vampirates: Not really my idea, I got it from a book at Barnes and Noble, but they are Vampires and they are Pirates. Probably won't use that word though.

[Ghostman]

I take it that these vampires are also not afraid of water and sunlight, if they're going to be sailing the seas. And I guess that when they board a ship they'll be more interested in the crew than the cargo :yumm:

[Seraph]

I take it that these vampires are also not afraid of water and sunlight, if they're going to be sailing the seas. And I guess that when they board a ship they'll be more interested in the crew than the cargo :yumm:

Well, Vampires have always been able to cross bodies of water on a ship, it's just been falling overboard that's a problem.  Also, presuming night vision the vampirates could very easily stay below deck in the day time, and hunt unsuspecting ships at night.  Since they would not need to have lanterns for the crew to see, they could be effectively invisible until it was too late . . .

There's actually a lot you can do with this idea.  Thinking of the idea of the classical aristocratic vampire (ala Count Dracula) it's an interesting idea to think of Vamps as pirates.  How might they have gotten to this point?  Why did they take up piracy?  I like the idea of a displaced vampire aristocracy that has since taken to preying on the crews of enemy ships.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Another thing to consider is that maybe the vampires don't have a problem getting wet.  I've seen programs and wikipedia articles that say that the original folkloric vampires weren't destroyed by sunlight (and some other "vampires" in other parts of the world don't have a problem with it), so you could suppose that the "water kills it" angle might be the same way ("can't cross running water" was in the article I read, but that doesn't say anything about what happens when the vampire falls in).

[Ariel Hapzid]

I did a little work on the island of Polygos, which is where Thaddeus the Vampirate is from. To explain away his ability to be a pirate. He was cursed by his witch-girlfriend whom he feasted upon. Oops. Now he's stuck being immortal, which you may think sounds fun, but in my Education class I heard about a type of Intellectual and Developmental Delay where you are constantly hungry. Imagine, no matter how much you eat you are always hungry. That's what Thaddeus must deal with.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

The Irene Sterling is named for Thaddeus' lost love, the last woman in his village he killed and the woman who cursed him for all eternity. According to sources, the curse was to ensure that Thaddeus would never rest and would never be able to escape his unlife of damnation, she stripped him of all the frailties of Vampirism. Thaddeus' flesh does not burn by the sun, he does not fear the water, he never sleeps, and he cannot die. To some, this would be a blessing, however he will live with his constant hunger for all eternity, a hunger that will never fade no matter how much blood he drinks, and when the world ends his soul will continue on in a horrible state of suffering.

Isn't that just like revenge curses? :-/ That's right, make them harder to kill so that the only thing the rest of us can do is possibly make them feel guilty killing poor little defenseless us. :hammer:

Wow, not only is Albion racist but it's slavery racist.  I like it because it could have been the standard "let's kill everyone else in a fanatical frenzy" racist but isn't.  Are you going to put any prominent anti-racist movements in there?

[Ariel Hapzid]

Anti-Rascism? you mean heretics?