Altering common tropes to make them more interesting

[Ghostman]

As a world builder I tend to look at real mythologies, culture and history for inspiration and ideas. But in drawing influences from these sources, I fear that I'm going to end up repeating tired old tropes and cliches. There's a conflict between my desire to make use of ideas and forms that I like on the one hand, and my desire to present something more original on the other. That's why I like to change, twist and mix the common elements I make use of, transforming them into something new. This is not easy, since taking it too far will severe their connection to their roots, at which point they become nothing more than old labels slapped on something entirely different. But I also think that for best results the changes should be more than just cosmetic ones.

In this thread I hope we could share ideas and discuss ways of altering various tropes in our settings. Pointing out examples of successful modification of common themes and elements in literature, games, etc could also be insightful.

I am myself having trouble with one particular theme at the moment. For quite some time now I've known that I want to include a people of Viking-like pirates and raiders in my Savage Age. Now, Vikings certainly are a well-known and fairly often used theme, to the point that they may be considered a cliche. I definitely want to add some twists to these people so that they will defy the expectations - but I also want to preserve much of that norse flavour and the concept of warlike longship-sailing raiders, traders and explorers. It's proven quite a dilemma, as I can't seem to come up with any good ideas.

One thing I've decided is that a group of these northmen has conquered and colonized a southern land with a mix of Hispanic and North-African feel to it. They've cross-bred with the natives of the area and produced a new mixed generation. While I consider this to be fairly interesting, it only affects that one group and doesn't do anything to the rest of the raider people. I could use some suggestions here.

[Biohazard]

Execution is probably the most important element to using any trope, regardless of how cliche - if it's cool, fun, and/or interesting, then the amount of uniqueness takes a back seat. Even the smallest changes can be enough.

Regarding your vikings, how advanced are they? How advanced are the people of the southern land? They might have subtle changes following the interaction with said region. They could suddenly be having widespread use of the arch in architecture, advanced agricultural techniques, a wider range of weaponry, different battle tactics, a degree of scientific knowledge or slightly more modern (or in the other direction, more barbaric) social structures.

If the Hispanic area has a sort of early Islam equivalent, said vikings who could be pagans might adopt the religion or merge the two into a new form.

[beejazz]

Give the vikings zeppelins.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Urbis is full of twisted tropes - in many places, I even acknowledge this in the Designer's Notes. Take this example - here we have the formerly stereotypical "Elven Island Paradise" which has gone through a rude awakening recently. Or this group, which represents my commentary that there must be a "balance" between Good and Evil in some settings.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

I empathize with that exact problem, drawing so much from myth and history myself.

There are, of course, underutilized areas of myth and history to draw from.

Actually, when you said viking pirates I imagined something rather original, but perhaps you weren't speaking of merging the popular pirate image with the viking image.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

I love a well-done trope-twist.  To me the best part of doing this is to point out either how the original trope has become laughable or how the world being different from what we think it should be still turns out logical.

My advice would be to make a list of the elements that make you think "vikings" and then think about how each one could be changed.  And don't be afraid to try changes that might seem to drastic so long as you keep other elements the same.

[Ghostman]

Biohazard: The northmen are similar to historical vikings/norse by technology and social organization. The southlanders (yet to be named) aren't more or less advanced, just different. Enough time has now passed since the initial conquest that the two groups have begun to merge. Most of the invaders and later colonists were male, and they took local women as wives (often by first disposing of their previous husbands) so that the present generation of the ruling class is mostly made up of half-breeds. There's probably a fusion of religions happening also. These new southern kingdoms have lost some of their ties to the orginal homelands and are seen as suspicious mongrels by the "proper" northmen.

Jürgen Hubert: Your take on the Elven Islands in Urbis is interesting. It seems similar to the modernization of Japan. Was that perhaps a source of inspiration for you? EDIT: oh, there it says it, on the bottom of the page. D'oh!

Actually, when you said viking pirates I imagined something rather original, but perhaps you weren't speaking of merging the popular pirate image with the viking image.

Oh, definitely not. While there are lots of pirates of varying kinds scourging the seas of the Savage Age world, none of them really resemble the popular image.

[Lmns Crn]

I am myself having trouble with one particular theme at the moment. For quite some time now I've known that I want to include a people of Viking-like pirates and raiders in my Savage Age. Now, Vikings certainly are a well-known and fairly often used theme, to the point that they may be considered a cliche. I definitely want to add some twists to these people so that they will defy the expectations - but I also want to preserve much of that norse flavour and the concept of warlike longship-sailing raiders, traders and explorers. It's proven quite a dilemma, as I can't seem to come up with any good ideas.

I'd start by resolving to never every use the word "viking" in your setting, no matter what.

I'd continue by worrying less about what you can add to this theme, and more about what you can eliminate from it. Maybe you lose the horned helmets, or you drop the rowed ships in favor of boats with more modern sails. Maybe these guys aren't from the frozen northern climes, or maybe they don't pillage and burn villages quite so much. However much you keep and however much you trash, you're still keeping the essential core of the idea, which is often enough to get your point across in a subtle way. If a player turns to you one day and says, "hey, you know, these guys sort of remind me of vikings a little," you'll know your job is done well. And you can smile a knowing little smile and reply: "hmm, I never really thought of that before," if you want to.

[Ishmayl-Retired]

Maybe we can have LC explain to us his creation process with the elves in Jade Stage.  He takes a certain popular fey mythology trope and puts an interesting spin on it.

[Lmns Crn]

That definitely seems to be most people's favorite Jade Stage topic, but I'm not sure it's going to be any help to Ghostman and his not-quite-vikings dilemma, so I am not really keen on hijacking his thread with that story.

[LordVreeg]

I twisted the humanoid-thing around.  They are still tribal and all, but I did 2 things.

1)  Orcash and Gartier ond Ograks are becoming acculturated, and while they face racism, etc, from thousands of years of acrimony with the various governments of Celtricia, many of the people 'ogrillite' races have began the long, slow integration process.

2)  More fun, the Gartier (bugbears) peoples were created to be the leaders of the ogrillites,  SO it totally bends the mind of most conventional gamers when they deal with a bugbear that is actually smarter on average than humans, and given to tremendous sarcasm...The gartier people are so far the most succesful ogrillite transplant into the acculturated world of Celtricia.

[Ghostman]

It's not really hijacking if it's about fresh takes on old ideas. This thread isn't only for my setting, everyone is welcome to discuss the topic and their own works :)

Regarding my "Vikings", I never intended to call them by that name IC, I'm just using it here to point out where I'm drawing influences from. Not using horned helmets wouldn't be any help since real Vikings didn't use them either :-p And I like the rowed longships too much to scrap them (actually these kinds of ships are the norm in the area, used by many other people than just the northmen - but theirs tend to be larger and of superior quality), but I think I'll at least swap the dragon-figureheads for something else. Eagle-heads perhaps? They could treat eagles as sacred animals central to their religion and use the eagle-motif heavily in their art. While their homelands will be northern, they won't have any fjords to speak of.

[Lmns Crn]

Regarding my "Vikings", I never intended to call them by that name IC,

at all.[/i] At no point in your setting writing, anywhere, should you draw a direct viking comparison of any sort, unless you want people to think of these guys as a viking knockoff.

Of course, a viking knockoff is going to be pretty much exactly what you're making (not that this is bad!), but you're not going to want people to think of them in those terms. You're going to want people to think of them as "that totally unique and original creation of Ghostman's, which, upon reflection, might have a few intriguing similarities with vikings, now that I think about it." You have to let your readers be the first ones to bring up vikings. You have to let them think they were the first ones to come up with that idea. They'll think you're cleverer for it.

This is called headology. I think.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

On the other hand, you may want to be creating clear historical allusions. In which case, it's a different mammal entirely. An armadillo, maybe.

For example, if anyone reading in depth on my setting can't guess that Anannites are more-or-less Celts, I haven't painted them clearly enough.

[Kaptn'Lath]

maybe you could change their motivation for "sailing forth"..

instead of pillaging and pirating, maybe a magic curse has stopped females from being born in the homeland so they have to leave to take a wife and have a child. Or maybe make them Odin-esq Crusading Zealots putting the new cultists of the X religion to the sword, defending tradition. or maybe they are the last remains of an old northern civilization that has been pushed back as the southerners migrated north. And now they are pushing back as they can go no farther north.... i dunno just some random ideas...