Gunslingin' fantasy kitchen sink brainstorm

[Wensleydale]

Since these brainstorms seem all the rage recently, I thought I'd make one instead of jumping straight into yet ANOTHER homebrew thread. So the basic themes of this setting:

Kitchen sink. Modified clichés - which players will feel comfortable in, but which are different enough to be interesting - will run rife. Everything that I can include will be included (including all those horrible 3.5 forms of magic, other than possibly Vancian if I can avoid it)

Fantasy? More like the WILD WILD WEST! I like guns, you like guns, why not include guns? :P I was thinking these could be developed by some technological race (possibly dwarves) and mass-produced by humans, or vice versa (how DO you spell that?), but this can be decided later.

Dying races. Only they're not going across the sea to the everlasting isles. They're actually dying. I'm not yet certain what the dominant race is going to be - probably humans, in which case in most places other races will be a rarity.

All-inclusive society. This place will have places that are all-inclusive - drow, elves, orcs, gnolls, and so on. But these will not be everywhere.

Lots o' magic. Not necessarily POWERFUL magic - in fact there will be very few great mages in this setting - but lots of different types.

Airships. Because everyone likes airships.

Adventurers. Stigmatised or worshipped, stereotyped or deified, hated or loved, 'adventurer' is everyone's favourite career choice here.

Gods. Gods are everywhere. There are hundreds of them, thousands possibly, and whilst an individual may not worship one god, he will probably recognise his or her existence. Every society has their own gods, but gods, like humans, have restrictions. They are omniscient and omnipotent only within consecrated areas, such as churches, and have limited power even within their areas of influence. Their only recourse is to work through their worshippers.

[Tillumni]

dying + all inclusive = a society of long lived race banding together in the face of collective adversity. drows, elves and what ever race have the same life span burying the hatchet...perhaps literally, this being the west afterall, and are now living together in a more or less uneasy peace. Some might genuingly want to share the time they have left with others that they can relate to, due to life span. Another group might try to use the combined knowledge of the varius race to prevent thier race dying out soon (soon being relative for a long lived race). and some might simple don't like the arrangement but tolerates it, some even trying to sabotage it. bonus point if it's ambigious which race belongs to which group.

[Wensleydale]

dying + all inclusive = a society of long lived race banding together in the face of collective adversity. drows, elves and what ever race have the same life span burying the hatchet...perhaps literally, this being the west afterall, and are now living together in a more or less uneasy peace. Some might genuingly want to share the time they have left with others that they can relate to, due to life span. Another group might try to use the combined knowledge of the varius race to prevent thier race dying out soon (soon being relative for a long lived race). and some might simple don't like the arrangement but tolerates it, some even trying to sabotage it. bonus point if it's ambigious which race belongs to which group.

That works, actually. Races banding together to stop themselves dying out. This would probably be a feature of areas in the human-dominant regions... hmm.

[Steerpike]

Orcs as a dying (perhaps from diseases given to them by humans?  Or, as a huge twist on the usual trope, they've been infected by ELVES?!), "savage" race with a rich, misunderstood culture, being inexorably forced out of their lands by human/elf colonists?

For more of the banding-together approach, it could be orcs and elves, and the other "inhuman" creatures, being forced out, if not outright eradicated, by the humans.  Or just have the typically "bad-guy" races (gnolls, goblins, etc) band together.

Personally I like the idea of snotty, haughty elves in spiffing colonial uniforms getting ambushed by hatchet-wielding orcs.

Maybe elves are human "bluebloods," or aristocrats (and thus very rare), half-elves are those with some "noble" blood, and humans are peasants/commoners.  Magic use might also be tied to nobility (not that only elves could use magic - just that a magical education, i.e. wizardry or whatever you choose to use, would be standard issue for an elf or half-elf, and difficult and expensive to obtain for a human).  They could collectively form the Old Empires that have come over to Lands Unknown to subjugate and conquer and/or war amongst themselves.

And to the south?  A steaming jungle inhabited by ingenious dwarven engineers!  Although they, too, are dying...

What about the haflings I hear you say?  Do you know how many halfling slaves you could cram into a slave ship?

Gnomes could be the potato-eating, marginalized guys who are native to the Old Empires but distrusted and downtrodden.  As compact as the halflings, they'd be shipped over to Lands Unknown on coffin ships, lots of them dying from disease etc on the way.

EDIT: Oh, and this time I'll just name the obvious allegorical equivalent I'm refering to.  If elves are French and British aristocrats, drow could be Spanish.