Define your must haves

Some of you might notice this post comes right after the first one. Screw you. Yes I had already started doing some work. Also, when I share this with others, I want them to see more than one post, so it looks like something that's already established. Also, by explaining all of that, this effect will be lost. Damn.

Alright, so step 2! Step 2 is where you define your must haves. How is that different from the defining aspect from last post? Well, your must haves won't be what define your setting. If you've played Dragon Age Origins (I've just started it two days ago, so I might be wrong [not to self: you could stop using examples from stuff you don't know about]), the defining aspect is that whole Blight thing: the Darkspawn attack the world, and corrupt a God into becoming an Archdemon that tries to destroy everything. It's what makes the world what it is. The Elves being slaves, and the whole Dwarven culture, that's one of the must haves. It's a piece of the puzzle, not the whole thing. If you go to Orzamar, the Dwarven capital, you will feel the Dwarven culture, but not as much in the outside world. However, wherever you go, there's this damn Blight going on, affecting everything. For those of you who know Asterix, when you think of it, you think of that potion, and the fights with the Romans. The pirates are not always there, but they're still a part of the setting. Same for the fight between the blacksmith and the fisherman (IIRC).

For this step, what I do is a brainstorm of what I want to put in there. Brainstorm, as in don't think about it. Here you go:

• Pirates
• A religious assassins’ guild like the Dark Brotherhood
  
• A racial supremacist group (NAZIS!)
  
• A group that hunts others for pleasure
• A Colosseum/Arena/Labyrinth of Terror culture, for whom entertainment is watching people killing each other
• Spell Tattoos, and tattoos in general
• Dragons as what they really are, godlike creatures.
• Dragons also have sex with anything, so a SHITLOAD of half dragons
• Draconians like in Dragonlance
• Exploring a new continent
  
• A region led by Families/Houses, where every major group is led by members of a given Family/House, and where assassinations are so common they’re mundane.
• Low level magic is common
• Sects started left and right
• Ninjas
• Samurai
  
• A civil war somewhere
• Vikings
• Undiscovered parts of the world
  
• Lycanthropes
• Vampires
• NO POLYMORPH SPELL
• to complete my last point, NO DRUID
  
• An evil sorcerer (lich?) as the most powerful being on earth (Evil Elminster)
  
• An island where criminals can live
• Dinosaurs!
• POKEMON!
  
• At least one “civilized” nation led by a member of a “barbarian” race

There you go. Easy enough, wasn't it? Now, we'll go through them, look at what we think is so awesome about them, and try to see how we'll work it in.

Pirates: Why are pirates awesome? Seriously? The clothes, especially the hats, are what make pirates awesome. This is why you break down the REASONS why they're awesome, and work these awesome parts in your setting, not necessarily the ideas you had themselves: Do I really need them to be naval thieves to have what I like about pirates? Nope. It could be a culture that would wear pirate clothes, with large hats and bandanas. There you go, I need a pirate-clothed culture.

    Doing it like that is also useful because it simplifies deconstructions. If you want, you can just play with stereotypes, but to make a setting live on its own, you need twists. My pirate-clothed people will not speak in Arrrs. They probably won't be naval thieves. When I'll describe them, I won't say "you see two guys dressed as pirates", but "you see two guys with large hats and long trenchcoats. One of them has a red bandana under his hat, and the other has gold teeth and a hook for a hand". They're not pirates anymore, but I did add some essence of awesomeness.

    Regarding the hook for a hand thing, and the wooden leg, and the eyepatch, there needs to be a reason for this people to lose body parts so often. I'll look into that later.

Religious assassin's guild: Clear copy of the Dark Brotherhood from The Elder Scrolls series. If you don't know it, the Dark Brotherhood is an assassin's guild that serve a "god" (complicated TES mythology). To ask for a job, you have to make a prayer to the Night Mother, which then sends the message to the chapter's head. They send someone to the client, and send an assassin to do the work.

    I like this idea because of how counterintuitive it is: assassins are usually pictured as godless and amoral, but not in here. It also fits perfectly with my many religion thing. However, I need it to be different from the Dark Brotherhood, because, well, all my players will know it, and I want to bring a sense of mystery around it. For one thing, the religion should not be presented as an assassin's guild. Not even as a god of death.

    Got it. The religion will answer to the God of Ambition. And if someone drops off a donation and wishes to be promoted, or to be the heir to the throne, then all of a sudden whoever was in their way surprisingly disappears. Maybe even the donators did not know that would happen, and they maybe wouldn't even make the connection. Or even worse: you pray for your inheritence to come soon: the next day, you learn of your father's death, and that night, somebody comes, their knife still bloody, asking for their payment. Ain't it AWESOME?

Nazis: Well, not that I particularly like Nazis or think they're cool, but I think that in a world where race is not seen as defining as much as faction, there must be at least a small group that believes it is superior to other races. I’m tired of those nice hippy elves, but if they get that assignment, it’s to play right into the second most common elf tropes, the elitist elven race (Dragonlance did it, LotR did it, Skyrim did it to the Talmor, among others). Dwarves don’t feel right either. Halflings? Would be interesting, but what could they claim to be superior about? Gnomes? "Oh, you guys suck, you don't even invent machines that explode in your own face!" Halflings or gnomes would be original, but I don't think they're intimidating enough (at all) to cause the kind of trouble you think of when you think of Racial Supremacists.

    Actually, why not dwarves? Dwarves would be great! Dwarven myths claim that they are created from the planet itself. Some therefore believe that the entirety of the land belongs to Dwarves, that no other race should step on it. Not all dwarves are racists, but there is a quite large kingdom filled with nazi dwarves who would like to see members of the other races burn. Plus, it kind of fits the whole underground thing, since they don't want to join the infected surface world, with maybe tunnels being dug under other cities when they want to attack it.

     And also, with their fetish for beards, I won't be tempted to go for the Charlie Chaplin stache. And please, no armband, not even a fascist state. It will be the most democratic thing ever, because, well, Dwarves are such a superior race that even the lowest citizen's ideas must be heard.

I've only done 3, and this post will already be the equivalent of a 3 page MS Word document. The rest will come in another post.