Welcome to the campaign diary of what’s been codenamed Fantasy Avengers. A campaign idea of superheroes in a fantasy setting has percolated within my brain for aeons. I occasionally pretend I’m going to run it, which no doubt gets eye rolls at best or engenders much disappointment at worst when I never get around to it.
This campaign diary will work through how the campaign gets to the table and then, with hope and a prayer, morph into actual play reports.
The ideas in this post were consolidated around 28th January 2023.
The featured image is the city of Sharn from Eberron; maybe that’s a spoiler of a future basket of influences.
What my world-building looks like
You’re not going to see maps. You won’t get the fantasy equivalent of a Lonely Planet guide. You’ll wonder if anything has been established about this world compared to how others may do it.
It’s not about geography, cultures and critical locations. I ultimately envision my settings at a principles and conceptual level, and the rest is just the detail when I need it.
So, let’s see what recently shuttled out of my subconscious.
Thinking like Star Wars
We’ve already established Creation is vast and flat. The challenge is to move beyond that without spending ages writing thousands of pages on the setting. My breakthrough thought was to think about it like Star Wars approaches its galaxy maps, which would mean splitting Creation into three zones.
Imperial Core. This is where the Dragonblooded Empire exists. Their bastion of power exists on many great lakes and islands at the centre of Creation. It consists of five imperial cities. The central imperial city is fixed, but the four outer cities are flying constructs that can dock with their outer ring. Two imperial cities constantly roam Creation on two routes to perpetually project imperial might across Creation.
Middle Kingdoms. A vast landscape featuring so many kingdoms, more will never be known than named. These are the kingdoms subject to the power of the empire. They provide vassalage to the imperial state. They spend just as much time fighting with each other as talking about how they might one day overthrow the empire.
Elemental Reaches. Essentially, it is an outer rim on a point-of-light model. They exist before or on the elemental border with Creation. These have an outer system vibe, swapping more freedom from the empire for being alone. Some of the environments can be pretty crazy due to the unstable elements of creation.
If this sounds like Star Wars’s inner, mid and outer rims, then you’ve got the idea. The elemental reaches also share some concepts with the unknown regions. These regions allow us to establish a broad sense of what they are, and then the table is free to create in those boundaries. For example, we’re free to make any middle kingdoms. We can go crazy in the elemental reaches at the far end or have them be like remote homesteads further away from Creation’s edge.
Leaning into imperial vassalage
I’m also thinking of leaning into the imperial vassalage model. It provides several dynamics. The middle kingdoms can be constantly chafing against Dragonblooded rule. The elemental reaches can be where people flee for new freedoms in exchange for a more challenging life. The elemental reaches can also provide a sense of the frontier and raw wonder when put against the imperial core’s order and faded golden age feel.
I also look for ways to explain certain facets of any setting I intend to use. I don’t look to lock these down to actual laws of physics, real politics or cultural dynamics but to give principles and concepts that act as a sufficient explanation while not being the campaign’s focus. This gives the setting enough sense of being authentic and providing consistency, which is often more important than explanations that genuinely make sense and an understanding for everyone to enrich their conversations.
In truth, if you look at them too closely, they probably don’t make sense, but that’s fine, as they’re the backdrop to more important things.
For example, the radiating from the centre model can give interesting dynamics as to why the imperial core has all the fancy magical technology. Still, it’s not seen as much the further out you go. The imperial core sucks resources inwards to support itself, leaving everything surrounding it in a different state. The imperial core has the knowledge, finances and resources to keep together what it has, but it does this at the expense of those around it.
This model plays out and explains more factors than I can probably think of as I’m writing this. Creation has a fantasy rail network, but it radiates out like the imperial city is Chicago and expands to various distances into the middle kingdoms because of the empire’s need to collect resources and control these states. It never connects middle kingdoms or reaches the elemental reaches.
This is why imperial cities are always on a grand tour of Creation to remind their vassals of the empire’s might. Projecting its power and culture and collecting vital resources to fuel the empire’s magical technology? It’s the crazy equivalent of the local sheriff turning up to collect the obscene taxes for the king. Possibly, the elemental reaches are a source of this undecided power source on a long cycle. Does this make sense if you overthink it? Of course not. How big is creation? How fast is that floating city travelling? It doesn’t matter; what’s important is the dynamics it creates.
This is the level of setting information I like. I don’t need detailed explanations, just reasons that provide an attractive ‘veneer of explanation’ that adds drama and conflict.
And, Finally…
The influence of Star Wars has me thinking about whether the primary influence on the setting is a fantasy world as we traditionally understand it. It may be more space opera than remotely connected to the traditional faux medieval society you usually get.
We’ll see how things progress, but the ‘is it space opera’ thought is worth exploring.