The **Church of Nihil** isn't a deep-rooted conspiracy filled with evil priests and corrupt bishops. It's just a religion, with all the natural flaws and quirks that come with any large organization.
In the same vein, Nihil itself isn't malevolent despite being the literal embodiment of death. It just exists, like a force of nature.
**Death-Priests** usually resemble Morticians and Alchemists more than a stereotypical priest, at least how most would see them in our world. They usually wear many hats since they are often the most educated individuals in the impoverished **frontier provinces**.
Some are recruited by traveling mercenaries or **Brotherhood Chapters**, usually packing firelock pistols while serving as pseudo-combat medics.
In my own setting, Death Priests, followers of the God of Death, became really important AFTER a major undead plague swept across the land, destroying most of the world. After the undead were finally driven back and beaten, Death Priests grew in prominence because they were the ones who could help safeguard against such things happening again by sanctifying the remains of the dead so they cannot be used to be reanimated into undead minions.
They are still kind of creepy, but they perform important roles in safeguarding the land and protecting the remains of the dead. Undeath is also an abomination in the eyes of the God of Death, a perversion of their role and the natural order of things.
yea i got elves that are the ''young race'' in there world. very much at the dawn of there golden age in comparison too them being the elder race trope. there still elves there just much less ontop of it all.
also my elves an dwarves are the same spieces because when you have 25 races plus and counting the brothers from norse mythology really really dont seem that diffrent
Its actually because in orginial norse myth the word elf can be applied too dwarfes.
So a dwarf might be called a kind of elf. I might be drawing from the same well as thr elder scrolls founders. Its just 2 books after all.
I have like 2 that can be called clasically elven. And thr black/datk elves arent the dwaves in mine. But i am also not making thr dark elves evil.
My elves come from the north pole so the orginal elves darkskinned to deal woth the snow reflection.
When my first MC of my fantasy world defeats all the bad guys, he just decides to go live out in the countryside and raise a family (I'd argue a pretty convoluted family though).
There is a clan of dwarves in my setting known as the Iron Chans who are almost like dwarves in contemporary fantasy, except they have the personality of elves (not the elves in my fantasy world, they're... *different*). Most notably, they do the equivelent of finger wagging or being an old person going "back in my day..." to other dwarf clans, mainly because most of the dwarven clans in my world don't live like stereotypical dwarves in other fantasy settings (one are forest-dwelling hippies, while another doesn't consume alcohol AT ALL).
So on a grander scale the major premise of the setting is that due the history of the setting (in short advanced cyberpunk civilization>> apocalypse> post-apocalyptic bronze age> climbing back to an industrial revolution) all manner of classic fantasy tropes are secretly and not so secretly, a result of some advanced tech being misconstrued as fantasy trope.
Ancient holy groves that are actually part of electric infrastructure, oracles capable of seeing future that are in fact a supercomputer using advanced predictive algorithms, sea monsters who are secretly autonomous drones, fairies hidding in the woods that are remains of inteligent machines that escaped from humanity,
However, on a more amusing note, if ever heard adventurers being referred to as murderhobos, on Izmea that is more or less what they are, crossed with a bit of a Youxia theme. They are migrant workers, travelling from one city to another, existing at the edge of society, performing physical labour or entertainment in between proper adventures that people write ballads about, with their own secret language and code to inform one another of danger and prospects, and beholden to their code of ethics.
The evil empire, good republic/kingdom and noble rebellions
In my world, they are grey and do things mainly to gain or preserve advantages over others. The empires conquer not because they are evil, but because they need the copper in the hills. The republic doesn't fight the empire because it believes in freedom, democracy and [insert modern value here], it does so because it also needs that copper and the farmlands nearby which may also be taken. Losing both could make them more vulnerable to rivals who could block trade and the republic would have less leverage with less food or copper to offer or use. The rebels don't fight the empire because they want to bring freedom to all people and bring about human rights under a righteous banner, they want to take power for themselves and possibly build their own empire. I want to have a setup where you could look at two fighting sides and have no qualms choosing either side to root for because neither are explicitly evil. In my setting, conquest in itself is not seen as evil and is a common thing among countries.
Lapis_Wolf
I like the idea of being able to say "I support the rebels because A" or "I support the empire because B" without needing to appeal to the modern morality or good/evil standards and possibly splitting friends over it. Maybe someone supports the empire just because the flag/banner looks cool, or because he knows the the citizens could literally starve without those actions. 🤷‍♂️
Lapis_Wolf
Dwarves and elves hating each other not because of some war, but because both think the other race is evil over what is largely a misunderstanding.
Millenia ago dwarves lived deep underground and nowhere else. They were forced to come to the surface when a strange race of beings who were adept at magic came to the underworld and drove them out. On the surface they encountered elves, who were (and still are) innately magical, and very quickly took to thinking that dwarves themselves were monsters much like most other things that come from the bowels of the earth.
Still, while both peoples were quite uncomfortable around each other they did not outright come to blows. Not on a massive scale anyway. They coexisted well enough despite a good deal of contempt for each other. They traded, learned from each other, and faced common foes together over the centuries. Eventually humans came about, and many a dwarf and elf alike might have assumptions about their origins they are most embarrassed by...
All of this just for the sake of dwarf - elf banter in my tabletop game. Yeah.
The evil empire is actually a massive net benefit to the world. It's also a massive paradox as it's extremely meritocratic. The society that created it is essentially a society of evil b movie wizards. They're absolute jerks but they're also extremely pragmatic. Racism is unheard of among them and anybody that shows themselves to be useful to their empire can find a place in it. They are however also power hungry dickheads so whatever you do never piss off anybody important.
The reason they're a net benefit is specifically *because* they're power hungry dickheads. The world is a downright chaotic place where civilizations can only be carved out of the world through constant conflict. Monsters are just kind of everywhere and there are multiple races that are potentially civilization ending threats. One of the reasons the evil wizard empire is the most powerful organization is because of how much magical knowledge they have. They care about that above everything else which means they also have the power to deal with apocalyptic threats. They would vastly prefer that their empire actually stay together so they *absolutely do not* fuck around when it comes to that sort of thing. Their inherent pragmatism also means that they don't bother people who don't cause problems within their borders. You can have a pretty good life in the empire if you keep your head down and do anything the wizards tell you to do.
Revival spells do exist, but souls that leave the body are gone for good.
Basically if someone dies right then and there, a revival spell will work on them perfectly, as their soul hasn't left their body (that takes a few minutes). If you wait too long, you'll revive the body, but a different soul will inhabit the flesh. Initially this doesn't seem any different, as the soul will think they are the person and will act in the exact same way due to the knowledge and memories they have in their brain, but eventually there will be a deviation.
I made my orcs be one of the most civilised races in my world, rather than the typical brutish barbarian horde.
The backstory is that they were created by ancient elves as meat grinder soldiers for a massive war, but when the war was over, the remaining orcs were left stranded on a large island. They fought for a bit, then finally made peace when they realised they would wipe themselves out.
My unique touch is that, while the orcs are as civilised as any human normally, they have a built-in Hulk-style rage triggered by stress/anger that makes them extremely strong, fast, and durable, but as likely to attack friends as foes in battle. It is at once their greatest strength and their greatest weakness.
This isn't the case in my story per se, but necromancy is an interesting one.
Necromancers are shunned by people, but not because they kill civilians and reanimate their corpses, but because their undead minions can take people's jobs. No longer do healthy males have the opportunity to make money for their family by serving in the army, because skeletons are seen as way easier to control and don't need logistics. Farmers may see swathes of land being bought up by a single necromancer, or necromancer-supported noble, employing cheap labour in zombie workers. Dwarven mines produce half the profits, with necromancer run mines opening up across the country. Kings and nobles may like them, yes, but the common man despises them.
In a darker fantasy country, this may lead to kings being completely unbothered by civilian deaths, seeing every dead civilian as cheaper labour; perhaps ineffective workers are even killed off, or entire populations forced to serve exclusively as soldiers, as a mortal soldier can die twice, making them far more useful as cannon fodder than farmers. In a cheerier fantasy country, this may lead to civilians simply living easier lives, no longer needing to work but still being given food by their gracious king—that is, until the necromancer dies and all the labourer skeletons deanimate, resulting in famine, mass emigration, revolts, and/or mass disillusionment.
the cliche of dragons have 50 trillion variants
instead theirs only one species of true dragon in my setting, but their magically adaptive , so if they grow up in the sea they develop fins and gills and water based magic, if they grow up underground they might have digging claws and thick stoney scales, even if those two dragons were twins separated at birth. with some of the really ancient ones only vaguely resembling dragons anymore do to years of adaptions adding up
In my own setting, there is only one kind of Dragon, but they do come in many different colors, and they eventually decided to mess with mortals by pretending that the colors indicate different kinds powers and element affinities. Now mortals thing Red Dragons are "Fire Dragons" and Blue Dragons are "Ice Dragons", when they are just using magic to change their breath attacks, and makes mortals think they can use "opposing magic elements" as their "weakness".
Also, while my Dragons do Horde treasure, it's not a natural instinct of their, but a learned habit, that they misunderstood. The original dragons were tasked with guarding ancient and powerful relics by their now extinct creators, and their offspring saw this as "Hording Treasures", and now do this too.
Yep I really enjoy this. In the Sleepy Valley live all your usual enchanted races (Elves white and grey, Pixies, Undines, Goblins, Fairies, etc) but I focus on how difficult cohabitation can be between them in this one Yalley (the rest of the world has been invaded by Troll-Dwarf hybrids and so the enchanted races found refuge in the Valley).
I like to have princeses or other nobles kidnapp dragons or other powerful beigns, subjugate them to their will and use their power to claim the title of the king or other superior noble title.
The prophecy trolley problem.
Do I kill a singular being in order to save more than one, or will I let it run its course and they will?
Well, bibbity-bobbity there's two sides to every story, maybe if you listen to the prophecy you will see that you don't HAVE to kill the kid, just raise the lad to be just and fair, like on a farm, just don't tell the potential adoptees about the possible future that is tied to the kid and we will be fine!
But just in case, post an "uncle" there just to be safe.
Besides, if we chase this kid to the ends of the world, it will only advance the problem, we just have to make sure that we aren't the focal point when it happens.
Some extremely powerful dragons exist, but they are more of a benefit to the word because they keep more aggressive monsters under control and their territories are “islands” of stability as long as you can pay them tribute and that tribute is usually relatively small.
I prefer to go for the reconstruction route. Like yeah wood elves live in a forest but they still have some farms and orchards hidden in meadows, and of course they hunt for food, animals eat animals too.
I’m doing a twist on the Chosen One trope in the sense that my protagonist is a chosen one due to circumstance instead of fate. Had the people around her not taken certain actions, she would have turned out as a normal individual and lived a predictable life with nothing too special going on.
I’ve also added a twist on the “unique power that no one else has” by making it a power that my protagonist actively hates and regrets having because it makes people hate her/fear her, and it induces psychological damage.
The **Church of Nihil** isn't a deep-rooted conspiracy filled with evil priests and corrupt bishops. It's just a religion, with all the natural flaws and quirks that come with any large organization. In the same vein, Nihil itself isn't malevolent despite being the literal embodiment of death. It just exists, like a force of nature. **Death-Priests** usually resemble Morticians and Alchemists more than a stereotypical priest, at least how most would see them in our world. They usually wear many hats since they are often the most educated individuals in the impoverished **frontier provinces**. Some are recruited by traveling mercenaries or **Brotherhood Chapters**, usually packing firelock pistols while serving as pseudo-combat medics.
I love this. I like when people de-evilfy cliche evil things. Also, I can't hear nihil without shivering anymore.
In my own setting, Death Priests, followers of the God of Death, became really important AFTER a major undead plague swept across the land, destroying most of the world. After the undead were finally driven back and beaten, Death Priests grew in prominence because they were the ones who could help safeguard against such things happening again by sanctifying the remains of the dead so they cannot be used to be reanimated into undead minions. They are still kind of creepy, but they perform important roles in safeguarding the land and protecting the remains of the dead. Undeath is also an abomination in the eyes of the God of Death, a perversion of their role and the natural order of things.
yea i got elves that are the ''young race'' in there world. very much at the dawn of there golden age in comparison too them being the elder race trope. there still elves there just much less ontop of it all. also my elves an dwarves are the same spieces because when you have 25 races plus and counting the brothers from norse mythology really really dont seem that diffrent
Somehow the elves and dwarves being the same race ringed me some skyrim bells.
Its actually because in orginial norse myth the word elf can be applied too dwarfes. So a dwarf might be called a kind of elf. I might be drawing from the same well as thr elder scrolls founders. Its just 2 books after all.
ya especially if your going to give 50 variants on elves, why not make some of the ones who are sometimes believed to have been the "black elves"
I have like 2 that can be called clasically elven. And thr black/datk elves arent the dwaves in mine. But i am also not making thr dark elves evil. My elves come from the north pole so the orginal elves darkskinned to deal woth the snow reflection.
When my first MC of my fantasy world defeats all the bad guys, he just decides to go live out in the countryside and raise a family (I'd argue a pretty convoluted family though). There is a clan of dwarves in my setting known as the Iron Chans who are almost like dwarves in contemporary fantasy, except they have the personality of elves (not the elves in my fantasy world, they're... *different*). Most notably, they do the equivelent of finger wagging or being an old person going "back in my day..." to other dwarf clans, mainly because most of the dwarven clans in my world don't live like stereotypical dwarves in other fantasy settings (one are forest-dwelling hippies, while another doesn't consume alcohol AT ALL).
So on a grander scale the major premise of the setting is that due the history of the setting (in short advanced cyberpunk civilization>> apocalypse> post-apocalyptic bronze age> climbing back to an industrial revolution) all manner of classic fantasy tropes are secretly and not so secretly, a result of some advanced tech being misconstrued as fantasy trope. Ancient holy groves that are actually part of electric infrastructure, oracles capable of seeing future that are in fact a supercomputer using advanced predictive algorithms, sea monsters who are secretly autonomous drones, fairies hidding in the woods that are remains of inteligent machines that escaped from humanity, However, on a more amusing note, if ever heard adventurers being referred to as murderhobos, on Izmea that is more or less what they are, crossed with a bit of a Youxia theme. They are migrant workers, travelling from one city to another, existing at the edge of society, performing physical labour or entertainment in between proper adventures that people write ballads about, with their own secret language and code to inform one another of danger and prospects, and beholden to their code of ethics.
The evil empire, good republic/kingdom and noble rebellions In my world, they are grey and do things mainly to gain or preserve advantages over others. The empires conquer not because they are evil, but because they need the copper in the hills. The republic doesn't fight the empire because it believes in freedom, democracy and [insert modern value here], it does so because it also needs that copper and the farmlands nearby which may also be taken. Losing both could make them more vulnerable to rivals who could block trade and the republic would have less leverage with less food or copper to offer or use. The rebels don't fight the empire because they want to bring freedom to all people and bring about human rights under a righteous banner, they want to take power for themselves and possibly build their own empire. I want to have a setup where you could look at two fighting sides and have no qualms choosing either side to root for because neither are explicitly evil. In my setting, conquest in itself is not seen as evil and is a common thing among countries. Lapis_Wolf
I like Grey factions. They're better for reader/player alliance will.
I like the idea of being able to say "I support the rebels because A" or "I support the empire because B" without needing to appeal to the modern morality or good/evil standards and possibly splitting friends over it. Maybe someone supports the empire just because the flag/banner looks cool, or because he knows the the citizens could literally starve without those actions. 🤷‍♂️ Lapis_Wolf
We love geopolitics it's what makes the world go round
Dwarves and elves hating each other not because of some war, but because both think the other race is evil over what is largely a misunderstanding. Millenia ago dwarves lived deep underground and nowhere else. They were forced to come to the surface when a strange race of beings who were adept at magic came to the underworld and drove them out. On the surface they encountered elves, who were (and still are) innately magical, and very quickly took to thinking that dwarves themselves were monsters much like most other things that come from the bowels of the earth. Still, while both peoples were quite uncomfortable around each other they did not outright come to blows. Not on a massive scale anyway. They coexisted well enough despite a good deal of contempt for each other. They traded, learned from each other, and faced common foes together over the centuries. Eventually humans came about, and many a dwarf and elf alike might have assumptions about their origins they are most embarrassed by... All of this just for the sake of dwarf - elf banter in my tabletop game. Yeah.
The evil empire is actually a massive net benefit to the world. It's also a massive paradox as it's extremely meritocratic. The society that created it is essentially a society of evil b movie wizards. They're absolute jerks but they're also extremely pragmatic. Racism is unheard of among them and anybody that shows themselves to be useful to their empire can find a place in it. They are however also power hungry dickheads so whatever you do never piss off anybody important. The reason they're a net benefit is specifically *because* they're power hungry dickheads. The world is a downright chaotic place where civilizations can only be carved out of the world through constant conflict. Monsters are just kind of everywhere and there are multiple races that are potentially civilization ending threats. One of the reasons the evil wizard empire is the most powerful organization is because of how much magical knowledge they have. They care about that above everything else which means they also have the power to deal with apocalyptic threats. They would vastly prefer that their empire actually stay together so they *absolutely do not* fuck around when it comes to that sort of thing. Their inherent pragmatism also means that they don't bother people who don't cause problems within their borders. You can have a pretty good life in the empire if you keep your head down and do anything the wizards tell you to do.
Revival spells do exist, but souls that leave the body are gone for good. Basically if someone dies right then and there, a revival spell will work on them perfectly, as their soul hasn't left their body (that takes a few minutes). If you wait too long, you'll revive the body, but a different soul will inhabit the flesh. Initially this doesn't seem any different, as the soul will think they are the person and will act in the exact same way due to the knowledge and memories they have in their brain, but eventually there will be a deviation.
The elves are in charge but they're not evil and in fact are entirely benevolent.
I made my orcs be one of the most civilised races in my world, rather than the typical brutish barbarian horde. The backstory is that they were created by ancient elves as meat grinder soldiers for a massive war, but when the war was over, the remaining orcs were left stranded on a large island. They fought for a bit, then finally made peace when they realised they would wipe themselves out. My unique touch is that, while the orcs are as civilised as any human normally, they have a built-in Hulk-style rage triggered by stress/anger that makes them extremely strong, fast, and durable, but as likely to attack friends as foes in battle. It is at once their greatest strength and their greatest weakness.
This isn't the case in my story per se, but necromancy is an interesting one. Necromancers are shunned by people, but not because they kill civilians and reanimate their corpses, but because their undead minions can take people's jobs. No longer do healthy males have the opportunity to make money for their family by serving in the army, because skeletons are seen as way easier to control and don't need logistics. Farmers may see swathes of land being bought up by a single necromancer, or necromancer-supported noble, employing cheap labour in zombie workers. Dwarven mines produce half the profits, with necromancer run mines opening up across the country. Kings and nobles may like them, yes, but the common man despises them. In a darker fantasy country, this may lead to kings being completely unbothered by civilian deaths, seeing every dead civilian as cheaper labour; perhaps ineffective workers are even killed off, or entire populations forced to serve exclusively as soldiers, as a mortal soldier can die twice, making them far more useful as cannon fodder than farmers. In a cheerier fantasy country, this may lead to civilians simply living easier lives, no longer needing to work but still being given food by their gracious king—that is, until the necromancer dies and all the labourer skeletons deanimate, resulting in famine, mass emigration, revolts, and/or mass disillusionment.
the cliche of dragons have 50 trillion variants instead theirs only one species of true dragon in my setting, but their magically adaptive , so if they grow up in the sea they develop fins and gills and water based magic, if they grow up underground they might have digging claws and thick stoney scales, even if those two dragons were twins separated at birth. with some of the really ancient ones only vaguely resembling dragons anymore do to years of adaptions adding up
In my own setting, there is only one kind of Dragon, but they do come in many different colors, and they eventually decided to mess with mortals by pretending that the colors indicate different kinds powers and element affinities. Now mortals thing Red Dragons are "Fire Dragons" and Blue Dragons are "Ice Dragons", when they are just using magic to change their breath attacks, and makes mortals think they can use "opposing magic elements" as their "weakness". Also, while my Dragons do Horde treasure, it's not a natural instinct of their, but a learned habit, that they misunderstood. The original dragons were tasked with guarding ancient and powerful relics by their now extinct creators, and their offspring saw this as "Hording Treasures", and now do this too.
Yep I really enjoy this. In the Sleepy Valley live all your usual enchanted races (Elves white and grey, Pixies, Undines, Goblins, Fairies, etc) but I focus on how difficult cohabitation can be between them in this one Yalley (the rest of the world has been invaded by Troll-Dwarf hybrids and so the enchanted races found refuge in the Valley).
I like to have princeses or other nobles kidnapp dragons or other powerful beigns, subjugate them to their will and use their power to claim the title of the king or other superior noble title.
The prophecy trolley problem. Do I kill a singular being in order to save more than one, or will I let it run its course and they will? Well, bibbity-bobbity there's two sides to every story, maybe if you listen to the prophecy you will see that you don't HAVE to kill the kid, just raise the lad to be just and fair, like on a farm, just don't tell the potential adoptees about the possible future that is tied to the kid and we will be fine! But just in case, post an "uncle" there just to be safe. Besides, if we chase this kid to the ends of the world, it will only advance the problem, we just have to make sure that we aren't the focal point when it happens.
Boy, my whole world is based on this
Some extremely powerful dragons exist, but they are more of a benefit to the word because they keep more aggressive monsters under control and their territories are “islands” of stability as long as you can pay them tribute and that tribute is usually relatively small.
I prefer to go for the reconstruction route. Like yeah wood elves live in a forest but they still have some farms and orchards hidden in meadows, and of course they hunt for food, animals eat animals too.
I’m doing a twist on the Chosen One trope in the sense that my protagonist is a chosen one due to circumstance instead of fate. Had the people around her not taken certain actions, she would have turned out as a normal individual and lived a predictable life with nothing too special going on. I’ve also added a twist on the “unique power that no one else has” by making it a power that my protagonist actively hates and regrets having because it makes people hate her/fear her, and it induces psychological damage.