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[Digital Hellhound]

Honestly, I'd rather not have 'standard fantasy races', or atleast not the generic versions that usually pop up. This forum doesn't seem to be able to create dwarves that aren't carbon copy DF dwarves. (But not a Palette, just a worry - I have a little faith!)

In addition;

Magic, Technology and Nature should be tightly linked:
I would like to see a world where it isn't divided up between those stupid magic fundies, those damn corrupting techies and those tree hugging hippies. Let's get some fucking magitech rifles being shot from the back of walking mountains. Trees that act as artillery on a floating battleship. That shit would be awesome.

This world should go into the modern age and beyond:
Who says we can't have priests and mages alongside spacemarines and hackers. The later Periods should be almost like Shadowrun. Let's the gods fade away because man challenged them and won. Let's watch as battles between empires during industrial revolution turn into space based warfare.

A major focus should be on mankind and their trials:
I'm personally tired of fantasy where all we see is elves faffing about, angles being pretty and shit and common man being smashed into the dirty. Let's have ourselves a setting where armies and kingdoms can do more than small parties of adventurers. Where the labyrinthine plots of some stuck up vampire can be destroyed by a human dictator not giving a fuck. A world where man is no longer the manipulated but the manipulator.

Also I would like guns and shit, no fantasy stasis please.

I support all of these.

Themes of my own; Humanity outpacing and utilizing the supernatural - I'm talking vast titans of the earth colonized and enslaved as beasts of burden, captured dragons valued for their fiery breath for the forges, the weapons of the gods stolen and used against them, magical beings used as fuel for engines. A humanity that is not in awe or fear of the gods, but seeks to surpass them.

Magic is not rare, human access to magic is rare - the world is full of magical beings and races, but mankind is not one of them. When they do get access, it is unreliable and dangerous. Tying into the above; they industrialize and utilze existing magical things rather than try to fight them with it.

[Child of Armok]

This is an awesome idee!
I'm intrested in playing, but sadly i'm a bit late.
But, waitlist me.

[Kashyyk]

I'm liking this idea also, and agree with pretty much everything. To the waitlist!

[GreatWyrmGold]

Also I would like guns and shit, no fantasy stasis please.

On this subject:

Elves should not be aware of this.
Once, there was an elven empire that dominated the land due to their speed and magic, which helped them overcome their own mediocre physical abilities. This empire began to crumble once other races got metal, and has completely disintegrated now that they have guns and excrement. Some individual elves have caught up with the times, but most (who likely have grandparents from when copper or bronze was the height of technology) refuse to do so, trying to live the old-fashioned way with their stone or wooden tools and their magic.

Oh, and just to clarify:
Elves are quick, agile, and strong with magic, but weak, frail, and stubborn as a statue of a mule.
They once had a powerful empire, but it has since crumbled.

Magic advances, too.
While the most powerful magics of ancient times are more likely to survive than weaker ones, and would be more powerful than average magics today, the best magic of modern times is better than the best magic of, say, when the elves ruled. For instance, greater efficiencies have been achieved, and techniques for non-sentient blood sacrifices have steadily improved their maximum efficient output. Most notably, a way to get enchantments to stick around for essentially forever fairly simply was discovered a few centuries ago.

Dwarves, typically, are even less magical than humans. However, each dwarf has one chance to create a magical item.
This item is related somehow to the dwarf's trade, hobbies, and personality. "Dwarven Artifacts" are surprisingly rare, due to the difficulty in actually making them, but rather powerful. A surprising amount of dwarven infrastructure is based on using them. For instance, the largest dwarven city provides almost half of its food from artifacts.

[Rhyme]

Also I would like guns and shit, no fantasy stasis please.

On this subject:

Elves should not be aware of this.
Once, there was an elven empire that dominated the land due to their speed and magic, which helped them overcome their own mediocre physical abilities. This empire began to crumble once other races got metal, and has completely disintegrated now that they have guns and excrement. Some individual elves have caught up with the times, but most (who likely have grandparents from when copper or bronze was the height of technology) refuse to do so, trying to live the old-fashioned way with their stone or wooden tools and their magic.

Oh, and just to clarify:
Elves are quick, agile, and strong with magic, but weak, frail, and stubborn as a statue of a mule.
They once had a powerful empire, but it has since crumbled.

Magic advances, too.
While the most powerful magics of ancient times are more likely to survive than weaker ones, and would be more powerful than average magics today, the best magic of modern times is better than the best magic of, say, when the elves ruled. For instance, greater efficiencies have been achieved, and techniques for non-sentient blood sacrifices have steadily improved their maximum efficient output. Most notably, a way to get enchantments to stick around for essentially forever fairly simply was discovered a few centuries ago.

Dwarves, typically, are even less magical than humans. However, each dwarf has one chance to create a magical item.
This item is related somehow to the dwarf's trade, hobbies, and personality. "Dwarven Artifacts" are surprisingly rare, due to the difficulty in actually making them, but rather powerful. A surprising amount of dwarven infrastructure is based on using them. For instance, the largest dwarven city provides almost half of its food from artifacts.

While I'm ok with the elves being old fashioned, magic advancing seems strange. If we have said magic is rare, then probably most mages try to keep their secrets hidden from the others to maintain their power, and there is probably little contact between them, so it would not surprise that they took their secrets to the grave and each new mage would have to discover things all over again. And I think that "increased efficency" might ultimetaly go against the other rules set for magic. Your suggestion seems to involve mass production, and it really goes against the very first idea (no mass produced magic). And the last seems too DFsy. Let's try to keep things somehow original.

[GreatWyrmGold]

1. Simple--delve the ancient ruins.

2. Does making engines with higher gas mileage violate the Laws of Thermodynamics?

3. I'm not sure if it's so much "mass" production as "less min" production.

4. Fine, I suppose.

[kj1225]

After seeing how good magic is getting I decided to make another addition from the inheritance cycle to make it harder.
Magic users fight each other by trying to break through mental barriers (Think the memories of the magic user help improve the barrier.) when one manages to break through they can take control of the others body to make them kill themselves. They can also go through memories like this though it is incredibly painful for the one who has their memories looked at. This is of course highly difficult on a battle field making it unwise to have magi trained for war since they are very easily defeated when using their magic and not paying attention to their barriers.

[GreatWyrmGold]

So, the idea of dwarves making magical artifacts (which, I should note, is not unique to DF--a similar phenomenon is noted in R.A. Salvatore's The Crystal Shard) is not okay, despite notable differences, but ripping magical combat straight from Paolini's notes is?

((Note that I'm criticizing Rhyme more than kj.))

[Harry Baldman]

I like the idea of monster exploitation. It makes adventuring much more interesting.

Imagine, adventurers coming to an ancient tomb, finding a massive tentacled beast with a thousand mouths guarding a gate to a realm that should not be. Their first thought? "Dude, it'd make a killer telephone operator. We just have to capture it, teach it to speak and enslave it, then we're golden!"

In fact, you could have an entire breed of adventurers like this, they would function less as treasure hunters and more like monster wranglers - they go to dungeons, get all sorts of cool monsters with special slave collars, then try to sell or utilize them for commercial ventures.

[kj1225]

I never said Dwarves couldn't do that. I think it would be a good trade off for the dwarfs.

I like the idea of monster exploitation. It makes adventuring much more interesting.

Imagine, adventurers coming to an ancient tomb, finding a massive tentacled beast with a thousand mouths guarding a gate to a realm that should not be. Their first thought? "Dude, it'd make a killer telephone operator. We just have to capture it, teach it to speak and enslave it, then we're golden!"

In fact, you could have an entire breed of adventurers like this, they would function less as treasure hunters and more like monster wranglers - they go to dungeons, get all sorts of cool monsters with special slave collars, then try to sell or utilize them for commercial ventures.

No. And I only say this knowing how horrible that would be for the monsters. So to compromise I say they are treated like slavers.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I never said Dwarves couldn't do that. I think it would be a good trade off for the dwarfs.

Again, not aimed at you.

No. And I only say this knowing how horrible that would be for the monsters. So to compromise I say they are treated like slavers.

Wait, what?

[Rhyme]

So, the idea of dwarves making magical artifacts (which, I should note, is not unique to DF--a similar phenomenon is noted in R.A. Salvatore's The Crystal Shard) is not okay, despite notable differences, but ripping magical combat straight from Paolini's notes is?

((Note that I'm criticizing Rhyme more than kj.))

I hadn't even read the post, and although Cristopher Paolini's aproach to magic was quite interesting, it's more difficult to track than, say, dwarven artifacts in a forum made around a game focused on dwarves 

And I didn't say it wasn't ok, it's just that you made it sound like simply copying and mass producing. And I am opposed to the idea of mass producing anything magical. I like the idea of dwarves creating things with magic powers by simply creating things so awesome (and made of so awesome materials) that they warp reality. It's just that I prefer to think on having a few powerful artifacts created by a handful of master artesans each generation of few generations (and probably those artifacts would end up being destroyed if magic backfires as proposed) than on a mass producing +3 quality swords that fire fireballs (I'm sorry if that's not what you had in mind, but that's what I understood)

[Harry Baldman]

Well, you could argue that putting them to work is certainly not worse than outright killing them because they're in the way of your treasure. Either is hardly morally defensible, no?

And morality's kind of irrelevant in this case anyway - adventurers come in all shapes, all sizes, all forms of alignment. Some would kill monsters, some would enslave them.

[kj1225]

Well, you could argue that putting them to work is certainly not worse than outright killing them because they're in the way of your treasure. Either is hardly morally defensible, no?

No, killing them is more humane knowing what people will probably try and use them for if you enslave them.

[GreatWyrmGold]

And I didn't say it wasn't ok, it's just that you made it sound like simply copying and mass producing. And I am opposed to the idea of mass producing anything magical. I like the idea of dwarves creating things with magic powers by simply creating things so awesome (and made of so awesome materials) that they warp reality. It's just that I prefer to think on having a few powerful artifacts created by a handful of master artesans each generation of few generations (and probably those artifacts would end up being destroyed if magic backfires as proposed) than on a mass producing +3 quality swords that fire fireballs (I'm sorry if that's not what you had in mind, but that's what I understood)

Ah.
Mass production requires being able to reliably create large numbers of products with a predictable set of qualities. The system I intended to propose has none of these.
In an ideal world, each dwarf would make one artifact. That production is low enough, but factors such as early death, lack of inspiration, or lack of required materials would reduce it significantly; I wouldn't be surprised in only about half of dwarves made their artifacts.
In addition, the only way to get an artifact with qualities you want is to find and buy a premade artifact with those qualities. A master chef is as likely to develop a pie that regenerates itself when it's eaten as, say, an oven that doesn't need fuel or a magically nonstick pan.