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Author Topic: Lore thread - Of Substance and Spirit - Think we're ready to make characters?  (Read 17417 times)

WillowLuman

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Had an idea kicking around my head for a game where the players form a bond with a spirit/daemon. The pairs work together as a team, and the spirits/daemons have the ability to go into their host's bodies to greatly enhance both their abilities, but only temporarily, since they'll both burn up if they do it for too long at a time. Beyond that, though, I dunno. The idea needs a lot more development before it can be used.
So, let's develop this. Gameplay premise is everyone creates 2 characters, a human and a spirit.

What I had at the start of this thread:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

tl;dr Contemporary urban fantasy game where humans team up with spirits.



What's come from this thread so far:

There's the material plane we all know and love, and the spirit plane, a world originally of unified, unending, formless chaos whose existence is known to very few here. At some (as yet undecided) point, the two become linked through invisible fissures in the sky, and began to bleed into each other. From these fissures occasionally come newborn spirits, formless lumps of chaotic energy, who fall like meteors into the physical world below. As they interact with the world, they form an identity and begin to settle on a default appearance, both based on their experiences. They are able to alter their appearance to some degree at will, and their default may change over time due to further experiences, though the degree of both forms of malleability varies greatly between individuals. And no matter what form a spirit takes, they will always appear insubstantial in some way. Sometimes, after forming, spirits will return to their plane, bringing with them more structure and identity. While not physical beings, they can still affect the physical world in magical ways that physical beings cannot. These abilities are as various as the spirits themselves, though they mostly center on influencing the substantial, with living substance being more suggestible than the inert.

In the material world, spirits number relatively few, hundreds-of-thousands to millions as opposed to billions of humans, and are spread thin across the globe. Thus, they are mostly unknown to humanity, but those in the know tend to distrust and fear them, since they are quite alien to each other, and in their mutual experience, encounters have often led to trouble. Due to this general experience, spirits usually try to avoid humans, and some even make it their business to ensure that other spirits do not draw too much attention (though the disposition and goals of spirits are quite varied.) They are usually successful at this, due to their relatively few and widespread numbers, propensity to settle in abandoned or remote areas, and natural ability at hiding (phasing into objects, altering appearance, blending into shadows, etc.)

However, sometimes a human and a spirit break this pattern of mutual distrust. For whatever reason, be it naivety of the usual sentiment, circumstances of meeting, mutual self interest, or whatever, they come to befriend and trust one another. Being each able to do things the other can't, such a partnership is quite beneficial, and furthermore, if the human hosts the spirit within their body, they both gain incredibly combined power. However, this hosting can only be done for brief periods at a time, as if they remain conjoined for too long at once, they both burn each other out and die. Over years, cumulative effects of repeated hostings begin to manifest in both of them. Such partnerships are extremely rare, only several dozen existing in the whole world, as it requires both partners to have complete trust in one another. A spirit of ill intent could very easily fatally disrupt a human body, and a human of ill intent could very easily tear apart a spirit's mind.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2015, 03:38:46 pm by HugoLuman »
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kj1225

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #1 on: March 02, 2015, 01:00:24 am »

Well, for the lifespan thing I guess it would depend on how nice/grimdark your world is. Like, gives us a range from Warhammer 40k to My Little Pony.
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~Neri

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2015, 01:03:16 am »

MLP is actually pretty grimdark if you think about it.

It's just shinied up with flowers n shit.

I mean, a dragon literally almost killed an entire civilization in MLP at one point, not to mention the numerous chaos deities and dark gods that get loose rather often.

It's a wonder that MLP isn't post apocalyptic.
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WillowLuman

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #3 on: March 02, 2015, 01:07:13 am »

Well, for the lifespan thing I guess it would depend on how nice/grimdark your world is. Like, gives us a range from Warhammer 40k to My Little Pony.
That's kinda a huge range there. Both ends sound abhorrent*. Middle, I guess? People will die but occasionally humans and spirits can be friends, and gain a lot in being so? I could probably give you a better answer with a smaller scale.

*Also, I don't like either franchise
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kj1225

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #4 on: March 02, 2015, 01:09:29 am »

Well, for the lifespan thing I guess it would depend on how nice/grimdark your world is. Like, gives us a range from Warhammer 40k to My Little Pony.
That's kinda a huge range there. Both ends sound abhorrent*. Middle, I guess? People will die but occasionally humans and spirits can be friends, and gain a lot in being so? I could probably give you a better answer with a smaller scale.

*Also, I don't like either franchise
Okay, how about, are people generally happy?
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WillowLuman

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #5 on: March 02, 2015, 01:11:11 am »

It's the usual sort of urban fantasy masquerade thing: people go about their lives, largely unaware of the magical stuff going on, for one reason or another.
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kj1225

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #6 on: March 02, 2015, 01:14:18 am »

Then maybe it's random if they extend or shrink the lifespan? Or maybe have a effect that changes gameplay some? Maybe the bonded's kind start noticing something is 'off'?
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WillowLuman

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #7 on: March 02, 2015, 01:16:12 am »

Yeah, maybe. Stuff that affects gameplay should take a while to come in, but it would be good to have. We should probably brainstorm on that.

Another important question to help shape this thing: what kind of spirits are people thinking of here?
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Harry Baldman

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #8 on: March 02, 2015, 01:17:15 am »

It's the usual sort of urban fantasy masquerade thing: people go about their lives, largely unaware of the magical stuff going on, for one reason or another.

The masquerade thing's a bit overplayed, I think. Have you considered the alternative? A modern world without such a thing, even if its knowledge of the paranormal is usually quite limited?

You could also make lifespan extension/shortening depend on the relationship between the spirit and its partner. For instance, healthy disagreement fostering a longer life for the host, or perhaps the other way around.

What are the spirits supposed to be, by the way? The dead kind or the alien kind? In essence, were they human once or not?
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kj1225

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #9 on: March 02, 2015, 01:18:26 am »

ALL OF THEM!

No seriously, there are some many that your bound to find a really interesting one. Like Djinn, angels, Daemons, you know that kind of thing.
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Harry Baldman

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #10 on: March 02, 2015, 01:19:44 am »

Djinn sound like an interesting concept, especially once you look at the Islamic conception of them. Free-willed creatures of smokeless fire and mysterious motives, anyone? You could even pit them against non-free-willed angels in the setting.
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WillowLuman

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #11 on: March 02, 2015, 01:20:50 am »

It's the usual sort of urban fantasy masquerade thing: people go about their lives, largely unaware of the magical stuff going on, for one reason or another.

The masquerade thing's a bit overplayed, I think. Have you considered the alternative? A modern world without such a thing, even if its knowledge of the paranormal is usually quite limited?

You could also make lifespan extension/shortening depend on the relationship between the spirit and its partner. For instance, healthy disagreement fostering a longer life for the host, or perhaps the other way around.

What are the spirits supposed to be, by the way? The dead kind or the alien kind? In essence, were they human once or not?
Yeah, by masquerade I meant more people generally don't know about the supernatural stuff. Not that it's deliberately hidden. It may even have only manifested recently, or something weirder like it manifested recently then started coming into play retroactively.

Spirits would be beings from another plane/facet/nature rather than the remnants of dead people.
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Harry Baldman

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #12 on: March 02, 2015, 01:25:00 am »

Okay, then there's the most important question: what would be the adversary here?
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kj1225

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #13 on: March 02, 2015, 01:29:32 am »

I presume we're magic hitmen. Or we pick our own adversary for our characters.
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WillowLuman

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #14 on: March 02, 2015, 01:30:54 am »

Okay, then there's the most important question: what would be the adversary here?
Most likely there'd be a number of factions/characters that react to what the players do in different ways. Most plot-inducing could be one flavor or other or extremists/supremacists, but I have a few more interesting ideas in mind should BBEG be needed.
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