The Godling's Task: Creating an original fantasy world for OSR DnD [part 2]

Hard Iron Skies

Art by Borkuart, aka u/Nagli. Found here

Part of what makes the idea of writing a blog appealing to me is that it holds me accountable to my ideas. I'm flaky and aloof, most of the time, and I feel like that's unfair to the things that pop up in my head. Those aren't mine, after all. Ideas are weird Frankenstein creatures, patched together by speedy tidbits, cursed magic, and whoknowswhatelse and jolted to life by neuron charges. They deserve a good life! And I've been pretty bad with that. I'm great at starting things, but it's been a while since I brought a project to an adequate conclusion. So, I am here. Let's do it. Hell ya. Of course, there is no real way for you, dear reader, to hold me accountable on this, so... yeah, let's just pretend this means something! 

Alright, here we go.

Here's the plan with this one. If you read my previous post, then you know what's up. If not, read it! Just kidding, basically what we are doing here is expressing and acknowledging inspirations. We are gonna identify the many bits that make up the idea in my head, and from there create an outline for our general desired feel, mood, aesthetic, genre for our world/game. So, without further ado, allow me to introduce: Hard Iron Skies!

Basically, Hard Iron Skies will be a sandbox/open world/West Marches project set in the world spawned by this larger project. 

The main inspiration for this is the Adams brothers' videoludic masterpiece: Dwarf Fortress. If you haven't heard of it, I highly recommend checking it out. If you have heard of it, but have too intimidated to give it a try, I promise, it's not as complicated as it looks, and it delivers a truly unique experience. Either way, should you be interested in exploring the DF Community, or if you just want some really high quality hours of entertainment, I can't recommend Kruggsmash's Videos enough. He is extremely talented, and his narrative videos are an experience unlike any other. 

Now, what makes Dwarf Fortress unique... well... a lot of stuff... a ton of stuff, actually... but, for our purposes, we are gonna single out two things specifically.

Thing number one: the world generation. Oh man, oh man. So, to put this simply, Dwarf Fortress is an extremely complex game. It does not look like it, but there is so much going on. So. Freakin. Much. To give you an idea, this interview with Tarn Adams perfects illustrates just how baroque this video game is. I will not get too into this, because I would, without the shadow of a doubt, get lost in amazing DF facts and stories. We gotta focus here. 

The complexity of this game starts before your game actually takes place. You see, before you can choose where to settle, before you can see you dwarves thrive, or (most likely) suffer horrible things, the game has to create your world, and to do this, not only does it build a geographically unique continent for you, but it also simulates 200 years of history! That's right. 200 years. Which are fully documented in Legends Mode, and which generate cultures, gods, legends, wars, and characters that WILL POP UP in your Fortress.

DF World Generation Screen

That's pretty cool, right? I want that in my game. I want to find a way to make the world feel old. Much older than the players. That's what good worldbuilding does. Think of the Wheel of Time series, for example. Everything has a history, and it feels so grand and beautiful. I feel the same way about DF, and I want my game to feel like that. So that's the first thing.

Thing number two: DWARVES. ON. A. MISSION.

Not much else to say. Dwarves are, in my opinion, tragically underrepresented in modern fantasy literature and gaming. So, we're bringing them back. And there will be drama. Lots of it.

LOOK AT THESE GUYS! Eric Sutherland is the artist, for the original AD&D Blue Book (1977)

The idea here is migration. Finding a home. Hard Iron Skies will (hopefully) give the players a chance to take charge of a small group of refugees (mostly Dwarven) and roam the continent in search of a new land to call their own, a place to build their fortress. Kind of like The Hobbit meets Oregon Trail. 

Now, that's our main inspiration. Now for secondary ideas: 

1. As I kinda mentioned, a lot of the imagery and feel I want this world to have comes from the Wheel of Time series, by Robert Jordan. His world feel so ancient and epic. His narration of travel is well paced and geographically accurate. Both things we want!
2. I also mentioned the Hobbit, and, of course I must include it in this post. Whenever I think of Dwarves, that book comes to mind. Similarly to WoT, the world feels very ancient and epic. Also, super cool dwarven road trip: basically perfect. Right up our alley! I'll probably be re-watching the old animated film for inspiration (and using that music when I wirte and when we play!).
3. Vinland Saga!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
   
   
   
4. Berserk. I'm not quite sure why, but everything I create seems to be heavily influenced by Kentaro Miura's masterpiece, and I'm sure this will be no different. It's too far deep in my brain.
5. Godspeed You! Black Emperor's album Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven.
6. Finally, I wanna plug another OSR blog here. Bat In The Attic made a fantastic guide to designing a fantasy sandbox adventure, and it really got my brain gears spinning. Their guide is well made, and the world they create is really neat! It serves as inspiration for my own humble project. A lot of what I will be doing, specifically in the early phases of this project, will be almost a step by step follow-through of their great advice, so please check them out.

Alright that about does it for inspirations. At least, the ones I could list. There are definitely countless other little tidbits of stories and media that are subtly influencing my own ideas, but unfortunately I can't list them all, or really even pin them down!

For the last section of this post, I wanted to talk about how I plan on running this game, because I do think it is an important factor to keep in mind when creating a homebrew RPG world, even if it is kinda getting ahead of ourselves.

First of all, the system. I have settled on using Old School Essentials. Some of my players are familiar with it already, and I find it really delightful. The UI design is awesome, and the game is elegant (also I recently backed their newest Kickstarter campaign, and I'm very much looking forward to getting my hands on those books!).

Ok, we figured out the system. So how's it gonna play? Well, as I mentioned already, this is going to more or less follow the West Marches campaign style. The explorable world will be, for the most part, planned ahead. Since the main driving factor of the story is not a small group of individuals, but rather an entire community, players can come and go accordingly (which is a REALLY GOOD THING, especially during these "unprecedented times"). Also, the direction the narrative will be following is completely up to the players. I will be, as DM, setting up the physics of our world. The players will be playing with it. 

To do this, of course, I need to have the continent mapped out. That section will be in the form of a hexcrawl, in which I will be using several modules, both new and old, as well as writing some of my own.

But, another important thing to keep in mind is that these are dwarves we are talking about. If the players do end up founding a fortress, or just exploring caves and other possible underground locations to settle, I will need a way to run those strange environments. But whatever could that be?!?!?!

YEP! You guessed it. Patrick Stewart and Scrap Princess' incredible collaborative sourcebook: Veins of The Earth. A treasure trove. 

Finally, I wanna try something I never have. During each winter in the world, if the settlers are in a cold enough environment, they will have to rest and wait out the deadly season. For this, I will be using a little minigame/sourcebook called Do Not Let Us Die In The Dark Night Of This Cold Winter.

That about does it! There it is, the seed of our world.

Next episode: Crunchy Plates and Moving Landmass.