Building A World Is Never Easy

Those few two (or is it three?) people who have read this two-bit blog may vaguely recall I originally wanted (and had started work) on a setting called Iza-Zual. It's dead. For now, anyway. So, why? Simple:

If your setting lacks a core identity, it's worthless.

Ravenloft is D&D+Gothic Horror. Dark Sun is desert hellscape/weird fantasy. Eberron is magitek-heavy and has a world more inspired by the 19th and 20th century than the veneer of faux medieval society that most settings clothe themselves. Iza-Zual died because I've lacked the ability to narrow down it's identity to a simple sentence. That's why I'm scrapping it to devote my energy to something hopefully better.

What is it?

I'm trying to draw inspiration primarily from the older JRPG (which themselves drew a lot from D&D in their early days. Unsurprisingly I've drawn quite a few ideas and inspiration from Cörpathium and Yoon-Suin as well as the work of Kevin Crawford. These are all amazing things I can barely even begin to emulate in their greatness. There's quite a lot in flux as the project has just been resurrected from older notes.

What does it have? What's it like?

There are some very clear elements which I wish to capture in the proper 'feel' of the setting which, I'd argue, would on some level put it in a different camp from quite a few settings on this blogosphere.

• Wonder and Whimsy: Not to say the setting will be some My Little Pony saccharine world, far from it. However, this is a world which is very much bright and alive (or at the very least will be if heroes step up to the task of defeating whatever threat is menacing it this Sunday). Things are often a mixture of wonderful, baroque, whimsical with a tad touch of unnerving eeriness once you scratch past the surface. That's not universal but once in a while things get weird.
• Endless Possibilities: There's always more to the world. You may find your generic 'starting zone grasslands' but that is only because it's where most civilization developed. The world is big (possibly not even limited to the planet...assuming it even IS a planet!). Quite a few older JRPG loved to throw in new areas to explore later on into the game, be it via your airship, submarine or flat out transporting you to a new world.
• Wacky Monsters: The bestiary of older JRPG initially began as mere ripoffs of D&D but over time things got stranger and stranger. While I'm certainly a fan of setting consistency there is no denying such a world would need to be populated with some truly bizarre things.
• Different Roots: Quite a few settings in recent years have drawn from the older pulp material. I absolutely love this kind of stuff...but this isn't the world for it. Things are rather different here and this isn't quite the kind of setting filled with mighty-thewed barbarians and corrupt sorcerers sacrificing virgins to their tentacled god. You won't find subhuman tribes, malign cults (mostly!) and horrors which drive you mad.

What games would it support?

Quite a few possible concepts actually, from the classic hexcrawl and dungeon crawl to the airship-centered game (could be exploration or, even better, about sky pirates!), Star Wars-wannabe Resistance vs Evil Empire to some mild political games not to mention delving into the setting's past and unsolved mysteries. Any of these, of course, could very much lead into the mandatory endgame plot of defeating some great evil with too many forms and wings. Of course, things moving into this more arguably 'railroad' direction is purely optional.

Okay but what's it called?

Um. I don't know yet. Names have always been something which I've struggled greatly. This is no surprise when there is such a strong reliance on random names in my games.

Is this going to amount to anything?

No clue. Ideally I'd love to develop it and eventually make a PDF or something.