Down the line there is a chance I might end up running D&D 5th edition (for a change) and increasingly I've been tempted to run it as something loosely inspired by Pointcrawls. The setting style and trappings, meanwhile, would be that of the JRPG of old.
Edit: The world has been named Tellus, which is the Roman name for Gaia.
The Ulma
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| Art by Simon Jude Albaran |
Or Human as we know them, because using stupid names for humans is a thing that Final Fantasy has done before. The Ulma, singular Ulm are the current dominant race. They are defined as being industrious, ambitious prideful and sometimes self-destructive. The least magically-inclined of the current races, they are nonetheless an increasingly dominant race in nearly every aspect: society, technology, military and more. They have raised great cities, greater than any in the modern era, vast metropolis of stone and metal. They have begun deeply researching into the true nature of magic and reality and begun to pull the world out of its faux-antiquity roots.
The largest Ulma nation is the Sheradil Empire and it is exactly what one would expect: highly organized with a vast military combined with magic and technology more advanced than other nations. From humble roots as a besieged people in a hostile land they have developed into mighty conquerors and where the Sheradil don't rule by force they rule through culture and money. There was a time people saw the more positive side of their empire but, as clichés demand there might be dark days ahead and the Empire might be on the cusp of spiraling into a totalitarian, world-consuming engine of wrath and hubris.
Appearance
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| Imperial class from Etrian Odyssey IV. |
The Ulma are, well, human. They cover a wide range of ethnicity but the vast majority of them would appear somewhat racially ambiguous to us Earth human, as a nod to many JRPG characters being depicted in art as alternating between being vaguely Asian (hey, these games were made in Japan!) but at the same time sporting features one would generally not associate with Asians. Most Ulm have black, brown or blonde hair and these are generally unrelated to skin tone and southern Ulm with bright blonde hair clashing against darker skin is hardly implausible. Red hair is quite rare and while called red it is really more that rusty brown we see in real life.
Ulma clothes are a combination of the functional clothes one would expect the city worker and pastoral farmers to have. They frequently augment these drab colors with jacket, capes, scarves and turban of bright colors and those who are of noble blood or rich will no doubt try to go for even fancier clothes. Their armor and weapons strike a delicate balance between plausible and the more ludicrous, fantastical style we associate with the genre. They tend toward using metal armor which combine the appearance of baroque medieval plate with a somewhat 'dungeonpunk' look for good measure. It is not uncommon for Ulm nobles, especially those who are married, to have increasingly elaborate hair which extend to facial hair for men. It is a sign of maturity to have a well-trimmed, suitably elaborate mustache or beard. Young Ulm, however, are generally clean shaven and a bit more androgynous for the men when it come to their styling. Both sex are known to use some form of makeup but this is not universal. Very campy, almost clownish makeup is not unheard of for particularly goofy Sheradil nobles.
Culture
Forming the 'base point' for the world, the Ulm culture is recognizable as fairly standard fantasy fare. They are primarily organized either in a semi-feudal system or into city-states with a few independents in between. They prize the core values we expect of a civilization and are, ultimately, fairly ordinary people with ordinary wants and needs. At least, for the average Ulm, anyway. Seen as a race of extremes by others, the Ulma as a whole have produce many great heroes and equally as many villains. Their core societal unit is the family.
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| Art by Yunjin Jung. |
The Ulma have many gods and even more religious branches and sects. The Gods of this still-unnamed world (I am bad at naming worlds, aren't I?) are abstract and non-personified. Many Ulm worship deities which embody abstract concept as as 'the Light' or 'Justice' or 'Protection' and it suit them just fine: so long as it keep their bellies full and their family safe that is all that's needed. However, the Sheradil Empire has increasingly been treating spiritual matters as nothing more than fuel for their growth and ascendancy to the point of increasingly alienating their priesthood. Some fear they might destroy the planet in trying to harness forces best left untouched.
Only about one in several hundred human has an innate gift for magic, be it being able to tap into (or contact) divine/cosmic forces or to wield complex spellcraft. Many of these powers have ended up eternally mingled with human mythologies and religious rites and it is from human that terms such as 'White Magic' and 'Black Magic' have emerged, as human tend to ever-so-slightly favor the more constructive and protective side of magic when it come to their religious ceremonies, finding the power to heal most effective. The other, more chaotic side of magic, is seen either with suspicion and fear or as a deadly tool of war to rain down hail and fire on hordes of enemies.
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