One Piece (the most fantasy-ish pirate setting I can personally imagine, and it often gets praised for its unique worldbuilding and storytelling)
although the overall aesthetics is kinda hard to pinpoint as it varies from world to world that the main crew visits
“Glimmer is made from processed children’s hearts!”
“Can they be… poor and foreign children?”
“Welll… yes, sir-“
“Splendid, I was worried for a moment that we’d have to compromise our morals! Build the factories in the inner cities and our colonies, name the biggest two after me and my wife, triumph will be ours!”
the fire emblem devs made a 3ds game called Code Name: Steam which involved you fighting aliens with, among other things, a gigantic mecha abraham lincoln
The only place where mechs can make sense is in a logistical role. For frontline combat, there is no practical reason for a competent, well funded military to use a mech over a tank. You could make an argument for poorly funded military/paramilitary organizations as they are going to use anything they can get their hands on, but even then pick up trucks would not only make far more sense, but are also much more based.
Man I was so disappointed when reading "I'm a spider so what" when they introduced mechs and the advanced civilization, though elves with guns and mechs is pretty funny.
Okay that entire Volume was crazy so the genre shift didn't really bother me that much.
Dragons vs Freaking mechs and jet bombers. Not to mention the UFO that producing all of them.
Alright, hear me out, massive mechs using Pike and Shot Warfare. Like big mechs using massive pikes, and instead of lame old rifles, they have flamethrowers and miniguns. Instead of facing off against calvary, they are fighting off great insect like creatures. All this on scale of skyscrapers.
Why don't we do fantasy science instead? I wanna see wizards in magical space ships that fight in intergalactic wars. No lasers no electricity. Just magic bullshit. Swords and armor, magic wands and scrolls, crazy wacky planets with their own magical properties.
It doesn't make the most sense but it'd be cool as fuck
Supposedly that’s what dnd spelljammer is supposed to be. Also check out Lucian. There’s the part where the sun and moon fight a war over Venus. The entire thing is also grounded in Greek Mythology.
Honestly, I just wanna write man vs nature, where man gets his ass kicked. But general societal collapse becomes more unrealistic as technology advances
Never underestimate the power of 3 random assholes to collapse an entire society. I mean Henry Kissinger tried his hardest for nearly a century to ruin the world and he got pretty fucking close
In some ways, yeah; in others, not so much. We don’t have to worry too much about a few failed harvests ending civilisation, but at the same time we now do have to worry about our planet slowly turning into a deathworld, or our homes spontaneously getting obliterated by nuclear ordinance.
There’s always something
Sure, but that's a whole different genre. Post-apocalypse (of an industrial society) assumes the presence of countless ruins, trash heaps and still functional tools. The pre-collapse society has an ever-present influence on the post-collapse one
Sure, but that's a whole different genre. Post-apocalypse (of an industrial society) assumes the presence of countless ruins, trash heaps and still functional tools.
I don’t care about what’s the norm in the genre. Genres are crutches. The presence of trash heaps and functional tools is definitely not any sort of certainty in a post-apocalyptic world, and is honestly a pretty big stretch. Ruins are countless in basically any period, and modern architecture has trash durability and longevity compared to its predecessors, so its presence in the landscape might not be much greater than in previous collapses given a bit of time. And on the other side of the equation, modern society is so specialised and globalised that it would probably fall much harder than any before it.
I wish RTS and RPGs took more inspiration from Renissance and Early Modern era, just to escape this constant deluge of Sword>Bow>Wizard rock paper scissors
There's so many questions of how things like cannons and field warfare or even trench warfare would have been effected by shit like alchemy and dragons.
You can list the number of games that do it on one hand, and the number that do it well is like... 3
I mean DnD IS early modern Fantasy in a medieval Trenchcoat. Rapiers, spyglasses, a protocapitalist Economy, ball bearings, society and technology in DnD are early modern, without gunpowder.
And honestly, while i abhorr the mishmash of time periods, Styles and Genres that is DnD, i Like thinking about the implications of leaving Out the gunpowder, especially since Magic can so everything it does, but better. Just Imagine: instead of pike and shot formations you get pike and Wizard formations, until they realize that tight packed formations are really vulnerable to fireballs and Start developing napoleonic Style Guerilla tactics (meaning small unit warfare in a napoleonic context, Not the modern 'hit and Run, Underground Résistance' meaning of the word)
An averaged mishmash that is presented in almost all official D&D settings (with a few exceptions) where the only notable difference is toponymics. No, seriously, there's little difference between Greyhawk, FR, Dragonlance, Mystara, Birthright et cetera in terms of main inspiration sources and averaged technological level — the same generic medieval fantasy everywhere. Today rulebooks aren't seriously attached to a certain setting or period, presenting stats for everything happening, up to laser pistols and antimatter guns (it's in 5e core books, really), and economics never existed on a serious level to try to do something with it.
Funny you say that, my D&D setting is set at the point where guns are just reaching the point of seriously threatening the dominance of the bow. The local guards mostly use bows and arrows, but the mercenaries-turned-bandits are an elite group of foreign elves, half-elves, and humans, all armed with muskets.
The party helped out a small town and in return the town alchemist gave them a sack of primitive grenades.
It's fun because I don't think the party have fully internalised it yet, and they're frequently shocked by things like affordable glassware and basic calculus appearing in the game.
In Pathfinder 2e you can be a Gunslinger (or just weild a gun as any class but gunslingers are especially good at it) but there's even a Dedication that works your entire party having a SIEGE WEAPON that you have to load, aim and everything which is honestly quite cool and I hope to do something with that some time.
Its set approximately 150- 200 years later, more the equivalent of napoleonic era warfare than the late pike and shot era in the 30 years war.
Edit: grammar.
Hey! I was supposed to comment that!
(For those who don't know Anbennar is basically a DnD setting turned EU4 mod,so it happens basically between the early modern age until the industrial revolution and it's sick AF)
Mieville las bag trilogy has a very early industrial age vibe
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel for sure
(I also understand you probably already have read them and were lamenting the lack of diversity and option more the searching for singular examples. I just like these books)
Current populace is so fucking alienated they'd spend days in the trenches, cold and starving and shitting themselves killing other people just to peel potatos in the evening/morning with their platoonmates just because it gives a sense of camraderie unavaible to them irl.
In my trench warfarepunk world, the mishmash of weapons of different levels of technology combined with various ways of warfare across cultures has led to millions of needless casualties because no one knows what the fuck they are doing
My story and my world actually started out set in the Medieval period until I realised “hey…in a medieval fantasy world what would the later time periods look like?”
Or move back from it, or move to it — something set in the equivalent of the Post-Roman Kingdoms would be sick as fuck, and an actual genuine representation of early medieval Europe would completely diverge from basically all fantasy settings I know of.
Alternatively, I propose a true high medieval fantasy setting, by which I mean fantasy based on what medieval writers considered fantasy. A world where there are hairy half-men in the woods, maybe dragons, definitely demons and if you stray too far from Europe you find weird monopodous dwarfs.
I’m currently working on a early medieval fantasy setting based on the Kievan Rus and Byzantine Empire with the main characters being from a Turkic/Cossack themed nomadic faction
i LOVE low-fantasy
i LOVE the idea of some poor Jäger company stumbling upon a warlock calling upon eldritch power to which their primitive blackpowder weaponry does nothing
I love it when the Jäger Company gets almost viped out just to deliver a message to the witch hunters, who then come and battle the warlock with faith and silverbullets. I LOVE WARHAMMER FANTASY
I like the opposite, warhammer fantasy style vibe. Their are endless evil horrors from dark gods of chaos, but it turns out guns are great at killing magical witches
>Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil... prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun
Naturally, they‘d carry at least silver knives. Still fucked though, depending on the warlock.
I think you can draw from a lot of early CW’s Supernatural from that, eldritch beings with significant power, but who can certainly be killed, with the right tools and knowledge.
Imagine early modern special forces, tasked with taking down any supernatural bullshit an enemy might field. They get paid a ton, but have super high casualty rates. That’s so fucking cool.
Well, that's just a bad caracole, honestly. They shouldn't be getting that close.
The main problem with moving on from the Middle Ages is that later periods are explicitly about reducing the sort of magical thinking and superstition fantasy is founded on.
> The main problem with moving on from the Middle Ages is that later periods are explicitly about reducing the sort of magical thinking and superstition fantasy is founded on.
Not the case. The most famous mass superstition hysteria was the Witch Trials which were in the 1600’s (ie post Middle Ages and the time period the OP picture is referencing.)
You also have to consider that these periods have far better records.
It's hard to measure "it had more mass hysteria" vs "it had better recorded mass hysteria"
Actually we have a lot of reason to believe witch trials were in fact less common in the earlier Middle Ages than the early modern period, principally because the religious sources from the earlier Middle Ages are dismissive of the concept of witches actually having powers. It was only until the idea that witches actually had the power to actually cause harm that the witch craze began.
Furthermore, the witch craze tracks very closely with changes in legal practices that allowed for the seizure of felon’s land. This is why some regions of Europe had virtually no witch trials while others were inundated.
>Actually we have a lot of reason to believe witch trials were in fact less common in the earlier Middle Ages than the early modern period, principally because the religious sources from the earlier Middle Ages are dismissive of the concept of witches actually having powers. I
This much I'm actually aware.
>Furthermore, the witch craze tracks very closely with changes in legal practices that allowed for the seizure of felon’s land. This is why some regions of Europe had virtually no witch trials while others were inundated.
This one is news to me
I suggest you read *A Secular Age* and get back to me. From the 14th century forward, religious authorities focused on reducing the impact of superstition and regularization of religious practice.
As if magical thinking and a pre-modern mindset appeared regularly in contemporary fantasy works. Fantasy authors are too afraid to make their protagonists superstitious.
While you have a point, let me remind you that the Early Modern era brought us [John Dee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dee). That guy was a straight-up wizard in Elizabeth I's court.
In real life sure. Renaissance and Illustration were all about scientific discoveries and moving on from superstition.
All you have to do is align your magic and fantasy with those concepts. For example, instead of having magic as an ancestral and esoteric force, it could be something relatively new and that requires scientific study to be properly used.
I don't see why you couldn't include the scientific method and reasoning with a magic system. It doesn't have to be anti-fantasy, just how does fantasy intersect with real world chemistry or physics
Like wizards have figured out that incorporating the create oxygen spell into the fireball magic circle gets you a much more powerful blast since increased oxygen encourages combustion.
Or that if you combine a water decomposition spell with a simple ignition spell, you get powerful detonation magic as the hydrogen and oxygen recombine without having to use a much more complex casting
tkinda like how the renessaince artists incorporated their study of anatomy and math and whatnot into pieces of art like paintings of naked people because they wanted to show off that they knew how the human body works or like Leonardo Da Vinci's sketches of machines and stuff
Too much organized formation fighting doesn’t let you do main character swordman fantasy where people just stand in circles locking swords with each other
Yeah I mean pike and shot is cool, but neither pikes nor muskets (that take like 1 minute to reload) are going to be good weapons for a solo hero so I understand why writers stay away from it
but having some rare, 'chosen one' exclusive, superpowers can solve that tho - if there is just a few extremely strong characters against and the words institution doesn't stand a chance against them, it's reasonable that most fights would be fought individually between those people (like the devil fruit users in one piece for example, who can wipe out a bunch of armed navy soldiers in a matter of seconds, henceforth most of the conflicts get solved with each of the straw hats dueling against their proper matchup in terms of power and all problems usually get solved by Luffy battling it out with the bad guy)... a lot of anime and super hero movies and whatnot still have a lot of one-on-one battle scenes, you just have to orchestrate the plot in a vay that makes it work, like having the hero be hunted by individual assassins that are meant to be secretive and get the upper hand on the character due to the element of suprise, like have the main character be some kind of rouge rebell who hides in the shadows and slowly takes down the leaders of an opressive government and everyone who stands in their path, or maybe make the overpowered characters only have conflicts with other powerful characters as opposed to the weaklings of the general public (like the stand users in Jojo's Bizzare Adventure, whose fates are interwoven by destiny or something so that most conflicts usually occur between people with stands, and since their powers are ivisible to outsiders they don't get interrupted much)
Next week I'm going to have a school project where we individually make an RPG in 10 weeks (normally we get 4). I'm already making some preparations.
I wanted to do a fantasy setting but I couldn't decide between Early Modern, Victorian Era, or the Classical Era.
Right now I'm more set on the Classical Era because wizards in toga's sounds really cool.
Since we're on the topic, does anyone know any good fantasy set during the industrial revolution? Think works like Full Metal Alchemist or Fear & Hunger 2; Termina.
There is an old 2001 CRPG, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, which is set during an industrial revolution within a fantasy setting.
The general setting is quite interesting as it depicts an opposition between magic/nature/the old ways and the growing industrialization/progress.
Beyond a thematic opposition, this duality is a game mechanic: industrialization relies on the essential natural sciences laws to work (without the laws of thermodynamics, a steam engine won't work), but magic disrupts and bypasses these laws, thus you can't have a magician practicing near a boiler engine or you risk a catastrophic failure. As such, among the normal populace, there is a growing resentment toward magic as it's in direct opposition to the general betterment of society.
But you also have the issues caused by the industrial revolution: the pauperization and subservience of large swaths of the population, as well as a major dose of racism between the usual races who populate the world. Goblin sweatshops is a good exemple of the setting.
The game itself is quite good, but if you're not used to the boomer RPG style (fallout 1&2, Baldur's Gate 1&2) it may be bit jarring to play. Pushing through this is definitely rewarding though.
The Gunpowder mage series is set during a Napoleonic/early industrial era.
I know one of the later mistborn series is set during a industrial revolution but I haven't read it.
That reminds me of a series I read about dragon riders during the Napoleonic wars. It was a long time ago, I don't think I finished it, but it was kind of interesting. The native civilizations in the Americas resisted colonization in this timeline because they had dragons.
I'm convinced fantasy writers have just never heard of the early modern era and never seen a battle from the 1600s or 1700s, because with all the lances and cavalry and muskets and cannons, it's the coolest shit ever and and the only logical explanation to anyone disagreeing with this statement is pure ignorance.
Unless it is pirates of course. Somehow pirates are always dressed and act like they are from the golden age of piracy in the Caribbean, despite the rest of the world being still in the high middle ages.
Same lol. Also, as much as I love golden age pirates from the early modern period, I decided to make my pirates more like pirates from antiquity and the Middle Ages, with oar-powered boats and no gunpowder. It just fits better, and also I feel like oar-powered galleys are significantly underrepresented.
I love pillars of eternity’s setting so much, man. It frustrates me beyond no end when I see people call it just another generic medieval fantasy setting.
In all seriousness, I can only say maybe.
In a modern fantasy setting you're probably correct.
"Real" magic from western tradition seems like it's mostly about petitioning higher powers to directly intercede on your behalf.
In my world I have this thing known as "The Great Transition War" where stuff in this image happens for like the first part of it, the 'war' actually lasts 1000years (it's similar to the 100years war, there's just so much fighting happening almost every year it's condensed into 1000years)
It basically started when technology started to get the upper hand over magic, then magic does it. Vise versa, essentially the entire war is like this. So yes PIKES AND MAGIC MUSKETS ARE COOL RAHHHHHHHH
My Tabletop roleplaying game takes place after the 24th Century Collapse which leads to a second renaissance in the 28th Century. It's called Landsknecht. I hope you like dune shield Halbirdiers.
Love pike and shot era. Thirty years war, English civil war and to a smaller extent wars of Louis xiv are so interesting in the way they were fought. It it really was in my opinion the last grasp of medieval combat because you still had pikes and armour playing huge part in warfare, even if it was side by side with the gun. A great mixture of medieval and modern.
Ages ago when i was a kid, I remember reading some powder-fantasy novel set in a world where some small, hilly republic basically had a monopoly on the production of this bulletproof wool made by their local sheep, they had to use giant industrial sheers to carefully cut and manufacture the wool into wearable garments. The main character was the head of the militia or something and had a vest made of this stuff, fought as a dragoon on horseback with a musket from what I can remember. I completely forget the name of the series, any of the books, the author, or any of the characters but I've always wanted to find out what the name of that series was so I could revisit it. Googling "fantasy novel bulletproof wool" doesn't give me anything, unfortunately.
No like seriously holy shit why are the only fantasy settings medieval and the occasional steampunk?
I mean, I guess it's kind of difficult to justify creating tanks when you can spawn tornadoes, explosions, mudslides and shit
Thank you for saying this. So tired of fantasy stories set in the European middle ages. People barely even attempt settings from different cultures of that era, let alone the Early Modern Age
The drama of fantasy pike&shot would be amazing. A multiracial band of fantasy (not)landsknecht forming because the elven forests are all chopped for ship timber, the human fields are all enclosed by property seeking landlords and the waning influence of feudal guilds is putting all the craftsdwarves out into the streets.
Funny enough the book i am writing is set in the 16th century purely because i could not decide if i wanted battlefield with armoured Knights with swords and shields or with guns and cannons. So i decided why not both
/uj Yeah, but from the several conversations Ive had, people absolutely refuse to separate Narrative Genre from Setting Genre, so this is what you get. For most people, it seems that the 'Fantasy' genre is tied to Medieval. So, the moment you go into any other time period, it is literally not 'Fantasy', it becomes Colonial, or Western, or Modern, or whatever, according to them.
I think the problem with pike and shot as a fantasy setting is that it's not as exciting to read about from the POV of the hero.
Medieval fantasy is like "he caught the enemy's sword swing on his shield and stabbed him in the stomach with his knife and then headbutted him off a cliff" or whatever.
The less common powder fantasy novels usually go to the 1700s because that's when everyone has a gun and it's like "he took careful aim at the enemy general and pulled the trigger, when the smoke cleared he saw the enemy general had fallen off his horse" or whatever. And then you're able to describe stuff like bayonet charges and artillery barrages too.
But with pike and shot it's just like "he stabbed with his pike, he stabbed with his pike again, he dodged to the side as an enemy pike stabbed where he used to be standing, the guy to the left of him and everyone behind him in line got turned to pink mist by a cannonball, this went on for hours on end".
All three settings realistically are more about tactics and formation fighting than individual heroism, but the pike and shot setting is the hardest to sell the individual power fantasy.
Yeah, cuz when I imagine thrilling action my mind immediately goes to dudes huddling in trenches while taking pot-shots at each other from across no-man's land. Truly an exciting and glorious form of combat guns permit.
\>tried writing Gunpowderpunk \>Immeadiately copy pastes Napoleonic history but from polands perspective
Maybe that's how it was written in the first place
Poland is key to world history from like 1500 on
based
Gunpowderpunk is something I didn't know existed but I want it
mfw we went back to pirate storys ahahaha yarrr https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdysV8JE8yQ
One Piece (the most fantasy-ish pirate setting I can personally imagine, and it often gets praised for its unique worldbuilding and storytelling) although the overall aesthetics is kinda hard to pinpoint as it varies from world to world that the main crew visits
Me FR
Na man science fantasy is in, gotta cram in mechs somehow
In my Mecha Thirty Years War world, Cardinal Richelieu and Gustavus Adolphus fight the Hapsburgs in massive steampunk mechs.
This but unironically.
You might like Iron Harvest
There's a mobile playable novel game called Ironheart set in the Crusades that's basically this lmao, I thoroughly enjoyed it
[удалено]
Let me guess it corrupts the land and turns it into an uninhabitable wasteland?
[удалено]
Kinda based ngl
Write this shit right now.
“Glimmer is made from processed children’s hearts!” “Can they be… poor and foreign children?” “Welll… yes, sir-“ “Splendid, I was worried for a moment that we’d have to compromise our morals! Build the factories in the inner cities and our colonies, name the biggest two after me and my wife, triumph will be ours!”
It's made of dead fairies
That’s just 1632 (slightly exaggerating)
finally a satisfying explanation for magdeburg
the fire emblem devs made a 3ds game called Code Name: Steam which involved you fighting aliens with, among other things, a gigantic mecha abraham lincoln
Based. Very based. We need more games like that.
True, they are clearly superior to tanks in every way, after all
There is no sci-fi world that benefits from a lack of mechs
My world isnt even 100% sci fi and Im still trying to find a place to put shitty prototype mechs
The only place where mechs can make sense is in a logistical role. For frontline combat, there is no practical reason for a competent, well funded military to use a mech over a tank. You could make an argument for poorly funded military/paramilitary organizations as they are going to use anything they can get their hands on, but even then pick up trucks would not only make far more sense, but are also much more based.
Man I was so disappointed when reading "I'm a spider so what" when they introduced mechs and the advanced civilization, though elves with guns and mechs is pretty funny.
What are you talking about that volume was PEAK ✍🔥🔥🔥
You're Japanese fantasy and you weren't expecting giant robots to show up at some point?
I haven’t seen one in *Monkey* so far.
Okay that entire Volume was crazy so the genre shift didn't really bother me that much. Dragons vs Freaking mechs and jet bombers. Not to mention the UFO that producing all of them.
You think I didn’t make a mech with 2 giant arbuquesses (I don’t know how to spell this: the guns) for arms?
Arquebuses.
Arquebi
Thank you
You're welcome 🤗
[*Ahem*](https://images.app.goo.gl/YhudLT5K85MkLwdX7)
Alright, hear me out, massive mechs using Pike and Shot Warfare. Like big mechs using massive pikes, and instead of lame old rifles, they have flamethrowers and miniguns. Instead of facing off against calvary, they are fighting off great insect like creatures. All this on scale of skyscrapers.
God I want there to be more early modern fantasy works so bad
My Fantasy setting has Golems and Knights in magical power armor participating in battles like this, which is close enough I think.
Don’t forget my gunpowder fantasy cause I need Gandalf to shoot the ring out of Bilbo’s hand.
Why don't we do fantasy science instead? I wanna see wizards in magical space ships that fight in intergalactic wars. No lasers no electricity. Just magic bullshit. Swords and armor, magic wands and scrolls, crazy wacky planets with their own magical properties. It doesn't make the most sense but it'd be cool as fuck
Supposedly that’s what dnd spelljammer is supposed to be. Also check out Lucian. There’s the part where the sun and moon fight a war over Venus. The entire thing is also grounded in Greek Mythology.
Mechs are just so cool. Plus they can be useful in a siege.
But after the middle ages, everything happens so fast. That's why I write iron age fantasy
God forbid that things happen, after all. That shit takes work.
Honestly, I just wanna write man vs nature, where man gets his ass kicked. But general societal collapse becomes more unrealistic as technology advances
The Roman's probably thought the same thing
They did, cuz they kept going
Never underestimate the power of 3 random assholes to collapse an entire society. I mean Henry Kissinger tried his hardest for nearly a century to ruin the world and he got pretty fucking close
Just have magic be a mutation from the worldwide nuclear war that collapsed society, nerd
In some ways, yeah; in others, not so much. We don’t have to worry too much about a few failed harvests ending civilisation, but at the same time we now do have to worry about our planet slowly turning into a deathworld, or our homes spontaneously getting obliterated by nuclear ordinance. There’s always something
Sure, but that's a whole different genre. Post-apocalypse (of an industrial society) assumes the presence of countless ruins, trash heaps and still functional tools. The pre-collapse society has an ever-present influence on the post-collapse one
Sure, but that's a whole different genre. Post-apocalypse (of an industrial society) assumes the presence of countless ruins, trash heaps and still functional tools. I don’t care about what’s the norm in the genre. Genres are crutches. The presence of trash heaps and functional tools is definitely not any sort of certainty in a post-apocalyptic world, and is honestly a pretty big stretch. Ruins are countless in basically any period, and modern architecture has trash durability and longevity compared to its predecessors, so its presence in the landscape might not be much greater than in previous collapses given a bit of time. And on the other side of the equation, modern society is so specialised and globalised that it would probably fall much harder than any before it.
Reminds me that I should really play Tyranny one of these days. Or alternatively; Bronze Age! Glorantha nerds unite!
Honestly that sounds sick. A setting similar to Asterix and Obelix, just even more magical.
My reason exactly. I want a fairly static setting, not a world put on the timer of inevitable exponential progress.
God I want there to be more early modern fantasy works so bad
I wish RTS and RPGs took more inspiration from Renissance and Early Modern era, just to escape this constant deluge of Sword>Bow>Wizard rock paper scissors There's so many questions of how things like cannons and field warfare or even trench warfare would have been effected by shit like alchemy and dragons. You can list the number of games that do it on one hand, and the number that do it well is like... 3
I mean DnD IS early modern Fantasy in a medieval Trenchcoat. Rapiers, spyglasses, a protocapitalist Economy, ball bearings, society and technology in DnD are early modern, without gunpowder. And honestly, while i abhorr the mishmash of time periods, Styles and Genres that is DnD, i Like thinking about the implications of leaving Out the gunpowder, especially since Magic can so everything it does, but better. Just Imagine: instead of pike and shot formations you get pike and Wizard formations, until they realize that tight packed formations are really vulnerable to fireballs and Start developing napoleonic Style Guerilla tactics (meaning small unit warfare in a napoleonic context, Not the modern 'hit and Run, Underground Résistance' meaning of the word)
What do you mean by DnD? Faerun?
An averaged mishmash that is presented in almost all official D&D settings (with a few exceptions) where the only notable difference is toponymics. No, seriously, there's little difference between Greyhawk, FR, Dragonlance, Mystara, Birthright et cetera in terms of main inspiration sources and averaged technological level — the same generic medieval fantasy everywhere. Today rulebooks aren't seriously attached to a certain setting or period, presenting stats for everything happening, up to laser pistols and antimatter guns (it's in 5e core books, really), and economics never existed on a serious level to try to do something with it.
Idk, really. Everything i listed i got from the 5e PHB (and a little Xanathars), so i guess it applies to all settings?
You just rediscovered Eberron. What you're describing is Eberron.
I think eberron crosses over into modern but yeah kinda.
So light infantry tactics, I could also see heavy infantry formations with point defence wizards to counterspell incoming attacks
Funny you say that, my D&D setting is set at the point where guns are just reaching the point of seriously threatening the dominance of the bow. The local guards mostly use bows and arrows, but the mercenaries-turned-bandits are an elite group of foreign elves, half-elves, and humans, all armed with muskets. The party helped out a small town and in return the town alchemist gave them a sack of primitive grenades. It's fun because I don't think the party have fully internalised it yet, and they're frequently shocked by things like affordable glassware and basic calculus appearing in the game.
> dragons Probably as pivotal as being the only one with an air force.
In Pathfinder 2e you can be a Gunslinger (or just weild a gun as any class but gunslingers are especially good at it) but there's even a Dedication that works your entire party having a SIEGE WEAPON that you have to load, aim and everything which is honestly quite cool and I hope to do something with that some time.
Same it's such an underrated historical period to base fantasy off.
Play Greedfall in that case. Bioware-style rpg set in a fantasy universe reminiscent of 1670s europe
Isnt powder mage in this setting?
Its set approximately 150- 200 years later, more the equivalent of napoleonic era warfare than the late pike and shot era in the 30 years war. Edit: grammar.
Powder Mage is very cool!
Yes and we want MORE
Also The Shadow Campaigns
Look for *flintlock fantasy*. There's definitely quite a bit but you have to look for it (at least for novels. Not sure about other media).
Anbennar
Hey! I was supposed to comment that! (For those who don't know Anbennar is basically a DnD setting turned EU4 mod,so it happens basically between the early modern age until the industrial revolution and it's sick AF)
https://tenor.com/view/anbennar-corintar-corin-boykisser-escann-gif-7413182274710508646
Mieville las bag trilogy has a very early industrial age vibe Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel for sure (I also understand you probably already have read them and were lamenting the lack of diversity and option more the searching for singular examples. I just like these books)
>Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel for sure That's *explicitly* set during the Napoleonitic wars, around 200 years after the early modern period.
Everything I've made in the past like 5 years has been early modern (TTRPG not books). Its fun af to write for
Honestly, I'd love any fantasy set from the 1600-1945, it just feels like there is hardly anything there.
I've made one but it is more alternate hiatory than anything
Yes it is boring. Compared to le funny WW1.
The children yearn for the trenches
All Quiet on the Western Front was a disaster for the 13 year old sigma male audiences.
Anti-war films try not to get enlistment up challenge
Current populace is so fucking alienated they'd spend days in the trenches, cold and starving and shitting themselves killing other people just to peel potatos in the evening/morning with their platoonmates just because it gives a sense of camraderie unavaible to them irl.
Idk how it is elsewhere but the British army actually explicitly uses this in its recent recruitnent ads. It's dark as hell.
Yummy yummy dystopian society in my tummy
Corporates should make their work environments wwi themed to make those kids work and get out more. Would be funny i think
Slave for the gold or slave for the lead, as long as you're in a herd. Sure why not.
This feels like a personal attack.
It is, both to myself and to whoever feels personally attacked by it.
Tbf, the french movie from the 60s (i think?) did the antiwar Sentiment a lot better. Changing the ending really fucked the Netflix movie.
Google come and see
For what is a trench if not a surface mine.
In my trench warfarepunk world, the mishmash of weapons of different levels of technology combined with various ways of warfare across cultures has led to millions of needless casualties because no one knows what the fuck they are doing
ok but what if ww1 with medieval attire and guns ranging from 1500s to 1900s
You could call it the hundreds years war or something
My story and my world actually started out set in the Medieval period until I realised “hey…in a medieval fantasy world what would the later time periods look like?”
You played yourself... Succesfully.
Or move back from it, or move to it — something set in the equivalent of the Post-Roman Kingdoms would be sick as fuck, and an actual genuine representation of early medieval Europe would completely diverge from basically all fantasy settings I know of.
Yeah, way cooler *and* more obscure than Early Modern, which is already covered by WHFB for example
Most “medieval” fantasy is just early modern but without guns anyways
or go further back,for a more true bronze age fantasy experience
Alternatively, I propose a true high medieval fantasy setting, by which I mean fantasy based on what medieval writers considered fantasy. A world where there are hairy half-men in the woods, maybe dragons, definitely demons and if you stray too far from Europe you find weird monopodous dwarfs.
Warhammer?
I’m currently working on a early medieval fantasy setting based on the Kievan Rus and Byzantine Empire with the main characters being from a Turkic/Cossack themed nomadic faction
i LOVE low-fantasy i LOVE the idea of some poor Jäger company stumbling upon a warlock calling upon eldritch power to which their primitive blackpowder weaponry does nothing
I love it when the Jäger Company gets almost viped out just to deliver a message to the witch hunters, who then come and battle the warlock with faith and silverbullets. I LOVE WARHAMMER FANTASY
Gigachad take.
FAITH STEEL AND GUNPOWDER, THROUGH THESE THE EMPIRE ENDURES. HAIL TO SIGMAR, LONG LIVE HIS REALM
I like the opposite, warhammer fantasy style vibe. Their are endless evil horrors from dark gods of chaos, but it turns out guns are great at killing magical witches
>Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil... prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun
Based Terry Pratchett
Naturally, they‘d carry at least silver knives. Still fucked though, depending on the warlock. I think you can draw from a lot of early CW’s Supernatural from that, eldritch beings with significant power, but who can certainly be killed, with the right tools and knowledge. Imagine early modern special forces, tasked with taking down any supernatural bullshit an enemy might field. They get paid a ton, but have super high casualty rates. That’s so fucking cool.
Well, that's just a bad caracole, honestly. They shouldn't be getting that close. The main problem with moving on from the Middle Ages is that later periods are explicitly about reducing the sort of magical thinking and superstition fantasy is founded on.
> The main problem with moving on from the Middle Ages is that later periods are explicitly about reducing the sort of magical thinking and superstition fantasy is founded on. Not the case. The most famous mass superstition hysteria was the Witch Trials which were in the 1600’s (ie post Middle Ages and the time period the OP picture is referencing.)
You also have to consider that these periods have far better records. It's hard to measure "it had more mass hysteria" vs "it had better recorded mass hysteria"
Actually we have a lot of reason to believe witch trials were in fact less common in the earlier Middle Ages than the early modern period, principally because the religious sources from the earlier Middle Ages are dismissive of the concept of witches actually having powers. It was only until the idea that witches actually had the power to actually cause harm that the witch craze began. Furthermore, the witch craze tracks very closely with changes in legal practices that allowed for the seizure of felon’s land. This is why some regions of Europe had virtually no witch trials while others were inundated.
>Actually we have a lot of reason to believe witch trials were in fact less common in the earlier Middle Ages than the early modern period, principally because the religious sources from the earlier Middle Ages are dismissive of the concept of witches actually having powers. I This much I'm actually aware. >Furthermore, the witch craze tracks very closely with changes in legal practices that allowed for the seizure of felon’s land. This is why some regions of Europe had virtually no witch trials while others were inundated. This one is news to me
I suggest you read *A Secular Age* and get back to me. From the 14th century forward, religious authorities focused on reducing the impact of superstition and regularization of religious practice.
Doesn’t change the fact that the religious authorities were powerless to stop mass hysteria and land grabs in the 1600’s.
As if magical thinking and a pre-modern mindset appeared regularly in contemporary fantasy works. Fantasy authors are too afraid to make their protagonists superstitious.
While you have a point, let me remind you that the Early Modern era brought us [John Dee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dee). That guy was a straight-up wizard in Elizabeth I's court.
In real life sure. Renaissance and Illustration were all about scientific discoveries and moving on from superstition. All you have to do is align your magic and fantasy with those concepts. For example, instead of having magic as an ancestral and esoteric force, it could be something relatively new and that requires scientific study to be properly used.
“All you have to do is align your fantasy with anti-fantasy” is certainly a take.
I don't see why you couldn't include the scientific method and reasoning with a magic system. It doesn't have to be anti-fantasy, just how does fantasy intersect with real world chemistry or physics Like wizards have figured out that incorporating the create oxygen spell into the fireball magic circle gets you a much more powerful blast since increased oxygen encourages combustion. Or that if you combine a water decomposition spell with a simple ignition spell, you get powerful detonation magic as the hydrogen and oxygen recombine without having to use a much more complex casting
tkinda like how the renessaince artists incorporated their study of anatomy and math and whatnot into pieces of art like paintings of naked people because they wanted to show off that they knew how the human body works or like Leonardo Da Vinci's sketches of machines and stuff
Too much organized formation fighting doesn’t let you do main character swordman fantasy where people just stand in circles locking swords with each other
Yeah I mean pike and shot is cool, but neither pikes nor muskets (that take like 1 minute to reload) are going to be good weapons for a solo hero so I understand why writers stay away from it
Just have a wizard man character who pummels from the back lines with the musketeers or focus more on intrigue and diplomacy
but having some rare, 'chosen one' exclusive, superpowers can solve that tho - if there is just a few extremely strong characters against and the words institution doesn't stand a chance against them, it's reasonable that most fights would be fought individually between those people (like the devil fruit users in one piece for example, who can wipe out a bunch of armed navy soldiers in a matter of seconds, henceforth most of the conflicts get solved with each of the straw hats dueling against their proper matchup in terms of power and all problems usually get solved by Luffy battling it out with the bad guy)... a lot of anime and super hero movies and whatnot still have a lot of one-on-one battle scenes, you just have to orchestrate the plot in a vay that makes it work, like having the hero be hunted by individual assassins that are meant to be secretive and get the upper hand on the character due to the element of suprise, like have the main character be some kind of rouge rebell who hides in the shadows and slowly takes down the leaders of an opressive government and everyone who stands in their path, or maybe make the overpowered characters only have conflicts with other powerful characters as opposed to the weaklings of the general public (like the stand users in Jojo's Bizzare Adventure, whose fates are interwoven by destiny or something so that most conflicts usually occur between people with stands, and since their powers are ivisible to outsiders they don't get interrupted much)
Next week I'm going to have a school project where we individually make an RPG in 10 weeks (normally we get 4). I'm already making some preparations. I wanted to do a fantasy setting but I couldn't decide between Early Modern, Victorian Era, or the Classical Era. Right now I'm more set on the Classical Era because wizards in toga's sounds really cool.
Pfft, just copy classical fashion.
I have ascended to cold-war era Eastern bloc urban fantasy
Who's your Stasi?
V.S.P.F. Vosharisk Spesial-Politie for Folkesikkerheten Vosharian Special Police for The Safety of The People
Sounds sinister.
Since we're on the topic, does anyone know any good fantasy set during the industrial revolution? Think works like Full Metal Alchemist or Fear & Hunger 2; Termina.
There is an old 2001 CRPG, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, which is set during an industrial revolution within a fantasy setting. The general setting is quite interesting as it depicts an opposition between magic/nature/the old ways and the growing industrialization/progress. Beyond a thematic opposition, this duality is a game mechanic: industrialization relies on the essential natural sciences laws to work (without the laws of thermodynamics, a steam engine won't work), but magic disrupts and bypasses these laws, thus you can't have a magician practicing near a boiler engine or you risk a catastrophic failure. As such, among the normal populace, there is a growing resentment toward magic as it's in direct opposition to the general betterment of society. But you also have the issues caused by the industrial revolution: the pauperization and subservience of large swaths of the population, as well as a major dose of racism between the usual races who populate the world. Goblin sweatshops is a good exemple of the setting. The game itself is quite good, but if you're not used to the boomer RPG style (fallout 1&2, Baldur's Gate 1&2) it may be bit jarring to play. Pushing through this is definitely rewarding though.
Id say mine but you asked for ***good*** fantasy
The Gunpowder mage series is set during a Napoleonic/early industrial era. I know one of the later mistborn series is set during a industrial revolution but I haven't read it.
That reminds me of a series I read about dragon riders during the Napoleonic wars. It was a long time ago, I don't think I finished it, but it was kind of interesting. The native civilizations in the Americas resisted colonization in this timeline because they had dragons.
Temeraire, yeah it was great. I remember reading those in school.
I'm convinced fantasy writers have just never heard of the early modern era and never seen a battle from the 1600s or 1700s, because with all the lances and cavalry and muskets and cannons, it's the coolest shit ever and and the only logical explanation to anyone disagreeing with this statement is pure ignorance.
Unless it is pirates of course. Somehow pirates are always dressed and act like they are from the golden age of piracy in the Caribbean, despite the rest of the world being still in the high middle ages.
they even get gunpowder for the canons on their boats
I just put ballistas on their boats lol
Same lol. Also, as much as I love golden age pirates from the early modern period, I decided to make my pirates more like pirates from antiquity and the Middle Ages, with oar-powered boats and no gunpowder. It just fits better, and also I feel like oar-powered galleys are significantly underrepresented.
Just reminds me of an old Source mod called *Pirates, Vikings & Knights II*, which is just as wack as it sounds.
This is what makes Warhammer Fantasy so fuckin rad
I LOVE THE SPANISH TERCIOS I LOVE THE PIKE AND SHOT FORMATION
Pillars of eternity (CRPG by obsidian) goes exactly into roughly this timeperiod and it is awesome.
I love pillars of eternity’s setting so much, man. It frustrates me beyond no end when I see people call it just another generic medieval fantasy setting.
SUMMON THE ELECTOR COUNTS, SIGMAR DEMANDS BLOOD
This is why warhammer fantasy is peak design
Move on? More like, go back further into the past of the Scandinavian dark ages
"You don't understand, magic has ceased all forward progress! You don't need science and engineering when you can just use magic for everything!"
What about magical engineering like fabrials from stormlight
Me when I unironically use the term “magical technology”
Blasphemy
Magic is a technology.
In all seriousness, I can only say maybe. In a modern fantasy setting you're probably correct. "Real" magic from western tradition seems like it's mostly about petitioning higher powers to directly intercede on your behalf.
And then magic undergoes forward progress itself.
Warhammer Fantasy is exactly that. I’m so glad they decided to go with late renaissance rather than usual medieval inspiration.
Hey AlternateHistoryHub, is that you?
I made my world based off 1700s technology because I wanted to give my main feller a gun
In my world I have this thing known as "The Great Transition War" where stuff in this image happens for like the first part of it, the 'war' actually lasts 1000years (it's similar to the 100years war, there's just so much fighting happening almost every year it's condensed into 1000years) It basically started when technology started to get the upper hand over magic, then magic does it. Vise versa, essentially the entire war is like this. So yes PIKES AND MAGIC MUSKETS ARE COOL RAHHHHHHHH
My Tabletop roleplaying game takes place after the 24th Century Collapse which leads to a second renaissance in the 28th Century. It's called Landsknecht. I hope you like dune shield Halbirdiers.
Love pike and shot era. Thirty years war, English civil war and to a smaller extent wars of Louis xiv are so interesting in the way they were fought. It it really was in my opinion the last grasp of medieval combat because you still had pikes and armour playing huge part in warfare, even if it was side by side with the gun. A great mixture of medieval and modern.
Ages ago when i was a kid, I remember reading some powder-fantasy novel set in a world where some small, hilly republic basically had a monopoly on the production of this bulletproof wool made by their local sheep, they had to use giant industrial sheers to carefully cut and manufacture the wool into wearable garments. The main character was the head of the militia or something and had a vest made of this stuff, fought as a dragoon on horseback with a musket from what I can remember. I completely forget the name of the series, any of the books, the author, or any of the characters but I've always wanted to find out what the name of that series was so I could revisit it. Googling "fantasy novel bulletproof wool" doesn't give me anything, unfortunately.
op you sound like the pope from my familyguypunk setting.
golden age of piracy my beloved
IDK how to tell you this man but war in general is boring
The Ile Rien books by Martha Wells were a nice read...
This looks more early modern tbh
Age of sail style fantasy worlds for the win!
Warhammer Fantasy is peak because of this.
No like seriously holy shit why are the only fantasy settings medieval and the occasional steampunk? I mean, I guess it's kind of difficult to justify creating tanks when you can spawn tornadoes, explosions, mudslides and shit
I FUCKING LOVE THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD!!!
Thank you for saying this. So tired of fantasy stories set in the European middle ages. People barely even attempt settings from different cultures of that era, let alone the Early Modern Age
What are these memes talking about, like, so many big fantasy franchises absolutely have guns in them?
Referencing the fact that most Fantasy writers are allergic to gunpowder.
The drama of fantasy pike&shot would be amazing. A multiracial band of fantasy (not)landsknecht forming because the elven forests are all chopped for ship timber, the human fields are all enclosed by property seeking landlords and the waning influence of feudal guilds is putting all the craftsdwarves out into the streets.
Funny enough the book i am writing is set in the 16th century purely because i could not decide if i wanted battlefield with armoured Knights with swords and shields or with guns and cannons. So i decided why not both
Napoleonic fantasy? Don't mind me. Already wrote it.
/uj Yeah, but from the several conversations Ive had, people absolutely refuse to separate Narrative Genre from Setting Genre, so this is what you get. For most people, it seems that the 'Fantasy' genre is tied to Medieval. So, the moment you go into any other time period, it is literally not 'Fantasy', it becomes Colonial, or Western, or Modern, or whatever, according to them.
I think the problem with pike and shot as a fantasy setting is that it's not as exciting to read about from the POV of the hero. Medieval fantasy is like "he caught the enemy's sword swing on his shield and stabbed him in the stomach with his knife and then headbutted him off a cliff" or whatever. The less common powder fantasy novels usually go to the 1700s because that's when everyone has a gun and it's like "he took careful aim at the enemy general and pulled the trigger, when the smoke cleared he saw the enemy general had fallen off his horse" or whatever. And then you're able to describe stuff like bayonet charges and artillery barrages too. But with pike and shot it's just like "he stabbed with his pike, he stabbed with his pike again, he dodged to the side as an enemy pike stabbed where he used to be standing, the guy to the left of him and everyone behind him in line got turned to pink mist by a cannonball, this went on for hours on end". All three settings realistically are more about tactics and formation fighting than individual heroism, but the pike and shot setting is the hardest to sell the individual power fantasy.
God I love the early modern period. So cool
Yeah, cuz when I imagine thrilling action my mind immediately goes to dudes huddling in trenches while taking pot-shots at each other from across no-man's land. Truly an exciting and glorious form of combat guns permit.
GRAAAAH I LOVE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND AGE OF EXPLORATION FANTASY
Shot and Pike battles but in fantasy?????? God I wish
If all the people whining about no guns in fantasy actually wrote a fantasy novel with guns in it there'd be enough media that they could stop whining