One way to come up with campaign setting ideas that are novel and interesting (by which I mean they do not owe anything to pulp fantasy, JRR Tolkien, Robert Jordan, etc.) while also retaining a feeling of depth and authenticity is to plunder untapped resources of legend - one of the most significant being early Judaeo-Christian myth.
Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance, were found fragments of a text written some centuries before Christ, which have been painstakingly pieced together by scholars into something approaching a chronological narrative. This is the so-called Book of Giants, which confirms something of the story, found in the Book of Jubilees and elsewhere, of the fallen angels and how they bred with human women to produce a race of evil giants (the Nephilim).
To read what exists of the the text in English translation provides a visceral thrill - like receiving a garbled message, punctuated by static, from the ancient past (as in a 1980s war or SF movie in which somebody yells 'You're breaking up!' at somebody on the other end of a radio). Hence:
CHAPTER 1
...they knew the secrets of... ....sin was great in the earth.... ...and they killed many... .... [they begot] giants....
CHAPTER 3
....[two hundred] donkeys, two hundred mules, two hundred... ...rams of the flock, two hundred goats, two hundred... ....[beasts of the] field from every animal, from every [bird].... ....for interbreeding....
CHAPTER 4
....they defiled.... ....[they begot] giants and monsters.... ....they begot, and behold, all [the earth was corrupted].... ....with its blood and by the hand of.... .....which did not suffice for them and.... ....and they were seeking to devour many.... ....the monsters attacked it.
The text is partial but the dark hints are obvious enough: the fallen angels (called the Watchers) came to Earth, begot giants on human women, then selected various animals to have sex with to produce monstrous progeny - and, it seems indulged in cannibalism or similar. This is thought to be an earlier, or perhaps contemporaneous, account of the story contained in the Book of Enoch, which in 1 Enoch 7:1-6 says:
And all the others [i.e. the Watchers] took wives to themselves together with them, and each chose one for himself, and they began to go in to them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants. And they became pregnant, and they bore great giants, whose height was [three thousand ells], who consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood. Then the earth laid accusations against the lawless ones.
So mixing all of this together, we have a race of evil angels (1 Enoch says there were 200 of them) who come to Earth, and select 200 women to be their wives. They then transform these women into what sounds like witches or druids, able to cast 'charms and enchantments' and knowing the secrets of plants - and these witch-wives then give birth to giants (the Nephilim) who are up to 3,500 metres tall (an ell being just over a metre in length). And these giants then start eating people - and also having sex with animals and (as The Book of Giants' account has it) breeding with them to produce hybrid beastman offspring of many kinds. Eventually, the giants descend into cannibalism.
I don't know about you, but I think a campaign setting ruled by evil angels and their witch-wives, populated by giants (perhaps not 3,500 metres tall) who eat one another and human beings, and who have sex with animals to produce many weird varieties of beastman, is one that somebody could do a lot with. Each Watcher/witch-wife pairing would I think preside over a city, fortress, palace, or tower of some kind, and perhaps those are generally the only places in which human beings can live and remain safe from the giants who roam around the wilderness. And out there in the world are also different kinds of bird-men, beast-men, reptile-men, fish-men, of varying degrees of barbarism and civilisation, but all corrupted by their hideous parentage.
This all sounds very metal, and very OSR, but owes no debt whatsoever to fantasy literature of the pulp or Tolkienian variety - with the result that it has a fresh but authentic feeling.
Newborn giants may rest atop the terrestrial crust, but once they consume enough acquisitions it can no longer sustain their massive density. The largest and most important giants are thus immobilized far below ground. Low level play involves seeking acquisitions to feed baby giants, while high level adventures delve into their bodies and carve away chunks that can be given to other elders who offer boons for the flesh they crave.
ReplyDeleteNice! Love it.
DeleteSo...Dark Sun
ReplyDeleteNot quite, but I do think Dark Sun is probably the most interesting TSR-era setting.
DeleteThat comes together brilliantly!
ReplyDeleteI came across the Book of Giants for the first time after being sent down a rabbit hole by Gene Wolfe's The Knight. Your extrapolated setting makes me think of the Angrborn and their grisly breeding methods - and especially of the tribes of wild half-giants guarding the Angrborn's borders.
From a gaming perspective, a terrific thing about the setting you propose here is that it offers mythological authenticity combined with the OSR comforts of diverse tribes of monsters (quite rare in myth: I'd argue that one of Tolkien's greatest innovations is the concept of the orc). And that combination is quite the sweet spot!
Interesting you should say that - I also thought of Gene Wolfe while reading it, and especially the Angrborn. I wondered if Wolfe might have read the Book of Giants or the Enochian apocryphal stuff (it seems likely).
DeleteThe geenral monstrosity and some of the details remind me of the infamous Broos from Glorantha -- this article, as bad as they are depicted, actually represents a climb-down from the Broos at their historical worst: https://glorantha.tumblr.com/post/97703013943/what-are-the-broo
ReplyDeleteI need to read a bit more of Glorantha lore - RuneQuest was never big in my circles even back in the heyday.
DeleteImagine how angry the witch/druids would get should some intrepid adventurers kill or harm on of their children!
ReplyDeleteAlso, just for fun, you could have 12 counter-villains roaming the world, vampires who are the lone survivors from the first city, plotting against the angels to regain their power over the world of men... Or just have it as a legend.
Used in a fantasy strategy game Dominions by Illwinter. You're late. ;p
ReplyDeleteMike
What a fantastic post. Thanks. One suspects that Professor Tolkien knew his Book of Enoch.
ReplyDelete