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Author Topic: Dissonance between Low Fantasy Humanocentrism and Mythological High Fantasy  (Read 2111 times)

Slipshot762

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I know the feeling;
In my case I use D6 fantasy, which as you may know did it's trial by fire as the rules for star wars weg...and so mechanically, it can support huge battles, ships mauling each other, and aerial combat...all great elements that go unused or are used to a lesser effect if I go low fantasy. The rules kind of go to waste w/o aerial mounts or airships or huge battles or anything like that, all of which is typically out of fashion for most low fantasy games except maybe the large battle part.

I could do arthurian or conan or anything like that really, but unless somebody has a giant bat or something a fantasy dogfight (which the rules can easily handle) is largely out of place. So I waffle between something more medieval authentic like arthurian, and some mos eisly cantina looking mystara stuff.

Mishihari

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Even hippos can be alright.  I rather liked the Giff in Spelljammer.  I can accept pretty random combinations of races in a game as long as it's baked into the setting.  I want a relatively small number of races (less than 10) with a history of their interactions, current geopolitical situation, current attitudes towards each other, psychology of the races, and so on, all developed in a logical manner and with the consequences of all racial oddness reflected in the setting.  I read a Sanderson book with some _very_ odd races recently, humans that can take themselves apart, halflings that turn into giants in daytime, zombies animated by worms in their bodies, and so on, and it worked because the logical consequences of the races were reflected in the setting.  On the other hand, dropping a dragonborn into the Hobbit isn't going to work for me, even though it's not nearly as weird as the others I mentioned, unless the place and consequence of dragonborn are fully developed in the setting.

tenbones

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If you're interested in a bronze/early Iron Age High-Fantasy of insane proportions, check out The Prince of Nothing (it's two trilogies), by R. Scott Bakker.

It's Tolkien and Lovecraft had a baby and taught it to read with Dune and Aristotle, then tossed it into the Tyrannid swarm to learn to survive.

Epic. Dark. Disturbing. Glorious. It's spoiled me on fantasy books for the last few years. Erickson, Abercrombie - seem laughably comical now. Sanderson? By comparison Sanderson reads like like a glass of water with a dash of milk tossed into it, vs. Bakker work being Everclear.

It's definitely not for everyone, but it's hard to take your eyes off it once you start dancing.

And it's mostly human - but the non-human stuff in there is dazzling. His "elves" (analogs really) are *terrifying* and glorious. They're the Anti-Tolkien Elves - they fill you with wonder and awe as well as terror.

Trond

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I usually like creatures and “races” to based on something in “real” mythology. Even if it’s just a vague link, they are sort of anchored in something that people actually believe or used to believe in. This is one of several reasons why the “Fantastic Beasts” movie didn’t  engage me; most of the creatures seemed completely made up rather than something that grew out of old cultures and tales. Over time, I think I also more prefer the mythical beings to remain vague and spiritual. For instance, if I were to create a game including elves today, they most likely would not be a player character race. they would probably be hidden folk/spirits that you could make offerings to, that would put a curse on you if you pissed them off, and that would often appear as beautiful, magical, and/or seductive people.

spon

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It could be that in ancient/medieval times, "weird" monsters were either individuals (a dragon, wyrm, chimera, etc) or far away (a tribe of one-legged giants, for instance) so the weirdness was always matched against a local normality. So dragons do exist, but they're rare and they affect their immediate environment in specific ways (blasted villages, bones, scorched forests) and the far-away things (said tribe of one-legged giants) are only known in rumours and perhaps the odd item supposed to belong to them. This is true both in low fantasy (think dragonslayer) and high-fantasy (dragonlance?).

On the other hand, a party of 6 rainbow-rhinos walking through the a world where this is normal is completely different. There is no difference between them being actual beast-people and being people dressed up in fancy dress. I think this might be the essence of your problem - in legend, the weird creatures had effects on the region - even in high fantasy. A party of fey wandering through a high fantasy world would be seen as an omen, or possibly a precursor to invasion. In a modern game of D&D is treated as a normal thing. Start treating them as abnormal - especially in high fantasy - and maybe you'll remove the dissonance?