Quote from: Nicephorus;454409Are any of these online in a format that otheres can peruse them?

The Dawnlands is mostly online here.

Emern never got put online, though it was the best 3.x setting I ever worked on.

Moragne is all over the place, and is not fully written up yet anyhow (though I've got most of it laid out in my head). The main Moragne thread (extremely partial). A Moragne dungeon. The recruiting thread for my Moragne PbP here.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;454671Emern never got put online, though it was the best 3.x setting I ever worked on.

What's the short version of "what was Emern like?"

Quote from: Cole;454715What's the short version of "what was Emern like?"

Emern was my "Conquistadors" setting. It was set about fifteen years after the discovery of a new continent as the first real gold rush was starting. It was about an early-to-mid 16th century level of technology. The main poles of action in the setting were a centralised multi-racial empire dominated by elves and goblins; a collection of smaller northern states populated by humans and dwarves that had discovered arcane magic recently; and the new continent, where all four races, plus others, mixed together. The game I ran was a revenge tale about a pirate (one of the PCs) trying to hunt down his wizard brother, who had gone to the new world about five or six years beforehand and vanished.

It was the first setting I'd designed since I'd gone to university, and it was where I learnt all the stuff that I apply now when I build settings - no monoracial cultures; details about how people make a living outside of adventuring; magic, technology and capital as the three pillars of the emerging bourgeois in competition with the old aristocracy; compressed timelines that focus on recent history; an amoral universe filled with realpolitik; no monolithic religious organisations; and an aesthetic of disorientation, surprise and weirdness pervading everything. Almost every setting I've created since has incorporated most of those ideas (Moragne is sort of the exception to the rule, and is my attempt to design a more conventional fantasy setting).

I'm told that the scene my PCs remember most vividly from the campaign is the cannibal feast they witnessed when two tribal elvish men fought over an elf woman outside the ancient pueblo the PCs were hiding in overnight, and one of the elves killed the other.

The rest of the tribe showed up (a hundred or so armed elves), took the young warrior who had been killed, cooked and ate him in a giant festival commemorating his life and deeds that also served as a wedding ceremony for the man and woman, all right outside the pueblo. One of the PCs told me afterwards that it was one of the scariest moments he'd ever been in a game.

There must be a few secret societies and strange cults around New Crobuzon as well. Some real power behind the power. Seems like a must have.

I'm not a big fan of BRP, but I'm a big fan of the Bas-Lag novels, so I'm eager to see how the game turns out. Good luck!

For fans of the novels, I think "fighting the power" is integral to what characters do in Mieville's world. The people that run New Crobuzon are not nice people; they're facists at best, so trying to bring them down shouldn't be something that goes against the grain.

For anyone who hasn't read the books, I recommend starting with The Scar, which features undersea monsters, vampires and evil humanoid assassins and takes place in a giant floating city made of pirate ships. What's not to love? It's the most straightforward and fast-paced of the three bas-Lag novels, I would say.

Iron Council probably has just as much to recommend it to gamers, including golems, magical duels and a feral train. It's sort of a Western, but in a fantastic setting. This book is more openly Marxist than the other two, but if that stuff bothers or upsets you, you can just ignore it. It's not a textbook, after all, it's an adventure story. With, you know, monsters.

(Although, for my money, fantasy literature shouldn't run away from ideas about culture and society for fear of alienating readers. That's part of what makes Mieville a brilliant and important writer, rather than someone writing yet another book about brave kids saving the world from a mean dark lord.)

Perdido Street Station is presumably the book that most informed the RPG. I love it, but it's a little slower-paced and more densely-written than the other two, so maybe I wouldn't recommend starting there.

Quote from: BWA;455590...
Iron Council probably has just as much to recommend it to gamers, including golems, magical duels and a feral train. It's sort of a Western, but in a fantastic setting. This book is more openly Marxist than the other two, but if that stuff bothers or upsets you, you can just ignore it. It's not a textbook, after all, it's an adventure story. With, you know, monsters.

(Although, for my money, fantasy literature shouldn't run away from ideas about culture and society for fear of alienating readers. That's part of what makes Mieville a brilliant and important writer, rather than someone writing yet another book about brave kids saving the world from a mean dark lord.)
...

Thanks for the recommendations. Iron Council does sound interesting. While politics bores the crap out of me no matter what stripe, if it's ignorable it shouldn't be a problem.

Quote from: hanszurcher;455913Thanks for the recommendations. Iron Council does sound interesting. While politics bores the crap out of me no matter what stripe, if it's ignorable it shouldn't be a problem.

I'm not sure it's ignorable really, it's a pretty essential element in the plot given that the protagonists are political activists on the run. L1ike BWA says, it's not a textbook. But if you're truly uninterested in politics, I'm not sure i will appeal as much.

As someone who loves politics and monsters, I love Meiville.

This is possibly the best RPG related news I've heard all year. I love BRP and I've been waiting for Tales of New Crobuzon since it was first announced, I think I read somewhere that China Meiville used to play Call of Chthulu as well as D&D back in the day.

Quote from: Dan Davenport;454526Noooo... but last time I checked, the point of D&D in Greyhawk had little to do with supporting or opposing feudalism.

It sounds like in this game, the assumption will be that the PCs are out to "fight the power".

Not if its purpose is to emulate the books it wont. Many of the characters in the Bas Lag books have zero interest in politics or "Fighting the power" but just making ends meet in the shitty situations they find themselves in, either that or they are just in it for "The gold & experience" a la D&D PCs.

Personally I cant wait to be able to RP a Garuda with a penchant for making mechanical speampunk style gizmos.

I share Meiville's politics and i found Iron council to be boring, preachy and loaded with unlikable protagonists.
I love The Scar, and Perdidio Street Station is okay, but The Iron Council is in my opinion complete fucking ass.

Quote from: Aos;457753I share Meiville's politics and i found Iron council to be boring, preachy and loaded with unlikable protagonists.
I love The Scar, and Perdidio Street Station is okay, but The Iron Council is in my opinion complete fucking ass.

Yeah, I feel pretty much the same way. But at the same time I think it's perfectly possible to run a super cool game in the Bas Lag-setting without the politics. The world and city is super imaginative and I think the possibilities of adventure in New Crobuzon is close to endless, political or otherwise.

And I love BRP, so this will be a must buy for me.