Sometimes, always with an eye toward being able to use the published material for some well-supported game or another, I get (possibly mad) idea to take parts of one setting and combine with another so that the result wouldn't immediately be recognizable.
Ideas I've had in the past playing a wuxia game using the map of Middle-Earth (and MERP materials), The Known World replaced with Talislanta equivalents, or Creation from Exalted, but built as a D&D setting (using published 5e material).
I've never done any of these as at the end of the day the work required wouldn't be that much less than making up my own stuff in some instances, but it's still an idea that pops up from time to time.
I don't think I'd use D&D 5e for that kind of project, but Talislanta's setting is full of geographical areas that could easily be pulled loose and stuffed into other worlds. Other settings that might lend themselves to dissection-and-reuse would be Flash Gordon's Mongo and John Carter's Barsoom, both of which are full of isolated pocket kingdoms.
ReplyDeleteHmmm. I guess most of Burroughs' work is similar. Tarzan's Africa is at its best with "lost/undiscovered" cultures ad micro-civilizations, and Venus is almost as broken up as Barsoom.
For sure. I think Talislanta is sort of a grandchild of the "Lost World" tradition, via planetary romance, particularly Vance's Planet of Adventure.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good take on it. Fair bit of Dying Earth too, but either way Talislanta has always seemed very Vancian to me. Which undoubtedly contributes to my appreciation of the setting.
ReplyDeleteMy homebrew World of Eska is pretty much copy/paste world building. A base layer of post-apocalyptic weirdness with chunks of Star Wars, Wheel of Time, and other random things plucked from here and there (including your blog!).
ReplyDeleteHybrid vigor at work!
ReplyDeleteI love mixing Genres and mixing my favorite sources in all kinds of Genres. I am a big fan of the Tiny D6 system which has a ton of well written rulebooks in different genres. Surprisingly Tiny Cthulhu makes the best "bade" rules set IMO. Tiny Cthulhu + Tiny Spies = the Joe Ledger series Tiny Spies + Tiny Supers = WildC.a.t.s, etc.
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