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| Art by Vsevolod Ivanov |
While I was vacationing in Alaska a couple of weeks ago, I got though idea for a campaign inspired by the Klondike and other Alaskan gold rushes. To give something for fantasy rpg PCs to do besides turn prospector (though they could do that) I figure the forbidding northern wilderness would have once been part of a prehistoric empire whose great works and lost wonders have been buried.
To complicate matters and make for some interesting factions, there would be a current empire filling the "haughty Elvish jerk" niche that claim suzerainty over the region but spend most of their time fighting a rebellious faction of their own people. There would also be a more technologically primitive native people (maybe Neolithic dwarves or something) who naturally resent the invaders from afar.
I like using "frozen North (or South)" regions as places for the REALLY long-lost civilizations' ruins (and last holdouts). Serpent people, sapient dinosaur/reptile folk, Lovecraftian aliens, that sort of thing. Literally pre-human (and demi-human) cultures that were wiped out due to a climate shift and only degenerate vestiges if the remain in the modern day. There are THINGS slumbering under that ice, waiting for the warmth to return someday.
ReplyDeleteIf you want some science in your fantasy, it's a good place to put the planetary orbital-adjustment engines and their controls. You know, the ones that resulted in the whole area being shifted to poles and freezing over in the first place, either through accident, sabotage, or a miscalculation while dodging a worldkiller meteor.
Yeah, there are definitely a lot of places to go with that.
ReplyDeleteIf this is "Fantasy Alaska", how about the Elves being kind of the Imperial Russians?
ReplyDeleteFantasy Klondike is an awesome idea.
ReplyDeleteChiming in from Alaska here, if you can track down a copy or borrow it from Internet Archive, 'Strange Stories of Alaska and the Yukon' by Ed Ferrell gathers a lot of the old prospectors' tales and early newspaper weirdness. I've used stuff from it in the past. Might suggest some ideas.
ReplyDeleteGreat auggestion! Thanks.
ReplyDelete