Aorlis is much like our world in that it can accommodate many genres. It’s all how you frame the story. Our world is different things to different groups, after all.
Campaign Play
Nowadays, sweeping narrative campaigns, often based around quests, are more common these days. These are plot driven adventures, often with the so-called “big bad” boss at the end. Such a campaign may last many sessions, or even years of real time. Aorlis has hosted many such campaigns, with the powers-that-be spinning out long webs with wide goals, and the players serving as the proxies (or pawns) in that greater struggle. Aorlis is perfectly designed for the sweep of history to pull players into the story.
Cosmic Horror
Aorlis has always had its inestimably alien and malignant space gods and cosmic horrors that break men’s minds and unleash screaming dooms. These alien outsiders have no morality and pay no head to humans. Many places in Aorlis house these cosmic horrors, such as Civis Noir, Alusia, even Eldris, and Karcists (a sort of cosmic necromancer) work to erase our reality with something older and non-human.
Cozy
Role-playing games have a tendency to cater to high drama, but it need not be so. Perhaps your group has more of a taste to solve mysteries, or arrange marriage alliances. Maybe you want a setting that feels more like having tea with Miss Marple, and that’s fine. Cities and towns, such as Gwyfned City. Edby City, and Beck City are perfect locales for more civilized, low-drama adventure.
Dungeon Crawls
The Aorlis campaign began with traditional dungeon crawls, and their variant the hex crawl, and they still work great here. Here, the action is contained by the environment, and the players have to think tactically and as a team when engaging in wandering monsters, sinister traps, and bewildering puzzles. Life in dungeons is cheap, combat is unforgiving and final, and the player has to guard his travelling rations and light source carefully, lest he end up lost, starving, and in the dark.
Emergent Narrative
Aorlis also is well-suited to emergent gameplay or narrative, where the story emerges from the character's actions. Some characters have self-motivating goals, setting their tales in motion. This is great for the GM, who doesn't want to prepare a quest or dungeon. They just need to be nimble enough on their narrative toes to let the winds of chance, and the player's choices, take them where they will. The possibilities really are endless. This is made easier because almost every city or town has adventure hooks baked into their description. Each country has a section called Flashpoints, adventure hooks that can be introduced at will. Fables & Folklore introduces past elements that can easily be adapted into adventure hooks as well. Finally, the Random Event charts included with each country introduce a broad spectrum of interesting characters, motivations, events, and risks.
Gothic Horror
This genre plays well in Aorlis, where vampire covens inhabit major cities, and necromancers use their forbidden arts to command the undead. Here, the day seems short and colorless, and the long nights of horror and dread follow. Long shadows host maddening secrets, and hosts of shadow people and demons lurk in their inky depths. Burlam, Eldris, Gwyfned, and Hempton are all well suited for this.
Grimdark
This is a world of ceaseless horrors; bitter black delves into humanity’s dark side. Tales never end well, and the only good end for your sad, violent life is dying. Aorlis is excellent for running campaigns of sanguine vengeance, ugly death, and black, ironic humor. Whenever there is war and suffering in Aorlis (and when is there not?), a potential grimdark campaign may fester.
Heroic Fantasy
Common to Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, and other, similar game systems, this is fantasy where the characters are essentially medieval superheroes. They develop skills and powers that are far beyond those of mere mortals, and eventually they develop into demigods. Heroic fantasy tends to be more character driven, and like comic superheroes the characters rarely stay dead. This is in contrast with Old School D&D, where life was cheap and death was an ever-present companion.
High Fantasy
These campaigns are like mythology made real, full of elves, dragons, curses, and players that develop into the medieval form of superheroes. Floating cities, armies of vicious non-humans, flying ships, deep dwarven realms, gods walking among men, immortals, and earth-shaking magic are the rule of the day. Aorlis has all these elements, and if you choose to bring them out, then a high fantasy campaign may be your answer.
Low Fantasy
This is a campaign rooted in a certain realism: physics work as you would expect, and magic is vanishingly rare. In olden times, magic and monsters may have been the rule, but now those things are rare indeed. When magic is used, there are no special effect flashes or booms, no visible rays or beams. The magic works, or was that just happenstance, random events that can be debunked.
Olde Worlde
This is a setting of charm and flavor, a well-used and reassuring place that seems gentil, familiar, and perhaps a little nostalgic. There are few straight lines in this world, and institutions seem a trifle antiquated. As written, Aorlis is very Olde Worlde.
Simulationist
These sessions are arranged to simulate medieval, European life in all its detail. The game is more about educating than entertaining the players. Much will be made of money, as the character’s search for cash to pay for apprenticeships, struggle to feed their families, bribe the local magistrate, or collect a dowry for your daughter. It’s about relationships, making alliances and enemies in the monastery, wooing the cobbler’s daughter (because it would make a good financial match!), and protecting your reputation. They are about health, as you try to avoid infections, disease, and malnutrition. Simulationist campaigns cover the nitty gritty of everyday medieval life and war.
Sword & Sorcery
Based on the genre invented by Robert E. Howard in his stories, especially Conan, this type of story typically involves an indominable warrior who wanders from encounter to encounter, leaving a river of blood in his wake. He regularly destroys armies of men, evil sorcerers, and monsters, and scantily clad women are there for his conquest. Sword & Sorcery campaigns work best for small gaming groups.
Comments