Isesda
Scope
The motivation behind building Isesda
For the love of creating and exploring a world of my own imgination. A world that I can use as a backdrop for stories or game sessions.
The goal of the project
Right now I want to focus on building the world for its own sake, but eventually the priority would be for use in my fiction. I want a world that feels high fantasy, but not a trope-laden LOTR-ripoff. My focus is on direct engagement with divinity and how that impacts a highly diverse world.
Isesda's Unique Selling point
The world is filled with a vast diversity of peoples, both different species and different cultures. On top of this, the gods are extremely present in the world, directly intervening and manipulating as much as they can in a struggle for dominanace over each other.
Theme
Genre
This world is a high fantasy, magical place with some regions on the cusp of an industrial revolution, a la mid-1600's with magic.
Reader Experience
Readers and players who engage with the world should feel a sense that the world is diverse and ever-evolving as that diversity grinds against each other and the medling gods.
Reader Tone
The world is meant to evoke the helplessness that is easily felt when world events seem to be spinning out of the control of average people who just want to live happy lives, but that ultimately it isn't the gods or nations that control what the future will be, but the will of people banding together in common cause. So hope out of helplessness driving to shape an aspirational future.
Recurring Themes
1. A world that has been shaped and reshaped by divine whim, leaving indellible marks for all to see.
2. Conflict between groups of individuals both divided and united by diversity.
3. The power of the gods being part of all living things, and learning to use that to shape your future.
4. Labels failing to adequately describe people or places.
Character Agency
Characters in the world are often divided into two categores: those of low agency where the divine and political forces of the world toss them about with little control of their own (average people) and those of high agency who take fate by the throat and shape the world against the onslaught of politics or machinations of the gods.
Focus
All world content is the exclusive property of Derek Barnett.
Background credit: icongoblin-stock