Tallamh
Scope
The motivation behind building Tallamh
Tallamh is a fantasy world and the setting of my dungeons and dragons games where any player can play any character about which they are sufficiently excited/motivated.
Any player, any character.
My motivation in building and discovering this world is to create an inclusive, expansive, and fantastical place for players to adventure and fulfill their fantasies.
The goal of the project
Incredible stories that together form a living breathing world. This is not the world for a DnD campaign but for a lifetime of campaigns by the end of which the world will be chock full of incredible stories, characters, and history.
Tallamh's Unique Selling point
1) Tallamh is a living world. Every game that takes place there is canon and time doesn't move backwards, players build the world and its history with every game they play.
2) Size. The scope of Tallamh is enormous, and filled with more content than you could feasibly play through in a lifetime of adventuring. Not only is it vast but it is diverse, filled with every flavor of fantasy and inspiration you can imagine. As a kitchen sink world if there is a fantasy thing that interests you, you can find it somewhere in Tallamh.
3) Verisimilitude. The world believes itself, takes itself seriously, and is internally consistent. While a fantastical world of magic and laws of nature entirely different from our own, the world has rules that are very different from ours but is always internally consistent.
4) Player focused. It is a world where the primary action, great historical events and most interesting dramatis personae are or are driven by player characters.
Theme
Genre
Heroic Fantasy.
Magic is real and pervasive, though moreso in some parts of the world than others. The stories of this world and the campaigns in it often center around heroes, but there are more dangerous parts of the world that would be better described as sword and sorcery, or grimdark. While many genres, from wuxia, to gothic horror, to intrigue, to mythic fantasy, and even sci-fi are all possible in Tallamh the "default" would be heroic fantasy.
For the most part a multitude of humanoid races coexist in fantastic places. Adventurers bring magical powers to bear against the monstrous threats they face. These characters typically come from ordinary backgrounds, but something impels them into an adventuring life. The adventurers are the "heroes" of the campaign, but they might not be truly heroic, instead pursuing this life for selfish reasons. Technology and society are based on renaissance era norms (depending on location), though the culture isn't necessarily European. Campaigns often revolve around delving into ancient dungeons in search of treasure or in an effort to destroy monsters or villains.
Reader Experience
The world should feel EXPANSIVE and ALIVE. Everything moves and happens of its own accord and while the players are important the rest of the world persists without them. It should feel as if there isn't enough time to explore everything and meet everyone, it should feel full and magical and that it inspires wonder and wanderlust.
The past goes back unbelievably, inaccessibly far and so I hope players are both awed by the past and hopeful for the future. It feels like aworld that has changed tremendously many times by great people standing at the cruxes of history. This pattern of change and achievement should remind players of how much change it is possible for a single character to create.
Reader Tone
Somewhere in the middle. The balance between opposing forces with a comfortable lead from he forces of "good". Magic is relatively plentiful and makes life pleasant most of the time for ordinary folks. However there are many great and terrible powers in the world, as well as evil forces who relish in destruction and suffering. They are balanced against forces of great hope and good. The result is a dangerous and dynamic world, ripe with conflict and brimming with magic and knowledge. Both horrible and wonderous things can happen to ordinary people and it is the exceptionally unordinary person who has nothing remarkable at all happen to them.
While single heroes can forever save and change the world, single villains can and regularly do jeopardize it, and the heroes must and do rise to the occasion.
Recurring Themes
Good and Evil: What does it mean to be "good" or "evil"? Tallamh is a place where this question and the question of the moral grey are regular themes. There are very rarely mustache twirling villains, i believe that even the cruelest individuals are the heroes of their own story. Now there are plenty of horrible out and out villains, but most of them believe in their cause. Tallamh regularly challenges assumptions about good an evil. Celestials are often the antagonists, imposing order on the universe and destroying with zealous persecution those they consider evil. Orcs, goblins, kobolds and the litany of "evil" creatures are never evil across the board. While there are certainly evil orcs or goblins, most of them have as much choice as any other mortal in the world. The villains of Tallamh are motivated, and do "evil" things for a reason, and the greater powers of the universe beg the question about what good an evil really means. Is history just written by the winners? Can two opposing views both be "good"?
Fate: Tallamh is a world where the future is predictable but never set in stone, and mortals are invested with the power to choose radically. Characters change, villains can be redeemed and heroes fall. Some characters are called to a great fate but they must choose to take it up. Characters making difficult, seemingly impossible decisions that force them to grow and declare their values is a regular theme.
History Moves in Circles/There is nothing new under the Sun: Tallamh is an old world. When characters are dealing with something ancient, there is always something much older and more ancient. hundreds of thousands of years of civilizations have been built on the ruins of old empires anc crumbled under the foundations of new ones. The past is often a source of answers, ancient/forgotten lore/technology/magic often proves the key to solving a modern problem. Events set in motion hundreds or thousands of years ago culminate in a modern issue. But the past is also the source of many problems. Ancient evils locked away and released at later times, discoveries about horrible histories that redefine the present. Tallamh explores the connection to the ancient past.
Character Agency
Maximum character agency. Players can ascend to godhood, rewrite the rules of the universe, and dictate the fate of the entire world. The reason our campaigns (usually) center around these characters is because they have the potential to change the world. It won't be easy to do so, and it shouldn't be. It won't be easy or obvious but it will be achievable.
Drama
The Dominator
Long ago, a sorcerer of unmatched power sought to end the chaotic nature of the world. The tragedy of unmet potential, the dizziness of freedom drove this sorcerer to bring order to a broken world. In order, everyone, everything has and fulfills its purpose, lives in harmony. Thus was the goal of the Dominator. A sorcerer of unmatched power who discovered/developed a way to remove the free will of mortals, to align them to their so called purpose, to completely and utterly dominate them. This ancient evil collected Ten of the most powerful individuals on the plane, The Ten Who were Taken, and together nearly conquered the world. They were eventually stopped by a powerful mercenary organization, the Black Company, thanks to the Treachery of the Dominator's wife, The Lady, and a young woman known as the White Rose. The Dominator and his Taken could not be killed however, and were sealed away by powerful magic. The Dominator was locked in a dungeon at the plane's center, protected and powered by the Maelstrom, a 100 mile high stormwall that bisected the world.
During the Odyssey of the Dragonlords, the former slave Shedu broke the the Dominator's chains in order to break the many curses that had been laid with these chains as the foundation. The Dominator once again has returned to the world and has resumed his effort to unite it beneath his will.
Iona-Shin War
The greatest power in the west, the expansive Ionan Empire has declared war on the largest power in the East, the mighty Shin. Only a few years after the maelstrom fell once again allowing unfettered access between eastern and western Tallamh, Iona's King Edward was assassinated by the legendary Assassin in White: Daismi. Daismi's fee is exorbitant and requires that some party claim responsibility for his services, he is the blade but not the hand that guides it. To the shock of the world, The Shin have claimed responsibility but provided no explanation or reason for their claim. Bound by honor, King Saxton, Edward's brother, had no choice but to declare war against the Shin. With Thylea as the staging ground both superpowers continue to draw more and more allies into a war that neither side can win, but both sides can certainly lose.
The Dwarven Lords and Elvish Fanes
Tied into the history of Elven Conquest and Dwarven Kingdoms is the rise and fall of the Orcs, gnomes, goblins, and countless others. Elves and Dwarves share that they each were once mighty and united nations whose history has been largely lost or crumbled. The return of the Eladrin conquerer Carolous, the discovery of the Orc city of Overlox and its subsequent release of Ruin and revelation about the battle of the bridge, the pending discovery of the Axe of the Dwarven Lords, and the resurgence in the worship of Val and Voi, indicate that both Elves and Dwarves are on the verge of discovering their ancient dominance and even reclaiming it. As both sides approach this critical turning point, they gather allies around themselves and eye one another suspiciously. With the discovery of ancient power comes the discovery of ancient treachery, and old grudges forgotten once again picked up. Not to mention the release of things perhaps better left locked in the deep. An arms race has begun, and right now it seems more likely to end in all out war than in the resumption of an ancient alliance.
Hectate, Whisper, The Given, Ruin, Celestia, Blood-War, Cyrric