Tariek Rough Collection
1595/03/29
Scope
The motivation behind building Tariek Rough Collection
I am building this world for TTRPG primarily, using a Warhammer Fantasy skeleton for operating system of preference. But I am also building it with a secondary ideal of it being my setting for my writing of stories and novels, as well as some tabletop wargaming using the lore and setting, playing out key conflicts in a fashion being a third motivation that is but a seed, growing slowly in my head.
The goal of the project
I want it to feel like a dark and gritty industrial revolution type setting, but still capturing that essence of a young world, the idea that places outside patrolled borders are highly dangerous, deadly even. I have the idea of fear within and without, monsters and gibbering beasts from the Void, but also those within, hidden cults of Madness. I am uniquely trying to have a Very Dark setting, that flirts with Grim Dark, but set in a tech feel and cultural feeling 1600s-1899 type setting, just before the advent of personal vehicles or fully automatic single person weapons, but with a strangely still feudalistic feeling, though that is meant to be rapidly changing. A unique project and feel I am aware.
Tariek Rough Collection's Unique Selling point
I think the big one is the mix of elements. That fantasy feudalistic feel, but yet with the beginnings of centralized authority, due to things like Sky-Ships and Steam Engines allowing swifter military force projection. Combined with that steampunk/clockwork aesthetic.
Theme
Genre
Dark Steampunk/Flintlock Fantasy
Reader Experience
I want a mix of terror and amazement. I want them to feel a desire to wander and explore, but yet be on edge whenever outside the relative safety of urban centers, knowing the further they get from such places, the far more risk they are taking.
Reader Tone
Dark and sometimes tickling Grim-Dark ideally, but with an occasional shimmer on the surface (so it would seem. But this is always a lie, like polishing a shit. At the end of the day no matter how shiny, tis still a shit) that puts it, seemingly, somewhere in the middle.
Recurring Themes
Madness
Paranoia
Fear
Horror
Terror
Mystery
Curiosity
Inquisitiveness
Paranoia
Fear
Horror
Terror
Mystery
Curiosity
Inquisitiveness
Character Agency
Though challenging and requiring an....impressive level of wealth and influence that is a monster of a challenge to obtain, they can change things for the better on some seemingly permanent basis. Far more likely however that what they do has....none or very limited effect.
Focus
Drama
King Cormac Ironcliffe is dead, and now none truly know what to expect from Suranth's attitudes and stances politically or militarily.
Increasing tensions at the Kang-Chorathian and Roharan border have erupted in a border skirmish over a valuable coastal deposit of minerals.
All over the continent, rumors whisper that the times of darkness are returning. Beasts of Madness and Children of the Void have become more and more prominent in the wilds.
Strange folk have landed off the coast of Valewyr, folk claiming to have crossed the water from a far off land to the west of Valerick. They are strange looking, or so the rumors suggest.
Some sort of horrifying monster is ravaging the croplands and the HDP nation-states cannot seem to pin the beast down, or even catch sight of it. They simply come upon dead and rotting fields.
Full open use, I am building something to be expansive and fun to use to create my vision of a place in my own mind. This is merely the spilling of all my ideas, not any sort of finished product, so though I desire to keep credit by all means it is open for use. Take it and fly my prettys!!!! Let your adventures be bold, dangerous, dark and evocative!!!