Jorge and his dwarven companion sat in silence, looking out into the darkness of the forest, behind them the camp fire burned bright and merry and the wizard, Torbis snored gently into his bed roll. The journey from the forgotten mines had been tough and full of lose. Someone had let loss the news that they, the Company of the Fallen Star, had conquered that eldritch place and taken its treasures.
First came the bandits, easy fodder for the Company’s blades and spells. Than came the knights and war-wizards of every warlord and should-of-been-king in the Nine . Those hadn’t been so easy to be dispatched and the running game of cat and mouse had cost the Company much including Eli. Helm (for no one knew his real name) was the hardest hit by the loss of the Halfling rogue, the large dwarf had considered her a blood sister, and a kid sister to boot.
He looked back at the fire, removing his glasses so he wouldn’t be blinded, and stared at the empty patch of ground where her bedroll should have been.
“It doesn’t help to dwell on these things,” Jorge said. “Since the Merge things have been different, you need to just accept that she … she has faded and may have returned.” The large human was a man of few words, but when he spoke his voice rumbled out in a low growl that spoke of an anger deeper than anything Helm had ever seen.
“No, she couldn’t have.” Helm whispered. “She was aether-kin” he pulled out his pipe and lit it, then returned his glasses to their resting place above his nose. “Nothing to fade back to … not like me, not like you.” He took a puff and looked out into the dark forest.
“Movement …” Jorge rumbled and got to his feet, a small squeal coming from his glasses as they re-adjusted to his new height. “East toward the Point.”
Helm groaned as he went to his feet and let his pipe fall to the ground. “There was a time I would think this was fun.”
“Still is.”
“Yep, if you don’t mind being eviscerated.”
A growl sounded from the forest to their right and as the men turned another growl came from the rear.
“Smart, they know about the glasses.” Helm muttered and slid the glasses back over his shaky head. “Keep watching I’ll wake Torbis.”
~*~
I think two things should be apparent from this almost page worth of story snippet. 1. Those are night vision goggles and 2 I suck at naming characters in a fantasy setting.
This little snippet, however, brings up the question I wanted to pose today to all my readers. What is the general opinion of science fantasy or of technology (modern or futuristic) within the realms of a fantasy setting?
I have always been a “John Carter” fan since the first time I secretly read “A Princess of Mars” in second-grade (I went to a catholic school all that suggested nudity was … well you can guess) and of the planetary romance genre since I first heard the term. No, in my opinion nothing can beat ERB but stories like “The Spearsmen Arn” and even things like Flash Gordon have always held my attention more than a lot of hard sci fi (with the exception of military/navel sci fi).As such one of the things I always attempted to include in the games I ran was some sort of science or “real” element. Whether it be that the characters discovered that their world was a giant holodeck simulation that had been running for a thousand years or something as simple as a piece of rebar stinking out of an old, buried ruin.
I think this is one of the reasons I enjoyed Eberron as a setting so much because it had so much “science” in it. Air ships, “robots”, nuclear weapons … it amazed me to read the stories set in the world of Eberron (Seriously go read the “Heirs of Ash” trilogy) but when I joined an Eberron game I was dismayed to find that the game was pretty much standard fantasy with MMO fast-travel. Yes, that could be because of the DM in question on this and I could make an entire post based on my adventures in online rpg games, but I shall not.
So the question then is do you, my readers, like or dislike science fantasy? What is your favorite setting and are there any good games out there that are premade to suit those tastes?
Bonus!
Tell me the dark secret of the world in the snippet above and win a $5.00 rpgnow gift card!
One thought on “Quick Note – Suffer my bad writing skills!”
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Humans wear headgear with protrusions like antannae because it magnifies their thoughts. The creatures on the worlds they visit are disrupted and distracted by the barrage of selfish, violent, greedy, deceitful signals that gush from the human back-brain constantly. This means the most effective human "diplomats" manage terms of surrender rather than bloodying up their newly acquired territories.