A friend of mine wants to try a role play but isn’t really interested in high fantasy.
My initial thoughts on the subject are to set the game in Victorian London and drop elf’s, dwarfs, teiflings etc as races (just leaving humans).
Beyond that I’m considering one of two premises Egyptians curses, mummies etc or (and this one I’ve given more thought to) Jekyll and Hyde.
A little flavour
Dr Jekyll’s wide has been killed, his anger has her murder has festered and it’s now all he thinks about. He turns to the only thing he has known, chemistry.
He seeks to transform himself into a woman so he can lure his wife’s murderer into a trap to kill them.
His experiments meeting with some success but the cities sewers are blocked and the failed experiments are not being washed out the sea but collecting in a nearby alley and polluting the ground water.
Queue instances of strangely mutated dogs, missing people, brewery workers that now howl at the moon etc. Might have the wife not actually dead but turned into a vampire, insert Dracula like character (or minion).
What I’m not sure how to proceed with is whether to limit classes and what to do about spells (if anything).
The Victorian era, particularly Victorian London, was obsessed with magic, the occult, sorcery, witchcraft, demonology, etc., so you could probably go ahead and run with the existing classes and spells without modification. You would have to decide if magic is rare or common, which can hae some effect on how you run the setting, but giving your players the classes and spells they want should not be overly problematic.
With regards to races, even if you want to drop all the more high fantasy races, like the elves, dwarves, and teiflings you listed, there are still some races that would work with a Victorian setting:
- Fairies - the Victorians were obsessed with fairies. Famous names, including the great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, actively hunted for evidence fairies existed and excitedly authenticated pictures of alleged fairies.
- Yuan-ti Purebloods - though not really popularized until slightly after the Victorian era with writers like Lovecraft and Howard, the idea of a regular human with some dark, ingrained genetic trait was not unheard of in Victorian culture.
- Kalashtar - The Victorians were really into the idea of spirits, so a human whose body was also housed a spirit of a long dead entity that spoke to them in dreams would fit very well into this setting.
- Shifters - Werewolf legends were fairly commonplace in Victorian times.
- Damphir - Most of what we think of as modern vampire lore comes from the Victorian era.
- Hexbloods - Hags and other witches would be perfectly suitable for a Victorian campaign.
- Reborn - Frankenstein was published a little before the Victorian era, but it was extremely popular during the Victorian era, and its themes very much permeate and influenced Victorian literature.
Those should give you enough options that your party would be more diverse than "vanilla human", without stepping outside of Victorian-era themes or fantasy tropes common to that period of time.
You could also keep all the races, and just use them as different skins for humans. So, everyone looks human, but some have the suite of abilities tied to an elf, dwarf, halfling, etc.
Also, there's a lot of room between high fantasy and Victorian London. I'm not trying to say you shouldn't do the London thing, if everyone will have fun doing that, then go for it. Just, it might be easier to set it in a fantasy world. Just make it low magic and you're really most of the way to it not being high fantasy.
Probably worth mentioning that the term "high fantasy" might mean different things to different people. So, if you haven't, you might want to explore the details of what your friend meant when they said it.
As a bit of an aside, if you can find it look for a Hammer Horror film from the 1970's called ' Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde' its a tad campy but has Jekyll turning into a murderous woman instead of a monster. Or if you want to go full blown campy horror, the look for 'Carry on Screaming', that has kidnappings, mad scientists and monster creations. Both films could give some inspiration fo a Victorian era london with little to no magic involved. Otherwise you could pinch the plot to Asassins Creed: Syndicate and have a secret society trying to unearth ancient magic and the heroes trying to stop them.
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A friend of mine wants to try a role play but isn’t really interested in high fantasy.
My initial thoughts on the subject are to set the game in Victorian London and drop elf’s, dwarfs, teiflings etc as races (just leaving humans).
Beyond that I’m considering one of two premises Egyptians curses, mummies etc or (and this one I’ve given more thought to) Jekyll and Hyde.
A little flavour
Dr Jekyll’s wide has been killed, his anger has her murder has festered and it’s now all he thinks about. He turns to the only thing he has known, chemistry.
He seeks to transform himself into a woman so he can lure his wife’s murderer into a trap to kill them.
His experiments meeting with some success but the cities sewers are blocked and the failed experiments are not being washed out the sea but collecting in a nearby alley and polluting the ground water.
Queue instances of strangely mutated dogs, missing people, brewery workers that now howl at the moon etc. Might have the wife not actually dead but turned into a vampire, insert Dracula like character (or minion).
What I’m not sure how to proceed with is whether to limit classes and what to do about spells (if anything).
Thanks
The Victorian era, particularly Victorian London, was obsessed with magic, the occult, sorcery, witchcraft, demonology, etc., so you could probably go ahead and run with the existing classes and spells without modification. You would have to decide if magic is rare or common, which can hae some effect on how you run the setting, but giving your players the classes and spells they want should not be overly problematic.
With regards to races, even if you want to drop all the more high fantasy races, like the elves, dwarves, and teiflings you listed, there are still some races that would work with a Victorian setting:
- Fairies - the Victorians were obsessed with fairies. Famous names, including the great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, actively hunted for evidence fairies existed and excitedly authenticated pictures of alleged fairies.
- Yuan-ti Purebloods - though not really popularized until slightly after the Victorian era with writers like Lovecraft and Howard, the idea of a regular human with some dark, ingrained genetic trait was not unheard of in Victorian culture.
- Kalashtar - The Victorians were really into the idea of spirits, so a human whose body was also housed a spirit of a long dead entity that spoke to them in dreams would fit very well into this setting.
- Shifters - Werewolf legends were fairly commonplace in Victorian times.
- Damphir - Most of what we think of as modern vampire lore comes from the Victorian era.
- Hexbloods - Hags and other witches would be perfectly suitable for a Victorian campaign.
- Reborn - Frankenstein was published a little before the Victorian era, but it was extremely popular during the Victorian era, and its themes very much permeate and influenced Victorian literature.
Those should give you enough options that your party would be more diverse than "vanilla human", without stepping outside of Victorian-era themes or fantasy tropes common to that period of time.
Thanks that’s really useful and gives me plenty to think about.
You could also keep all the races, and just use them as different skins for humans. So, everyone looks human, but some have the suite of abilities tied to an elf, dwarf, halfling, etc.
Also, there's a lot of room between high fantasy and Victorian London. I'm not trying to say you shouldn't do the London thing, if everyone will have fun doing that, then go for it. Just, it might be easier to set it in a fantasy world. Just make it low magic and you're really most of the way to it not being high fantasy.
Probably worth mentioning that the term "high fantasy" might mean different things to different people. So, if you haven't, you might want to explore the details of what your friend meant when they said it.
As a bit of an aside, if you can find it look for a Hammer Horror film from the 1970's called ' Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde' its a tad campy but has Jekyll turning into a murderous woman instead of a monster. Or if you want to go full blown campy horror, the look for 'Carry on Screaming', that has kidnappings, mad scientists and monster creations. Both films could give some inspiration fo a Victorian era london with little to no magic involved. Otherwise you could pinch the plot to Asassins Creed: Syndicate and have a secret society trying to unearth ancient magic and the heroes trying to stop them.