One of my players wrote me a blank check recently, saying he'd play in whatever I ran. I have two or three ideas for campaign worlds and have decided that although I have more ideas for a Future City campaign, a Medieval Fantasy game looks easier to run while avoiding the complexity of options from spiraling out of control. So, I settled on Medieval Fantasy, akin to D&D or Warhammer FRP, and I've settled on Ian Miller art as an aesthetic guide.

However, I don't know anything else about the world in which it is set, other than that I don't want to run a bog-standard D&D game, nor set it in the Warhammer Old World. I want the game world to be original in essence, even if I make use of published modules. So,

(1) Could anyone point me in the direction of some modules or sourcebooks that I could glean ideas from?

(2) What does Ian Miller artwork say to you about the nature of the fantasy world it portrays?

I have to figure out how to bake this well, so that it ain't half-baked. Thoughts?

Well, it's an ugly, dirty, dark world where evil is triumphant, that's for sure.  There is no beauty in the world.  This should be emphasized by having players roll their appearance on 1d6 where everything else is 3d6.  Orks and goblins roll 1d3.

Nobody gets fate points or narrative currency but the players are allowed to trade bad outcomes for worse ones because things can always be horribler.

Architects are major players in the world and massive crews endlessly create new edifices but nobody really understands geometry so they're always strangely disproportionate and skewed.  Even so, building goes on with endless abandon.

The twisted trees are really tough and can grow anywhere in any rocky surface, all they need is a few drops of human blood to germinate.

I love Ian Miller's art.  I always wish I could draw like that.

Some Warhammer RPG modules may fit. But I found the few I ever got to see as not grim and grungy enough.

For a place that fits the art take a look at adventures for Call of Cthulhu's Dreamlands.

Also Mystara/BECMI Specularum was described as dirty and low fantasy in one of the books so that might be one to look up too in the Karameikos book.

But alot like Erol Otus, Miller's art has a very Lovecraftian feel to it. Hence why I suggest Dreamlands.

A great war was waged against the Demon Horde a century ago, with  Crusading Armies waving their banners high as they set out to vanquish the demonic forces invading their world. But the crusaders lost and the Empire's capital city was consumed in the chaos that followed their defeat, as the demonic forces laid siege upon the once gleaming city, tormenting its inhabitants, corrupting their souls and turning them into monstrous versions of themselves. The demons then unleashed the Demon Blight, which spread across the land, corrupting all it touched, transforming normal animals and plants into monstrous abomination made to destroy life and serve the Horde in spreading their chaos.

Now the remaining cities of the Empire have turned into totalitarian states, driven by fear and desperation in the face of the Demon Horde and the demonic blight that corrupts the land and turns it against them. All men of fighting age are conscripted into service and everyone lives tightly regimented lives in constant watch for demonic assaults, as waves of blighted creatures strike every city and settlement with alarming frequency, prompting a constant state of emergency.

Demonic forces periodically strike as well, bringing armies of corrupted soldiers, once citizens of the Empire, now turned into twisted monstrosities under the command of Demon Lords. The demonic armies strike with wreckless ferocity, aided by blighted creatures and firing infected carcasses of blighted material over the city walls with monstrous siege engines created to spread their sickness.

The infected are often executed and burned. Remedies against the demonic sickness are unreliable and rare. Once the sickness has spread too far it's often a matter of time before the infected begins loosing their grip with their sanity and begin to act erratically and with increasing enmity. Those who become infected rarely recover unless they recieve treatment early, and even then there's no guarantee. The strongest willed often kill themselves before it gets too far. The weak try to flee before the inevitable comes.

That's all I got so far from watching Ian Miller's art. 

Basically it looks like a crapsack world of blighted horrors, out to corrupt everything, and evil already won.

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 08, 2022, 05:21:10 PM
A great war was waged against the Demon Horde a century ago, with  Crusading Armies waving their banners high as they set out to vanquish the demonic forces invading their world. But the crusaders lost and the Empire's capital city was consumed in the chaos that followed their defeat, as the demonic forces laid siege upon the once gleaming city, tormenting its inhabitants, corrupting their souls and turning them into monstrous versions of themselves. The demons then unleashed the Demon Blight, which spread across the land, corrupting all it touched, transforming normal animals and plants into monstrous abomination made to destroy life and serve the Horde in spreading their chaos.

Now the remaining cities of the Empire have turned into totalitarian states, driven by fear and desperation in the face of the Demon Horde and the demonic blight that corrupts the land and turns it against them. All men of fighting age are conscripted into service and everyone lives tightly regimented lives in constant watch for demonic assaults, as waves of blighted creatures strike every city and settlement with alarming frequency, prompting a constant state of emergency.

Demonic forces periodically strike as well, bringing armies of corrupted soldiers, once citizens of the Empire, now turned into twisted monstrosities under the command of Demon Lords. The demonic armies strike with wreckless ferocity, aided by blighted creatures and firing infected carcasses of blighted material over the city walls with monstrous siege engines created to spread their sickness.

The infected are often executed and burned. Remedies against the demonic sickness are unreliable and rare. Once the sickness has spread too far it's often a matter of time before the infected begins loosing their grip with their sanity and begin to act erratically and with increasing enmity. Those who become infected rarely recover unless they recieve treatment early, and even then there's no guarantee. The strongest willed often kill themselves before it gets too far. The weak try to flee before the inevitable comes.

That's all I got so far from watching Ian Miller's art. 

Basically it looks like a crapsack world of blighted horrors, out to corrupt everything, and evil already won.

Greetings!

"...a crapsack world of blighted horrors, out to corrupt everything, and evil already won". *Laughing*

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on June 07, 2022, 11:01:43 PM
One of my players wrote me a blank check recently, saying he'd play in whatever I ran. I have two or three ideas for campaign worlds and have decided that although I have more ideas for a Future City campaign, a Medieval Fantasy game looks easier to run while avoiding the complexity of options from spiraling out of control. So, I settled on Medieval Fantasy, akin to D&D or Warhammer FRP, and I've settled on Ian Miller art as an aesthetic guide.

However, I don't know anything else about the world in which it is set, other than that I don't want to run a bog-standard D&D game, nor set it in the Warhammer Old World. I want the game world to be original in essence, even if I make use of published modules. So,

(1) Could anyone point me in the direction of some modules or sourcebooks that I could glean ideas from?

(2) What does Ian Miller artwork say to you about the nature of the fantasy world it portrays?

I have to figure out how to bake this well, so that it ain't half-baked. Thoughts?

  I do not know if you care to use 5ed, but I think the game/world Midnight has just been re released in 5th edition, and it sounds like exactly what you are looking for.

Quote from: oggsmash on June 08, 2022, 06:29:30 PM
  I do not know if you care to use 5ed, but I think the game/world Midnight has just been re released in 5th edition, and it sounds like exactly what you are looking for.

Not the worst suggestion.

While I'm not familiar with the current edition, here's a quick summary of Midnight: It's basically the Lord of the Rings, except it's set a century after Sauron won. Though Izrador is more like Morgoth -- he's the full blown god of evil, trapped in the world. His fall (ages ago; he only slowly recovered) cut off the planes, so all extradimensional beings are trapped, and the dead who aren't properly buried rise as the Fell (undead). This also made the gods inaccessible, so the only priests are evil.

It's low or scarce magic, because spells and items can be detected by the Legates (evil priests). Spellcasters are persecuted and will be on the run, and collecting regular magic items is a death sentence. Instead, the setting supports more subtle and personal magical effects via paths (feat tree/prestige class-like), and covenant items, which are unique magic items that grow in power as a character levels.

Orcs are Izrador's chosen race, and savagely rule all the human lands, under the control of the priests and the Night Kings (think Nazgul, except more diverse -- lich, dragon, etc.). The two human races in the setting are the Dorn, who are basically Vikings, and the Sarcosans, who are more civilized and with a pseudo-Arabian culture. The only areas that haven't fallen are a few isolated and besieged dwarven strongholds, and the elven forest, which is ruled by an immortal queen who isn't quite Galadriel.

The PCs are part of the resistance, and the setting plays up that they really have no chance of victory. It's a last stand and a final struggle against an overwhelming power.

A quick scan of art shows lots of uncomfortable, overgrown buildings and rusty, corroded armor. 

I would say it is a world where the plants are taking over, choking traditional farming villages and cities into shells of their former population.  Roads are gone, and salvaging steel is a major boon. 

Sort of a biological apocalypse.  Too many plants instead of too few. 

I'll go farther and recommend a rulebook.  It's a grim-dark fantasy game called Warlock!, an alternative to the official Warhammer Fantasy RPG's that are far too lengthy to make me want to even try and read.  Warlock! can be substituted just fine. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/312204

It starts you out by having you randomly roll a few professions, and you pick the one you will start as.  None of them are cool jobs.  Those come later as prestige classes.  Magic also has some pretty severe side effects when you fail a spell check.

If you're set on a grim world, then it might be time to try some new rules. 

Quote from: weirdguy564 on June 08, 2022, 07:39:35 PM

I'll go farther and recommend a rulebook.  It's a grim-dark fantasy game called Warlock!, an alternative to the official Warhammer Fantasy RPG's that are far too lengthy to make me want to even try and read.  Warlock! can be substituted just fine. 

I'll second that. Warlock! is a mix of Warhammer Fantasy and the Advanced Fighting Fantasy rules (from the gamebooks). It has the 80s British Fantasy feel. Doesn't have a whole lot of setting material in the core book, but damn if the rules won't get you in the right frame of mind.

Yes, the exclamation mark is part of the name.

And there's a whole shedload of sourcebooks from the Advanced Fighting Fantasy RPG that are worth looking at - Titan, Blacksand, Crown of Kings.

 Another game that at least by cover art and paging through the book that might fit the bill, could be Shadow of the Demon Lord.   I also think the mood presented in the book for Call of Cthulhu (at least the one I have from 15+ years ago), the Dark Ages, fits the mood in that art as well.  Everything seems dirty, doomed, and desperate.

Hey, thanks for all the responses and the ideas!