Daggerheart
Okay, so Daggerheart is the new hotness? And I was curious, so I bought the pdf version, both to look at character creation and also the campaign frames, because I enjoy character building and also worldbuilding. And …
Firstly? I’m vibing. This system is so modular, so mix-and-match, so ‘grab the bits you want and have fun’. In terms of character creation, it feels very … lego-esque? You get handed a pile of bricks and you pick your favourites to build a creature out of them. I’m definitely vibing over here.
Secondly. I know Age of Umbra is the campaign frame everyone’s talking about, because it’s Matt’s own one, and the Critical Role campaign is happening (sidenote, watched the session zero, it looks a LOT of fun). And Age of Umbra looks good! I would absolutely play it! But personally?
Colossus of the Drylands is up in my belltower ringing the entire carillon at once over here.
It’s a high fantasy wild west campaign where in the middle of a gold essentia rush, as massive industrialised forces are busy trying to mine out the local landscape, an ancient and imprisoned and extremely pissed off elder god beneath the earth has woken up and has started raising titanic colossi to regain his missing pieces. Because back when the new gods overthrew the old, they hurled their defeated foes down to earth and locked them away, taking pieces of them to weaken them, but the blood from their wounds seeped into the earth and started growing outwards towards those missing pieces, so that untold ages later, they’ve finally gotten close enough to start trying to get them back.
Said blood, by the way, is the ‘essentia’ that’s the target of our industrial gold rush, because essentia is also crystalised magic, the only reason mortals have magic, and the power source for a quite significant number of modern inventions.
So, basically, you’ve got Shadow of the Colossus meets Bravestarr meets Deadlands meets the western of your choice (Magnificent Seven, anyone?).
Again, clanks (aka magic robots) are an ancestry option here. You’ve got frog people, dragon people, tortoise people, mushroom people, as well as your standard orcs, dwarves, elves, goblins, etc. Which. In a fantasy western campaign.
I can have a tortoise desert drifter. I can have a dwarven gunsmith. I can have dried-out, lasso-wielding, horse-riding fucking cowboy frog. And I want one.
But. There are immediately like seventeen characters I could make for a Drylands Colossus campaign. But. One tiny detail. It’s specifically noted that in this setting, clanks are powered by essentia. So if you want to play a clank character, you’ve got to a) think of the practical concerns like how to get a steady supply of it, but also b) deal with the philosophical concerns that you’re powered by the crystalised blood of the pissed off elder god currently throwing monsters across your whole country.
Like. How do you deal with that? Reconcile that. Because …
This campaign setting is in the middle of being mined out. It’s gold rush, baby! But for essentia. All the forces of industry have arrived in the mesas to tear the magic out of the ground, render it down, and ship it out to the rest of the world to power a new age. And in the middle of that an ancient god who hates everybody and wants to tear down the whole world and start again has woken up and started throwing skyscraper-sized monsters around. But it’s pissed off because it’s been mutilated and imprisoned and its blood, its literal blood, is what mortals have been mining to make their new world. (Well. That and vengeance on the new gods, obviously. But they’re not down here having to deal with it currently).
Now. Is it also probably evil? Possibly. Is it apocalyptic? Definitely. But there’s also …
I mean. There’s a tension there. And as a clank that’s a tension that you physically embody. You are a physical manifestation of the exploitation of the land around you, the land currently vengefully rising to wipe the slate clean. You bleed gods to live, not just to be powerful. But, possibly crucially, not entirely by your own choice. You were built. You were made this way. So … what are you going to do about it?
A clank druid. A clank renewal druid. In a Colossus of the Drylands campaign.
I’m vibing. Most definitely. I am seeing possibilities over here. Heh.
