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For example, an idea I flirted with is the idea that the founders of vampiric bloodlines periodically pop up throughout history as a result of being damned by some higher power. Basically that scene in Coppola’s Dracula where Gary Oldman stabs a stone cross writ large. There are many historical, mythical, and fictional figures that could be recast as the founders of vampiric bloodlines: Lilith, Kali, Sekhmet, Aiapæc, Cihuacóatl, Dionin, Ahriman, Dracula, Bathory, Genghis Khan, King Leopold II of Belgium, Ivan the Terrible, Hernan Cortez, etc.
Nothing is stopping you or anyone else from trying to replace World of Darkness but if what you make resembled WOD, you should expect to be sued, just like how the makers of the Underworld movies were sued for drawing too much inspiration from WOD.
Anyway, one thing I’d like to do is split a character’s race, class and faction into distinct axes of character development. This would give more freedom and flexibility when it comes to world building and characterization. So for example a character could be of the Dracula bloodline, trained in the Thief class, and an agent of the Men in Black.
Paint basic picture of the world:
Is this supposed to be our world? Is it alternative reality?
What is the central theme?
Are there sci-fi elements like ancient aliens requiring men in black?
Or maybe it is grounded in mythos, like Hellboy? Maybe there was collision of worlds like Shadowrun?
What are the main factions? Vampire clans only? Or maybe you want to add extra in form of dragons secretly ruling banks, sidhe pseudoelves planning world domination and such?
And then, what are the main clans? How many of them? 7? 13? 300? What are the notable characters? What is their philosophy, how the structure was formed and why is it needed? Is there opposed structure like vampire hunters, sidhe or deep ones competing for domination?
Are there other worlds? Is it easy to travel to them? Who lives there?
Without foundation you gonna get skibidi toilet. You should put restrictions on what is reasonable and what is not in the world.
The urban fantasy genre is quite diverse. There’s vampires, shifters, unicorns, leprechauns, etc. I would love to see all those.
But I don’t speak for everyone else. The best I can do is encourage people to do their own thing and see what happens.
I’ve been trying to find programmers and artists without luck for a few years now. I’m gonna focus on writing prose and see how that goes.
There’s even multiple contradictory interpretations given by different writers.
For example, the deep ones are commonly interpreted as a horde of subhuman scum based on the text of “The Shadow over Innsmouth,” the story “Litany of Earth” and the Sinking City game depicts them as a persecuted minority, writer Leila Hann wrote an analysis positing they’re genetically modified humans created by the starfish-headed aliens that fell under Cthulhu’s telepathic thrall, etc.
Similarly, the Men of Leng are depicted wildly differently by different artists and writers. Traditionally they seemed to be drawn as satyrs, but Pathfinder depicts them as bug people with tentacles, while one story I read posited the White Goddess in “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family” was a lost princess of Leng.
That’s what I like about it, actually. I like seeing these multiple different interpretations. Since there’s no authority who owns the mythos and can decide what is canon, these different interpretations can coexist and flourish. It’s a true mythos.
Interpretations and multiverses are boring. No sense of scale, everything goes and world is static as ever. Say, Warhammers (both) have solid timeline written in stone, everything happens within this timeline. There is certain.... sense? in learning about timeline. If everything goes in your world, I kinda don't care about what happens. There must be rules and boundaries, they are what makes it all interesting and engaging.
Like SCP for example? On how it is a community collaboration and not an owned property, if so I would be interested to help. :)
I think that everyone is more-or-less on the same page here. You can't simply make a new universe. A universe must rest on the foundation of popular creative works. There was no Star Wars before the original trilogy. Middle-earth, with all of its history, languages, and cultures, didn't become popular because Tolkien published some "lore," i.e. notes on how everything is supposed to work in a fictional world. He published The Hobbit, which sold 100 million copies, and The Lord of the Rings, which sold 150 million copies. The Cthulhu mythos, to echo Butcher's post above, is built around Lovecraft's short stories and novellas (e.g., At the Mountains of Madness). However, since the author's talent was recognized only posthumously, there was no mythos to speak of until it was popularized through the efforts of other writers associated with the Arkham Publishing House in the 1960's and 70's. And it didn't really become a cultural phenomenon until the RPG and the first (decent) movies came out in the 80's.
In other words, trying to come up with lore for a non-existent universe is like trying to design the roof and windows of a house before building the walls or the foundation, or for that matter, before choosing the plot of land you're going to build the house on. It can be done, if you're into that kind of thing, but no one, except for some of your friends and family members, is going to have any interest in it. Every other person out there has some ideas for movies, novels, video games, and comic books. The tricky part is to turn those ideas into an actual product that will draw public attention.
If you are a writer who wants to create his own IP, you should probably start by publishing some of your works or by having a film studio accept your script for production. If you are more interested in writing for video games, sign up for game jams or write for mods. Eventually you will build a portfolio that will allow you to get a job in the industry. Having an MFA or some other relevant college degree also wouldn't hurt, by the way. Obviously, you're not going to start creating your own worlds right after getting that job. For the first year or two you'll be writing party banter and items' descriptions. Then you'll move on to quests and dialogues. Eventually you will have sufficient expertise to design major characters and help shape the narrative itself. Finally, once you become a lead designer or creative director, you can start doing what you want to be doing now -- create your own universe, populated by your characters and governed by your laws. The chances are, instead of wanting other authors to contribute to your creation, you will want to sue them for copyright infringement at that point. But that's a story for another time.
Not true. This very IP is an obvious exception. The way that tabletop games are created is that you write an entire book of just lore and then staple some rules on it. That's how this IP was originally created in 1991. Some dudes came together, wrote a book with some lore and rules, then it sold. You can totally make a new universe without pre-existing stories and sell nothing but lore. They later released tie-in novels that existed secondary to the game itself.
They did run out of steam in the mid to late 1990s and got out-competed by video games, but they were successful for a time using lore as their foundation rather than the other way around.
But I do get your point. I've said myself multiple times that audiences invest in stories with characters, not lore in isolation. Bloodlines is what put this IP on the map and that's entirely down to the fun writing, not the IP it was based on.
I already have a job. I'm just doing this as a hobby since nobody else seems to be. I've tried to find programmers to work with on original games with stories and characters first, paying them out of my own pocket for the work, but it hasn't worked out. They keep flaking on me. I wasted the last year without anything to show for it. I'm not wasting my time on that again.
I'm gonna keep working on my prose fiction and see how that works out. I have a number of drafts and notes about different topics including vampires, werewolves and other stuff. Maybe I'll write a roleplaying game setting, but tabletop games aren't a growth sector and suffer appalling first mover advantage due to the huge initial investment required. No surprise tabletop games are going to the way of the dodo as video games displace them, to the point that big tabletop game publishers are trying to switch to video games.
I tried that game. Played it for twenty hours hoping it would get better and it never did. I didn't find any of the characters interesting and the setting was sparse and lackluster. It was a complete waste of money.
It's intended for a very particular audience and I am clearly not in that audience. I doubt most people interested in Bloodlines 1/2 are in that audience. I wish I had known before wasting money on it.
I liked some of the ideas they had despite the crude implementation, so I was curious about the Paradisus sequel. So I joined their discord to learn more. Big mistake on my part. To add insult to injury, the official discord is full of fragile snowflakes and has this absurd zero tolerance policy for the most innocuous and random "offenses", so I got banned for accidentally stepping on egg shells. I tried to be friendly and eager. I even explained that my autism results in faux pas sometimes, but I had no malicious intent, to no avail. I'm never patronizing them again and they have earned my eternal enmity.
It isn't a reasonable argument. I've already blocked him to keep myself from being distracted anymore.
Yes. I'm the one who told you about it.
It looks like fun, certainly, but good luck trying to find players.