Sheoloth: Legend conversion (Completed - now in editing)

If by High Fantasy people mean more like Tolkien then there are several games that do Tolkien so much better then D&D or Legend out of the box.

I blame Dave Arneson, Gary never wanted Elves or Dwarves, he much preferred a Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber and Clark Ashton Smith style of game but Dave insisted that they put the Tolkien races into their game and it was downhill from there. D&D really doesn't do High Fantasy well because it's mechanisms were designed around Sword and Sorcery. Throwing non-human races into the mix just made it a mixing bowl of nothing distinctive, neither S&S or High Fantasy, that has become a separate genre all of it's own.

Leave Tolkien to the Tolkien specific games and let us have our D100 Sword and Sorcery/Sword and Planet/Sword and Sandal games.
 
Yet not everyone (as Matt says) likes Sword and Sorcery, there are a fair few people who like High and Low fantasy, as well as numerous other genres. Me, I love S&S.
 
Personally I've always failed to understand why S&S material couldn't involve Tolkien type races. S&S (from what I understand) is more about context of the story than it is about humans vs. non-humans.
 
@auyl:
+1

@Strega:But High fantasy doesn't have to mean Tolkien or D&D, its about the world and the story and the races could reflect that in many new ways.

The Sword of Truth series are also high fantasy.
Most of Guy Gavriel Kay's work too.His worlds have epic stories yet are vastly different to elements you seem to hate in High Fantasy(He also has a gritty/poetic literature style that Legend could convey easily and imo hes vastly superior to Tolkien)

@Wolf: I like S&S AND other genres :)


There is also Dark Fantasy.I believe Legend could do something like the Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks really well.
 
@auyl, S&S is a term coined by, IIRC, Fritz Leiber in the early 60's and refers generally to the pulp style material that was popular in the pulps from the 30's through the early fifties. It's supplemented by the Sword and Planet style of authors like ERB who wrote most of his work in a similar period. Sword and Sandal refers often to the films from the forties onwards that featured tunic-clad heroes from early, often Biblical, periods. In very, very, few of these are creatures other than human portrayed as possible protagonists. Most often non-humans are shown as purely protagonists to be fought and beaten.

@stroval, history will show us whether late 20th century fantasy authors will truly be counted as people warranting the high praise, scholarly research and comment given to Tolkien's work. He wasn't the first as MacDonald, Morris, Dunsany, Machen and other 19th authors carried the torch of fantasy writing well before the Hobbit appeared and before the term fantasy was even in use for that style of writing. Many of those authors feature work that is just as stirring as Tolkien but are often written in a manner inaccessible to people not brought up on the prose styles used.

If Legend is going towards pandering to the people that want more D&D in their fantasy and less what it's mechanisms are best suited to, and the masses of spells being posted here signpost the wants of some more prolific posters, then I shall consider moving sideways to using more material developed for games like RQ6 where Sword & Sorcery is not a dirty word.
 
strega said:
If Legend is going towards pandering to the people that want more D&D in their fantasy and less what it's mechanisms are best suited to, and the masses of spells being posted here signpost the wants of some more prolific posters, then I shall consider moving sideways to using more material developed for games like RQ6 where Sword & Sorcery is not a dirty word.
Click to expand...

Well, here is the Official Mongoose view: Why can it not do both?
 
It could Matt but not in the same setting. You shouldn't mix D&D style material with S&S as It satisfies neither party. It not gonzo enough for D&D players and isn't the right feel for S&S players.
 
@stroval - I do too, this is why I said I love S&S. I have a wide appreciation of various genres, and like quite a few of them.

I however did learn to write, whilst reading the works of Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Robert L. Asprin and many others. So I have a soft spot for S&S.

I definitely wouldn't call Sheoloth S&S, or High Fantasy. High Fantasy very rarely takes a look at the darker underbelly of things, or if it does, it glosses over it or paints around it.

It is fantasy, and the re-written Dark Mother fits quite well in the dark fantasy side of things.

Legend has Xoth for its Sword and Sorcery until a time that Mongoose needs/desires a fresh S&S setting. Personally though, I'd like to see a Xoth World Book.

Sheoloth aims to fill a gap that Matthew/Mongoose feels is missing from the line, so I'm quite happy to support that.
 
Prime_Evil said:
(Hmmm...now I'm imagining a group of cannibalistic hobbits who arrive in a rural area and devour most of the inhabitants before moving on to the next village...lol)
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I wrote a sketch about this. In short, The Nine Riders would have found The Shire a far more interesting place, shortly before emerging from Hobbiton as The Six Walkers Without Horses.

"The Witch King of Angmar says that no man can kill him. A pity nobody told him that hobbits aren't men ..."
 
@strega:

I believe like in any human craft there is room for creators to evolve and eventually surpass their teachers..but thats a discussion for another thread perhaps.

Like Matt said, why not try to venture in to other directions? Fans of both genres will get the books and if you don't like them as a fan of S&S, you wont. From what I gather I don't think they'll try to cram them both into one setting like you mention.


Its not pandering any more than it would be if it they only published S&S, when they clearly state in the core that Legend can do all kinds of Fantasy as a toolkit.


@Wolf: I didn't mean you weren't(how would I know that?) I meant to point out that I am, so I don't see a problem with getting products in both genres. Probably should have phrased it differently
 
@stroval: not a worry, I'm just explaining for the benefit of people who might just be peering in - a few of the things I like (multi-genres) and where I think Sheoloth fits. I'm with you 100% on this :)
 
The Wolf said:
@stroval: not a worry, I'm just explaining for the benefit of people who might just be peering in - a few of the things I like (multi-genres) and where I think Sheoloth fits. I'm with you 100% on this :)
Click to expand...
:) I'm really looking forward to the book
 
It will be interesting as well, because for the first time you'll actually get stats on the Hematite Dog, Necromaton, Mortificant and much more. You'll learn something about necrore, as I see it since it was never explained in the books.

Thanks :)
 
Soooo, today begins with additional work on this book. There were a few things missing from the d20 version of Sheoloth, so here is my chance to do what I did with SGB and add some additional information and statistics for certain things that me and Matt think need to go in to make this version extra special with a cherry ontop.

*disclaimer: cherry picked from dark elf lower courtyard, may be hazardous to health*
 
I'm intrigued to see how you can do the Sheoloth book BEFORE the general book on dark elf culture, but from a commercial sense it's a smart move - if the setting is interesting enough it will draw people into subsequent products.

I know that this is probably impossible, but one thing that I think might be useful for Sheoloth would be some diagrams showing the relationships between the key NPCs - kind of like the ones that used to appear in early White Wolf citybooks. Having a visual reference would help the GM to navigate the complex intrigues taking place in the city. Also, summarising each relationship in one or two words such as "servile obedience", "lust", "fear and resentment", or "arrogant disdain" would give the GM help to play the NPCs appropriately.
 
Yeah, it's a bit too late in the day to be able to add something like that. I'm not sure Matt would go for it in this book either, but this isn't the last Sheoloth book you'll see and likely I'll be asked to do other books in the series.

In the Sheoloth book though, you'll find a complete character rule creation guide to make dark elves and what's more 100 entries of a special dark elf background table for character creation specially designed for Sheoloth and dark elves in general.

I'm 3 things down, so far in my list of new things to write about. Mostly stats for things like the Hematite Dog and the Priestess of the Dark Mother, so you can see examples of them.

I may also be inventing some particularly nasty uses for necrore (watch this space).
 
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