The Four Types of Scares

I haven't abandoned this blog, nor my ambitions to make a video game.

Currently I am sidetracked on a different side project (again), but considering the depth of the games I want to create, and the depth of this current side project, I think it would be better to devote my precious resources to this side project instead.

So here we go:

I've been reading up a bit on the different types of scares, and in my expert opinion with no professional experience on the psychology of fear, I theorize that there are four different types of "Fears", or "Scares".

This article at Gamasutra.com is much of my basis, for these opinions, though I am presenting them in a different format.

Firstly there is the Paranoia scare, which is the fear of the unknown, or rather the anxiety over the unexpected.  They come from the player's experience over the Hostile scare and the Startle scare.  Both the Startle scare and the Hostile scare feed into the Paranoia scare, and the tension comes from the player unable to find the sources of their anxiety, and thus will look into every nook and cranny in order to prepare for either of the Startle or the Hostile scares.  The purpose of this scare is to make the player find many false negatives in their search for these respective scares, much like gambling; give the player a series of rewards set to vend out at regular intervals, with varying degrees of success, and then mix it up with randomly inserted scares so that they are on the lookout for these "rewards".

Next up is the Startle scare, also known as the "jump" or "cat" scare.  This is the scare when something just so happens to jump out at you and startle you, like a cat jumping into your lap while you are reading your book outside in the afternoon sun.  Most people view the Startle scare with disdain (mostly players I think, but I think a handful of game designers also think that the Startle scare is a bit cheap).  I once thought that the Startle scare was a bit cheap too, until I watched the popular youtuber Markiplier play Ju-on (2:00) and Outlast (13:21). There are certain instances when the player looks behind a corner, checks under a desk, or peaks behind a curtain, and at the very first moment of that action, BOOM! The creepy-ugly-thing-stalking-you pops out.  Now at every moment that the player checks behind the corner, under the desk, or behind the curtain, the memory of that initial scare reoccurs.  As a matter of fact, the first time Markiplier gets that jump scare performing that certain action, the nasty critter calls the player a "little piggy", and every time Markiplier performs that action again, he repeats the mantra "oh little piggy no no, oh little piggy no no", reliving that initial memory of being scared, despite the fact that he never gets scared in that way again.

The Startle scare is good because it brings the player's adrenaline up, and due to the Two Factor Theory of Emotion, gets the player scared from the outset, making the player more afraid and hyper-sensitive to potential scares.  This hyper-vigilance makes the player test for more "false-positives" in their search for potential threats, feeding into the Paranoia scares.  Like an endless cycle of doom :)

The next scare is what I call the Hostile scare.  It is the fear of something that can potentially harm you.  These are the types of critters (or afflictions/status effects) that the player wants to avoid at all costs.  Imagine the nasty critter that is three times your size chasing you and crashing through walls and furniture in its pursuit to turn you into a nice, bloody, abstract art piece on the walls.  It could also be a trap, pitfall, or some other mechanical/non-sentient force that has the potential to harm you.  These scares are easily identifiable, and it is the fact that the player wants to avoid them that makes them so scary.  In fear, there is only fight or flight, so if the player is only given the option to "run", then it becomes a frantic scramble to avoid the thing that may kill you at all costs.

The problem with this is fear is that you have to use it sparingly, otherwise it may frustrate players trying to avoid something so unavoidable, and then you are forced to design the Hostile scare into something that is more manageable, thereby removing the threat in the scare.  By also using the Hostile scare sparingly, you also feed into the Paranoia scare; the player doesn't know when the Hostile scare will appear, and will devise ways to avoid the scare if possible.

Finally, there is the Unnatural scare.  This is the scare "which should not be".  For example:

You have been walking around the abandoned hospital/insane asylum/mine, dodging all the nasty things that go bump in the night, and as you are entering a room and looking at the puzzle on the wall, you hear the sound of a little girl playing.  You turn around, and there she is, back facing towards you, wearing a dress that belongs in the 1920's, when suddenly, her head spins 180 degrees to face you, and then she says in her sweet little voice: "wanna play?"

The Unnatural scare is meant to be disturbing, unnerving, or otherwise bizarre.  In the above example, little girls are not supposed to be playing in a dangerous environment, they are not supposed to be wearing a dress from 90 years ago, and their heads are most definitely not supposed to turn around 180 degrees.  Unnatural scares help create the atmosphere of unease, they are the things "which should not be". 

The problem with this scare is that too much of it and then you desensitize the player.  Too much blood, gore, or things that are disturbing and then you have to escalate the Unnatural scare so that the player can feel unnerved again.  Use it sparingly, and feed into the Paranoia scare to help create that sense of atmosphere.

I'm pretty beat right now.  I might be able to say more on this later.

Strategy vs Variety

The constant credo that I want to expound about the games I want to create is "never the same game twice", and that has been a very concerning problem for me.  How do I make a game that gives the player a brand-new, novel experience, every playthrough?

One of my theories as to why players will replay a game is because it allows strategy, but strategy can only occur if you give the game an element of predictability as well.  Strategy relies on the fact that your brain can make guesses about the future, and you'll react to each situation as they arise to solve the problems, much like how you are supposed to walk on the outer ring of a level in Slender: The 8 pages, and then move into the inner ring.  People who have played that game understand that they have to check all of the possible spawn points of the eight pages, and be able to conserve their flashlight's battery and their running stamina.  The problem with that game-making style is that after a while it becomes a robotic repetition of following the same steps you did previously to complete the game, and after a long enough time doesn't give the player enough replayability.

Games that gives you a set of iterated problems with specific solutions (like enemies which may be immune to one form of attack but vulnerable to another) gives the player some variety, but in the end is just a game of rock, paper, scissors that relies on your ability to predict which move your opponent will make.  I'm reminded of Starcraft, Diablo, and Skyrim when I say this, though Skyrim's and Diablo's RPG elements add another aspect of variety in their gameplay: specialization.

Specialization is a fantastic tool, and if enough specialization options are available to the player, gives the player a multitude of options to address each challenge presented.  The problem with this style is that it again is a game of rock, paper, scissors, only this time you are constantly choosing "rock, rock, rock, rock", and sooner or later you will encounter a critter who chooses "paper", making your life interesting.  This reminds me of how I typically play Skyrim, a rogue/sniper/thief.  You take the least amount of damage, and if you are patient enough, you can eventually wear down every enemy into death.  The only problem I encountered is when I had to go head-to-head with a magic-user who could heal themselves: if I brought their health down far enough they would just heal up, so I had to do enough damage to them quickly enough while getting them to spend all of their mana before hand to prevent them from healing, or have a few poisons or weapons specifically reserved for when I encountered those enemies.

Despite the fact that getting hit with "rock" while choosing "scissors" is a bit vexing, it actually doesn't demean or limit gameplay.  It just means that a variety of creatures were presented and you finally encountered one that exploited your limitations.  Given a long enough time scale, you would always eventually encounter a challenge that countered your strength.

Rogue-like games are interesting because they give the player a variety in environments to explore, but also prevents the player from developing a strategy because there isn't enough predictability to develop a strategy.  If another player and I are both playing Terran, and the other player is building tanks, I understand that spamming marines isn't the best bet for me.  If I'm playing a rogue-like game, then I have little to no idea as to what to expect as I progress from level to level.  Being unable to guess my enemy (in this case the game environment) lends a sense of realism to games: life is unpredictable, and so is this game.  You can also add RPG elements to a rogue game to encourage specialization, giving the player a variety in environments and specialization choices, but the problem with that is that you'll create a game that is more about casual, arcade style playing.  Not only that, but rogue games may or may not give you the correct equipment drops to allow you to progress to the final stage of the game (I'm looking at you Faster Than Light).

So how do you create a game that gives the player enough variety to keep the player interested, but enough predictability that the player can develop a strategy?  One possible solution is just to create enough content and then barring the player from taking alternate routes to find the solution.  The problem with this style is that given enough playthroughs, players will eventually come across all of the content.  On top of that, the human brain desires novelty, and barring a player from exploring alternate paths makes the player feel as if they failed to complete a challenge, much like how one will find a waist-high fence that "just so happened" to barricade the player from going down the rest of that one hallway.  So, creating copious amounts of content is not the solution either.

So the question remains: how to create enough variety to keep the novel experience, but enough predictability to allow the player to develop a strategy?

Curious question indeed.

On Replayability Pt2

In a previous article I talked about several different games that I have played and talked about why they were so replayable for me.  It then occured to me that I missed a couple other games, and since that previous post is already WAAAAY too long, I decided to highlight some other games I forgot about, as well as talk about replayability in the horror genre overall.

So, I will talk about the replayability of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver (LOKSR) for the PS1, and Halo 2 for the Xbox, in context of the different tactics available, storyline, and player rewards.

LOKSR
Tactics:  The player's tactics really don't change from game to game as much as from encounter to encounter.  Using the different elemental spells against enemies is an interesting trick, however, after looking at the cost to find the mana to use such spells, as well as the more fun I had fighting and impaling enemies, I hardly ever used the elemental spells.  As an action platformer, LOKSR does not allow much in the way of specialization.

Story:  The game does not alternate it's ending based on the player's choices during play.  The player follows a linear story, unlocking stages of the game as the player gains powers.

Rewards:  No rewards.  Playing the game does not give you a better score or any incentive to play the game again with a different mechanic or bragging rights.

Analysis:  This game was fun because I could conquer it, because it had a tight storyline with an interesting twist on the vampire genre, and because the graphics and gameplay were amazing.  I played it many times for all of these reasons, not because the game was altered or aware of the fact that I had played it before.

Halo 2
Tactics:  As an action FPS game, Halo 2 didn't offer much in the way of different ways to finish the game.  It seems that the designers actually created certain levels where you had to use  different weapons in light of the enemies you were fighting and the design of the level (like being given a sniper rifle to take out vultures, or vehicles to fight over vehicles and traverse over land quickly, or rocket launchers or other vehicles to fight other vehicles).  The player does not consistently maintain specialization while playing this game.

Story:  No alternate endings, no changes to the story based on the player's actions.

Rewards:  The player is given certain rewards based on which level the game was completed on, thus giving the player bragging rights.

Analysis:  I managed to complete this game on Hard mode, but legendary just seemed a little out of my reach.  The main attraction to this game, and the majority of the hours I put into it were from, its multiplayer support.  Obviously, I lack the technical skill to try to make a game that supports multiplayer, and I want to build a gae based on the specialization of a character, which means creating an MMO, which is another thing I do not want to do.

Finally a note about replayability and the horror genre: part of the scares that come from the horror genre is the use of jump scares as well as displaying the freakish, weird, or otherwise unnerving.  Replaying the game means the characters will inevitably be desensitized to the scares and to the unnatural.

I'm planning on creating an AI director, much like Left 4 Dead, that tracks the progress and actions of the player and adjusts the game accordingly.  I'm also not very interested in creating shock scares, so trying to make things new and refreshing in context of shock scares is not important to the development of this game.

On Replayability

Based on some preliminary research (and some meditation on the subject), replayability is an element to a game that is both hard to implement and a fairly unsound business strategy.  An article from gamastura talks about this briefly, as well as the fact that no matter how replayable a game is, technology will eventually outstrip it and people will move on to bigger and better things.  All that aside, the goal of this game, and really any game that I want to make, is replayability. 

There are certain tricks you can do to help create replayability, some of them (but certainly not all) is giving the player a multitude of tactics, branching storylines, and rewards for replaying the game.  I will examine each of these tricks briefly, by using some of the games that I have played over and over again, most notably Tetris for the NES, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (TMNT) from the SNES game, Metal Gear Solid (MGS) for the PS1, Final Fantasy VIII (FFVIII) for the PS1, Mass Effect (ME) for the Xbox, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (VTMB) for PC, Diablo for the PC, and Skyrim for the PC.

Tetris
Tactics:  Tactics remain the same from one playthrough to the next

Story: No story exists, and no changes are made in the story due to player choice.

Reward:  A high score system, however if I remember correctly, the game reset the score everytime the game was shut down or exchanged.

Analysis:  HOW IS THIS GAME STILL POPULAR!?!?!  despite all of the elements that I have hightlighted here being absent, this game is still more popular than its contemporaries like Pong or Oregon Trail.  Perhaps this is because it is meant to be an arcade game, replayable and simplistic, lacking any of the future complexities that games and arcade games will gain over the years.

TMNT
Tactics: The four available characters to play TNMT allowed you to choose from better reach or attack by their character choice (if I remember correctly), but for the most part the differences were just different color models.  Completing the game with different characters didn't change the gameplay as much, though completing it with a different character gave the player a sense of minor accomplishment.

Story:  The story does not change due to player choices, and therefore storyline branches are absent.

Reward:  Aside from a high score mechanic in a minigame, the main campaign does not give rewards to the player based on replaying the game.  Perhaps constantly replaying makes the game easier to conquer, but other than that does not create a strong enough challenge for the players.

Analysis:  Part of the replayablity of the game is due to the larger franchise this game is part of.  One of the reasons why I enjoyed this game so much now is because it is easy to beat and gives me a sense of accomplishment.  Add that with nostalgic import and you have a game that is moderately replayable.  

MGS
Tactics: As an action game MGS allows you to play with different tactics by allowing the character to use different bonus items based on the previous gameplay.  Being allowed access to different tactics entailed actually replaying the game. 

Story:  The game allows the player to have to endings, based on whether or not the player decides to save one character or another.  This choice does not affect gameplay during the playthrough.

Reward:  The game rewards the player in a multitude of ways.  1) it gives a ranking, or nickname, based on the player's performance 2) it gives the player a special item to help the player on a second playthrough and 3) it unlocks an alternate costume for the main character.

Analysis:  There are a multitude of ways in which this game rewards the player for playing again, and is perhaps one of the main reasons why I played it so much.  The key seems to make it easy enough to allow the player to complete the game, and then giving the player an item to invite him or her to play again with a different and more broken mechanic to use.

FFVIII
Tactics:  Not much for tactics, aside from having a different combination of characters available to play on a different playthrough.

Story:  As a JRPG, the game pretty much has a linear storyline that doesn't offer much in variety in its endings.

Rewards:  No rewards are given for completing the game, aside from perhaps allowing the character to discover better tactics on a second playthrough, creating a greater chance of success, as well as creating many opportunities and side quests for the completionists playing.

Analysis:  Part of the reason why I played this game so much wasn't because of its items and missions to complete and gather to complete the sets, but because of the storyline, artwork, cut scenes, gameplay, and simply because if I tried hard enough I could be successful.  My style of gameplay is based on just grinding until I get what I need with mindless repetition, and this RPG helped me in that aspect.

ME
Tactics: ME allowed you to actually create your main character, with different cosmetic changes to the models and voice acting, and a set of character classes to choose from.  ME's main source of replayability is built into the first decision of character class: if you choose one class, having a balanced team means having one or two different character combinations to your main team. 

Story:  The story doesn't change much from the player's decisions, aside from a character becoming unavailable.  This is certainly crippling if that character is essential to the primary team, but I don't recall having to lose a significant member of my team and having to work around this deficiency.

Rewards:  The game allows you to carry your previous character into a new game, allowing you to gain more experience and create a stronger character on the next playthrough of the game.  It also rewards players for having a character that is imported from the previous game into the sequel for ME.

VTMB
Tactics:  Much like ME and Diablo, at the character start the player was given an option to play one of seven available bloodlines, with two gender models.  This choice greatly affected gameplay, as certain clans, like Nosferatu, were given different advatanges and disadvantages to deal with while traversing through the game world.  On top of that, other clans, like Malkavian, were given alternate dialogue options which changed the tone in which the game is played.  Like Diablo, each clan also allowed the player to embrace different tactics, with the clan choice giving an overall theme as to how the game is played.  Finally, the game also didn't award the player for the number of creatures killed as much as whether or not the objectives were completed, thus rewarding the player for finding alternate ways to complete each mission regardless of style of play.

Story:  The game has multiple endings, and the choices the character makes throughout the game affect the final outcome of the game, allowing the player to experience multiple endings.

Rewards:  Aside from granting the player foreknowledge on the placement of items and enemies, this game does overtly award the player to play again.

Analysis:  I like the idea that the player is rewarded the same amount of experience regardless on how the mission was accomplished.  This creates a beginning and an end, and allows the player the option to fill in the blanks as to how to complete the mission.  The disadvantage of this is that if the player chooses to play more combat oriented, then the player is not awarded for being combat oriented.  This is perhaps where Skyrim and other Elder Scrolls games succeed while others fail;  Elder Scrolls rewards the player for being better at what they are doing, while VTMB only awards the player for completing the missions.

Diablo
Tactics: Diablo gave you different characters with different skills and character models, and, especially in the case of Diablo II, each character gave you separate tactics with which you could play the game.  Not only that, but the difficulty of the game required the player to replay the game and earn more experience before proceeding to the next level, and the game had different settings (including a hardcore setting with permadeath) which changed the gameplay experience.  On top of that, Diablo had multiplayer support, allowing the player to compete online with other characters, much like other popular MMO games that would soon enter the market.

Skyrim
Tactics: Skyrim and ME are similiar in that you can make cosmetic changes to the central character of their stories, but where ME has different classes to choose from Skyrim allows you to pick between different races.  Aside from a couple dialogue changes from picking an alternate race, the initial character choice doesn't affect the player much as he or she progresses through the game, especially in the later levels when the majority of the character skills are maxed out, and with the addition of the legendary mode allows the character all the perks to be accessed. 

Story:  Aside from a few side quests, the main story and the story of the game overall does not change based on the character's decisions.  Different items are dropped based on the player's decision, and of course with Skyrim's massive open world, quests can just as easily ignored (and indeed it is normal to have five or six open quests in various stages of completion).

Rewards:  There are no rewards for playing the game a second time, aside from the experience of reexperiencing the gameplay and story again.

Analysis:  Skyrim's appeal comes not from its bugginess, modding, sparse storyline, and mal-formed questlines, but from its theme:  EPIC exploration.  The environment and atmosphere invites the player to look around, to see the sights and walk around.  Looming trees, mountains, and monsters makes the player's eyes be drawn up as well as down, creating a large breath-taking atmosphere for the player to experience again and again.

Final Thoughts:
What makes a game replayable is the audience into which the game is tailored to.  Flappybird, Angrybirds, Tetris, and TMNT are or were all popular because they catered to the casual gamer market.  I, however, am not interested in the casual game market, because the survivor-horror genre as well as the RPG are nearly impossible to create tailored for the casual gamer.  This means I have to find surivor horror rpg's that have replay value.  That's peachy.

Allow the player flexibility in the tactics they can choose.  While Skyrim offered many tactics, they weren't very well balanced.  On top of that, after a certain level, Skyrim becomes less of a "let's continue to use this successful tactic" and more like "let me grind this other skill up for me to use".  ME, VTMB, and Diablo all gave a variety of styles of play for each character to use, thus giving the player a multitude of choices to make on each playthrough. 

This makes me wonder, should I design the game so that the player is forced to play a more balanced character, or reward the player for playing a character that has picked a tactic and is successful at it? The pros to making a balanced character is that it is in theme with the survivor horror genre: success should be viewed with mixed, complicated emotions.  Keeping the player off-balanced on on his or her toes is what a survivor horror genre is supposed to do, thus forcing the player to make well-rounded characters instead of specialized ones.  Making a specialized character, however, allows the character to experience each level a little differently, thus making replayability more enjoyable.  Hmmm... I'm going to have to think about this one.

Finally, this game should reward the player for playing again.  Perhaps allowing the player to replay the game with the same character, much like what ME and Diablo has done.  I'd want to avoid goofy game-breaking rewards, as that would break the atmospher of tension and fear that I want to create.

This balanced character vs specialized character is going to be a hard thing to reconcile.

Elrich the Old

One of the things I appreciate about video games, novels, and comics are the iconic, recurring characters that exist within them.  Forgotten Realms has Eliminister and Drzzt, Final Fantasy has Biggs and Wedge, Discworld (but moreso Terry Pratchett) has Death, and Star Wars has Boba Fett.  I like the idea of characters, powerful and mysterious, whose personalities are so gigantic that they bleed out into other stories.  This gives a story a sense of a larger universe, where other events are occuring and that this single string of a narative isn't the only important thing that is going on.  These characters can be so larger-than-life that some ask: why aren't they featured in their own separate series?

Well focusing on a character makes you get to know them; you begin to understand them and their daily powers seem just as mundane to you as it does to them.  In essence, you focus your story around a single mysterious character and then they loose their mystery.  I'm sure there are exceptions to this rule, but that doesn't change the fact that establishing a universe entails using characters that make brief cameos.

There are several characters that I would like to make available in a cross-storyline arc, but the one I'm most certain on for this current project is Elrich the Old.

Some months ago I came up with a silly, ludicrous, ridiculous, idea:  two liches meet in a Denny's diner, eating breakfast.  One is having scrambled eggs, bacon, and sausage, and the other is eating strawberry pancakes.  They, of course, have illusions placed on them so they don't disturb the public at large, and they are meeting because they want to duel each other, and the Silver Hammers (the cloak and dagger police that keep the modern world oblivious to the supernatural) will be overseeing the event to ensure that no civilians are harmed or notice fireballs erupting from ancient, dead, corpses.

One was called Hedric the Betrayer, and the other was called Elerich the Old.

I didn't get that far in writing that story, but the characters were there, and I loved them, or more precisely, I liked Elerich (now Elrich), the pancake eating troll archlich with a missing hand and eye.

Elrich is a troll, and the great-great-great-great-great(i think you get the idea)-grandfather of necromancy.  His experiments violated the laws of nature, creating the Taint, but also prolonging his life.  His student, Hedrich, betrayed him, stealing Elrich's hand and eye after six centuries of serving and secretly plotting.  Elrich survived the encounter, and, annoyed over the inconvenience of missing body parts, returned to his work.  Hundreds of years passed, and Elrich secluded himself further and further into his studies until he was almost completely unaware of anything around him.

Eventually, Oracle Vul's Taint exceeded his ability to control it, and he went on a spree to destroy the continent of Aos'Teg.  The other dragons interceded, with Kav contacting Elrich and asking him to set aside his studies and assist the dragons in defeating Vul or trying to cure the Taint.  Elrich refused, and continued working on unlocking the secrets of Aetherium, which led to a showdown between Oracle Vul and Kav.  Predictably, Kav won, inheriting the title of Oracle of Stone.  This led to Kav's corruption and inheriting the Taint of his predessor, and a century later Kav went on a quest to destroy the entire world of Toth.

Understandibly, Elrich's studies were disturbed and it was at this moment that Elrich reached an impasse: if he doesn't do something, he won't be able to study, if he does something, he'll have to stop studying for a while.  Elrich chose to go with the decision that will eventually let him study again, rationalizing that he had all of eternity to return to his studies after he put out all of the "little fires" cropping up around Toth.

It is not certain how much of a part Elrich played in the War of the Oracles, some believe that he was instrumental in banishing Kav, others think that he didn't return to the world until a few decades after Kav was exiled.  Either way, Elrich travels across the world, trying to get everything back on track since the chaos of the War of the Oracles, so he could go back to his studies.

I like this character because he's complex:  he is a creature of unspeakable evil, driven by power, doing good things for very selfish reasons.  This is something that is supposed to be typical for the characters in the Father's Realm: implacably evil characters doing good, achingly good characters doing evil.  Elrich has no compunction about people dying or suffering, afterall, he's thousands of years old and is very acquainted with death and suffering, and on the whole he would rather kill people than save them, but he learned his lesson: he has to participate in the world so he can go back to doing whatever he wants.

The Father's Realm: An Alternate High Fantasy Setting

The Father’s Realm: An Alternate High Fantasy Setting

“Nevermore will the Father wait for His Children,

For He grows weary of waiting on his throne misery and blood.

So He shall take up His stave of bone,

And smite down all those who stand in His way.

The Children of the Mother shall thrash in agony before Him,

They shall pray for His mercy,

And He shall judge each one in turn.

From the North, a Child of the Father will rise,

This, and only this Child, shall see the world to be burned and reborn.”

                ~ Kav, the Fourth Oracle of Stone

Introduction:

During my sophomore year of high school I had an idea for a novel.  It all started with these nine lines of poetry that are written above, and it hasn’t really ended since then.  I’ve had several other high fantasy settings come across my mind, and this idea has gone through many iterations and phases and transitions and transformations as I combined and mixed and discarded other ideas.  The opening scene started with a red cloaked man, a bladed helmet obscuring his face, and a six-foot-long, two-foot-wide sword balanced carelessly over his right shoulder, as he rode on top of an ogre’s right shoulder, who trundled forward to the stone parapets of a castle.  The ogre and the man were brothers, Children of the Father, sent to free their outcast brother, locked within the belly of the castle depths for over three hundred years.  The brother they were sent to free had an iron mask bolted to his face, a mark of shame given by their mutual Father, and the castle and its guards were thrown into disarray as the ogre crashed through the walls, and the Great Blade jumped down to the courtyard below, cutting the castle guards down while leaping and lunging into the depths of the dungeons below.  This would lead the Pariah, the iron-masked brother, to kill both the Great Blade and the Brother, and then set him on a journey to gather other Children of the Father, to kill the Father before He came down from His throne of fire and flame.

All of this came from a time when my high school friends and I were obsessed with playing pen and paper RPG’s like d20 Star Wars, DnD, Exalted, Mobile Suit Gundam, and Vampire: The Masquerade, but as time passed I noticed a trend in most fantasy settings: humans as essential characters.  Think about it, how many stories, novels, and games have you played that featured humans as being the heroes?  To be sure, there are a few storylines that don’t feature humans, or have entirely nonhuman universes, but the overwhelming majority has humans as central figures.  I think that there are some practical reasons why humans are central characters in most fantasy/sci-fi stories; partly because we experience life in human terms, and our baseline for reality comes from our human perspective; and partly because you don’t need as much sci-fi make-up if the majority of your extras are all humans.  This is part of the reason why I have completely excluded humans in this game setting.  Humans belong on earth, and if you’re not playing a game based on earth, then why have humans at all?

I’m making this campaign setting because I like pen and paper RPG’s, I like fantasy settings and I like the idea of an Lovecraftian mythos of dark gods rising to consume and destroy the world.  The following is a playground I’ve been exploring and developing for the past several years.

I hope you like it.

The Tone of The Father’s Realm

The world is a dark and threatening place.  Dark prophecies and rumors of civil war abound as desperate priests and druids try to maintain order.  In this world, the struggle between good and evil isn’t as important as the struggle between law and chaos, and oftentimes champions of good must ally themselves with the darkest villains, knowing full well that they are pawns of a greater scheme, and having no choice of their allies if they are to save the people from themselves.  This is a realm of political intrigue, fanatical zealots, saints and saviors turned villainous by their corruption, greed, or extremism.

Amidst all this hopelessness and despair, the very earth Herself rises to restore order and serenity, while giving permission for death and destruction to cull the weak to glean champions for the people.  The citizens are the very expression of Nature, and their trials and struggles pantomime the greater struggle between the forces of the universe as law, chaos, good, and evil fight an eternal battle for supremacy, for one army to win over another isn’t just a political victory, but a divine permission to rule.  More often than not, success isn’t reflected by a divine entity’s choice, but by a greater natural order that bends and shifts, making the individual an agent of its implacable will, or sometimes becomes a servant to those who can interpret the signs.

The people try to find a middle ground to commune with each other, but no common place exists.  Each person is a unique individual, born with advantages and disadvantages, trying to find their place in society but always finding themselves to be a mismatched puzzle piece wherever they go.  Displacement, anonymity, and alienation are common for the denizens of the Father’s Realm.

The world of Toth is in need of heroes to restore order and to eliminate the corruption, greed, and madness that has gone out of control.  Will you take up the call, knowing that the world is destined for destruction, or will you close your eyes and give in to the doom that consumes the people?

The World

Thirteen centuries ago, a great war occurred to expel the Oracle of Stone from the world of Toth, the battleground taking place on the continent of Prosus, bringing together the many races and creatures around the world to unite and destroy the corrupted Oracle of Stone.  Creatures from the across the seas came to participate in the war, though scholars of the war say that the war was actually one long, protracted battle. Demons, devils, fiends, and the undead allied themselves with Kav, while the Oracle of Air brought the celestial hosts to fight Kav directly, and elves, halflings, gnomes, dwarves, goblins, trolls, ogres, and orcs engaged the Oracle of Stone’s legions.  Due to the powerful magics of the elves, and with the help of the Oracle of Air, Kav was banished from the world of Toth, and the lower beings began the laborious effort to force the fiends and the undead from the continent of Prosus.  Goblins, trolls, ogres, and orcs still live on the continent to this day, much to the chagrin of the natives of Prosus, and pockets of fiends and the undead still exist on Prosus, but the other non-natives of this continent have lived for so long on Prosus that they have been able to establish entire societies and cultures, and are just as native to Prosus as any other halfling, dwarf, gnome, or elf.

Three centuries after Kav’s banishment, the continent of Prosus was still reeling from the War of the Oracles, though the vast majority of fiends and undead were either slain or had left Prosus for different lands.  It was Ethan the Great, the first emperor who campaigned to unite Prosus under one banner, and established the Empire.  Today, the Empire is trying to maintain order within its borders, and its citizens are bucking underneath its control.  Citizens are evading their requisite civil service years and are refusing to pay their taxes, forcing the Empire to send out troops to gather taxes and jail citizens for avoiding the civil service. Rumors say that the Disciples of the Oracle of Stone are kidnapping people, claiming the return of their corrupted Oracle, Kav, The Great One-Eyed Dragon, banished thousands of years ago, while Emperor Elijah IV, the fourth troll emperor, tries to appease the elven emissaries of the Sun King.  Dark elves, elves who have forsaken Purity and embraced Corruption, work as agents of the Sun King, to infiltrate, assassinate, sabotage, and negotiate for greater control and power over the people.  Ogres, trolls, goblins, and orcs work alongside dwarves, halflings, and gnomes, each seeking to make a living and avoid the conflict that is on the horizon.

The landscape is dotted by the occasional ruined city or castle, while sprawling villages and farmsteads are nestled beneath them.  At the convergence of the Serpent, Gray, and Pine rivers, lies the sprawling white walls of the Imperial Capital.  The settlements nearest the Imperial Capital experience higher rates of literacy, wealth, and patriotism, while those living at the fringes of the Empire experience poverty and discontent as Imperial soldiers take citizens for conscription and extort taxes from bandit-robbed villages.

The Realm of the Father has a long dedicated history, with secrets so ancient and hidden that only the greatest adherents of a religious or political faction may know them, and then slowly driven mad by the knowledge.  Family blood feuds are often set aside for racial, political, or religious tensions, and the people have all but forgotten the unrivaled patriotism and unity experienced over a thousand years ago.  The world of Toth is a dangerous place, fraught with political activists and religious zealots all claiming separate paths to peace and prosperity.  The common citizen mostly ignores the portents of doom, and treats political rhetoric with an indifference that has been brewing for almost a thousand years.  

Paladins crusade in the name of Purity, while priests come in every shade and color, some taking alms on the sides of muddy roads, others committing unspeakable rituals and sacrifices deep in the bowels of Toth. Monks guard the sacred texts found within many temples and shrines.  Adventurers are just as likely to be hired as mercenary protectors or unscrupulous robbers and bandits.  Wizards are trained at the Capital’s Academy of Magic, sorcerers practice wild magic in the untamed Gray Marshes to the north, and druids seek to emulate the elves in developing closed enclaves far from the Empire’s grasp.

Continents in the Father’s Realm are treated as different dimensions, as each continent obeys a different set of rules.  The continent of Prosus is home to the Empire and its citizens, and represents the Material Plane. To the northwest of Prosus is The Veil, a small continent teeming with the undead and suffused with the Taint, the physical manifestation of the Earth-Mother’s curse, and represents The Land of the Dead.  To the southeast is the continent of Aos’Teg, a land fraught with powerful creatures, chaos, and war, and the original home of goblins, orcs, ogres, and trolls.  There have been tales from sailors around the continent of Prosus that other continents exists, places where elemental creatures fight a never-ending battle for supremacy, lands of cruel fiends and devils plotting and waging wars and torturing hapless captives, and lands of sprawling with ivory towers and creatures of unbearable light and good standing guard against the demons who sometimes cross the ocean to wreak havoc in their lands.

10 Things You Need to Know About the Father’s Realm:

        Purity: Purity is about humility, charity, benevolence, forgiveness, patience, and kindness. It is marked by a firm resolve to defend the weak, to respect authority, and arbitrate for peace. Purity is the expression of the Earth-Mother that is focused on serving others and revering all life, and is often the primary factor that maintains stable societies.

              Corruption: Corruption is selfish, greedy, cruel, ruthless, intolerant, and wicked.  It is the very expression of all harm and destruction, and is incredibly self-serving and capricious, seeking only self-preservation, violence, and power. Where Purity builds Corruption destroys, gnawing at the decaying foundations of all that is just and good.

        The Taint: Those who violate precepts of nature or delve into hidden secrets become Tainted, the physical manifestation of the Earth-Mother's curse.  The Taint creates terrible transformations in the living and is the power by which the undead are animated.   The elves of the House of Drow are creatures who have mastered the Taint, though other creatures have not fared as well under nature’s curse.

              The Empire: The current Emperor is the great grandson of Ethan the Great, a troll who united the continent of Prosus three hundred years after the War of the Oracles.  The Empire has ruled the continent of Prosus for almost a thousand years, however civil and religious unrest has forced Emperor Eli to take more drastic measures to maintain order and stability.

              The Oracle of Stone: Dragons are normally immortal, unless they become the Oracle of Stone, inheriting all the secrets and knowledge of the world of Toth, and thus inheriting all the Taint.  Oracle Vul threatened to destroy the continent of Aos’Teg, but was stopped by Kav who heroically sacrificed himself to save Aos’Teg, only to perpetuate the War of the Oracles a century later.  Kav was banished from Toth, but his followers still exist in the world.

The Father:  Out of all the gods, the Father is the strongest and most fearsome.  Legends say that the Father created the Mother and all of their Children out of loneliness and despair, but the Mother rejected the Father and his corrupted children and created the lesser beings of Toth to counteract his evil. The Prophecy of Kav says that one day the Father will return to destroy the world.

              Continents:  Different continents are actually different planes of existence.  Wish to visit the celestial realms?  Charter a sturdy boat and fearless crew to venture across the seas.  Need to banish a demon? Cast a banishment spell and send him back to his home continent, thousands of miles away.

              Prophecies and Politics:  Religion and politics take an important role in The Father’s Realm.  While opportunities abound for swash-buckling adventure, intrigue, horror, and the struggle for morality are truly where this game shines.  Track down cultists, and put down political activists, or summon fiends and incite rebellion; the choice is yours.

              Children of the Father: Legends say that the Father created hundreds of different Children, all of the demigods of great power. Because The Father’s Realm has no human presence and is meant to explore the aberrant, unusual, and odd, and is an exploration of the imagination, dark, twisted, and yearning to thrive and do good.

Not-Quite-Humans:  Playing in The Father’s realm is a bit different than your typical fantasy setting.  Creatures don’t attack on sight (typically).  Killing intelligent creatures without just cause is murder, and has political ramifications towards your actions.  Remember, the answer to trying to resolve a conflict isn’t always found in your sword belt, but just as equally be found in your social and interactive skills.

A First Post

Like usual, I'm making yet *another* blog.

I tried making one on Tumblr, though I think they are more interested in content reposting than *actual* people making *actual* content.  Most of the popular blogs are about making something short and visual, and I can appreciate that business model because our brains seek novelty and having short little quips is far more interesting than long narratives about a specific subject or object.

But I digress.

I want to work on a video game, and not just any video game, a game that features a storyline setting that I have been working on since highschool (about 10+ years).  To tell the truth, it is an amalgamation of several different concepts that I have toyed with, and they all just kinda got... mashed together.  I'm hoping that I can make this blog and that it'll get a following to help encourage me to continue pursuing this project.  I think my problem isn't that I don't want to work on projects as much as I need some sort of reason to focus all of my creatives juices into one project.

It's like my brain seeks novelty or something.

I don't know how often I'll be updating this blog, or what exactly I'll be updating this blog with, but right now I have some content that I can simply throw out there and maybe some people will find it interesting enough to follow.

As a special note: I'm looking for people who can help me create this monster project.  I'm especially interested in animators, modelers, concept artists, and sound people.  Persons who know how to program would be a nice plus too.  For right now, I want to build the game in Unity 3D because it is free, there is a lot of online content to help realize my vision, and considering my level of programming knowledge it seems to be right at my skill level.  I'm expecting to make this a PC game.

My next few posts will deal with the setting of the game I'm working on.