Picking a New Campaign: Part IV- The Borrowed Bits

I've spent some time covering the approach to how we select and start a new campaign. The last article explained how and why I borrow entire concepts from other works. So, that brings us to what I've borrowed for the next campaign.

In general, I don't care that much for anime. One would think I'd like it as it tends towards sci-fi and fantasy and I love good sci-fi and fantasy. But common elements of anime style and story-telling cause me no end of problems. The focus on the child hero, the interruption of a serious storyline with over the top cartoon 'reaction shots', silly power ups, and the worst- illogical and stupid story lines. I used to think that the story lines only seemed dumb to me due to cultural differences (not that this would make me like them any better), but I have since given that idea up for what is almost certainly the truth. They are simply bad stories, like much of the stuff we produce here in the states.

So it's a bit of a surprise that the core borrowed item for the new campaign is from an anime show. It's called Claymore and was something I happened across on a boring day spent browsing Netflix. The show is not without its very anime faults. The swords are too big (too thick actually, the length is fine), the sidekick is HORRID, it includes some torture scenes that are rather hard to watch, and sometimes the bridge between superhero like abilities and the gritty storyline itself threatens to fall apart.

But the background is interesting, nearly all the characters are well developed and appealing. And the underlying themes are eternal and very western in culture for anime. I really like those themes. I nearly fell in love with the show, and am able to overlook its faults.

This review is a good even-handed one although I think the Dragon-Ball Z comment was a undeserved cheap shot (the meaning and result of the two seemingly similar animated bits are vastly different), and I thought the ending was a perfect highlight of the core themes for all that came before. (and mostly because the manga the show is based on still hasn't ended itself ).

Now I had to fit this into my Middle Earth inspired time line somehow, and that means deciding where. The early ages of Middle Earth didn't seem right, the tone of the series didn't match. It certainly wouldn't be set in the future- those are very space opera settings and this is very much fantasy world tech.

So it needs to be set after the Third Age Middle, but not the future. A world that is at best falling into the trap that "the ends justify any means" (as an aside, people leave out the word 'any' in that phrase- and it loses any real meaning when that's done).

It took me a bit, but then the idea of using the Book of Genesis and setting this pre-flood just might be idea. That period is nearly undefined and what is stated offers interesting launching points for extending and expanding the setting. So the first chapters of Genesis is the second borrowed item.

The last piece comes from Shadowrun and by extension Earth Dawn. These had a interesting thing in common with Middle Earth- the idea that there was a previous forgotten age of magic. Switching that age to that of Middle Earth provided the background I needed to include my Shadowrun campaign in the meta-time line some years back. Now that concept would expand this new setting.

According to Shadowrun, the previous magical age was brought down by an outside force (this concept also exists in Tolkien's works btw), and that people only survived it by hiding in concealed sanctuaries. After the primary danger passed (i.e. the greater powers of the invaders left as the magic level decreased), they opened the sanctuaries and reclaimed the world that eventually became today's.

In time line terms, lost of the original magical ages of Middle Earth would have occurred at the end of the Fourth Age. The opening of the hidden sanctuaries would have been the beginning of the Fifth Age, and the flood of Genesis would washed away nearly any memory of the previous ages.

Thus this new campaign would be after the opening of the sanctuaries, and the rebuilding of what be city states thereafter. The most powerful of the invaders who destroyed the world would be gone, but lesser creatures still presenting great dangers would remain to be dealt with. One of these new city states turn to the Claymore concept to deal with those very dangers.

This mirrors the Claymore setting of very different cities with wilderness and wasteland between them. And allows for the 'war' between Claymore and Yoma (as the monsters are called) explaining where both came from.

It also allows the addition of city states that took a different path from the Claymore one. Perhaps one that put it faith in an order of Paladins, or another preserved wizards. The result of such different approaches meeting and interacting would interesting.

So the core idea is set. The next thing is selecting a rule set for it.