So, I suppose it’s time for a confession of sorts. Some of you may be familiar with my race of cat girls and boys that I’ve used in various pieces of fiction and online RP over the years, the Kerryn. They’ve been around for quite a long time now, and I have more than a few characters that I am most intimately familiar with, and many more minor kerryn characters that fill the world around them. I’ve written for some of them quite a few times, and have come up with various interesting bits of magic and lore surrounding them.
But…the big thing that’s been bugging me for quite a long time, the thing that’s been a constant, nagging thought whenever the kerryns have come up…is the simple fact that I’ve never once managed to fully build them a world. I’ve got bits and pieces: a location here and there, a couple of deities, some twists on existing races, a villain or two…but their world is sadly just a thin shell with nothing truly supporting it.
You wanna know how bad it really is?
I don’t even have a name for their world.
That’s right. The kerryns have been evolving since their birth in my high school D&D days (I graduated in 2001, btw. Yeah, I know, I’m old.), and I don’t even have a name for their world that I’m happy with. It’s kinda sad, really. I guess I’ve just always been more of a character builder than a world builder.
But, this year, I want to try to really change that. As I try to transition into a more creative frame of mindset (or should I say, BACK into a more creative mindset), I want to give my favorite fantasy homebrew race a world they can be proud of. A world that won’t just be a generic kind of fantasy world where catgirl pleasure slaves have entertaining and kinky trysts, but one that is filled with lore, adventures, epic stories…and sprinkled with entertaining and kinky trysts.
Hey, I’ll admit it, I am a massive fan of the ‘plot with porn’ style of storytelling.
The World Building Begins
To that end, I’m going to be following along with a weekly series that has just started up, Campaign Creator, thanks to a very informative and helpful fellow on Youtube (perhaps a bit ironic, I know, given my last post) by the name of Guy, hosting the channel How to be a Great Game Master.
Better yet, I’ll be posting my development here (and perhaps other places, as this series is built around using several other online tools) for you to see and follow along with. The series I’m going to be following can be found at the bottom of this post if you want to check it out yourself and maybe give it a go.
The First Step / Name
Unlike the gist of the first video of the series proper, I do have some ideas already preconceived for my campaign world. However, a name is not one of them. For the time being, this isn’t going to be the name of the actual world, but it will be a starting point.
In that case, I’m throwing out the name “The Burning Empire”. Could have a couple of different possibilities based on my previous campaigns in the world. One not so terrible, the other…a little more so. More on that down the road, though.
The Sentence
So, after the name, the next step was to fill out this sentence:
Somebody wants something badly by a specific time, and is having difficulty getting it using X because of Y.
Seems simple enough, doesn’t it?
Well it ain’t, cause I struggle to name just about anything. You just don’t know how long it took me to come up with that temporary name up there…
Anyway…
This part might not be so difficult, because as I was fretting over a name for the campaign, I had some recollection of one of the games I ran several years back that sparked an idea.
The Queen of Dolls wants revenge upon the Kerryn royal family before the divine gift within their adventurous princess fully awakens, and is having difficulty getting it using her collection of doll golems because of the elite Aerian soldiers protecting them.
That’s not bad…not really…I guess. It fits the bill, and I can work with it.
Buuuuuuuuuut…this idea takes place in a time long before the kerryns have been enslaved, so that means it’d be more background for the setting most everyone’s familiar with. Then again, I do need to develop a lot of backstory, so I think I’ll go with it, at least for now. No sense talking myself out of it at this point in time.
Theme
Theme…hmmm…what to expect throughout the course of this campaign/story.
Big possibilities…war and romance of course. (Is kink a theme? It might be…) But, I’m thinking this is going to be a campaign/setting about the fall of the kerryn empire and the eventual enslavement of their race, along with the decimation of the Aerian race. How did it happen, and who was involved? What other changes happened within the world, and could it have been prevented?
So, how about…”Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.”
No…wait, that’s something else entirely. Don’t know why my mind went there exactly. Back on course!
Instead, I’m thinking darker. A sense that a massive world-changing event is coming, and perhaps it’s inevitable. The world’s already in a state of unrest thanks to a rather ambitious Aerian prince and his utter devotion to a certain Kerryn princess. How will things continue to spiral out of control? Have they started a series of events that will lead to a completely different world? Maybe the only victory is simply to survive the end of the world as it currently exists?
Initially when I ran this particular campaign, it was a fairly simple kind of premise: good guys vs. bad guys, the good guys being more or less heroic, fighting off those damn dirty elves and their machinations (okay, so maybe the elves weren’t quite that evil, and maybe their machinations were just overblown in the minds of the Aerians…but what you gonna do?), having an erotic scene here and there, that kind of thing.
I’ll admit, I’ve taken quite a few days to mull this over, because my initial attempt at describing the theme for this just didn’t sound right to me. Not clear enough, I suppose.
So, after some thought and revision, here’s the theme I’ve decided on, at least for now:
War is coming; everyone knows it, but nobody knows just how bad it will be. Forces of Light and Darkness will clash, and the world will be changed, and not for the better. It’s time for darkness to prevail.
There. Might not be perfect, but I can work with it. This will be a darker campaign, leading up to the events that will lead to the downfall of the Kerryn empire. Maybe the only way to come out a winner in this one is just to survive. Time will tell.
Until the next time…Urban Sniper, out.
Creating the Campaign Weekly Series:
