Hawkspace Isles: Wings of Chaos The Setting Thread

y u do dis, gum

y u do dis, gum

I spent a lot of time on my new character - please do NOT troll me.

I'd be up for a game actually.

I'm flattered that the two of you are considering playing a game with this.

I would absolutely join this hypothetical game if someone that is not me was running it. My suspicion is that GURPS would be a better system to run it in, but that's honestly pretty immaterial on the whole. I'd play whatever, I just think that D&D's ruleset struggles to accommodate significant setting changes compared to more modular and open-ended game systems.

There are so many different versions of DnD as well; how do we choose between 3, 3.5, 4 and 5?

My input would be to stick with 3.5 and the 3rd splatterbooks that didn't get republished; 4th is not a very fun role-playing game imo (good video game though) and I feel like 5th is not widely distributed in this community. I don't have it, at least.

I just also like 3.5 a lot because it's what I learned on. 2nd and AD&D are too arcane and clunky.

I will run the Paranoia adventure involving an incursion into sector HWK

There are so many different versions of DnD as well; how do we choose between 3, 3.5, 4 and 5?

If it makes you feel any better. I am not familiar with DnD either. I am a fluff kind of guy. I keep hearing praise on 3 and 3.5, and 5th edition seems to be giving people what they want.

GURPS sounds like a good ideas as well Orange. My friend Morphimus has a setting that we played a campaign of using Savage Worlds. So SW is always an option too.

What's this Paranoia thing you're talking about g0m?

It's a lightly satirical role playing game and slorange got to ultraviolet once

On my own merits too, in a way that was fair to all players

I'm a fan of 3/3.5 myself, but not everybody is.

I think I will try and post a more detailed solid block of info later this week that has all my thoughts on the races of this setting and what goes and doesn't go. I'm getting a bit legitimately tired of this "lots of different goblin's races" stuff the more I think about it. It shoehorns a lot of potentially interesting concepts under one umbrella term, I hope that we can all be on the same page on this but this is a thing I don't like. It's almost like how there's a thousand different elf subraces and that's one of the big turn-offs cause it's essentially fake variety it's just Fire Elf, Frost Elf, Ice Elf, Snow Elf, Lava Elf, Rock Elf, Earth Elf, Stone Elf, Mountain Elf, Volcano Elf, Lava Elf, Magma Elf, Water Elf, Rain Elf, Cloud Elf, Hail Elf, Lightning Elf, Energy Elf, Domestic Electricity Elf, Spam Elf, Black Elf, Shadow Elf, Dark Elf, Night Elf, Chaos Elf, Void Elf, Elf Elf, Human Elf, Half-Elf, Dragon Elf, Ocean Elf, Lake Elf, Sea Elf, Dusk Elf, High Elf, Light Elf, Sun Elf, Star Elf, Chi Elf, Chakra Elf, Od Elf, Reiki Elf, Metal Elf, Heavy Metal Elf, Rap Elf, Rockn'Roll Elf, Blues Elf, Funk Elf, Jazz Elf, Swing Elf, Punk Rock Elf, Iron Elf, Crystal Elf, Fusion Rock Elf, Jazz Rock Elf, Blues Rock Elf, Hard Rock Elf, Pirate Metal Elf, Doom Metal Elf, Doom Elf, Destiny Elf, Fate Elf, Sludge Metal Elf, Black Metal Elf, Death Metal Elf, Extreme Death Metal Elf, Nazi Metal Elf, Metalcore Elf, Lelf Elf, Tall Elf, Blue Elf, Short Elf, Little Elf, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Warhammer Fantasy Elves, Warhammer Fantasy Dark Elves.

And the thing is, the long stupid joke aside (and the jab at how ridiculously diverse the Rock and Metal genre is) some of those fucking elf races I've seen before in fantasy video and tabletop games legitimately are a thing. Like what the fuck seriously man? Do you really need all these fucking elf races? Too many elves spoil a setting and maybe "Goblin's" would too.

Less "Lots of different goblins" more "anything that that's kind of weird and doesn't fit anywhere else is considered a goblin". (See this thread) Non-goblins can also be considered goblins if they follow the goblin queen.

I still wanna do this thang, just haven't had many ideas lately. One major idea that I can still remember is that within the core of the moon held by the Eagle of Time lies an containing a Phoenix. Once (if ever????) the Eagle and the Hawk reach their destination, the egg will hatch and their fiery offspring will reign together with them as an Overdeity triad over all the islands on the back of the Hawk, which will be fused together into a galaxy spanning giga-planet.


(Semi related thing here):

I've been contemplating trying to come up with a purely Egyptian pantheon setting for the fun of it.

I haven't forgotten about this setting. It's on the backburner of creative things to do. My failed Defeat the Phoenix forum adventure that barely made it past the original post was actually going to be revealed as taking place on one of the titular isles.

The idea was that the Hawk of Space and the Eagle of Time arrived at their destination and the egg of their phoenix offspring that lay inside of the moon (that orbited around the Eagle of Time), finally hatched.

The premise was that the Phoenix was a cruel god-prince being the child of two Overdeity level gods. He tormented the myriad isles and their inhabitants and cursed the protagonist with being engulfed in magical arbitrary flames which would sabotage him at every turn and then subvert his expectations if he took his routine suffering for granted (if he assumed that he can only burn food and only food and then shook someones hand, the half-sentient flames would burn the other persons hand out of spite and so on).

One of my main pitfalls with DTP that had nothing to do with the trouble I had focusing on it (I had real life studies to commit and prioritise) was that the protagonist would have been a human, even though I established early on that this would be a "No humans" setting, because I wanted whimsy and novelty and all kinds of weird shit. Ultimately I must have not cared enough for the story to actually follow it through to the end. Or maybe it was because the setting was too under-developed but that's not a real excuse.

Here is a loredump that came to me recently.

There is 5726 days within a Hawkspace year, this rule applies to all the planetary isles. No isle is exempt (as far as we know, because there is such a large quantity). There are 9 lengthy months the sum total of which is 3465 days. Since there are only 3 seasons, what we call spring and summer fall under a single categorical season for which I haven't come up with a proper name yet.

The second longest season is made up of 2 months, the sum total of those days is 1856. This season would be 75% autumn and 25% early winter.

The third season is a harsh winter month that has a total of 405 days in it. It is no picnic for anyone (Though you are free to come up with a race that is equipped to deal with this tough season and the cold in general, this is kind of a no-brainer to me).

I do not think there are any leap years in the setting, though this is mostly due to this idea coming to me impulsively and details may change down the road.

Do any of you have suggestions?

I found this old doodle I did in Mspaint. This is Krof one of 9-10 kings, I do not remember their backstories 100% but the number was influenced by a series of threads posted by Loather on Hawkspace. They were very quickly abandoned and I saw it as a (missed) opportunity for a minor prank to boost audience interest back in 2016 after HI: WoC got migrated at my behest to Forum Games.

I think Krofs deal besides being a psychic sorcerer king who was annointed by one of the lesser deities of the Hawkspace Isles, was that he unlike the other bird kings was closer to an actual bird in that he lacked any arms (haha funny microsoft paint adventure jokes i love that rascal andrew hussie haha).

This of course was a source of endless grief for him up into his adulthood. I'm going to say that my intention was to portray him as the bird king to invoke the most sympathy from, so his struggles would be very lengthy and he would actually have to earn all his powers instead of having them handed to him or something.

But ultimately he's just a silly wizard owl guy.

I only just now realised that his name could mean Fork backwards. But I was aiming for a weird and mystical angle. Perhaps Fork is his daemon overlord counterpart from the nightmare kingdom.

It would be interesting to think about how strong the contrast between the bird kings and their hypothetical demon counterparts would be. Would Fork be a Luciferian figure in that in thematic opposition to the nocturnal Krof he is a dazzling peacock of fire and light while also a figure of utter malignancy. If Krofs deal is that hard work pays off, Fork could be an embodiment of immediate gratification. I won't pretend that it is a concept unique only to me, myself and I but this seems to be making the most sense, it feels CORRECT.

Fork wielding a devilish trident seems to be a bit cliche but every bit helps when you are trying to push the theme of a character. I would resent the idea of comparisons to the main villain of Kung Fu Panda 2 since he is literally the only peacock based antagonist I can think of at the moment (that was also tastefully executed in my opinion, he was not self-obsessed about visual appearance but had other goals and motivations, even if affection was at the root of all of them) and they would both be wielders of long sticks made for stabbing.

((I am watching this thread with intense interest, I just don't have anything to contribute atm. Keep up Hawk of Space's good work.
Fremp as a kind of prayer?

Actually: is there religious organisations dedicated to these very real bird gods? Also, like in many fantasy settings, does religion grant magic powers to the followers? Space / Time Magic?))

Clasps hands. Very interesting. Welp, better get involved.

There's a force/energy that permeates all of Hawkspace called the Etheric Type. Concentrations of the Etheric Type can vary between regions. The Etheric Type has the capacity to manipulate the surroundings and physical laws somewhat by its composition. By harnessing this energy, one can make miracles happen from their very hands, but the Etheric Type itself is conscious and instead of being harnessed and manipulated, it often controls conscious beings and make them act as their agents. The Etheric Type is not directly evil, but is aligned to the goals of its agents. The Etheric Type's connection to an agent is unfortunately volatile and can easily evaporate like exposed rubbing alcohol.

((I am watching this thread with intense interest, I just don't have anything to contribute atm. Keep up Hawk of Space's good work.
Fremp as a kind of prayer?

Actually: is there religious organisations dedicated to these very real bird gods? Also, like in many fantasy settings, does religion grant magic powers to the followers? Space / Time Magic?))

I would say that there is at least one religion that explicitly worships the kings. In Dungeons and Dragons semantics there is apparently a list of ranks going from 0-21 (to be honest I am just using this D20 webpage for information, which is sort of DnD derivative but I hear not quite exactly the same).

Rank 0 deities are quasi-deities and this is what I would classify the bird-kings as in the not set in stone "Hawkspace Isles Zeroth Edition". There is lots of room for change. They could become deities through faith.

As for Space and Time magic. It sounds cool but apparently according to the finicky rules about Overgods, they cannot grant their followers spells. (But because this is edition zeroth where there is not only room for change but also lots of wonderfuly terrible mistakes) I will say that praying to the Eagle and the Hawk will get you either Time or Space flavoured divine magic. But only one kind at a given time.

Clasps hands. Very interesting. Welp, better get involved.

There's a force/energy that permeates all of Hawkspace called the Etheric Type. Concentrations of the Etheric Type can vary between regions. The Etheric Type has the capacity to manipulate the surroundings and physical laws somewhat by its composition. By harnessing this energy, one can make miracles happen from their very hands, but the Etheric Type itself is conscious and instead of being harnessed and manipulated, it often controls conscious beings and make them act as their agents. The Etheric Type is not directly evil, but is aligned to the goals of its agents. The Etheric Type's connection to an agent is unfortunately volatile and can easily evaporate like exposed rubbing alcohol.

That's a very cool idea, thank you FlanDab! It's like wild magic but it isn't mindless. I could totally envision a custom class or two rooted around Etheric Type.