I have been reflecting more and more over the past year or so that the ‘modern’ world of Asdar or the time for ‘now,’ the year about the year 2750, is too modern for the genre of a fantasy world. There’s plenty of magic and orcs and secret cults, so I suppose, it still falls within the sphere of a fantasy world, but it’s not a traditional world. Titancraft engines and the huge cities (as much as one million inhabitants in a few cases) are not typical of fantasy worlds such as Forgotten Realms or World of Greyhawk or Golarion (I’m not sure about Eberron). Titancraft vessels of the sea and of the sky mean that the vast distances from one side of the supercontinent of Asdauria to the other can be traversed within much less than a month. I set 30 mph as the top speed of most titancraft vessels. It may not seem like much, but if one takes into account that a titancraft sky vessel could be flying continuously in nearly a straight voyage and that the distance from Bryndyd which is in southern Pytharnia all the way to Vakyathubwo in eastern Sungo is 133.6 ddwmir (16.7 karusagda) ( (8755 kilometers or 5440 statute miles), the aerial voyage would be less than eight Asdaran days. The world of 2750 Asdar is smaller than the world was in the age of steamships. Titancraft makes the modern world of Asdar much more similar to steampunk than to sword and sorcery. I’m not sure I like that.
There are some balancing factors. Titancraft sky transportation is rather expensive and reserved for the wealthy. In the context of a table RPG, low level characters would not be able to pay for it. It’s also dangerous unless the craft is flying over a friendly country. Central Asdauria is not civilized and all sorts of hazards such as pirates, disturbances in the panstream, flying beasts, and competing corpora mercia can arise. The Empire of the Saikusahi, a civilization inspired by medieval Japan, only dwelling in skynesses over the Tatsurochio Sea to the northwest of Sungo could exact a tariff to vessels passing through and could impound the vessel permanently for study by their imperial wizards.
Combat is also complicated. There are two additional kinds of weaponry: dwarvenfire (gunpowder) and titanarms. Titanarms are essentially energy weapons. Dwarvenfire can be negated and protected from special kinds of anti-dwarvenfire magic.
I am considering developing an RPG setting at an earlier time in Asdar’s history, such as the Middle Ages (about 1200 AI to 2300 AI).
