BiFrost: A Question of Genre

I've been working on this BiFrost campaign for several months now. And while I think it is shaping up nicely, it is missing a lot of "things" still. Usually I don't like to be vague and just say "things" I want to tell you what those specific unknowns are, but unfortunately they are currently unknown. In this post I hope unobscured the goals of what is taking the honestly boring world of BiFrost and put it into the "hey this is a real cool setting" area.

1) As I write this, I suddenly realize that my world is missing characters. Presidents, leaders, famous people, outlaws, vigilantes, etc. While I had the foresight to focus in on organizations, I didn't think that maybe some real people, with real personalities, should head those organizations. This is something I still need to do. Not just potential characters, but real power players.

2) I need to pick a genre and tone, or at least have a few possible genre and tones in mind. Currently I'm skimming somewhere around literary fiction and urban fantasy. I like that area, but honestly I don't feel comfortable that I've teased out the parts of those two genres I like to work them into the world.

3) Art. Even if it doesn't fit perfectly, I need to start grabbing inspirational art to help me visualize the world. I imagine this can do a lot for making these posts more palatable as well.

When I think of my favorite fantasy worlds, I want to think about what I like most about them. Eberron, Tortall, Golarion, etc. What do I like about them?

Well from Eberron I like the noir feel, the funky but realistic religions, the inclusion of psionics, and the importance of each race. I also love the prevalence of magic, the dragonmarked houses, and the fact that most races aren't monstrous, thought some segments of them are still enemies. It doesn't completely upend the tropes of traditional D&D, but it certainly takes a good long look at them.

From Tortall, it is mostly the tone of bucking stereotypes and being at the forefront of progressive policies. I also really enjoy that a good chunk of people in these novels are complete assholes, and that the cultures are always treated with respect, even if they might do some awful things like slavery, genocides, etc. Pierce obviously has things to say about the world, and she says them.

Golarion I don't actually like that much. It's regions around that middle lake is all kinds of crazy and it seems a lot of segments of its population east in near isolation. However, I don't think that is crazy, and in fact many of the areas I like a lot. Specifically I love their takes on a an African and Asian inspired continent. With both Garund and the Dragon Empire they are able to pull from stories and history of these non-western civilizations without making them look ridiculous or over romanticizing them. In fact, I would say that of all the real-world inspired fantasy worlds, (Westerns, Faerun, etc.) Golarion does the best job of being inoffensive while still not shying away from different cultures.

I'm not sure what this means for BiFrost, but it was a good thought experiment to discuss it, and hopefully by next time I will have tagged down a tone and a few genres.