Roleplaying Resources > Aquela > Fantasy Setting Search Proposal

1. Core Ethos Sentence.

Aquela is a world of swashbuckling fantasy, where heroes use swords and magic to perform deeds that earn them fame and notoriety.

2. Who are the heroes?

Jekenna Windreaper is unquestionably the most famous sailor on the Sea of Duqan at present, arguably the most renowned of all time. She's as handy with a spell as she is with a cutlass, and swings from the ropes like she was born in a crow's nest. Adventurers on Aquela are sophisticated adventurers, as comfortable in city settings and seagoing ships as they are in dismal swamps and dark dungeons.

3. What do they do?

Jekenna has outrun the ships of the Imperial Navy more times than anyone can count. She braved the Black Mire of Dorgan, where the moss hangs so thick on the trees that the light of day never shines on the ink-black water. There she discovered an ancient tower built by giants, filled with more gold than the High King has in his treasury and more wondrous items of magic than all the libraries of the Empire could hold or describe. She killed Thorkian the Marked, the most fearsome pirate of the archipelago, who used to bite open the throats of his victims and lap up their blood. Some say she bested him in a fair fight, others say she stabbed him in the back, still others say she killed him in bed with a dagger she hid in her hair. Heroes do things that people talk about: deeds everyone agrees are heroic, and other deeds that must be seen in the proper perspective. A character's reputation can be more important than her level or any other statistic.

4. Threats, Conflicts, Villains

Pirates who take the word “bloodthirsty” to new levels of meaning, like Thorkian the Marked who met his end on Jekenna's blade, are a threat to every crew sailing the Sea of Duqan. Corrupt wizards in the bloated bureaucracy of the Empire abuse their power in the cities. Scheming morkoths and krakens plot in the depths, sahuagin raiders storm the coasts, and behemoth dragon turtles capsize ships at sea. Ancient liches seek evil artifacts in the hoards of primordial dragons.

5. Nature of magic

Magic is extremely widespread, though each major race has its own approach to it. Humans have a well-established arcane tradition, and wizards rule their crumbling Empire. Dwarves are the masters of psionic power. Half-humans—including half-elves, half-dwarves, and half-merfolk—wield the untamed power of sorcerers. The connection to nature shared by elves and sea-dwellers helps preserve their druidic tradition. All the races have clerics.

6. What's new? What's different?

The introduction, not just of Renaissance-era technology but of parallel social and cultural ideas—the rise of independent merchant-states in the face of crumbling empire, for example—while maintaining the sword-and-sorcery flavor of Wizards' high fantasy settings is a new approach for the D&D brand. The standard D&D races have both physical and cultural tweaks from the D&D norm, and several new races are introduced (half-merfolk liminals, selkies, the crablike yurians). The seamless integration of psionics into a classic fantasy setting is also unusual.