Gygax 75 Challenge Week 1

 All points are working points and subject to change/reworking in the future as this stuff gets more fleshed out.

PITCH POINTS:

1.    The world is covered by huge swathes of desert and jungle that chase each other around the globe. Ruins built upon ruins -- swallowed and revealed by the marching sands and creeping jungles in an incessant cycle on the scale of thousands and thousands of years. 

2.    Humancentric Player Characters. Other sentient species exist in contention with Humans for the most part, some cooperation and/or allegiances/accords will exist between certain species or certain sects of species.

3.    Two character classes: Warriors and Sorcerers. Slight customization will exist by differentiating Savage/Nomadic/Civilized origins.

4.    Three point alignment as "cosmic allegiance." Alignment (Law, Neutrality, Chaos) is tied entirely to the god/demi-god/demon/entity/etc. that the character worships (or is enslaved by in some cases). Law does not equate "good," Chaos does not equate "evil," Neutrality does not equate "whatever bro idc."  Alignment will not in and of itself box in/dictate/restrain the actions of any individual character/NPC, the tenants of any entity a character associates themselves with will have small influences in this area. All intelligent magic items shall bear an alignment. There is an overarching cosmic struggle between Law and Chaos.

5.    Magic/sorcery/eldritch power/etc. is not meant for mortals to use (all mortal species not just humans) and originates from the "cosmic void." Lower level magic may be tapped into by magic-users with the tutelage of a patron mage/master mage/teacher wzrd (insert whatever merlin dude) BUT!  Greater powers require directly consorting with an entity from point 4, these beings are able to give access to greater powers (or the ability/means to tap into them) to mortals in order to further their own inscrutable goals.  Due to the nature of magic, it will eventually "corrupt" any mortal creature that makes continued use of it and/or taps into more powerful forms. "Clerical" magic is folded under the same umbrella as "Magic-User" magic. Sorcerer is a broad term that encompasses anything from a tribal shaman, priestly cult leader, actual mad sorcerer, etc. To this end magic will probably be subdivided into a white/gray/black gradient of some sort.

SOURCES OF INSPIRATION:

1. "Quest" song by Pilgrim: Mood

2. "Slow and Heavy B-Side" by Diplodocus: Mood

3. Random media: Conan, Beastmaster, Fire and Ice, King Kong, stuff like this. Note I'm not trying to claim my setting as being strictly Sword & Sorcery, just taking influence from some tropes. Example: Beastmaster. Bet your ass I'm pulling in the Subdue Animal rules from Hyperborea and making that available to Warriors in some way.

4. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup: general inspiration as it relates to gods/entities, megadungeons, cool as fuck game probably the easiest of the roguelikes to pick up and play for anybody interested.

5. In general: Mesoamerican cultures, Mesopotamian cultures, Southeast Asian (Khmer, etc.) cultures.

6. Misc. inspiration in no particular order: Angkor Wat, Tikal, Tenochtitlan, Ur, Petra, Diablo 2 Act 2+3, Gobekli Teppe, Incan mountain empire, City states in general, nomadic groups, jungle tribal groups, Pyramids, Sphinx, Stepped pyramids, lots of really cool ideas to mesh together out there.

Its a start, gotta start somewhere.