Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Avian Knights - New Directions

When I was designing Pigboats, I kept narrowing the focus, until it was just American Officers in the Pacific War. Then it felt right.

Avian Knights is going in the opposite direction, rapidly. Enough so that the AK of the title are just a fraction of what I am working with. The ships right now are much farther along, thanks to Levi Kornelsen, who has had some purely awesome ideas. There is also some new concepts, like claiming and guarding a chunk of mountain range in case it rips loose and floats away. There's going to be a whole alchemy based magic, because while people cannot make magic of themselves, the world has magic they can use. Which means getting raw materials from the ground is vital. Which means that there has to be a whole other avian group focused on getting stuff from the ground. Hell, even dirt for terracing is useful, and ships can't go down that far! What I'm thinking is that only a certain few become Knights. Those birds and people who cannot be knights can still perform important and exciting, game-able services.

So - floating castles carved from living floatstone, chained to the mountain range and supplied from half the world away, waiting for mountains to rip themselves out of the earth and fly away. Great shipstone keeled carriers, letting loose squadrons of knights mounted on giant birds, spreading their enormous sails and arcing away. Foragers in the world beneath, searching for precious garberries and waxwort, and finding instead ancient ruins draped in verdant green vines in the misty jungle light, as the pools shiver with the tread of great monsters.

So - I'm looking for a better title.

-clash

5 comments:

  1. I don't know if it crossed your mind but Avian Knights are probably better off being light so their giant birds can fly swiftly. But muscular warriors fare better on the battlefield. So it could be a nice chargen dilemna: very light, not very strong and awesome in flight, or thick mighty thews but flies like a rock.

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  2. Kingdoms of Air and Stone.

    I still think the tight focus might be fun with additional bits added as options but not the games focus.

    Alchemy! Yay!

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  3. @boulet:

    Yes - Klax and I have it set already. Light, fast people would dominate the pursuit types and couriers, while the brawnier sort would make better shock types. The key stats are STR (Strength) and AGY (Agility). AGY - STR gives a number, which is added to the bird's speed. Positive numbers give a bonus, negative numbers give a penalty.

    -clash

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  4. @Silverlion:

    I like Kingdoms of Air and Stone - that's on the short list! :D

    The tight focus won't work, there is too much setting in the way. :D

    -clash

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  5. Awesome. It's like you guys anticipate my desires or something :)

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