#5: Ascent to the Overworld

[RPGnet Columns]

http://www.rpg.net/columns/campaigntoybox/campaigntoybox5.phtml

Summary:

An upside down flip on fantasy adventuring.

Go to the column (http://www.rpg.net/columns/campaigntoybox/campaigntoybox5.phtml) for more information.

[jffdougan]

For more inspiration: go play the Avernum series of games from Spiderweb Software (http://www.spidweb.com). Although it doesn't have the "ascending to the surface" aspect as a major themer of the series, it's a well-done, thoughtful look at similar territory.

[Craig Oxbrow]

The description of grubby nearly-human visitors to the surface world reminded me of Michael de Larrabeiti's Borribles (http://www.theborribles.co.uk/) as well.

And the description of a horse made me think of Paranoia too... which is set after something resembling an apocalypse, but could just as easily be set now...

[Baduin]

Read this:

Charles Tanner, Tumithak

http://www.blackgate.com/fiction/2003/tumithak.htm

Earth have been conquered by monstrous spiders from Venus. Last free people live in underground corridors, and from time to time go up to loot.

[Geraldine]

The Fables comic series has a hardback collection called "1000 Nights of Snowfall". The first story in the book is an interesting take on the Snow White story, one that's set after she has married Prince Charming.
I swear, it's not twee or childish at all. Check it out for a neat side-by-side look at the different perspectives of humans and (classic, Norse-myth style) dwarfs.

[castiglione]

This is nothing new - Monsters! Monsters! (T & T spin-off) did this sometime in 1976 or 1977...just a couple of years after T & T itself was published.

It didn't take people long to wonder what it'd be like to be a monster and raid villages, towns and cities in search of gold and comely wenches after raiding dungeon after dungeon.

The 4th edition of the T & T rules even included rules for players monsters and going "village crawling"...you basically got experience points for doing monstrous acts and kidnapping attractive members of the opposite sex.

[SteveD]

This is nothing new - Monsters! Monsters! (T & T spin-off) did this sometime in 1976 or 1977...just a couple of years after T & T itself was published.

It didn't take people long to wonder what it'd be like to be a monster and raid villages, towns and cities in search of gold and comely wenches after raiding dungeon after dungeon.

The 4th edition of the T & T rules even included rules for players monsters and going "village crawling"...you basically got experience points for doing monstrous acts and kidnapping attractive members of the opposite sex.

Yes, but few of those were about going up. Instead they were about going next door. And my point was less about playing monsters as it was about inversion: put the humans under the monstrous city.

[Oliveira]

Just discovered this column today - and I really like it! I'll be sure to keep an eye on these in the future. Keep up the good work, Steve D!

[Wyvern76]

For sources, I'd add "Beauty and the Beast" (the TV series)... and for RPGs, Gareth-Michael Skarka's "Underworld".

Wyvern