Here’s a preview of the cover for the upcoming Dead Queens of Morvena for Savage Worlds. Matt Meyer is the artist – you can check out more of his work at his blog. Enjoy!
Below, we’ve also included a piece that discusses the flavor and style of the adventure setting, which is best summarized as “horror masquerading as fantasy.”
The Dead Queens of Morvena Preview
The Fetherruin is a foreboding place where few people dare to venture. It’s huge and wild and (mostly) empty of civilization. There are civilizations surrounding the Fetherruin, but they are minor and/or unstable. The setting is meant to be portable into a standard fantasy world, but it also stands apart as its own distinctive world–probably it would be an island or some largely unknown area of the world in most settings, as it has its own cosmology. There are two hells, and the Fetherruin gives entrance to them both, in places. The starry sky is known as “the Beyond”, a kind of astral sea. The three nations bordering Fetherruin to the east are Drimsy, Lathis, and the Marchlands.
Incabus is a primordial being that rules the Fetherruin. He’s felt more than seen. The Fetherruin is a vast wilderland and has always been that. Past attempts to tame and civilize the Fetherruin have failed; one of these attempts (there may be more, but we haven’t developed any further back story yet) is the story of the Kingdom of Morvena, which forms the “core story” of the book. So basically we have an attempt to tame the region that ended in disaster and madness. The race known as the ruined, which is half-fiend/half-human, arose as a result of the fall of Morvena. Fade to black and fast forward 200 years.
New Morvena is a frontier settlement in the Fetherruin which has grown from the establishment of the Lonely Roadhouse, an inn and tavern which is a refuge for merchants traveling through the hostile Fetherruin. So again civilization has planted itself in the Fetherruin. The ruined ones hear the whispers of the Dead Queens of Morvena in their blood. The queens were murdered by their husband Mindenaron right at the time of the fall of Morvena. The queens’ newborn children were the first ruined ones; they survived in the wilderland after the Kingdom of Morvena fell. Minu Dunwielder, a powerful ruined blood-magician, hears the call of the queens quite clearly. They call to be released. Minu and her Cult of the Queens have set themselves to the task of freeing the Dead Queens from their entombment.
This is definitely not heroic fantasy, although it has standard fantasy trappings. It’s horror–or perhaps tragedy. It’s fantasy subverted by horror. Certainly the PCs should act heroically, but this is not a setting where they are going to save the day and set things right in adventure after adventure. Adventures in this setting are more about survival, exploration, and acting in the face of incredible opposition.
It is my belief that one of the core enjoyable qualities of role-playing games is that they allow us to creatively and collaboratively use our imaginations to tell stories. There are many stories that can be told, and the settings we choose to play in help facilitate the telling of those stories. A setting that plays upon uncertainty, the threat of character insignificance, terror, and tragedy is appealing for all the same reasons that psychological thrillers, horror movies, and tales of mystery and suspense are appealing.
What are your feelings about this sort of setting? About suspense and uncertainty? Tragedy? About playing characters that face overwhelming adversity?
Typically I’m the one behind the screen in games I run, but on the occasions I have to make my own player characters, I’ve always enjoyed these kind of flawed, overwhelmed souls who have to scrape out their victories. Overwhelming adversity has always been my preferred form of challenge, and I’ve always been willing to provide it myself.
I’m eager to see what comes of the setting. I’m interested to know exactly how the theme of insignificance and tragedy will be explored. I’ve always appreciated settings that let my players explore something new, and while I have run fantasy, and run horror, I have never really meshed the two.
Insignificance and tragedy… On a broad level, the theme of insignificance is represented by the immensity of the Fetherruin and its wild resistance to civilization. The theme of tragedy recurs in civilization’s attempts to tame the Fetherruin. The first story of this is the “core story” of the Kingdom of Morvena, which ends with Mindenaron Dismas murdering his wives and the subsequent destruction of the Kingdom by Incabus, through a massive earthquake. Mindenaron is a tragic character whose obsession with producing an heir brings about the destruction of his kingdom and the birthing of the first ruined ones. The second tragic story unfolds directly as the introductory adventure to the setting, which pits the PCs against the Cult of Queens and the rise of the Dead Queens. Mechanisms are in place in the adventure to nearly guarantee the opening of the tomb where the Dead Queens are held, and the overwhelming adversity that the PCs face in attempting to thwart these mechanisms also contributes to the theme of insignificance.
Another instance of tragedy is Lathis, which is a theocratic nation that has devolved from the moral highground of its prime into a kind of Inquisition. This is peripheral to the adventure presented in the settings but presents possibilities for different kinds of adventures, outside of the Fetherruin and in a more urban setting. PCs exploring the Fetherruin can hail from Lathis and wield the power of the god Lathner’s miracles against the fiends, spirits, and undead of the Fetherruin.
Thanks for the feedback, Rosthorn! I’m glad to hear that the grim spin on fantasy we’re cooking up for DQM is appealing to you. Check the NMP site often, as we’ll be posting more content and discussion of DQM weekly.
Great looking cover! Can’t wait to see this.
Horror can take many tones, from comedy to tragedy. Tragedy is arguably the most meaningful, or at least the ancient Greek’s asserted it was, and it is also the most difficult tone to achieve and maintain. How well it comes across will depend on each individual gaming group.
I do like inevitable conclusions as a fuel for tragedy. It is effective because it preys upon the idea that no matter what you do with your life you are one day going to be dead.
I feel that Oedipus Rex is one of the quintessential instances of tragedy, for there is really no way out for him. Through no fault of his own, he has caused untold suffering, and cannot remedy it.
As for the adventure, I would caution against events which “nearly guarantee” the release of the Dead Queens. Simply guarantee it, period. Otherwise some resourceful groups out there will make sure the setting is “The Still-Dead Queens of Morvena.”
I wouldn’t be afraid of being open about it, either. To avoid the issue of “railroading,” make sure actions the player characters take have mitigating effects on the outcome, but not enough to stop the overall conclusion. I find this helps with horror, because although the characters don’t know that their results are in vain, if the players aren’t aware that it’s more about the journey than the destination there tends to be a lot of frustration and feeling helpless, but less in a “wow this is a pretty tragic story” kind of way and more in a “man this game is frustrating” kind of way.
Just my two cents, in any case.
LMAO!!!
Rosthorn, thanks for the tip. One of the most difficult things about writing this adventure is walking that balance between setting up this inevitable outcome and anticipating player frustration, and then trying to avoid creating scenarios that would feed that frustration. Or, as you wrote, which is a more positive framing of the situation: “make sure actions the player characters take have mitigating effects on the outcome, but not enough to stop the overall conclusion.” I’ve been conscious of this while scripting the scenarios of DQM, which is what lead me to write “nearly guarantee” in my earlier comment–out of concern about that level of player frustration getting out of hand, I’ve been playing with degrees of mitigation of the conclusion.
But your point about being open about the inevitability of the conclusion is a good one, and GMs and players should be clear that the adventurers, despite their best efforts, are not going to be able to prevent New Morvena from falling into chaos when the Dead Queens are released–which is why those last several paragraphs of the setting preview above are so important.
I think the Dead Queens adventure demands a different attitude of its players than your standard fantasy role-playing game. Players will need to leave the familiar notions about epic heroism on the doorstep and instead suit up with a different set of assumptions, more in line with collaboratively telling a narrative than being a player in a game. I plan to run this game for play-testing soon. When I do, I will ask my players to surrender some of their ego attachment to their characters in order to appreciate the larger story being told. Hopefully they, and all players of DQM, will enjoy the atmosphere and narrative of the game.