The Void

It’s no secret that I’m working on a couple of RPG projects. One is a fantasy-based game, though really this is a terrible misnomer given the way the definition cleaves. Modern Urban Fantasy might be a closer, but is still far off the mark. The fact is to say just Fantasy means specifically Tolkienesque medieval fantasy. If you step out of those bounds and retain the fantasy “name” you do nothing but draw ire, contempt, and book returns to the store. So, I feel I need a new name for this type of project. I will keep you all, gentle readers, apprised if I come up with something.

What I wanted to talk about today was an idea that I had. To give away some secrets, a big part of the setting I am working on involves the game’s world being an artificial construct. Nothing new there, except perhaps in which of the ways it is explained and what it means to characters, players, and the GM. It’s important I mention this condition because I want to talk about outer space. This idea I’ve had involves what if more than just the planet is artificial? What if it just hangs in “space” but not real outer space, as we know it, but a true nothing? Outside of the planet’s atmosphere there is absolutely nothing, or so this idea goes.

Now let’s further assume that these “fantasy” people have a way of getting up there. What sort of horror would they face upon this realisation? This is of course assuming they didn’t know and I have a very good reason for it, but it’s something I cannot divulge, something I believe to be fairly unique. So… when it comes to the time that the beings of this planet venture out of their atmosphere, they are presented with darkness and emptiness except for their planet’s own, lonely, star.

I’m reminded of an episode of Star Trek: Voyager when they travelled through a lightless expanse of space. Of course they were used to space being full of stars and nebulas and other things. Still I can only imagine what it would be like to go from a place of everything to a place of nothing. What would these fantasy beings think? How would it make them feel? Would they even care? I have to imagine it would be terrifying. Of course I have some additional ideas to truly bring the terror, but they’re secondary to just the conditions of space in this setting. You know I have to bring some horror to everything.

Mood: edgy.
Music: Accident of Birth by Bruce Dickinson and Cemetery Gates by Pantera.

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