Tidelock Themes

((Retroactive statement: I'm not sure I can call these things below "Themes" like the other blogs have. They're more just aspects of my campaign philosophy that have emerged over time - less like story themes and more like DMing natural laws.))

~~~~~

I'm getting on this train. Six core themes for my home campaign setting: Tidelock. (Which, strangely, I can't link to, 'cause I haven't done a total write-up of it yet. Guess I'll need to do that!)

My home campaign is as much as a reflection of my worldview as you can get, which is kind of depressing, now that I think about it. Despite the presence of plenty of light-hearted gonzo goofiness, it very much feels like a grimdark campaign. Kind of like, uhh...

Nah. Too bleak/boring.

Getting warmer...

Perfect.

THEMES

1. Everyone is Cynical and Self-Interested
Oh yeah, this is me. This is my worldview leaking right into the campaign world. Everyone is scheming, everyone has an agenda, nobody ever does anything purely for the common good. (With maybe one exception, but the way that they do so is clearly designed to be as uncomfortable and questionable as possible.)

The factions of this campaign world are:

The Drow
Capitalist-Libertarian-Authoritarian Wizards (yes, this is contradictory. But since when did that stop anyone?)
Dark Sun-esque Dragons (maybe a bit more benign, but still seeped in sorcery)
Orcs
An Assimilationist Philosopher Emperor
Theocratic Anarchists

(Been trying to find original source. No luck. Source.)

2. Marxism Is Magic
(I'm going to regret writing this, aren't I?)

I mean that if I take a Marxist lens to my campaign world, then magic = capital. And since it's fiction I can make it as Marxist as I want.

Either you have power (magic) or you don't. Either you're a capitalist with supreme power or you're a prole.

All players will be powerful by default. Their view of the world will be colored by this. Only occasionally will there be hint that there is this tremendous underclass of people, suffering beneath the onslaught.

Eventually it will bubble up and the cauldron of oppression will overflow. Will the players see it in time? Maybe.

3. The Gods Are Dead
Well, most of them, anyway, but you'd hardly be able to tell.

My atheism and agnosticism has surely had an influence on the campaign. I take a very Jungian approach in Tidelock: Gods never interact directly; their power is proportional to their human influence; they are symbolic of pieces of humanity: our rationalizing, our dreams, and our fears. They are unmistakably human. Think American Gods.

There aren't even giant dead god skeletons or various heavens and hells to explore. There is no trace of real divinity anywhere, only nature as we (humanity) tries to understand it.

Divine magic is still a thing, but it's questionable where its power comes from. Most people will say they come from the gods, but then there are atheistic clerics.

4. Life Is Cheap
There's nothing quite as shattering to one's worldview than enchantment, necromantic, transmutation, and time magic. Personalities, bodies, and free will - every single aspect of a person - are as mutable as clay to some, and this has the overall effect of lowering everyone's personal sovereignty to that of pawn in someone else's game.

This is where the campaign starts to mirror more dystopian visions as portrayed in popular culture: your cyberpunk, your steampunk, your biopunk, your (insert suffix)-punk. We've got cybernetics and robots and brains-in-jars and bio-engineering, right up alongside medieval societies and barbarian tribes.

5. Kinetic Precipice
Everywhere exists in a steady state until some free actors come in and tip the scales.

Left cart, 'cept things can go either way.

This allows for maximum chaos for when the players come in and do, well... anything. Change is the greatest force in Tidelock, and also the most interesting. It's the god of the Parable of the Sower (the Octavia Butler book). It is both everything and everything I want to see in a campaign.

6. You Are The Hero
All of this misery, all of this doom and gloom, all this difficulty and what do the players do? Do they take the easy, safer, and wiser route, and give in to the cynicism and tenants of the world? I have found that they do not.

It's easy to be a good person when there's little risk of doing so.

It's hard to be a good person in our campaign - there are no rewards, no bonuses, and no benefits to being a good person. There's no alignment system to positively reinforce your choices. Nearly every faction will hate you for being good, and this is precisely what makes it shine. You have to cut against the grain to be a good person in Tidelock. You have to compromise and struggle. You have to sacrifice and fight against the prevailing tide, and in doing so you may lose everything, for nothing.

But, you will have dignity. You will have tried, and that's more than most can say. This is what makes your character a Hero.