ITT /tg/ makes a setting

>>54022143

Instead of humans, there are intelligent hairless apes.

The reason monsters are a thing is becuase there are tears in between our world and a dark murky place known as the abyss.

All monsters are actually crisis actors hired by the government. That orc band somehow forming and sacking a bunch of villages? Purely a distraction so commoners don't realize how badly the nobles are screwing them over. Orcs in the wild are too dumb to wield a weapon, much less run a decent warband... These are just king's own footmen wearing green paint!

>>54022445
Monsters and demihumans used to be plentiful, but they have become increasingly rare over the last centuries. Magic has become progressively weaker and that can be seen with the powerful magic machines that still litter the landscape. Golems will occasionally wander through a densely populated region, leaving havoc and destruction in their wake.

The king tells the people that while magic has become less ubiquitous, the king and his advisors still possess the ability to control it and to keep the necessary magical machinery running. He will even go as far as faking elven and orcish attacks that will be effortlessly dispatched with his legions and royal mages (using special effects).

The few brave souls who try to spread the word about the fake monsters are systematically marginalized and discredited by a highly organized royal disinfo cabal.

However the disinfo cabal has been infiltrated by real shapeshifting monsters from the abyss.

All the heads of state were long ago replaced by flying fungus men who are controlled by unground reptiles. Their goal is to keep the above-worlders occupied with petty disputes so they are left undisturbed.

>>54022143
The greatest heroes in the land are attorneys and their loyal paralegals

An ancient civilisation of dark elfs did rules the world, but their hopes of expansion were ruined by a collective of smalle, surrounding nations overthrowing their rule and dismantling their history. They no longer exist.

>>54022158
Like, shaved gorillas?

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>>54024184
You can't shave what wasn't there.

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>>54024184

The entire world is a dark swamp with deep water or mud

At the edge of creation, at the end if everything, there is a cottage. It is home to friendly man named James who would like you to stay for tea. Its been so long since he's had company, after all.

>>54022445
>>54022545
>>54022547

Occasionally, through strange events such as man x real monster marriages or blessed-at-birth scenarios, adventurers are born. They wreak havoc on magical machines by virtue of being able to subconsciously control them but no ability to control their control, and on the royals schemes by virtue of simply taking the fake orc horde for the real deal and fighting like their life depended on them.

Sometimes they find out the horde was fake, and the royals have to buy their silence and hope to god they're not too good to take a bribe. Or too pragmatic to take the bribe and tattle anyway.

There are moon folk...but they never leave the moon anymore due to preexisting agreements with the governments of earth.

The magic machines are basically just primitive windmills that rotate lodestones around copper coils to generate electricity. This is how magic is created. Instead of being channeled into electrical grids the electricity is channeled into special crystals that transmute the electricity into mana to be used.

Some of the mana is dispersed into the atmosphere as ambient energy so that individual people can cast spells, some of it is kept within the crystals and are used to power wands and staffs. These are supposed to be replaced with empty crystals on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, this system worked so well that everyone took them for granted and with each generation more and more people learned how to use the crystals, but not how to maintain and build new windmills to power the crystals. Especially considering that at least a third of the magic machines are specialized, such as being built as mystical weapon platforms, or watchtowers.

This is why magic is in decline.