Gauging Interest in a Spiritual Successor to HeroQuest

[Interjection Games]

Hey there, fellas! This project has mutated significantly, (but they always do).

To simplify things, and to link into existing fanbases, the engine I build will be put on top of Savage Worlds and will take advantage of a change of wording in their compatibility license that allows for limited quoting of bits of their work. Savage Worlds is an RPG system designed around rapidfire turns with the "Luck" roll as a central feature, so using it as a springboard makes sense. Part of me truly believes their engine was designed after WHQ to begin with, so full circle.

I've also decided on "post-apocalyptic subterranean survival" setting with high fantasy races, but low fantasy magic, called Cometfall. I have a little thing I sent out to my inner circle awhile back. Lemme track it down... Bear in mind this is fairly stream of consciousness and it's slated as my 4th hardcover book. I'm finishing the first one in the next day or two.

Alright, picture this.

All civilization fled underground before the great Cometfall, which killed both mortal and god in a burning orgy of death. Whatever the comet was made of, it effectively broke the setting world's connection with those gods who fled its approach. Divine magic is gone, with the sole exception of those who worship the smouldering husks of gods who sacrificed themselves to slow the comet's approach. These hulking corpses are typically enshrined in great temples, and some few are not entirely dead. In this case, complex ritual allows for communication with what is left of those deities. Given the gods' extremely limited power in this dead-and-not-yet-dead state, they no longer choose to grant their powers to their faithful. Instead, the faithful choose who are worthy of the gift and awaken the connection as they see fit. The gods are mere vessels, and even the greatest of their granted powers are but the slightest echo of what existed before. Even so, it is jealously guarded.

Similarly, the Worldkiller disrupted the very fabric of magic itself. Arcane magic is atrophied to the point of being almost non-existent; if you can cast "magic missile", you're an archmage. If you can cast a cantrip, you're gifted.

Strange and bizarre creatures lived underground for millennia before the surface world fled underneath. As the Worldkiller's toxin bled into the world, those civilizations began to collapse as their gods fell silent and their arcanists became impotent. Brutish tribes suddenly found themselves at an advantage against advanced slaveholders, and revolutions broke the back of many subterranean empires. Into this devastated scene come the refugees from the surface, and the shattered remnants of two worlds, unable to come to terms with each other, whittle each other down to nearly nothing before finally drawing map lines in a new order.

Those who came from the surface have nearly forgotten their origins and have only myth to cling to. The surface is corrupt and poisoned; there is no returning, and very few are willing to go Topside to look for relics from before the Cometfall. Those who do are unequivocally heroes, and those who actually succeed become the stuff of legends.

With magic nearly dead and with the Great Usurpation (or so the natives call it) destroying most of the wonders that allowed cities to thrive, the carrying capacity of the depths is puny at best. There are two schools of thought in the depths: revert to hunting and gathering, or fight for and hold one of the few fertile oases. A few cities still exist, propped up by ancient wonders of machinery and magic that once fed great metropolises. Their most vital components are beyond magic's ability to replace, but great archmages keep those great power cores from failing, for now. Those not lucky enough to have such a manufactury can try to make their own. Ancient magical artifacts that survived carry a slight fraction of the power they once did, and it can take a city worth of these artifacts - artifacts that once did everything from provide light and heat to power servitor golems - to grow enough food to feed a large town of one thousand.

Even so, not everything is gloom and doom. The death of the god known as the Lord of Facets, or Aggranius, brought about the creation of the Puddling race. These curious sentient oozes live within the very corpse of their god, utterly reliant upon his leavings to maintain their civilization, yet as they knew of no world before the death of their god, they have no racial memory to drag them down. Still, as their god's leavings are among the most potent, they find themselves beset by as many raiders as trading partners. Naivete is something the race fights to shed, though their inability to grow beyond the confines of their god's corpse forces them into an entirely-defensive posture.

To this, add races building up something other than magic as their primary focus. The dwarves are doing great because they always hated the stuff, and were the surface not polluted by the Cometfall, they'd feel that the new world order is infinitely better than the old. The elves are having horrible identity crises because everything they ever stood for had been burnt away or taken away from their magisters. And so on and so forth. Currently working on the race manifesto.

Working Title: Cometfall

Genre: Post-apocalyptic subterranean low fantasy (magic) / high fantasy (races)

Possible Taglines

This tale begins with The End.
If the gods are alive, they cannot hear our prayers.