One of the original notions from the Dragonsfoot thread that spawned Micah's divine elves for ACKS was that in the Lord of the Rings model, healing and support functions fell to elves rather than Old Testament-flavor clerics, and that one potential 'OSR alternate history' would be to run a game with elves replacing clerics rather than duplicating their capabilities.
And so upon further consideration, I believe Midnight is a perfect setting for such a substitution. On the immediate / explicit level, it's already a setting where all true clerics are evil and the elves do have innate 'elf powers' like speaking through the whisperwood. On the implicit level, it's a setting which is essentially a twist on Tolkein. This is one of the endearing things about it, I think - anyone who has read Tolkein already has a feel for it. The one-sentence pitch is really "What if Sauron won?", and everything else is just massaging for intellectual property and adherence to the way D&D is usually played.
And so, if any setting other than Middle Earth itself would do well with the Tolkeinesque substitution of divine elves for clerics among PCs, it would be Midnight.
Aaaand now I want to run Midnight ACKS again. Damnit.
Midnight is one of those cool d20 era settings I'd love to see converted to an OSR style as well - it'd be instantly accessible. I'll keep my eyes open if you do more with the idea.
ReplyDeleteYep, there's more coming. I'm curious what you would expect to see in 'OSR style', though.
DeleteYeah, now this is an awesome idea!
ReplyDelete