Very cool. You're starting out with an impressive amount of material. I've only gotten through the "House Rules" section of this, but thought I should comment as I read so I don't forget what I was going to say.
Don't worry about borrowing from other people. As you start mixing things in and changing stuff it becomes your own and the layers of borrowings give the world the feel of having a real history. My own world started off, pretty much, lifted from Tolken. The maps were even my flawed memory of the Tolkin maps. Then I started mixing in Norse myth, then Earthsea, then Elric of Melnibone, then Celtic myth, etc. And as I mixed more and more in I bumped the time forward. So, I started in an early medieval world and now I'm running in a late 1700s to early 1800s world.
Dropping alignment has worked real well for me. With no alignments you never know whether somebody is capable of acting altruistically or committing horrible crimes until they do. The free choice, in some ways it makes good seem even more good and evil even more evil. As far as mechanics go, the way I do it is: races all still detect as good, evil, chaotic, lawful, etc, but that doesn't necessarily translate to behavior. A demon is just as capable of doing good deeds as an angel. For the paladin class, what you might want to do is have the player maintain a code of honor rather than sticking to restricting the class to lawful good behavior.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-01-13 03:12 am (UTC)Don't worry about borrowing from other people. As you start mixing things in and changing stuff it becomes your own and the layers of borrowings give the world the feel of having a real history. My own world started off, pretty much, lifted from Tolken. The maps were even my flawed memory of the Tolkin maps. Then I started mixing in Norse myth, then Earthsea, then Elric of Melnibone, then Celtic myth, etc. And as I mixed more and more in I bumped the time forward. So, I started in an early medieval world and now I'm running in a late 1700s to early 1800s world.
Dropping alignment has worked real well for me. With no alignments you never know whether somebody is capable of acting altruistically or committing horrible crimes until they do. The free choice, in some ways it makes good seem even more good and evil even more evil. As far as mechanics go, the way I do it is: races all still detect as good, evil, chaotic, lawful, etc, but that doesn't necessarily translate to behavior. A demon is just as capable of doing good deeds as an angel. For the paladin class, what you might want to do is have the player maintain a code of honor rather than sticking to restricting the class to lawful good behavior.