Fantasy Heartbreak Workshop

Been listening to a bunch of Librevox podcasts of Murray Leinster 's (William Fitzgerald's) work. The tone varies quite a bit among his works, but the stories often seem to follow the trope of speculating male protagonist inventively resolving problems to the delight and frustration of love interest and/or fellows. The Forgotten Planet is no exception. It takes place on a planet incompletely terraformed due to administrative error, where the highest form of life is amphibian, and giant fungi and arthropods dominate much of the wetter lowlands beneath a constantly overcast sky. Events of the story take place 40 generations after a ship crash lands on the world, a time at which the survivors' descents have been reduced to a pre-stone age existence with almost no social structure by the brutal nature of survival among terrifying giant insects and spiders. The plot involves the protagonist and his loosely knit band managing to improve their lot in life during a surprisingly...

In a recent G+ post , Eric Fabiaschi pointed out a few interesting things in a Lithic vein recently: The above picture. Random caveman mutations . OD&D Setting map and terrain description , much of which could be used directly for a dawn of humanity game.

Just amalgamating a few additional sources on the subject of prehistoric roleplaying accumulating over the past months. Inuksuk and Inunnguaq - stone markers used by certain Arctic cultures: "something which acts for or performs the function of a person" "...from the morphemes inuk ("person") and -suk ("ersatz" or "substitute")" Re-reading the Scara Brae wikipedia entry I realized that in my youth I'd actually read a story about the place: The Boy With The Bronze Axe - Middle grade fiction. Was an ok read as I recall. Nothing overwhelmingly inspiring, but did provide a slice of life regarding the place and time. Land of Nod recently published this blog entry .  A nice addition to the field. Also, in the comments of Mr. Stater's entry, a commenter named Sean pointed out this article with a police lineup of some of our more interesting hominid kin.

As usual Jeff put up another post that stirred a disused corner of my imagination: Cave man days, through the lens of a D&D fork. This is something I used to give a lot of thought to back in the day.  GURPS Ice Age seemed like such a neat idea, but I didn't love the system and couldn't figure out what to do for adventures (Fighting wolves and tribes all the time?  Hunting a lot?).  Acquisition of non-subsistence stuff isn't typically a big part of the caveman way of life. One possibility would be tribesmen stumbling across Lovecraftian horrors, but I had doubts about losing player interest while trying to build a backdrop of normalcy before contrasting it with the first unnatural discovery. Another thought was contrasting current neolithic era with finds of lost pre-existing civilizations of human or inhuman origin.  It's an idea I like, and I think it could work well used appropriately. The Lithic setting wouldn't really work as a part of the same...