The Gygax 75 Challenge, first presented by Gary Gygax himself and then repackaged by Ray Otus as a free booklet, is not something unknown to the OSR. In a nutshell, for those who may be unfamiliar with it, you are tasked to “create an RPG campaign setting in five weeks”, each week focusing on only one part of the setting.
Uncanny Valley is the result of my group of friends and I taking the challenge on together. It was unanimous that my execution was the most put together, and I actually made it into a small staple-bound book once I finished. Thus I want to see what I can turn it into by taking five more weeks to work on each step again in the same order.
The first step according to Otus is to determine the overall concept. My initial idea was simple: non-human humanoids are eerie, off-putting, and devoid of the normal social traits of humanity. My pitch is comprised of seven points.
Only human civilizations are hospitable to the party. All other humanoids are elusive, skeptical of humans, and most often outright hostile to them. Their civilizations will not allow humans to come close to, let alone receive aid from, the boundaries of their communities. This is elaborated in the next two points.
There is no such thing as a “friendly” encounter with an elf, dwarf, halfling, or any other sort of humanoid. There is an innate, cosmic distinction between humans and other humanoids that, on a spiritual level, renders close-proximity coexistence impossible. At their friendliest (determined by, say, a reaction roll), humans and non-humans eager to avoid an encounter will hold terse conversation at a distance from each other. Feigning disinterest only to attack once backs are turned is not beneath non-humans, should such level of hostility be determined.
Humans are created by Nil-Abest (or another, singular deity of your designation), the Designer of the Cosmos. Humans and are also referred to as “Starborne” whereas all other creatures are “Siltborne”. Siltborne are the fabrication of chaos and uncertainty; they are naturally and jealously opposed to Starborne.
Normal animals (horses, cattle, dogs, etc.) that are kept within a human settlement remain normal and are considered Starborne as well. Any animals in the wild appear visually strange and slightly alien; they are Siltborne.
The world is untamed, and the Starborne are ill-suited for the anarchic predilection of the environment. Human civilizations are dense, but not large, to reduce the size of their settlements’ perimeters for ease of defense. All that a settlement needs is contained within its walls. Each settlement tends not to be more than a day or two’s travel from another.
Agriculture has a small horizontal footprint in favor of more vertical farming methods. Towns are typically on flowing waterways and use watermills to facilitate movement of water upward via vessels on pulley systems.
Even the most opposed humans will, in small numbers (less than 10 or so), stick together against the Siltborne for survival. Humans that request entry to a settlement will be admitted first, then questioned if deemed necessary. Death is not a punishment meted by any governing body. Instead, banishment, which is endorsed by a brand, is considered tantamount to death and is the harshest punishment of the humans.
The other specific charge for the first step is to gather your sources of inspiration. Mine are:
images depicting liminal spaces
The uncanny valley as a psychological concept
Trollge memes
The game Valheim, which influenced the way I wanted goblins to look like with its greydwarfs
That sums up the duty required for the first week. In step two, I’ll be reworking the original hex map and its contents for Uncanny Valley. Until then, here’s what the original map looks like.