From Gtalk

Adrienne Okay, noir fantasy doesn't look at all like Tolkien, because it needs too much moral grayness. It's things like big cities where most of the guards are on the take, and the aristocratic class is filthy rich and decadent, either useless or cruel.

Adrienne Magic is powerful, but people who are into it get scary.

Adrienne Gods are also scary, when their power runs wild.

Adrienne There's a big seething underclass, lots of crime, lots of desperate people.

Thirteen hmmm

Thirteen okay

Thirteen can we add uh

Thirteen this is going to sound stupid

Thirteen can we add a sense of optimism

Thirteen like, I want to feel like justice can end up being done and/or we can end up happy

Thirteen maybe not both

Adrienne We can do that, hehe. I was about to ask if "fantasy noir" sounded like anything in particular to you, now that I've made a sort of list.

Thirteen it all sounds really human focused

Thirteen I think it would be cool to work in nonhumans

Thirteen orcs and goblins and elves and dwarves

Thirteen but examine the relationship between them with a more postmodern eye, maybe

Thirteen I had two ideas which partly conflict

Adrienne Nonhumans are cool. Lay out the ideas.

Thirteen one is that we're in some magic metropolis where all the different races and crap pass through

Thirteen casablancaseque or whatever

Thirteen the other is that we're both elves in a human city and we have to deal with shit

Thirteen or alternately

Thirteen DARK elves

Thirteen which I guess are more appropriate for noir

Adrienne Oh, hm. Either of those sounds interesting.

Adrienne Jerk dark elves, or not?

Thirteen actually we could do both

Thirteen if we use dark elves

Thirteen jwrk like how

Adrienne I dunno, like standard eeeeeevil D&D dark elves. Because that would cut the optimism a bit, hehe. But you were thinking of mixing in some postmodern stuff?

Thirteen yeah

Thirteen well I can't live without postmodernism really

Adrienne And dark elves in the city of "light" races lets us do both, yep.

Thirteen maybe the orcs and goblins are the underclasses

Thirteen it's one big metropolis

Thirteen but

Thirteen dark elves are unknown for some reason

Thirteen or at least not common

Adrienne So we're either undercover or freaks?

Thirteen yeah

Adrienne And the upper classes are dominated by the D&D PC races, basically? (Well, pre-4E.)

Thirteen yeah

Adrienne I am definitely interested. Plus, being dark elves makes us speshul people, which I'm a sucker for. >.>

Adrienne Are we there as a team for some reason, or finding each other on our separate paths?

Thirteen yeah i know right

Thirteen uh

Thirteen what do you think

Thirteen I had a vision but I realized it involved us both doing a lot of stuff by ourselves

Thirteen which is doable

Thirteen actually

Thirteen if we wanted to

Thirteen I assumed we were there separately but we knew each other from before

Adrienne It's doable if people are willing to take turns doing some GM or NPC stuff, yeah?

Thirteen yeah

Adrienne Separate but previously known is my preference, yeah. I like us having distinct missions, but TOR doesn't work (and is less fun anyway) without prior history to fill in.