# MISTAKES OF THE PAST, HOPES OF THE PRESENT

## THE WORLD

Natural fantasy stories don’t focus just on the immediate and brutal pain caused by exploiting the land, oppressing people and uprooting traditions and cultures. On the contrary, they argue that such actions are going to have very long-term consequences, much longer than the life expectancy of those involved, and that to heal such wounds we will need not only the ability to understand and forgive, but also the self-awareness and courage to take a step back and change our point of view.

The price of past cruelties falls upon the people of the present, and the price of present cruelty will fall on the people of the future.

The recurring leitmotifs of the genre include neglectfulness, the rediscovery of ancient and terrible technologies, curses (often generational or cyclical), and the idea that the protagonists have to endure and overcome the consequences of the past, taking care not to cause the same suffering to future generations.

If you are running low on inspiration, you can rely upon some natural fantasy classics and their related conflicts:

- Catastrophic artifacts. Magical or technological items infused with almost miraculous powers reemerging from ancient times. They represent a temptation for both the hopeless and those who crave power and authority, but in both cases these tools will unleash a devastation that the planet was trying to forget.
- Punishment incarnate. Curses, plagues and epidemics might be the ecosystem’s answer to atrocities committed by civilizations past – they often force animals, spirits, and machines to act in a destructive manner, and assume a full physical form only towards the end of the campaign.
- Millennia-old progenies. Simple in terms of narrative premise yet extremely dangerous, these adversaries are the result of century-old (perhaps millennia-old) experiments to create better weapons or eliminate pollution and radiation. They might be biological creatures or huge out-of-control machines.

Further advice and suggestions on which Villains to use depending on the situation can be found in Chapter 4: Antagonists.