The Twisted Mirror

Well, I'm back. When I disappeared, I thought was probably done with this place forever, but really I'm not. I probably can't be. Regardless, I'm back, and I'll be hitting up this when the mood strikes me.

I want to talk about what I've referred to my in my own thoughts about this setting as the Twisted Mirror. This is the idea that many things come in pairs, where one item in the pair is a twisted version of the other item (like aumani and ancient wizards). Sometimes it has also referred to taking what people expect and twisting it (like dwarves and elves).

Campaigns in this setting would be encouraged to play up that theme as well, especially with the player characters, setting twisted versions of the PCs up against them. There's nothing quite as chilling as the question "How are you and the villain different, really?"

I'm well aware that this kind of thing is not new, and I sure as heck didn't come up with the idea. It's a good trope to play around with, because it's easy to subvert, and there are so many possible applications. I like it, personally, because it can make the game more introspective than RPG usually gets. Sure, the if the Hero saves the day using questionable methods, the Hero saved the day, but how does that Hero feel about him or herself afterwords?