Well I'm more or less stuck between magical WOW-esque and LOTR serious fantasy with rare magical items and very few wielders of magic.
I'm probably gonna make it a very diverse fantasy environment on the cusp of steam and gunpowder technology but more advanced than GW or any other mainstream epic fantasy setting currently is.
I'll probably post a little fluff every week until it goes live. I really don't know if I should lay the setting out and have the characters already live in the setting or have the characters emerge onto the setting and have the setting weave itself out through the course of the story. BTW, I'm not exactly the best with grammar so don't be surprised if you see a bunch of run on sentences. I don't have a collegiate education, yet...
Orcs are already forming in my mind to being not necessary a dwindling race, but a cornered one. The free folk or I may change the name to the Fair folk ,as that is how they would classify themselves as they are still a monarchy society, have banded together to war against the Orc . After being beaten by more modern technologies Orcs have been forced out of most of the fair folk areas and wage war out of necessity to survive, almost akin to Native Americans. They differ in the fact that they do still have large numbers but cannot sustain their population on the lands they have and must raid against the fair folk to survive. Great expanses of land still exist because the technologies which exist for steam travel is not mass produced. Also a ship, plane, or steam tank can only travel so far before it needs to be refueled and other human tribes or cities who do not have the technologies to supply the fuels for return trips from those places are still in the transition phases. Sail has been the big means of travel and still is in the world of the Five Realms. Also the Five Realms is the local name for part of one continent. There will be several continents although the characters know or are only loosely aware of the main one in which the Five Realms is located.
Misthaven is the largest city and also a central point in the land. Think of Misthaven as the Rome of this fantasy setting. A great cultured city that is the bright light in the dark world.
Orcs have cities too, although not as elaborate, most areas Orcs dwell in small nomadic settlements chasing after game. The bigger Orc tribes have formed cities not because they have developed farming but because they actually have openned up trade with Humans and Dwarves who provide most of the necessary sustenance for survival in return for mined coal which is powering the steam age.
Namely though the economics of the setting don't matter much... as I have said there are Five Realms and I have not revealed what the fifth realm is. Four of the Realms stand for the Four Races that inhabit them; The Dwarves, The Elves, Man, and The Orc. The fifth realm is the dark realms. This is where there is uncharted territory and where the Orc even fear to travel.
