homegrown fantasy rpg

Sounds fun. What kind of system are you going to use? D6, d20, point-buy, etc? Drig set about making a fantasy RPG once, and I helped a little bit. Not sure how far he got before it fell to the wayside, though.

Boshuda

I've created a couple different fantasy settings that were made for D&D (2nd Edition, and later a smaller one when we were playing 3.5). I'm currently working on a full blown setting and system that I started about 10 years ago with a friend of mine.

There's lots of sources out there for advice and inspiration. I've found it's easier to start at the beginning, write a "creation myth" or some type of start to history, and work toward the present, thinking how nations/races rise and fall to set the current political, religious and cultural atmosphere. The other thing I've learned is that, "lots of conflict" is good. Worlds where most people get along lead to less interesting settings and less reasons to "adventure". War/conflict is what makes a setting "work". Also, make that conflict something that's not easy to "fix". Killing one person/destroying one thing and fixing the world can make for a short lived world.

Like yourself, I've also begun the quest to find an artist to help bring my vision to life. If you're working with "the standards" (elves, dwarves, orcs and such), there's a lot out there to use. If you're making up stuff off the top of your head, it's a lot more difficult.

(Edit: I had a couple links included originally, but the "installed spam filter" decided they were spam, even once I removed all but the ones that pointed to other posts on the forums here. I think the spam filter might be a bit of a hairtrigger.)