Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and other campaign worlds are great, and very well realized over the last 30 years of gaming.
But does everyone use them?
I would be interested to hear about other campaign worlds that DMs have come up with in their games.
Gods, Cosmologies, Cities, Unusual Geogrpahies, and other features would all be fair game. Anyone wanna share?
Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and other campaign worlds are great, and very well realized over the last 30 years of gaming.
But does everyone use them?
No - oddly enough the only pre-created world I have ever used was the Known World (which was later raped and assimulated into that other D&D game with an 'A' in its initials. To add insult to injury it was tagged with the name of that cow in charge of magic in that "other world" and has never been seen since*
sniff sniff.
I would be interested to hear about other campaign worlds that DMs have come up with in their games.
Gods, Cosmologies, Cities, Unusual Geogrpahies, and other features would all be fair game. Anyone wanna share?
Oh boy, are you going to get some long posts.
Well I've always like the exploration side of adventuring so about six years ago I started work on a world that had been shattered by a cataclysm so violent that its great central landmass was reduced to a huge ring of islands and mini-continents. On these new islands new cultures arose mostly independant of each other it has only been in the last century or two that travel has become common in what became the Shattered Seas.
Some rough notes:
The old world was governed by the gods taken out of the Deities and Demigods as were the antagonists that destroyed them - the creatures from the Cthulhu Mythos. We actually sat and had a game where I let the players pick there favorite god, which ended up being Ptah, Ra, Odin, Zues, and Quetzalcoatl. Then I told them that "The universe was ending and Ragnarok was upon them. The Outer Gods had come and all petty disagreements between this worlds gods had subsided due to the threat possed by the alien entities."
"What do you do?" I asked.
"I make ready the Einheriar." I think Odin said.
"I sleep with as many mortal women as possible to ensure a new race of gods and heroes should we fail." Typical Zues.
So I fast forwarded a week the War of the Gods was more of a rout. All of the godly planes had been destroyed and the only Gods left standing where my players and they were faced by my rendition of Cyaegha - a mostrous colossal black cloud with amorphous tentacles and a single huge central eye. They beat him and laid the foundation for the future cult of Gruumsh and the Great Mother (the gods of orcs and beholders respectively).
Then came the crawling chaos, Nyarlathotep... Each time the gods thought they had bested the messanger of the outer gods it turned in to a new hideous monster more terrible than the last. Ra was felled from the sky, Sleipner (Odin's 8-legged horse) was slain and Odin tumbled into the ocean, Ptah fled this reality, and Quetzalcoatl - poor Quetzalcoatl - he transformed himself into Nyarlathotep but because of the malignant alien nature of the god he actually BECAME Nyarlathotep in mind as well! Soon it was just mighty Zues hurling lightning and monstrous entity that had robbed him of most of his kin. And when everything looked its blackest, Odin reappeared - for the last ten rounds his player had been adding wishes together and in that final round he used them all to banish every outsider back to its home plane. Since the gods that were left had no plane to go to they passed from reality. The servators of the Outer gods fled to the dark places of the earth there to spawn the creatures known as abberations.
The dead gods' lay festering on the earth. Their divine energies mixing with the chaos to creat a race of monstrous giants (from whom all modern giants are descended). The chaos giants walked the earth, stalking the last survivors. The elves retreated to hidden lands and are rarely seen by mortals who are more-likely to see their unseely kin the goblins, bugbears and hobgoblins.
Elves in the Shattered Sea come in the following types: Sea (aquatic), Silver (high), Star (grey), Schatteralfen (a mix of elves of that name from the Hollow World and the Forsaken Elves from the Scared Lands - they are about a drow as I get), Burning Sand (desert elves - Unearthed Arcana), Sylvan and Scrub elves (think Elf Quest). The only elves to have any real interaction with mortals are the Schatteralfen who as a dying breed (a hold over from the Gods War) mate with kidnapped humans. The resulting half-elves are then used as spies and breeding stock. The Schatteralfen however hate them because they are a constant reminder of how far they have fallen.
Orcs are a by-product of the dead gods divine energy like the primal giants they are chaos incarnate. Because Gruumsh is "dead" though they are slightly less brutal than traditional orcs.
Dwarves are born from the earth and their spirits return to it. Dwarves have such a clannish nature because they are constantly reincarnated. When they die their souls return to a special rock or piece of quartz that houses it until a new body is born (usually right from the earth). These bodies are wholy formed adults but lack souls until they are given a soul stone. The spirit of the dwarf then inhabits the shell though the personality and memories can be quite different, the basic dwarf is still the same. Sometimes the dead dwarf's stone is allowed the honor of "joining with the ancestors". The soul stone is ground up and sprinkled into a pit with the ground stones of other clanmates. Under presure the stone fragments fuse into new composite stones housing the racial memories of the greatest members of the clan. Most dwarf clerics practice ancestor worship for this reason.
The Chaos giants caused the halfling people to begin their nomadic lifestyle and nearly destroyed the last remnants of humanity. Then something strange happened heroes emerged who were able to harness the free roaming divine energy. They acted as the protectors of the last scatted bands of humans and fought with the giants and other powerful spirits who would claim rulership of the world. In the end they won and set their home on the highest peak of the broken world and hence the Gods of Tahl where born. They imprisoned the spirits that they contested with in the communal lower plane known as hell or the abyss by some. Others were trapped in smaller pocket planes like the infamous Wicked City of Gammorak. These beings would become the various demons, devils and rakshasa the most powerful of whom where as demigods during the age of chaos. They seeth at their confinement and take every opportunity to break free.
The modern Shattered Sea is home to a host of cultures in the Southern Sundered Sea - samurai and vanara mingle with desert elves. The shipping lanes are under constant treat by the Brotherhood of the South a confederation of necromancers, assassins and (mostly) undead pirate captains. In the north the great metropolis of Sanctum Secundus houses the body of a living god - the so-called Emperor of Humanity. His fanatical followers hope to extend hi rule to every island in the Shattered Sea. With the technology (supplied by dwarven slaves), dreadful warmachines (powered by bastardized soul stones) and powerful templars and psionics not seen anywhere else they could just do it (the Empire as you can tell is based on the human faction in Warhammer 40k though they have only steam technology. The templars are in essence Imperial Space Marines - here half-giants.)
So how's that for a world?
Triple G
*The Known World did come back sort of. Now it seems Greyhawk has inherited bits of it - namely the Isle of Dread as presented in Torrents of Dread - the adventure by Greg V. which was very cool, but more please more "Known World."
That's good stuff G to the Three.
I often design campaign worlds as a mental excercise as a break from schoolwork. Or when I'm procrastinating, like I am now.
A few of my more recent ideas:
Extraplanar High: Planescape meets MTV. The PCs are trainees in a prestigious boarding high school for magic and combat, with a student body from across the multiverse. The gods are the music you listen to (one could pray to Ozzy Osbourne, Britney Spears, or even pantheons like Rap, and Rock.) The challenges include classes, which often involve planar travel, as well as violent customers at part time jobs, extraplanar classmates, and dorm life.
Darelle: A world based on North American Native Mythology. Humans, kenkus gnomes, and orcs live tribal lives akin to west coast natives. However, war on the far off continent has halflings, elves, dwarves, kolbolds, and goblinoids all vieing for thier own chunk of Darelle.
Fiend's Gate: Arcane magic can only be achieved in humanoids by getting it from Outsiders. As such, sorcerers have demons or devils bound to their bodies from which to draw power. Good sorcerers have the fiends trapped, while evil ones bargain. Wizardry involves rituals to trap and steal powers from the fiends. This has far ranging effects. Mages are constantly tempted to bind deeper with fiends for temporary power boosts. However, this risks possession, releasing the fiend onto the material plane, or worse. The church of the Bleeding God has sworn to wipe out all arcane magic. The church of the Holy Wanderer, however, has espoused trapping fiends, as it will help the celestials in their battle against the fiends. Meanwhile, deep binding with fiends has resulted in the powerful magical disease of Fiendrot that is spreading across the countryside.
Gee-Cubed - very inventive. . . I especially like the Dwarves and Orcs... did you do anything special for character generation. . . for instance, what kind of Strength bonus would a Half-orc get, with his emobodiment-of-chas ansestory. . .
Also, do Dwarves have special rules ofr Raise Dead, etc.?
Very cool world, dude.
Most of my campaigns are set in a somewhat generic world, though occasionally I toss in something different. The most outstanding thing I did was the Evil Midget Empire. The midgets were functionally humans, just really short, and wanted to counquer the world. A semi-secret order of tall people were sworn to hold back the midgets, and the PCs were recruited to help them recover a powerful magical item that the midgets stole. Included were the Ke'blar elves, a group of particularly short elves with a strong tradition of cookie baking who came from the same homeland as the midgets but they weren't evil. Once the dwarf found a Maul of the Titans in a dragon's horde on a brief side trek, PCs occasionally had to make reflex saves in combat to avoid slipping on the squishy remains of low level midget warriors (the sorceror used more than a few prestidigitation spells to clean his clothes after being splattered).
I can play this one....
My style of gaming is very...story-based. I like to take my PCs through a tale that seems to them like a novel rather than a set of modules. Saying that they spend a great deal of time picking their enemies and gauging strengthes and weaknesses before they act...or they charge in if really angry and hope they can get the first hit in...
First a little background on the world:
During character creation I gave all the PCs an option to give me a small detail of the area they lived in, which got put into the world to allow them to have a 'home' that wouldn't surprise them or feel alien to them if they ever returned. The PCs would occassionally tell stories about people, places, organizations, back home which would get put into the game.
Now the following Mythology was not known to the PCs until deeeeep within the story, and after no large amount of adventuring, you get the idea...
The Void is all consuming, horrific, the stuff that even creatures born of nightmares fear. In the beginning, all was void. The creatures that churned and spawned, feeding on each other and themselves, lived for an eternity in the darkness, revelling in their own pain.
Madmen, vile sorcerers, and even the dead have murmured that the beginning of life spawned here. Some of the creatures desired new playthings to feed upon, new creatures to torture and maim. And so it was that they created a small sphere, and within the sphere there was a lack of void...there was, light.
The first plane of life, or 'bubble' grew and spawned life upon the world. For the fire within was pure and untainted, and bore creatures of harmony into the world. And when that world was completed, the creature of life, The Phoenix, stretched the bubble, and created a new world.
Now the planes of existance are little more than a collection of bubbles that could have been blown by a child. But as each world is spawned, they grow stronger in unity against the void, and so no longer can their masters torment their worlds, unless invited.
Tens of Thousands of years have past.
In the realm of Dynasis "Heaven" the people prosper in the acts of magic, mastering the lesser enchantments needed to wipe the world clean of disease and famine. The rulers of the world travel the planes through established 'Bridges' than span the void into the other worlds, none more so than the Sorceress Sheloah.
In a blasted, barren world it was Sheloah who discovered the new magic. The lost spells that summoned a creature from the Void, one that she thought that she could control. Taking it back to her realm, she taught her people the magic of the Void. And inevitably, the realm began to fall.
Void creatures invaded the lands, tearing and devouring everything. The powerful heroes of the realm fought a losing battle against them for several long years. When it became evident that they could not win, they used a newly discovered bridge to send the souls of their children to hide in a new world. But the creatures of the Void saw into the new world, and followed the souls. For decades it was thought that the creatures wished to devour the children, but they were after a greater prize.
Lead by Sheloah's brother, Oberon. Heroes flew into the new world to defend the souls of their children, and here they lured the creatures back onto the planar bridge, and shattered it. They were stranded on this new world, but they were alive.
Oberon and Sheloah (as well as their children) explored this new world, discovering in its underbelly, in the realm of the Fey, a fiery lair wherin a powerful artifact was held, an Egg.
They did not know that the Void creatures were searching for the sleeping Phoenix, nor that they had removed its slumbering form from its incubation chamber. Only that the Egg granted them powers unto gods, and that now they could rule the lands.
As people died upon this world, their spirits went to reinforce the bubble that protected them, allowing the world to grow and expand safe from the Void. But without the Phoenix to complete the Genesis, from that point the world began to die. The Realm of the Fey became the Realm of the Dead, were all souls went to wander lost.
Sheloah was shunned for her crimes, and eventually it was she (evil as she was) that decided to devistate the world in order to build a powerful force to return to her world. Re-constrcuting the world bridge, she would lead her tainted, evil army back into her lands to reclaim them from the Void, if it still existed. But the plan required sacrifices, a lot of sacrifices...
Gee-Cubed - very inventive. . . I especially like the Dwarves and Orcs... did you do anything special for character generation. . . for instance, what kind of Strength bonus would a Half-orc get, with his emobodiment-of-chas ansestory. . .
Also, do Dwarves have special rules ofr Raise Dead, etc.?
Nothing special for orcs or half-orcs. Although the groups the player characters have run into all tend to mimic uncivilized, barbaric or hunter gatherer groups like viking raiders, pirates, tribal picts, scots or native americans. The scottish orcs were tons of fun. Think of a bunch of buff orcs in kilts challenging you to a wee caber tossing contest, laddy. ;)
Oh, and there were bagpipes - lots of bagpipes. ;)
As for the dwarves... A dwarf who dies and has an empty (usually their original) soul stone with in 30 ft. is good. All you need to do is to take the stone to a dwarven refuge find a healer and presto - dwarf. The stone in essence counts as having the whole body in such circumstances. Go to a human healer and you need to bring the bod-err the small collection of rocks that the body has become with you.
Dwarves who die without a workable soul stone nearby are plunged into that purgatory that is the elemental plane of earth and someone probably should go get them.
Very cool world, dude.
You are too kind. Basically the way I go about making a world is to steal a bunch of what I think are cool ideas and make them work. What I love about the Shattered Sea (and believe me it was a complete accident) is that I can do practically anything with it. If I want anthropomorphic hamsters as a race in one campaign and then grow tired of them running around in that wheel thing I can move to another island thousands of miles away and run a game about an evil midget empire that worships Britney Speares.
And really - who doesn't.
See? It all comes down to stealing really cool ideas.
Tri-G
Oh - and audience participation. In the current game I made players help with the map and placenames. We got a cool giant-infested area called the Roaming Hills (yes, they move) out of it. So now giants are the group's prime antagonists and everyone hates the player who suggested it. ;)
GGG
Oh - and audience participation. In the current game I made players help with the map and placenames. We got a cool giant-infested area called the Roaming Hills (yes, they move) out of it. So now giants are the group's prime antagonists and everyone hates the player who suggested it. ;)
GGG
I totally agree. The Stomping Grounds was created by a PC who told a campfire story were rocks 'fell up'. It ended up being a depression in the earth above a collapsed forge, the air pressure was tremendous enough to throw huge rocks into the air.
The Void is all consuming, horrific, the stuff that even creatures born of nightmares fear....
That is startlingly similar in scope to my campaign world, only I call the Void the "Plane of Stasis." Also similiar is that fact that the PCs aren't clued in to the Cosmology, and still think that the primary conflicts in the Multiverse are in terms of good/evil, law/chaos, never suspecting there are evern worse things...
When do you plan on dropping the hammer on the PCs, Woontal? Have they fought anything from the Void yet?
ok, i was thinking about submitting this for actual printing, i still might, but it needs lots of tweaking out first.
as the characters reach somewhere around 4th level they are transported into a town, if they are sleeping, thats how they arrive, if they are fighting, they arrive mid-swing, get the idea?
the story is that somewhere else a higher powered level of adventurers failed, (yes! the world does not revolve around a fourth level party!) and somehow the Godslayers clan has claimed victory over a somewhat chaotic god. all the gods decide to save their fellow god, and stop the slayers from attaining more power, to allow the godslayers to reform all existance in their own immage. however the god of tricks (insert your campaigns trickster) diverted the energy twards destroying the godslayers, but still managed to destroy almost everything.(that was the plan of all the gods, atleats they got rid of the slayers) so the onlythings left are a few thousand miles of stuf, and DM allowing the astral and etherial plains. hidden somewhere are the artifacts the godslayers used, and with them is the ability to bring everything back. oh yea, due to power drain the gods cant keep granting powers and every few weeks clerics loose a few abilities, starting with miracle, and taking out a few power spells (2-3) about once a game-time week.
so heres the parts that need worked out,
1: have any godslayers survived?
2: does anyone (including gods) know about the artifacts?
3: will players be greedy and use artifacts to make a world where they are gods?
the fun part is putting all the humans, dwarves, elves, and what not all in one city, and making it the last city, everything else is monster stuf. throw in the Tarrasque and it goes from... well you know, all the possible allies, in one spot... yea
stupid me allowed a were-tiger in my first playtest, now that magus and feugan have a tigerskin cloak ill never let that guy back into my games, if you really want to know ask me to go on about it elsewhere, im a ramblin.
The Void is all consuming, horrific, the stuff that even creatures born of nightmares fear....That is startlingly similar in scope to my campaign world, only I call the Void the "Plane of Stasis." Also similiar is that fact that the PCs aren't clued in to the Cosmology, and still think that the primary conflicts in the Multiverse are in terms of good/evil, law/chaos, never suspecting there are evern worse things...
When do you plan on dropping the hammer on the PCs, Woontal? Have they fought anything from the Void yet?
I finished the campaign several weeks ago now, and at their higher levels they encountered two creatures from the void (fought only one).
One was trapped within a small pyramid and was similar to a dark djinn. It would grant wishes to foolish PCs and draw on power from the 'bubble' to grant them (as long as they forwarded the plans of the void).
The one battle was in the Tower of Oberon. Upon its death the Void-stuff the creature was made of created a small rift into the outer plane and destroyed the tower, sucking all matter back into the primal creation.
Woontal -
I'll bet it was disorienting for them. I have a bunch of strange creatures ready from the Plane of Stasis, but it's going to be awhile until I can use them. In the meantime, they are discovering that Wysteria (my world) holds alignments other than the one's they're used to, i.e. Nuetral Apathetic, Neutral Dogmatic, Neutral Fantasic, Nuetral Hedonistic, and any intelligent creature who falls too far into banality, forsaking their passions and their love for adventure, CAN change alignments.
They've already fought a few Lizardfolk druids who sunk from Nuetral into Nuetral Apathetic. It was a fun encounter, but they're still drawing some wacky concusions about it.
Baby steps. He heh...
Woontal -
In the meantime, they are discovering that Wysteria (my world) holds alignments other than the one's they're used to, i.e. Nuetral Apathetic, Neutral Dogmatic, Neutral Fantasic, Nuetral Hedonistic, and any intelligent creature who falls too far into banality, forsaking their passions and their love for adventure, CAN change alignments.
Kinda reminds me a little of the Alignment Tracking chart in 1st edition Dragonlance actually. Slipping through the 'Shades of Grey' was very interesting actually.
Probably (IMO) the only good thing to come out of the RIFTS books was their alignment system too, a lot looser than the traditional nine points of D&D. I was thinking of using them for a D&D game one day....note that down....
Hehe, I can imagine a Lawful Apathetic Paladin...
"I must save the maiden from the tyranical warlord......after I finish my cheetos....maybe...more power to women's lib..."
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This is a very great thread. About the closest thing i ever did in creating material for my own shortlived homebrewed world of Melinor(which never got off the ground beyond a couple planning stages by the way) was to allow only two gods in the setting:Elishar and Toldoth( from Dieties and Demigods). All the races from elves to mind flayers worshipped them, but has different names and iconic images for them(like Dragonlance).
Only the humans(westlanders)and Dwarves called them by their true names,the elves named them The Daystar(Elishar)and Lord Evernight(Toldoth)and the mind flayers had no name for them but
their religious images of them were a siloulette of a brain (Toldoth)and a glyph of a setting sun being shattered into many pieces (Elishar). As the Melinorean Saga (as i used to call it)had psionics, i used the Telaire people (from Dragon#281?)to represent a minority within the westlanders.Beyond all this,i toyed with the idea removing certain races and core classes(No halflings,orcs;and no sorcerors). Maybe i should give it another chance.
The other rulers, thinking that they would have a better chance of survival if they had their pantrus stones, refused to return them to the elves. The ensuing civil war brought an end to the age of light, and heralded the age of darkness, which still lasts, six-hundred years later.....
What's really interesting about this is idea is that pretty much all political conflicts can be boiled down to these 100 concrete stones. Fighting over arable land, minging rights, or other such things are no longer much on an issue.
Plus, with the constant warring, the stones are never used to elevate the standard of living past the fantasy/medieval D&D standards, and the population stays culled to reasonable levels.
I've always found that last part to be the hardest part of world-building. It's not so difficult to come up with interesting power items, fantastical races/geographies, and innovative cosmologies. . . it's figuring out how to keep all the stinkin' peasants.
I've always found that last part to be the hardest part of world-building. It's not so difficult to come up with interesting power items, fantastical races/geographies, and innovative cosmologies. . . it's figuring out how to keep all the stinkin' peasants.
The one problem i always have, is getting my head around the idea of how the ruler of the lands came into power? Though if you think of it in DnD terms the leadership feat obviously helps. Also, if its so easy for easants to up and leave their jobs and become warriors or whatever, why not leave their miserable lives and do so? I know some of them probably enjoy farming, but surely not all!
Because commoners are underpowered.
Not everyone has what it takes to pick up a sword and take on vicious humanoid tribes. IRL, the military pays better than the national average wage in most nations, yet many people would rather pump gas their entire lives rather than enlist. And military service probably has a higher survival rate in fantasy worlds than, say, dragon hunting
I've got a great one: McDonaland. The Evil Emporer Ray Krok is opressing everyone;
there would be monsters based on the "food"(see the calzone golem in "something's cooking", WoTC adventure)
fry,shake,coke,burger (ham and cheese) would all be monsters;
and there is NO magic until Krok dies, see, his evil aura supresses all magic.
and the only hope would be a group of adventurers fighting under the flag of good food; either that or pepsi, or something.