I'm looking for ideas to work into my original campaign setting I'm preparing for a pathfinder campaign in autumn. I'm also looking for advice on low-magic settings.
What I want to do with this setting:
It is to be a low-magic setting with only three different planes. The material plane, the Interstice (made up of two separate planes that fight for domination over territory) and The Far Realm. The Interstice overlaps the material plane and acts as a possible passage into the Far Realm.
The material plane is a plane of low-magic. Magic items are available only to the nobility who is also the only group with access to magicians. Most magicians either work for the nobles or they're hermits living in the woods or are just reclusive. Commoners avoid them. The church also has access to magic from both clerics and wizards working for the clergy.
The larger countries of the most advanced continent are caught up in a huge war and both sides employ mercenaries to good effect. One of the nations employs a quite large and known group of mercs known as the Wolverines with about 500 men. The PCs will all begin as members of this group. They will gradually work their way up the hierarchy (using quests and magic items as the carrot). The players will not be involved in the political intrigue of the war itself, which will act more like a force of nature than a human conflict.
The war, however, hides the main conflict. Deep in the Far Realm resides Lao. Its existance unknown throughout the material planes, Lao is an eater of worlds and is less of a god and more of a force of nature itself. One cannot possibly fight Lao itself. Lao is served by a strange group of creatures calling themselves the Servants of Lao. They work to connect the Far Realm with the material plane so as to let the Far Realm absorb the material plane.
A quick summary of the planes.
The Material Plane
The plane where most stuff happens in the campaign. Almost all normal creatures (animals, vermin etc) originate in the material plane. Other stuff (fey, undead, etc) originate in the Interstice or the Far Realm. Abberations are almost entirely unknown on the material plane.
The Interstice
Contains the two sub planes Feywild and Shadowfell. It is wrong to look at these two planes as separate as they are merely two enormous territories within the Interstice that dynamically change shape while remaining at the same size relative to each other. Think of them as a geographical version of the white and black of the yin and yang symbol, but don't make the assumption that either plane is good or evil.
Feywild
The feywild is a plane of unruly nature and magical beasts. This plane is mostly lush forest and wild plains. Many magical beasts come from this plane. Fey creatures, dragons, cockatrices, gorgons, most magical stuff.
Shadowfell
This is the plane of darkness and corruption. Most evil aligned monsters come from this place. Undead, ghosts.
The Far Realms
A plane of the unknown. The Far Realms is an enormous uncharted plane made up, much like the Interstice of large territories. The Far Realms is the home of aboleths, mind flayers, beholders, sahuagin, kua-toa.
You sure this is pathfinder? Those world descriptions sound like 4E.
You sure this is pathfinder? Those world descriptions sound like 4E.
The names are borrowed from 4E, but I will probably replace them when I feel like it and can manage to think of something better. The far realm is also not new to 4E. It was mentioned in 3.5 afaik.
And 4E is hardly a low-magic setting.
Far Realm is from 2nd. I'm not sure what you are looking for buddy, but you can get some pretty neat low magic ideas on Dark Sun from 2nd edition. I mean REALLY low magic (high psionics though). Anyway, maybe something from Gray Hawk, Pendragon, Dragon lance and Birthright. The FEEL may be high magic, but in truth it is not, it's high FANTASY, but low, low magic.
Aything you read from 2nd edition is gonna give you some low magic feel actually. Man, how I miss that...
Have you considered the mechanical impact of a low magic setting and how you wish to compensate? With a lack of casters, and a lack of magic items parties will be considerably less capable then a standard party in a standard setting. There are many ways to account for this, from boosting PC's with 'virtual' magic items, to scaling down encounters, to just accepting that the PC's are more likely to die. But it is something you should consider.
Far Realm is from 2nd. I'm not sure what you are looking for buddy, but you can get some pretty neat low magic ideas on Dark Sun from 2nd edition. I mean REALLY low magic (high psionics though). Anyway, maybe something from Gray Hawk, Pendragon, Dragon lance and Birthright. The FEEL may be high magic, but in truth it is not, it's high FANTASY, but low, low magic.
Aything you read from 2nd edition is gonna give you some low magic feel actually. Man, how I miss that...
I've read lots of stuff from the Planescape setting, but not much else really. Forgotten Realms looks very high-magic.
Never heard about Pendragon, though, and I thought Dark Sun was sci-fi. Guess I was wrong... I'll look them all up and see what I can find.
Have you considered the mechanical impact of a low magic setting and how you wish to compensate? With a lack of casters, and a lack of magic items parties will be considerably less capable then a standard party in a standard setting. There are many ways to account for this, from boosting PC's with 'virtual' magic items, to scaling down encounters, to just accepting that the PC's are more likely to die. But it is something you should consider.
I've been thinking about those problems.
When I speak of low-magic it is not as if magic is unaccessible. It is merely more difficult to find. Magic items will be found not bought. They can be given as rewards from the higher ups in the mercenary group as rewards for successful missions.
Caster classes will of course be playable. It is merely that the world will not be heavy in magic and most magic stuff will be unknown to the general populace.
Try my conan D&D house rulebook: http://gallery.rptools.net/d/58415-2/Hyborian+Age+Rulebook+07C.pdf
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In my Low Magic setting I allow for exceptional Masterwork Items of greater than +1 value. Some, for instance, made by an especially nasty group of dwarves are weighted and sharpened to grant no bonus to hit but do +2, 3 and 4 damage. Others by a group of Elves, are finer weapons that grant up to +4 to hit but only do +1 Damage.
Mages in my game are also a restricted class. I just make sure that my group doesn't encounter them regularly as Villians. Spellcasting baddies such as devils and demons are tough and encountered on the same frequency as Dragons.
I just love hearing the PCs get all ga ga over the Gragengarl Hammer the Dwarf Cleric got for a reward for the rescue of a Dwarven Child. And the hiss of fear when the Isilin Elven Longblade had a weapon to weapon sunder attempt against it....hehehe.
Hope some of this helps.
Have fun out there!
~ W ~
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An idea for you that I've done in one of my low magic style games:
Get rid of magical items.
Instead of just gold, give players two things. The first will be your standard gold, but more abstracted - instead of counting gold pieces, increase their vague "gold score," if you will. Abstracted, it can be used to buy mundane things, bribe officials, etc, etc. Keep it as an abstracted number rather then the actual number of individual gold pieces.
Then, give them what I named Hero Points. This is their gold substitution. However much gold they would've had in standard 3.5, they get Hero Points instead. Now, instead of buying enhancement items, they spend hero points on them. They don't buy a belt of +2 strength for 4,000 gold, they gain a +2 enhancement bonus to strength for 4,000 Hero Points. If they want consumables or wonderous items that aren't enhancement bonuses, then they spend the hero points and find those items in their next adventure. The only thing that stands different here are artifacts - those stay as, well, artifacts, but those couldn't be bought anyways.
Weapons and armor are done differently. There are no magic weapons and no magic armor. Rather, there's three types of both - mundane, masterwork, and artifacts. When a player spends Hero Points on a weapon ability - such as +1 enchantment (which they need to learn first) or Speed - they learn it for all their weapons. But, weapon enchantments can only be used through masterwork or artifact weapons. The enchantments aren't a magical weapon, they come from the player themselves. In a way, you could say the player "crafts" the weapon/armor himself. Maybe the player goes off to train to learn it, or they pray and learn it from there, etc, etc.
This means that, when the player has a masterwork weapon, they can turn it into the +1 Speed weapon - and this goes for any masterwork weapon, rather then just one. It encourages players to hang on to a single weapon (since there's no reason not to) and to buy other weapons to go along with it. It also helps with the golfbag problem, since you don't need three different swords. Naturally, material type still matters as per-weapon rather then per-character.
This also means that magic armor and magic weapons are rare. There are no magic weapons or armor...except for artifacts.
Conan is the best low magic you can go. Seriously, it's great. Take a look at that.