Hey guys, I'm a fairly inexperienced GM (and in fact am not sure if this is even the right board to post on) and I've been rolling around the Idea of a prehistoric setting.
The basic idea is that a teleportation spell or some such gets warped by a massive amount of power from a magical catastrophe and my players are sent back in time. So normal core rulebook era characters now have to deal with the dangers of the past while trying to find a way back (or not, if they just like the dinos enough to stay).
Anyway, I'm trying to think up all the necessary adjustments to make for this setting. I've read up about bone, flint, and stone weaponry in UC and trawled both bestiaries for appropriate monsters and monstrous races to populate the world (Troglodytes and Aboleths will likely feature heavily).
So what am I missing? What will I need to make this world both fun and half-way believable. (Only half-way believable, there aren't enough dinos to only use Jurassic, Cretaceous or whatever)
Thanks for the help!
Reskin other monsters as dinosaurs, don't forget elementals are old, and you could be witnessing the birth of demons and devils. There's also not reason to not have some magical creatures, yes some are the results of experiments, but the foundations of magic might have started in this time, with your party even?
Use the dinosaur stats you have an adjust sizes and appearances to be other dinosaurs.
Another thing to consider is how much time travel weirdness you want to put into your setting. Is there an ancient civilization like Howard's serpent men? Are the players part of a time loop where they bring about the downfall of the corrupt/evil civilization and usher in what becomes their current age?
Awesome cavemen and cavewomen, such as this!
Seriously though, a human population of tribal or cave society. make the society intelligent, and give the at least some minor commerce so the players can trade for equipment and stuff. refluff magical items to be era appropriate. Potions shouldn't be in glass but in clay and stuff like that.
The link above is about a video game with time travel in it, and in the prehistoric land, the dinosaurs are actually more advanced then the humans and are trying to wipe them out. might be worth looking into for inspiration.
Seriously though, a human population of tribal or cave society. make the society intelligent, and give the at least some minor commerce so the players can trade for equipment and stuff. refluff magical items to be era appropriate. Potions shouldn't be in glass but in clay and stuff like that.
Actually I was thinking more about using the lizardy races more instead of cavemen. When I was looking through the bestiary I saw the entry on Troglodytes, and it mentioned how they had great societies before the current races came along, but have since fallen to the cave dwellers they are today, so a proud troglodyte empire is in the works. (though maybe the name troglodyte would no longer be appropriate.)
Also does anyone have any ideas for ancient dragons? Should they pretty much stay the same as from the bestiary or are there other ideas you guys can come up with? I haven't even told my players about this setting so obviously any dragon battling is a long ways away, but I was thinking that maybe the great lizard races are ruled by dragons.
You should totally have a group or individual Time Warden be part of the ongoing story trying to clean up the mess the party is making to the timeline.
The dragons ruling the lizards sounds like and interesting Idea.
I was recommending the cavemen so that the party has some human interaction. If they are stuck their for a while, they might develop relationships with humans that would be much deeper then the would with trogdolites and lizardfolk, possibly even engaging in romantic relationships and such. Diffidently make humans low on the totem pole though. They could be a small little group hidden somewhere and hard to find, so you can bring them in later rather than sooner. Might be interesting having the party teach them and watching the cave people's society grow over time.
Might be a good idea to have an idea of what is going on with each of the standard player races. What are the elves, dwarves, orcs and such like at this time? Are half races even around at this time?
Might be a good idea to have an idea of what is going on with each of the standard player races. What are the elves, dwarves, orcs and such like at this time? Are half races even around at this time?
I think I'm setting this adventure so far in the distant past that the core races may not show up at all. I'm still in early planning stages so that's certainly not absolute. Also as far as PC to NPC interaction, my party has an almost unhealthy obsession with kobolds. What the pathfinder writers seem to feel for goblins my party feels for the scaly dudes. I'm thinking of having them come into contact with a tribe of good/neutral kobolds near the beginning of the adventure. Also I'm considering having them be colored after metallic dragons instead of chromatic, to represent a presently extinct strain of good kobolds.
You should totally have a group or individual Time Warden be part of the ongoing story trying to clean up the mess the party is making to the timeline.
I didn't even know this existed, I'll have to have a look.
I put the kibosh on dinosaurs in my homebrew setting. Partly just to cheese off one of the players who wanted an Allosaurus animal companion, but mostly because I. HATE. THE. ILLUSTRATIONS. IN. THE. BESTIARIES.
Yeah, I'm that shallow and that much of a paleonerd..
But seriously, re-skinning some monsters as dinosaurs is a good idea, and you can use the advanced template to increase the stats of a smaller, less dangerous dinosaur into a more ferocious form (like Allosaurus to Carcharodontosaurus.
Here are a couple of really good links for inspiration:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dinosaurs
http://dinosaurs.about.com/
You might want to look at the Saurials, a 3.5 race of humanoid dinosaurs.
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I'm working on a campaign where the aberrations are the ancient rulers, now in decline, the dragons are the up and coming powers-that-be, and humans are shiny and new. Although there are also ancient australopithicene sorcerer races from way back when, as well as ape-men and giant slave races to the aberrations. It's going to be very Conan and Tarzan-esque, with human tribes few and far between. The nation states, if any, will be draconian with dinosaur, lizardfolk, and troglodyte servitor races. Maybe nagas ruling the dragons, or an intermediate race between the truly bizarre aberrations and the serpentine dragons, with a human face for dealing with human and humanoid servants. The aberrations are mostly underground or under the sea, in the hidden places.