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So I have been working on my own setting.
So far I established that everything happens on my world, essentially the gods have used the nine hells as a prison for a creature which could bring the apocalypse and Asmodeus serves as the warden/jailer of the bottomless pit. The nine-hell are deep within my world core, if you go spelunking deep enough.
The gods live in a city of immortals, somewhere in the frozen north of my setting, preventing any mortal races and non god to come visit.
So before I go on writing the typical setting that can be interchangeable one thousand times over, an elven forest, an undermountain dwarf city etc...decided to come to the internet and check on people ideas to add their little twist/bit to a setting.
Abaddon is a moon orbiting my world with the four horsemen, including Urgathoa as the horsemen of famine there to serve the wrath of the gods, well at least, that what most gods think but the horsemen are building their own little army with stolen souls from secret raids.
Should be noted that I'm going for High Fantasy, with mythic included in my setting with a sense of wonders and amazing discoveries. I consider Mythic being/creatures being very rare but they did exist and some are still alive (didn't write them all down yet).
tidbit I have established, there are only Seven Solars total and six of them can be found on top of the tallest mountain of my world, guarding the tomb of the brother of Asmodeus. Didn't quite decide what to do with the 7th one but keeping my options open.
So toss me some of your ideas, and maybe will be able to make a cool new campaign setting for my players.
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Just think up of a most insane and illogical thing possible and make it all about that.
In one of my homebrew worlds it's all pretty much an infinite tower of bioms with each floor having own rules of physics, demigods and the likes. And how gnomes are like empire from star wars, and halflings are kind of evil. And all the time dimensions or rules break down. And lots and lots of artificial insane races. And a huge wall of fire, and a mist that kills people with touch, and the floor can be lava and death and RAUUUGHH.
You get the idea.
Try going for something like... the moon is not a moon it's a construct. Set in place as a doomsday device by elder gods that were defeated by current gods. And all those gods are now in hell and try to get out since they will be destroyed as well by the construct, if they won't stop it or get the hell out. And the whole world is a machine, since the old gods were actually super advanced robots, made by proto-humans on another world and send to other planets to create paradise. And humans got nerfed when these extrapanar new gods took over and forgot all the tech after half of the world was buried in the battle between the super-machines and the new gods. And there are still high-tech ruins all over the world some 30k years later. Still working on seemingly magic, but it's just science. All magic is science. It's sci-fi mascaraing as high fantasy. New gods are multidimensional aliens... I can go on for hours...
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The generic fantasy world you mention is generic mostly because it's designed to house the same handful of vaguely tolkienian/classic D&D races in their varying homelands. You can make a very different setting pretty easily by changing the line-up.
Settings normally have big spaces for core races and fit the less common races into the gaps. You can alter things pretty dramatically by changing which races are considered core in your world. There are enough assimar and tiefling variants these days that you could make almost everybody an outsider, for example.
You can also use the alternative racial traits to change how your races relate to others and what their homelands look like. Create a set of alternate features to be the baseline of each race in your world and you end up with all manner of odd things, like elves running a huge empire by harnessing their natural ability to speak in dreams to communicate across impassable distances.
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If you want to really make your world unique, have the various fantasy races use a word from their own language as the name of their race, and portray those who stick to the "D&D standard" name as out-of-touch or ethnocentric.
You can also change the standard environment for a race (or at least the majority population of a race).
For example, elves are relatively thin for their height and have large ears. This means they radiate away heat faster than a human, and are thus well-suited for desert life. Give them a name inspired by a Semitic language to subconsciously drive home the desert association. (Shanah, pl. Shanahim? something along those lines).
Contrary to popular belief, having dark skin doesn't always translate to desert survival; what you gain in sunburn resistance has to be balanced by the infrared heat you now absorb. That's why Nubians and Arabs can look so different, despite similarities in their typical climate (Sahara desert vs. Arabian desert).
Desert environments lend themselves to spirituality, so perhaps these desert elves are more inclined to divine magic such as shamanism (or mystic theurges with shamanism), and hold sorcerers in more renown than wizards. In such a case, switch the Int bonus to Wis or Cha, and switch the Con penalty to Str and give the desert elves an alternate racial trait to increase their effective carrying capacity to compensate, plus a bonus on saves against hot weather. Familiarity with a bow could be swapped out for the sling (which, requiring leather and rocks rather than wood, is more suited to the desert).
So you have long-lived keepers of ancient secrets that dwell amid the dunes of the deep desert and atop the windswept rocks of the ancient mesas. You can keep whichever parts of elven lore you like, and alter or discard the rest, replacing it with things grabbed from sources as disparate as the Epic of Gilgamesh and Dune.
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Likewise, dwarves are short and stocky, and thus retain heat well. They would be more at home in colder climates.
Perhaps instead of an undermountain, dwarves live inside glaciers (whether atop or on the side of a mountain, or part of an ice sheet overhanging seas, or just inexplicable blocks of ice of incredible size that dot the landscape in certain areas), with hewn ice instead of stone. These dwarves may have more interest in arcane magic (which is excellent at conjuring something from nothing) than divine to help cope with such a challenging and unusual existence.
If dwarves live on glaciers that border or perhaps float freely upon seas or vast lakes, there could be an interesting divide between dwarves that stay indoors or stick to the glaciertops, and those that take to the water. Dwarves with skill in sailing is a pretty interesting way to play against type.
Given the scarcity of metal (or not, if they have access to powerful arcane magic), glacier-bound dwarves would likely specialize in polearms and spears such as greatspears, glaives, and ranseurs, rather than swords or axes.
An interesting twist would be a sea or ice creature with extremely hard bones that could be used in place of metal when rods, hafts, and supports are needed. Shaping these bones into things like swords or flat sheets can't be done by a blacksmith, so necromancers and boneshapers become socially acceptable in certain capacities if you use this twist. Perhaps the undead forms of the ice or sea monsters serve the dwarves as guardians? Or plague them? Or both?
Perhaps these necromancers take the place of priests for knowledge of the world beyond and the dwarven place in it?
Runes (carved in bone rather than stone) could remain essential to the boreal dwarves and provide a link to some of the standard dwarven traits if you don't want to expel them entirely.
Norse, Viking, and Inuit lore can be used to replace any Tolkienisms you find too trite.
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Orcs and half-orcs, being green, would probably be more at home in a place like a jungle. They (or at least the half-orcs, which need not be a result of human blood, but perhaps a natural evolution or a mystical gift or effect upon full orcs) could build ziggurats, whose peaks could be portals to other places (perhaps, they believe, to where they might perfect what began when they went from orc to half-orc?) If you decide to split half-orc and orc, the full orcs could be slaves to the orcs (a constant reminder of the habits half-orcs try so hard to suppress to remain "civilized,") or live in the jungle dressed in panther skins or snake hides. Perhaps they are allied or beholden to couatls or rakshasas or naga lords.
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I've always disliked canon gnomes. But there may be a way to incorporate them as something other than comic relief.
Perhaps gnomes were once much taller, but their stature shrank as they delved into the secrets of magic and the mind, rather than physical pursuits. Perhaps their magical skill grew so great that they have (or are, or are about to have) attempted eldritch feats (or made war upon each other or an outside threat) of such degree that they have shattered whole portions of the landscape, or shrouded realms with shadow and death. Their skill with illusion may come from a need to hide from an ever-present threat (whether roused by their magic or a holdover from some other place from which the gnomes either hail or attempted to colonize), something gnomes glimpse from the corner of their eye when alone at night or the midst of a crowd. Something that can never be explained to a member of another race, for to know of this terror is to become prey to it as the gnomes are. Perhaps the need to hide from this horror led them to seek even shorter stature to blend into the background and the nooks and crannies of the world.
And explain to the players that these gnomes are called gnomes because the word is related to "gnosis" and "gnomon." This helps dispel their image problems on account of the lawn-ornament and all.
P.S.
Since differentiating halflings from D&D gnomes and Tolkien hobbits is already kind of a pain in the ass to begin with, perhaps replace them with some other race, such as catfolk.
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The doomsday device or moon construct might actually come into play with the four Horsemen.
Those are some great suggestions and yeah halflings always end up being the weird ones in most fantasies, never quite sure what to do with them beside keeping them for "tolkien" legacy. Think I'll drop the halfling from my world or if they appear would be under different circumstances. I recall the bad edit once for pathfinder playtest where Halfling were listed as talking Abyssal, maybe making them into a race subjugated by a demon lord would be more entertaining. Either way, they aren't going to be the core of my world. I can't even count on one hand how many people have played halfling in my group.
I can already see the Half-orcs and orcs fighting for Supremacy in the Jungle vs Naga, Serpentfolks, Rakshashas etc...
The Desert elves focusing their abilities on Shamanism sounds great.
Thanks. You don't need to use all of it.
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For my published Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG), I did a number of things to set it apart from other settings, in many ways making it one of the most esoteric published PF settings out there.
Here's a list of some of the unique aspects of the Kaidan setting:
1. Kaidan is a Japan analog, and an archipelago of islands (designed to be easily dropped into any existing setting, in some ocean somewhere). It doesn't belong to a specific world setting.
2. In a lot of ways Kaidan is like Ravenloft, as a closed planar region. Once you get there, its hard to get out, though unless the borders are closed, you can leave by ship or flight, but you cannot teleport, plane shift or other related means to get out.
3. Humans are the dominant race (and the setting could be played as a human only setting) with kappa, korobokuru, kitsune, hengeyokai and tengu as the only other available PC races.
4. Certain spells either do not function at all, or function differently in Kaidan: Healing spells and Channel Energy gains a -1 penalty per HD in use. Planar travel spells do not function. Raise Dead, Reincarnation and Resurrection spells do not function.
5. At PC Death, there is no means of coming back to life, instead the player rolls on Kaidan reincarnation chart and will either reincarnate to a specific race and class as provided by the Kaidan reincarnation chart, become undead (can be played with added template) or reborn as an infant (essentially ending their adventuring career - roll up a new PC). PCs can live multiple lives through the process of reincarnation. Once you enter the reincarnation cycle, you cannot escape, not even for PCs not from Kaidan only adventuring there. When you die, even if you escape Kaidan, you are bound to Kaidan's reincarnation mechanic, instead of going to your PCs normal afterlife.
6. GM or PC keeps track of acquired karma points that is directly related to any future rolls on Kaidan's reincarnation chart. Karma points come as positive or negative points based on acts the PC commits during their adventuring career. Lawful or good acts grant postive karma, while chaotic or evil acts grant negative karma. Your acts done in life have a direct relationship to who you'll become in the next life.
7. Specific new class archetypes are available to inhabitants of Kaidan through our Way of the Samurai and Way of the Yakuza supplements currently available. New cleric and other archetypes will be available with the upcoming release of the GMs and Players guides to Kaidan. Some of those new archetypes rely on Kaidan's Honor mechanic.
8. There are new monster types and subtypes. Some of Kaidan material was published before the release of some of the Bestiaries, so some monsters and races differ slightly than Paizo created versions.
9. While Kaidan is still high fantasy, the setting is very gritty and can be easily played as low fantasy.
10. Authenticity has been a major concern in the development of Kaidan, so in many ways Kaidan is more like Japan than Minkai, or any previously published Oriental Adventures based setting. Japanese proper names and words are used extensively - Kaidan doesn't use "sounds like Japanese" rather it uses actual Japanese. The monsters cleave very close to Japanese folklore and in many ways differs from its Paizo created counterparts. The very name "Kaidan" is an archaic Japanese word that means "ghost story" and very aptly describes the kind of setting it is.
There are more differences between Kaidan and non-Kaidan PF settings, but these are the major differences.
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I actually do use Way of the Samurai, it gave me a lot of great inspirations for the way I represent different kind of Samurai without forcing my players to pick the Samurai alternate class. I would be curious to see a Kaidan's Mythic Supplement if you ever make one. I haven't finished reading Way of the Yakuza yet but thinking of including it as well.
We're still writing our campaign guides which takes precedence over any other Kaidan development at this time. I know Mythic rules aren't included in the campaign guides, so any option for Mythic would come after the release of those guide books.
Regarding the rules on magic, PC Death and Kaidan reincarnation, the caste system, the cosmology, until the campaign guides get released the only place these currently exist is in the appendices of The Curse of the Golden Spear trilogy - The Gift, Dim Spirit and Dark Path.
Elves and stuff.
In darksun Elves are one of the most adapted races to the desert environment, and are known thieves and scoundrels. Ironically, they are the only fantasy elves I like too! The standard portrayal of elves make them annoy the crap out of me.
So before I go on writing the typical setting that can be interchangeable one thousand times over, an elven forest, an undermountain dwarf city etc...decided to come to the internet and check on people ideas to add their little twist/bit to a setting.
[.....]
So toss me some of your ideas, and maybe will be able to make a cool new campaign setting for my players.
One of the first things I did, ages ago, was the plan for the "pirate isles," my own take on Tortuga, if you will.
When Al-Qadim came out with the Zaratan, I knew I had what I needed. Since Tortuga is Spanish for turtle/tortoise, I made my pirate isle a zaratan - the pirates commisioned their own special/magical astrolabes that lead them back to its current location when they needed to return, and so on. Of course, the "isle" has concealing magic to further help it avoid detection.
This had the added benefit of explaining why the navies of several of my nations hadn't a. found it and b. wiped them off the map.
Additionally, I found that the majority of divination magic was extremely problematic for storytelling reasons. I asked my players their opinion, proposed my solution, and we took a vote. Results? Nine for, one against - many story-breaking divinations were removed.
With a little fluff from the God of Lies & Trickery in my setting, I designated certain "Seers" in various locations (essentially prisons), difficult to reach, as possessing an immunity to his reach, with complete capability of using divination without his interference.
One such Seer, "the Widow of the Web," I jacked from the movie/book Krull and refluffed. Another such, "The Wyrding Sisters," a group of hags (greek style), as well as the Fate Witch (or Sorte Strega) from 7th seas, refluffed.
It has definitely made things vastly more interesting for my players; even the one chap who voted against admitted this to me privately, unsolicited no less.
Hope these inspire!
Elves and stuff.In darksun Elves are one of the most adapted races to the desert environment, and are known thieves and scoundrels. Ironically, they are the only fantasy elves I like too! The standard portrayal of elves make them annoy the crap out of me.
Ah, the only published elves I've ever liked are those of the Birthright campaign setting, called the Sidhelien. The Sidhelien are enchanted beings related to fey and do not worship gods at all (there are no elven gods), rather depending entirely on arcane magic, which thematically makes complete sense to me, just as elven deities never made sense to me.
Another homebrew of mine, one I'm still working on is set in the early iron age, with humans as Celts. However, since I am more into at least emulating authenticity, the druids of these Celts are nothing like D&D/PF druids, being an archetype or alternate class of the Oracle. Celtic druids are the academia and law-givers of Celtic society - they don't shapechange. Also the Celts are illiterate, though they have great memory. Wizards use runes and tattoo magic instead of scrolls and spellbooks.
The primary threat of this setting is the Caillech Bheur or winter hag, which is a lesser deity bound to a glacial prison. She is the goddess queen of ogres and giants, and had one time been the most powerful deity during this world's last Ice Age. She is trying to acquire certain items to perform a ritual which would cause global cooling and a return of the Ice Age, allowing her to escape her prison and once again become the primary goddess of the world. Having mustered an army of ogres, giants and white dragons, she is trying to keep the Celts in a defensive mode and not able to prevent her from performing her dire ritual. Of course the campaign is the PCs to trying to prevent this from happening.