Hello
I’m working on a new homebrew campaign with pathfinder rules the world settings are quit different.
It has the work title SKYLANDS
So long long a go this world was trouble by a demons and devils up rise. After decades of horrific battle the odds where turning against the good guy’s. A college of Wizards saw no other way then to build a grand device to “nuke” hell for once and for all. When they send the bomb down it did defeat all the demons and demons and cleared the world of this menace. There was just one small problem. The blast (witch was enormous) shatter the worlds from the inside out. There is nog core and the world splintered in large & small floating and flying islands.
It did not take long before the people realized what did happen and turned on the Wizard college and all the magic users in general. While clerics were mostly spared wizards and sorcerers were hunted down for years and years and most of them thrown off these new islands in the sky.
With the years to come, a new form of trade established between the islands. With the Islands moving in archipelago’s around a central bright core in a parabolic way. Trade between these island groups does occurs twice a year because the groups move very close to each other. Actually the one group moves under the other and there a dropping moment. It also gives opportunity’s for smugglers operations. The other option for trade is the highly expensive airships witch go very slow but can travel between the islands every moment of the year.
With the most Islands being self-supporting with food and livestock life is not that hard on the islands as you think. But it is uncomfortable especially with the missing of the arcane magic in this world.
There is no more teaching in the arcane and the sparsely sorcerer that makes it to an adult age becomes hunted down for witchery. Most of the religions died out throughout the ages because peoples stop believing in a god that let them destroy their planet. The remaining clerics are followers of the nature god ‘Ambior’ witch has the only domains fire, water, earth, wind. Druids on the other hand are more and more common. On the Islands where there are great city’s the old religions are still followed although that the numbers of followers are small.
So far so good I think let me know what you think of the idea !
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I like the floating islands theme. You might want a central portion of the planet to remain - one that is inhospitable and dangerous. There could be caverns and magma and demons here to serve as an "underworld" or "hell". No one in their right mind would travel here, but it can serve the plot at high levels. Maybe it's corny, but this is also an opportunity to explore air travel, even if it is primitive and dangerous. Ships, flying beasts, elves with wings, etc. there should be a bunch of flying monsters in this world too.
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Very interesting, I have done floating islands before as well. Just curious though... what happens if you fall to the center?
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1) What, exactly, are your plans for this world? It sounds like you want it to be pretty low magic due to all arcane magic being banned and most divine magic residing only with nature magic.
2) What is keeping the floating isles from forming back into a planet? I mean, I know "magic" but they each have an atmosphere and have an orbit and unless some of them are missing they theoretically ought to be able to reunite - though, bumping into one another could be disastrous. Also, what happened to the oceans? Are they just floating blobs of water?
3) Where were the celestials during all this?
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It works well. I've been running a campaign world called "Skylands" for about 20 years, now. The airships which connect the islands and the isolation that many of the continents/skylands possess with respect to one another can be an extremely good way to combine many different cultures and themes into one campaign.
Great minds think alike, eh? :)
Kudos! Go for it! And post updates!
I'd love to see what you come up with and compare to what I've been doing.
Yours,
Sylvan (Dave)
Thank you for the complements and I hope that these answers could give some satisfaction !
1) What, exactly, are your plans for this world? It sounds like you want it to be pretty low magic due to all arcane magic being banned and most divine magic residing only with nature magic.
That’s true. The idea of the world is that magic is some sort of underground theme. For the magic items there is nog problem because they can be manufactured by cleric’s and druids (or other spell casters). Is also gives the more experienced players a cunning edge that they have to deal with arcane magic as an illegal thing.
2) What is keeping the floating isles from forming back into a planet? I mean, I know "magic" but they each have an atmosphere and have an orbit and unless some of them are missing they theoretically ought to be able to reunite - though, bumping into one another could be disastrous. Also, what happened to the oceans? Are they just floating blobs of water?
This is something that I have explain with more details. All the Island are floating in parabolas (as I already explained) around some kind of glowing globe in the centre of the (once) planet. The glowing globe is actually a grand device that creates gravity.
But I must take you all on a side line hear. So after the cataclysm effect caused by the Wizard College the core of the earth exploded (a big bang) all the island started to drift upwards to space. The wizard college (who also had some intelligent people within there ranks) quickly realized what went wrong. The bright ones travelled to the island that was closed to the once centre of the planet and start building a device to stop the island from floating a way in to space. After a while they succeeded in there plan and eventually creating a gravity that could keep the island to getter around this specific island. Because this island is not the real centre of the world that’s why the island move in a parabola way. The one thing the wizards could not achieved is to reunited the island into a real world but the can manipulated the course of the island if they want to ! But not closer to the centre (magic has his limits).
The oceans … they do disappeared and are now gigantic clouds traveling around on the winds of the world. These gigantic cloud are actually quit handy, the island move through these gigantic clouds and this causes it to rain and refill the lakes, rivers and seas
The world atmosphere is still in function and the island just floats in this atmosphere.
3) Where were the celestials during all this?
The celestials sacrificed them self for the sake of the world. They may be the reason why the whole world isn’t destroyed and it are these celestials that maybe gave the remaining wizard the time to complete the device that creates the gravity.
4. Just curious though... what happens if you fall to the center?
Well after a while the wizards have made the center island into a grand device of gravity. They start noticing that other wizards where falling down (because they where thrown down by angry mobs) and just before they smacked on the surface (some of them) activated there feather fall spell and softly landed. With the growing number in the first day’s, weeks and months the wizards realized they have to build a refuge for them self. So they start to build a wizards home for their own and manufactured a golden globe around there island so that eye’s from far away could not see them. ( with the reflection of the sun you get one shining globe in the center of all the floating islands) That these wizards are a bit unorthodox (they blow up there planet to get rid of devils and demons) is again made clear in there way to sustain the gravity device. This grand device needs a fuel to work. And no one knows who came up with the brilliant idea but the fuel for the device are … dead body’s (slik). So I’ve you fall the golden globe kill’s you but it saves you’re body (as a catching net). The golden globe detects what fall on it globe and at what speed and I’ve you speed is slow you can safely travel through the globe.
After the first years after they build their new home. The wizards started to sending wizards up to all the islands and started to manipulate the funeral rites (with the religions dying out easy peasy) so that deceased persons were giving back to the sky. The peoples also believe that the golden globe in the center is some kind of gateway to a better world.
That’s all for now I guess
Keep those questions coming !!!
It works well. I've been running a campaign world called "Skylands" for about 20 years, now. The airships which connect the islands and the isolation that many of the continents/skylands possess with respect to one another can be an extremely good way to combine many different cultures and themes into one campaign.
Great minds think alike, eh? :)
Kudos! Go for it! And post updates!
I'd love to see what you come up with and compare to what I've been doing.
Yours,
Sylvan (Dave)
Thank you for your reply and a composed all the answers to one great reply ! AND YES WE MUST BE GREAT MINDS !!!! :)
Give the arcane casters Bluff and Disguise so that players have the option to play one.
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I started a thread for a similar concept a while back. I've been working on it off and on ever since, but I don't think I'll really be doing anything with it for a while. If you want to delve the thread for ideas, feel free. In particular, I'd like to recommend Jester David's series on world-building (linked to in his first post on the thread). While it isn't definitive, I find you can never read too many articles on world-building, and it definitely brings up a lot of good points.
Also, I should note that what my setting looks like towards the end of the thread is quite different from what I described at the beginning. The main idea is the same, of course, but a lot of things ended up changing. It's pretty well fleshed out for a homebrew campaign world now - deities and some cultural implications drawn from them, general outline of history, some countries and international powers, etc. - although still pretty far behind being publishable, as was my initial intent. ^^;
Thank you for your reply and a composed all the answers to one great reply ! AND YES WE MUST BE GREAT MINDS !!!! :)
Reading your description, we have very different origins and rules in our worlds, indeed! Mine is more like a cross-dimensional, "bottom-of-a-well" in which chunks of different worlds fall through. Their native elements are converted (along with things that "don't belong") by Storm Dragons. Excess air becomes air crystals, excess fire becomes fire crystals and so on. Earth crystals tend to hold the islands together and, when some collide, may get fused into a larger island. Air crystals, embedded in the islands, keep them afloat ... mostly. Over millions of years, different layers evolved with 20+ races. People argue over why the Storm Dragons summon chunks of other worlds to this central location but that's a mystery for my players. :)
I love your description of the blazing core. I can envision enthusiastic players wanting to see if they can tap it for power ... despite what wizards in the world might say to them about it. <chuckles>
Have any of your players brought that up, yet?
Yours,
Sylvan