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[DnD Fourth Edition] Setting and Campaign Creation
Hexmage-PA
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I just got it stuck in my fool head today that I want to make my own campaign setting. While I search through my old 3.5 material and my newer 4E material for inspiration, does anyone have any neat ideas for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting? I'd also love hearing about your own campaign worlds.
Going by the "Points of Light" model, I'm going to start out with a small area, a vague idea of what the rest of the world is like, and the world's gods.
Hmm...do I want to start with a frontier area? Or maybe an archipelago?
Going by the "Points of Light" model, I'm going to start out with a small area, a vague idea of what the rest of the world is like, and the world's gods.
Hmm...do I want to start with a frontier area? Or maybe an archipelago?
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What I think I'm going to do is pick an out of the way village and start there. Said village will come under threat, and the PC's will be young villagers who decide they want to step up and be Adventurers.
As for the world itself, I'm not even at the point where I'm worried about a map, I just have some vague notions as to where certain things are. (ie to the north are the Hinderlands, home of a proud but brash human culture that borders the Dwarven mountain keep Hamarrsettarung, in which sit the 9 Dwarf Lords and the Dwarf King, etc)
Making a compelling world is about enabling freedom while setting up conflict and drama...it's a lot of work.
Sources of possible inspiration:
Check out the Forgotten Realms 4e campaign book. Steal and modify at will.
Check out a homebrew wiki for ideas.
Check out the Arcana Wiki.
Find a favorite novel and adapt it.
Listen to a lot of movie trailers and think "In a WORLD...."
Considering "frontier area" is pretty much the default, I would suggest the archipelago. Perhaps the pantheon could be animal totems, similar to the Hawaiian/Somoan or Inuit mythologies.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
The Abyssal Dinosaurs of Feasting Isle
Once the gods had fashioned the Material Plane out of the resources culled from the Elemental Chaos they decided to create living things to populate the world they had made. These deities decided on a balance: the most powerful creatures would reproduce slowly, and the weaker would propagate rapidly. Things didn't always go as planned and sometimes one group of creatures would gain the upperhand, such as the scaly beasts known now as the dinosaurs.
When it became clear that the terrible lizards would dominate globe the gods attempted to wipe them out with a great catastrophe. What exactly that catastrophe was is unknown; some say the gods let the tempest of the Elemental Chaos overtake the planet and wipe it clean. Others say a serpent of unbelievable size devoured the dinosaurs before retreating to sleep in the depths of the ocean. What is certain is that some of the dinosaurs survived their intended extinction. Many of the beasts lived on in the lightless caverns of the Underdark, periodically emerging in the wildest jungles and most remote islands of the world.
Of these savage locales one has gained an infamous reputation in the tales of mariners: Feasting Isle. Very few claim to have ever set foot on Feasting Isle. Most sailors who have seen it can only recount seeing the tips of curved peaks in-between storm clouds at sea. Accounts of the island are chiefly found in the writings of accomplished adventurers.
A perpetual tempest surrounds Feasting Isle, and once a ship breaks through the storms its crew find themselves rapidly sailing down into a great depression in the sea. Situated at the nadir of this depression lies an island made up of dozens of great, wickedly-curving mountains of astounding size that call to mind dagger-like teeth encircling the gullet of an awful beast. Great rivers of sea water flow between the bone-white mountains, and dense jungles populated by elemental dinosaurs, evil humanoids and demonic creatures crowd their flanks. Those who have journeyed farthest into the island claim that the rivers of sea water pour into a massive hole in the world that emanates a red light.
How could anyone return from such a place? Those who have cannot recall how they escaped, leading many to dismiss the island as a mere story. It doesn't help the survivors' credibility that the island isn't limited to one location. Some say the storm takes people into some primordial part of the Feywild, while others believe that the island is the mouth of the mythical world serpent and that the ancient flora and fauna found between the curved mountains are remnants of the serpent's last meal.
The truth is that chasm in the center of Feasting Isle is a portal to the Abyss. A powerful demon known as the Dinosaur King was somehow formed during the intended eradication of the dinosaurs. The fiend has made itself the patron of the banished creatures and has warped the most fearsome of their kind into demonic monstrosities. The rest of the island forms as an extension of the demon's domain when the portal opens, allowing the abyssal dinosaurs to temporarily re-enter the world that the gods banished them from.
Feasting Isle never reforms identically, but those unfortunate enough to find themselves on the island always face the abyssal descendants of primitive life forms once native to the Material world. May the Gods have mercy on the poor souls who remain on the island when it is absorbed back into the Abyss.
I hope to one day expand this into a demonic Dinotopia. Special thanks to Dinosaur Satan for the font of inspiration.
I'm a fan of the Tremors series, so I thought a setting with a climate along the lines of Arizona or Nevada that is infested with underground monsters would be interesting. However, an archipelago would be convenient: if I ever got tired of one area, it's as easy as getting the PCs to another island. I could even treat each island as its own demiplane with its own unique features. Though I never used it, I once drew up a map where practically every island was home to a different sentient race from the from the first two 3.5 Edition Monster Manuals.
As for the gods, I'm divided on the issue of whether I should create a new pantheon or just insert the default pantheon. Maybe as a compromise I could create new aspects of the core pantheon that are more thematically appropriate to whatever type of setting I choose to make. I have toyed with the idea of a Voodoo-type religion whose followers appeal to intermediaries of a supreme being.
I've looked through the DMG's advice on world building. I don't think I want to alter any of the "Core Assumptions", but I am thinking about reducing the dominance of the civilized races, particularly humans. A world where the major cities are run by monstrous races and the "civilized" races are treated as second-class citizens.
As for a theme, I think I've settled on a mix of Horror and Swords and Sorcery. The PCs get to be super badasses most of the time, but every now and then they might encounter a terrible being from the Far Realm that they can't just hack-and-slash to death. Instead, they have to perform a complex ritual to banish the aberration, or maybe all they can do is hold it back while they give helpless bystanders a few more seconds to flee.
I rediscovered the "Lands of Mystery" map that came with the last print issue of Dungeon. I might use it for my own campaign world; if not, I'll certainly "borrow" some of the cool, evocative names, like the Volcanic Stronghold of Dreadforge, Outworld Plateau, Harrowfen, the underwater city of Deep Aquilon, and the Obsidian Spire nestled between the Blacksteel Peaks and the Hollowspine mountains.
For variety, the party could be asked by the NPC to accompany him to university towns to meet with Loremasters who may have researched the phenomenon. That would provide non-combat encounters, and allow me to model some stuff on Cambridge and its environs, giving the other students I play with the odd bit of "I recognise that!" humour (it worked when we went to 13th century Cambridge in an Ars Magica campaign).
The general state of academia would follow the "points of light in the darkness" model, with scholars being viewed with the same reverence as magic users. As such, knowledge = power = danger, and the world would be based on that fact.
Any abandoned buildings that the party have to go through would be big on traps, as they would have been the strongholds of intelligent tinkerers. Some traps would be the basic "hits your reflex for 1d6 damage", but as the previous occupants would have been aware that they were going to be invaded by powerful beings, there would be logical traps and mindfuckery to inject a bit of a lateral thinking component in there as well.
In general, I prefer urban sprawl and indoor combat, as it allows for more tactical combat and a sense of heroism as the mundane is contrasted with awesomeness - a battle in an alchemist's lab, with bottles of various potions and concoctions spilling everywhere, seems quite an entertaining setup. Keeping the world on the small world of academia also dispenses of the need for a vast overreaching political system which you spend hours working out and the players ignore past getting the names right for the wiki writeup.
This would be better if you secretly had him be gathering information & currying favor with the hand and attempting to find the eye as well. Late paragon tier his plot would get revealed and the PCs would be forced to kill him once he'd gotten the eye. Then, epic tier would get spent figuring out how to destroy the eye/hand.
A good way to work with that is to significantly increase experience gains, so that the PCs gain levels much faster. This allows you to experience a wider range of levels in a shorter amount of time, so that you're not stuck with a pile of level 4 adventurers or half-finished campaigns.
Long ago, the king of a small kingdom pledged himself to Asmodeus in exchange for a great empire. A mysterious woman arrived soon after and become the king's mistress, then consort, and finally his queen. Their son was born a handsome, powerful cambion.
Whereas his father's reign had been long and uneventful, the son murdered his father soon after birth and doubled the size of his kingdom in a decade. The same thing happened with his son, and his son's son, and so on for generation until the empire was one of the greatest in the world.
Eventually, though, the incredible success of the devilish monarchs slowed and finally stopped. At the same time the line's progeny became less comely, and eventually grotesque. Each ruler's queen assumed more power than the last.
A strange and terrible event happened with the birth of the empire's last king several centuries ago: the queen ordered the empire's greatest nobles to the castle on the eve of her son's delivery. The next day she gave birth to her son and immediately rose, ordering her subjects to assemble the nobles in the throne room.
Once they had all gathered the queen held her son up for all to see. The child had a fiendish countenance, but its body was gnarled and deformed. To the horror of the mundane specators she drew a dagger and slew the infant before their eyes. She then turned to her degenerate husband and gently told him to move from his throne. The king's glassy eyes stared vacantly at nothing in particular as he complied.
The queen took the throne and immediately transformed into a beautiful, bat-winged lilitu. She explained to all the empire's leaders that she was taking the throne; after all, the queen had assumed the duties of the last several generation's mentally deficit kings, so why not take the throne officially? After this pronouncement the Lilitu Queen instructed the cambions, alu-fiends and tieflings among the nobles to slaughter those in attendance without infernal blood.
The Lilitu Queen's plan had entered the next stage. Ever since that first king pledged himself to the devils of the Nine Hells, the lilitu had served as each monarch's wife in a new mortal disguise, crippling the ancestral line through inbreeding until she could rightfully take control of the empire. The daughters she sometimes bore and the male and female offspring of secret affairs overtook several of the noble houses.
At present the empire is a territory of the Nine Hells. The Lilitu Queen's extended family is in charge of nearly every facet of government while the Queen herself answers to the archfiend Malcanthet. The empire's army is known as the Hellsired Legion and is composed primarily of humans and tieflings with small numbers of cambions and lesser devils.
Personally I've just decided to use the standard gods. That way it will be easy to copy-and-paste DnD mythology into my own campaign setting. Have you put any thought into new gods yet? Do you have any ideas?
Right now I'm trying to think of another title for the queen I posted about last time. DnD already has a "Succubus Queen", Malacanthet, although rather than being a queen who just happens to be a succubus she is the Queen of Succubi.
Right now I'm just working with the vanilla 4E setting as I get used to the rules and the game again, but I love world-building (in the PnP RPG sense).
A while back, way back, like in 2nd edition, I had a setting that was basically a combination of Greyhawk, Planescape, and Discworld. It was a giant ever-expanding continent flying through space with a planar-nexus at its center. Basically anyone and anything could end up there, and the world would expand to fit them.
It made for some interesting party compositions.
"It doesn't have a name. Seriously."
I'll throw a more pitchy description and history here later, maybe. I don't have my usb drives with me and I'd hate to post inaccurate info and emo over how wrong it is. The gist of it is functional magic powered technology. The galaxy is split into 3 major factions, one large government of folk who fall into the "40k Emperials / Necromongers / Etc" tropes (although their conquered worlds are damn near utopias) , and another loose coalition of the willing, and a third powerful group who everybody leaves alone because they'd just wreck everyone else.
There's a touch of ascension, much ancient technology, supercorporations and lost civilizations within it. Also, the gods are just really powerful pseudophysical beings. The majority of them are just the descendants of ancestors of this galaxy's population. Mortal's worship is like a drug, better than sex and just as addictive for many of them.
The time period covered in the setting varies a lot, and there are multiple eras to play in. The last campaign involved the players trying to stop a cult from gaining access to a source of that would allow them to become "gods". As it was set in a later date, their other characters had done their adventures and died/settled in places. It was interesting watching a player investigate how his old character was killed later on. I used a mixture of book "gods" and my own "gods", but confusion between expected performances and realities kept their interactions mostly to lore.
It's currently undergoing a 4E conversion and reboot for pnp/pbp play. Which will take some time, really. It's mostly just revising and re-flavoring classes. The PERSONA system meshes almost perfectly with how 4E handles character powers though. I may try and run a game of it here one indefinite day in the future, as I don't really have a RL group of players atm.
Zephyr
I'm running this here. Zephyr is a smaller version of my main 'verse. It features certain recurring factors and concepts, and is technically in my main 'verse. It would fit in on the timeline as the period before space travel was widespread again, and also before the gods hit their final downward spiral. Instead of a galaxy, it occurs on a planet of unknown size. Individual planets have been replaced by "drifts", which are floating tracts of land whose weather and days differ by altitude, height, etc.
It's powers are also broken down two divisions, those who live on the surface (lowborne) and those who live in the drifts (highborne). This division was the partial product of the presence of a "goddess" who directly interacted with the people and then up and left, leaving her floating citadel of awesome behind. The rest was just classism and some other things.
Then there are three major factions, one of which are really aggressive, jingoistic traders, a coalition of jingoistic highborne nations, and faction whose sole purpose is profiteering. Various relics are scattered throughout from an older civilization, dubbed wonders, that they vie for control of.
For this campaign, the traders have maneuvered their way into gaining possession of some particularly powerful weapons, and felt prompted to wreck some things. Their rampage is stopped temporarily when floaty citadel of awesome returns, and the party has been requested to destroy the weapons and their war machine. The catch is they must do so subtly, while giving more details would just really start spoiling the shit out of things.
Currently I'm trying to parse out who I want for the overarching Big Bad of the campaign world to be. My first thought was an ancient Necromancer who would periodically rise to challenge the living for control of the world, but that's been done. My current idea is a Lizardfolk Sorcerer King, last of a race older than the Elves, all but extinct. His anger at his peoples fall is so great that he is willing to do whatever it takes to destroy or dominate all lesser races. I figure he'd have taken command of what lizardfolk are left, and using ancient magics they set about to take over the world.
I'm also working on the big powers of the world and what their attitudes are. So far I've got;
Humans- There is the large central human Kingdom. Fairly benign and means well, but is in control of such a large area it's barely able to keep itself under watch, let only press out anywhere with any sort of speed. You've also got a few separate human cultures with their own leadership, still working on them.
Dwarves- The Dwarves have their mountain realm in the Hinderlands to the north, and pretty much keep to themselves. They have decent relations with the humans of the North, but in general the dwarfs like to be left alone.
Elves- My elves are more Wood Elf than most, and they have their home in the Old Wood, but they travel a lot to explore forests throughout the realm. Not much of a 'nation' as opposed to a loose collection of individuals who share common goals. No Elf army to speak of, though there are a few groups who dedicate themselves to the protection of certain areas.
Eladrin- The Eladrin's home is to the southwest, a series of islands that are very difficult to get to without the Eladrin's help, and they don't give it out. Arrogant to an extreme and very xenophobic, they flat out refuse to deal with outsiders of any race, and any who 'invade' their lands is sentenced to immediate death.
Orcs- The Orcs rule the plains of the west, and are constantly fighting off encroachment from various gnoll, hobgoblin, and minotaur tribes. My Orcs aren't evil, merely nomadic and aggressive. After generations of war the human nation in the west (a collection of 'Houses' governed by a Chancellor) a peace was finally struck between the two, helped by an arranged marriage between Noble son and Orc princess.
I'm probably worrying too much about DnD "canon", though, especially since they just changed succubi to devils anyway.
I once had an idea for a world built upon celestial political intrigue. There's only one supreme being with many intermediaries and they are its only connection with the world. The supreme being itself is for the most part more of a force. The nations of the world compete for the favor of the intermediaries so that their prayers may be considered by the celestial court. If the nation's request is accepted then the supreme being makes the desired outcome occur.
The focus of most adventuring parties would be simply to survive in the nations that haven't received a blessing in quite some tmie, but the most skillful adventurers would be contracted to aid their homeland by increasing its standing in its intermediary's eyes or by making another nation look bad.
I'm not sure how divine, arcane and primal classes would fit into a world like that. Perhaps arcane classes could have a weak connection with the supreme being and the divine classes could be the servants of the intermediaries. As for the primal power source, maybe the intermediaries replaced an older system that the primal classes still rely on.
I don't think I'd be capable of running a campaign heavy in political intrigue, though.
Or could you? BUM BUM BUMMMMM.
The only well-defined part of the world so far is the Holy Parthan Empire, the frontier of which the PC's are on. For those that want to read the (extremely rough) setting info:
The Parthan Empire was once the largest empire in the known world. Stretching from the Calceon Ocean in the East to the Mountains of Smoke in the west the Empire was ruled from the Capitol city of Parth under the sole rule of the Emperor. Sadly, those days have long past. Incursions from both human and Orcish barbarians poured over the Mountains of Smoke nearly a thousand years ago, taking advantage of the already-crumbling infrastructure of Parth. Internal bickering among the noble houses further weakened the Empire until, in less than a generation, the mighty empire of Man was no more.
Two hundred years ago, a hero named Victor Strom set about uniting the now-disjointed settlements. Under the guidance of Pelor, Strom marched across the land forming treaties and alliances until his death at the age of forty-five, after claiming only one-half the territory he sought to unify. He called his creation the Holy Parthan Empire, and set his new capitol on the ruins of the old. Now, however, the Empire has become fractured. Strom left no heir, and so it fell to the nobles to elect a new Emperor from within their own ranks. So it has been ever since, and with each passing generation the Emperor’s influence weakens. The appointment is meant to be for life, but more than once the nobles have impeached their ruler and replaced him. So it is then, that Emperor surrenders most of his power to his inferiors for fear of losing what little remains. Emperor Victor III sulks in the capitol and dreams of regaining the status of his namesake.
The Barony of Neb:
A small Barony on the eastern end of the Empire. Baron Karl Shultz rules from his seat in Norton, but like most nobles spends most of his time in Parth engaged in courtly politics. The barony is often under assault from the undead forces of the east and from the inhabitants of the Deepwood Forest.
The Township of Vale:
Vale is a small town on the edge of Neb. It sits along the Old North Road about twenty miles from Dur, the realm of the undead. It’s proximity to that region make the townspeople devout followers of the Raven Queen, who pray constantly to hear to protect them from the undead and indeed from undeath itself. The people are very superstitious and have many beliefs about warding off the evil eye, the best way to keep one’s children from being taken by banshees, and the like. The town itself is ringed by a sturdy wooden wall, and almost none of the local populace live outside its protection.
The Deepwood Forest:
The Deepwood is the largest forest in all of the Empire, and it covers fully one-third of its landmass. Much of the wood is civilized in nature, carefully patrolled by members of the various watches and guards and perfectly safe to walk in, so long as one stays to the roads. However, deep in the forest are pockets of Shadow. Massive spiders and insects patrol there, rather than civil races, and they seek only to feed. There are more than a dozen goblin tribes that live in the Deepwood, as well as several towns inhabited by the Shadar-kai, humans who have been touched by Shadow and share in its mysterious ways. There also exists a xenophobic group of elves who have spent eons fighting the darkness and hold little love for the men who claim dominion of their forest.
The Barony of Dur:
Nominally part of the Empire, Dur fell under the control of a mysterious figure known only as The Baron during the time of Victor Strom. Some even claim that the Baron was the one responsible for Strom’s early death. Regardless, since the Baron took over Dur a dark cloud has covered the once-green farmland. Dur lies at the eastern edge of the Deepwood and Neb. Due to the fell nature of Dur, a large population of Shadar-kai live there now, most fight against the enemy of their god, the Raven Queen, but some have fallen to the seductive ways of the Baron. The land is rife with roaming zombies and packs of ghouls. Shades and wraiths roam freely across the landscape reaping the souls of the few living souls that remain. Occasionally refugees trickle into Neb, but most never make it that far: the serfs of the Baron are kept in their place by his many minions. Raids both into Dur and out of it occur regularly, but thus far Dur has not launched a major campaign, and any such campaign to drive out the Baron has met with dismal failure. Soldiers who once marched into Dur now server its master in the legions of the undead.
Other Races:
Dwarves:
The dwarven civilization split in two in the time before the first Parthan Empire. To the north, in the Chazak mountains, live the Iron Mountain Dwarves. These are the ancestral dwarves. Over the eons they have build massive subterranean strongholds, hewn from solid stone and filled, it is rumored, with magical weapons and armor dating back to the War of the Gods. The Iron dwarves are masters of war, and they claim that though they have not won every battle, they have never lost a war. Brilliant engineers and weaponsmiths, when they move to war, the earth shudders beneath the weight of their siege weapons and the rank after rank of heavily armed soldiers.
South of the Holy Parthan Empire and the Deepwood lie the rolling Hazzad hills. In those hills dwell the Copper Hill dwarves. While their cousins specialize in the arts of war and weapon craft, the Copper dwarves are expert craftsman and tinkers. Intricate jewelry of spun copper and gold are their purview, as well as the delicate techniques of weaving mithril and other chain armors. The ways of war are not unknown to them however. One of the most elite units in the area is the feared Hammer of Moradin, a group of highly trained dwarven rangers who specialize in throwing hammers. The two tribes of dwarf have settled the difference that drove them apart and now behave toward one another as siblings: it is fine if they harass one another, but woe be to anyone else who attempts to do so. The two groups also conduct a great amount of trade with one another: raw ore from the mountains for finished goods from the hills.
Dragonborn:
Few of the draconic men live in the Empire itself. Most live in outlying areas far away from humans. Some dragonborn resent the humans for their nominal success in resurrecting their great empire. The dragonborn have had no such luck. Their own kingdom fell to dust so long ago that most humans don’t even know that it existed, and even a few of the longer-lived races barely remember it. The dragonborn remember, though, and look back at their former glory with sadness. Some have decided to join the humans. The Emperor’s Guard is a fearsome unit of dragonborn warriors who are fiercely loyal to the Emperor himself The Guard the one thing that protects the Emperor from the machinations of his nobles. Many a rebellious lord has surrendered without a fight at the sound of the Guard outside his walls unleashing a mighty roar.
Eladrin:
Few eladrin exist in the empire. So few, in fact, that most people assume that they are elves. The truth is that even before the Dragonborn empire the Eladrin left across the Chazak mountains. Every so often one returns to see what has happened to their old homland.
Elf:
Unlike their Feyborn cousins, elves are the second most common inhabitants of the Empire. Elves are descended from a group of eladrin who chose to stay behind when the others left. The majority of elves live in the Deepwood, and are wary of any intruders. Some however have left the woods and roam the cities and towns of men.
Halfling:
Halflings are found throughout the Empire. Most live a nomadic life of entertaining. With no permanent settlement, it is difficult to track down any one specific clan. Many humans see Halflings as thieving, trouble-making wanderers. It is not uncommon for a group of burly locals with clubs to be waiting outside when a Halfling caravan comes to town.
Tiefling:
Most tieflings live in Dur, not because they are allied with the Baron, but because it is the only place in the Empire that they can live unmolested. A few have moved across the boarder into the Deepwood, and even fewer have moved deeper into the Empire, but those that do so risk constant reprisals by people.
In a nutshell: The Empire is roughly analogous to the Holy Roman Empire; a bunch of principalities of various size and influence nominally under the authority of the Emperor but more often too wrapped up in their own intrigues to bother much with him.
I'm basically going to fill in the rest of the world as the characters make their way out of the Empire. The world (which doesn't have a name yet, so any suggestions would be great. ;-) ) is geographically similar to earth. Parth is roughly in Portual and Vale, where the characters are) is near Germany. Though I haven't filled the whole world in exactly, I do know that "China" will be ruled by an empire of Beholders.
I've also got an unfinished and equally rough creation myth, in case anyone is interested...
If you do this, Japan MUST be ruled by Mind Flayers and the Mongolia MUST be Githyanki and Tibet MUST be Githzerai.
Also I'm enjoying reading about people's campaigns.
Several centuries ago an unthinkably massive amount of garbage suddenly and mysteriously appeared in what was once a vibrant coastal area. The flows of refuse pushed up against the nearby mountains, filled valleys, wiped out entire forests and spilled its filth into the sea. The place now known as the Reeking Wastes is an ecological nightmare of pollution and disease.
The sheer amount of decay and magical waste has created both mutant and undead monsters; starving, diseased mutants and undead schools of fish swim where the Wastes touch the sea, and flocks of undead birds and mice gorge endlessly on rotten food buried in the garbage. Several undead versions extraplanar beings have occasionally emerged from the Wastes. Maddened and diseased hill giants and ogres make their homes amid the mountains of trash, and many kinds of mutated humanoids eke out existences in caverns hollowed out in the refuse. Efforts to clean up the Wastes included shipping otyughs to devour the filth, but these measures have seen little effect.
Scholars believe that the massive amount of trash was dumped by a civilization in another plane with access to powerful magic. Though most of the garbage is decayed and unrecognizable more complete artifacts may be buried within. Expeditions to the Reeking Wastes are incredibly dangerous: adventurers face undead, mutants, pits filled with putrid liquid waste, rampant disease, and a mysterious being with an unusual bond to the Wastes known as the Grand Lady.
That could actually make for some cool encounters. You have a lot of potential there for really interesting mixes.
I'm trying to figure out how aquatic races and nature worshipers would react to the pollutants being released into the sea.
That's one reason why Lowborne hate Highborne. Yet they profit off it too. But still, it's the principle.
I'm fond of my idea for the Reeking Wastes' origin: an organization based in the Nine Hells ran a business of collecting the garbage produced by civilizations throughout the multiverse and dumping it in a demiplane that serves as a landfill. A mishap caused the connection to the demiplane to vanish temporarily, causing the latest mass of refuse to appear in the Material Plane.
Of course the individuals in charge of the company (and many of its relatively innocent workers) were punished for their mistake. Those who didn't actually have anything to do with where the garbage was sent were merely destroyed and became the lowest form of devil in the Nine Hells. The executives were sealed into prisons and skewered with holy cold iron lances to suffer forever.
Wait, they're devils, why do they give a shit what happens to the prime material? I'd think they'd just like, laugh it up and move along.
Hmm...it might make sense for the gods to allow some sort of divine intervention to reduce the damage. BTW, I like your aboleth idea, too.
The gods and outsiders more or less keep their influence to a minimum to prevent a war that could potentially annihilate the material plane (I need to explain why angels aren't laying siege to the Infernal Empire of the Lilitu Queen, though). The devils hope to eventually take over the material plane, but screwing with it too much could bring retribution from the good outsiders.
I'm a relative newcomer to the DnD mythos, though. Do you think it would make more sense for the event to not be a big deal?
I've been trying to lay the foundations for a setting inspired by The Flight of Dragons, but as there seems to be virtually nothing established for its history or locations I'll have a lot of pure style and theme to pin down. Unless I can scour the Dragon Knight novels for info.
Yes and no... In its 3.5 incarnation I kept most of the classes the same with little reflavoring (certain prestige classes weren't allowed).
"Magic" was the invocation of some abstract sequence of events to bring about a desired supernatural change by altering a common background energy present in the universe itself. There was 'mathematics' and theory about it, if you would. Certain places were/are more "magical" than others. Magical effects could be whitewashed too in the presence of other particularly powerful ones.
Wizards studied these sequences, and were able to utilize magic because of that. Sorcerers just did, as they did in 3.5. For both of them, the gestures, vocalizations and material sources all were used to spark some this abstract reaction that made magical things happen...
Divine magic was granted (since the gods weren't as godly as standard canon goes) through knowledge of similar sequences, and Clerics just went to a different college to learn their trade. The deities could grant powers as well, and many did though, mostly through blessings.
Other general magical effects were granted through an organ called PERSONA, which everybody is born with. It simply handls the "abstract sequences" for the user. It also allows for a passive connection to the 'verses equivalent of the internet, and allows for communication too, with the aid of other devices. The system worked such that a fighter could buy the sequence for a spell, and use it once per day. There's more to it than that, but that's the gist of that part. It'll really works well with 4E's setup... at least, in theory.
Generally, if a person manages to get killed in my campaigns, that's it. Story wise, resurrections trivialize the shit out of everything. [strike]The same with healing[/strike]. I don't baby my players, but at the same if you manage to get yourself killed or fucked up badly it's usually because you've put yourself in a position where you shouldn't have been. Particularly in combat.
Fortunately, I've only had a few near-deaths to deal with. As in, the next failed save you will die from damage/environment type stuff. But people pull through. I haven't killed a player in my games... yet.
In the world I'm designing Resurrection is going to be fairly rare if only because finding someone who's of sufficient power to cast it is not going to be easy, nor is convincing them to go through all the effort. And once the PC's get of sufficient power to cast it themselves, well, they still have to give the Gods a good reason as to why they should break the rules for this individual.
As lucrative as it might be for someone to develop such an 'anti-magic' knowledge-based class (especially one that is more than the 'I take away your ability to play' silencing junk), in my case I had been trying to evoke the underlying themes and more-traditional style of Flight of Dragons. So the knowledge vs superstition theme carried by its particular plot was less important than capturing the general 'waging age of enchantment'.
It sort of lead to a divergent world-building concept, in that I'm additionally working on a setting whose ancient history features primogenitor dragons, not so much creatures themselves so much as pure expressions of knowledge, magic and will, creating lesser dragon flights and all manner of dragonborn/dragonics, shaping a world filled with countless unrelated humanoids & beast races. Eventually, magical and immaterial beings from 'outside the realm' (I'd prefer not to utilize a structured, alternate world pantheon of planes in this case) began to visit the world as well, which expands the flow of magic and the power of inspiration but allows devils and forces of evil to follow.
This culminates in a war which wipes out most of the races and empires built by mortals and ousiders, until the dragons close off the world from its connections to outside powers. The magical Eladrin race is left with only a few enchanted havens tied to the world, and those who take dwelling in the forests become the uncivilized wood elves; Many other outsiders become 'Tieflings' (not actually demonic in this setting but merely planar creatures in mortal form, their 4e racial powers I read seemed to mesh up with this background). The Dragons that remained were mostly just beasts without strong magic or ethereal bonds, the Dragonborn dwindled to a dying western kingdom, and many of the other races (Humans, Dwarves, halflings, Gnomes, trolls, etc) gradually built up their own civilizations, separated from other races and none of them unified.
It might end up I can fit it in with the basic ideas I wanted to explore with Flight of Dragons, but for now I'm puttering around with it as its own setting.
No idea how I'm going to work Divine powers into all that (invoke the will of the dragon-gods?), let alone resurrection.