(I'll enter my own later)
The Pactlands campaign is a setting for DnD that emphasizes the conflict between Magic and Psionics, represented by two invading groups: the Fae and Gholb. They call this planet Sha-Ur, literally "this world", because it is not their home nor do they intend to remain here forever. Sha-Ur is a world that has been turned into a battleground - a battle that can only end in apocalypse. The Fae are Elves, Sidhe, Pixies, Sprites, Trollkin and others who use spontaneous Arcane magic. The Goblin races, Hobgoblins, Blooblyns, Bugbears, etc are psychics. Both groups abhor iron: it blocks psionics and poisons the Fae. Both groups have pursued their Final Conflict across numerous worlds, utterly ruining them in the process. In this campaign, there is no good or evil: only winners and losers (or so they think...)
Within the combatant races there have always been those who chose peace, and over the millenia their numbers have only grown (both Fae and Gholb are immortal). Here, in Sha-Ur, the Fae and Gholb peace factions were banished onto a subcontinent to the west of the main, pole-spanning continent. There, in the pactlands, they united in desperation and created a third lineage: the half-Fae, half-Gholb humaniods. Tengu, Halfings, Men, Chims and Ogres, all able to use Arcana and Psi, and all tragically mortal. Yes, Chims are basically chimpanzees.
Unlike any of the previous battleworlds, Sha-Ur has it's own cast of sentients, though they are now mostly shadow races, living in slavery and isolation. They are the Grippli, Saurians, Aarakokra, Thrikreen and Dolphins. Unlike the Fae and Gholb, they are in touch with the lifeblood and history of Sha-Ur, and thus its sacred Domains.
Domains are extraplanar areas, home to spirits and Gods. The major domains are Sun, Moon, Earth, Air, Fire, Metal, Wood, Water and Blood, with the three Hidden Domains of Dark, Mind and Death. Each Domian has rulers and a hierarchy of Spirits. In the Sun domain, Helios is King and there are two Queens, Dilukla and Crepsula, the Morning and Evening Stars. The children are the Seven Aspects of the Rainbow (Rufus, Ignismica, Crocea, Viridis, Azul, Punicia and Vinaquilus), and the Prince of the Domain is Sundog. The Domain of Blood has the the Lords of the Elder Races, though all of those peoples have access to the Domains. The Elder Races have Domain Shamans and Favored Souls dedicated to individual Gods. The Humanish races have only Cleric which serve the entire pantheon.
Both the Fae and Gholb have complex religious practices. The Fae, despite or because of their world-destroying drives, have Druids that seek communion with the essence of nature via the Feywild. Gholb revere their departed ancestors, via Mediums and Oracles in touch with the forces of the Shadowlands.
The Pactlands campaign feature a new powersource: Electromagnetism. Disruptors connect bioelectric fields with magnetized iron to generate a field that negates Arcana and Psionic power sources.
The Veritas Nexus:
This Campaign World is a World fractured and distorted by changes in Reality. The turmoil of the past and the forced, altered Reality of the present has caused the seems of Reality in this World to shift and change.
This World, is an artificial-World created by long dead gods, and kept alive by a malfunctioning god-machine. The Angels that once controlled and manipulated the god-machine and gave sentient-life to this World have fled to the four corners of the World.
Out of the chaos of the fallen-city of the Angels, came the Pandorans, these creatures formed out of the fluxes in Reality have altered Reality to suit their needs becoming the "Aristocracy" the ruling body of this World.
This is a World of technology and where the forces of the supernatural come either from the fluxes of Reality, the past-whims of the Angels or the continuously malfunctioning god-machine.
The races within this World that live under the Aristocracy are the:
-Downtrodden, but first-children of the Angels the Caelestis. Formed in a previous Reality, they understand the way to manipulate and warp Reality, giving them untold supernatural abilities.
-The most prolific race, the Humans. They were once Caelestis but the changes of Reality have turned them into this new race, that live in every faction of society.
-An abomination of a race, the Nefas formed from a Human coupling. This race is one tainted by the flux of Reality. Though rumours persist that an Angel also tainted by the flux has special plans for them.
-The followers of the tainted Qashmallim (servant of the god-machine), or so called Lilithium Qashmallim. The Atratus blindly following their living goddess, letting her guiding hand reshape their destiny and they themselves.
In this chaos however comes those called Deviants. A Deviant is someone who unknowingly is born with the potential to shape this fractured reality, most do not reach this potential. Some do, and with each step change Reality around them. All sides in this World know of this and try to control or contain them.
The Angels and the Lilithium Qashmallim send out their cults and spies.
The god-machine sets forth their single-minded divine-servants the Qashmallim.
The Aristocracy sends forth the Clergy to sniff out and eradicate the Deviants.
This World has many forms of advanced technology from; electricity, locomotives, steel-skyscrapers, telegraphs, cartridge-firearms and many other technological wonders.
It is also filled with the supernatural, magic formed out of the bending of Reality around the user, through various means. Prodigium or monsters of every shape, a mistake from the age of the Angels or formed out of the flux live amongst the inhabitants of the World. Some formed prior to the new-Reality have created their own pocket Realities, such as the immoral-Fey.
The fate of this fracturing and distorted World is one left to a select few, be them Deviants or those that have crossed the path of a Deviant. They set the course for a new Reality.
Cheers
hundred of planetoids orbiting a glowing, warmth-giving ball of mixed magical energies. there is breathable air between the worlds. each world has it's own culture(s) and ecology.
i think thats less than 500.
all my games take place in this world
Over a thousand years ago, the goodly races lost a generations long war against the Vedas (commonly called the Old Ones). In the face of extinction, the Magical Society known as the Order of the Gilded Cloak raises cities, farmlands, mountains, and forests into the sky. These floating land masses make up the Fifty six Islands, which form a loose confederation of sorts. The tie between the Islands are Faith, the Order, and the military organization known as the Sky Guard.
The Sky Guard serves as the protectors of the Goodly Races. Their duties are numerous and difficult. They are a fully organized military organization that spans 54 of the 56 Islands. Lead by the Commander-General and his Generals. Each Island's post is lead by a Captain or Colonel.
The major organizations are the Faithful of the Nine Devas, or the Goodly Gods. Each of the Nine has its own religion and organizations. Both the Veda and the Devas are based off of Hindu Mythology. They are mirrors of each other. Nine Vedas and Nine Devas.
In addition, the Order of the Gilded Cloak still exists and, along with the Druids, maintain the Islands. Both groups assist the Sky Guard, but maintain distance from the churches. The Order also creates Air ships powered by magic items known as Mantri's Tears (a la Spelljamming Hell).
The surface is home to the traditional monster races, though many now sit in untraditional positions. The Demons have established a series of fiefdoms after wiping out and enslaving the Devils. The Tieflings are a result of demonic breeding experiments. The Drow were forced from their underground cities. Ironically, they currently inhabit the abandoned Elven cities. Goblinoids fight Orcs for control of a massive portion of the largest landmass.
The fellers that came up out o' Richtor's Mine seemed as surprised to see us as we were t' see them. Stout little polecats, burly and bearded. Thought they was stealin' our town's livelihood, but turned out our silver mine had been replaced with their... well, reckon it was a city, all built into the caves. Like injun pueblos, but out o' the sun.
Jake an' his crew followed the tracks back t' see where the train was, but the tracks just ended 'bout twenty miles out. Th' Comanches was out there waitin', warrin' with some big-eared fellas with bows and swords of all things.
Took about three months afore the feud a'twixt the injuns and the Elves settled down, and them an' us an' the Dwarves all settled in to talk. The Elves had been there the longest of us, couple decades, if their reckonin' of time is same as ours. The Dwarves arrived the same day we and the Comanche did.
They's others, come to find out. Lil' fellas whose name we cain't pernounce. We calls 'em "Halfling", 'cause they's about half the size of one o' us. Some horned critters that look like sons o' Ol' Scratch hisself; we been avoidin' them. Cain't nothin' good come from spawn o' the devil. Big, scaly critters what calls 'emselves "Dragonborn", and what worships some big thing out in the mountains that anybody who's seen it knows ain't the Almighty.
Don't none of us know how we came about this place. And the Dragonborn, who been further out, well, they say there's stranger 'n them about.
An' then there's the Eladrin. They kinda look like th' Elves, but th' Elves don't think so. An' the Elves think somethin' else, too. That the Eladrin is who brought us here, who pulled our little frontier town out o' God's earth and into whatever place it is now.
Some o' our folk are learnin' magic an' stuff from our new neighbors. Reckon that ain't the way I's taught was right, but maybe it's time to change. 'Cause there's things out there, an' twixt you an' me? I ain't sure a six-shooter an' a fistful o' orneriness is gonna take 'em down.
CAptain swift..... That is one fo the most interesting bits of campiagn workd proposal i have ever read. And I usually dislike cowboys and indianstype stuff.
Thanks.
I don't always like a straight-up Western, but I think it makes a tasty seasoning to mix with another genre. Love six-guns and sorcery stuff, and there's not nearly enough of it.
The steady onward plodding of time has erased the origins of Tamal and the world outside it in the mists of myth. No one can say for sure what came before the Time of the Serpents - perhaps the Dragons could, but then even after finding a Dragon in this age of the world who would have the iron in their blood to ask about it?
The Draconic Empires are all but unknown to us, coming down only through the legends kept alive by the dragonkin priesthood that survived the death of Abuz. The Time of the Serpents ended with the ascension of the gigantine realms, chiefly Aegir and Nybilim. However, they too passed when the tyrannous lord Bale One-Eye choked the Thousand Streams and the land of Aegir was consumed by the wasting.
The Cyclopean Isles survived, in chief the city of Ker-yis and its famed golden domes. However, they would not outlast the Eladrin invasions; some centuries after the wasting, these strange people appeared from Jandana (that realm tangential to ours which is not the underworld that men call Duat) and began to establish colonies in Tamal. They destroyed the Cyclops, not content with continuing the old gigantine policy of Cyclomachy that restricted these monstrous cousins of theirs to the isles. Further, they reduced the elegant civilization of the Forest Giants to simple serfdom.
But I digress -- all this was long ago. Few men even know these tales. The dwarves may keep them written down - they have enough laws and codes, but I have never known one of the Graewys or their kin to let a man far enough into one of their settlements to even see the temples they build. Their walls are thick, their hills tall, and even the farmers behind the outwall know secrets of working strange metals. Who else then to ask? The elves have no love of writing - perhaps the Stone Circle whisper their histories to the trees, but we may never know. The halflings are too rootless to know anything before their enslavement in Ker-yis. The tieflings have something deeply wrong with them; I have heard it said that those things which roamed the world before the gigantine wars of cleansing somehow changed them. The Dragonkin are filled with bile over the loss of their empires and their man-slaves. The Eldarin are secretive beyond measure, and they know more of their lost home in Jandana then they do of our history.
So who can we turn to? The College sequesters its members and hordes secrets like a religion. Who knows what dark knowledge they share in that ruin they call a home? There are others of course - the Scholars of the North and more. The priests of each faith will tell you a different answer as well.
What they all neglect is the state of the world. Ruins litter the landscape from each successive failed kingdom or empire. Those that remain are flickering flames at best. Meanwhile, the things imprisoned in the Duat and even farther below, where the very primal elements merge and flame, stir in their prisons. The few struggling lands which remain can barely eek out their existence. Against the dark things in this world stand only a few.
Geneva Lake is a "modern fantasy" version of the real world town of Lake Geneva - in other words, Lake Geneva as it might appear in a 4E version of WotC's Urban Arcana setting, with a 4e-style cosmology: a Feywild, Shadowfell, and so on. In the real world, the lake is "Geneva Lake", while the city is "Lake Geneva". In the fictional version, it's the opposite: the lake is "Lake Geneva", while the city is "Geneva Lake". The town map is used as the campaign map.
The setting uses as much of the real Lake Geneva as legally possible. Trademarked elements within the town - such as a McDonalds - are modified or replaced by their equivalent Urban Arcana brands as deemed necessary by WotC's legal department. However, WotC has acquired the rights to portray and use as much of the town and its citizens as feasible in the game by the following method:
WotC contacted many of the citizens who live in Lake Geneva and sought their permission to use their likeness and biography in the game, and to modify them for fictional use. WotC actually sent a person to Lake Geneva for a few weeks to speak with locals and get their legal signature, photograph, and brief biography. Also, locally-owned businesses were contacted as well, so that they could be used as is. The WotC fellow also stopped by the Walworth County courthouse and library to photocopy as much relevant information as feasible, such as aerial photographs and city directories.
As a mecca for world-hopping adventurers, Geneva Lake is tied into the continuity of the various WotC-owned settings. In or near Geneva Lake, there are several gates to Oerth, Blackmoor, Mystara, Faerun, Krynn, and other D&D Worlds -- and even to other rpg settings owned by WotC such as Gamma World, Boot Hill, and Star*Drive. Otherworldly intrusions bring in D&D adventuring parties and monsters in Geneva Lake and its countryside. Department-7 has a devoted branch there. A Dragons in the Basement adventuring party may consist of either D&D heroes or (a 4e update of) d20 Modern/Past/Future heroes, or a mixture of both. The "D&D Earth" in which Geneva Lake is located, is the home world of the Kids of the D&D Cartoon Show, and was visited by the Wizards Three when they spoke with Ed Greenwood. Geneva Lake is for the D&D Worlds what Arkham, Massachusetts (based on the real world town of Salem) is for the Cthulhu Mythos.
Travis
P.S. "Fun facts" about the setting:
- "An elephant was buried in nearby Delavan Lake during the city's days as a winter home for circus troupes."
- "At the bottom of Lake Geneva you can find: a 50's era cabin cruiser, a Nash automobile, the wreck of the Lucius Newberry...and the Lady of the Lake."
Thanks.
I don't always like a straight-up Western, but I think it makes a tasty seasoning to mix with another genre. Love six-guns and sorcery stuff, and there's not nearly enough of it.
Not always a fan of Western Fantasy, but it sounds pretty interesting...and reminds me of one of my favorite book series that starts with the book 1632. Only with more fantasy than those books have.
As for my own ideas.
It starts witha dream. Your favorite dream in fact, one that you find your self in at the best moments in your life. IN the midst of your dream you see something new, a being of such beauty you can not help but follow it. Through woods, and over hills you follow this being till it leads you to a pair of others, a man and a woman. The man is an old and gentelmanly type, like a favorite grandfather you like...till you look him in the eyes and see nothing but cold darkness dotted wtih light like the space between the stars. The woman, she is a lady in emerald green. Both beautiful and somehow dangerous...like a caged tiger without the cage. Her eyes, solid verdent fields that give no sign of emotion or thought.
The two beings greet you by name, task you with a great destiny, and let fall dice from thier hands. As the dice fall you awaken, in a clearing far from where you slept with others you have never seen before who are just starting to wake as you are.
In a land far form any you have ever seen, where Tieflings and Dragonkin are as common as Elves and humans, a evil is growing. All but a handful of the Gods you know are unknown here, the land is dotted with the ruins of great empires of the past, and you are stuck with people you do not know on a mission to save a world you know nothing about.
As a stranger in this strange land you have to find out what is really going on, who you can trust, and how to get home...all the while the Godly patrons of your group are treating things more like a game than anything else. Just remember, you can't cheat Fate, and while He always wins the Lady never looses.
The Shattered Lands
The steady onward plodding of time has erased the origins of Tamal and the world outside it in the mists of myth. No one can say for sure what came before the Time of the Serpents - perhaps the Dragons could, but then even after finding a Dragon in this age of the world who would have the iron in their blood to ask about it?
The Draconic Empires are all but unknown to us, coming down only through the legends kept alive by the dragonkin priesthood that survived the death of Abuz. The Time of the Serpents ended with the ascension of the gigantine realms, chiefly Aegir and Nybilim. However, they too passed when the tyrannous lord Bale One-Eye choked the Thousand Streams and the land of Aegir was consumed by the wasting.
The Cyclopean Isles survived, in chief the city of Ker-yis and its famed golden domes. However, they would not outlast the Eladrin invasions; some centuries after the wasting, these strange people appeared from Jandana (that realm tangential to ours which is not the underworld that men call Duat) and began to establish colonies in Tamal. They destroyed the Cyclops, not content with continuing the old gigantine policy of Cyclomachy that restricted these monstrous cousins of theirs to the isles. Further, they reduced the elegant civilization of the Forest Giants to simple serfdom.
But I digress -- all this was long ago. Few men even know these tales. The dwarves may keep them written down - they have enough laws and codes, but I have never known one of the Graewys or their kin to let a man far enough into one of their settlements to even see the temples they build. Their walls are thick, their hills tall, and even the farmers behind the outwall know secrets of working strange metals. Who else then to ask? The elves have no love of writing - perhaps the Stone Circle whisper their histories to the trees, but we may never know. The halflings are too rootless to know anything before their enslavement in Ker-yis. The tieflings have something deeply wrong with them; I have heard it said that those things which roamed the world before the gigantine wars of cleansing somehow changed them. The Dragonkin are filled with bile over the loss of their empires and their man-slaves. The Eldarin are secretive beyond measure, and they know more of their lost home in Jandana then they do of our history.
So who can we turn to? The College sequesters its members and hordes secrets like a religion. Who knows what dark knowledge they share in that ruin they call a home? There are others of course - the Scholars of the North and more. The priests of each faith will tell you a different answer as well.
What they all neglect is the state of the world. Ruins litter the landscape from each successive failed kingdom or empire. Those that remain are flickering flames at best. Meanwhile, the things imprisoned in the Duat and even farther below, where the very primal elements merge and flame, stir in their prisons. The few struggling lands which remain can barely eek out their existence. Against the dark things in this world stand only a few.
Truly great writing. It reminded me a great deal of the first time I read the " wanderer's journal " preface for the first edition of Dark Sun.
It is quite rare that I find myself interested in a game world just based on the pitch.
The Dragons in the Basement Campaign Setting details the fictional town of Geneva Lake, Wisconsin.
Geneva Lake is a "modern fantasy" version of the real world town of Lake Geneva - in other words, Lake Geneva as it might appear in a 4E version of WotC's Urban Arcana setting, with a 4e-style cosmology: a Feywild, Shadowfell, and so on. In the real world, the lake is "Geneva Lake", while the city is "Lake Geneva". In the fictional version, it's the opposite: the lake is "Lake Geneva", while the city is "Geneva Lake". The town map is used as the campaign map.
The setting uses as much of the real Lake Geneva as legally possible. Trademarked elements within the town - such as a McDonalds - are modified or replaced by their equivalent Urban Arcana brands as deemed necessary by WotC's legal department. However, WotC has acquired the rights to portray and use as much of the town and its citizens as feasible in the game by the following method:
WotC contacted many of the citizens who live in Lake Geneva and sought their permission to use their likeness and biography in the game, and to modify them for fictional use. WotC actually sent a person to Lake Geneva for a few weeks to speak with locals and get their legal signature, photograph, and brief biography. Also, locally-owned businesses were contacted as well, so that they could be used as is. The WotC fellow also stopped by the Walworth County courthouse and library to photocopy as much relevant information as feasible, such as aerial photographs and city directories.
As a mecca for world-hopping adventurers, Geneva Lake is tied into the continuity of the various WotC-owned settings. In or near Geneva Lake, there are several gates to Oerth, Blackmoor, Mystara, Faerun, Krynn, and other D&D Worlds -- and even to other rpg settings owned by WotC such as Gamma World, Boot Hill, and Star*Drive. Otherworldly intrusions bring in D&D adventuring parties and monsters in Geneva Lake and its countryside. Department-7 has a devoted branch there to investigate such intrusions. A Dragons in the Basement adventuring party may consist of either D&D heroes or (a 4e update of) d20 Modern/Past/Future heroes, or a mixture of both. The "D&D Earth" in which Geneva Lake is located, is the home world of the Kids of the D&D Cartoon Show, and was visited by the Wizards Three when the spoke with Ed Greenwood. Geneva Lake, Wisconsin is for the D&D Worlds what Arkham, Massachusetts (based on the real world town of Salem) is for the Cthulhu Mythos.
Travis
P.S. "Fun facts" about the setting:
- "An elephant was buried in nearby Delavan Lake during the city's days as a winter home for circus troupes."
- "At the bottom of Lake Geneva you can find: a 50's era cabin cruiser, a Nash automobile, and the wrecks of the Lucius Newberry and the Lady of the Lake."
how much of that is official information??? where did it come from???
I don't know......... I'm american so thinking about all the old settlers of the new world and how they did it kinda baffels me. Combining the feeling of trying to make a new living in a even stranger world intriges me. Magic works diffrently here. All mages that didn't die trying to hold the portal open and keep the groups together had to relearn the craft. (for the new rules in 4e) Only a handful of the greater gods can even hear your prayers through the cosmos. (haven't decided on those yet.) Tech level of the settlers will be comparable to the city of Waterdeep.
The landscape will be overgrown forrests and massive canyons. Roads will have to be made. Rivers look like the easiest way to travel. All light spells and torches only provide half the usual visibility. All native animals either have low light vision or tremorsense. This new world is called Mahkah by it's peoples.. (The setting name is eluding me.)
Now to make up native races.......
All the races here will be nomatic/primal. Some may be friendly but most are not.
TECUMSEH: (Panther people) will be a home brew indigenous race. They will be avalible as a player character. This is the most civilized race of the setting. They have permenet villages and can metal work, but they mostly live of the land.
WAYRA: (Wild Gnomes) will be indigenous. I will have to look at the MM entry to modify them but if all I have to do is give them low light visioin they will be a straight conversion. Also (with careful roleplay) avalible as a player charcters.
Old powers rule the wilds of this new place and do not like to be disturbed.
So........do you think this could work?
Yes cross posting but it applys to both topics.
Picture a world similar to Cimmeria in the 80s Conan movies. Constant grey skies, always a bit of chill in the air. A lonely, rugged world full of paranoia and danger. A strange mix of Hyborian and Lovecraftian. Magic is present, but not in large amounts. Magic-users are seen as oddities. Usually, magic-users are solitary creatures with keeps on moors, in swamps, on small islands. They interfere very little with the world, and the world feels likewise. Humans have an uneasy alliance with Eladrin. After two hundred years of conflict over land, title, and power, the Eladrin and humans are civil, though wary. Dwarves have been all but wiped out. Before the war, dwarves and humans worked harmoniously together and fought together in the Trollblood Wars centuries ago. When the humans and Eladrin began squabbling, dwarves sided with the elves, claiming them more closely connected to the earth, while humans want only to **** the lands. Humans, feeling betrayed by their old allies, performed acts of genocide of epic levels. Since the Eladrin Wars, new creatures have taken up in ancient dwarven and elven ruins. These creatures have the look of demon-people, and make failing attempts at blending with the other races. The great mother Tiamat has spewed forth her children, the Dragonborn, onto the face of the land. They are savage, unyielding, and gruesome in battle. It is the good and holy who suffer most, as evil is growing in massive proportions. Everyone is suspect, and good intentions will only end in death.
Idea 1 (a quick brainstorm):
This world has numerous continents. These continents are small in size but circle the world-round. The geography, biomes and climate of the land is as varied as our own world -- these are just smaller continents (or large islands).
In between these continents are many islands, island chains and archipelagoes. There is little in the way of open water.
On these continents and islands can be found any of the races and monsters we are all familiar with. Volcano dwarves and island elves would make new variants. Halflings make great sailors, gnomes are fantastic cartographers and Reef Orcs will only inhabit one island long enough to invade the next.
There are also sub-races that live only on the water. Solid ground is alien to these races that have spent their nomadic lives aboard great sea vessels. There are even a few island cities -- built not on land, but rising out of the seas. Islands unto themselves, these cites are made entirely by man (elf, orc, etc). And there floating cities as well.
Of course, lurking in the depths -- and in contact with the surface races -- are the Koa-toa, Locanth, Merfolk, Sahuagin, etc. And yes, these are all PC races too. The Kenku and Arookara (? 1st ed. FF) would also be appropriate for PCs in this world.
The ancient empires that once spanned the globe have long since fallen. The legends of Dragon Kings and Warlock Emperors are substantiated by numerous ruins. And of course there's a lost Atlantean city (or two), and a sunken continent.
Idea 2 (the after-thought):
How about a world completely underground (Underdark). The surface is too inhospitable to support life, so instead, life has emerged underground.
In these sprawling caverns beneath the surface are strange forests and underground seas. The air is provided by humid steam vents. And, naturally, the deeper one goes, the hotter it becomes. The closer one gets to the core of the planet, the more remote and dangerous it is.
how much of that is official information??? where did it come from???
Like the other posts in this thread, the Dragons in the Basement Campaign Setting exists only as a proposal.
Travis
2235 AR(Aldan Reckoning)
After the Great War left the Aldan Empire a miasma of magical chaos, the Five Races gathered on the Plain of Wyrdala for a conference, to decide the fates of those races that at one time or another built an empire only to have it be destroyed, fall apart or overreach itself and decay. Dragonborn, Dwarves, Eladrin, Humans and Tieflings had risen to power throughout history and been laid low.
The human’s Aldan Empire was the last to fall, destroyed by an internal power struggle between the Magnus Guild and the Celestial Covenant when an Arch Magnus attempted to summon and control a Primordial. Angry at being disturbed the Elder Being simply returned the entire region to its elemental roots, an ever changing landscape of air, earth, fire, water and magic, it then returned to wherever it had been summoned from.
After weeks of arbitration, mediation, negotiations and delegations from the other races, the Accords of Wyrdala were signed and implemented. The races in attendance were; the Aarakocra, Bullywugs, Dragonborn, Dwarves, Eladrin, Elves, Empyreals, Gnomes, Halflings, Humans, Kobolds, Lizardmen, Minotaurs, Ogres, Orcs, Shadar-Kai, Thri-Kreen and the Tieflings.
Upon the Plain of Wyrdala was built the city of Janus, which housed the Embassies of the Races and Council of Five, the ruling body of the new nation. Word was sent to all the enclaves of the races outlining the Accords and the new government. Peace reigned for nearly two millennia.
4243 AR/2008 WR(Wyrdala Reckoning)
The city of Janus sits quiet, it’s once busy thoroughfares are pitted and broken. The Embassies, once home to the eighteen races are now treated as makeshift inns, hostels or brothels. The Council Chambers have been pulled down and its stones used to build hovels for the refuse that inhabit the once great capital.
The world has changed, where once order held the day now chaos prevails or worse apathy. Great cities concern themselves only with themselves and the trade routes between them and the materials they need. Smaller cities and towns fight to keep the surrounding areas free of monsters and brigands. Village and small farming community populations double as militia and no-one travels more than one days ride from home.
That's a start, working on geography.
Bel
A broken world where the planet whose axis has shifted so one pole continually faces the sun while the second faces away.
The world was once a wonderful place. The Twin Empires of the Elves and Gnomes ruled with a fair and just hand and dominated a continent. They created magitech wonders: gateways connected distant regions, cities were built soaring bridges, powerful golems to perform labour, vehicles that could fly across the sky, while simple magical charms and devices made life easier for all.
Then the forests burned and seas boiled while the oceans froze and plains cracked. The Great Catastrophe shook the world and brought down the Old Order. The sun ceased its movement across the sky while the oceans boiled or froze: half the world trapped under the ceaseless heat of the blazing sun while the other half hidden in cold darkness. Civilization fell as the many peoples of the world fell into barbarism and chaos; the wonder was lost.
Now, centuries after the end, civilization is slowly returning. The former slave races have come into their own and created their own nations. New homes are built out of the ruins of what has come before while magical devices, whose creation has long since been forgotten, are carefully used and sought after.
Some try to restore what was lost and regain what has been forgotten; others try to erase the past and start anew. Former slaves turn their shackles on others. The silent gods speak through clerics who interpret dogma how they see fit as churches divide and fight. Poor peasants turn to banditry in the lawless regions, preying on neighbours. The few scared nations guard their borders closely, forever prepared for war.
In the border between light and dark, fire and ice, everything is gray.
Sakkara
The Empire runs from the Midworld Mountains east to the Great Canal and west to the Seawall Mountains. Beyond the empire, many kingdoms and wild lands exists, but no confederation can match either power or corruption to that of the Empire.
Ruling from their seat of power, the Senate and the Emperor dictate to over 23 million souls: laws, taxes and religious practice.
All beings fit into two groups: Outlanders and Natives.
Natives of Sakkara consists of Elves, Dwarves and Dragons.
Outlanders, who came to the world by outside means consist of everyone else.
When the human general Gauis Therackles stormed the capital five hundred years ago, he ended rule of the common man and enacted the first great dynasty. Since then, the empire has grown in spurts and leaps. Wracked with internal discord and with outside invasion, the empire exists now almost exclusively as a conqueror. Directly related to this is the slavery addiction of its people. Almost 2/3rds of the population fall into this category, while the rest are either warriors or the effete noble elite. Mix into this society a various conglomeration of monstrous creatures and traditional "civilized" races you have a society both breathtakingly beautiful and horrid in equal measure.
Men walk with streets carrying pistols that spit lances of pure light, and carry long blades of steel. Trolls teach grammar school, and dwarves captain airships powered by psionically charged crystals. Wild warforged run rampant throughout the south, destroying and smashing all in their undirected rage and within the deep deserts humans ride massive worms with hide as tough as adamantine.
I propose a single setting that can be played in two (or more really) very different time periods. For thousands of years, the world (yet to be named) was much like any other fantasy setting; empires rose and fell, magic and psionics empowered people, the gods watched and sometimes took a hand in major affairs, wars raged and ravaged. At some point in history, the first Portal was designed.
Age of Portals
The portals were immense archways (two colosal creatures could walk abreast through them) that would be built on a place of High-Magic (a nexus point for those who are familliar with the Paladium Books games). The portals could be opened to other worlds, but they were highly unstable. Should they close, they would not reopen at the same place, or even on the same planet. So when a portal was opened, after magic and psionic divinations decided the other side was safe (could support life) an entire colony would walk through. Their duty was to build a town and a second gate to anchor the one on the original world. Once done, the two portals would be forever linked into a two-way interplanetary door. Repeating this process, both form the original world and from the new colonies, dozens of planets were colonized to create a spiderweb network of portals.
Unlike StarGate, a single portal can only lead to one other place.
Age of Light Speed
With the coming of 4E, I am hoping to use the new system to create a futuristic type game (similar to d20 modern/future).
After thousands of years, the age of portals came to an abrupt halt. A war between two worlds taxed the portal system to its limit to the point of overloading it. Not only did the entire network of portal shut down completely, but magical energies as a whole became scarce. Magic was dying.
So the people turned to another source of power; technology. Steam engines, electricity (other that lighning bolts), the transistor, computors, etc. It took a while, but eventually the technology to go into outer space was created and the exploration of space began.
The portals eventually charged up and reoppened, space ships travel at light speed, space pirates, evil cults (a la Chronicles of Riddick), Dragon Lords (a la Jabba the Hut), etc. Possibilities are endless.
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TRIAD
Welcome to the Triad campaign setting, a realm of war, intrigue, secrets, and exploration. The realms of Triad have a rich history of exploration and discovery, as the ancients revealed the existence of previously-unknown races, traveled to disparate planes, and found whole new worlds. This uplifting picture has a darker side, however; as different races encountered one another, war was the first response, and invasions, plotting, and spying soon became a fact of life. Paranoid rulers keep secrets from their peoples while sending armies to conquer and annihilate all in their path. Rulers throughout many worlds have done the same, but while most petty warlords only have small regions to ruin, the ruling authorities in Triad have whole dimensions at their command.
The Planes of Triad
The Triad campaign setting is named for its most prominent feature: Three material planes that are aware of each others’ existence, intensely xenophobic, and locked in constant war. Those who know of the three worlds refer to the three as the Triad, while sages and scholars also use the name to refer to the multiverse as a whole. The world of Telios is ruled by mages, who provide magic to the common people under the guise of “ancient artifacts” while manipulating every aspect of society. The world of Glaesra is a realm of sentient lands, forests, and oceans—worshiped collectively as gods—controlled by Circles of druids who protect the few city-dwellers. The world of Voornica is a barren wasteland, its inhabitants warped and twisted by the battle-magics of the other worlds and its surface shattered by the cataclysmic intersection of coexistant planes.
Between the three vast Material worlds are tiny demiplanes drifting in the void, connected to the Triad by strands of the Astral Web. These planes are the homeworlds of several sentient species, whose populations are quickly displaced and absorbed as the Triad armies clash on their territories. In the center of the planes lies the Core, a realm of chaos and infinite possibilities whose energies create the drifting demiplanes and whose power the Triad armies vie to control.
Triad Geography
Each world of the Triad has its own unique geography, weather, and ecosystems—the lands and weather of Telios are tightly controlled by the ruling cadre of mages; Voornica’s landscape is made up of shards of different environments, with strange terrain and weather to match, and the terrain of Glaesra has a mind of its own. Dozens of sprawling city-states cover Telios, each governed independently but kept in contact with the others by the mages; the wilds between cities are dangerous and lethal, preventing most travels outside, so a web of portals was created to allow quick travel between cities. The land is sculpted to be most favorable to the cities—rivers are diverted, valleys are raised, hills are lowered—and the weather is maintained on an immutable schedule. In contrast, Glaesra is a wild, untamed land, sparsely populated with tiny cities; the city-dwellers are disdained and pitied by the druids, who guard the cities from monstrous incursions while the common folk cower behind high walls, and the deserts, jungles, and mountains roam where they will regardless of any cities in their paths. Voornica is a world of extremes: Oceans there are caustic and frigid, mountains are sharp and treacherous, and terrifying beasts are spawned from every hole in the earth—most civilized beings have long since left the world, but many cunning hordes of beasts still inhabit it and small bastions of civilization somehow manage to survive.
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The Demographics and Magic sections are another ~850 words, I have a Top 10 Things to Know list for it like the Eberron CS book does, and then races of Telios (the only world whose Races section I've finished) are another ~3200 words. As soon as I finish the other Races sections and write up the Classes section, I'll probably
Hmm... Alright, though mine isn't really as fleshed out as some, ie: only reskins and such no new classes, etc.
The Veritas Nexus:
This Campaign World is a World fractured and distorted by changes in Reality. The turmoil of the past and the forced, altered Reality of the present has caused the seems of Reality in this World to shift and change.
This World, is an artificial-World created by long dead gods, and kept alive by a malfunctioning god-machine. The Angels that once controlled and manipulated the god-machine and gave sentient-life to this World have fled to the four corners of the World.
Out of the chaos of the fallen-city of the Angels, came the Pandorans, these creatures formed out of the fluxes in Reality have altered Reality to suit their needs becoming the "Aristocracy" the ruling body of this World.
This is a World of technology and where the forces of the supernatural come either from the fluxes of Reality, the past-whims of the Angels or the continuously malfunctioning god-machine.
The races within this World that live under the Aristocracy are the:
-Downtrodden, but first-children of the Angels the Caelestis. Formed in a previous Reality, they understand the way to manipulate and warp Reality, giving them untold supernatural abilities.
-The most prolific race, the Humans. They were once Caelestis but the changes of Reality have turned them into this new race, that live in every faction of society.
-An abomination of a race, the Nefas formed from a Human coupling. This race is one tainted by the flux of Reality. Though rumours persist that an Angel also tainted by the flux has special plans for them.
-The followers of the tainted Qashmallim (servant of the god-machine), or so called Lilithium Qashmallim. The Atratus blindly following their living goddess, letting her guiding hand reshape their destiny and they themselves.
In this chaos however comes those called Deviants. A Deviant is someone who unknowingly is born with the potential to shape this fractured reality, most do not reach this potential. Some do, and with each step change Reality around them. All sides in this World know of this and try to control or contain them.
The Angels and the Lilithium Qashmallim send out their cults and spies.
The god-machine sets forth their single-minded divine-servants the Qashmallim.
The Aristocracy sends forth the Clergy to sniff out and eradicate the Deviants.
This World has many forms of advanced technology from; electricity, locomotives, steel-skyscrapers, telegraphs, cartridge-firearms and many other technological wonders.
It is also filled with the supernatural, magic formed out of the bending of Reality around the user, through various means. Prodigium or monsters of every shape, a mistake from the age of the Angels or formed out of the flux live amongst the inhabitants of the World. Some formed prior to the new-Reality have created their own pocket Realities, such as the immoral-Fey.
The fate of this fracturing and distorted World is one left to a select few, be them Deviants or those that have crossed the path of a Deviant. They set the course for a new Reality.
Heya, just out of curiosity. Do you play Promethean: The Created by White Wolf?.
Thirty thousand years ago, a long lost race created a massive ringworld twenty thousand miles wide, 250 miles thick, with a 93 million mile radius. They populated it with all the ecosystems they had ever discovered, and settled there. They replicated all of their homeworlds, several worlds they had visited, and their artists forged new, magical landscapes [think Yes album covers].
In some places, there are smaller rings around the ringworld, looping around the main track of the ringworld. Some of these are spectacular ring systems, and some are ominous dark bands in the sky, blotting out the sun as they pass overhead. Others are nearly invisible and can only be detected by observing cloud patterns, which mysteriously align in the sky with them. It is suspected that these ring systems were built to maintain the main ring, but their purposes are unknown.
Twenty five thousand years ago, they abandoned the ringworld for unknown reasons. The sign of their presence has slowly faded, with vast deserts of steel forming in places where the soil has eroded down to the frame. In most places, nature has completely taken over. Even such powerful magic as the ancients wielded falters; in some places has gotten wild, and other places it is dead.
In the time since, evolution has kicked into high gear, as alien species, once limited to specific locales, have mixed and produced new species, filling various ecological niches. Empires have risen and fallen, and the knowledge, magic, and technology of the creators has passed into myth.
On a small island, near a world-sized cluster of continents, near the center of an ocean 50 miles deep and twenty thousand miles wide, there is a small village in a region that at one point declined into Neolithic savagery, but has spent the past three thousand years developing into a thriving medieval culture a few thousand miles across. No one has ever successfully traveled beyond the oceans, but they know the world is out there. No one has ever found a way to reach the outside of the ring, either.
The technology of the creators can sometimes be found, but repairing any found items has been proven unfeasible, as it requires extensive knowledge of the creators’ sciences, long-lost tools, and similar items for replacement parts. Several nations over the years have attempted to harness this resource, but nearly all have failed. The ones that didn’t fail became empires that eventually collapsed by various means.
Most of the surviving technology is completely indistinguishable from magic and was produced roughly twenty-six thousand years ago, when the creators’ culture was at its peak. After they left, the various intelligent species (viewed by the creators as little more than animals) rummaged through the technology the creators left behind and attempted to master it. Some of them made war, and some of them made cities. All were eventually lost by ten thousand years ago.
Anything is possible if you know which direction to go and can go fast enough to get there. And that's not even counting the trillions of other planes of existence.
A cookie for Larry Niven
and a cookie for Practical Planetology using Niven's idea , because without them I never would have thought of using a ringworld (after I ran out of room on Tesar, I thought of using a Dyson sphere, but then you don't get to look at the stars at night).Heya, just out of curiosity. Do you play Promethean: The Created by White Wolf?.
Yup, major inspiration for the setting/source of terms. It is my favourite RPG ever. Thus why I made this setting anything that brings a little Promethean here and there into the game is good in my books :P
Also you will notice I use concepts like the God Machine from one of the beginning stories of the WoD Corebook (though somewhat altered).
Tesar, Angmoria, and Beyond
Ha! It brought a tear to my eye seeing Tesar pop up again. I missed its evolution into a ringworld, though. How'd that happen?
And Jonplaywu, how the heck did you make that map of Sakkara?
Back in high school (c. 1994) I once made an adventure campaign where one player who always had dreams of a rising sun behind a castle was actually a king. The campaign started when the kingdom sent an emisarry to summon him to his throne. I made maybe 20 pages of low-res maps detailing continent after continent, maybe 500 miles N/S and 3000 miles E/W each. So this fits in nicely to the ringworld too. I just wish I still had all those maps.
It was a travel-heavy campaign, never played out to its end, with no teleport except to where you've already been, based around his always going east, and the places he went through or passed by (towns and dungeons, each with sub plots). After a few levels of temperate climates, I was going to have him cross the huge ocean for about six or seven adventures, then cross a desert for six or seven more. After that was a huge impassible mountain range where they could go over or under it, then more temperate stuff. Eventually they'd reach the kingdom to find it conquered by a tyrannical regime, and have to join the underground resistance, and eventually overthrow the wizard who of course had an army of great wyrms under his control, as his small guns. Horribly cliched in hindsight, but it was really cool for a bunch of 15-year old small town boys.
Some more worlds I want to add are the manga worlds of Slayers, Lodoss, Sorcerer Hunters, Dragon Knight, and Dark Schneider's world, to name a few, and most of the worlds from Practical Planetology (and Spelljammer in general). I'm particularly considering an Alabeth section above Falx, Venus, and Titan, where the air is perfectly breathable for a hundred miles up (and therefore really dense near ground level). I'd like to add the world of The Dark Crystal, and the Labyrinth, and many Star Wars worlds too (only long, long after the galactic civilization crumbles). I'm picturing vast forests of titanic cycads, too. And those titanic megafauna from Herdspace have a place to live, too, although they're only a hundred miles at the shoulder instead of ten thousand. What the hey, let's throw in Eternia and Krull too. :D
I'm not going to upload the new maps, and don't ask me to email it. It's enormous, and it's basically just equirectangular projections of all the worlds sized to scale, contcatenated side by side, then there are occasional sections without water where the desert worlds lie. I want to rework it anyway, to make the ringworld 100,000 miles wide and have them clustered. This ups the inner surface area of the world to 58 trillion square miles.
The best thing about a ringworld is that you get 12 trillion square miles to work with (room for 59,184 Earth sized worlds), you can have really fantastic totally mind blowing terrain because it's a synthetic megastructure, and you can still have a night sky (unlike a Dyson sphere), and it's different from an infinite plane.
I would also like to add moons orbiting certain sections of the ringworld. Specifically around the maps of the original "planets". They now orbit in a north/south fashion, though, and full moons become problematic. Does anybody have any ideas about how to get around that, so that full and gibbous moons can be seen? Ditto with the Rings of Siberys, Bodi, Geonosis, and Alabeth.
I think I need to stop just adding everything and anything, and take a moment think about how this all works together. All the spelljammer worlds fit in well, and the Jim Henson, and some of the Star Wars worlds. Basically we've got a mysterious PL9+ civilization building this BDO with several thousand alien ecosystems for a mysterious purpose, settling mostly in Coruscant and Trantor, and then abandoning it for mysterious reasons, just like Niven's. From there the PL slips down to 2, with 3 in some places, and 1 or 0 in many, many more, and vast stretches of territory might have just been set up with a specific wilderness ecosystem but never settled, then slipped into true wilderness after a long time. There are all these PL 4+ artifacts laying around, mostly clustered around PL 8, but none of them work except near the ecumenopoli. The inhabitants call them magic items.
Also ringworlds are unstable, but this is D&D so it's not a stretch to say it's magic; we even have rules for this kind of thing. Probably some epic spell with a few billion ritual contributors.
On Sakkara: I've seen that map before. It's from a scientific simulation of plate tectonics. You're looking at the best map of the North-American section of Pangea I have ever seen. They made a whole bunch of maps like that in that study, at 5 million year intervals. They are simply amazing, and go back to Rodina. This particular one appears to be two of the maps, one flipped, then both are spliced. Look for Hudson Bay or Illinois and you'll see what I mean. Very nice, and a cool idea for a campaign.
Something occured to me last night, though, just before I went to sleep. Because crust is recycled into the mantle during subduction, how do we know that some other continents weren't subducted under larger continents and then eventually lost into the mantle?