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Frywick
2016-04-06, 01:19 AM
My party currently resides on a continent named Arcleon and its a more typical european setting with forests and mountains with different factions included in. The rest of the world is for the most part, unexplored and eventually the party might seek to travel away from the continent for new adventures and this is where I'm drawing a blank. I had the idea for a uncivilized continent where strength is valued over intellegence and the population is split into clans but I feel i need more. Any ideas regarding this issue would be greatly appreciated, Thank you.

Mutazoia
2016-04-06, 01:35 AM
My party currently resides on a continent named Arcleon and its a more typical european setting with forests and mountains with different factions included in. The rest of the world is for the most part, unexplored and eventually the party might seek to travel away from the continent for new adventures and this is where I'm drawing a blank. I had the idea for a uncivilized continent where strength is valued over intellegence and the population is split into clans but I feel i need more. Any ideas regarding this issue would be greatly appreciated, Thank you.

Just look at a real world map of Europe. Much like TSR did back in the day for The Forgotten Realms, you could have entire settings based on specific regions. Al Qadim was the middle east (think Aladin and Sinbad) The Horse Lords was the Mongol setting, Oriental Adventures covered the middle east, and they even did an African based setting toward the end there. Even before FR, there were modules based in pseudo Egypt, and on islands filled with dinosaurs.

So take a real world region of the globe and ask yourself how things would be there if magic was real, instead of technology. It shouldn't be too hard once you get started:

Arctic regions would most likely be filled with nomads that generally stick close to the shore where food is easier to come by. Fights between tribes would be rare...just too much risk in such a harsh environment, so each tribe would be independent, but willing to assist another tribe when needed. They would probably select leaders based on strength and skill as a hunter...the more food a man can collect, the better able he is to provide for the tribe. They would most likely specialize in magic that helped ward off the cold as well as helped them hunt in the frigid waters (so water breathing would a common enchantment). Fire magic would be rare (no much to burn there besides animal fat) but would be highly prized.

Plains regions would be populated with nomads as well, but they wouldn't stick to any one area. The tribes would probably be fighting constantly, since the food would be mobile and cross many tribal boundaries. Again, strength would be a primary requisite for leadership, as well as skill fighting and hunting from horseback. Wind based spells would probably be common, but fire would probably be avoided as mush as possible (wild fires would be a big problem on an open plain).

Jungle regions would not be nomadic at all, as food would be abundant. Intelligence would be a primary pre-req for leadership...the ability to make the best use of the abundant resources, and again, skill in hunting (that's going to be a pretty common theme, really)....

I'm sure you can get the picture.

HammeredWharf
2016-04-06, 06:12 AM
Alternatively, you could think of interesting movies/books/stories and use their settings as inspiration. A few years ago I finally watched Princess Mononoke and made a D&D game in a very similar setting, with dire wolf gods, environmental hazards, spirits of nature, corruption turning being into weird Lovecraftian monsters, etc. It worked quite well.

Storm_Of_Snow
2016-04-06, 07:00 AM
Alternatively, you could think of interesting movies/books/stories and use their settings as inspiration.
Agreed, look at the different environments in the locations for Game of Thrones - the shooting locations are Iceland for anything north of The Wall, Malta and then Dubrovnik in Croatia for King's Landing and everything across the Narrow Sea, and Northern Ireland for pretty much everywhere else, and even then, compare the look of Winterfell to, say, the Iron Islands.

(Before anyone says anything, I've had the box sets for a while, but I've only now got around to going through them and have just hit the end of S2 :smallamused: ).

Documentaries could be a useful source as well - I know there's a couple of cultures that have their settlements on what are effectively enormous rafts in the middle of lakes.

For Mutazoia's comments, I'd offer the following as possible alternatives:
Plains - the animals may be mobile, but if a group take a particular water source (especially if it's either one of the last to dry up in times of drought, or they can channel water into it from elsewhere), animals will be attracted to it, and they'd need to settle around it to be able to protect it from rivals - whether that's fighting or trading the meat they take for items from other groups. Maybe the population move around on elevated walled pathways, with the wild animals walking between the solidly constructed buildings at ground level (all the building entrances and what we'd normally think of as ground floor rooms are at the top of the buildings, while higher floor rooms are underneath them), in order to keep themselves safe from predators, and certain ground level pathways might be blockable to allow for animals to be trapped and killed.

It'd certainly be something fairly unique - the party arrives at the walls and the first thing they see is a lion walking in through what they think are the city gates, and when they're escorted inside, there's herds of wildebeest or zebras walking underneath them.:smallsmile:

Jungles - fires may cause groups to be nomadic, whether naturally occurring due to things like lightning strikes or set by the tribes themselves in order to refresh the resources of an area they've been living in for a certain length of time.

MrZJunior
2016-04-06, 07:50 AM
I'd look at various parks around the world. People tend to pick very dramatic and interesting places to protect, that also means they make good locations for adventure.

AKA_Bait
2016-04-06, 09:08 AM
The rest of the world is for the most part, unexplored and eventually the party might seek to travel away from the continent for new adventures and this is where I'm drawing a blank.

Not sure what setting you are using, but I've had some success with having other parts of the world be ones where humans are not the dominant species and thinking through the social and cultural implications of societies based on the other race's cannon characteristics. A society primarily populated by Tolkien-style elves (long-lived but few children) might have a very different level of risk-tolerance for your average member than one populated by a race that has many children and is comparatively short-lived. The same goes between races that are more durable (or have strong inherent healing abilities) and those that more easily suffer permanent injury or death. I.e., dangerous magic (e.g., critical scroll reading failure that results in an explosion or area effects) or tech that could result in accidental deaths might be taboo in the one society but tolerated in the other, resulting in vastly different laws and social hierarchies.

In a similar vein, you can also play around with how magic/tech might effect social controls and be viewed by the members of the society. Are charm/zone of truth type effects commonplace and seen as a normal part of the social fabric or are they considered impermissible interferences with individual autonomy?

Finally, another way to look at is wealth and power distribution. Is this society one with vast wealth discrepancy between the better off members of society and the less well off? Are there rigid social castes (including legal slavery) that are different from those in the parts of the world that your PC's have already experienced?

Frywick
2016-04-06, 08:47 PM
Really helpful answers given. They've certainly given me ideas and places to look for inspiration. I've decided to add an all tiefling society thats asian themed and where Ki is a power that originated in demons and tieflings are able to harness the power more so than other races. This campagin is a completely homebrewed setting as i saw someone who mentioned it. I'd still like to have more possible landmasses for the party to come across but this thread has assurdly helped me. Thanks for all the answers.

BayardSPSR
2016-04-06, 09:16 PM
I had the idea for a uncivilized continent where strength is valued over intelligence and the population is split into clans but I feel I need more.

You could also shake things up and have the distant continent be more sophisticated, organized, hierarchical, and urbane than the one the players are leaving (perhaps taking partial inspiration from imperial China, or Baghdad before its destruction by the Mongols). Of course, that might be pointing you too far off your current plans to be useful.

genmoose
2016-04-07, 09:12 PM
I would suggest a tropical archipelago.....something like the Philippines.

Being in a tropical climate allows civilization to exist with very little organization due to the abundance of food and lack of hard winters. So you don't need a fixed rigid structure just to survive, but of course you could have very strict societies if you wanted.

The other advantage of many different islands is that the PC's can bounce from island to island and keep things somewhat isolated. IE this week's island is populated by a primitive tribe and dinosaurs. Have some adventures there and move on to the next island that is cursed and filled with undead. Back on the ship and they can be in a port selling their loot and and exploring more urban adventures. Very different and otherwise hostile civilizations could exist in relative close proximity; their continued existence owing to the fact that neither party could field enough boats to invade the other.

Depending on how far apart you want your land masses, a bounce from one island to the next could be a matter of hours or maybe a few days. So no long periods at sea to deal with.

Also there's plenty of opportunities for the DM to inject new events:

1. You're sailing past an uncharted island when you see strange, unnatural lights. Do you go investigate?
2. While heading to your destination a sudden storm erupts and blows you way off course.
3. Your ship runs aground on an uncharted reef. You need to explore the local island to find materials to make repairs.
4. Pirates!!!
5. You come across a field of debris in the water that used to be a boat. Suddenly you hear cries and see one or more survivors. Who are they? What do they know? And what were they doing?
6. Sea monsters!!!