Help design A Songhai/African setting

[TheThan]

The first thing I do when I design a campaign based off of something real world is take a long look at the region that setting is going to take place in. Study up on the climate of the region, the flora and fauna and adapt those things to your setting.

I just punched western Africa into Wikipedia and it’s telling me its desert, sahel (desert/savanna transition) and savanna. It also tells me there are forests to the south (I’m assuming tropical as it’s near the equator). It also says there’s a region that suffers from plagues of locusts.
Desert, sahel and savanna regions is a great place to start. Much of this region is arid and hot so we can look at the DnD 3.5 expansion Sand Storm for some ideas on heat and sun dangers, dehydration rules, and sand and wind rule. It also tells us what sort of animals will populate the region. Anything that’s appropriate for the savannah is good here; lions, elephants, zebras etc and their dire counter parts.

It also gives us an idea on what sort of landscape we have, I imagine a dry windswept place with few trees, tall grass and beautiful vistas painted in red orange and gold. Try to paint that picture. To the far south we have dense foreboding jungles inhabited by unknown threats and exotic flora and fauna. That’s where the fabled black lotus grows. A powerful narcotic in small doses, or a lethal poison in larger amounts. Maybe massive ziggurats from some long dead culture protrude out of the jungle canopy, just waiting for adventurers to uncover their secrets; just watch out for their simian like defenders that capture intruders and sacrifice them to their dark gods.

The savannah is natural place to plop our first fantasy race, namely Knolls. I’m thinking knolls are a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture that travels across the region; they trade and make war as necessary. Maybe they migrate with great herds of animals; maybe they travel a circuit between watering holes and oases. we can decide if they're a villain or a friendly race (or both) later.

The Wikipedia information also gives us our first major hazard in the region; swarms of locusts that can strip the flesh from a man in seconds. Highly dangerous and a threat to everyone in the region. I don’t view this as a monster to destroy (even though you could go that route) moreover as a hazard that adds flavor and can be used to pull the PCs by the nose when they get too far off track.

I hope this gives you some good ideas to really start with. I often find that by just imagining the climate that will greatly inform the feeling I’m trying to convey. remember we're trying to create a unique setting that's inspired by the real world location, not a direct copy of it.