[Campaign Setting]Sleeping Dragons

[Phane]

This post will be a bit slip shod, as I put my thoughts and brainstorming to paper(as electronic as it may be) I have grown a bit dissatisfied with the standard fantasy settings, and those wizards calls their own. I am a bit tired of starting games in a generic world. After reading some guides on setting design and such, I started to brainstorm my setting up, but have hit a major bit of writers block.

That leads me here. I have decided to offer what I have come up with so far, and see what others think. does the basic idea sound interesting, like somewhee you'd like to see a character grow? all thoughts are welcome.

Basically, I Wanted this world to be seeded with the things I liked from all the fracking WotC books I have bought, so I cherry picked some races, but I ran out of steam. got bogged down in the choices, and now would like an outsiders view on it. one reacuring thing for me is 13. 13 gods, 13 races, 13 Dragon Kings, 13 Great cities, that sort of thing.

Basic Idea:
The world (as of yet, I have not named it) is only just emerging from a dark aage after a horrible war. Much like LotR, the free peoples fought against a horrible enemy, and only won by the barest of margins. after a centruy or two of scraping to get by, most ofthe races are beginning to emerge back into actual civilisations. I wanted a world that was not all codified nations, but a more city state feel, and not one where everything is going great. There is hope, but it is only starting to grow. Horribly things left over from the war are still out there, as are the complexes of the Overlords.


Condensed history:
The Base world that is the setting was a home to elder beings known only as the elder ones. Horrible things, they warped reality and commited all sorts of atrocities across the planes. They came to the attention of Tiamat, The mother of all dragons who along with her brothers and sisters, made up a pantheon of 13. After finding out more, and losing an entire planets worth of followers of her own, and her families, Tiamat decided to strike back at the Elder ones. Using most of her power, invested it in 13 Dragons, sending them to there to combat the Elders

The strugle was titanic, the world was reshaped, and it took thousends of years, but to the nigh immortal godly empowered Dragon Kings, it was only a matter of time. After Tiamat had recovered enough power to do so, she returned to check on the progress, and was shocked to find that the dragons she had sent there, had set up shop and taken over for themselves, perhaps corrupted by those they fought against, or the power they were given, but none of them relished the idea of relinquishing their hard won world. gathering together, they struck Tiamat a deadly wound with their combined powers. This caused the second war, the Dragon Kings and their children, plus the remaining abberations they had enslaved, against the 12 remaining gods and their followers, plus Tiamats followers she created with her dieing powers. Thsi war is the war that the world is recovering from now. The dragon Kings have been banished to 13 prisons, each guarded by one of the gods races, to watch over them forever, and make sure they stay locked inside, in their enforced magical slumber. these 13 cities are the basis for the expanding spheres of influence, though they are hardly the only pockets of intelligent beings or settlements in the world.


Fundamental changes form Core D&D:
Tiamat is the mother of all the dragons, chromatic, metalic, gem, you name it. I have always disliked the scale color = alignment rule. She is also chaotic neutral, and a goddess of greed and protection also.
Each god has 1 race thats devoted to it, but theres a catch. see below
No Clerics, no Wizards, no Sorcerers, the list of allowed classes will be below
No halflings, no gnomes. honestly, I just dont like either race


PC Races allowed:
Humans. a Baseline race, and one I honestly like, children and of the god of Life and Light.
Kobolds: Tiamats children, Respected for their role in the last war.
Dwarves: Children of the god of law. not subteranian, live above ground, have some mechanicle changes due to that. will detail later.
Shifters: The nature/ moon goddess children
Raptorans: Children of the goddess of the winds
Illumians: Children of the god of Knowledge
Goliaths: Children of the Earth goddess
Orcs: my first exposure to orcs in any way was Games workshop's Warhammer. thats the way I imagine they look, thats the way they look here. War gods children
Goblins: God of Fire/chaos's children
Diabolus: Children of the goddess of night/sleep
? : I have a god of the dead/death, but no ideas for his children. would like to keep it in the ecl 1-3 range.
Lizardfolk: toned down to be an ecl+1, they are the children of the water goddess
Elves: Children of the goddess of thought(psionics)

A number of other races are allowed, but are basically sub races of one of the main12. tiefling/aissamar, genasi, azurans etc. if it looks like human, it is a human basically, and a case by case basis.


Base Classes allowed:
PHB: All but Cleric, Wizard, Sorcerer. With Tiamat's death, there is no goddess of magic to allow arcane casters of that type draw their magics from, and after the war, the gods withdrew, and do not directly grant their blessings anymore. Story reason aside, I want to try and replace them with some of the alternate systems Wizards has put out. Tome of Magic, Arcanum etc/

Complete arcane: Warlock only
Complete Divine: All but favored soul
Complete Adventurerer: none barred
Complete Warrior: none barred save frenzied berserker
Miniatures handbook: all allowed
Tome of magic: All allowed
Tome of Battle: all allowed
Tome of Horror: Archivist allowed
Arcanum: All allowed

Thats all I have time for now. i'll be adding more/editing this post and the ones I reserve below it to add more if folks find it interesting enough.

[Phane]

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[SmileyX]

it certaintely sounds cool, but maybe instead of having Tiamat just completely killed have her 'shattered' into 13 different artifacts, or something, maybe as an official campaign for your setting get them to search for these pieces to restore magic to the world. But getting off of that the god of death's children, maybe the Kenku? Their in MM3, their sort of dark and might fit the mood, i dont know though. For your horrible things, maybe try using necroelementals or elemental demons from the dragon compendium? Just for a change lol. For some reason i feel some sort of prejudice versus gnomes though*sob*