Badger's Hollow - A mini campaign setting

[Calmar]

Understand that this is the view of the level 1 commoners in the area. The adventurer's job is to take on the dangerous areas -- it wouldn't be much fun to say "I successfully traversed Mt. Pleasant and survived the Cave of Easy Encounters!" now would it?

I suppose it's the low-level folks who depend on bearable passages through the mountains. Unless this area is the only source of metal within a huge distance the dangers would outweight the benefits. I'm not saying the Range should be completely devoid of dangers, but dangerous ravines and deadly monsters are one thing, while an environment that kills you for simply being there is something different.

Well, aside from how the Dark Age explains a lot of racial hatreds that are still going on and how the other ages explain the old ruins the heroes will be exploring

My point is that these events do not usually affect your immediate goals and actions. Robin Hood's gang does not recquire detailed knowledge about the beginnings of Greek and Western civilisation, or even the time before Norman occupation in order to know what's right, nor did the mercenaries of the Thirty Years War need to know the whole history of the Empire since Roman times to deal with the events. Ultimately that's just my approach and you're free to concentrate on whatever you wish, but I had the impression that this setting is supposed to be a somewhat open campaign-setting and therefore thought the imediately useful stuff should be most important.

[Savannah]

while an environment that kills you for simply being there is something different.

It's not going to kill you for being there unless you're stupid enough to try to cross mountains without winter coats...

I had the impression that this setting is supposed to be a somewhat open campaign-setting and therefore thought the imediately useful stuff should be most important.

Personally, I find campaign settings where the DM has a firm grasp on the background of the world to be much more interesting to play in than when you're just wandering around killing stuff. When a good proportion of the dungeons you go into have artifacts from [ancient empire], as opposed to each one being totally independent, you get a sense that it's a real world where real things happened.

As for why I'm writing it now, I can't just sit down and write whatever I think needs writing most -- that ends with me staring at a blank screen for an hour before quitting in frustration (and often abandoning the project for months). I have to write what I have an idea for and what is currently interesting to me, which happened to be those sections that day. 's just my style, I guess.

[Calmar]

You should definitely stick to your style. I don't know you or the games you run and I can only make statements based upon my experiences, which may or may not correspond to yours. Actually, the ages long gone are no central aspect of my games, because some of my players like to believe that any interesting plot situated in the past or in distant lands would be more interesting than the events at hand (which used to annoy me to no end, but I learned to deal with it). Therefore there are only references of the Old People who build the ancient stone circles or barrow mounds here and there, or of the Empire that once ruled the land many centuries ago. It did not occur to me such things might be important to other people's games.

I don't want to annoy you, nor convince you how you should do this. Just ignore suggestions that are not useful to your project.

[Savannah]

I don't want to annoy you, nor convince you how you should do this. Just ignore suggestions that are not useful to your project.

Nah, it's cool. It's always good to make sure I have a justification for what I do (and I'm going to be checking my wording on the Drakken Range and Agamid's Gate when I get back to the project to make sure it doesn't come across as more dangerous than I want it to)