Let's build YOUR setting! Idea smorgasbord

[Xuc Xac]

This is a thread for all those little ideas you had for a fantasy setting but never found a use for or the little colorful bits you like to toss into your settings for a bit of flavor. Share your inspiration here and don't worry about how it will fit together with anything else. People can pick and choose what they like and leave the rest, like a salad bar.

For example :
"The Great Library is a god in physical form created by mortals. Its architecture was designed by sacred geometers and its site was carefully chosen through geomancy. It provides divine power to those within its walls who are ordained as holy librarians and who remain true to its ideals of gathering and preserving knowledge."

[Yllin]

I feel uncomfortable when realistically describing bodies that have been dead for some time. So I decided that bodies of animals and people don't decompose naturally, but instead experience "soul smoldering" gradually turning them into "body ash". The process is dry and much cleaner than natural decomposition. The body ash affects natural environment in the same way as a decomposed body would, to avoid undesirable consequences.
It obviously changes the undead appearance, and I handwave no other global alterations to the world. Can't be sure about the latter though, I feel like I'm missing something. On the other hand, I always do.

[Eldan]

Not mine, obviously, but it's a nice bit of worldbuilding I always wanted to steal if I ever wrote a setting where it fit:
In the Gentlemen Bastards (Lies of Locke Lamorra), there is a god of thieves. (For some reason, fantasy settings often have one.) Now, that god of thieves has temples and clerics. These clerics are educated by being sent to the temple of some other god and learning the secret rites of that god. Then, they build new temples and disguise themselves as clerics of that god.

Usually, the setting claims, this kind of thing would result in divine wrath. But actually decicated clerics of the god of thieves and liars are allowed to do this. If they get caugth ,other clerics would probably still lynch them.

[TheStranger]

Elves do not die from old age, and there are only 1,000 of them in the world. A new elf can be born only when an elf dies, presumably by violence. Why? It's because elves are not native to this plane - they are spirits that require an entrapped soul as a bridge. Somewhere, there are 1,000 dreamers trapped in eternal sleep...

[ArlEammon]

December 21, 2012.

A mysterious tragedy occurs which wipes out almost everyone in the world.

Generations later, Humanity is still a shadow of it's former self. Humanity lives in secluded locations and thrive only by embracing high innovation or powerful magic. A few political entities arise from the ashes of civilization, but by and large, city states, tribes and powerful clans tend to run the day to life of a Human being.

And Humans aren't alone. The Alien Menace stalks the survivors and lurks in our shadows, searching for the time to strike when we least expect it.

[Tvtyrant]

At the beginning of the world everything lived together. Gods, mortals, demons, and animals. They all were as one type, ate nothing and breathed nothing. The featureless world changed to match the will of those inside it, with no need for incantations or anything but pure desire.

The world was steadily created by creatures changing it and themselves to match their desires, those with the greatest will becoming gods and the least becoming plants. Gods and demigods built oceans and mountains, fought battles over terf and made a world recognizable today. Finally they made an accord and forced the majority of beings to agree to it. The gods alone would retain tbe right to shape the world with their will, all others would give it up in return for stability.

Demons are the beings too weak to stop the gods but unwilling to sign. The gods locked them away in a cage of will which only someone from outside can open.

[brian 333]

At variuos difficult-to-reach locations the Elemental Planes touch upon the world in a manner similar to a seashore touching a continent. This does not always occur in 'logical' places. The Plane of Water might be accessible from an inland sea in the middle of a desert, or the Plane of Air might touch the world in a cavern with a bottomless pit.

[jqavins]

Like some others around here, the solar system was created by a god obsessed with orderly numbers. But in this case, the creator loves prime numbers (called "primary" by the priests). The small moon that marks weeks has a period of seven days. The larger moon that marks months has a period of exactly five weeks, giving months of 35 days, a secondary number. The year is exactly 11 months, or 385 days.

The day, on the other hand, is divided into two parts (day and night) and each part into 13 hors. Thus, the number of hours in a year is 2*5*7*11*13. I'm still looking for a good way to get a three into the mix; I might subdivide the hour. I've also considered having prime numbers of minutes in an hour and of seconds on a minute - 61 and 59 would do - but it's just too handy to be able to subdivide hours and minutes evenly.

The other planets, which I have not detailed and won't unless needed, will have orbital periods that are prime numbers Earth days, though they may have moons with periods that are prime numbers of their own days. The tying of everything back to Earth days is proof that Earth is the creator's favorite.

Such numbers, primary, secondary (i.e. numbers which are the product of two distinct primaries) tertiaries, and so on are holy. All numbers, and the investigation of the divine nature of numbers, are somewhat holy as well. This culture is precocious with regard to mathematics as compared to its development in other areas.
--------------------------
The Inner Planes:
The inner planes constitute a six dimensional space (not including time). Three of the dimensions are infinite (the familiar ones) and the other three are not. Condense the three familiar planes so that a whole infinite universe is represented by a point, then place a point for each plane into another, three finite dimensions. In the three higher dimensions, the four elemental planes are at the points of a tetrahedron, and the material plane is at its center. Thus, none of the elements are opposite, and paralementals* can exist along all six of the figure's edges. The elemental planes are equidistant from one another, and share a smaller (about 77%) equal distance from the material plane. Other planes, such as the paraelementals, may exist at other places in the finite higher dimensions, as there are infinite points to pick from.

The full extent of the higher dimensions is a sphere with the elemental planes lying on its surface; this is, of course, the æther. If any planes exist within the æther but outside the tetrahedron, they would inevitably be exceptionally strange.

The Outer Planes:
There are two versions of this, only slightly different. In the first version, the outer planes occupy positions in three more dimensions, so now there are a total of nine. Collapse the entire six dimensions of the inner plane structure above to a point, and place it at the center of an octahedron in the three new, highest dimensions. An octahedron has six points arranged in three opposite pairs. One of these pairs represents the good-evil axis of the aligned outer planes, and another the law-chaos axis. The third axis has the positive material plane at one and the negative at the other. These last three dimensions are finite, like the middle three, and are bounded by a sphere circumscribed on the octahedron and infused by aster (the material of the astral realm, just as æther permeates the æthereal realm).

In the second version, there only six dimensions. The ætherial realm and inner planes are surrounded by the outer planes and astral realm, all within same 4th, 5th, and 6th dimensions. The boundary layer where the æther and the aster meet is either impossible or unspeakably dangerous to cross, so magic must be used to get past it.

* Come to think of it, "paralemental" is the wrong word. "Para-" means against or opposite. These ought to be called something else, perhaps "mesoelemental", meaning "in the middle" between two elements. Or something else, but not "para-".

[akma]

I actually made a thread about this idea a few years ago in a different forum.

It's a world based on our own, maybe with an alternate history, that at some point technology was developed that allowed to physically manipulate souls and ghosts (probably somewhere in the range of 1850-1930 time period). That technology advances over time, and the situation will eventually escalate to a world where ghosts have to work for a living, fight in wars, possibly even be forced to physically combine with battle robots. It's an idea I liked but felt like I would not bother to develop fully, so I shared it in case (or in hopes, I'm not sure) someone else would want to develop it. I feel like there is an overwhelming amount of things that need to be decided in order to even start working on this world*, and so far I hadn't had this motivation to do so. I feel like a proper nickname for this would be Ghostpunk.

*What is life after death like? Can ghosts of people who died 10, 100, 1000, 10000 years ago can be brought back? Would that restart wars that ended ages ago? Will this happen in our world or an alternative world with different historical figures and history? How will this affect religions? Are there non-human beings that would be effected by this technology or revealed by this advancement? etc.

[Kapow]

I don't remember where I first saw this idea, but it stuck and I still hope to flesh it out enough sometime to actually use it:

The World is kind of a bubble (of air) in an endless ocean. In the center of the bubble hangs a fiery ball, surrounded by rocks and titanic chains. The god of fire and destruction is imprisoned here. His power is what keeps the "bubble" free from water.

Most other deities are "deep ones", living deep in the endless ocean. They aren't somuch revered, but feared and appeased. Most clerics/shamans/druids live outside the villages, as they tend to "draw the attention of the gods"

Most land is just floating on the (inner) surface of the "bubble" and so is changing it's location regularly. The few "anchored" landmasses are tradehubs and beacons for everyone. Even rarer is ore in these landmasses, so metal is scarce and expensive.

Lots of funny options, from a race of angelic guardians living on the rocks around the "sun", to islands that are gargantuan animals, revered as gods and living in a kind of symbiosis with the people on them,...

[quinron]

Elves are insular, shamanic tribal folk living in a secluded wood - secluded because they kill any other humanoids that get near their territory. Before he/she can be considered an adult, each young elf must go out alone into the woods and hunt down a humanoid, cutting off its ear as a trophy.

Another rite of passage for all young elves is to go into the forest alone for four days to hunt the most powerful beast they can safely take down. They remove the part of that creature that they believe holds its power - horns, paws, etc. - and, upon returning to their village, their shaman performs a ritual that binds that piece of the animal to them, replacing/combining with the part of their body that it most resembles. So you can have elves with jaguar-claw arms, ape feet, or shark's teeth.

[jqavins]

and, upon returning to their village, their shaman performs a ritual that binds that piece of the animal to them, replacing/combining with the part of their body that it most resembles. So you can have elves with jaguar-claw arms, ape feet, or shark's teeth.

Most resembles anatomically or physically? You could have an elf with a rhino horn for a... Well, you see where this is going.

[brian 333]

Downhill...


The adventure begins in a village. There is a road leading to a dungeon, whether a ruined castle or an inhabited one, or a cave, or whatever.

There is no kingdom or empire or even mountains, oceans, rivers, whatever. The entire world appears to be a village, road, and dungeon. When the PCs defeat the dungeon, they discover a map which leads to an adventure-zone town containing several adventures, with roads leading to more dungeons, which, when defeated lead to the discovery of even larger landscapes with more adventures.

The world is actually a failed attempt by a minor deity to create a new world within the Astral Plane, and it exists by the consent of everyone inside it. As the PCs grow in power their imaginations create ever larger portions of a new world, shaped by them and maintained by the populations their imaginings create.

For example, when discussing the players' characters, the DM learns that Brock Broken-Glass is a barbarian from the hill country of Westmoors. An expansion might be into the Westmoors. Another character might wish for a dragon hoard in the ruins of an ancient city, or an elven homeland waging eternal war against subterranean goblinoids.

The thing is, though the PCs can grow in power, they cannot create anything more powerful than they are, so each new dungeon is right at the limits of what the PCs can beat. Also, they cannot actively dictate their creations, it is wholly subconscious.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Everything's made from the same type of matter--the raw stuff of souls. It all comes from living things growing and developing, learning new things. Bound and compressed, this anima makes up matter--different types of matter are anima with different aspects. Free-floating it is energy; resonances in this anima field are magic.

Adventuring happens to be a good source of anima to soak oneself in, absorbing the released energy from those slain and from challenges overcome. Not all souls are strong enough to absorb and control very much--only a few can grow significantly, and even fewer have the potential to be "20th level" (or whatever the power cap is for PCs).

Thus, everything is made of XP.

Corollaries of this theory also explain XP, fast healing, and lots of other things.

[jqavins]

For example, when discussing the players' characters, the DM learns that Brock Broken-Glass is a barbarian from the hill country of Westmoors. An expansion might be into the Westmoors. Another character might wish for a dragon hoard in the ruins of an ancient city, or an elven homeland waging eternal war against subterranean goblinoids.

The thing is, though the PCs can grow in power, they cannot create anything more powerful than they are, so each new dungeon is right at the limits of what the PCs can beat. Also, they cannot actively dictate their creations, it is wholly subconscious.

In other words, in-universe fluff to explain what DMs do anyway. Nice maneuver.

Thus, everything is made of XP.

Corollaries of this theory also explain XP, fast healing, and lots of other things.

In other words, in-universe fluff to explain weird game mechanics. Nice maneuver.

You two should definitely get together.

[PhoenixPhyre]

In other words, in-universe fluff to explain what DMs do anyway. Nice maneuver.

In other words, in-universe fluff to explain weird game mechanics. Nice maneuver.

You two should definitely get together.

Heh. I actually came up with that for other reasons, but it fit the mechanics so well I had to keep it...one goal of my setting is to try to build a setting around the mechanics wherever possible to show myself that the rules aren't inherently incoherent--that you can get a "kitchen-sink" setting that's fun to adventure in without sacrificing rules-adherence. The only rules I've completely discarded are those for alignment (due to player actions in a past campaign).

[quinron]

Most resembles anatomically or physically? You could have an elf with a rhino horn for a... Well, you see where this is going.

Ehehehe...Probably not the best description on my part. It replaces the correlating body part, if they already have it; otherwise it's just grafted on.

[Durzan]

The Hokey Pokey really is what its all about. At least to the Elves.

[Dargaron]

For context: These are all from my longest-running 4e campaign, using only the original Core set. Everyone lives in the known world, which is a subcontinent slightly larger than India, shaped like the bottom half of South America. There's dry hills in the centre, humid plains running down the East and West coasts, France-ish rolling plains in the north, and the south is dominated by mountains that are largely unexplored.

-All of the core races except for Dwarves and Dragonborn are actually human subraces: they can interbreed with one another and all consider themselves "human."

-The Dwarves live in the central hills, and have no creation myth: they claim that they've always been there. Unlike the other races, they created Moradin, not the other way 'round: the Five Tribes of the Dwarves wanted a divine protector so that they could be like the other nations, so their best and brightest gathered in secret and forged Moradin out of...whatever gods are made of.

-The Dragonborn aren't native to the area: some thousand years ago, they appeared out of the southern mountains and sought sanctuary. First, they went to the human city-states (there's three big ones): the first drove them out, the second demanded that they submit to status as serfs, and the third turned them away at the border. They appealed to the Dwarves, and the leaders of the Five Tribes met for three days, before presenting their terms to the migrating Dragonborn: the Dragonborn would be adopted as the Sixth Tribe of the Dwarves. They would be legally counted as Dwarves with all rights and responsibilities. Instead of intermarriage, they'd be tied to the other Tribes by mutual fostership arrangements. The Dragonborn accepted, and to this day, every Dwarven settlement is home to a dozen or so Dragonborn who were raised in the settlement.

-The different human subraces aren't genetic: a human born in the South has a roughly one-in-three chance of being born a Tiefling, for example, regardless of origins. Likewise in the North: two humans can have half-elven children, two elves could prodice a human, etc. The primary exceptions are Eladrin and Halflings: two Halflings always produce a Halfling, and Eladrin are only born of the Northern aristocracy: there has never been a lowborn Eladrin.

-Orcs, Bugbears, Goblins and Hobgoblins are also subraces of each other, and are intruders from across the sea. Their souls are verifiably immortal: so long as the corpse isn't consumed by something before the Orc reincarnates, they are born again with the next generation. Obviously, this means that death isn't as "bad" for Orcs as it is for humans, and was the cause of a great deal of the initial friction between Orcs and Humans. Seven hundred years ago, the Orcish tribes were subjugated by one of the city-states, and they're currently in a state of bondage, used as agricultural labor to feed the population of Mile.

[Cluedrew]

To Dargaron: I like that bit about the Dragonborn being adopted as a Dwarf Clan. It is different and yet it fits.

A random one I had recently: All members of the warrior caste have long hair. They have these complex braids that they use to do it up for battle. Because of this a warrior with non-loose hair is seen as threatening.

[Dargaron]

To Dargaron: I like that bit about the Dragonborn being adopted as a Dwarf Clan. It is different and yet it fits.

A random one I had recently: All members of the warrior caste have long hair. They have these complex braids that they use to do it up for battle. Because of this a warrior with non-loose hair is seen as threatening.

Neat. Sort of like Ulysses' tribe from Fallout:New Vegas, where they communicate basic concepts/emotional states via a complicated system of braids.

Do you imagine that the warrior class fights bare-headed, and the braided/non-braided dichotomy is a socially-constructed means of communicating intent, or something that was originally practical (e.g. the hair is braided in such a way that it's easier to keep a helmet on in the thick of battle)?

[Cluedrew]

I don't know about Fallout: New Vegas, but I can tell you the original intent was that they wore helmets. In fact part of the purpose of the braid is to make it easier to fold and put under a helmet. The vague history of the people also has this... almost circularly (a bit of a feedback loop I suppose) as the reason the warriors have such long hair in the first place. See relatively long hair is pretty much the norm in this culture, down to your shoulders is short by their standards. So they have hair ties and normal braids used by most people. But the warriors figured out how to tuck a lot of under their helmet and so grew it out longer until down to your waist was their standard.

The loose- vs. done-up-hair association comes from a much simpler idea: they do their hair up when they are working. And therefore armed. And therefore more intimidating.

So the original intent was a bit of a convention thing, but one that was actually practically allowed by their situation (where you are already wearing headgear). That being said I am now wondering if maybe you could use hair as some type of padding or bit or insulation is you knew how to use it. And the society this was intended was not very advanced and located in mountains which would be cooler.

[Eldan]

To Dargaron: I like that bit about the Dragonborn being adopted as a Dwarf Clan. It is different and yet it fits.

A random one I had recently: All members of the warrior caste have long hair. They have these complex braids that they use to do it up for battle. Because of this a warrior with non-loose hair is seen as threatening.

I've seen warrior braids done in a few settings. One interesting thing that can be done with them is that a warrior cuts his braid off when defeated, so by the length of one's hair, one can tell how long it's been since they were last defeated.

[brian 333]

Dwarven beard styles, including braids, show clan affiliation and status.

A shaven dwarf is a sign of great shame. Public shaving is often used as a punishment for petty crimes, and is usually a part of any criminal punishment. Branding on the face so that the beard cannot regrow in the scar is a common punishment for serious crimes such as theft, cowardice, or abandonment of family.

Dwarven females in human society are pressured both to shave and to not shave. Dwarves in such situations have gained a degree of tolerance for such libertine behavior. Female beards, while often thick and full by human standards, are thin and fine compared to their males. Of course, their braid patterns are more intricate.

Dwarven barbers are held in very high esteem. Their social status is the equivalent of the master craftsmen. Because the beard is considered an erogenous zone, male barbers do not maintain female beards and vice versa. Wives often perform daily maintenance of their husband's beard, but few trust their husbands to perform the elaborate braiding female styles require.

A dwarf who doesn't braid is the dwarven equivalent of a hillbilly. Rural dwarves or those who live among humans often adopt braidless beard styles.

[MurderHobo]

There is no resurrection magic. However, there is a ritual that anyone can perform that allows them to bind their 'essence' to a certain location (churches are mainly used for this). The ritual is costly and requires hard to find materials. It takes 24 uninterrupted hours, after which, if the character dies within the next week, they will appear at the designated spot. If this happens, they will need to perform the ritual again in order to be brought back to life.

If this ritual is performed too often by an individual, Inevitables are sent to challenge them. If the player wins, the earn the right to perform the ritual for another random set number of times.

[Eldan]

The only way to resurrect someone is to travel to Hades and argue the case for their soul with Minos, judge of the dead.

[RagingKrikkit]

A few weeks ago, somebody in a back corner of the internet who admitted to playing far too much of 2016's Doom remake proposed the idea of a campaign setting taking place after the mortal conquest of Hell. Struck by inspiration, I spitballed the following, and while I would love to explore this idea further, I am currently working on forming another setting, so I may as well provide it for anyone else interested.

Spoiler

Show

For untold ages, men have gone to Hell for reasons other than punishment. Some to save the souls of their loved ones, others for some ancient secret of immeserabule value, but none ever matched the sheer audacity, scale, or success of the Conquest. Decades of battle, billions of soldiers, trillions of pounds of currency spent on arms, armor and materiel. But to truly understand the Conquest, one must understand the man behind it: Imperator Cassius the Bold.

Perhaps the man is immortal. Perhaps he is undead. Perhaps he is a god. Regardless, the longevity of the Imperator is undeniable. Once, centuries ago, he was a king, ruling over a minor land, seeking to expand his rule. Over the course of decades, neighbor after neighbor was brought under his heel, either by sword or by oath. As his power grew, others tried to appease him, offering gifts and treaties, thinking that their lands would be spared, until their folly was made manifest and their castles razed in the storm of the Imperator's rise. It took generations, but apparently he had the time and eventually, indeed, inevitably, all the world answered to mighty Cassius.

From there, the real work began. Every ounce of silver in the world, rounded up and forged into weapons. Every scrap of arcane knowledge, gathered and studied in great detail. Demons summoned and captured, used for study or combat training. It was no secret: the world was not enough for the Imperator. He wanted Hell, too.

Surprise was not an option for the Imperator, so his strategy lay instead to simply crush the Devils under a wall of silver and steel. Great armies, vast as the grains of sand, were assembled. Men, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, an entire generation of all his subjects, armed, equipped, trained, and ready--at least in word--to swarm the gates of Hell itself and cleanse the accursed pit.

On the chosen day, now known to us as the Day of Fire, the armies of the Imperator assembled across the world, each one before a set of archmages, tasked with conducted with performing the largest act of synchronized magic in history. Portals of massive scale, large enough for entire regiments to walk through together, were torn open, connecting our world and the First Circle of Avernus. Millions died in the first day alone, swarming into the breaches, crashing into wave upon wave of Devils, wading through rivers of hellfire, until at last the foothold was secure.

From there, history becomes vague and largely repetitive. Step by step, blow by blow, life by life, generations of mortals lived, fought, and died on their way down through the Nine Circles, every step paid for in rivers of blood. The Devils were ferocious, far stronger than any man dare dream of, but one by one, they fell before the endless horde of the Imperator. When a man fell, another stepped up to replace him. When one broke and tried to run, he was crushed under the feet of the formation in its inexorable march forward. Losses were catastrophic, yet immaterial; all that mattered was the drive forward and deeper. Step by step, blow by blow, life by life, the Conquest dragged on. Battle by battle, layer by layer, all that mattered was to keep moving, keep attacking, keep fighting.

And that is why the gods abandoned us.

The endless slaughter of the Conquest had done more than kill mortals, it had changed their very nature. A single goal drove all the world, funneling more and more men and materiel through the portals from which only those too wounded to fight emerged. The endless slaughter turned the stomachs of the gods of good, and they in turn set their backs to us. Suddenly deprived of their magic, the priests were unable to shield their men, and countless soldiers died as their protection from the fires of Hell suddenly faded. All was lost, the vast armies of the Imperator would all die, the Devils would rush back through the portals, and the world would burn with the wrath pent up from decades of invasion. But in the darkest of hours, the most unlikely of events occurred: Hell surrendered.

The motivations of Asmodeus are often difficult to divine, but in this case, the assumption is easy: the mortals had pleased Him. We had proven ourselves even more capable than His previous minions, and in return he offered his patronage to us. Caught in the depths of Hell, burning alive without our old gods to protect us, it was an easy choice.

And that is how the world became as we know it today. Devils became citizens, Hell became another province, and Asmodeus became our god. And here are you, a gang of fools with the gall to believe that you can change a world order forged in the blood of billions. Tell me, what is your great plan? Do you seek to overthrow the Imperator and restore the sovereignty of Hell? Do you wish to bring back the favor of the gods that abandoned us? Or do you have something even more insane in mind? You stand no chance, but at least it will be amusing to watch.

[Cluedrew]

I was going: this is going a in a weird and kind of evil direction I wonder if- Oh that is entirely on purpose. Honestly I would totally love a campaign about trying to lead humanity towards goodness from the depth of hell. Where is this weird mix of dark-edginess and good-two-shoes in there that is kind of fun.

[martixy]

So the point is sharing? Mkay.

In my universe, I like to borrow maintain some basic tropes and established lore everyone is familiar with, but put a more sensible and practical twist to it(at least from my point of view).

I will start with Origin of Species:
Elves more specifically.

See, elves in my setting are descended from the fey. Long ago, some fey came to the current primary world. At that time it was nothing but a husk of a planet, due to a primordial conflict the setting had just emerged from. These fey gave up their magic and immortality to revitalize the world and make it habitable. In fact the world's current name originated from the ancient elven word for "Sanctuary".

All of this creates several implications:
1. This is the reason we have wood elves and aquatic elves and mountain elves, and earth elves and varieties like these.
2. The elves of my world possess a certain animosity for the fey, whom in ancient times they resented for keeping their immortality and magic. Nowadays the true reason for the animosity is clouded by the veil of history, but some of it still endures in elves' racial memory.
3. Elves long lives are tied to their connection to the land. Take a wood elf and force him to live in the desert and he'll die within a century just like the rest of the normal mortal races. Also part of the reason for their low birth rates.
4. Drow are the earth elves. While much of the surface of the world was cleansed, the underdark remained a haven for the monstrosities spawned by that ancient conflict. This resulted in Drow population facing extinction. Enter Lolth, who saw an opportunity. She made a pact with them, and under her influence, the drow became the most quickly breeding group of elves. Over the centuries she perverted them to her whims. Explains how their murderous society can survive.

This kind of leads the topic of the lower planes, but that's a big can of worms for another time. Stay tuned.

P.S. All of this also provides a vessel for the primary "schtick" of my campaign - a world where monstrous races are prevalent and humans in particular are explicitly a small MINORITY.

[2D8HP]

Far to the West the land descends gently into swirling mists, several rivers run to it, and the closer one gets to the mists the louder the sound of rushing water becomes.

The mists are known in many tongues both as "Worlds Edge" and "Will to Live" as for centuries there are records of the despondent, and the bold vowing to either walk down into the mists or explore what's in the distance down the hills, but all of them are recorded to have turned back.

It is also noted how relatively prosperous, healthy amd happy are those in the lands that border the mists are, and it is also noted that until recently few lived near the mists, with most families being only a few generations old despite fertile farmland being near the mists. Both those families that have newly arrived, and those that have been longer have had more births in the last 20 years than those families have had before, with each year there being more births.

Within a days journey of the mists the differences between those who live near Worlds Edge/Will to Live and those who don"t, is apparent, and then first gradually, then quite abruptly, those differences dissipate the further from the mists one goes.

Strangely, the population is less dense the more days journey from the mists one travels until about four days out, it becomes quite crowded and gradually less so the further east from the mists one travels. While being less crowded with people, it is clear that the further east from the mists one travels, the older buildings appear to be, and most families, and even nations have histories of travelling west, few of migrating east.

Quite alarmingly, more and more around the world have just this year have decided that they either "Have nothing more to live for", or "Want to be the first to solve the mystery of the mists" and are journeying west to either end their lives inside the mists, or explore what's is past the point one may see, but so far no one has yet done so, just as they have not for centuries.

Some Sages have proposed a reason for these anomalies:

When one goes into the mists, one ends not just your existence in the present, but that you ever existed at all.

There is no proof for this whatsoever.

---

This Worldbuilding idea was inspired a bit by the GURPS "Banestorm" setting and this 5e D&D Forum thread:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...ers&p=20763103
And I'm asking for advice and comments.
For what it's worth I prefer no other"Planes" of existence, and to instead to use a "one world" model ala the Cosmology of the Greek myths, the Drow to be the original progenitor Elves, and humans to be descended from Elf/Orc hybrids.
In the old 70's/80's D&D I used to play, it made thematic sense for low level Magic Users to be weak (otherwise every other villager would be a Mage) and it seemed to fit the literature that the "Great and Powerful Wizard" would be more potent than "The Mighty Warrior". It also seemed like a just payoff for sticking it out and surviving, when most everyone choose Fighting-men PC's instead. Now some guys could have fun as a 1st level M.U. but they were the same guys who enjoyed rolling up a drooling begger in "Stormbringer".
I admit that both as a player and a DM I have not got past 5th level in 5e, and I have been enjoying how much more effective low level PC's are, especially the Spellcasters. As a DM I have also made use of "Anti-Magic Fields", and being forewarned (Thanks playground!) about over powered Wizards at higher levels, has made me consider stealing er... homaging Larry Niven's "Magic Goes Away" and have over use of Magic cause Anti-Magic Fields!
This could explain why a post apocalyptic Dark Age setting (but with some Renaissance technology cause Plate Armour and Rapier's natch'), the loss of a high magic civilization leading to ruins all over! Then the Magic (and the Monsters!) returned (my Lord I love worldbuilding)!
So over use of magic (such as from a high level Wizard/Sorcerer duel!) drains "manna" from an area leaving it "dry". So what makes magic return? Maybe just enough time, or maybe something sinister like in David Brin's "Life Eaters".
So you can have heroes and villains battling to keep or cause Magic from draining away, always with the threat of too much use making magic impossible, and possibly there can be foul evil Necromatic rituals that temporarily boost available Magic!
Or it may also be neccesary to have levels in Sorcerer (a natural ability is required to cast Arcane Spells) before anyone can learn Wizardry?

Imagine a Continent with an "Eberron" or "Tippyverse" magi-tech like setting, and then, perhaps wasted away in a cataclysmic war, magic stops working ala Larry Niven's "The Magic Goes Away".
What was once a great civilization becomes first a wasteland, and then a wilderness. Except for a few remote forests, mountain tops, and in underground shelters (ala "Beneath The Planet of the Apes"), without the spark of Magic the inhabitants descend into savagery (Orcs etc.), and settlers from a non-Magic based civilization (humans?) plant towns on the coasts and rivers.

Then after centuries of slumber, first slowly, then like a shock, Magic returns.

Long ignored books of lore of interest only to antiquarians prove to have working spells and Wizardry returns. A generation comes of age that for the first time in living memory has Sorcerers. Magical constructs and undead come alive. Long slumbering Dragons awaken. Monsters of every sort are reborn. Artifacts long forgotten in the ruins pulse with Magic again. Expeditions of Adventurers are chartered to explore and exploit an unknown land made uncanny with reborn Magic.

My theories aren't crazy at all!
Just because those blind fools at the Mages Guild roll their eyes, and won't admit the truth!
I'll show them! All show them all!

First, the half-elves, and half-orcs among us show that elves, humans, and orcs are in fact the same species!
Humans are actually descendents of long ago Elves and Orcs.
Don't walk away! In your hart you know it's true!

Also the reason Elves have low light vision like Dwarves and Gnomes, is because they too originally lived underground. Clearly these rumors of "Dark Elves", sometimes called "Drow", point towards the inescapable conclusion that "surface" Elves are in fact descended from Elves who were exiled from the Underdark because they were insufficiently badass! And in fact the day star bleached them! That is why Wood Elves who lived under the shade of their forest homes are darker hued. Either that or the reliance on magic among the so called "high elves", makes them both lazy and pasty!

In fact this overuse of Magic by some may doom us all!
The ruins of the Ancients all around, in the wastelands and underground shows the truth!
Long ago the Elves
used up all the magic causing the fall of their civilization!

Overuse of Magic in one place leeches the Mana from the Earh, leaving desolate wastelands in it's absence!
The ancestors of the Elves having squandered all the magic fled underground, with a few remnants learning to survive in a world without magic. Yes humans and orcs! The Orcs who infest the ruins are the savage descendents of the Elves too stupid to leave. We humans are the descendents of those who didn't hide underground, or stupidly stay amongst the ruins, but instead pioneered new lands and made new tools.
Why else would it be humans who invented the crossbow, the plow, sailing ships, and windmills? Only in times without Magic would anyone bother to build such things! That's why so many of us still toil on the land and in our smithies, instead of just learning Wizardry, were not too stupid to learn Spellcraft! Nay, deep in our souls we feel the warning that it can't last!

That is why these tomb robbing Adventurer's have lately been finding magic items littering the ruins. For centuries there was insufficient environmental Mana for those items to be worth picking up!
That is why there are Sorcerers now born among us when previous generations had none!
The return of Magic to the wastelands is why suddenly all these magicsl monsters now infect our lands! Do you think our ancestors could have survived long if they'd always existed?

We have forgotten and grown soft!
We must conserve what Magic is left and learn from the Gnomes ways to make wonders without the Arcane arts. Too much reliance on and use of Wizardry will doom us!

We must learn to grow our on food and distill water, without relying on Create Food and Water Spells, and if these Magic-User's continue to waste the Magic away in trivial goals, we must learn to fight off without spells, the bears, wolves and other beasts that threaten us, else we fall to claws and fangs!

Take these pamphlets and spread the word before it's too late![/QUOTE]

The truth is out there.
Heed the warnings!

---

My campaign ideas are rather more prosaic and unoriginal, basically..... [/
Viking kids vs Morlocks ...

The PC's are adolescents and very young adults in an isolated village where two summers ago all the fighting age men, and many of the women left on a "trading" mission, and have not returned, so the elders of the village at a moot in the godshall have some of the youth accompany "old Ragnar", a one armed former Viking (who will die of natural causes soon after they set sail) as their guide.

What they find is that nearby they are de-populated and sometimes burned towns with no bodies and little evidence of what happened.

Upon returning home (assuming they do), they find their village simillarly emptied, with cooking fires still smoldering, and in the distance a low thumping sound, like a muffled hammering.

If they seek out the source of the sounds, they find what look to be new wells outside the village, but they see no water at the bottom, and ha hand and foot holds along the sides, and descending and exploring leads them to discover albino "Goblins" leading the enchanted people of their village deeper into the earth, and then....
....well basically the Goblins are the Morlocks in the 1895 Time Machine novella, and the 1960 film, led by albino Drow/Elves not unlike the character played by Jeremy Irons in the 2002 film.

Further exploration by the PC's leads them to find tunnels made by digging machines (like in At The Earth's Core), and locales like in Journey to the Center of the Earth (ruins and dinosaurs!), and a civilization a bit like the Selenites in First Men in the Moon.

Spoiler: Some images that inspired me

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