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Ponderthought
2010-07-18, 01:58 PM
So a while ago my old computer finally died, coughing up acrid smoke and burning plastic bits. This would have been fine if I hadnt been int the process of worldbuilding at the time. None of my carefully constructed setting survived, save a single document id sent to one of my players. So while I begin rebuilding the specifics, Ive decided to ask the forum collective for more concepts to spice up my setting.

Some basic information:
Its a world I created for 3.5 play, roughly medieval level of technology
Humans (and dwarves) are only recently arrived as exiles from their former world, roughly 300-500 years back in the setting timeline.
Human culture is mostly norse.
Humanity has claimed very little territory. Its a big, open frontier for the most part.

Any ideas (and I mean any) will be appreciated.

For more details, I will include the last will and testament of the brainstoming I managed before the whole thing evaporated in the next post.

Ponderthought
2010-07-18, 02:01 PM
Elves: Did away with standard fantasy elves, turned them into the fair folk, amoral fey who are generally unpleasant and unpredictable. No longer a pc race, going to rework their stats to bring them more in line with traditional folklore (More magic, weakness to cold iron, so forth)

Hobgoblins: Seeing as their described as a highly disciplined martial race around human intelligent, decided to take them out of the evil faceless mook category of enemy and make them a PC race in their own right. Heavily influenced by the roman empire, have to tweak their stats alittle, a +1 level adjustment just dosent make sense. Have their own government, capital and diplomatic relations with humans.

Goblins: Not sure about goblins. In general, i dislike the entire idea of goblin hordes and what not. Might make them slaves of the hobgoblins, or do away with them alltogether. Some of the subraces have promise.

Gnolls: Hmm. gnolls see less use than other faceless mook villians, may show promise. For the moment, their just gonna be gnollls.

Orcs: Regressed even farther than normal fantasy orcs. Neanderthal like. slight agoraphobia confines them to the Bleakwood. Worship a disturbing moose-god (Cas), cover themselves with mud and fashion crude totems from branches and other natural materials. Wear ragged kilts just to avoid creepy nakedness. Regularly drag off unwary travelers for sacrifice.

Giants: Giants are pretty much the same, they pretty much rule the mountains to the north of Lodestone, making exploration dangerous. The frost giants are at the top of the pile, living on the mountainsides and oppressing their lesser cousins, the hill giants. I think ill have fire giants living underneath the mountains, far from their hated enemies, the frost giants.

Trolls: Trolls are one of the other chief threats to humans in the north, living in the foothills between Lodestone and the mountains. Their numerous, savage, and hard to kill, but to dull for real tactics, limiting their ability to threaten Lodestone. The entire town of Trollkill is pretty much the front of the war against them.

Dragons
As a general rule, I dislike the monster manual dragons. Colors and metals its a silly way to distinguish different species. I also dislike the idea of altruistic dragons, it just dosent jive. Im thinking of making up some new species to replace the monster manual dragons, and set their default alignment to neutral, like animals. Going to reduce their level intelligence to somewhere between Smaug level and homicidal grapefruit.

Prodan
2010-07-18, 02:01 PM
Work on Googledocs.

ShadowsGrnEyes
2010-07-18, 02:13 PM
Personally I tend to turn dragons back into the epic monsters they're supposed to be. . . even the smallest dragon egg is at least medium sized and you're average adult dragon is somewhere between huge and colossal. if it isnt bigger than a semi it's got to be a baby. increase everything but it's INT which you can change depending on the dragon. . .

the wise ancient dragon in the heart of the wood might actually have a high int, but he'll still probably eat you. the rabid firebreathing mosntrosity in the mountains will eat you, then your village, then your kingdom and maybe, just MAYBE pause before moving on to your allies

Yora
2010-07-18, 02:28 PM
How strong things are in relation to common people depends how strong common people are.
I have an E6 setting and completely removed Wyrms and Great Wyrms because there's nothing buch arch demons and other dragons that could even harm them. But even an adult white can handle a group of maximum level characters. But if the common adventurer is expected to be level 15 to 25, things look very different, of course.

hamishspence
2010-07-18, 02:32 PM
4E reset the average alignment of all the metallic dragons to Neutral (some are closer to good than others though)

While chromatic dragons are still on average evil, nonevil ones do exist and interact with society. They're not exactly altruistic, but they do help people for reward.

Acero
2010-07-18, 02:37 PM
Giant Salmon monsters

PapaNachos
2010-07-18, 02:43 PM
Could you give us an idea of the landscape? Factions? Previous wars? Formerly, but no longer existing countries? Whats your take on magic vs. psionics and how it relates to your world? How advanced technologically are they (both generally and specifically)? How do economics work and what do each of the different countries/factions do particularly well?

I hope these questions get you thinking more about your world and let you get a better picture of it.

Ponderthought
2010-07-18, 03:11 PM
I have done a little thinking about cultures and factions, but alot of the information I put down got axed. As far as i can remember, humanity lives in three different city states, each controlling a wide area around it, like the ancient greek city states. Lodestone is in the north, and is close to the site where the exiled humans first came to the setting. Its people are fierce, with fair hair and skin, and spend a good deal of their time exploring and warring with the local trolls and giants. Aes Aesquor is located near the center of a huge gulf, on a large island. The city is mostly retrofitted ruins, as the first settlers stumbled upon a huge, ruined necropolis, and made it their own. Finally Kerralt lies on the southern shore of the great gulf, a city that grew up from an archaeologists camp in the desert.

As for other races, ive decided that the three great dwarven clans came through the portal with the first humans. The Stonefire clan dwells in the mountain Lodestone is built upon, and has great relations with their human allies. The Wintervein wander the north, seeking out valuable ore. Their clanhold remains a secret from the rest of the world. And finally the Blackhelm clan of grey dwarves live far beneath the isle of Aes Aesquor, speaking with noone and assaulting any who wander too close.

And giant salmon monsters sound terrifying.

PapaNachos
2010-07-18, 03:22 PM
Have the humans in Aes Aesqour cleared out the caverns that may or may not be located underneath it?
Also tell me more about this portal.

Moff Chumley
2010-07-18, 03:34 PM
What created the ruins?

the humanity
2010-07-18, 03:46 PM
just past the outskirts of Aes Aesquor, Nezumi/ratling thief/barbarians scrape out a living. living in the unstable areas, the sewers, and in rock mounds, they are a thorn to the other locals for their odd culture (little clothing, socialist view of property, no written language, doesn't care for law), and their constant aggression for intruders. some ratlings have been kidnapped and raised by humans to be ambassadors, but such ratlings are called reyhads by the normal ratlings, and when caught, are branded with the one letter in the ratling alphabet- a pair of parallel lines going through a circle. the symbol for exile.

that's an idea.

Ponderthought
2010-07-18, 03:46 PM
The human residents of Aes Aesquor have a codified set of laws unlike their northern comrades, and one of those laws actually dictates that humans will only build or retrofit surface level ruins. This stems partially from the fact that it is not illegal or suspect to be undead in the city, as long is the proper paperwork is filed, and many undead need some form of underground shelter. The other reasons are concern about weakening anything supporting the city above, and lack of information about what kind of creatures might be living in the depths. So in a word, no.

As for who created them, im not sure yet. I had a nebulous idea of an elven empire that fell into ruin.

The portal the exiles came through was discovered first by King Lot (who wasnt actually a king) In the old world centuries before the present day. He had dismissed his discovery as a useless curiosity for most of his life, until the wave of taint began to consume the old world. When it became clear it could not be stopped, he gathered all of his people and made for the portal, picking up other human tribes and dwarven clans along the way. When the exiles finaly made it through, the gigantic planar gate ceased functioning, and has since been lost to the ravages of history.

Edit; I kind of like the ratling idea, but perhaps I could replace them with halflings or gnomes, or maybe one of the hombrew races I want to make. Also, finished making my avatar. sweet.

the humanity
2010-07-18, 03:53 PM
the thing that made ratlings perfect (IMO, its your setting) was the speed and toughness- they're like zooming cocroaches. a gnome with a speed boost (hell, even a whisper gnome) would fit too.

Moff Chumley
2010-07-18, 03:57 PM
Where are the hobgoblins located relative to the humans and dwarves, and are there/have there been any large scale wars?

Tyndmyr
2010-07-18, 03:59 PM
The portal the exiles came through was discovered first by King Lot (who wasnt actually a king) In the old world centuries before the present day. He had dismissed his discovery as a useless curiosity for most of his life, until the wave of taint began to consume the old world. When it became clear it could not be stopped, he gathered all of his people and made for the portal, picking up other human tribes and dwarven clans along the way. When the exiles finaly made it through, the gigantic planar gate ceased functioning, and has since been lost to the ravages of history.

Spice it up. They blew the gate to stop the taint from invading the new land as well. But they blew it up early. In order to ensure that all with the taint were left on the other side, many innocents were left behind as well.

Unfortunately, not quite everyone with taint was left...

the humanity
2010-07-18, 04:02 PM
Spice it up. They blew the gate to stop the taint from invading the new land as well. But they blew it up early. In order to ensure that all with the taint were left on the other side, many innocents were left behind as well.

Unfortunately, not quite everyone with taint was left...

and such people are... some nasty evil thing. maybe refluff the gnolls to ugly warped humans and dwarves?

Ponderthought
2010-07-18, 04:07 PM
While the human city of Lodestone controls the northwestern region of the continent, the Hobgoblin empire is situated in the far northeast, around the Grey City, a dour and cheerless, yet extraordinarily well design fortress-metropolis. The empire has been waning for years, and it seemed as if a large scale war with what the hobgoblins saw as terrible pink skinned invaders was inevitable. There wear many long years of skirmishes between the two races due to cultural misunderstanding until the battle of (oh hell ive forgotten the name) when a band of trolls assaulted the weakened forces of both races. The human and hobgoblin commanders banded together against the new enemy, and a tentative alliance was born. Relations are cool, but careful courtesy has replaced open hostility.

Edit: The exiles blowing up the gate is a great idea. Ive been trying to work in a bit where the taint its seeping through, not in large enough amounts to endanger the world, but enough to warp local animals into horrible monsters.

Moff Chumley
2010-07-18, 04:11 PM
Rising political group of humans who believe the Hobgoblins to be demons and arrest "hobgoblin spies"? Could make Lodestone pretty interesting.

Ponderthought
2010-07-18, 04:14 PM
It could work, perhaps as a more secretive organization that fears the hobgoblins imperial ways, and black bags any hobgoblins they can find alone. I imagine the cities authorities would be horrified, save for the ones that secretly sympathize..

the humanity
2010-07-18, 04:15 PM
what about Kerralt? what is going on there? is it just kinda peaceful? warlike? trade center? it seems less fun than the other 2 right now, due to lack of info.

Volthawk
2010-07-18, 04:20 PM
Well, for tainted humans, maybe use lizardfolk? Or Pseudonatural creatures.

Ponderthought
2010-07-18, 04:22 PM
Lets see..Kerralt grew up around an ancient library and the scholars seeking to unravel its mysteries. It began as a simple camp, then grew into a town to cater to the scholars, then a bustling trade metropolis, with vibrant bazaar and magical districts. The inhabitants of the city are much different from the simple river folk and nomads that dwell in the desert, making it a hotbed of possible ethnic tension.

Oh look, I found an old map I drew of the setting!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v692/Mediv/Amaranth.jpg

Some of the names are different, very old map. And Yva, im not even sure I want to get into that, it involves an underground homebrew race

the humanity
2010-07-18, 04:31 PM
Kerralt. that's where goblins should be. they should be used as cannon fodder for building things and cheap guards powerful for numbers, not power.

and this setting is fun, give me Yva!!!!!

Ponderthought
2010-07-18, 04:35 PM
Id have to detail the Vahan, and I dont even know their rules yet. Plus they make me kind of sad, cause theyve been on a back burner for years, and it feels like Avatar stole their image. i know James cameron dosent go through my setting files, but its uncanny. but if you really wish to hear about it, I can give a nother long winded explanation...


Edit: Also, goblin slaves for the mages of Kerralt is brilliant. Thank you, I have a new way to twist the hacknyed goblins into something interesting.

AvatarZero
2010-07-18, 04:52 PM
What's the weather like? DnD can end up defaulting to Lord of the Rings, and Tolkein got a lot of his description from walking around the English countryside. If you're going for something different, why not something that isn't plains and forests?

If you like the Norse culture, you could go with making this new world the exiles have arrived in very cold most of the year, like a setting I've been working on. Farmers lock themselves away from the cold, and no one travels during a blizzard (so if a stranger arrives in town during one, you know he's not natural). Survival in the wilderness can be genuinely interesting when it's not roadside stews and first watch, but caves, hollowed out snowbanks and "Can we risk a fire? Can we survive without a fire?". Since lords and such have no obligations when it's too cold to farm or trade(as mentioned, the peasantry are all staying on one place and trying to keep the fire going) the PCs can play as them. People genuinely need to work together to survive away from civilization, which can help to curb the disruptive side of some PCs behaviour, or else give the more noble characters an answer to the question "Why am I adventuring with this psycho?" Hospitality is a matter of life and death; there are probably a whole series of customs about letting someone into your home that would be unthinkable to break.

etc.

the humanity
2010-07-18, 05:09 PM
the goblin idea was one I snagged from the Izzet guild in Magic the Gathering, from Ravnica. that whole place would be an amazing Dnd setting.

if its just like Avatar, maybe rework that, your players will keep calling your city Pandora, which will make you mad.

maybe they lived there, but the gnolls made war on them and the city is divided in constant Vahan and gnoll combat. the city is caught between, but the whole area gets backlash as the two primal races go further and further into depravity to remove the other. so they used to be righteous defenders, but many of them are driven by revenge and hate, and would break into gnoll burrows to destroy their children, or summon vile demons in their bloodlust- even sacrificing their precious nature to kill the gnolls. who have been that bloodthirsty the whole time, being gnolls. the elves, seeing this wasteland, feel that the war must be ended to guard nature- and are unsure who to back, the powerful gnolls, or the nature loving vahan.

Ponderthought
2010-07-18, 05:11 PM
I like your ideas about harsh weather and people being forced into close company for survival. The weather in my setting is quite varied, but usually extreme. Lodestone is built into a mountain in the north, with long, cold, stormy winters and short wet summers.The proximity of the turbulent gulf seas affects the weather drasticly. Aes Asquor's climate is unusually humid most of the year, giving rise to the saltwater and freshwater marshes that surround the city. Kerralt is located in a desert climate, and would dry up completely without the proximity of the river. Basicly, there are climate hazards everywhere, leaving most of humanity cowering inside the city walls.

In response to demand, Yva:

Yva is an underground metropolis on the southern coat of the gulf. The sea has eaten away the northern wall of the great cavern containing the city, exposing its inhabitants, the vahan, to the light of day for the first time. Some of the first surface dwellers the vahan encountered were human explorers from Lodestone, who sailed into the city in their massive longboats. Vahan culture is strikingly different from surface cultures, but their inquisitive nature and charisma have earned the respect of the humans theyve encountered.

The vahan are a lithe, catlike people with skin of deep indigo or purple, often with contrasting spots, and wildly varied hair and eye colors. They have double pointed ears, and sharp delicate faces. They cavern homes are lighted by glowing lichens, so they are not as adverse to light as most underground races, and many have taken to exploring the surface world.

Edit: When i said it felt like Avatar, i only really ment the way the race looks. Their culture is actually quite different, valuing magic and ingenuity. They do revere their enviroment, but its a very casual thing, as most vahan are somewhat puzzled by religious devotion. Basicly, i wanted a race to replace the elves as the clever and agile race for pc's, seeing as ive turned traditional elves into terrifying, amoral fey. got the idea from this article http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheFairFolk

the humanity
2010-07-18, 05:22 PM
well, thats simple. give them more reds and less blues and greens and nobody will see more than a passing resemblance. ignore my gnoll war.

Ponderthought
2010-07-18, 05:26 PM
I can always use a gnoll war somewhere else. The gnolls need more play, their like the red headed step child of evil faceless mooks inc. Hell ive even thought about making them a pc race, seeing as my artistic liberties have removed halflings, gnomes, half-orcs and elves.

JonestheSpy
2010-07-18, 05:39 PM
So wait, is it an empty frontier or not? You make it sound like there's lots of other races already living there.

Aroka
2010-07-18, 05:49 PM
I never really think of metallic dragons as particularly altruistic; they're good on a more cosmic level, but they're still colossal beasts to whom a human life is a flash in a pan, and even the long-lived elves are basically annoying insects with pitifully small minds (average Int 10.5 versus average great wyrm int of around 30).

They're primal creatures, with bestial instincts and great tempers despite their glacial philosophies. Their viewpoint is so alien, their minds so vast, and humans so insignificant and brief as a species, that human morality can't really be applied to them. They ally themselves with good deities and oppose demons and devils, but they won't think twice about killing a human who provokes them - after all, humans are barely even conscious of themselves, from a dragon's point of view.

Metallic dragons are also territorial monsters, and fight off intruders - even of their own species - with terrible savagery, great cunning, and arcane might.

The rare eccentric might take an interest in short-lived mortals, but usually its superiority will require it to place itself in a position of power over them if it does interact with them - the idea of treating them as equals is as ridiculous to it as the idea of treating chickens as equals is to a farmer.

Also, dropping the color designations and letting any dragon be just about any color is a good idea - the different breeds are just different "bloodlines" of dragons, with different abilities and sizes. Switching elemental associations around helps, too.

(And yeah, that works as well or better if they're Neutral, like in 4E.)

Ponderthought
2010-07-18, 06:08 PM
It is mostly frontier, because the inhabited areas are only a tiny portion of the map, with only 4 or five large sized cities in an area roughly the size of continental europe. Things get very wild very quickly once one gets away from the city-states.


As for dragons, I was thinking of creating some based more on the terrain they inhabit than color. Ive been brewing up things like sand drakes and storm worms for a while now, just not sure what their respective properties would be (other than the sand drake, witch can burrow and bust up through the sand, recreating Jaws in the deep desert. Cant wait to spring that on my players)

Aroka
2010-07-18, 06:11 PM
I love the land drakes in Draconomicon, and have often considered having them replace dragons entirely in a setting, because I really like bestial dragons. Check them out - they're exactly based around environment types, with swamp drakes, forest drakes, and so on.

Regular dragons are too, though:

Black - swamp, aquatic, underground
White - frozen
Blue - arid, desert
Red - volcanic, mountainous, hot
Green - forest, marsh

Can't actually recall the metallic dragons' environments... bronze are aquatic/oceanic I think, silver live on clouds (pft), and so on.

Ponderthought
2010-07-18, 06:15 PM
I have that book sitting around here somewhere, Ill have to look into it. I actually got the idea for terrain/breed based dragons from monster hunter of all places.

Moff Chumley
2010-07-18, 06:59 PM
Hmm... what's the multiverse in your setting like? Perhaps traveling far enough in one direction could lead you to another plane.

Ponderthought
2010-07-18, 07:03 PM
Im not exactly sure about the multiverse at this point. The default is the normal one, but ive been thinking of narrowing it down to just the material plane, plus the astral, ethereal and shadow planes. What i do know is that the old world and the new are linked, perhaps even in a binary orbit, like stars are sometimes.