Random campaign setting

[the_david]

I realize this sounds kinda stupid, but I want to make a setting that is mostly random. A village would seem like a good place to start, after that I could use something like Appendix B: Random wilderness terrain.

The problem is, I need more than just that. Stuff like random quests, random features of a town, etc. Can anyone help me with finding stuff like that?

[Yora]

Sounds like a setting with randomly generated content, which is perfectly doable.

But you still would have to decide beforehand what style of world and campaign you want it to be. Playing in a medieval forest would be very different than in a bronze age desert or early modern mountains. Or you could alternatively have something where the players regularly encounter gates to completely random dimensions and then hop into the next gate before exploring much of the world they are currently in.

[nick_crenshaw]

In an evil campaign I played in once I illogically stated that an Assassin's Guild was headquartered in a tiny village that we were in because it was the last place anyone would think to look and my DM rolled with it. If you want a random campaign just let your players run roughshod over the world.

[the_david]

A world created by players is definitely a possibility, but it's not what I'm aiming for. My friends do have a preference for Pathfinder though, so I'll have to go with the somewhat standard fantasy setting.

I've already found some good and less than good stuff on Donjon. The fantasy name generator can create a quick pantheon. (Just make sure you don't get two deities with the same portfolio.) The fantasy world generator is great, but just a little bit to big for me.

[the_david]

Another idea, random domains for deities. I'm a little hesitant, but I think it might work.

There are 33 domains and each deity has 5 domains. A deity with an alignment other than true neutral always has the domains for his alignment. A deity grants proficiency with a weapon to her clerics. (At least according to the creators of Pathfinder.)

That means you could divide those 33 domains over 7 deities. Make sure you don't get a lawful chaotic or good evil god, although a god with conflicting interests could be fun if handled correctly. Alternatively, you could have one deity for each alignment, leaving you with only 29 domains to pick. In both cases, some domains will be represented twice in the pantheon.

I'm thinking of an alternative though. If I give my deities only 2 domains each, I'll have a pantheon of 16 and a half deities. Erhm, better make that 17. Yes, 17 deities. I'll have more deities to pick from, but the chance that they have mismatched domains and weird portfolios should be smaller. (I think.) The number of non-neutral deities will be small though.

Last but not least, I'll randomly pick martial weapons from Ultimate Equipment.

Edit: This doesn't cover subdomains, variant channeling or mysteries. I still have to figure out what to do with the god of evil and liberation...

[Everyl]

Are you trying to make a random setting that more or less works out of the box, or one that you expect to require some polishing before putting it into use? If you're willing to do some polishing, then don't worry about "contradictory" domains, just spend some time crafting the lore of each deity to explain the seeming contradiction. The deities in real-world pantheonic religions often have associations that seem contradictory or unintuitive. Athena is a goddess of wisdom, knowledge, and warfare. The Shinto god Hachiman has associations ranging from warfare to fishing to Buddhist charity. Thor, god of thunder and strength, also routinely blessed marriages. If you're willing to put a bit of effort into writing legends or ancient tales to explain how a god in your setting picked up such diverse associations, there's really no reason to avoid seemingly-contradictory domains.

On the other hand, if you want to be able to quickly generate and use a world without needing to fill the outline in much before play, then you might want a more straightforward pantheon. It all depends on your objectives.

[Xuc Xac]

Everyl's right. Just look at the Greek pantheon. Apollo is the god of the sun, and music, and archery, and prophecy, and disease, and curing diseases. Poseidon is god of the sea and earthquakes and horses. Hermes was the god of magic and thieves and the night watchmen who guard against thieves.

For some reason D&D settings always want things to be blended into one thing. If Hermes were invented as a D&D deity (say that 5 times fast!) he would only be the god of arcane tricksters instead of wizards and rogues as distinct things.

[RBVakarian]

http://s15.postimg.org/4nmci5y57/Deity.jpg

That's the list of Deities threw together for an aquatic campaign a while back.

I wrote down all of the Domains and pieced together what i thought was interesting. Making a random deity might not be the best for a possible Cleric or such, but i definitely think it would be cool to see seemingly contradictory domains. :smallsmile:

http://s15.postimg.org/4nmci5y57/Deity.jpg