Brave new world

[raistlin807]

Hokay, working on a new campaign world for my group and I had the urge to ask what some favorites from other campaigns have been. I have a good idea how I'm going to organize the majority of the world itself, this is just a chance for other GM's to brag about what has worked well for them in the past.

What I have so far:

Elves as vicious, racist baddies
Corrupt political system
slightly aztec-ish culture for orcs
Rising goblin empire (their previous charachters almost died in a war against them)
Gateway to Ravenloft...nuff said

[Delaney Gale]

The first campaign I ran was a homebrewed take on the Celtic/Roman battles for control of Britain. ^^ Trust me, if you're a pansy-arsed wizard who's done nothing but study in libraries in Rome and you show up in Albion, you mess with a cleric of Brigid once before realizing that her fire pwns your fire. Druids ran the place, bards had oodles of status, and there was even a homebrewed Brigand (warrior of Brigid) that took the place of the paladin for those of Celtic descent. I should totally revive it.

[Damionte]

I thought you were referring to "Brave New World" the Super Hero RPG.

[Kraggi]

I thought he was reffering to the book by Aldous Huxley.

[Jack Mann]

Or possibly the play The Tempest, by some obscure hack who called himself Shakespeare.

[Knight_Of_Twilight]

I had one where all the players were monsters, after being enslaved by humans. They had lost the big war- and those were the consequences...

[herrhauptmann]

Halflings and gnomes are slave races.
Halflings serve elves and some human cultures
Gnomes serve a warrior race. (A home brew had them called the 'canis'. Think intelligent dogs, max life is 30 years)
Only dwarves and the canis (through gnomes) had access to cool things like alchemist items and gunpowder.
Elves. Look up some old myths. Don't use a tolkien knockoff like everyone(almost) else does.
New gods, don't have to go overboard like they did in Forgotten Realms with like 30 greater deities and 50 minors and demi.

Have the different cultures make sense. Some campaigns, the classic roman style country is 20 miles across, right alongside the Samurai empire that's 130 miles at its narrowest. Why didn't the Samurai invade and conquer? And since the two shared the island their cultures grew up on, why are they so vastly different? Simple answer, teh creator said, 'Wouldn't this be cool?' then did it.
If cultures are going to be different, with different styles, make it make sense. They're different because the land is different, they're fairly remote compared to the other.