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MercOfTroy
2016-12-07, 11:12 PM
At the push of a few of my players I have started to make a written guide to my campaign setting. I have been running various campaigns in this world for years and have a binder full of politics, plot hooks, lore, custom maps and a bunch of other stuff that I have started to type up. The problem is that it is already 10 pages long without any art or text annotation boxes and it looks like it is going to end up being around 50 pages in total. And to clarify, the guide will have detailed info for running both monsters and regular campaigns in the setting. Also it will be free.

So before I spend most of my free time between semesters typing out and polishing the campaign setting guide, would anyone use this campaign setting? If so, what aspect of the campaign setting would you like fleshed out the most.

Cealocanth
2016-12-08, 02:24 PM
Possibly. Perhaps if you were to describe the setting, people might be interested.

Stryyke
2016-12-08, 02:38 PM
LOL I did this too. Before adding any lists (feats, skill, equipment, magic, etc) my book was 52 pages long. I have only 10 basic spells in my world, but 768 feats. By the time I'm done, it'll be nearly 80 pages long. You gotta do it cause you want to. If you don't feel like doing it, and you don't plan on publishing it, don't bother. That's just my humble opinion.

MercOfTroy
2016-12-08, 09:48 PM
Possibly. Perhaps if you were to describe the setting, people might be interested.

It takes place on an island about as long as Cuba called the Elaine Isles. On the 'good' side of things there are 3 main nations, along with a major city state and some smaller clans. On the monster side of things there is one major valley with various clans and city's along with a few other scattered tribes elsewhere.

The summary of the lore is that 300 years ago a knight named Sir Tystan Bradshaw was spurred to create peace among the nations after a magical accident created by a powerful demon destroyed the small nation he was from, turning it in to a barren wasteland. Before the peace was made, the other nations blamed each other for the cowardly destruction of the city and became on the brink of total war. Bradshaw was able to unite everybody in peace lasting until the monsters that cause cause destruction where destroyed. Every nation agreed to this either due to loyalty for the destroyed nation or for economic reasons. Over time the definition of monster became not just demonic creatures but anything not 'civilized'.

In current times monsters have been eradicated from most of the isles. Leading to savage beasts and malicious groups filling the commonplace destruction void. The monsters have three main strongholds on the isles. The first is a valley organized by Aztec style Yuan-Ti who excepted massive refugees and organized them. This was done not as a kind act but instead to create a living wall between them and the people crusading. Though almost any monster race can be found in the valley, the most common races are goblinoids (set up a rough warlord focused government) and the orcs (clan style villages in the surrounding mountains). The other two main groups are tribal Lizardfolk in a massive maze like mangrove swamp and Viking style Minotaur raiders in the north (other races are not uncommon here).

That is the "basic" setting and the monster situation. I would give you a better summary and the overall map but I am on mobile. I am giving extra care to how the monster races are portrayed with different perspectives and how they interact with each other (many fun RP situations with depomacy in the valley). I am also doing a fair amount of plot hooks for the 'civilized' perspective, just not as much because DMs already know how to deal with a normal setting. Their is still unique situations though, such as in campaign I ran where the players willingly devoted themselfs to the crusade. Until one day when someone realized the immorality they chose by just by blindly following the government to help drive the minitours to the edge of extinction. After that they started to secretly undermine the alliance by trying to start wars between nations.

But I hope you liked it and any advice would be great.

Friv
2016-12-10, 05:26 PM
Allo!

First up, 50 pages is a pretty reasonable length. It's long enough to have detail, but short enough to get through in an hour or two.

I would be most interested in the things that make the setting unique. More generic stuff is okay to fill gaps and give an idea about what things generally are like, but it's the unique combinations of ideas that really make a setting stand out from the pack.

Freed
2016-12-14, 06:52 PM
This sounds interesting so far. I like how the monsters have different cultures.