AnimeTheCat
2017-04-27, 03:56 PM
So I was just wondering what everyone else out here was feeling about the settings of their games. These don't have to be specific WoTC published settings, they can be one that you've built from scratch and developed over time.
My favorite setting is the one that my friends and I have built over the course of about 13 years. It started off as a world similar to the classic Final Fantasy 1 world where the balance is maintained by elemental crystals, but we used portals to the various elemental planes instead of crystals. We decreed that, at the time the games started, there were to be 7 planes, Light, Dark, Air, Earth, Water, Fire, and the Central Plane ("earth" as the characters know it). It was a moderately magic world that had lost much of its magic over the course of time, wars, fear, etc. There were centuries where magic was deemed a threat to the world and that it should be purged and the portals closed so any magically endowed people were persecuted and hunted nearly to extinction over the course of about 500 years. On top of that, massive temples/castles were built around each of the 6 portals and they were sealed away. For the first 100 years or so the world didn't suffer any repercussions, but after a while the world started to wither and die. This was the start of the first game that we played in the world. The Lords of the 6 Planes (Pantheon of 18 deities that govern the 6 planes) made contact with the players and begged our assistance. That first campaign took the greater part of two years but was the most epic game I've ever played in. After that, the games took place following the resurgence of magic, including immediately after when the 100 or so wizards, clerics, sorcerers, etc. came out of hiding and (with the massive increase of power) tried to punish the world for what it did. A few of those characters survived and created a separate plane of pure magic and thus was born the 8th plane of this world. Even though there's a plane of pure magic, the magic twisted the minds of the magic users that govern it and it is more or less a home for twisted amalgamations of overwhelming emotion (typically anger) and magic that lure young wizards in and twist them in to evil vessels for the angered magic gods (4 magic users that created the plane). Because of this, magic doesn't always work just right and there are waves of pure arcane energy that periodically sweep over the world. This makes magic items somewhat rare and a lot more expensive. (that came about so that wizards in the party could take the various crafting feats and actually use them). Right now in the world most of the magic items were remnants of what previous PCs made and relics of the Lords of the 6 Planes (plus a few perverse magic items from the plane of magic, but those are typically cursed and used a plot point for the players to destroy). The next big installment in the world is going to be the purification of the magic plane and consequently the first epic level campaign I'm likely to take place in, since we'll be going after gods effectively. After that, who knows because we're still building the world around the PCs actions. There are usually of us in the group and we take turns being the DM (except one guy, but that's for 100% understandable reasons and it doesn't bother us).
So what about you playground? Do you have a favorite campaign setting either published or made by you and your friends? I would really enjoy reading about them. Who knows, if it fits in well enough I may ask to borrow it to link it in to our world for the next time the Magic Plane eclipses the sun and causes temporal distortions on the entire planet! Please share!
My favorite setting is the one that my friends and I have built over the course of about 13 years. It started off as a world similar to the classic Final Fantasy 1 world where the balance is maintained by elemental crystals, but we used portals to the various elemental planes instead of crystals. We decreed that, at the time the games started, there were to be 7 planes, Light, Dark, Air, Earth, Water, Fire, and the Central Plane ("earth" as the characters know it). It was a moderately magic world that had lost much of its magic over the course of time, wars, fear, etc. There were centuries where magic was deemed a threat to the world and that it should be purged and the portals closed so any magically endowed people were persecuted and hunted nearly to extinction over the course of about 500 years. On top of that, massive temples/castles were built around each of the 6 portals and they were sealed away. For the first 100 years or so the world didn't suffer any repercussions, but after a while the world started to wither and die. This was the start of the first game that we played in the world. The Lords of the 6 Planes (Pantheon of 18 deities that govern the 6 planes) made contact with the players and begged our assistance. That first campaign took the greater part of two years but was the most epic game I've ever played in. After that, the games took place following the resurgence of magic, including immediately after when the 100 or so wizards, clerics, sorcerers, etc. came out of hiding and (with the massive increase of power) tried to punish the world for what it did. A few of those characters survived and created a separate plane of pure magic and thus was born the 8th plane of this world. Even though there's a plane of pure magic, the magic twisted the minds of the magic users that govern it and it is more or less a home for twisted amalgamations of overwhelming emotion (typically anger) and magic that lure young wizards in and twist them in to evil vessels for the angered magic gods (4 magic users that created the plane). Because of this, magic doesn't always work just right and there are waves of pure arcane energy that periodically sweep over the world. This makes magic items somewhat rare and a lot more expensive. (that came about so that wizards in the party could take the various crafting feats and actually use them). Right now in the world most of the magic items were remnants of what previous PCs made and relics of the Lords of the 6 Planes (plus a few perverse magic items from the plane of magic, but those are typically cursed and used a plot point for the players to destroy). The next big installment in the world is going to be the purification of the magic plane and consequently the first epic level campaign I'm likely to take place in, since we'll be going after gods effectively. After that, who knows because we're still building the world around the PCs actions. There are usually of us in the group and we take turns being the DM (except one guy, but that's for 100% understandable reasons and it doesn't bother us).
So what about you playground? Do you have a favorite campaign setting either published or made by you and your friends? I would really enjoy reading about them. Who knows, if it fits in well enough I may ask to borrow it to link it in to our world for the next time the Magic Plane eclipses the sun and causes temporal distortions on the entire planet! Please share!