What's Your Most Off-Beat Setting Detail?

[Blueiji]

Hey folks! I've got a worldbuilding query. I'm curious what sort of unique spins you've put on classic archetypes, monsters, or ideas within your setting(s). These can be big changes or little ones, and can range from serious to goofy.

A few examples might include:

-> In the Elder Scrolls world, there's a species of Wood Elf that reveres plantlife so much that they're strict carnivores—refusing to eat or harm any vegetation.
-> In Arthas/Dark Sun, dragons aren't their own species but are rather the result of powerful sorcerer-kings slowly transforming themselves into tyrannical, lizard-like forms.
-> In one of my own settings, Aboleths don't have language. Their capacity to inherit detailed and complete genetic memories precludes the need for social behavior/complex communication (except for with servants, whom they just magically/psionically dominate anyway).

To phrase the question in another way: what's an interesting tweak, subversion, or modification to the "norm" that you've made within one of your own settings?

(Obviously, any setting that's built from the ground up to be entirely unique isn't really what this thread is about. This is more for notable modifications to existing lore assumptions, rather than brand new assumptions.)

[Eldan]

I have a civilization that lives along a big, swampy river Delta (vaguely Egypt-inspired in some Points, in other Points very much not). They consider stone at least somewhat sacred, because solid ground to build on is very rare.

Another interesting thing About them is that they believe in a modified concept of the multiple souls the Egyptians believed in, kind of mixed with a superego/ID thing and reincarnation. They believe in a dualistic soul, an impure soul of the body and a pure soul of the mind. When a person dies, their souls are split. Those who can afford it have their body transformed into a mindless undead, because doing so will trap some of their impure soul in the body. This will guarantee that when their soul is next reincarnated, it will be more spiritual, freed from unclean desires. Of course that also leaves behind a hungry, aggressive undead creature, who then has to be burried in a carefully warded grave. Those undead are highly dangerous, but killing them is one of the strongest cultural taboos, so they have Warriors who specialize in catching escaped undead without damaging them.

[Trask]

Giants are actually the descendants of ancient humans who ate the flesh of the Tarrasque and were transformed into giants. The Ordning is less a code of honor and more a literal psychic force that connects all giants and allows giants to command other giants of a caste below them with only their voice. The Tarrasque also came out of an icy rock that fell from the sky in ancient times.

Also yes, all the sci-fi esque implications of this that you are imagining are probably true.

[brian 333]

My world has a brine-beetle that lives on seaweed rafts in the open ocean. Their sizes range from the size of a human hand to the very rare colonies of giant scavenger beetles. The beetles have a drive to gather any flotsam to weave into nests into which they lay and incubate their eggs. Many generations of nestbuilding and collecting flotsam has resulted in massive rafts of living and rotting seaweed, sometimes miles across, with the thickest mats up to 100 feet thick, with vines and tendrils dangling into the darkness of the deep. The great gyres of the world's oceans help to draw in an endless supply of building materials in the windless doldrums regions where the few storms that flow through are unlikely to do more than scatter the fringes of the mats.

[sandmote]

I like the idea that trolls (of the d&d variety) perform haruspicy on themselves as a religious ritual. Slicing open their belly, flopping the innards out, and then reading the future in them.

[EggKookoo]

I had fun with race logic.


Dwarves, halflings, and gnomes can crossbreed -- but always produce humans (that's where humans originally came from).
Deep gnomes turn to stone when they fall asleep.
Orcs are the product of a malfunctioning warforged foundry.
High elves are elves adapted for living at extreme elevations.

[Yora]

Dire Ducks (http://spriggans-den.com/2021/07/31/ducks-of-doom/)


I like the idea that trolls (of the d&d variety) perform haruspicy on themselves as a religious ritual. Slicing open their belly, flopping the innards out, and then reading the future in them.

I remember an illustration of that. :smalleek:
Seems like something Pathfinder would do on one of their funny days.

[Formion]

Souls aren't commodities. You literally can't sell your soul to a devil. Rather, infernal contracts are the metaphysical equivalent of worshiping Asmodeus. The contracts may be extremely benign and fair, and in fact devils go out of their way to give more than fair contracts and not trick anyone to sign one. They want satisfied repeat customers.

[Telok]

Aboleths & mind flayers are related.

Mind flayers are a clone species that eventually matures into aboleths given the correct environmental and hormonal cues. The whole cycle is: aboleth (any, no genders) decides it needs minions, sefl-regulates its hormones, gestates & drops several thousand fingerlings. Fingerlings cannibalize for a while and the 50 or so survivors become little octopi about as smart as a dog. Their intelligence upgrades as they eat smarter creatures untill about smart-chimp level & small human size. Then they pupate into full mind flayers.

After a few centuries if they eat enough smart & experienced people they undergo a change. If they get an injection of aboleth slime into the brain they turn into a clone of the aboleth with the memories of the mind flayer. Otherwise they grow tumor-like egg sacks that eventually kills them and releases hundreds of fingerlings.

The whole thing with elder brains is a long running ruse. Those are just big bioengineered neuron clusters that act as sapient mind radars and can be used by nearby mind flayers as a relay or a psychic puppet. Plus adventurers tend to beeline to "kill the boss" letting more mind flayers escape powerful parties.

[thunderclan]

Viking Beaver-men...haven't really fleshed out the idea much yet though. Was thinking up names to put onto a map and 'Beaverheim' popped into my head...what else was I supposed to do with a name like that?

I quite like the idea of it though.

[brian 333]

Why don't elves run everything?

Way back in 1st ed AD&D elves were given a very long lifespan. Many assumed that longer lives meant better opportunities to acquire wealth and political power.

But then there were no PC elven clerics, but there were NPC elven clerics. Why?

In my world the elves eventually want to leave the mortal world for their afterlife. At some point, usually in advanced age, the elf begins to desire the transition and begins to train for the journey. These are the elven clerics. After a few centuries they are spiritually ready.

They often attract less experienced elves to them, and when the cleric makes the trip the followers go too. Younger followers are often those with more worldly experience, so the more elves adventure and wander far from home, the more likely they will wish to go.

Usually the ceremony for passing into the other realm involves a trip, whether by horseback, ship, or on foot. The voyagers appear to fade away as ghosts to those who observe such voyagers.

Drow were cut off from the afterlife when they took up demon worship.

[EggKookoo]

Why don't elves run everything?

In my setting, elves are a young race. Only about 5,000 years old, compared to humans that have been around 150k, and dwarves, gnomes, and halflings are older than that. Never mind the dragonborn, who have been around for over five hundred MILLION years.

[Trask]

Usually the ceremony for passing into the other realm involves a trip, whether by horseback, ship, or on foot. The voyagers appear to fade away as ghosts to those who observe such voyagers.

That is a beautiful and poignant image and I'm totally stealing it. It reminds me of the elves of middle earth, but just different enough to have its own flavor.

[SandyAndy]

The Tribe of Jeb. There are Dwarfs all over that only refer to themselves as a Son or Daughter of Jeb. Nobody knows who Jeb is, if his sons and daughters have their own names. If this is an ethnicity, a religion, or a weird magical curse. When they meet, they speak gibberish to each other but scholars have concluded that the words themselves have no meaning yet the Tribe of Jeb can somehow communicate. They do not seem to have a specific region or settlement or even a common trade. We do not know what they are. We have no idea what they want. All we know is that the tribe of Jeb is as numerous as it is inscrutable.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The gods are not only young, but are better described as "the universe's customer support staff" rather than creators or all-powerful beings.

The current crop of gods were only elevated to that status about 250 years ago, after the Great Mechanism that manages the universe's power flows disempowered the last set and drained them in an effort to keep from collapsing (stupid adventurers and their recklessness...). The prior set were only 2500 years old, making divine magic the youngest form of magic, with harmonic/bardic coming first, then wizardry (including sorcery and warlock pacts), then spirit magic (druids + rangers + other primal types), then finally clerical magic (including paladins, etc). Some say that now there's a new type (artifice), but that's not confirmed yet.

Other things--
* Humans are an artificial race created out of hobgoblins, who themselves are a temporary form of goblins that occurs when tribes are under stress.
* Dwarves, giants, and goliaths were all one race at one point. One set got depowered/cursed --> dwarves. Giants are what happens when a goliath undergoes a special ritual to be rewritten by runic programs. Those that don't die and manage it become various giants, who are sterile. Giant-kin are fertile "failure states" of that ritual. The Orduning is literally a programmatic thing, depending on how many clauses in the program you can survive.

[Tvtyrant]

The Horde

The Veil separates the living world from the afterlife, and is damaged by obscenity. Acts of terrible violence and emotion lead to the weaknesses in the Veil, which is what causes hauntings and curses to enter into the world. Massacres stand at the pinnacle of these hauntings, which leads to the Horde.

Where great battles or mass murder have been committed the Veil is nauseatingly thin, and spirits pour into the world seeking revenge. These spirits infest the blood soaked clay and become Orcs, horrifying earth-zombies in the shape of men. The Orcs are intelligent but filled with the same desire for revenge and fear of being returned to the Earth as all ghosts, and so set out in the twisted semblance of their prior forms to slay the living. Specifically to drag living captives back to be sacrificed on their Altars, keeping the Veil from healing and allowing them to regenerate and grow new Orcs.

These Hordes look and act like semblances of their living selves, so some fight in formations millennia out of date and others as children ridden down by invading forces. The Hordes can be defeated by the cleansing of their Altars, but this involves defeating an enemy that fights to the end without heed of their own lives and capturing the Altar on the Site to heal the Veil. Hordes fight one another over captives and lands, but since they cannot use each other for food they work together to keep Altars from falling. The Hordes instinctively know that reducing the number of Altars makes it more likely that they will all be exorcised and the Age of Blood will end.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The "cowboys in fairyland" sample setting I wrote up for STaRS has some good ones.

Dwarves are kinda Aztec. They live in jungles have metallic skin, build huge cities and ziggurats, and sacrifice sentient humanoids to appease their gods and hopefully keep them from destroying the world.
Elves are... well, okay, I mostly just copied the Marat from Codex Alera. Nomads who venerate totem animals, and in exchange become physically more similar to them.
Goblins think they have to shed their own souls. As they see it, this is only one in a series of worlds, each one getting more and more paradisiacal. To get to the next world, they have to pour themselves into their art and craftmanship so they can be born smaller and smaller-- bugbears in one life, hobgoblins in another, and so on-- until they're small enough to escape.

[Morphic tide]

One thing I've thought about is having the Always Evil just-flat-out-monsters, Worgs and such, be a matter of "improper" moral actors, in that while intelligent they aren't meaningfully more behaviorally flexible than an ordinary animal. It is very, very difficult to meet D&D benchmarks of "Good" with the ethical sense of a pack of wolves, because you are a member of a pack of wolves, just one that happens to be capable of speech and better planning.

Truly animalistic threat responses and hunting considerations with the subject being Humanoids, because they are frankly what constitutes easy prey most of the time in these high-fantasy worlds, is very far into Evil behaviors. The theft of livestock with active refusal to consider the well-being of their herders is also an Evil act, but again, these fantasy worlds are ridiculous. They aren't Humanoids, and do not have anything at all demanding they think exactly like them.

Cosmic Alignment does not care about clashing mental frameworks on this level, and thus such very literally bestial cruelty from something with a full mortal soul capable of deliberate choices will be sending them straight down under. And it goes just as well the other way! Blink Dogs are quite genuinely dogs, and very exceptionally friendly ones. This becomes Lawful Good, as they are actually more prone to working for the good of urban populations than most any humanoid since they're far more prone to generalizing their more common benevolence.

Meanwhile, Worgs are typically small family units that pretty routinely violently clash, being exceedingly willing and able to brutally murder first cousins. Again, things that are fine for true wild animals in the state of nature are not okay for inter-sapient conflict resolution, no matter how scarce their real ability to behave otherwise or establish and maintain a better way of life. Basically a whole mess of starkly limited self-control that causes very strong stereotype accuracy.

Granted, I also place slavery in the Law/Chaos axis since the argumentation against it as a whole in real philosophy is entirely about personal liberties that are the reason we have the Law/Chaos axis, with most of the same things making realistic slavery "wrong" tripping on serfdom and in some regards being a liege-lord with hereditarily subordinate nobles. So, y'know, basically the entirety of Feudalism, making the permission of real slavery in broadly Lawful Good societies, albeit necessitating protections wildly beyond historic precedence, kinda required to have the medievalesque Swords and Sorcery work. Basically a rather awkward conclusion of trying for ludonarrative resonance.

[brian 333]

Axbeak Riders of the Northeast Badlands

A region of porous rocky sand studded with granite knolls, knobs, and ridges is arid, sparsely hydrated, and for most of the year sparsely vegetated. In the rainy season flash-floods leave chains of shallow pools and ponds which quickly dry up, but in their silty wake grasses and wildflowers bloom for a few weeks leaving seeds behind to bloom again when the next flash flood comes along.

There are permanent water sources. These are usually hidden in rocky crevices, and known only to the various animals which can thrive in the otherwise inhospitable wasteland.

Two of these are the ostrich and the axebeak. Ostriches are not uncommon, and their mobility allows them to evade floods while seeking blooming valleys. Axebeaks are more rare. As obligate carnivores they are required to eat meat, though bugs and small reptiles are their primary diet when very young.

A gravid female will find an ostrich nest into which she will lay one egg a night for 3-6 nights, consuming an ostrich egg each time. She plays no further part in their care. The ostrich mother protects the nest from the sun and forages at night until the eggs hatch. Thereafter, the male ostrich guards the young, both ostrich and axebeak, until the axebeak chicks grow strong enough to begin to prey on the ostrich chicks. Thereafter, the male ostrich will recognize the axebeaks as 'other,' and will drive away or kill the axebeak chicks. At that point the axebeaks may forage as a group, but over time they will become solitary hunter/scavengers.

Small human or halfling barbarian tribes herd ostriches, and they have learned to tame the axebeak males as mounts. (Whether cultural or because of some aspect of axebeak nature, the females are deemed unsuitable as mounts, and are turned out to fend for themselves when they are three months old.)

Those who desire an axebeak mount go out to find a wild ostrich nest that has some of the slightly larger axebeak eggs and take them back to the nesting site of their domesticated flocks. When taken as hatchlings and hand raised, the males are larger, stronger, and obedient. Well cared for axebeaks almost never attack without being commanded, though the mothers of small children never let their children play where untethered axebeaks wander.

Part of the training involves piercing the sinus with a twig and as the axbeak grows, replacing the twig with larger and larger twigs until, at nine months, the mount recieves its permanent bit, which is used to attach reigns that the rider uses to guide the mount.

A padded saddle at the hip is held in place by an x-shaped girth that crosses the breast in front of its vestigial wings and cross again just forward of the knees. The stirrups are located there, though mounting and dismounting is usually accomplished while the bird is squatting.

Nomadic families of 4-12 axbeak riders guide and guard their ostrich herds as they migrate from the salt plains to the East to the civilized river valleys of the West on their eternal quest for food and water.

[Bohandas]

Granted, I also place slavery in the Law/Chaos axis since the argumentation against it as a whole in real philosophy is entirely about personal liberties that are the reason we have the Law/Chaos axis

Are you using the 4e alignment system? Law and Evil aren't mutually exclusive in most editions.

[Morphic tide]

Are you using the 4e alignment system? Law and Evil aren't mutually exclusive in most editions.
Law and Evil remain fundamentally separate things, though, the basic premise of D&D Alignment makes it extremely difficult if not legitimately impossible to say a single broad means or motive can be both.

Hereditary positions in life aren't the problem, because Feudalism isn't Evil. Forced labor isn't the problem, because bonded service as part of prison sentences isn't Evil. The intersection of these two isn't Evil, because that's the bulk of how you define Serfdom.

The separation between the defining features of Serfdom and Chattel Slavery are technical details of how the inherited state of bonded labor is transferred. It's why we got rid of both. Because there's not really a historic argument against one that is inapplicable to the other.

Again, this is a matter of not being able to figure out an answer that lets the various forms of Serfdom through. The real-life ethics are irrelevant, it's entirely a matter of letting the game be consistent for the setting backdrops it's applied to. Apparently I'm weird for being willing to set this aside for the needs of Elfgame.

[EggKookoo]

Law and Evil remain fundamentally separate things, though, the basic premise of D&D Alignment makes it extremely difficult if not legitimately impossible to say a single broad means or motive can be both.

I would classify that as highly debatable.

[brian 333]

I would classify that as highly debatable.

Highly debatable, likely to lead to forum infractions, and very off topic.

In my primary setting, slavery and serfdom exist, but in the primary adventure zone laws prohibit both. Forced labor is only allowed as punishment for crimes. The reason for this is that free labor is more productive and requires only infrastructure that pays for itself. The moral argument is not relevant because in the 35 years of the colonization of the Tinald River Valley the Duke has gotten extremely rich taxing free enterprise, and free people working for their own profit work much more productively than those who are forced to work with threats of violence.

[Morphic tide]

I would classify that as highly debatable.
There is not a [Lawful Evil] subtype in 3.5, Devils have two separate [Law] and [Evil] subtypes. There are a very scarce few single effects that attack corners of the Alignment chart, the overwhelming bulk of mechanics interacting with Alignment throughout the games' history are either Good/Evil specific or come in sets of four or five to cover Law/Chaos/Good/Evil and sometimes Neutral on its own. Can you find me even one example of it being explicitly stated that some singular means or motive at least as broad as slavery is actually defined (literally just forced labor) is something belonging to a corner?

Because even with how the corners are defined for their respective Outer Plane, it is overwhelmingly an intersection of one Alignment's ends with the other's means.

[brian 333]

This isn't the alignment topic.

When Spelljammer was new my player group disliked the whole Gith setup, and almost rejected the premise, until one of our group created The Nebula.

This was a vast region of space filled with material which was still in the process of condensing into six stars. They were hot enough to be incandescent, but not yet large enough to sustain fusion. Their varying temperatures gave each a distinct color.

The nebular cloud was mostly nitrogen and water vapor with oxygen in the low teen percentages, excpt where planetoids supported green plants. In those places oxygen envelopes could be as high as thirty or forty percent.

About forty percent of the lighter elements and upwards of eighty percent of the heavier elements are in the proto-stars. Most of the rest is in the form of metallic asteroids with crusts of earth deposits and ices or even water.

The result is a cluster of thousands of tiny planetoids within an atmospheric envelope that does not depend upon their gravity to maintain it. Atmospheric density and composition vary from location to location, and gets denser near the proto-stars and larger planetoids, but large swaths of the nebular cloud are dense enough to support terrestrial life.

From the surrounding star systems the cloud appears to be a massive multicolored hoard of gemstones. In Eric's version at least six neighbor worlds had sent Spelljammer ships to the nebula for colonization and exploitation.

Waystation was a Mars-sized world on the fringe of the nebula with a terrestrial environment. It was a trading station maintained by the PCs homeworld, though by a rival nation. As an emergency retreat it was useful, but they 'taxed' us to the point of poverty. We eventually set up our own base deeper in the nebula.

The Sulphur Planet was memorable, as was the Dead Planet, which needed a better marketing scheme to attract more visitors to their zombie-infested marshes. (A vampire stole our ship, but we found a crashed one, fixed it, found the vampire, and gave him a long trip home as a gas-cloud. Then we had two ships...)

Anyway, the setting was created by Eric B. so if you read this I'm not taking credit for your creation. Thanks for all the fun. Now I'll be going, at bottle-speed!

[Laserlight]

Elves (such as in Pratchett's Lords and Ladies) and vampires are the same thing. Long life span, aversion to daylight and holy symbols, covered with glamor, soulless.

[Bohandas]

Blood as a utility. Drained out of animals at a central power station and pumped out to every building in the city to power magical devices.


Can you find me even one example of it being explicitly stated that some singular means or motive at least as broad as slavery is actually defined (literally just forced labor) is something belonging to a corner?

IIRC, Unearthed Arcana (3.5e) and/or Oriental Adventures associated the concept of honor with Lawful Good

[Telok]

Well, I suppose if we want off-beat...

In my Dungeons the Dragoning setting we have:

Yeti are mute, communicating through wiggly hair twitches. For talking yo non-yeti they use talking datapads they type on. You will find two sorts of yeti on the wheel, cyber-juicer bodyguards and tye-dye rastafarian mining enclaves. One type has money, the other won't usually try to kill you, they're all flying higher than kites 25/8.

The Cocaine Wizard Guild has door prizes at their meetings. Like a six-legged blue furred ursine semi-promethian exalt beast with chain-swords for legs. The current major guild project is a (small) moon sized automated factory that will breed, raise, weld, and train cyber-ninja tyrannosaurus rexs. The current major debate is over storage of the finished product. Specifically if they should teleport them randomly to passing ships or use drop pods aimed at nearby planets.

The Pan-Great Wheel Ultralympics held once a decade in Sigil features such games as: lethal punning, ork baby punting, Elvis impersonation, synchronized chainsaw swimming, elfaboo hunting, and a circum Sigil motorcycle death-rally with strict limits on how big the vehicle mounted guns can be.

[EggKookoo]

Elvis impersonation

I first read that as "Elvis interpretation," which I suppose would also fit your setting.

[brian 333]

I first read that as "Elvis interpretation," which I suppose would also fit your setting.

Elvis interpretation must be done carefully to avoid blasphemy or contradiction of the dogma of the Curch of The King.

An Elvis Bishop must be on the panel of judges. Don't be cruel or you may find yourself accused of being a hound dog.

[brian 333]

In my setting there are no alignment-based planes or afterlives. Deities often, but don't always, congregate by pantheon, so that the gods of the human cities have Aos, the Eternal City which is contiguous with the plane of the more rural deities of the human culture, and connected to, but not a part of the planes of the nature deities worshipped by humans. Meanwhile, the dwarves have their own planes seperate from the human ones, though a human devoted to the dwarven dieties would go there.

There are three dominant human cultures and each has its own pantheon and planes associated with them, with some dozens of lesser human pantheons. Other races and mixed race cultures have their own final rewards, and devils, demons, and other nameless horrors have their places.

Any being powerful enough can go to the Astral Plane and through an act of will create and establish the physical laws of a pocket dimension. Of course, it must be maintained. A shared belief system of the inhabitants can usually do this, but only immensely powerful and intelligent beings can create a new living thing of even the complexity of a virus. Usually a plane's creator imports life.

There are uncounted billions of such dimensions in the process of growth or dissolving, or being maintained by their creators or their creators heirs.

[Quizatzhaderac]

From my post-human setting.

There was an early period where demons largely controlled the world, and so many cities were founded by demons and some cultures use writing systems derived from the demons. The demons themselves are a multi-racial, multi-planar civilizations that tend to exploit "lesser" worlds.

Goblins all speak (at least) two languages. One is a tribal language which is not taught to outsiders and changes rapidly. The second is a "market" language for talking to outsiders (including most goblins).

Gnrolls have very subtle secondary sex characteristics and all appear male to other races. Indicating anyone's sex is considered obscene.

Humans are recently extinct.

[Grim Portent]

For a Celtic inspired setting I redid Orcs as a similar creature to Kelpies and Selkies, inspired by an old celtic word for boars/pigs being orc. Several things from celtic folklore got incorporated and lumped together as a collective of exiled fairies of a sort.

Orcs, along with kelpies, selkies, each uisge, boobries and a few other shapeshifters are fairies who chose to remain in the surface world when the others were driven into the otherworld, and were forced to adopt animal guises in order to bypass the oaths sworn by the fairy kings when they made peace with humanity.

Orcs took the form of monstrous boars, with humans hands instead of hooves, both front and back, and scattered into the forests of the world. Each orc claims a stretch of woodland for themselves, hunting and killing any human who enters without first offering them a sacrifice, and even then only if the human fails to show them proper respect during their time in the woods the orc will fall upon them and throttle them. Orcs make lairs in caves or hollows dug out under large trees, which are the only places they can return to their true form, as tall and proud fey warriors. The trees and rocks around their lairs are strung with the remains of their victims, guts and sinews strung across branches and bones fashioned into totems.

Orcs, like the other shapeshifters, hate other fairies. They view them as cowards and traitors, weaklings who capitulated to mankind. This hatred leads to them driving other fey from their territory. In turn the fey kings view them as traitors who abandoned their lords, and consider them acceptable targets for their infrequent hunts in the mortal world, chasing them with dogs, spears and arrows and fashioning their magical remains into trophies and trinkets.

[Cluedrew]

Well here is a simple one for those who have read to many generic fantasy stories: Dwarves are one most "magically" races in the setting. They have more magic than humans or elves, in fact only a few races that use active and deliberate magic* actually have more than dwarves.

* So a dragon that can fly doesn't count.

[Enixon]

For a Celtic inspired setting I redid Orcs as a similar creature to Kelpies and Selkies, inspired by an old celtic word for boars/pigs being orc.

Oh cool, I didn't know that, I wonder if that's why Orcs had pig snouts so often way back when?

[Bohandas]

Oh cool, I didn't know that, I wonder if that's why Orcs had pig snouts so often way back when?

That or because it sounds like "pork"

[White Blade]

On my classic D&D one, definitely the pantheon. The lawful good goddess of justice is also the goddess of freedom and revolutionary war. The CG god of learning is the promethean god of mercy and wizardry. The God of Family is lawful evil and both a war god and patron of sorcerers. The Lawful Neutral God of Oaths is a wheeling and dealing, fast-talking merchant god of peace instead of a stern, unforgiving judge. Those are the most abnormal of the bunch.

[Grim Portent]

Oh cool, I didn't know that, I wonder if that's why Orcs had pig snouts so often way back when?

Most likely not. Orc's as they appear in DnD are drawn from the still really old, but not actually extinct at the time Tolkien used it, english usage of orc as a generic term for demons and monsters. The pig faces are probably from some illustration of LotRs that made them more snouty than originally described, or from early D&Ds process for picking art being extremely lacking in direction.

Nevertheless it made for a good inspiration to take them in a different direction.

[Dienekes]

Hmm, I'm not certain if it's off-beat. But I think what I've done with elves is somewhat interesting in a way that explains them.

Elves, in my setting are Tolkienesque so they don't die of old age. Some powerful diseases and weapons can still ravage them, of course. Over the centuries they have been warped by essentially the equivalent of the Feywild to feel emotions deeper and wilder than any of the other race. When they find something happy they will cheer and holler as loud as a child. But when something sorrowful occurs they fall into deep and terrible depression.

Over the centuries, these sorrows inevitably build up. Causing the elf to shrivel away unable to move or eat or think other than to dwell on their misfortunes and losses. So elves systematically cut themselves off from their path. Forcing decades or centuries of their own lives into the deep subconscious parts of their mind. Along with all the experiences and skills they've accrued that have now been tainted by their sorrows. It is not impossible to see a master craftsman or great warrior one day, only to find they have cut off all their learning about their craft or skill at arms because of something they've experienced that tainted what they once dedicated their life to.

And to be certain that they do not have their subconscious mind bring their burdens on them unwanted, the elves have cut themselves off from sleep.

But those skills and experiences are still in there. And when the need is dire, an elf might try to call upon the skills they've locked away. But in so doing they risk having all their sorrows return to them. And if these sorrows prove too much, an elf may choose to end their misery. Many choose to go wandering so their grief does not affect others, but sometimes an elf is more direct and obvious, and their grief then spreads through the elves that knew them like a wildfire.

There is only one elf that seems unaffected by this. One who claims to be the first and oldest of all elves, the Eternal King. Who may be the most powerful and knowledgeable character in the world, who remembers everything he's seen and done throughout his life. And that's because the sorrows of others does not effect him at all. Because he's a sociopath.

[Lacco]

Hmm, I'm not certain if it's off-beat. But I think what I've done with elves is somewhat interesting in a way that explains them.

Elves, in my setting are Tolkienesque so they don't die of old age. Some powerful diseases and weapons can still ravage them, of course. Over the centuries they have been warped by essentially the equivalent of the Feywild to feel emotions deeper and wilder than any of the other race. When they find something happy they will cheer and holler as loud as a child. But when something sorrowful occurs they fall into deep and terrible depression.

Over the centuries, these sorrows inevitably build up. Causing the elf to shrivel away unable to move or eat or think other than to dwell on their misfortunes and losses. So elves systematically cut themselves off from their path. Forcing decades or centuries of their own lives into the deep subconscious parts of their mind. Along with all the experiences and skills they've accrued that have now been tainted by their sorrows. It is not impossible to see a master craftsman or great warrior one day, only to find they have cut off all their learning about their craft or skill at arms because of something they've experienced that tainted what they once dedicated their life to.

And to be certain that they do not have their subconscious mind bring their burdens on them unwanted, the elves have cut themselves off from sleep.

But those skills and experiences are still in there. And when the need is dire, an elf might try to call upon the skills they've locked away. But in so doing they risk having all their sorrows return to them. And if these sorrows prove too much, an elf may choose to end their misery. Many choose to go wandering so their grief does not affect others, but sometimes an elf is more direct and obvious, and their grief then spreads through the elves that knew them like a wildfire.

There is only one elf that seems unaffected by this. One who claims to be the first and oldest of all elves, the Eternal King. Who may be the most powerful and knowledgeable character in the world, who remembers everything he's seen and done throughout his life. And that's because the sorrows of others does not effect him at all. Because he's a sociopath.

I love this.

Question: does it have any mechanics behind it?

[Dienekes]

I love this.

Question: does it have any mechanics behind it?

Yes, though it's a bit limited since I run a d20 game. I'm trying to go through all the major D&D races with this sort of thing, but I think elves came out the most interesting.


GRIEF OF AGES.

Ancient and wise, the elves have lived longer than a human mind can comprehend. Through those years they have experienced all life has to offer, and survived through sorrows that would drive others mad. To survive, all elves learn to compartmentalize their past, choosing to live in the moment with what skills they are currently using. Purposely ignoring the details of their past along with the pain that comes with it.

But, when the need is dire, elves can call upon their centuries long history to use lost skills and hope that the tragedies that befell them do not come with them.

Grief Die

You start the game with a d4 Grief Die. This die grows and shrinks depending on the sorrows you see or remember through your gameplay. When a Grief Die increases or decreases the Die becomes one step larger or smaller (d4 to d6, d6 to d8, etc. reverse when decreasing). A Grief Die cannot get larger than a d12 or smaller than a d4.

Using a Grief Die

At any time, you can announce to your DM that you are using your Grief Die. You gain one of the following benefits:

-Roll your Grief Die and add the results to any Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma check.

-Gain proficiency in any one weapon, instrument, or tool for the next eight hours.

-Learn any non-secret language for the next eight hours.

After using any of these abilities roll a d20, if the result is within the range of your current Grief Die, you gain the Grief-Stricken condition for the next eight hours. Then, regardless of if you pass this check or not, increase your Grief Die by one step.

Once a Grief Die is used, you cannot use it again until you take a Long Rest.

​

Becoming Overwhelmed with Grief

If your Grief Die is at a d12, and would increase, you automatically gain the Grief-Stricken condition. Unlike other means of falling into grief, this condition will last until your Grief Die decreases to a d4.

​

Grief-Stricken

While Grief-Stricken you cannot gain Advantage on any ability check, saving throw, or attack roll, nor can you gain any temporary bonuses to ability checks or saving throws such as through Bardic Inspiration or Guidance. The only exception is you can continue to use your Grief. While you are Grief-Stricken, your Grief Die is considered a d12. You gain an additional three uses of Grief Die before needing to refill them with a long rest.

​

Other Means of Increasing Grief

While the primary method of gaining Grief is through using the Grief Die, there are other traumatic events that can occur while will have the same effect. The following is a partial list of such events:

-You face some horrifying trauma, such as a near fatal wound that knocks you to 0, or being tortured.

-Losing a war or large battle, especially those that result in the loss of cities.

-Personal failure of a vitally important task, especially if people you cared for were trusting you with its success.

-The death of someone close to you, such as a friend or relative. Usually the death of a party member will count. Though the GM can determine not to increase your Grief if the party member was traveling with you for less than a few months or there was known antagonism between you.

-Betrayal of a close personal friend.

-The loss of a true love, through death, abduction, or separation.

-Losing a Bond.

-Having an Ideal proven false or warped.

-The return of a great enemy power from the past. Particularly one that was thought defeated, or abandoned their machinations on the world.

DM Note: There is a lot that a DM can do to make the elf's life miserable and have them constantly stuck in Grief. While there are certainly dramatic moments where a few such events may pile up, as a general rule, Grief cannot increase more than two steps per day. And increasing an elf's grief should be somewhat rare. An elf gaining Grief-Stricken a handful of times in a campaign is an interesting roleplay opportunity. An elf getting stuck in Grief for most the game is a bore, and you're a mean DM.

​

Decreasing Grief

It is all too common for an elf to become consumed by their Grief, becoming hollow shells of beings too depressed to act in any way. Others waste away, leave the world and join with their gods, and some pitiable elves commit violent suicide too wary to continue fighting against the Grief of Ages. Sadly, such actions often increase the Grief of all who knew them in life.

That said, many elves have learned to live with their Grief and counter-act the effects through various methods. But these methods are often only fleeting.

-Spending a weeks of downtime specifically in the goal to decrease your Grief. Nothing else may be accomplished in this time. Usually such downtime is spent either cavorting, drinking, and debauchery in an excessive exuberance for life or in quiet contemplation and meditation where they make piece with the fleeting nature of the world.

-Achieving some great victory against a persistent or powerful enemy.

-Accomplishing a long running personal goal. Something that took several months of dedicated work to achieve.

-Living through a rare life affirming event, such as a proclamation of true love, a marriage, or the birth of a relative.

-Beholding one of the great natural beauties for the first time in your life.

-Not using their Grief Die for an entire week.

Work with your GM to allow some of these outlets to occur through the course of play. Though do not abuse such mechanics. For the purposes of Grief, a player is only allowed one True Love at a time. One cannot celebrate the marriage to a true love every day of the week. Breaking up with one True Love would cause a level of Grief so you would only stagnate. But more importantly, that’s against the very nature of these very optional rules.

[MrZJunior]

It hasn't come up much in game, but I tried to base the religious system in my world on a sort of neoplatonic system. The classical Greek gods exist, but they are merely reflections of some deeper truth.

Souls pass through a cycle of reincarnation. The conventional view is that you retain knowledge in some form between lives. This is why, with some prompting, people can often figure out basic things like certain mathematical formulas on their own. This also includes philosophical learning. It is thought that those who study philosophy in a previous life can come to a deeper understanding in their next. Over many cycles of death and rebirth you will come to a true understanding of the nature of the universe.

Philosophy plays an important part in the setting. Philosophical academies take the place of monasteries, and some of the treasure the party has found were ancient philosophical texts, thought lost to history.

I also have an idea about using my vague understanding of Aristotelian physics to do a trip to the moon type game. Everything has a natural place in the universe. Earth type materials fall towards the center of the earth, moon type materials fall towards the center of the moon. But, through the marvels of modern alchemy enough selenium has been produced to construct a vessel capable of taking a mission to the moon. Now, of course you can't build the entire thing out of selenium, so the vessel will have to start its voyage being fired out of a cannon to escape the Earth's influence.

[Lleban]

In my setting Dragons are nearly extinct so most of the survivors are either ancient dragons or stunted dragons. Stunted Dragons are wyrmling and young dragons who've been enslaved by one master or another. Having been denied the necessary nutrients for can no longer progress in age categories and are effectively sterile. Stunted dragons serve as mounts and glorified guard dogs for the wealthy.

[EggKookoo]

Speaking of dragons, in my setting they don't just grow through the different ages (wyrmling, young, adult, ancient). Each age is actually a lifecycle phase, and the dragon must die of something other than old age to move to the next one. So a wyrmling can die of old age (typically in about a century) and never become a young dragon, a young dragon can die of old age (in about 500 years), and so on. If the dragon dies too soon in a given cycle, it also won't move on to the next phase, and the longest it can hold out before dying the better, as it empowers the next phase a bit more. This creates a creature that wants to preserve its life initially, then becomes more reckless after a certain amount of time and is practically begging to be brought down by an army or some skilled adventurers, only to be reborn later in a more powerful form and repeat the process.

The exception are ancient dragons. There doesn't appear to be a cycle after that, which is reinforced that they also don't age and won't die of old age (of course they can be killed). Some dragons believe this is the result of some effect or curse, and there's fifth age a dragon can achieve. There are those who believe there's an endless cycle to be unlocked if they can only find the secret and means to do it. This relates to why dragons hoard items, as it's a pervasive belief among them that there are artifacts lost in the world that are the key to working this out.

[Eldan]

One thing I've wanted to include in a setting for a while, in adapted form, is the Returned from Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker.

They are... temporary gods?

Basically, they are people who die and then rise from the dead in mysterious circumstances shortly thereafter, but now with a physically perfect, unaging body and the ability to give their "breath", their new life, to cause a single miracle. Priests in the setting serve the institution of the religion, and get attached to various gods over the course of their life. So a god has a high priest, then the god causes a miracle and dies, and that high priest becomes the priest of a different, new god.

I think this has potential for a D&D setting. You'd have a kind of hero-demigod pantheon, with living, interacting gods who are only around for a few years. It would be especially interesting with clerical magic. I imagine a theocratic city state, with a huge archive-temple of all the former gods, many massive palaces, a powerful clerical caste, grand festivals whenever a new god is discovered, and regular miracles that form the basis of the city's power.

[Yakk]

In the last cosmic war to preserve reality as we know it the Gods won. But only barely.

They where all injured, and the survivors all died in the 1000s of years since.

The upper planes are a post-apocalyptic wasteland, with surviving celestial beings barely holding on. Most of them are mad. The hells are an oubliette full of immortal beings consuming each other for susitance. Churches are real and (for the most part) believe the gods are alive, and their priests have real magic, but that divinity comes from the relics of the gods not the gods themselves. Extra planar contact tends to drive humans insane, because the beings they contact are also insane.