Fleshing out a campaign setting: Mouse World

[Morrison]

I had an idea to run a game set in a kind of Secret of Nimh/Mouse Guard/Welkin Weasels type world of mice and other small animals.

It would be heavily reliant on reskins or existing races and monsters. Mice are halflings, humans are rats, dwarves are moles, weasels are half-orcs, etcetera.

I think most of the world is based in and around an abandoned human farmhouse. Humans would never actually appear in the game, but their leftovers would be important. Most of the farm's meadows are now a bucolic region of mice and rats, who farm and herd voles, while the king lives in the abandoned grain silo. The barn is now a cathedral to the god of agriculture, and an order of rabbit-riding knights operate out of it as well. The farmhouse itself, however, is a forbidden catacomb of undead, monstrous bugs, and bandits. I think there's probably also a Nimh-style underground castle of rats who study the leftover human technology and have figured out the rudiments of electricity.

Further out, there's an enormous and very dangerous forest (which may be ruled over by a Great Owl, I haven't decided yet), and a town of squirrels (probably count as tabaxi) and small birds (aarakocra) in its upper branches. Beyond that, a subterranean mining city of moles, a swamp town of frogs and turtles (grugs and tortles), a weasel hunting lodge, and a city of the mysterious river giants known as beavers (possibly storm giants?).

The thing I'm having difficulty with is who the bad guys are. I don't want to go the Redwall route of good, conventionally-cute animals vs. evil, not-cute animals. I don't think there will be any Always Chaotic Evil races in this world, although there will be plenty of dangerous predators (shrews, for example, I'm seeing as basically dire wolves). But for actual villainy I think it's just evil individuals, evil organizations, and a few evil gods, so I'm trying to think of villains who work in this setting.

One idea I had is that there could be an evil god of overpopulation, disease, oozes, and the abominations known as rat kings.

Any suggestions for bad guy factions, setting-specific spins on classic monster/villain archetypes, or other cool things that could work in this world?

[Sorinth]

Sounds interesting but I'm not sure I would rely too heavily on reskins for specific creature types. Assuming you want a party of mice, there's no harm in having most if not all player races reskin towards mice. So halflings, half-orcs, dwarves can all be reskinned to be mice. So mechanically the players pick the race that gives them the benefits they want, but fluff wise they are all still mice, with maybe some slight difference like field mouse vs deer mouse vs house mouse, etc...

I think one good "villain" could be a snake that wanders through the farmland every now and then. I'm not sure whether there's a good reskin but this should be treated as everybody runs away and hides from this giant beast of terrifying power type situation. There could even be a sort of cult of the dragon situation where some worship the coming of the serpent.

[Abracadangit]

Your setting sounds cool as heck! Already jealous of your future players.

I know what you mean -- the Redwall answer to this always felt off, right. Like there are intrinsically "bad animals." Some quick-sketch ideas you might consider:

--To your point about a plague god, disease is a very real thing that animals (even in our world!) have to deal with. Maybe there's a particularly virulent strain of something that's like rabies, but even more sinister, that all the animals in the realm refer to with a colloquial name like "the Slobber" or "the Bloodeye," and players have to be wary of roving bands of critters that have contracted the disease and attack others on sight, with a sort of zombie-like frenzy.

--If you're willing to go somewhat fantastical a la plague gods, you could give each animal race a sort of evil-philosophical-mirror with little fiendish adjustments like tiny horns and antlers, or glowing eyes. This way you could have mice & "fiendmice," rats & "fellrats," weasels & "baleminks," etc. Perhaps the evil mirrors typically don't work together, but just as the players start their adventure, rumors are beginning to spread that they're coordinating for some kind of horrible assault in the near future.

--And if you wanna go the other way and try science instead of magic, maybe some of the critters found some experimental chemicals (going full NIMH here) that enhance their physical abilities, but at the cost of messing with their heads and muting their empathy, turning them into asocial, amoral killers.

You could even use some of these in combination, but of course, it's all up to you. Congrats on the awesome setting!

[loki_ragnarock]

Constructs.

Make constructs the villains. Remnant automatons from whatever giants came before, zooming back and forth in perpetuity with no concern about what it might be zooming over.
To cross the cracked black plains is to invite death. The Hrairoo still zoom back and forth, though none know why. Perhaps it is a mystery some stoat could seek to solve?


Sentient Pollution.

Make oozes the villains. Toxic waste - or some kind of weird nano-have mind - that seeks to devour biomatter for its own perpetuation. Most of them are dumb and manageable, though inherently threatening. But the smart ones... the smart ones are bad news.

Cats.

Cats are the worst. They kill *everything*. And worst of all, they are in America. Perfect villains. Reskin all the various typically evil sentients into various breeds of cats.

[Demostheknees]

Cats.

Cats are the worst. They kill *everything*. And worst of all, they are in America. Perfect villains. Reskin all the various typically evil sentients into various breeds of cats.

Beat me to it - I think cats fit very well with the farmhouse setting, I'm picturing them less as like An American Tail and more like giant monsters that roam the world.

Now that I think about it, you could totally reskin dragons as Birds of Prey...

[Morrison]

Constructs.

Make constructs the villains. Remnant automatons from whatever giants came before, zooming back and forth in perpetuity with no concern about what it might be zooming over.
To cross the cracked black plains is to invite death. The Hrairoo still zoom back and forth, though none know why. Perhaps it is a mystery some stoat could seek to solve?

There might be few mad constructs around, yeah.


Sentient Pollution.

Make oozes the villains. Toxic waste - or some kind of weird nano-have mind - that seeks to devour biomatter for its own perpetuation. Most of them are dumb and manageable, though inherently threatening. But the smart ones... the smart ones are bad news.

I think that ties in the ooze god idea.


Cats.

Cats are the worst. They kill *everything*. And worst of all, they are in America. Perfect villains. Reskin all the various typically evil sentients into various breeds of cats.

Um, no, cats are the best. And I already said, I don't want any races to be Always Chaotic Evil.

[Morrison]

To your point about a plague god, disease is a very real thing that animals (even in our world!) have to deal with. Maybe there's a particularly virulent strain of something that's like rabies, but even more sinister, that all the animals in the realm refer to with a colloquial name like "the Slobber" or "the Bloodeye," and players have to be wary of roving bands of critters that have contracted the disease and attack others on sight, with a sort of zombie-like frenzy.

I like this. This is good.

[Morrison]

Assuming you want a party of mice

I don't want a party of exclusively mice. I like the idea that the players could come from a diverse array of backgrounds, since the danger that runs the campaign affects the whole region.

[ImproperJustice]

Some reaources for you to help with world building:

RPG supplement from Guardians of Order: Big Ears Small Mouse


And have you ever heard of the book series Gregor the Overlander?

Think Alice in Wonderland meets Lord of the Rings with a heavy urban flavor.

Where Bat Riders, mice, and cockroaches do battle alongside and against giant rats and such.

But if you are looking for good ways to divide groups outside of species, geography and scarcity of resources are always driving forces for different political ideals user to justify their management.

How is the supply of fresh water, metal, and energy in your kingdom?

Is there a thriving industry of whaling / cat hunting vessels so that the mice can obtain oil via their blubber for the sake of the industries at home?

[Cicciograna]

Um, no, cats are the best. And I already said, I don't want any races to be Always Chaotic Evil.

Uh, they wouldn't be Evil. They would be cats. So carnivirous animals who play with their food, and often kill much more than necessary for...reasons (https://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill).

Seriously, there is no need to bring alignment into this.