Wild, Wild Post-Apocalyptic Arcadia: Building the Perfect D&D Setting

[White Blade]

I grew up playing D&D and, more than that, thinking about the implied world of D&D. It’s a setting that’s a mix of mythic Wild West and L’Morte D’Arthur with a Space Opera’s affection for precursors and facial prosthetics. And honestly, I don’t think any of the settings that I’ve read feel like a setting where D&D happens.

Other worlds have their charms – But usually they don’t feel like settings where places where D&D happens. They feel like settled places, at least where the camera sits most of the time. What I want is a setting that feels like D&D Happens here. Reckless youths break into ancient tombs, honorable strangers ride into town, and Here Be Dragons is right next door. D&D Happens.

So this is my open notebook as I attempt to build the Perfect D&D Setting. A setting that is extremely optimized for D&D, with perhaps a few personalized touches. To do this, I have my overarching idea: Wild, Wild Post-Apocalyptic Arcadia. This phrase encapsulates my goal:

Small townships, far from governments and armies, make their way against a hostile and wild world. (Wild, Wild) The world has suffered calamities, great knowledge has been lost, and civilization has fallen. (Post-Apocalyptic) Medieval-looking political structures with just laws, plenty of farm land, and upright leadership. (Arcadia)

For my baseline, I'm thinking of the standard "civilized races" as peaceful inhabitants of the land before an orc-led empire conducted a conquest from beneath the earth. The empire brought with it terrible diseases, a result of the same necromantic and diabolist techniques that enabled it to obtain a substantial technological advantage, and wiped out much of the continent's population. The collapsing populations began to migrate together for sufficient population. At some point, either as a result of magical backlash or divine wrath (undecided) calamity swept the whole land and the empire shrunk back into the Underdark. Now, colonial remnants of the Empire trouble everyone. The Great Calamity has stirred ancient things best left sleeping and reveals long buried tombs, temples, and cities. Arcadia mostly follows some sort of religion that provides the just laws and the nobility is strictly in charge of the military/taxes instead.

[Yakk]

A variant of this is, well, Fallout.

The apocalypse happened. Some small number of people hid in shelters for generations. The shelters are now opening.

The Earthdawn RPG was based off this; in fact, in Earthdawn it was cyclical.

You get a lot out of it. The PCs get a base (the small shelter) with limited resources they can build up or abandon. The shelter can have some arcane knowledge, but not unlimited, and much of it fragmented and not understood. The surface can be in many hostile environments. There can be other shelters, which they have been cut off from for ages; hostile? not? who knows. Beings who survived on the surface. Shelters that are still sealed. Shelters that opened before yours. Ruins and relics of the ancient past that your library may have information on.

...

A bonus to this is I don't need an evil-race (tm) trope. The disaster could have been a world war, an experiment gone wrong, or whatever. There will be prejudice from the past, and there will be new evils; but not a people assigned the "these are the bad guys, kill kill" taped to their forehead.

[Trask]

I think I share your idea of what a fun d&d setting is like, but I think that a lot of what you describe happens in adventures and not the setting. Almost any tolkienesque, gygaxian, medieval fantasy setting can facilitate points of light adventure as long as the adventures and characters are framed to play out as such. As described, most fantasy settings are have ridiculously sparse populations and settlements anyways (seriously, look at a map of the sword coast. Its about as big as New England with less than a dozen actual settlements on the map, its practically a wilderness).

Personally I think setting is largely optional anyways, to capture that feel you're better off creating adventures with that feel and leaving everything else vague ("the kingdom" is over those hills...). But if you want to actually put effort into making a setting that feels like a place where "d&d happens" in my opinion its best to make a loose, relatively stable, backdrop for adventure with lots of vagueness and gaps so you can inject whatever you want into it later. The platonic ideal of this kind of thing is Conan's Hyborian Age, its a continent filled with an ahistorical mishmash of cultures and environments with vague details (Aquilonia (NotFrance) and Nemedia (NotGermany) are the two great rivals, the Picts are stirring on the border, Zamora's king is dominated by an evil sorcerer) and just make D&D happen inbetween these things, just like how Conan regularly gets into all kinds of crazy nonsense without ever caring what Zingara's political structure is like. Zingara is just a place to have dusty frontier adventures in fantasy Iberia and then catch a ship to sail off to the Barachan isles and be a swashbuckling pirate boarding Greek triremes from Argos.

Think of it this way, what would the Wild West be without the context of it being the American frontier? Without knowing it borders Mexico with its vaqueros, or being filled with ex-confederate officers in exile, Apache raiders, Chinese railroad workers, and the iconic cowboy driving cattle for the hungry markets of California and the Midwest? Its something we maybe dont think about, but it makes the largely mythical idea of the Wild West feel real to us. A suitable D&D-land should work in a similar way, just simplified and calibrated for the needs of the game.

[White Blade]

A variant of this is, well, Fallout.

...

A bonus to this is I don't need an evil-race (tm) trope. The disaster could have been a world war, an experiment gone wrong, or whatever. There will be prejudice from the past, and there will be new evils; but not a people assigned the "these are the bad guys, kill kill" taped to their forehead.

Yeah, I think the setting of Fallout: New Vegas is actually a fairly good example of the sort of territory you really want for a D&D campaign. Lots of stuff to do, big colorful set pieces, a chance for expansion, and major factions with interesting philosophical differences.

I'm thinking through racial coalitions and I do at least want to try to re-work the Orc Problem. A bit more on that toward the bottom.

I think I share your idea of what a fun d&d setting is like, but I think that a lot of what you describe happens in adventures and not the setting. Almost any tolkienesque, gygaxian, medieval fantasy setting can facilitate points of light adventure as long as the adventures and characters are framed to play out as such. As described, most fantasy settings are have ridiculously sparse populations and settlements anyways (seriously, look at a map of the sword coast. Its about as big as New England with less than a dozen actual settlements on the map, its practically a wilderness).
I don't think that the Sword Coast is really analogous to the Wild West, partly because it has Waterdeep in it, a city bigger than Chicago in 1900. I also think Tolkienesque and Gygaxian haven't really been reconciled in a way I find satisfying. Gygaxian fantasy is very much a Western (eg Keep on the Borderlands), The Lord of the Rings is about people struggling to preserve their homes and lands from invaders. You see this in the development of Orcs from being the imperial servitors of the devil into being dangerous tribal savages. I think this was a severe wrong turn, in moral implication and also just stylistically.


Personally I think setting is largely optional anyways, to capture that feel you're better off creating adventures with that feel and leaving everything else vague ("the kingdom" is over those hills...). But if you want to actually put effort into making a setting that feels like a place where "d&d happens" in my opinion its best to make a loose, relatively stable, backdrop for adventure with lots of vagueness and gaps so you can inject whatever you want into it later. The platonic ideal of this kind of thing is Conan's Hyborian Age, its a continent filled with an ahistorical mishmash of cultures and environments with vague details (Aquilonia (NotFrance) and Nemedia (NotGermany) are the two great rivals, the Picts are stirring on the border, Zamora's king is dominated by an evil sorcerer) and just make D&D happen inbetween these things, just like how Conan regularly gets into all kinds of crazy nonsense without ever caring what Zingara's political structure is like. Zingara is just a place to have dusty frontier adventures in fantasy Iberia and then catch a ship to sail off to the Barachan isles and be a swashbuckling pirate boarding Greek triremes from Argos.
You're not wrong that a generic setting can work just fine, but I feel like the tradition of ancient kingdoms as old as Egypt in its prime really fits well with the disorganized, every town could use a couple young bucks to risk their lives. Even between dynasties China still maintained complex bureaucratic systems. I feel like that pushes against the Wild West, too far from government, vibe? The Wild West wasn't stable and most settings that have adventurers are unstable, especially if they're going to be there for long. I do agree a lack of gaps is really problematic but since I'm mostly doing this for my amusement and love of the game, that shouldn't be too hard to resist.


Think of it this way, what would the Wild West be without the context of it being the American frontier? Without knowing it borders Mexico with its vaqueros, or being filled with ex-confederate officers in exile, Apache raiders, Chinese railroad workers, and the iconic cowboy driving cattle for the hungry markets of California and the Midwest? Its something we maybe dont think about, but it makes the largely mythical idea of the Wild West feel real to us. A suitable D&D-land should work in a similar way, just simplified and calibrated for the needs of the game.
I think the Mythical West, as opposed to the actual West, does have a bit less of this. But of course you want to color it in.

One of the ways I'm hoping to work through the Orc Problem is that I hope to make most of the "monster races" into members or parts of the Imperial society emerging from the depths. Profiteers and colonizers are much closer to an acceptable target than native peoples and it more closely syncs up the Gygaxian and Tolkienesque vision by changing the valence. I picture the Empire as one ruled by the undead and trafficking with fiendish forces, the urge to expand offerings to these dark masters and use their power drove them out of the Underdark and into the day lit world. That should give me plenty of tombs housing now lonely undead lords and evil temples and it should provide me with lots of old imperials who haven't abandoned the empire's ways that players can smash in a satisfying manner without moral complication.

[Notafish]

I find the idea that this world has seen at least two apocalyptic cataclysms really evocative. "Civilization" collapsed as the monsters invaded from the Underdark. The Orcish empire, in turn, has suffered it's own collapse - if the civilized folk remember the old world, it is presumably a very distant memory - remembered only as myths, if that? The (surface) Orcs, on the other hand, are dealing with a more recent collapse - some might have hope that the empire will rise again, others might be pushing old family rivalries from before the collapse, while others might seek a new start...

[brian 333]

Keep in mind that the Wild West of North America was a period of social and technological flux. It was not the location, but the inherent conflict of societies which created it.

Without going into why or the morality of things, there were three dominant cultures playing for control and dozens of sub-cultires and factions. In addition, slavery, both African and Asian, was a major influence exploited by almost everyone.

It was inherently unstable. European settlers, sold a dream of cheap land from a place where land ownership was night impossible to achieve, and poor Americans who were forced West by bankruptcy and poverty, the native population struggling to stand against the tide, and would-be dons who had invaded in the previous generation and claimed ownership of vast tracts of land also claimed by the native peoples vied for control, with corruption of what government that existed being the norm.

This happened several times in Imperial China. The era of the various Khans and the Manchurian Warlords come to mind. It was going on in India when Europe invaded, with the Moghuls a fading power surrounded by ethnic and religious expansions, and in Europe at least a dozen times since the fall of Rome.

The Wild West is not unique to a specific geography, it is a period of radical transition in a time and place where cultures clash and governments are incapable of exerting control through force. It is always unstable, but within a generation the winner emerges, and then it sucks to be on the losing side.

Good news: in the subsequent generations it happens again, and sometimes new victors emerge. Then it sucks to have been the children of the previous victor.

[Catullus64]

Don't undersell the role that large urban centers play in the feel of an archetypal D&D setting. For me, lamplit dens of wine-sodden thieves, harbors flooded with the strange speech and goods of distant lands, and gorgeous palaces teeming with splendor and intrigue are all iconic vistas no less than villages, ruins, and keeps on the marches.

As with most settings, I'd be most interested to see you flesh out a single local region which serves as a good sample of the setting's core ideas, and also as a good adventure locale. Such a region, for me, ideally includes:


A starting Village, large but not big enough to be fortified, which is fairly centrally located and receives the most detail. Should have a sizable handful of named NPCs.
In your case, with medieval political structure being a stated goal, a fortified keep, some days distant from the Village, where resides the chief local aristocrat.
A smattering (five to ten) of smaller settlements, broadly sketched. These can be small farming hamlets, isolated homesteads, hunting camps, the manor homes of lesser aristocrats, or fortified trading posts. Each should have one or two named NPCs, and a one-sentence description of what makes it unique.
At least one settlement of a non-human but allied people; Elvish forest enclaves, Dwarf trading posts, Gnome burrows, Halfling villages. Politically independent but isolated within the land.
Wilderness regions: swamps, forests, hills, deserts, or coastal islands. These serve as barriers to travel via difficult terrain and their general inhospitable nature. They should also be the location of:
3-4 adventure locations. Rumors of these places should reach the central Village. Should involve at least one ancient ruin, one natural environ populated by more 'wild' monsters, and one dwelling of humanoid-esque monsters.
A large metropolitan center, not present in the region itself, but in whose broader political and economic orbit the region exists. Can be sketched out in broad terms, and should be quite remote.

[Yakk]

Inspired by "what is lawful and chaotic", and OD&D using it instead of good-evil, my lawful/chaotic split has to do with "institutional" vs "individual" loyalty.

So a lawful society is one where the institutions demand and receive loyalty. The crown, not the ruler. The rules, not the judge. The religion, not the priest.

Meanwhile, a chaotic society is one where the individuals demand and receive loyalty. The ruler, not the crown. The judge, not the rules. The priest, not the religion.

The lawful societies tend to be those of wall and road. They build fortified settlements to keep the darkness out, and ward both the walls and the roads against the monsters (which works, somewhat).

The chaotic societies are those of sky and hill. They live amongst the spirits and monsters of the wilderness.

This isn't "noble savage", but rather a completely different kind of "magical technology" -- binding bargains with monsters and spirits, instead of wards keeping them out.

[White Blade]

Don't undersell the role that large urban centers play in the feel of an archetypal D&D setting. For me, lamplit dens of wine-sodden thieves, harbors flooded with the strange speech and goods of distant lands, and gorgeous palaces teeming with splendor and intrigue are all iconic vistas no less than villages, ruins, and keeps on the marches.

I think I view cities as somewhat orthogonal to standard D&D, actually. It's pretty heterodox even to iconic fantasy to have ton of urban focus. Maybe this is a generational thing, as I think a lot of newer authors like Sanderson and Scott Lynch are very much urban writers, but I don't tend to think of fantasy in that vein. Plus, part of reframing the orcs and other monstrous races is to reframe the imperialist urban core as being, you know, bad and the sunlit lands as the hinterlands of a whole different empire.

I'd probably push towards most cities still being orc dominated, partially or mostly underground. The orcish culture, to my mind, should be some mix of Shadowrun, the Antebellum South, and the Assyrian Empire. The Foundation Empire had a brutal a racial caste system, a master-class that literally fed on its subjects, and ancient pacts with demonic forces powering its armies - It wasn't a very habitable place. Now that it has formally collapsed, it's remnants are still lorded over by handfuls of vampiric masters and liches, necromantic pollution still chokes cities that are only getting poorer, it's deals with the demonic are in arrears, and the orcish leadership are trying to hold together. Anyone who is willing to risk life and abandon principle might make their fortune there, though.

I've been thinking on your other challenge and will get back to it when I can.

[Trask]

I think the idea of cities as a sprawling adventurous place really comes from Lankhmar, and Conan to a lesser degree. Lankhmar is even where the whole idea of a Thieves' Guild comes from. But then you also have the evergreen milieu of castles on cliffs, dark forests, and wide open spaces that are sort of embedded in the collective unconscious as "fantasy", a place that's almost wild. They don't really play too well if you're focusing on realism and the "typical" D&D world, since most settings since most tend to be either relatively small (or absolutely unrealistically massive), and one focuses more on realism and the other more on fairytale logic. For my money I think the Sword Coast does this dynamic the best, although it isn't really coherent from geographical or political point of view, it does maximize fun. And between you and me, it makes about as much sense as most other D&Disms.

[thorr-kan]

I think the idea of cities as a sprawling adventurous place really comes from Lankhmar, and Conan to a lesser degree. Lankhmar is even where the whole idea of a Thieves' Guild comes from. But then you also have the evergreen milieu of castles on cliffs, dark forests, and wide open spaces that are sort of embedded in the collective unconscious as "fantasy", a place that's almost wild. They don't really play too well if you're focusing on realism and the "typical" D&D world, since most settings since most tend to be either relatively small (or absolutely unrealistically massive), and one focuses more on realism and the other more on fairytale logic. For my money I think the Sword Coast does this dynamic the best, although it isn't really coherent from geographical or political point of view, it does maximize fun. And between you and me, it makes about as much sense as most other D&Disms.
That's an interesting observation, and one I think has some truth to it.

Raging Swan Press has a similar feel in their Lonely Coast and Duchy of Ashlar settings. So there are third-party publishers that agree with you.