Ascension
2008-01-29, 03:01 AM
I've fallen in love with the Goliath race from Races of Stone, but to really involve goliath culture in an adventure it pretty much has to be in the mountains, and that line of reasoning led me to the germ of an idea for a heavily mountain-based homebrew campaign setting. I've never tried crafting a campaign setting before, but I just can't help myself. I've got to give it a try this time.
My thoughts so far have actually been focused primarily on the Dwarves. I've never been too fond of the concept of the dwarves being a wholly subterranean race. I can understand their natural affinity for mining leading them to spend extended periods of time underground, but I think they really ought to have settlements aboveground as well, at least in the immediate vicinity of mine entrances.
That in turn, led me to this thought... What if the dwarves were originally a fairly normal surface race, renowned as remarkable miners and smiths, but living primarily on the surface, only venturing underground to work? What if their move to a wholly subterranean lifestyle wasn't a product of free choice, but rather an action taken against their will?
That gives us two basic options: Something on the surface forced them underground to escape it, or something underground dragged them down to serve it. The surface predator option was pretty much out, since I wanted to preserve goliath culture as portrayed in Races of Stone. That left the other option... dwarven enslavement by an evil underground empire. That not only gives us an explanation for why the dwarves were forced underground, it also gives us a nice quest hook.
Now the question: What race is using the dwarves as its slaves? We need something which lives underground, is evil, and has enough need for dwarven mining and crafting skills to inspire enslaving nearly the entire race. I don't want Drow. Many if not most of the underground races have a distinct bent towards magical power rather than physical power, rendering them not so heavily dependent on high-quality weaponry. I was at a loss.
Now I think that I've figured it out. I think I'm going to have the power under the mountains be a sprawling subterranean empire of evil deep gnomes/svirfneblin, perhaps with a large contingent of whisper gnomes in their midst as well. The deep gnomes have the underground traits that would give them an edge in the tunnels, plus I can still give them a bit of the tech gnome flavor to explain both their complete domination over their more physically powerful dwarf slaves and their consuming need for dwarf-excavated precious metals.
To make them an even more widespread threat, I think the deep gnomes will be allied with the various surface-dwelling giants of the mountains. The giants continue to hunt down the scattered remnants of hill dwarf communities to provide their gnome allies with more fodder for the mines, and in exchange they get tiny tastes of gnome technology to aid them in their on-again, off-again war with the goliaths.
The goliaths, of course, aren't happy with the situation at all. Their dwarven trading partners are being enslaved and their giant foes are being armed with increasingly advanced weaponry. They would love to change the situation, but all their attempts so far have been unsuccessful. For generations they have been forced to accept the ever-worsening state of affairs in the mountains.
Now, however, signs of change are beginning to appear. Across all tribes the recently born goliaths' skin has carried omens of imminent change. The goliaths know something big is about to happen. What they aren't sure of is whether the change will be for good or ill.
Enter adventurers. I don't want to plan out too much from this point on for fear of railroading, but in a very basic sense gnome and giant BBEGs would be slain, dwarves would be freed (at least some), and a bit of balance would be restored. Ideally, that is. I suppose if the adventurers want to be a bunch of callous bastards and let the dwarves and goliaths suffer from the results of gnome tyranny, that's their prerogative.
Up to here, of course, we just have background material. I'm fairly confident with everything so far. Now we get to game mechanics. This part I'm really uncertain about.
First off: Hill Dwarves. Not all dwarves have been forced into slavery. Those who still live on the surface and those who only recently have been captured by giant slave hunters will not be as fully adjusted to life in the underground realms as their fully subterranean cousins. To reflect this, I want to move the core dwarf races down a level. The core "hill dwarves" will basically be my setting's deep dwarves, while my hill dwarves will be fairly unaccustomed to a sunless existence.
I want to take away my hill dwarves' darkvision and the depth-sensing function of Stonecunning. In exchange I'm thinking I could give them the goliaths' Acclimated racial ability (since they would be adapted to living on the surface of mountains rather than within them), Low-Light Vision (they still have good eyes, but they require a light source to see), and maybe the goliaths' Mountain Movement racial ability. That's the part I'm unsure of. Would Mountain Movement unbalance dwarves? I was originally going to take away Stonecunning entirely and switch it out for Mountain Movement, but I want to maintain the feel that the dwarves, no matter where they live, are skilled crafters of stone. Maybe cut the bonuses in half? +1 to Search, can Search within 5 ft of unusual stonework? This is the part I'm not certain about.
Your advice?
Another area in which I need advice is the choice of svirfneblin as BBEGs. I made the decision almost purely from a flavor standpoint with very little consideration of game mechanics. I know I want them to be threatening villains, but I don't know how to go about doing it. How would you recommend building deep gnomes into a sinister threat?
My thoughts so far have actually been focused primarily on the Dwarves. I've never been too fond of the concept of the dwarves being a wholly subterranean race. I can understand their natural affinity for mining leading them to spend extended periods of time underground, but I think they really ought to have settlements aboveground as well, at least in the immediate vicinity of mine entrances.
That in turn, led me to this thought... What if the dwarves were originally a fairly normal surface race, renowned as remarkable miners and smiths, but living primarily on the surface, only venturing underground to work? What if their move to a wholly subterranean lifestyle wasn't a product of free choice, but rather an action taken against their will?
That gives us two basic options: Something on the surface forced them underground to escape it, or something underground dragged them down to serve it. The surface predator option was pretty much out, since I wanted to preserve goliath culture as portrayed in Races of Stone. That left the other option... dwarven enslavement by an evil underground empire. That not only gives us an explanation for why the dwarves were forced underground, it also gives us a nice quest hook.
Now the question: What race is using the dwarves as its slaves? We need something which lives underground, is evil, and has enough need for dwarven mining and crafting skills to inspire enslaving nearly the entire race. I don't want Drow. Many if not most of the underground races have a distinct bent towards magical power rather than physical power, rendering them not so heavily dependent on high-quality weaponry. I was at a loss.
Now I think that I've figured it out. I think I'm going to have the power under the mountains be a sprawling subterranean empire of evil deep gnomes/svirfneblin, perhaps with a large contingent of whisper gnomes in their midst as well. The deep gnomes have the underground traits that would give them an edge in the tunnels, plus I can still give them a bit of the tech gnome flavor to explain both their complete domination over their more physically powerful dwarf slaves and their consuming need for dwarf-excavated precious metals.
To make them an even more widespread threat, I think the deep gnomes will be allied with the various surface-dwelling giants of the mountains. The giants continue to hunt down the scattered remnants of hill dwarf communities to provide their gnome allies with more fodder for the mines, and in exchange they get tiny tastes of gnome technology to aid them in their on-again, off-again war with the goliaths.
The goliaths, of course, aren't happy with the situation at all. Their dwarven trading partners are being enslaved and their giant foes are being armed with increasingly advanced weaponry. They would love to change the situation, but all their attempts so far have been unsuccessful. For generations they have been forced to accept the ever-worsening state of affairs in the mountains.
Now, however, signs of change are beginning to appear. Across all tribes the recently born goliaths' skin has carried omens of imminent change. The goliaths know something big is about to happen. What they aren't sure of is whether the change will be for good or ill.
Enter adventurers. I don't want to plan out too much from this point on for fear of railroading, but in a very basic sense gnome and giant BBEGs would be slain, dwarves would be freed (at least some), and a bit of balance would be restored. Ideally, that is. I suppose if the adventurers want to be a bunch of callous bastards and let the dwarves and goliaths suffer from the results of gnome tyranny, that's their prerogative.
Up to here, of course, we just have background material. I'm fairly confident with everything so far. Now we get to game mechanics. This part I'm really uncertain about.
First off: Hill Dwarves. Not all dwarves have been forced into slavery. Those who still live on the surface and those who only recently have been captured by giant slave hunters will not be as fully adjusted to life in the underground realms as their fully subterranean cousins. To reflect this, I want to move the core dwarf races down a level. The core "hill dwarves" will basically be my setting's deep dwarves, while my hill dwarves will be fairly unaccustomed to a sunless existence.
I want to take away my hill dwarves' darkvision and the depth-sensing function of Stonecunning. In exchange I'm thinking I could give them the goliaths' Acclimated racial ability (since they would be adapted to living on the surface of mountains rather than within them), Low-Light Vision (they still have good eyes, but they require a light source to see), and maybe the goliaths' Mountain Movement racial ability. That's the part I'm unsure of. Would Mountain Movement unbalance dwarves? I was originally going to take away Stonecunning entirely and switch it out for Mountain Movement, but I want to maintain the feel that the dwarves, no matter where they live, are skilled crafters of stone. Maybe cut the bonuses in half? +1 to Search, can Search within 5 ft of unusual stonework? This is the part I'm not certain about.
Your advice?
Another area in which I need advice is the choice of svirfneblin as BBEGs. I made the decision almost purely from a flavor standpoint with very little consideration of game mechanics. I know I want them to be threatening villains, but I don't know how to go about doing it. How would you recommend building deep gnomes into a sinister threat?