kakita
2008-06-04, 10:20 PM
Hi all. Very long lurker/absentee, so I've forgotten just about everything in the gitp forums... Let's say I want to build a new world (primarily fluff-wise) using the 4e rules. I've got a general idea of the world, but need help in fleshing it out, such as getting details in like trade/economy of the world, politics, etc etc. Would this be the place I ask for help in?
I'll just put in a quick history of the world, and if this is the place I'm supposed to put all this stuff in, I'll continue with additional things I thought of. Please feel free to state comments and suggestions. =)
I’ve always wanted this world, and 3.5e to 4e gives me an excuse to continue building it. It is a rather diverse world, with relatively common low magic, but very rare high-level magic. A prime oddity of this world is the large use of mana (residuum) as a tradeable resource/unit of currency in high levels.
Old History
This world used to exist in earlier D&D editions, let’s assume it’s a normal high magic, run of the mill 3.5e world. In the distant past, two warring human civilizations nearly destroyed it. Let’s just call them northerners and southerners for now. In the west were dwarves, who were content to remain a neutral trading party to both, and in the east lay an even more ancient elven civilization. These elves remained staunchly neutral; they had more developed magic, but refused to meddle in the affairs of men.
The northerners and southerners had been fighting to a stalemate for decades, as they were equally advanced in technology and magic. During this time however, brilliant, slightly loopy elven mage who was dispossessed, almost shunned by elven society. Think slightly worse than Tesla/Einstein. He had managed to find a way to control the weave of magic but the elves were too afraid of its apparent instability. The northerners however were less afraid, and approached this elven mage. He built for them a specific magical device that would intelligently hunt all magical devices and defenses of the southerners, absorbing the energy and rendering them inert. At the same time, this magical energy would bolster the northerners, allowing them to sweep south uncontested.
It worked horribly wrong.
The device instead warped magic, rendering magic damaging to users and simultaeneously damaging/unstabilizing magical items. It also exploded, releasing a tremendous pulse of magic energy, creating a huge crater in the middle of the battlefield, and rupturing key ‘mana nodes’ in the world. This causes raw mana to leak out into the world. In addition, this rose the temperature/sea level of the world, and oceans flooded in. Worst of all, somehow this shifted the plane out of sync with the rest of the multiverse, rendering it inaccessible to extraplanar deities and entities.
Dark Ages
There isn’t much here, because I can’t think of what happened. Essentially it was centuries of strife as civilization tried to claw its way up to where it is now. Eventually the world healed itself and became more fertile, and slowly the world has become accessible to outside gods/entities again. A major point in history was when an especially wily human bargained with a demon to gain warlock powers/knowledge, and used that knowledge to re-establish magic (albeit 4e magic, not 3.5e magic). With magic discovered again, the various city-states/societies were back on track.
Currently
Deities and extraplanar entities can reach this plane, but for some reason the deities are especially quiet. No one know what happened in the past. All people remember is that there was a huge cataclysm that flooded the world.
The main players in this world are primarily humans. Three nations have sprouted out. One in the north, which occupy what are now very fertile lands, one in the central/east, a series of islands in the new sea, and one in the south, a dangerous and hard desert-like region with high mana resources.
The nations are still in a period of building, and therefore tensions are relatively low. In addition, most of the nations are dependant on each other for various resources, which is why times are relatively peaceful now.
I'll just put in a quick history of the world, and if this is the place I'm supposed to put all this stuff in, I'll continue with additional things I thought of. Please feel free to state comments and suggestions. =)
I’ve always wanted this world, and 3.5e to 4e gives me an excuse to continue building it. It is a rather diverse world, with relatively common low magic, but very rare high-level magic. A prime oddity of this world is the large use of mana (residuum) as a tradeable resource/unit of currency in high levels.
Old History
This world used to exist in earlier D&D editions, let’s assume it’s a normal high magic, run of the mill 3.5e world. In the distant past, two warring human civilizations nearly destroyed it. Let’s just call them northerners and southerners for now. In the west were dwarves, who were content to remain a neutral trading party to both, and in the east lay an even more ancient elven civilization. These elves remained staunchly neutral; they had more developed magic, but refused to meddle in the affairs of men.
The northerners and southerners had been fighting to a stalemate for decades, as they were equally advanced in technology and magic. During this time however, brilliant, slightly loopy elven mage who was dispossessed, almost shunned by elven society. Think slightly worse than Tesla/Einstein. He had managed to find a way to control the weave of magic but the elves were too afraid of its apparent instability. The northerners however were less afraid, and approached this elven mage. He built for them a specific magical device that would intelligently hunt all magical devices and defenses of the southerners, absorbing the energy and rendering them inert. At the same time, this magical energy would bolster the northerners, allowing them to sweep south uncontested.
It worked horribly wrong.
The device instead warped magic, rendering magic damaging to users and simultaeneously damaging/unstabilizing magical items. It also exploded, releasing a tremendous pulse of magic energy, creating a huge crater in the middle of the battlefield, and rupturing key ‘mana nodes’ in the world. This causes raw mana to leak out into the world. In addition, this rose the temperature/sea level of the world, and oceans flooded in. Worst of all, somehow this shifted the plane out of sync with the rest of the multiverse, rendering it inaccessible to extraplanar deities and entities.
Dark Ages
There isn’t much here, because I can’t think of what happened. Essentially it was centuries of strife as civilization tried to claw its way up to where it is now. Eventually the world healed itself and became more fertile, and slowly the world has become accessible to outside gods/entities again. A major point in history was when an especially wily human bargained with a demon to gain warlock powers/knowledge, and used that knowledge to re-establish magic (albeit 4e magic, not 3.5e magic). With magic discovered again, the various city-states/societies were back on track.
Currently
Deities and extraplanar entities can reach this plane, but for some reason the deities are especially quiet. No one know what happened in the past. All people remember is that there was a huge cataclysm that flooded the world.
The main players in this world are primarily humans. Three nations have sprouted out. One in the north, which occupy what are now very fertile lands, one in the central/east, a series of islands in the new sea, and one in the south, a dangerous and hard desert-like region with high mana resources.
The nations are still in a period of building, and therefore tensions are relatively low. In addition, most of the nations are dependant on each other for various resources, which is why times are relatively peaceful now.