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View Full Version : Creating a game world, any help would be gr8



DrakebloodIV
2008-09-22, 02:49 AM
Somewhere in the astral sea there floats an island....
My setting is called Rediscovery, it is about the colinization of an island of both great wealth and great darkness, with some similarities to the colonization of the Americas. The original inhabitants were a race of people known as the Nagini. Their physical features were unimportant and are now unknown. They left the island three thousand years ago, when their greatest prophets predicted the end this island. They chose to destroy whomever would do this to them and so they created the Plowshares, a race of warforged made to keep the land fertile and reap whomever would take this land from them, and at the head of them was put the Overseer, who would keep their story alive.
Not three hundred years later the Gnomes arrived, a druidic and peace loving race. Most made peace with the overseer and he taught them the ways of druidry.
Next came the dwarves, foolish and ambitious they claimed all the iron cliffs to the south, but their greed was their downfall. For when they met the Overseer he gave some the art of necromancy and it severed their race in two.
After this came the halflings. they were fools of a different kind, stealing and living off the fat. For this the overseer cursed them to the blighted lands the dwarves had corrupted.
Then came the humans, they confused the Overseer. He saw in them both hate and love, kindness and cruelty. For this he chose to keep them at arms length, banishing them to the seas. But the humans flourished in their aquatic homelands and quickly decided to return the favor. they banished the Overseer to the earth and gave the dwarves the key to his tomb.
Lastly the elves came. Nor were they any elves, they were elves so vile, so dark, that other lands had banished them to the open waters for tens of thousands of years. But they came to this land and saw that the water was good and the land fertile, and they decided to take it for themselves. In their hate and rage they lashed out against the gnomes. The gnomes were powerful magi but their bodies were weak. They saw the beasts known as Ogrugi and felt that their bodies were strong and their minds ready, so the gnomes wove a spell. This spell blessed each Ogrugi with a great mind and a powerful body. So the Ogrugi became the leigonares of the Gnome army. The elves lost much of the front they once held and were nearly banished back to the islands they made landfall on.
The elvish Spellweavers had woven a spell of their own. With it they made the Ogrugi question their Gnomish masters. With many of them it caused madness, but with a scant few it brought true humanity. Those Ogrugi could not bear the Gnomes or the Elves war any longer so they decided to leave those lands and go to the plains of Negriti. Where they set up camps that eventually grew to towns, which grew to cities, which formed the great city-state of Toterre. The Proud Ogrugi went through a cultural revolution. They traded their old blind fear, foolishness and violence for Pride, Xenophobea and Union. They forged the iron wall of Kel and settled under the rule of Kir the Unhunted as the Orcs. Thus the nations of the island of Omon were made.

Inform me of any naming issues or cool ideas you have-Ill be posting geography and culture info at a later date

Hairb
2008-09-22, 03:26 AM
What game is this for? How will all this contribute to making character creation easier for your players? How does this history set you up to plan your first campaign?

DrakebloodIV
2008-09-22, 07:11 AM
What game is this for? How will all this contribute to making character creation easier for your players? How does this history set you up to plan your first campaign?

This is for a basic D&D game using 3.5 rules. This history is meant to establish logical alignments for all the races and give them a physical kingdom for their leaders to dictate. for instance: Orc=Common alignment-Lawful Neutral. Classes- Mostly fighter and barbarien, although paladins and druids are on the rise, rogues are not unheard of but they are rare. Homeland- The plains of Negreti to the northeast. Leader- Kir the Unhunted, he is a Lawful Good leader but he bears a powerful fear of the gnomes and an intense dislike of elves. Most of this can be speculated from the History so i use that as a base when mapping my geography

Also the backstory for the Nagini is tied to one of the underlieing quest lines in the story. In siad quest one is trying to stop the awakened and angry Plowshares and in doing so one (accidentally or knowingly) detonates a magical time bomb that will destroy all of the island and most of the near satilite islands, thus fufilling the Nagini prophecy.

afroakuma
2008-09-22, 08:33 AM
Another question: what sort of help are you looking for with this setting? It sounds like you've got all your concepts already mapped.

DrakebloodIV
2008-09-22, 02:44 PM
Im really looking for people to bounce ideas off of and help with a making a storyline for the heros to follow, if nothing else i need to get out of the fog of vague nations and kingdoms. Heres the basics of what i have so far

Humans-Ambitious, trading, No specific kingdom, trade houses?
Gnomes-Old, magic wielding, Mostly chaotic both good and evil, Occupy northern forests
Dwarves- True neutral, are usually very pious or very greedy, Priests of both good and evil occupy southern cliffs
Halflings- Chaotic evil, take what they can get, Occupy the Reefs to the southwest
Orcs- Lawful, Xenophobic, Ambitious, warriors and shamans, 'New kids on the block', occupy the plateaus and plains to the northeast
Elves- Powerful archers warriors and mages, No religion, Large cities, Evil, Split into two main sects: the Rowmen and the leagueswimmers. Leagueswimmers= chaotic Rowmen=lawful, Occupy Islands and penensula to the east

afroakuma
2008-09-22, 03:06 PM
I'd say at this point, unless you're feeling a real Final Fantasy vibe and need the giant emotional world-spanning plot laid out, establish the terms of your campaign world, touch on a few possibilities and then let it evolve based on your players and the direction you feel most strongly about.

Some potential plot points:

* The evil halflings make pacts with sahuagin, ixitxachitl, kuo-toa or some other evil aquatic race. Their early pacts deal with enlarging the evil sea deities' spheres of influence onto land, or trade in magical items, or secret armies of ghouls and lacedons...what have you. Later, a truly twised scheme could evolve in which dark rituals would be used to flood the lowlands, forcing the other races to war for dry territory. The sea races would annex the underwater lowlands, and the halflings would sweep over the weakened other races.

* The dwarf gods have grown angry at the partition of the race. The pious work to convert the greedy, who shun active worship. One among the evil dwarves in particular has been handed down a punishment for his blasphemous ways (dwarf-drider or suchlike) but has rallied a group of ambitious evil dwarves to his cause. Deep under the cliffs, their secret kingdom works to grow the demon dwarf's power so that he can become a deity, weakening the old gods and preparing to supplant them with the new one.

* A sect of the gnomes works in secret to identify and store the relics of the Nagini. They eventually awaken a trapped malign intellect, who uses adventurers to find further "tools" for it. Another faction has learned this secret and, due to the Nagini's profoundly positive reputation among learned gnomes, are publicly ridiculed. They work in secret to obtain and destroy (or conceal) Nagini relics, often with other races. The most dangerous are defended by inciting chaos, such as a racial war for the elves, or provoking an orc leader to capture more territory.

Your orcs and elves have enough innatge plot points that they don't need anymore. I didn't notice any mention of dragons in your original post; maybe they are rare, legendary beasts whose recent appearance is whispered at? Maybe only the good dragons of the sea are familiar (bronze, gold) and the recent appearance of an evil dragon throws local society into chaos.

Few ideas, anyway.

Magnor Criol
2008-09-22, 03:30 PM
I think you'd attract more people if you didn't have that abominable text-speak in your title. Seeing "gr8" in the very title of the thread makes me think that you won't be giving this idea much effort; if you couldn't spend the energy needed to spell out "great" (only two extra letters - such an effort, oh my!) why would you put much effort into thinking the idea of your world out? This is the impression it gives; from some deeper reading of the ideas you have it seems you've given some good thought to this. But regardless of whether you have or haven't, the impression that "gr8" sends will make people pass it up without even giving you the chance to show that you've thought it out.

Some rethinking of the presentation of your ideas would also help you get people to help you. As it is, your entire first post is a largely unreadable solid paragraph of text. Most people won't want to muck through all of that. Put in some paragraphs, bold header text and sections, and while you're at it go back and correct some of your grammar and it'll be much more accessible.

Accessibility = readers = people willing to help your ideas. After all, they can't help improve your ideas if they can't even read them.

This isn't helping you with your world, I know. But some improvements to the way you ask for help will mean you'll have a much better chance of getting help.

(And "gr8" is a blight upon all who speak language. For the love of whatever you worship, please get rid of it....)

DrakebloodIV
2008-09-22, 09:23 PM
-Sorry I cant edit the name Gr8 as far as I know. I see what you mean though, it was 2 something in the morn when i wrote this. Also, If you know of any way to edit these message me please. 'Fro - Kickin story ideas, that view on the halflings never even occoured to me. They struck me as devided groups of seafaring nomads, fighting for survival in the undead filled wastes. That struck me as devideing them and making it less probable that they would become a juggernaut, but perhaps this makes them MORE able to form a superpower. Just hand one of those petty kingdoms a relic and they could unite the halflings, strike down the human trade empire, and dominate the game world. Sort of like ghengis khan grouping together the mongols. The Gnomish idea of relic assimilation bears a striking resemblance to ideas ive had, the center of the continent is mostly a wasteland filled with Plowshares. These plowshares are mindless beasts filling out their last tasks from the Overseer. Most fufill mindless tasks but many were given the task to kill all in sight by the Overseer in his last wrathful seconds. However, the last remenants of the Nagini artifacts lie here are in such demand for the artifacts are great. Im thinking the first long-term quest should be one for winning over the Orcs and dwarves in order to fight the Gnomes/Elves, After this Im probably gonna throw in a side quest traveling to halfling lands to investigate the rising power. This quest will lead to the realisation that relics could make the superweapon that will lead to the turning point in the war. With this the heros continue on into the wastes to find the most powerful relic they can. The one problem I've been having with the story is Dwarves. They strike me as such a cliché. I mean they're always the most pious and yet they drink obscene amounts of liquor and gamble. Im think Im gonna couple their bad relations to the Overseer with some sort of physical deformity or curse, something to make them mournful rather than boosers.