Post your homebrew worlds

[2D8HP]

Sure,

[SPOILER=For this scenario]

:

The more I DM and world-build, the more I find myself using certain patterns, shortcuts, themes and default assumptions. Ruts, if you will. These may be things that I avoid or things that show up, whether I intended them to be there or not.

A few of mine are
* Gender-egalitarian societies....

....I'd like this thread to be the positive counterpart to the "Tropes I hate" thread. Please focus on things you do because you like, rather than things you avoid because you don't like them.

:
Um "positive"?

Well I positively don't like too much complexity, and basically I just have just two setups, one is "You meet at a tavern to loot a Dungeon" with an intro like this:

Spoiler: Set up from 40 years ago

Show

100 years ago the sorcerer Zenopus built a tower on the low hills overlooking Portown. The tower was close to the sea cliffs west of the town and, appropriately, next door to the graveyard.
Rumor has it that the magician made extensive cellars and tunnels underneath the tower. The town is located on the ruins of a much older city of doubtful history and Zenopus was said to excavate in his cellars in search of ancient treasures.

Fifty years ago, on a cold wintry night, the wizard's tower was suddenly engulfed in green flame. Several of his human servants escaped the holocaust, saying their rnaster had been destroyed by some powerful force he had unleashed in the depths of the tower.
Needless to say the tower stood vacant fora while afterthis, but then the neighbors and the night watchmen comploined that ghostly blue lights appeared in the windows at night, that ghastly screams could be heard emanating from the tower ot all hours, and goblin figures could be seen dancina on the tower roof in the moonlight. Finally the authorities had a catapult rolled through the streets of the town and the tower was battered to rubble. This stopped the hauntings but the townsfolk continue to shun the ruins. The entrance to the old dungeons can be easily located as a flight of broad stone steps leading down into darkness, but the few adventurous souls who hove descended into crypts below the ruin have either reported only empty stone corridors or have failed to return at all.
Other magic-users have moved into the town but the site of the old tower remains abandoned.
Whispered tales are told of fabulous treasure and unspeakable monsters in the underground passages below the hilltop, and the story tellers are always careful to point out that the reputed dungeons lie in close proximity to the foundations of the older, pre-human city, to the graveyard, and to the sea.
Portown is a small but busy city 'linking the caravan routes from the south to the merchscant ships that dare the pirate-infested waters of the Northern Sea. Humans and non-humans from all over the globe meet here.
At he Green Dragon Inn, the players of the game gather their characters for an assault on the fabulous passages beneath the ruined Wizard's tower.

Another is "You find a treasure map" like this:

Spoiler: set up from 76 years ago!

Show

“In the Year of the Behemoth, the Month of the Hedgehog, The Day of the Toad."

"Satisfied that they your near the goal of your quest, you think of how you had slit the interesting-looking vellum page from the ancient book on architecture that reposed in the library of the rapacious and overbearing Lord Rannarsh."

“It was a page of thick vellum, ancient and curiously greenish. Three edges were frayed and worn; the fourth showed a clean and recent cut. It was inscribed with the intricate hieroglyphs of Lankhmarian writing, done in the black ink of the squid. Reading":
"Let kings stack their treasure houses ceiling-high, and merchants burst their vaults with hoarded coin, and fools envy them. I have a treasure that outvalues theirs. A diamond as big as a man's skull. Twelve rubies each as big as the skull of a cat. Seventeen emeralds each as big as the skull of a mole. And certain rods of crystal and bars of orichalcum. Let Overlords swagger jewel-bedecked and queens load themselves with gems, and fools adore them. I have a treasure that will outlast theirs. A treasure house have I builded for it in the far southern forest, where the two hills hump double, like sleeping camels, a day's ride beyond the village of Soreev.

"A great treasure house with a high tower, fit for a king's dwelling—yet no king may dwell there. Immediately below the keystone of the chief dome my treasure lies hid, eternal as the glittering stars. It will outlast me and my name,"

But I'm considering a "campaign arc"

[SPOILER=Adventure Idea]

Viking kids vs Morlocks ...

The PC's are adolescents and very young adults in an isolated village where two summers ago all the fighting age men, and many of the women left on a "trading" mission, and have not returned, so the elders of the village at a moot in the godshall have some of the youth accompany "old Ragnar", a one armed former Viking (who will die of natural causes soon after they set sail) as their guide.

What they find is that nearby they are de-populated and sometimes burned towns with no bodies and little evidence of what happened.

Upon returning home (assuming they do), they find their village simillarly emptied, with cooking fires still smoldering, and in the distance a low thumping sound, like a muffled hammering.

If they seek out the source of the sounds, they find what look to be new wells outside the village, but they see no water at the bottom, and ha hand and foot holds along the sides, and descending and exploring leads them to discover albino "Goblins" leading the enchanted people of their village deeper into the earth, and then....
....well basically the Goblins are the Morlocks in the 1895 Time Machine novella, and the 1960 film, led by albino Drow/Elves not unlike the character played by Jeremy Irons in the 2002 film.

Further exploration by the PC's leads them to find tunnels made by digging machines (like in At The Earth's Core), and locales like in Journey to the Center of the Earth (ruins and dinosaurs!), and a civilization a bit like the Selenites in First Men in the Moon.

Spoiler: Some images that inspired me

Show

...

[/SPOILER

Spoiler: Assumptions and setting when I'm the DM

Show

...if I'm the DM, I only allow humans and half-humans as PC's, and the assumptions would be:

Most anything that is not a human dirt farmer is monstrous (and they are as well, when the Druids tell them the harvest demands a sacrifice):





Dwarves are underground dwellers who make cursed items (The Ring des Nibelungen),

Elves are child stealing near demons ( the "Fair Folk").
"Elves are terrific, they bring terror"

When in doubt, just assume that they're going to torture and kill you.

(Basicly all Elves are pasty Drow/Fey)

Goblins?

Steal your cattle, and poison your wells in the night.

Kings?

Take your crops, and maybe your children for their wars.

Gods/Goddesses?

Out of spite they turn you into spider or a tree, and make you suffer eternally.

Best to stay in the fields you know, keep your head low and escape "the high ones" notice.

Failing that?

Grab some iron, and cut the bastards!

I'd tell my players that:

"Your PC's don't know what's in any D&D book, they know the Fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers, Greek and Norse myths, and to cross themselves and touch iron when the speak of 'the kindly ones'"

"Your race is human, or close to one, with a background of "has sword wants loot"


"Now past some tree roots blocking it you see an opening that's leading underground...."

[/SPOILER
Let's explore!


So a basic "swords against sorcery" theme.
How to turn that "positive" in @PhoenixPhyre's terms?

Well in "sword using times" as now, I believe some societies had more and some less gender inequality.

The Scandinavians, for example, were known to be more equal (as attested to by Arab traveller Ibrahim ibn al-Tartushi for example).

In fact some Viking graves, that contained weapona as grave goods and consequently were originally thought to have held men (Assigned male at excavation?), were actually women ("shieldmaidens"/skjaldmær), and that's been the cause of some speculation, true or not I'ma gonna run with it.

Even if someone says a dóttir wasn't as likely as a son to pick up the family sword, my game, my rules Berserker women are more fun, I picked Viking-ish for a reason.

Some parts of old Scandinavia weren't fun, slavery for example (yes I know probably not as brutal as the old sugar plantations of Barbados, but still too brutal to be fun, I don't want to go full Game of Thrones), so I hand wave then away.

Why not go more fantasy and less expy?

Because I"m lazy as a GM, and as a player I dislike "homework" (reading a big fat lot of setting information) before we can get to the part where the GM says, "What do you do?".

Why not a swashbucklimg Caribbean settimg, pirates are cool?

Yes that would be cool, but I want to make use of Norse myths and monsters.

How about Ninjas, they're cool?

Yes Ninjas are cool, but homework is involved in fitting them in the initial setting.

How are you going to have Druids then?

I'll get to that.

I don't want to play some pasty-behind Scandinavian named Astrid or Ragnar, verily you sucketh 2D8HP!

That's a good point.

One reason I chose Viking-ish is because they had battle-axes, and they....
....okay that's pretty much the reason.

Sorry!

Oh wait! It's because Vikings are familiar enough that players, may just get into character without doing much homework, and besides who doesn't want to shout out "By Odin's sagging bits, you will taste steel!"?

Dude, I don't know Norse mythology! How about Greek or Egyptian? Hekate and Osiris are cool!


Hmmm, they really are.

Okay, how about this: A melting pot Empire, or collection of City States (decide when it comes up in game) sends out merchants and missionaries all over, and they settle amongst, well everywhere, so you have families in the village who aren't pasty, and have Italian and Spanish names, so you have Rodrigo the blacksmith next to Signe the leatherworker, and the imported wine merchant is a cleric of Dionysus.

Oh that's a little better..

...what a minute!

Italian?

Spanish?

Not Egyptian and Greek?

Well those names are harder for me to pronounce, 'sides someone has to be able to be called Inigo Montoya.

What if someone just wants to be called Jane Thatcher or William Weaver?

Fine, the village is Anglo-Norse then.

Hey! You still haven't 'splained the Druids. Hark you still sucketh 2D8HP!

Oh right. In the woods, and some nearby village there's Celts with Druids.

So your using the Celtic pantheon as well?

Um., no I can't pronounce those names

Can I play a Tabaxi Bladesinger with a bonus Feat?

No.

Bogus! Totally lame and un-positive 2D8HP!

I sketched out a further "world" partially historical, and partially fantastic, as happens we only had a couple of sessions and nothing much more than a couple of abandoned human towns, and the Morlocks tunnels got explored so not much "world" came into play, but what I had in mind was a basically 14th century Britain, France, Ireland, Spain, and parts of western Germany and northern Africa with everywhere else Faerie/"There by Dragons", and a NotRussia "Markovy" with airship flying Tartars. Most of Germany and further east would be "The Great Dark Woods" with lots of fairytale-ish Kingdoms until the Boyers of Markovy.

Had the village Godi/Druid/Priest and Priestess annoted the PC's with blood and hand out "charms" that kept them from the Morlocks mind control spells, they battled a few, saved some of their village and found a digging machine (which they couldn't get to work) and they gave chase to rescue the rest of the village, and that was pretty much it, I though my description of the abandoned and looted towns before they turned back to their own village went well. Typically I wished I was a player and someone else was GM'ing the adventure. That I limited how powerful the PC's magic abilities were to less then D&D wasn't popular though, but "high magic" isn't my jam and I have limited imagination for those scenarios, plus modifying published adventures to be less one track isn't as fun and is too much work for me than winging it is. As it is with our four-year old in the house there isn't time for gaming now, but our older son enjoyed it, but his time is too limited now as well.