The World that has no Form (A community world-building project)

[Qwertystop]

The basic premise of this world is that the gods were going to make a universe, so they prepared it, got out a universe-sized block of raw matter, and changed their minds, leaving the block there. The block then slowly began to mutate into a very… unusual world.

Basic Things I Hope to Keep by the End:
The Change: All sentient creatures are one race, and each individual slowly mutates over the course of its life. Each baby has a mark on it, like a birthmark, and that indicates what it will form into by adulthood (Yes, “An Elf” is now a legitimate response to “What are you going to be when you grow up?”). These correspond to the major player races (I have not determined them yet), and characters are usually done forming by the time they start an adventure, so this is just fluff unless someone decides to start as a very young child. The equivalent of Humans, versatile and not especially good at any one thing, does not exist, because they have all changed.

No real structure: The world is very formless, so some areas may have different gravity, or may be an area of improved magic, or no magic, or be just empty space with a few rocks floating by. Think “all the different elemental planes, and the plane of Chaos, but as one world, with a few different other conditions”. Some areas may have everyone suddenly gain cantrips, or melt, or… We want to give a few examples, but leave plenty of room for DMs to add conditions.

Anyone can Influence the world: With a very hard check in some skill, a person may focus on an area of one of the simpler conditions above and cause it to come into being.

Anyone who wants to can help with this, unfortunately I am not very good at statting things out, so I would be happy to pass this project off to someone else who is. I'm just getting the idea out.

[Kilbourne]

So... sort of like reality?

[Qwertystop]

So... sort of like reality?

No. The whole point is that it is not a normal world, and everything is very formless. Lots of different areas with different effects, no one "world" so much as a bunch of disconnected areas floating through nothingness, like different planes but no need for a plane shift, as they are all on the same Material Plane.

[Silverscale]

I am intrigued. I shall keep an eye on this to see what comes about. I imagine Doppelgangers will be.....interesting since they are trying to emulate something mutable.

[Qwertystop]

I am intrigued. I shall keep an eye on this to see what comes about. I imagine Doppelgangers will be.....interesting since they are trying to emulate something mutable.

Actually, Doppelgangers would be the only mutable ones (not changing much through childhood, but gaining whatever changes they want in adulthood), anyone else stops changing in adulthood, and never changes voluntarily. Essentially, puberty brings changes into the typical elf, dwarf, halfling, half-elf, etc. (anything with "half-" will need a renaming, since they are no longer the result of crossbreeding). The fluff behind Doppelgangers would certainly be interesting though!

[radmelon]

Well this looks like it will be very interesting indeed. I eagerly await.

[DracoDei]

Replace "half-" with "demi-" or "semi-"?

Or keep it the same since it wouldn't be any more wrong than the term "half-track" necessarily.

[Pyre_Born]

It seems like a good idea for this would be to make a base race, and make the racial abilities of others into feats, or abilities on a point buy. Gain a certain amount of feats, or points to make your race type of deal.

Another thought would be creating special casters that focus solely on altering the world into their view of what is right. This could lead to tension between major groups attempting to make the world their way, and not others ideas.

Peace,
Pyre