Genesis of a new world

I have no idea of where I am going to go with this, but I was looking to start a new D&D world after I wrap things up on my current world. I have few ideas other than the map:

http://members.tripod.com/~sangrolu/newworld.html

I do have a few design criteria:
1) I want to maximize use of d20 products, so I may optimize certain segments of it to drop in some of the better d20 system products (Necropolis, Bluffside, etc.)
2) I want to develop the region between the left and center continents to a mediterrainian-like region.

Other possibilities I have rolled around in my mind are a Final-Fantasy like technomagic civilization and/or a Conanesque barbaric continent.

Any ideas or inspiration at all? I am pretty much working from a blank slate here.

I think first you should figure out just what you need to place in the world. If you want to use the cities of Bluffside and Freeport, those are rather easy to fit in, but if you want to place in Rokugan you'll need to worry mopre about space.

Cool!

So what kind of advice and collaboration would you like?

I am poking around right now at developing a setting of my own and perhaps by helping you I can get job my creative juices

What am I looking for? Ideas, really. I could dig up my old world builder's guidebook and/or go through the steps of the WotC setting search, but mostly looking for a few ideas to develop.

Looking at what I am already thinking... I don't want to set anything in stone until I set up some "world hooks", but to expand on my beginning thoughts.

1) Making room for d20 products.

One thing I notice about my current setting is that I typically have little room to use many d20 system products because my world is so strictly defined as it is. I am looking to create a world that is, perhaps, more open ended, or plays to stereotypes often used by d20 system products.

As mentioned, two things I was already considering facilitating are Bluffside and Necropolis.

Bluffside's background situates it on a northern continent that was more or less abandoned after a asteroid strike. The northern continent here is situated so that migration might have been possible at one time. Simple, but there you go.

As for necropolis, as I already mention, I intend the gap between the first and second continent to be a mediterrainian-like area, where I could situate an egypt like state.

Other items I am looking at integrating:

Some races from Mythic Races and Mercenaries, Deities from various books, etc.

2) Less/better distributed earth analogs. Arguably my current world is divided into regions that arguably mock ancient earth... i.e., I have the analog of an ancient Orient, analogs of europe, etc. What I would like to do is mix up cultural archetypes accross the continents so at the very least it doesn't so strictly resemble an analog of ancient earth, and so I can insert certain cultural elements in a variety of places, and so I have more distinct cultures.

3) A mix of the familiar and the exotic. The whole point of this effort is to make something a little different than what I have been doing, so I want to strive for a few exotic elements. But it still has to be D&D, and I don't want it to be so strange that the players don't have a point of reference.

4) Themes - like I said, I may draw out of the hat for world hooks, but I am already leaning towards a bit of a "technomagic" world hook, at least for one of the continents. This may leave me with an Iron Kingdoms or Final Fantasy feel.

I also have a fondness of vance and was considering making wizards more vancian in feel in this world, and also gave thought to the idea that large parts of the continents could be untamed and barbaric, like in Conan novels. Another author I might like to draw from is Clarke Ashton Smith.

5) Background. What makes my existing campaign such a long-running success is the depth of the backstory, and motivations of existing powers. I have almost no ideas what to do here yet, but looking forward, I would like to link a lot of implications and inter-relations into the background as it is built.

One possible background point that I can build from. I intend to make this world one of "the eight", eight worlds that are nominally connected by secret gates that my other game worlds (well, two of them at least) are part of. Who created this "connection" and why is a mystery, but they have played a role in settlement patterns in the worlds, and may play a role here as well.

One thing I was thinking is that the northern continent is home to "formian" type giants and other horrific creatures. In my campaign world, I have a psuedo-celtic culture that supposedly fled to my campaign continent from such an evil. One thing I may examine is making the lost cousins of this race, and create some strange culture derived from divergant cultures from my other Celtic one.

Another possible link to my current world is that my Asia-like area is full of yuan-ti infested jungles, and such creatures fit right in with my Clark Ashton Smith theme. I don't like replicating ideas unless there is a reason, so perhaps the location of the gate could be in the midst of the yuan-ti jungles. That might even be a means of introducing the PCs... they want to know the source of this yuan-ti empire, and discover an open gate in the middle of their city.

Those are my basic, bare ideas. Perhaps I'll reach into the idea bin saturday and post some random ideas.

Late thought: This yuan-ti thing has me thinking that, at least on one of the continent, humans are not the dominant race.

Just a thought, I've always enjoyed the Idea of elves having an oriental type culture ( I also prefer the long ears to avoid the whole Spock look-alike thing)
Have you by any chance ever read the old Elf Lord comics? There kind of hard to find these days but a very involved culture could be derived from these books with just a little work. Plus you have to love the sand ships and there take on goblins. anyway that's all that comes up for me, good luck!

Hows this:

The World was once a Utopia ruled by Enlightened Yuan-Ti with knowledge of powerful Technomancy. The Yuan-Ti eventually gained the technology to open a gate between worlds and this was their downfall.

At first the Yuan-ti would raid other worlds bringing back treasures and slaves amongst them a group of humans (your celts) fleeing from the horrors of their homeworld.

However in their wake came those very horrors - Fomorians and others beyond imagination and the Yuan-Ti could not withstand their onslaught.

The Yuan-Ti fled south into the Jungles, their slaves were scattered and their Technology destroyed.

In a last valiant effort the greatest of the Yuan-Ti Technomancers created the Magestorm which is the only thing which keeps the Horrors constrained...

Another idea I had for a world was the Nine-Seas - portions of other worlds dragged together and linked by a series of unstable portals - nine in total and each world is totally different geographically and culturally to any other

eg my main base of operations was a Freeport like city called Blackpool, another world was one populated by Sky-Pyrates and the occasional Dragon, another world was the savage, witchdoctor dominated Cannibal Islands, yet another was the Ships Graveyard - no land just the rotting hulks of stranded ships, some linked together by bridges and inhabited by the descendants of the few survivors of the Bermuda triangle (and a whole bunch of Ghouls, Undead and 'the Creature from the Deep'...

I wrote the thread "a history to solve problems", and, although the history was written to solve a different problem, we also noticed that it allowed for multiple settings, since stumbling into a teleportation circle can happen whenever the plot needs a shove...

OfficeRonin

Tonguez said:

Hows this:

The World was once a Utopia ruled by Enlightened Yuan-Ti with knowledge of powerful Technomancy. The Yuan-Ti eventually gained the technology to open a gate between worlds and this was their downfall.

At first the Yuan-ti would raid other worlds bringing back treasures and slaves amongst them a group of humans (your celts) fleeing from the horrors of their homeworld.

However in their wake came those very horrors - Fomorians and others beyond imagination and the Yuan-Ti could not withstand their onslaught.

The Yuan-Ti fled south into the Jungles, their slaves were scattered and their Technology destroyed.

In a last valiant effort the greatest of the Yuan-Ti Technomancers created the Magestorm which is the only thing which keeps the Horrors constrained...

Click to expand...

Cool! This is the type of "extrapolating and making background from consequences" type of thinking that I like!

I'm not sure I wanted the Yuan-ti to be the technomancers, but the Yuan-ti/Formian/Proto-celts link works very well - and it also gives me some potential background for my Asian subsetting (since, the way they are situated, they would have been involved.)

Further, the formians might well be, in actuality, what Oriental Adventures calls Oni. Though formians stem from celtic myth, both Oni and Formians a sort of bizarre, mishapen supernatural giant.

officeronin said:

I wrote the thread "a history to solve problems", and, although the history was written to solve a different problem, we also noticed that it allowed for multiple settings, since stumbling into a teleportation circle can happen whenever the plot needs a shove...

Click to expand...

That brings up another plot device I have toyed with dropping in a game... teleport circles/pads. I use them in high level games, but they are generally rare and only used by high level mages.

I thought about throwing in something like the teleport circles in diablo II, where you can only go places you have been with the portals. But that is a little tried for someone who has ever played the game, and I would almost strive for a different limitation/gimmick to make them seem unique.

Maybe the teleport circles only teleport you to some place that you have never been before

Or maybe you could take a que from Morrowind and make it so that they only work if you have cast a low level spell previously that serves as like a homing beacon when you use these circles. You step through one and end up where you placed your "beacon"