D&D 5E The Light of Civilization - A 5e Renaissance Story [OOC]

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An idea I've been thinking on, and so we're going to try this.

Let's get the basics up:

WHAT: A 5e Game based upon the turmoil, politics, aesthetic, and philosophical enlightenment of the Italian Peninsula in the 16th Century - The Renaissance

WHO: 5 Players, whom I will basically be cherry picking - posting an idea here does not guarantee play. I apologize, but I'm already running a rather massive game and I'd like this to be a liiittle simpler.
- 3rd Level Characters
- 27 Point Buy
- Core Races Only, Please
- PHB, DMG, SCAG Class and Archetypes

- UA Class and Archetype options on request and approval

WHERE: A Homebrew setting that I don't have quite all the kinks worked out, but am eager to build and expand upon with my players
- Focusing on a Single area tied together culturally, but fractured politically
- The main powers will be a series of City States: Republics and Duchies and Kingdoms who compete in territory, economics, and strength
- 1 Officially-Sanctioned Religion, under 1 Goddess, the Maker of All Things. Her Domains are represented through a plethora of Saints of the Church of The Maker. There may be other religions and religious powers, but they are generally not recognized and some may be feared/hated
- Low-Magic. Spellcasters do exist, but are certainly very rare. The presence of even 1 is something to be heralded (or run in fear from). Even the simplest of magical items would be considered "Legendary", and a legitimate (re: Class) Wizard or Cleric has a power that not many others can really compete with.

WHEN: The Renaissance. A time period focusing on Shifting Politics, Rising Philosophies, Scientific Breakthroughs, Artistic Revelations, and Rapidly-Shifting Social Structures
- Nobility faces the idea of losing their status and power to the burgeoning Middle Class: artisans, merchants, bankers, and guildsmen of all type are becoming very rich and very powerful
- City-States compete, ally, and backstab to try and dominate the land. Mercenaries are commonly hired to fight wars rather than raise standing armies, leading to Condotierri, "mercenary contractors", to also gain a great amount of wealth, power, and status.
- Art is on the rise: literature, paintings, sculpture, architecture, and more. Wealth brings in the means to fund these pursuits, and cities are becoming larger and more beautiful with each day. A great artist is hailed throughout the land, and welcomed almost anywhere.
- Like Art, Scientific pursuits have lead to major advances in medicine, engineering, physics, and chemistry. The first true firearms, Wheelocks, have been produced in small numbers. The science of Alchemy is creating things like restorative potions or nigh-magical burning oils and acids (though Lead to Gold still eludes them). Like Artists, Scientists and Engineers can find offers from many noble families to work for them.
- Philosophy is both causing the common man to think more about their place, and also causing strife amongst City-States. The first true Republics and Democracies are returning after over a thousand years, leading to conflict and the question of just who is supposed to rule: the divinely chosen, the risen aristocrats, or the commoner?

WHY: Because no setting, I feel, truly embodies the adventurous, bold, and often magical feel of Dungeons & Dragons than the Renaissance
- Heroes are Heroes, fighting for Causes or City-States, free to be beholden to no Kingdom and have their own, independent wealth and assets
- There is still superstition and mystery: monsters and nightmares are very much a part of society's mind, and through the birth of science, there is still a more primal sense of the world being magical
- There is Progress! The many competing mindsets of the Renaissance more fit the "Enlightened Medieval Mindset" of most D&D campaigns, or at least allow the variance more easily (I feel)
- There is Adventure: travel is becoming more common, exotic goods and services are making their ways in from across strange seas, highwaymen and bandits plunder the roads and coasts, and a witch's curse upon a Duke may be a terrifying reality.

HOW: Well, here. Play By Post. D&D 5E. Already covered most of the other stuff, I believe ...



So yes. I don't have everything settled. I don't know the name of the land or the cities, or the competing factions. I don't know the names of the Saints, nor what they were Saint'd for. I don't know what, exactly, the adventure will be, but I want this to be more Organic where the players themselves will help build the world (by adding in names, places, events, and features through backstory) and create the journey themselves (through the stories their characters want to pursue).

So, what say you?

What place has magic in this setting? And is there really only one religion, or only one officially recognized religion?

Shayuri said:

What place has magic in this setting? And is there really only one religion, or only one officially recognized religion?

Click to expand...

See, this is why I need players. You get an XP.

There is one officially recognized Religion. You could be a Pagan (per the Church of The Maker), but there's nothing stopping you from worshipping or praying (or getting powers from) something else.


I am going to edit my post: Magic is Low-Magic. Wizards are honestly pretty rare, as are true Clerics/Druids/Sorcerers, etc. While it is there, and powerful when used, it is nowhere near common enough for it to supplant things like the Sciences and study. Science is what will benefit the Common Man. Eventually. But the more powerful and wealthy in the land can certainly afford the services of a spellcaster or maybe 2 to help turn the tides in a war or better protect them/enforce their will.

That said, a true Spellcaster is something to be in awe of, but also fear. Wizards are soooorta better accepted simply because, well, they treat magic as Science, and Science can be quantified and understood. And maybe Clerics, but even then, some may see Clerics of the Church as heresy: how Dare you steal the powers of The Goddess!

Or they may see them as a living, walking Saint. Who knows. People are fickle and easily frightened.

Interesting. Are there racial tensions? Elves and gnomes are, for example, traditionally very magical people.

I like the ideas you're presenting so far. I like that the social fault lines are unusual for a fantasy game. It gives more lines to push and pull against to tell interesting stories about interesting people.

I would not be opposed to racial tensions, but I'd honestly more prefer regional ones. To my understanding, in Renaissance Italy, 9 times out of 10 nobody cared if you were Italian or not because "Italian" ... didn't really exist yet. They shared a similar culture and language, but what was REALLY important was what City-State you were from.

So, the game would less be Elves hating Gnomes but more an Elf and Gnome going "Oh, you're from Florence? ME TOO! So awesome that we're from the same state, and aren't like those jackals from Pisa, UGH, they are the WORST."

That's fair. A lot depends on how integrated the various races are with the dominant civilization. If elves live off in weird (probably pagan) tree cities, and dwarves live deep underground, then they'd be foreigners, if possibly well respected ones depending on trade and political climate.

But if elves and humans and dwarves all tend to live in the same citystates, then yeah that would definitely change how social definitions form.

It also begs interesting questions of the setting, like why such diverse races with such diverse histories and traditions, have settled into these city states? Has there been some kind of cataclysm that forced everyone to work together to rise from a dark age? Or are the lands between the city states still so treacherous and untamed that only together can civilization thrive?

It was my idea that most of the races live together in these City-States. Think kinda Shadowrun; sure, the Elves have Tir Na Nog, but that doesn't mean they also don't live in Seattle. Some regions may be more dominated by one race over others, but my concept was "Unity working towards a Modern World."

Do you still have maybe Wild Elf or Forest Gnome holdouts in the harsher areas of nature? Probably, but most people would see them as just that: a holdout of something older, more ancestral and dying out. Maybe worthy of reverence, but certainly not something to emulate.

As for WHY the land is like this, I also do not know. Another question for the players and I to posit ideas and build this world.

As the word Renaissance means Rebirth, the idea of a cataclysmic event occuring and these City-States being reborn from the ashes is pretty cool and intriguing imagery; it leaves the idea of this new world literally being built on top of the ruins of the old, a sort of "But we'll make it even better," ideal of Icarian hope

I agree. It also is a good idea of what a traditional 'points of light' style fantasy setting could/would evolve into given time.

And it gives tools for imagining certain things, such as...why science? Magic replaces technological progress in most settings. But imagine now...what if magic was involved in this cataclysm? Lingering memories and histories make the public still rather distrustful of it. Perhaps the rise of scientific achievement has brought intellectualism back to the good graces of the people, and with it the idea that magic is simply another natural force to be studied and conquered...

...but dark tales of world-eating voids and monstrous summons creatures rampaging still haunt people's collective memory, giving magic, especially magic practiced by those who are NOT reputed intellectuals, a rather foreboding undertone. The witch hunts may be long over, but magicians are still viewed as inheritors of an incredibly dangerous power. Such that even 'approved' wizards feel a pressure to assist the development of scientific progress and technology when and where they can.

This I feel is a great direction. It helps explain the Low-Magic nature of the setting, why Scientific Progress and Social Upheaval is a thing, and why the area is the way it is. The idea of a magical Apocalyptic-event that was only barely avoided even fills the pop-culture idea of a "Dark Age" before this period of crazy advancement and knowledge. A time of even more monsters and horrors and the terrible things that people did to survive, where magic flowed freely but so did blood.

I'm almost considering half of the Social / Political Upheaval comes from the idea that this time in the past was ruled by Mages, and so now this is the era of "Anyone can be their own King!" (because you suddenly are missing the controlling element of widespread individuals with superpowers). You don't need magic to have power: status, wealth, skill, talent, all of this now means something [kinda taking a page from actual history where we basically substitute Royal Blood for Magical Prowess].

"Sanctioned Spellcasters" is something I'd definitely like to have in there. Literally, like you get a seal and a document and everything. Cool stuff, because then it even opens up playing like a rogue spellcaster who either doesn't want a government or anyone meddling with their stuff, or legitimately is experimenting with some dangerous things (I imagine a lot / all Warlocks fall into that later category). Plus, the idea of Magic pursued as just another form of Physics is right on. Love that.

Yeah, I suspect somewhere in this is a clever wizard with some real power, who's carefully orchestrating a 'rehabilitation' of magic, by trying to convince people that magic is just science. Sanctioning spellcasters also helps this fellow keep tabs on the competition.

I do like your idea of tying a sort of magical autocracy or oligarchy in the past, which led perhaps to all out magical war (or other conflagration) that nearly snuffed the light of civilization out sort of replacing the real-world feudal monarchies as precedents of Enlightment and Renaissance gives a cool sense of history to the whole deal. People have a real reason to distrust the all-powerful ruler, and finally have the means to experiment with alternative methods of distributing authority.

In such a system, wizards operating under the auspices of (and implied control/responsibility to) the state could be tolerated, but magic like sorcery would be rather anathema. Middle cases like clerical magic, or bardic magic, would exist in grey areas, except that most people can't tell those magics apart from hated blood magic. If you're casting a spell and don't have a spellbook, you could be taking that power from ANYTHING.