Campaign Setting Idea

Kender42 · Dec 5, 2003

I've been pondering for the past few weeks, trying a new campaign setting/world for D&D just to be different.

Uses all the 3.5 ideas except a few:

1) It's set on Earth. Earth where technology didn't really develop, magic flourishes. Cities and towns are mainly set up where they are today, except travel between the bigger cities is via horse/wagon/feet instead of cars/trucks/trains.

2) Three Gods. One good (God), One Neutral (Gaea), One Evil (Satan)

Have any of you ever tried something like this (using the real world as a template) and how did it go? What problems did you run into? Some PrC's based on deities would have to change, but I can't think offhand of much else.

Thoughts and comments appreciated.

DMScott · Dec 5, 2003

I use earth maps all the time - my AU campaign is set on the eastern coast of North America (no player has yet seen a sufficiently large-scale map for them to figure it out). Smaller scale maps are great for getting detailed terrain in a given area - nobody needs to know that trackless jungle they're trekking through is actually the Amazon (or the Congo, or whatever). I place the populations myself, though - leaves a lot more unexplored territory, plus a lot of modern cities are placed at rail or highway crossroads that wouldn't necessarily apply in a D&D-type world.

Hardhead · Dec 5, 2003

Nope, Kender. Never tried it before, but I like the idea.

DMScott, that's a neat idea. The Outer Banks of North Carolina would make an excellent archipelago.

Kender42 · Dec 5, 2003

DMScott said:
I use earth maps all the time - my AU campaign is set on the eastern coast of North America (no player has yet seen a sufficiently large-scale map for them to figure it out). Smaller scale maps are great for getting detailed terrain in a given area - nobody needs to know that trackless jungle they're trekking through is actually the Amazon (or the Congo, or whatever). I place the populations myself, though - leaves a lot more unexplored territory, plus a lot of modern cities are placed at rail or highway crossroads that wouldn't necessarily apply in a D&D-type world.

Now the only thing I need to decide is if I suspend the disbelief enough to let the players know where I am basing this off of. "i.e. Do we use the same city/town names, just change population and such.."

States could equal kingdoms.
Dwarves tend to hail from Mountainous Regions (Rockies, Appalachian)...
Elves from the more "Wilderness-y" areas of the north. (UP of Michigan, Canada, Northern edge of U.S....)
Orcs could be from <insert name of favorite state to be made fun of here>.

der_kluge · Dec 5, 2003

The map I'm using for my lost continent is a map I found on Google of the Hawaiian island of Oahu. I increased the scale, I don't know, 500 times, and voila!

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=56985

BTW, I would tend to think that the midwest would be largely unexplored if there were no easy means of travel. I'd hate to have to take a covered wagon from New York to Kansas City.

howandwhy99 · Dec 6, 2003

Kender42 said:
States could equal kingdoms.
Dwarves tend to hail from Mountainous Regions (Rockies, Appalachian)...
Elves from the more "Wilderness-y" areas of the north. (UP of Michigan, Canada, Northern edge of U.S....)
Orcs could be from .

I here Trolls live in Lower Michigan