5e Homebrew Setting: Malebolge, Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy

[Lanliss]

Thanks for the feedback. One slight correction; the Cradlelands region is talking in very broad generalities. I will definitely take your advice into mind when actually doing city write-ups, but this is the equivalent of the North America guide and what you're talking about is more suited to the New York City guide, if that makes any sense?

So, should I go ahead and list up all of the Cradlelands territory ideas I've had so far? I could use help picking where to start and what to name them.

Yeah, I realized the things I was talking about were smaller scale after posting it. A list sounds like a good start, I will try to help when I can. I am going to work soon though, so I will be on in short bursts at a time.

 

[QuietBrowser]

Alright, let me see... these are the territory ideas I've got so far. I'd really love to hear ideas for new territories to fit into the Cradlelands; please, nobody needs to be shy, I'm always open to talking about how to make an idea fit.

The Sea of Souls - the toxic, chaos-infused inland sea, the rotten heart of the Cradlelands. Sub-areas of note include the Bay of Blood, a relatively sheltered section of the coastline of the Sea of Souls, held sacred by the Warped Riders, a horde of "mutant supremacist" caliban nomads who seek caliban dominance. The Bay is where they conduct their most holy rituals, particular the forcible mutation of captives into new calibans through immersion in its tainted waters.

Ironfields - Centered around the Birthforge, the last known functioning forge-creche, this is the "kingdom of the warforged", where the warforged remain supreme. Vassals include Geargrease (the trading city outside of the Birthforge proper), Tinkerville (the largest gnomoi population in the Cradlelands) and Toytown (a village full of sapient animated objects).

Moil, The City That Waits - Once the center of humanity's research into necromancy, now a necrotic wasteland. A deep canyon in the shape of a ten-pointed star in circle sunders the city's streets and wards it from the outside world, its depths filled by grinding utterblack ice. The sun never shines here, ice covers everything, and the undead rule. Tribes of shadar-kai flock to the region.

Tradegate - The biggest trade post in the Cradlelands, guardian of the main route between the Cradlelands proper and the Scarred Coast.

Candleforge - Birthplace of the rodushi, center of their civilization.

The Drowned Necropolis - A vault that failed when earthquakes diverted an outlet of the Sea of Souls into them. Now filled by relatively friendly tribes of cannibal and aquatic beast calibans.

The Warpwind Mountains: A region of particularly savaged and mountainous badlands towards the north of the Cradlelands and relatively close to the Slagheap. Home to the last known surviving aeropolis (flying city), whose human inhabitants, xenophobic due to their surprising naivety about the world below, constantly raid & trade with the surface-dwelling caliban tribes below. Yes, this is basically stolen from DragonFlyz.

Horror Swamp: A dark, treacherous bog towards the southern end of the region, tainted by run-off from the Sea of Souls. Point Lookout meets the Great Murkendraw.

The Wurmwood: A twisted and allegedly haunted forest, filled with small hamlets and villages eking out a living from the dangers surrounding them.

 

[Lanliss]

The Wurmwood sounds like a nice 1st level area for starting adventures, since "Allegedly haunted" sound like their is either nothing, or it is a light haunting that lower level people could handle.

Moil drips with flavor, and seems like a place that would be at the top of my list to explore, if I lived in this world.

 

[QuietBrowser]

Thanks for the comments. Heh, and really, thank you for liking Moil; it's essentially a mash-up of the original Moil created in the Libris Mortis, I think, with some inspiration from Demon City Shinjuku (the city divided by an earthquake that "coincidentally" carved a giant pentagram into it) and Infernum (the mythical tenth layer of grinding ice and darkness, into which the freezing black ice river of Cocyctus pours).

I think I want to wait until I can get some people to talk about more ideas for territories to add to the Cradlelands, so please, if you got ideas, go ahead and share them! I don't know if I can make a world as fleshed out as the Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft or Eberron all on my own...

 

[QuietBrowser]

So, I just wanted to bump this and see if I could get some more feedback on the verbal mapping of the setting that I'm doing so far. Also, do folks think it would help if I made up a seperate google doc for this writeup? Would it be easier for folks to check that, keep track of when that updates, and generally be more comfortable to read?

 

[QuietBrowser]

Okay, so a mini-update that's surprising even to me; I found an online mapmaking tool/site called "Inkarnate", and it's simple enough that even an idiot like me can get the hang of it. I may very well be able to actually map this setting out now! The only issue is that the maps it produces are rather small, so I'm going to need to actually assemble a world map, such as it is, by systematically making territory-based maps and slotting them all together, like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

So, this means that I need to start picking a territory in the Cradlelands to map and write about at the same time. Does anyone have any preferences? I find it more motivating when I know there's people interested in seeing the pieces come together as opposed to when I'm just picking things out of a hat, as it were.

To recap, my current list of Cradlelands territories - I don't know if Inkarnate can actually make urban maps, I haven't tried it yet, so recommendations for alternatives if that doesn't pan out would be welcomed - is the second post from the top on this very page. Additionally, I really am open to ideas when it comes to world-building - mapping, in any sense of the word, is something I've really never done before. If folks wanna talk about possible sub-regions or territories or cities or whatever that I can add to this post-apocalyptic hellhole of mine, then, please, go right ahead.

 

[QuietBrowser]

So, folks, query: it was brought to my attention over on a different board that, with the first basic map overview out of the way, maybe I should start devoting my time to showing off some crunch for the setting. There's a lot of "different" races and classes (well, subclasses) in this setting of mine, and would-be players need to know about them. As it turns out, I'm actually very much in need of help balancing out my homebrewed crunch. So, would folks be interested if I were to start posting my Malebolge crunch here and give me a hand at picking them apart and making them work better?

On the races front, this is the current "status" for all, mechanics wise.

• Humans - Use Human or Variant Human from the PHB
• Half-Elf - Use Half-Elf from the PHB, may need to consider creating a homebrew "elf lineage trait" for them, ala the rules from SCAG
• Dwarf, Pureblood - Use Dwarf race from PHB with Mountain Dwarf or Duergar subrace
• Dwarf, Forgeborn - Homebrew Dwarf subrace (Written, Needs Critique)
• Gnomoi - Use Gnome race from PHB with Rock Gnome subrace
• Ork, Malebolgian - Use Half-Orc race from PHB
• Goblin, Malebolgian - Use Gnome race from PHB with Forest Gnome subrace
• Elf, Drow - Use Elf race from PHB with Drow subrace (considering creating replacement racial feature for Drow Magic)
• Aranea - Homebrew Race (Written, Needs Critique)
• Gnoll - Homebrew Race (Written, Needs Critique)
• Caliban - Homebrew Race (Written, Needs Critique)
• Shadar-kai - Homebrew Race (Written, Needs Critique)
• Warforged, Malebolgian - Homebrew Race (Written, Needs Critique)
• Kobold, Malebolgian - Homebrew Race (Written, Needs Critique)
• Fangwyrm - Homebrew Race (Written, Needs Critique)
• Draakotha - Use Dragonborn race from PHB (need to figure out a consistent "in universe" name to use for them)
• Rodushi (Ratfolk) - Homebrew Race (Written, Needs Critique)
• Slyvhar - Homebrew Race (Written, Needs Critique)
• Half-Gnoll - Homebrew Race (Written, Needs Critique)
• Half-Dwarf (Mul) - Homebrew Race (Written, Needs Critique)

The above list makes up my current confirmedly planned races. I think I also wanted to discuss the possibility of including Chitines & Cholodriths, "Scalykin" (lizardfolk and serpentfolk) and whether or not half-orcs & half-goblins can be a thing in this world. Half-gnomes are planned to be a thing, but I really need help in figuring out their crunch when somebody's interested.

So... yeah, the races are actually pretty much all ready to be shared, I just need folks willing to help me pick them apart and see if they work. I'm an amateur at this, so balancing stuff out is my real weakness.

I was thinking get the races done first, then I can start tackling the classes, which I'm even more nervous about. Does this make sense?

 

[QuietBrowser]

In light of requests, I'm currently starting to plot out the Wurmwood territory for the next expansion to my world-building. I'm still waiting on volunteers to look over the crunchy aspects of this setting, but I thought I'd go ahead and share my current draft of ideas for the Wurmwood.

The Wurmwood represents the largest unbroken span of healthy(ish) vegetation in the Cradlelands, stretching across a substantial swath of the southwest, ending roughly as it melds into Horror Swamp at the far south.

Stories told by the locals suggest that maybe the Wurmwood was once a city dedicated to exploring and mastering wood elemental magic, and that when the Black Dawn happened, that magic got out of control, causing it to be consumed by its gardens and parks. The presence of ancient ruins scattered at random through the forest, always heavily overgrown, adds some credence to this theory.

The Wurmwood is an area of massive old growth. The trees are so tall and dense that during summer, most of the light is blocked out during the day, leaving the interior in an eternal twilight except in rare glades. In winter, however, it's also surprisingly warm, as the thick layers of decomposing vegetation and the densely woven branches retain a lot of heat. In essence, the Wurmwood only really experiences spring and autumn.

As a side effect of the dark environment, fungi and parasitic plants are ubiquitous, and many native plants are bio-luminescent.

The most impressive vegetation in the Wurmwood are the so-called "Mother Trees"; a scattering of no more than half a dozen trees the size of small mountains, so enormous they can be seen from outside of the forest and used as navigable landmarks.

The majority of the local sapients are small villages, hamlets and fortified camps and they live a surprisingly bucolic life, as much as the natural dangers of the Cradlelands allow. Farming - predominantly in the form of orchards, root vegetables and fungus cellars - and herding hardy sheep, goats, deer and pigs provides food, whilst lumber is all around them. Trade with the outside world is sporadic, but between their own ample supply of food and safe drinking water, the lumber, and myriad valuable plants & fungi used in medicine and reagents, the Wurmwood is an under-tapped gold mine of valuable goods.

At least one Mother Tree has been colonized by an aranea librarium, a veritable city of arcanist monkly spiderfolk living within its branches and roots and trading their skills with the outside world as needed.

Dangers are less common here, but far from unheard of. An array of deadly creatures lurks in this forest, from comparatively mundane (venomous reptiles and arthropods), to mutants of all kinds. 40ft long snakes, brain-jacker spiders, firebreathing foxes... even hell-hogs (essentially expies of Bloodborne's Goliath Pigs/Maneater Boars) have been known to migrate northwards from Horror Swamp to scavenge the nuts, fungi and overripe fruit from this forest. Worse, this territory is home to the largest concentration of killer plants in the region. Shriekers, strangleshrooms, vegepygmies, molded (yes, as in an expy of the Resident Evil 7 mooks; need a better name), greenvises, assassin vines and yellow musk creepers have all been documented here.

Because of this, although wood magic is the most respected form in the region, fire magic users are not exiled; those who do remain form elite militias dedicated to fighting the more dangerous denizens of the woods, especially killer plants and fungi.

Don't know if can get away with a Matango expy or if that works best as just a reskin of the Vegepygmies.

The Wurmwood's reputation for being haunted is because there are undead here. Fairly rare, and predominantly in the form of yellow musk zombies, but spontaneous corpse reanimation isn't unheard of. In fact, there are actually a number of ghosts reported to haunt various locales in the Wurmwood, and some even have been confirmed to exist. The only one proven in my head so far goes by the tentative name "Lampwick Lenny"; born a Brute strain Caliban and abandoned in the forest, he was taken in by a village that raised him with love and kindness. Growing to be strong and good-hearted, if a little simple, Lenny was fearless and would roam the woods at night with a lantern, looking out for lost travelers and guiding them to safety. He was so devoted to this task that even dying didn't stop him; now he roams the woods on dark and misty nights, seeking to protect travelers from the dangers of the forest.

This is... all I have so far, and so I could really use some critique here.


On another happy note, I've managed to get a first draft up of a map of the Sea of Souls sub-region in the Cradlelands. Should I post it here for folks to take a look at?

 

[Lanliss]

The Wurmwood sounds great. I already love Lenny, and would probably go with having him be a rare random encounter in the area. On the other hand, I could also see Wisps, or some sort of Tricksy enemy using an illusion of Lenny to lure in unsuspecting adventurer.

For a name on the "Molded", maybe Moldering? IDK, not the best with names...

Any map sounds great, as they add a good bit more depth than any description can.

EDIT: Also not the best with crunchy bits. Considering there is a lack of people responding directly to this thread, you might try specifically seeking out balance-minded posters, and PMing them to see if they would be willing to look at your work.

 

[QuietBrowser]

Thank you so much for the positive response, Lanliss.

Hehe, you like Lampwick Lenny, huh? Well, I hope I can do him justice in the proper writeup.

Hmm... maybe I should start a new thread for Malebolgian crunch-work. Just to keep things a little more under control.