Homebrew Worlds- What is in YOUR world?

[Imp]

Domina can be a lot of things, depending on what the players choose to pursue. There are different levels of esoterica going on:

- a world of political intrigue and swashbuckling seaborne and even airborne adventure in the ascendant civilization of the Asyrean island city-states, a civilization with qualities borrowed from Classical, Renaissance, early 20th-century, and a few Japanese elements. Anyone with ability can seek a higher station in the cultural tumult of the setting, by thieving, leading, offering their services to various factions, or colonizing long-abandoned lands – and retire well! (There are other cultures as well, of course.)

- a world sheltered from the powers of other planes by the Compact, maintained by the only elite power on the world, the Brotherhood of the Arch-Magi, which likes Domina to be a relatively nonthreatening place to pursue their studies, and while they do little to otherwise interfere with the course of human affairs, they are ruthless in dealing with those individuals that begin to approach their power in any way. As characters approach high levels, they must race to Ascend to other planes if they want to continue adventuring – or die at the hands of the Magi!

- a world where men have failed repeatedly, tapping into powers they could not contain as their civilizations grew to the tipping point. The men that fell before – and many of the supernatural ancestors of the humans, the janni – have been twisted by their fall, becoming many of the monsters that lurk throughout Domina. Once again, civilization is ascendant. Is it doomed to repeat the cycle?

Or you can spend ten levels cleaning out goblins that lurk in tunnels below the earth if that's what you really want. The goblins were once human, by the way – the remnants of the first great human power ten thousand years ago.

 

[Knightfall]

I suspected you were the one who did this...

Heh.

How about us old members who aren't playing the same world anymore?

Sure, any new inspiration is good inspiration.

 

[Agent Oracle]

My world is experiencing a massive screwup in it's magical fields. resulting in Dangeorusly High and Dangeorusly Low Magic Zones. In the DHMZ, all magical effects are maximized and enlarged, and have at least a 5% Backlash chance. (Backlash is direct damage to the caster, and their surrounding area from magical feedback.) This applies not only to casters, but also people with magic objects and supernatural abilities. Even a little +1 dagger can become dangerously unstable. DLMZ's actually suck magic out... all spell effects are minimized... and the world becomes very, very... ordinary.

 

[Knightfall]

...
snip...

The World of Sira is a place of high magic and high fantasy with a definite twist. Magic is everywhere and mastered in many forms. From the arcane arts of human wizards, to the spontaneous shapeshifting of barbarian tribes, almost every one can tap into the forces of magic to manifest some kind of power, whether it be the tiniest cantrip of a human peasant or the powerful Air magic of the elves.

That sounds like an awesome setting! If the actual game play is as good as the summary then your players must be a happy bunch.

 

[wingsandsword]

Imperium

Imperium is a setting based on the idea of" "What if D&D was built on a framework of being vaguely akin to the Roman Empire, instead of being vaguely akin to Renaissance Europe?" It's not a historic fantasy setting, but the basic cultural model is much more from the Classical world than the Renaissance. There are plenty of historic analogues, but they are only for inspiration (or in places where it is something so cliche that the players just expect it). It's not about being a completely different setting, it's about doing the same things, in different ways.

The Grand Imperium of Mankind has existed for 900 years, and now covers the entire continent of Andros. An Emperor, elected by the Senate, in turn elected by the landowning adult humans (Citizens of the Empire), rules with almost unquestionable authority. Massive armies patrol the continent, and occasionally campaign abroad trying to expand the Imperium (although it is at a stalemate on all fronts currently, a fact they don't want to acknowledge). The Imperium is populated overwhelmingly by humans, although there is a significant orc and half-orc population (mostly as slaves, although some are freed), and at least a small minority of many other races, like Elves, Half-Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, and a handful of Gnomes (which, while legally protected, are not citizens and can never be, except half-elves, as one must have human blood to be a Citizen). Some try to seek fame and fortune in the deadly battles in the arenas, others want to enlist in the Legions of the Imperium and fight in the name of the Emperor, while others wish to serve a powerful Senator (and maybe even become one themselves one day).

But, for all these developments, life is far from perfect. Slave revolts among the orc populations have left some remote areas lawless (with corrupt local garrisons often looking the other way and being intentionally ineffective at dealing with the problem). Corrupt senators divert funds and resources needed to help people into their own pockets, while dangerous but well-meaning revolutionaries see the entire Imperium as a destructive force and want to bring it down (but don't have a very good plan about what to do afterwards), dangerous cults of ominous dark gods seek to corrupt and control the world, while the everpresent threat of invasion from other Empires keeps the Imperium always wary.

There are other continents, with cultures based on other models, and other dominant cultures. The Empire of the Crescent to the east is akin to ancient Egypt, with more remote parts being more akin to Pre-columbian South America (and is home to the Orcs, who have a pseudo-Aztec culture to them). The Icy South is home to a quasi-nordic culture, rich in elves and dwarves (and is the Dwarven homeland). To the west of The Imperium of Mankind is the Emerald Archepelago, home to the halflings with a polynesian influence (the discovery of the Homo Florensis "Hobbit" human subrace inspired polynesian hobbits to me) (and some elves on remote parts with a more Celtic feel). Far, far to the west is The Barbaric West (as it's known to the Imperium), a place with gnomes of incomprehensible culture, bizarre language, an insufferable tendency to think of themselves as superior to all others (when The Imperium knows they are superior), although explorers coming back have brought back very interesting and valuable trade items (i.e. the obligatory asian themed part of the setting, not that I expect it to come up very often, at most as part of the backstory for how the Monk class exists in the rest of the world: they came as captured slaves, brought to the Imperium as a curiosity and were forced to fight in the Arenas, only to win their freedom and begin teaching others their ways).

One big thing about Imperium is that it is not a "Kitchen Sink" setting. There is a fixed list of creatures, classes, and races there. Just because it's in Monster Manual VIII, Players Handbook IV, or Complete Dungeon Crawler doesn't mean you can find it somewhere (although many things are probably somewhere, albeit hard to find). The ecology, mythology, and metaphysics of the world have all be carefully considered. This list is pretty big (although some things are only found in remote corners of the world), but it does mean that there is a specific fixed list of allowed classes and races for player characters.

 

[Templetroll]

When I started out most of the players in the group (usually between 8 and 12 players) had their own homebrews. I thought it expected that I would do the same.

N's - A world where much was not as it seemed. I loved the tricky, shapechanging, illusion-using, disguise-wearing types and the idea that the power may be behind the throne. Comments from my players at various times: "Paranoia is a survival trait in your world.", "You have the nicest evil people I've ever met!" (that player had his PC treated better by an evil wizard than most of the PCs had treated him.)

I had set out to be able to include anything from any D&D campaign setting that I liked, just translated so it fit in my world. I also wanted to have explanations for why there were magic items all over the place and a means to deal with players who can't make a game session. I used an ancient massive empire that used magic extensively to build its empire. In the first DMG there were comments about magic having been of the 10th level and above, etc and this empire had that. Then, 'something happened'. That caused a drop of magic worldwide to where spells were maxed at 9th level. This also caused most of the magical arms and armor to lose their enchantments and thus allowed the oppressed peoples to rise up and destroy their oppressors, the Empire. When this began the Empire tried to retreat back to the homeland, which also helped to spread the remaining magic items all over the place! The same Empire had been ruled by a powerful spellcaster who was thought to have been destroyed long ago. at one point someone in the party was struck by an odd bolt of lightning; when they returned the same way they had a strange tale to tell: They had been summoned to the court of The Emperor! He seemed interested in just talking to the person and provided food and lodging for them in the upper reaches of the ruined palace. The PC knew better than to leave as they saw at least one dragon flying around the city. This summoning only occurred when a player was not available for the game; anyone missing a session had their character spend some time up at the palace for the amount of time the adventure took. a couple of players tried to find out why this was occurring, so I came up with an ingame reason for them to try and puzzle out. They did work out that eventually they could try to take on The Emperor, but they didn't think much of their chances, even if they were high levels. Now, we have Epic levels and it actually would be fun to give it a go.

Another thing I did was set up two druidic faiths, one northern celtic with a male god and another southern faith based on the Lady of the Forest, a diety from Sumeria, I think it was. It was in the Deities and Demi-gods book from way back when. I also had the Temple of Our Lady of the One True Way. This was a human faith that spanned the area of the world I planned on running in and it accepted clerics of all alignments that were not N/N. The Temple had an interest in suppressing the celtic druidic faith, with it's male god and bolstering the other faith so they could later incorporate the female deity into their mythos as an aspect of Our Lady. This temple also allowed me to use alignment languages; that concept was that when someone spoke of the dogma of OLotOTW in their alignment tongue they said it in ways the other alignments would find offensive, or heretical.

Also, after my world had been running for about 5 or 6 years the party met a bardic god on a planar adventure. He told them a Word of Power that would explain much about the nature of their world if pronounced with the name of the world. That Word was Joh.

 

[CF]

Áquila - Two Worlds. One Planet:
This setting is mostly vanilla. It's the world I accidentally built while I DMed *D&D since I've started DMing *D&D (about 1994).

It's a world once dominated by a huge empire, but that had to deal with a major break up between eastern and western portions. Both sides became enemies and now the world is divided in a huge cold war.

The western side is made up of a bunch of minor realms that worships their old draconic pantheon, have dragonriders at their disposal and more advanced technology thanks to gnomes.

The eastern side is a huge empire erected by a former-paladin that imposes his new made-up religion (with former heroes and concepts as the gods) with two huge flying citadels, a network of spies, and control over a whole bunch of psionics.

In the middle is a neutral citadel of mages who erected a wall of mountains to split the continent and now charges to let people and merchandise cross to the other side. The dwarves inhabit below this mountais and, for the right price, may let you cross without all the bureocracy of the mages.

* * *

Terras Gélidas (Frozen Wastes):
This is a pretty small setting that came up during a few game sessions and my players just loved. It's a pretty small continent covered in snow with a few city-states. There are no gods. There is no difference between arcane and divine magic, all magic comes from innate gifts (they are all sorcerers or adepts). There are no rules outside the city states. A day lasts for about five months, and the night lasts for the other seven. People know their world wasn't like this before, but can't really tell. They can't even read!

During the night-time the world get infested with undead corpses of people who starved to death outside the cities or was killed by these undead (a kind of ghoul that is destroyed with sunlight). Only elves, halflings and orcs are crazy enought to endure outside the protective walls of the city-states.

I've never came up with the explanations for:
- Why the world froze;
- How the city-states where built;
- How elven, halfling and orcish tribes survive outside the cities.

But I guess this just makes the setting more enjoyable to me and my players.



Maybe someday I'll publish one or both. But the odds are they appear as free or pretty low cost pdfs on the net.

 

[glass]

Pelhorin: The Usurper Empire fell centuries ago, but the horrors it unleashed still exist, waiting to be found in long forgotten ruins. Now under the governance of the Commonwealth of Vancia, the continent is at peace, but not even the most benevolent of governments is free of corruption, especially 1000 miles from the High Prince's court...


glass.

 

[B9anders]

That sounds like an awesome setting! If the actual game play is as good as the summary then your players must be a happy bunch.

It's not been gamed in yet. My focus for gaming material is on my other homebrew, Éran, which is more traditional.

 

[Pure Puppet]

Hmm. The back cover copy would go something like this:

Eons ago, the Lost Race were the greatest mages in all of existence. Using their magic, they created a Paradise.

But it was not to last. The Lost Race probed too deeply into things no living being should know, and punched through reality into the madness beyond - The Far Realm.

The great Empire of the Elves was lost in an instant, and legions of shrieking things ran rampant around the world.

In the present day, the remaining races have rebuilt civilization, with particular races having closely interwoven societies. The dwarfs, for example, are never far from their boon comrades, the Jurai. Humans and Halflings consider themselves sibling races.

But the old portals of the Lost Race Of Elves still exist, and who can say what nameless horrors might come through?

A setting where I can have lots of Lovecraftian horror, traditional fantasy, and anything else I care to put in. Permanent portals to the Far Realm can justify a lot of my crazy ideas verrry nicely.

Of course, none of this actually matters, because I don't have any players.

So for now, it just fills up something like half-a-dozen notebooks. With maps, notes, stat blocks, cultural details, and homebrewed races.