Merged WotC setting search winners/losers thread

[Ian]

The Truth

Here's mine. I thought I had a pretty good shot with it, but I tend to think that kind of stuff all the time . I'm really interested to hear what other people think of this, so I'd love any comments.

BTW This isn't the exact one I sent in, the final version is on a different computer.

Credits: Ian Freeman & Simon Keeble

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The Truth
“For not all true things are the truth… [and] not all true things are to be said to all men.” – Bishop Clement of Alexandria

Core Ethos Statement.
The Truth is a world of medieval fantasy, driven by culture shock and magical evolution, that has just seen The Divinity War: 30 years ago, Humanity murdered the Gods.

Who are the Heroes?
This is a world of chaos, but not the “Chaos” that one typically finds in fantasy. Rather, it is the true kind of chaos, a chaos that exists in the mind, a chaos that is catalyzed by hundreds of contradictory religions, cultures, superstitions, uncertainties, wars, and lies. The heroes are those who have a chance to change their world, however they can. Whether they wish to profit from the chaos, end it, or simply revel in it, they are inextricably connected to this chaos and cultural mélange.

What do they do?
In short, what they will. The heroes are here to shape the world, fundamentally by changing themselves: by coming to understand the world and then using that knowledge. They also have the opportunity to become one of the “touched”, those who perceive the world and their bodies with magic and so rise up as heroes beyond mortal standard. Fundamentally, game play is open-ended.

Conflict.
The greatest danger is the chaos, a chaos that could spill over into war or worse. This chaos has been sowed not by a specific individual, but rather by the aftershocks of the Divinity War. The truth is also a threat and a conflict. Because the power of magic is dependent on knowledge of the physical world (see below), the flow of this “scientific” knowledge is of great significance. This leads to the paralysis of technology. The Shapers (powerful, more-or-less benevolent mages) understand science and technology, but cannot give these boons to the general populace for fear of what might be done in the wrong hands, because if everyone is as powerful as a great mage, terrible things would occur. A villain is, fundamentally, someone who opposes or threatens the ideology (because of it’s importance) of the heroes.

What is Magic?
There are many different views on how magic works (from simple superstition to more complex systems), but the truth is not to known to many. It is built on fundamentally logical principles, and those principles are driven by the knowledge of the natural world (physics, chemistry, and biology, but very few mages have extensive knowledge). And, one’s power is entirely dependant on knowledge. In short, a mage is a scientist and a scientist is a mage. This let’s us do some very distinctive things: the explanation behind the paralysis of technology (above), certain elements of evolution (below), and it plays into the idea of the truth. Also, it is important thematically, because this is a world that exists on rational principles and still fell into chaos. If the principles were arbitrary, the effect would be lost. It is not a limitation, but an opportunity to do new things with the magic system and it’s effect on the world.

What’s new?
A unique element to this setting is the idea of superstition vs. truth. In most fantasy stories, what is believed as myth is in fact truth. This is not the case in this setting, because different people believe dozens of contradictory things, most of which are simply wrong. Take the geography of the world, it takes place on 7 different planets, distinct in space (different solar systems entirely). Most people believe that these represent 7 layers of reality, but the truth is something different. These 7 planets are connected by “Shatterways”, which easily enable mass transit and mass communication across the distinct worlds. The setting is also very organic, everything flows logically into everything else. Not only does the geography create many possibilities for mass transit, but it also changes the shape of political units, as the ability to teleport using features of the natural landscape totally redefines the nature of political borders. It a;so creates a caste of people just ripe for adventuring: Landwalkers, those who forgo the shatterways and travel overland in search of natural resources, other cultures, or simply the thrill of the journey. While interesting cultures are not new to fantasy, this setting provides unique opportunities for exploring them. The Divinity War has sent people reeling with moral questions and ramifications, the landscape provides opportunities for many and seclude cultures, and it important that cultures are the central power block.

Evolution. This is a big thing. The mage’s understand evolution, they know that it fills every ecological niche it can, and even they don’t know why it has never produced beings that use the laws of magic as a natural process of their being (the way that life normally uses the laws of physics); in fact, the definition of magical forces are those forces which never exist naturally. In truth, evolution has, but the God’s last great spell (“The Plague of Ash”) is killing them all.

The politics. Nations are ruled by an elite of touched, those who are trained to use magic as another method of perception. Because of the touched, mages are not the uniform rulers of everything (also, the shapers are trying to engineer society to ensure it’s survival once they reveal science to the masses). Everyone believes that the ability to be touched travels through bloodlines, but that is a lie. In truth, the Council of the Touched pretends to determine who is and who is not touched as political leverage.

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Edit: spelling

 

[Corinth]

Here's mine. I threw this together in an afternoon specifically for the search.

1. Core Ethos Sentence: Pangea is a world at the beginning of history, where the heroes are enlisted by the God of Light to fight a total war against the villains that seek to subjugate the world forever to the will of the God of Darkness.
2. Who Are The Heroes?: The heroes are the lords of the mortal races, their vassals and those that descend from them. They are the heroes because they are the only ones who have the means, motive and opportunity to do so; everyone else lacks one or more of these things because they’re needed elsewhere to perform vital tasks.
3. What Do They Do?: The heroes explore the world, make contact with foreign peoples, protect their peoples from all who endanger them and execute the will of their masters. They create order out of chaos, literally or otherwise.
4. Threats, Conflicts, Villains: The threat to the world comes from one half of a pair of gods, one who—because of weak character—was denied of his inheritance. He seeks revenge upon the other god and—through him—the creator who made this so; he does this through direct action as well as through minions, recruited and created alike.
5. Nature of Magic: Divine magic stems from a connection between a divine being and a mortal in a relationship that is often personal and intimate; there is neither formal worship nor organized religion. Arcane magic is the realization of a gift imparted by the creator, one where a mortal may impose his will upon the world directly by the sheer force of personality. Magic use is in its infancy; more complex systems, such as the wizardry of the Player’s Handbook, does not exist yet.
6. What’s New/Different?: This is a world that is, for all practical purposes, a clean slate. The kingdoms, monsters, artifacts, epic tales of long ago don’t exist yet; the heroes must carve out the realms, slay the monsters, create the artifacts and record the tales themselves. It’s The Silmarillion, not The Lord of the Rings; it’s the Rig Veda of Hindu myth, the Antediluvian Age of Judeo-Christian myth, the founding of the Old Republic of the Star Wars saga and the War in Heaven (in whatever form you prefer). The heroes, great and small, work to impose order upon chaos.

I do not claim originality, but rather I claim that it's never been tried as a commericial entity. Had I made it to the next round, I'd go on to emphasize the blank slate nature of the setting and how to exploit it for commercial purposes such as having different continuities for different parts of the product- thus creating more than one brand to nurture and develop.

 

[EarthsShadow]

All of these ideas are awesome, and it would be nice if there was a publisher willing to have some of us write up a ten page submission on our topics to see what further details we could some up with. Even if we ended up with only a 60-70 page setting book and then it sold on-line as a pdf campaign setting, I am sure that we would support anyone that was picked for this. I know I would support any of you able to do this.

Sure, some ideas are better than others, and its hard to say what Wizards was really looking for, but I know for a fact that if the final winner is a campaign setting that is very very similar to Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance, then I will be a little upset with their decision because there are so many settings like them already.

Why don't we as a community take a few of these ideas and work together to create some awesome settings? Perhaps at a website, through emails, whatever it takes to help each other out so we can also truly benefit from this. If any of you know a lot about publishing, we as a community could do this ourselves.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

OK, here is mine:

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Urbis

1. Core Ethos Sentence: Urbis is a world of towering cities awash in magic, where heroes battle ruthless lords and scheming merchants with magic, weapons, and intrigue to determine the fate of millions.

2. Who are the heroes? Noteworthy heroes are Lord Amrast, the paladin ruler of the city-state of Logos, Roderick Ardan, the head of a very large merchant house, and the Piper, a mysterious pipe-player clad in rags who seems to have been around for centuries.

3. What do they do? Lord Amrast seeks to maintain peace, freedom from tyrannical rule, and prosperity for as many people as possible, and maintains a careful diplomatic web of treaties and alliances, and a powerful military to this end. Roderick Ardan wishes to save people from the worst life-draining effects of magical architecture, and has created a large network of spies and smugglers to rescue people from cities where the rulers get too greedy for magical energy. The Piper seeks to bring down the magical architecture of tyrants. For this, he uses a variety of disguises to sow confusion and chaos in the city to distract the city’s guards and make the wealthy and powerful distrust and attack each other until the city is in such disarray that the rulers can only watch as the Piper plays his pipe and uses the very magical energy that the architecture has gathered to destroy it.

4. Threats, Conflicts, Villains: The League of Armach is a military aggressive and strongly expansionist alliance of city-states bent on conquest. Last Rest is a city-state ruled by the undead, which uses magical architecture to suck the life force of its inhabitants and create vast amounts of necromantic energy. Its agents constantly roam the world to kidnap people and bring them to the city to fuel its hunger for life force. Shaprat, the Last City is an otherworldly metropolis that seeks to draw people, buildings, and even entire quarters of cities in the Material Plane into itself. Most people who visit this city are never seen again. Its aims are unknown, but it is worshipped by a large cult with adherents in most cities, which follow it in exchange for magical powers and hold rites to make it easier for the city to connect to the material world.

5. Nature of magic: Magic flows from the very soul of every living being, expressed as its force of personality (Charisma). Sorcerers and bards have learned to tap into this energy freely and spontaneously. Wizards know how to use their personal energies with increasing efficiency, allowing for spectacular effects thanks to long preparations. Clerics and druids tap into the life force of their patron deities and spirits. Magic is relatively common - almost everyone has seen someone work magic at some point in their lives, and most cities have schools for magic.
One type of magic that has shaped the setting like no other is magical architecture. When buildings and monuments are placed at the right spots, and built in the right ways, people who control certain nexus points can draw upon the life force of everyone who lives nearby and control vast amounts of magical energy, depending on how closely the buildings are created and placed according to the mystics’ advice, and on how much life energy the controller is willing to draw upon - from a slight drain that is hardly noticed and soon regenerated, to one that will leave the inhabitants apathetic and weak-willed, to an overpowering one that will cause every living being to die within a few years. Almost all new cities are built according to magical principles to allow this, and many older cities have been significantly altered for the same reasons.

6. What’s new? What’s different? Most traditional fantasy settings with a medieval technology base have only a few cities, and most of those only have small populations. The land they hold, and not the cities define the power of feudal rulers.
In Urbis, the situation is different - the magical power available to those who control cities built according to magical principles caused most rulers to create cities that are as large as possible, once the principles themselves were understood. Migration to the cities was encouraged, as it increased the magical power available to the ruler, and the countryside was only interesting as a source of food and raw materials. The end result is a large number of huge city-states dotting the landscape which are often continually rebuilt to focus magic more efficiently, with powerful rulers backed by strong magic, wealthy merchants trying to profit in any way they can, and a large underclass which is often only respected as a source of cheap labor and magical energy. The countryside is treated protectorates divided up between the various cities and exploited as much as possible to fill the needs of the cities, while the overgrown ruins of older settlements that weren’t build “the right way” give a silent testament to the past, only to be disturbed by the occasional treasure-hunter.


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OK, proposal over. I've had two design goals with this:

1.) Cities. Many fantasy cities have huge cities, but they often don't have a good reason for them. Huge cities existed in our history (Rome, many Chinese cities), so they are possible with a medieval technology base. Even more so when you are throwing magic into the mix.

And the whole concept of "gathering life force for magic" gives me an excuse to have really large cities in a fantasy setting. I am talking about populations counted in the millions.

Why such cities? Because cities are <i>cool</i>. I've been primarily inspired by certain Belgian artists like Schuiten and his "Obscure Cities", plus some real-world reading about the undergrounds of Rome and Moscow. But "urban fantasy" is a versatile genre, and offers many possibilities.

2.) Creating a setting in which the D&D rules actually make sense. This isn't readily apparent from the proposal, but I was planning to work out all the ramifications of things like commonly-available ressurrection spells, zombie sklave labour, and so on. And my "default assumption" for all the monsters from the MM was: "All of them exist in this world. Now how can I make it interesting - and yet make it fit together?" The Destrachan and the Yrthak, two monsters with sonic powers, originally came from another planet in the same solar system until some mages teleported them in. The same goes for several other non-outsider critters that are too weird to have evolved naturally on an Earthlike world...

I've put a lot of thought into this since I first submitted my proposal, and I will continue to do so. Not because of any hopes of seeing this setting published, but mostly becaus I am currently writing a Neverwinter Nights module that takes place in that setting. And perhaps I will use it as a game world for my group one day as well...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Why don't we as a community take a few of these ideas and work together to create some awesome settings? Perhaps at a website, through emails, whatever it takes to help each other out so we can also truly benefit from this. If any of you know a lot about publishing, we as a community could do this ourselves.

Well, if anyone is interested in developing my ideas further (see my previous post), I'm game. Though I'll have to admit I know jack about setting up discussion boards or mailing lists...

On the other hand (though I must stress I'm not promising anything yet), it looks like I'll soon be able to get some completely ads-free webspace, and maybe I could set something up for a few (!) settings. Email me if you are interested...

 

[Hypersmurf]

Luna Fidelis

1. Core Ethos Sentence
Luna Fidelis is a world of restless spirits, where death is but an inconvenience for the strong-willed.

2. Who are the heroes?
There are those who have strong ties between body and soul, who do not fear losing their identity to a Revenant, and who seek to make the world safer for those less fortunate.

There are those who have been greatly wronged, who have seen their loved ones become strangers, and who seek revenge.

And there are those whose calling to combat evil is powerful enough to transcend death, who Return to continue the fight in the borrowed bodies of allies sympathetic to their cause.

3. What do they do?
Great evil endures. But its power to harm is limited by the resources it can gather, and the consolidation of those resources can take years. Decades. Centuries.

Great heroes oppose great evil. Killing a Revenant’s body, or forcing its spirit to flee; scattering its followers; destroying its power base; in these ways, great heroes frustrate the plans and ambitions of the worst of the Returned evildoers.

Lesser evils abound, and it is the unfortunate nature of man that most spirits are ultimately selfish. There is always need for a hero to free the possessed of their uninvited guests.

By their own code, those who Return to aid in the struggle against evil must tread lightly upon their hosts, preferring to advise rather than control. Life is addictive, and it is all too easy for them to become what they despise.

4. Threats, Conflicts, Villains
The strongest spirits of evil men and women throughout history have returned countless times, stealing the bodies of unfortunates with loosely-bound souls. Too often, the Return of such an individual heralds dark times.

Such events are comparatively rare, however. The common man is less concerned with evil overlords than with the possibility that he or one of his folk might be possessed by a “garden-variety” spirit; one of the frightening number of strong-willed, selfish deceased floating about.

5. Nature of magic
Magic is intimately tied to the free spirits that exist everywhere - generally those too weak or too principled to Return.

Spellcasters have one or more affiliate (or captive) souls ‘in tow’, whose spiritual energies power their workings, and who may lend their advice and experience when called upon.

Items are imbued with magic by binding a spirit, temporarily or permanently. For minor items, this is a simple process. The more powerful the item, the stronger the spirit required, and the greater the sense of identity it retains. Pleas, bargains, coercion, or force may be required to bind a strong soul into an item.

6. What’s new? What’s different?
Luna Fidelis is named for the Faithful Moon, which hangs forever fixed above the city Temm. The same archmage who froze the moon in place thousands of years ago weakened the bonds between the Prime Material Plane and the Outer Planes. Without the proper guidance, the souls of the deceased are now unable to find their final resting place, and linger instead in the realm of the living. The problems occur when they try to come back...

-Hyp.

 

[Arcane]

Yup, that's the premise. I clipped a little bit before I posted it, in order to keep a few ideas secret. But yes, basically a huge earthquake opens up a faultline that exposes the world's watery core. Enterprising kingdoms send a few expeditions down, and discover that there's an entire "inner world" of sorts, complete with islands, continents, and inhabitants. Now, kingdoms are racing to explore and lay claim to whatever they find in the Oceans Beneath. Of course, I'm sure that some of the inhabitants aren't too pleased with this development, and may even have the same idea about the land above.

As for the copyright notice, I just don't want to see it showing up in a book of losing entries without me knowing about it first. I once produced a shareware game, and was surprised when I found it on some compilation cds that had never bothered to contact me.

Lots of great idea's, actually Maraxle's inner sea idea was somewhat similar to my Ash Sea as seen in the proposal below. Can't imagine how hard it must have been for the judges.

Here's mine(which looks pitifully inadequate now) -

<b>ACHEROS</b>

<b>Core Ethos</b>

ACHEROS is a world of dark fantasy where political intrigue and religious conflict, amongst the god’s and their followers, is rife.

<b>Who are the Heroes?</b>

The heroes of ACHEROS are those people who become involved in the shaping of the religious conflicts that plague this world.

<b>What do they do?</b>

The heroes of this world are mostly interested in the advancement of their diety. Some of these heroes will go to horrific lengths to achieve the goals of their deities, including forsaking the cultures they were raised within.

<b>Threats, Conflicts and Villains.</b>

The main threat in this world comes from the constant warring between religious factions and the political maneuvering that surrounds them. One of the god’s in particular, Dyeron, has intentions that surpass all previous atrocities. His avatar and representative on ACHEROS, Arien Angelbane, is the tool that will further Dyeron’s goals… but Arien has secrets of his own.

<b>Nature of Magic</b>

Magic is rife in ACHEROS. Mostly clerical in nature there are also several unique spell crafters within the other races of ACHEROS.

- The Ashrunn, nomadic tribes of the Ash Sea, have several unique magical properties, the most important being the development of a Hive Mind.
- The Damu, flightless birdmen, are well versed in the art’s of illusion and are often considered the great entertainers of ACHEROS.
- The Dwarven race has developed a deep affinity with the Earth and is able to bend much of nature to its cause.
- The savage Elven Tribes have their own magic-users who are extremely chaotic in nature, unable to control the raw energies they harness.
- The Human’s of ACHEROS mostly find their magical potential through the clerical orders and boon’s from their chosen god.

<b>What’s new? What’s different?</b>

ACHEROS has several key points that set it apart from previous settings.
- Some interesting and new races alongside new takes on old favourites.
- An intriguing social and political setting that provides many avenues for differing types of adventure.
- Some unique geographical features that will provide access to exciting new types of exploration and adventuring.

 

[Irysangel]

Hey, is it just me....

Or are there quite a few suggestions about a 'dream' type campaign?

It's an area I never thought of looking into before. Kinda like Nightmare on Elm Street meets Mazes and Monsters....

Cool!

 

[Rune]

Re: Hey, is it just me....

Or are there quite a few suggestions about a 'dream' type campaign?

It's an area I never thought of looking into before. Kinda like Nightmare on Elm Street meets Mazes and Monsters....

Cool!

The idea of dream settings is not uncommon (I'm working on Jaldaen's Nevermore, right now, for instance), but usually they look at dreams from the outside in. That is, characters can enter dreams and they can leave them. What sets The Dream appart is that characters do not enter or leave ever-- they are part of The Dream. That is to say that the setting is a look at dreams from the inside out. You don't see the game from Alice's perspective-- you see it from the Cheshire Cat's perspective, instead. Naturally, this is a very cerebrial setting to run-- and quite challenging; it was certainly not what WotC was looking for. I knew this, but had to enter anyway.

For more information on The Dream, I direct you to either of my two story hours set within it,

The Runic Storyhour: An Oriental Adventure in The Dream

Another Runic Story Hour: Kingdoms of Kalamar in The Dream

 

[Eosin the Red]

P.S. I have trademarks on the name so please don't use it...

I have been using the name for years. The Namean Islands, the main one is Namea. I believe it is a historical reference correct?

And yes, it is also in my setting.

It is not all that amazing that many names are similar since we all draw from the same sources. My world has been called Cerillia since the early 80's imagine my shock when TSR published Birthright.