D&D 4E POL Settings in Literature to Base 4e Settings On

[Dark080matter]

Okay... I really like this one. I mean REALLY like this one. An archipelago that is the shattered remnant of an ancient empire with ruins and monsters and terrible horrors of the Deep. No one island is enough to support an entire country, some have mineral resources, some have arable land for farming and some have other resources.

It could be like Settlers of Catan, but with monsters and islands. It could be a lot of fun...

lol Thanks Stone Dog. Of course the trick with your idea is explaining how anything can survive on the more esoteric islands (no food here, but look at all these shiny rocks we have!) Maybe there are small pockets of islands that support each other through trade... by which I mean one rickety little boat that they float around every week or so.

As far as the 'ancient shattered empire' I really did forget that Wind Waker had that whole business going on as well, awesome though. That's actually part of my "Points of Sand" setting... the Desert can't always have been there, once it was quite pristine and beautiful in the Lands of ancient Arkhosia.....

 

[Stone Dog]

lol Thanks Stone Dog. Of course the trick with your idea is explaining how anything can survive on the more esoteric islands (no food here, but look at all these shiny rocks we have!) Maybe there are small pockets of islands that support each other through trade... by which I mean one rickety little boat that they float around every week or so.

Pretty much, yes. Some islands could be barely self sufficient for a while, but actual survival has to come through inter-island trading. These people need iron, but getting iron has to come from over here and there just isn't enough food to keep a mining colony running by itself. Sure, there is food from the sea, but with the sahuagin make that practice more dangerous than it could be. They seem to think of it as cattle rustling.

 

[Novem5er]

What about the Death-Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman?

You know, their other series?

For those not in the know, basically the world was split into 4 different worlds, based on the different elements. Each world has a little of all the other elements in it, but an abundance of one in particular.

Earth: Giant caverns linked by tunnels. Everything is heated by giant columns that transfer energy from the realm of fire... but lately the columns are failing.

Air: Floating continents circling a vast, empty space. Here, water is scarce, brought only by infrequent rains. The great geyser that used to shoot water into the heavens stopped flowing long ago.

Fire: An inverted globe surrounding an ever-burning sun. Completely disconnected from the other worlds, the jungles of this planet have strangled everything, leaving only ruins.

Water: Cities exist within giant bubbles, deep in an endless ocean. Life swims everywhere, but what darkness hides in the depths?

And connecting everything is the Nexus, a twilight realm of endless fields and peace.

But let us not forget the Labyrinth... where the exiled Patryns are hunted endlessly.

(ps) I like the Zelda idea. Call me a sinner, but I've always wanted to run a video-gamey D&D campaign where the whole world was a microcosm of a bigger world. You know how in Zelda you can go from a freezing mountain top to a hellish desert in just a few minutes? How everybody in town has their own story to tell (all 12 people)?

Heh, it'd be neat.

 

[Almacov]

Always thought the post-apocalyptic world of The Chrysalids would be great to adapt for a roleplaying game. Perhaps not 4e, but something. Very fun PoL setting.

 

[Hussar]

Steven Erikson's Malazan Tales of the Fallen series has numerous PoL places in it. Granted, it also has sprawling empires and whatnot as well. The setting is just so frikkin huge that you can do pretty much whatever you liked in it.

Scarred Lands is MOST DEFINITELY PoL. Beautiful fit there.

While LotR may be debatable, I would certainly place The Hobbit as a PoL setting. Possibly even a better fit than LotR.

Anne McCaffery's original Pern Trilogy would fit PoL nicely. Not the later books, but, certainly the earlier ones.

Possibly Robin Hobb's Liveship Trader's trilogy would fit the bill as well. Very cool setting.

 

[Fobok]

Always thought the post-apocalyptic world of The Chrysalids would be great to adapt for a roleplaying game. Perhaps not 4e, but something. Very fun PoL setting.

I think that would fit more of a skill-based system, but yeah, that'd definitely be great to RP. That was a great book.

 

[Fobok]

Anne McCaffery's original Pern Trilogy would fit PoL nicely. Not the later books, but, certainly the earlier ones.

Actually, I was going to suggest it, but even by the end of the second book F'lar's tradition-defying has already gotten rid of the PoL feeling. The first book, definitely. The same with the first two Harper Hall books, and the books co-written by Todd McCaffrey definitely fit.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

How about China Mieville's Bas-Lag books (Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council)?

Isn't that more like Points of Ineffable Darkness and Misery?

 

[Hussar]

Something to remember too when talking about PoL is that it can really depend on the size of your focus. PoL campaign's don't require an entire world that is PoL, only that the locations where you adventure are.

Take Greyhawk as an example. It's not really very PoL. It has most of the setting covered with fairly powerful nation states. Some are nice and some are not, but, by and large, order is maintained over most of these states. So, you could conclude that Greyhawk is not a PoL setting.

But, then look at Savage Tide AP. There's a textbook PoL campaign. Small communities, spread very far apart, surrounded by very, very nasty areas. So, if you narrow your focus a bit, finding a PoL setting for a campaign isn't all that difficult.