Your favourite world narrative / mythology twists

[Li Shenron]

Do you have any favourite twists on the traditional/default fantasy world narrative of D&D, that you like using in your homebrew settings, or that you apply to published settings to change them a little bit?

I think I have probably used the following narrative twists in the majority of the campaigns I have run since 3e:

- Half-Orcs are their own race, not a human/orc hybrid race: originally I introduced this idea when I wanted to have both Tolkien-orcs (the standard MM Orc) and Warcraft-orcs (the standard PHB Half-Orc); it also served the purpose to remove any reference to a violent origin of the half-orcs characters

- Deities are always vague, less anthropomorphic, with multiple aspects and blurred boundaries between: so for instance, two normally separate deities might really be the same one, and yet different, you just can't tell... It's in the nature of divinity to cause headaches at anyone attempting to resolve it thoroughly.

- The afterlife (e.g. outer planes) are home to the spirit of the dead and their caretakers. There are no permanent "living" residents.

- Druid's not using metal armor or shield is a tradition at best, utter BS at worst. It is never a rule.

 

[Eltab]

- The gods of dawn, sun, dusk (and maybe night) are aspects of a single being. Every so often he "rolls a d4" to decide which aspect is dominant for the next age.
- A real land of half-elves. Usually on the boundary between Elven and Human -populated regions.
- Druids inside a man-made environment may not be able to do any of their druid-magic stuff. Worked tombs DO count and so do buildings.
- Good-aligned corporations which strive for the benefit of all, not just themselves. (Because poor people don't generate much sales revenue.)
- Tempest fighter halfling in 4e, to be as much un-like Bilbo Baggins & Friends as possible.

 

[aco175]

I tend to have all the stereotypes in the game world and players or specific NPC can be the variants. Grumpy dwarves and frivolous elves are the norm with PCs being the ones that are different. We may have played in games where some things are a bit different, but have gone back to default for the most part. Probability give out too much magic though.

 

[MNblockhead]

In my homebrew campaign, I used the following in the world I built. Nothing particularly novel, just something I had fun running.

1. "No" arcane magic.

My world took place centuries after a great, highly destructive war, where magic caused genocidal levels of death and destruction. All arcane magic was banned and magic users were ruthlessly persecuted by zealous inquisitors. The only openly practiced magic is that of clerics from approved religions. Players were only allowed to play sorcerer or warlock if they wanted to have access to arcane magic, with the understanding that discovery of their abilities was a death sentence. Players had the option of multiclassing into wizard as they explorered and discovered hidden sources of arcane magic, though nobody decided to go that route.

The idea was that the campaign would either be a witch-hunter/inquisition style game, where the players would investigate and destroy monsters and "evil" magic users or that they would try to discover lost knowledge and power in resistance to an oppressive theocracy. Instead, they became good-intentioned mercenary murder hobos, effectively becoming a new political force in the world after they got to tier 4 levels.

2. Room for agnosticism and atheism.

One of the mountain-dwarves kingdoms was science focused and was a mostly secular culture. Most of their leadership and great thinkers believed that clerical and arcane magic was from the same source and that the power of belief gave some special individuals the ability to create magic. The gods are removed from the world and there is room for speculation as to whether they exist or not. This also allows for forms of animism and nature worship that do not depend on gods (Druidism was also illegal and druids oppressed, but they exist as hermits or remote enclaves and sanctuaries.

3. No elves (kinda)

I love all the dwarven ruins in Skyrim. There are no dwarves but there are ruins of their once great civilizations. In my world, the elves were responsible for the great war, the majority of them having subscribed to a belief in their superiority and the need to make room for themselves in world becoming overcrowded by humans and dwarves (yeah, bascially Nazi elves). The retaliation of the dwarves and humans was itself genocidal and nearly all elves were killed. Some escaped in great ships and nobody knows where they went or if they still exists. There are some half-elves who pass for human, and there are "wild" elves in the remotest jungles. Rediscovery and making contact with the elves and how the players chose to play that was one of the major plot threads in the campaign.

Some other tropes:

I created a werebear race modeled after the Ainu culture who used powerful magic to maintain the isolation of their archipelago.
A kingdom modeled on Tang-dynasty China that was once ruled by Gold Dragons, who still keep watch over civilization they helped create. They are no rumored "immortals" living in the remote reaches of the kingdom.
All of the players had some latent psionic power as at least one of their ancestors was a victim of elvan experimentation. Near the end of the war, the elves were getting desperate. The human and dwarven clerics were able to counter most of their elemental and other arcane magic. So they turned to darker arts: (1) necromancy and (2) some groups of eleves made deals with illithids to gain access to powers to that the humans and dwarves had no defense against.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

- Dwarves have no gods, their legends say that they were created when the First Wind entered their sacred mountains and its ''song/chant'' created an avalanche of boulders that fell to the ground. Those boulders, shaped by the sides of the mountains, became the first dwarves has we know them. Their culture is entirely oral; even their scripture are actually more like partition for a chant than an alphabet. Dwarves known as Stone Chanters stand atop the highest peak to recitate the legends of their people day and night so that their spirit may live in the echo of those songs.

- Elves, gnomes and goblins are fey. Goblins were kicked out of the feywild after their king threw a large party in the summer palace of a Feylord and ransacked the place. Gnomes cannot stands the randomness and whims of the fey court and human civilization so usually move in with dragons to serve as keeper/manager/accountant of the dragon's lair.

- Halfling are actually a created race. They were made by an old magocracy that wanted the perfect labor force. By mixing human and gnome bloods, they created a race that required less ''storing place'', less food, had a total lack of ambition or wanderlust and loves hard work. They rapidly found that the ''less food'' was a problem since Halfling definitely ate less, but ate constantly to compensate. The old empire fell soon after that, their creation outliving them. They now live in small, hospitable communities, fearing nothing but witchery and the spirit of adventure.

 

[Blue]

I really enjoy world building, and my campaigns run 4+ years so effort isn't wasted, so I tend to custom design each setting, trying to take it far away from the standard faux-European default. The setting will be tied to the campaign, to have it's uniqueness and mysteries as part of what makes this campaign special - it would often be hard to transport my campaigns to a different setting without big adjustments.

 

[Inchoroi]

All half races (half elves, half dwarves, half orcs, tieflings and aasimar--which are half demon or devil or half celestial, respectively) are sterile. Gnomes and halflings are incapable of successfully bringing to term a half-breed, however, because of their respective origins. However, history has noted that there have been several instances where a half race has been able to successfully give birth, but no one other than close family members ever knew how, and it was only royalty or otherwise important individuals (one was a King who conquered the majority of a continent, for reference).

Unfortunately, it appears, that those hybrids that are able to breed successfully are only able to do so through 7 generations, with a single divine exception (aasimar daughter of an elven goddess was reincarnated as an elf, with her line still extant, if you believe the legends). The aforementioned king's descendants only remained able to breed for seven generations, which eventually led to a civil war and the breaking of a nigh-continental Empire over the rights of succession.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

This one I stole from my wife.

The Goddess of the Moon and Night was a Good aligned god, and annoyed that thieves had sort of taken over her domain (night) - so she had a sorta "paladin" order that were holy thieves - who's job was to steal stuff back for people, take out thieves guilds and such.

 

[Laurefindel]

For my current forgotten realms campaign, I went the other way and distinguished my game by moving closer to medieval Europe rather than further away from it. I like faux-middle age setting; my biggest complaint is that they often aren’t medieval enough...

 

[Bradley Hindman]

You can walk to the elemental planes (with a really good pair of boots). Cross the jade mountains of Qaf and walk far enough south and you enter the Land of the Efriti. Up above the clouds is the realm of Sky. To the north is the Endless Ocean. Below, lies the roots of the world, the realm of Earth. East is the Land of the Blazing Dawn and to the West is the Land of Night.