D&D 5E Pick-and-Choose World Building

[meomwt]

-- A peaceful country is invaded by an Empire seeking dominion over them. Firstly by trade, then diplomacy: if those don't work, it will be good ol'fashioned subjugation to rule the land. They have legions full of soldiers, and magicians who use a strange sorcery.

-- A previously unknown castle is discovered. The players end up displaced in time, discovering how it fell, before being charged by a spectre to restore it to its former glory and find his corpse to return to rest there.

-- Minions of an evil deity turn their attentions to a poorly defended village, which controls entry to a long-deserted temple of their patron. This could, in parts, be The Seven Samurai meets Temple of Elemental Evil.

 

[Hand of Evil]

The Dark River - running from two sides of a mountain range. You have two lakes feed from glaciers covering the mountain, a couple of cities, locks and such.

 

[Grainger]

I'm going to try to incorporate non-evil orcs and maybe goblinoids as well. I like the idea of having some tribes of them that just go about their business without the whole marauding side of things. We're playing in Forgotten Realms so I'm not quite sure how to incorporate this. Obviously they'd still be treated the same way by the vast majority of the "civilized races" but I like the idea of bringing a more nuanced approach to it.

I'm not actually using alignments in my game at all so this should help.

Sounds like my game!

 

[Grainger]

Here's a few ideas. I'm sure most of them have been done before, but whether that's true or not, I hope some of them are useful.

• There are a few pockets of civilisation, separated by many miles of desolate lands. These pockets are protected by magical "bubbles", wherein plants can grow, but every so often twisted creatures from outside break in. Some of the pockets might have portals set up to allow travel to the other cities, but sometimes it's necessary to make an epic trek across the badlands, perhaps to get vital supplies.
• The entire campaign is set in one 30 (or 10) mile hex - in this hex, there is a town, and outlying villages, some hills, and some woodland. (a 10 mile hex has 86 square miles within it, so there's a lot to play with).
• The PCs start in a town which is located in a great rift (canyon). The rift has various caves in its walls, and also cracks the PCs can descend. No-one has ever left the rift, so they do not know what it is like outside.
• The PCs have been commissioned by a ruler to set off in a ship and find trade opportunities in a new continent ("new" means no-one from their continent has been there).
• An entire campaign set in a King's castle, with court intrigue, tunnels under the castle, secret passages, etc. Later scenarios could involve defending the castle from enemies, investigating a murder at court, thwarting (or aiding) a plot to kill the King, etc.
• The world is entirely flat, and the sea pours over into the void (or whatever you decide is there). Perhaps there is another "world" on the reverse side of the disc.
• Arcane magic is illegal (perhaps viewed as demonic), and squads of "Wizard finders" roam the land, rooting out Sorcerers, Wizards and Warlocks and putting them up in sham trials. The PCs could make up one of these squads, oppose the practice, or be neutral (but have to play it safe if any of them are arcane casters).
• A world in which Druidic philosophies prevail, and other outlooks are in the minority.
• A massive, devastating war is ongoing, between the nation the PCs live in, and another nation (perhaps it is "good" vs "evil", perhaps it is Elves vs Dwarves, perhaps it is Humans vs... er, Halflings). This can just be background (war economy, scarcity) or the PCs can gradually try to effect the war (helping one side or the other, or trying to bring about a peace). Perhaps the war has clear-cut "bad guys", or perhaps it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. Perhaps they PCs find that they are on the wrong side...
• The game-world is set on a planet that has been shattered by a planetary impact (or massive fell sorcery), and is now a series of large asteroids. You could have portals or small vessels to travel between them. "Life support" is maintained by magic bubbles around the larger asteroids.
• An ice age.
• The ruler of the PCs home country is a bit of an idiot and/or has a wacky sense of humour, and keeps making stupid laws to troll the population.
• All of the world's most prominent wizards have disappeared. No-one knows why.
• The warrior class of the world is largely composed of Orcs or Hobgoblins. They relish war, but genuinely see their duty as protecting the citizens.
• The game is set in our future.
• The PCs' continent has been "discovered" by technologically superior inhabitants of a far-away continent.

 

[Hussar]

The Dark River - running from two sides of a mountain range. You have two lakes feed from glaciers covering the mountain, a couple of cities, locks and such.

Sorry, but this is a personal bugaboo of mine, but, you cannot actually do that. Water always flows to the lowest point so, one of those rivers would dry up very, very quickly. It might occur during flooding, but you'd never get two rivers flowing from the same lake in opposite directions.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Sorry, but this is a personal bugaboo of mine, but, you cannot actually do that. Water always flows to the lowest point so, one of those rivers would dry up very, very quickly. It might occur during flooding, but you'd never get two rivers flowing from the same lake in opposite directions.

True in the real world but this this is fantasy and more of branches of a river. Got the idea from a garden pond, where water flowed into two pools, then streamed down into a third from different directions. Thought it would be an interest location in a game and started to doodle something out.

 

[Hand of Evil]

thinking about it, could keep the lakes as two bodies of water and use dwarf made canals and locks to connect them.

 

[aramis erak]

True in the real world but this this is fantasy and more of branches of a river. Got the idea from a garden pond, where water flowed into two pools, then streamed down into a third from different directions. Thought it would be an interest location in a game and started to doodle something out.

Similar actually happens in river deltas all the time. And not a few rivers have braided channels. It's usually not a long distance phenomenon. The flood state is usually a single channel.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Sargasso Sea - Spot between major sea currants and lanes where trash and sea weed have gathered. The only survivor, a Brody Blackboot, made it out of the sea, leaving his ships and rowing out, he was found mad and half dead from exposure. He ramble of a vast number of ghost ships and an island in the middle of the sea, of shambling mounds, undead crews, and Sahuagin.


Based off the real Sargasso sea and old movies.

 

[Quickleaf]

Ideas for a Skull & Crossbones world

Spellcasting is voodoo. Potions are nasty voodoo recipes. Rituals require something of the head, the thread, and the dead. (bonus points for catching the reference)

The port Blackreef is a den of scum and villainy at the very fringes of the Empire where pirates and smugglers offload cargo no questions asked (inspired by Nassau as depicted in Black Sails).

There is a neutral / good aligned minority splinter race of Sahuagin called the Vodyanoi who trade with the coastal people.

The Abyss is synonymous with Dagon's realm, a watery underworld located deep deep beneath the waves. It is the home to creatures like merrow, kraken, aboleth, demons and aberrations.

Dave's Jones Locker is actually a Demi-plane that PCs can visit, filled with flotsam and jetsam, and watched over by cursed spirits of those who drowned for greed.

Zombies aren't inherently evil, and are available as a PC race with comedy value.

The Midnight Rose is a ghost ship whose beautiful vampire captain steers the ship thru the darkness in search of young women whose beauty she steals.

Patches of dark water in the ocean lead to the Plane of Shadow inhabited by hungering shades of the lost dead; a brave (foolish) captain might use the Plane of Shadow to traverse hundreds of miles in but a day or two.

The monotheistic Church has discovered a new land overseas, believed to be the location of the Fountain of Youth, and church officials are trying to keep it a secret.

Nations horde residuum (raw magic) in the form of a fine blue sand which can be used as gunpowder, spell component, or to imbue magic items. Nations stockpile it to power mighty continent-spanning rituals.

Dwarves of the Ironcrags are masters of marine technology and developed iron submersibles.

Sea elven corsairs are the scourge of the Queen's fleet, but the champions of their impoverished coastal towns.

Halflings dwell in floating towns on the backs of zaratans (giant sea turtles) or like the ship-town from Waterworld.

The Admiralty serves the Empire to quash pirate scum at the fringes of the empire, but the Admiralty's hands are far from clean.