D&D 5E [+] A Whole New World!

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Repurposing existing rules...

Xianxia Basic Rules

Lineages:
Human
Gnome
Half-Orc
Dragonborn
Teifling


Classes:
Monk
Warrior*
Expert*
Spellcaster*

* as sidekick class, but with Monks martial arts progression

 

[Tonguez]

'Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death." The Lawbringer

 

[Mind of tempest]

Repurposing existing rules...

Xianxia Basic Rules

Lineages:
Human
Gnome
Half-Orc
Dragonborn
Teifling
View attachment 136415

Classes:
Monk
Warrior*
Expert*
Spellcaster*

* as sidekick class, but with Monks martial arts progression

where is the water demon? there are five.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

After some cataclysmic Great Fractionation event, the mundane world came apart, then reassembled itself into a reality dominated by the planar energies, Elemental, Light, and Dark. Ordinary humans dissolved. While souls remained intact, their bodies re-coalesced into new beings, each subtly marked by their primary constituent energies.

Races
(Sorry no in-world names or thematic tweaks for these.)

• Tiefling, Aasimar, Genasi - each based strongly upon its dominant energy
• Changeling - those of perfectly balanced fractions, but less stable than the others.

The world is a composite reflection of the worlds of planar energies, and of the Powers that dwell within them. All "magic" derives from those Powers, but people can draw on inner reserves to ends both mundane and mystical.

Classes
(It's tough to not include Ftr & Rog, as only really non-magical option, so I kept them!)
(Sorry no in-world names or thematic tweaks for these. )

• Fighters and Rogues hone their own natural wits, muscles and skills.
• Warlockspull energies from a patron (though not necessarily one tied to their own bodily composition)
  • note: Many adventurers dual-class between Warlock, and Fighter or Rogue
  • (There are no other spellcasters in the world.)
• Monks draw on and amplify their own internal energies, more so than the average person.
• Artificers study the order of the world, and channel its energies through devices, reagents, and the like

Campaign / Setting
(Sorry, nothing especially intersting regarding society in the world.)
For some reason I see this a distant post-apoc, Sword & Sorc'y world, long after the collapse of our own. The races and classes would be more "tuned" than bog-standard rulebook stuff. Themes of yin/yang-like balance, rediscovering civilization vs Patrons and their magic, etc. Who knows.

Rad. As. Hell.

 

[Quickleaf]

I don't have quite that much unique stuff happening class/race-wise – since my homebrew setting "The Witching Grounds" is more about weaving familiar interesting stories with the tropes that are there – but I can share a bit.

There is a Witch class that I cobbled together from Dragon #114, the old Witches' Netbook, and a lot of my own ideas blended with a touch of things from Marion Zimmer Bradley's Avalon series, and probably other authors I'm forgetting in the moment. Very much modeled on the structure of the Druid class but focusing on "subtle spells" with a handful of new spells I converted over.

There is a race called the Cauldronborn, which are living creatures created by hag magic and are now self-propagating.

Orcs have a very unique role in the setting, being more ocean-themed, practicing transhumance, and having a culture of adopting other races.

 

[squibbles]

You can use only non "core" folk to populate your world, and I challenge you to make their place in the world unique without making them nothing more than a joke or pun.

What are the 4 or more core peoples of your world, how are you building the world to make it feel like a world they belong in, and what do they think of eachother?

Bonus points if you can think of 4 classes outside the core 4 that are the most common classes in this world, and talk about how that changes worldbuilding and adventuring in your world!

Ready go!

First off, super cool idea. Worldbuilding with constraints is always a fun mental exercise.

There's a setting premise I've been brainstorming which I think works for this with minor modifications.

The pitch:
Most S&S type settings (such as Primeval Thule) call back to a time when the world was a jungle ruled by serpentmen and suchlike. So why not set a game in that time.

Core peoples:
yuan-ti pureblood--rulers of many competing empires, led by stereotypical dark-magic-having evildoers (but with many dissenters & exiles)
dragonborn, tortle, lizardfolk, kobold--reptilian species uplifted by unethical yuan-ti science/magic to be soldiers and servitors
there was a revolution against one yuan-ti empire--its former territory is now a confederation of free cities ruled by these folks
tabaxi--evolved natively in a northern savanna region, which now has many small-ish tabaxi kingdoms
they are found as a minority everywhere--including the yuan-ti empires--in a wide variety of roles
githzerai--it is ancient times; the gith civil war isn't over yet, and this world is a githzerai refuge
there are many githzerai colonies--most at war with the yuan-ti, but otherwise neutral, some gith inhabit the free cities
githyanki--arrived with a military force to harass the githzerai, naturally
changeling--surveilance agents employed by the githyanki, particularly in the free cities, many have gone rogue or over to other sides
this a setting with 1910s level state and military sophistication, so there's lots of high level intrigue

Also...I won’t be mad if you cheat and include Halflings, because they so rarely get to be a historically and culturally important race in settings.

well, here you go:
halflings--being as this is, from a human perspective, a prehistoric age lost to time, there are no homo sapiens sapiens, but there are australopithecines, the smaller hirsute ancient ancestors of humankind--they have lived at the margins in hiding from the cruel yuan-ti, but are now able to find security in small communities within the free cities, some of which explicitly welcome them

Most common classes (bonus):
Warlock: the yuan-ti pact with a lot of fiendish and eldritch beings; the shortcut path to arcane power is well known and well trod
Barbarian: the yuan-ti engineered a blood-rage in their soldier castes, and the corresponding warrior ethos has had staying power
Monk: the primary military discipline of the githzerai, which has diffused widely to the other peoples via mimicry
Druid: the halflings have used nature magic to survive yuan-ti rule since time immemorial, they teach it widely in the free cities
there are plenty of fighters, rangers, rogues, sorcerers, and wizards (and maybe mystics for the gith), but other classes are uncommon

It probably goes without saying, but the primary adventuring area is the free cities region, which contains all playable classes and peoples, and still has lots of hidden underground military and science/magic compounds leftover from the old regime.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

First off, super cool idea. Worldbuilding with constraints is always a fun mental exercise.

There's a setting premise I've been brainstorming which I think works for this with minor modifications.

The pitch:
Most S&S type settings (such as Primeval Thule) call back to a time when the world was a jungle ruled by serpentmen and suchlike. So why not set a game in that time.

Core peoples:
yuan-ti pureblood--rulers of many competing empires, led by stereotypical dark-magic-having evildoers (but with many dissenters & exiles)
dragonborn, tortle, lizardfolk, kobold--reptilian species uplifted by unethical yuan-ti science/magic to be soldiers and servitors
there was a revolution against one yuan-ti empire--its former territory is now a confederation of free cities ruled by these folks
tabaxi--evolved natively in a northern savanna region, which now has many small-ish tabaxi kingdoms
they are found as a minority everywhere--including the yuan-ti empires--in a wide variety of roles
githzerai--it is ancient times; the gith civil war isn't over yet, and this world is a githzerai refuge
there are many githzerai colonies--most at war with the yuan-ti, but otherwise neutral, some gith inhabit the free cities
githyanki--arrived with a military force to harass the githzerai, naturally
changeling--surveilance agents employed by the githyanki, particularly in the free cities, many have gone rogue or over to other sides
this a setting with 1910s level state and military sophistication, so there's lots of high level intrigue

well, here you go:
halflings--being as this is, from a human perspective, a prehistoric age lost to time, there are no homo sapiens sapiens, but there are australopithecines, the smaller hirsute ancient ancestors of humankind--they have lived at the margins in hiding from the cruel yuan-ti, but are now able to find security in small communities within the free cities, some of which explicitly welcome them

Most common classes (bonus):
Warlock: the yuan-ti pact with a lot of fiendish and eldritch beings; the shortcut path to arcane power is well known and well trod
Barbarian: the yuan-ti engineered a blood-rage in their soldier castes, and the corresponding warrior ethos has had staying power
Monk: the primary military discipline of the githzerai, which has diffused widely to the other peoples others via mimicry
Druid: the halflings have used nature magic to survive yuan-ti rule since time immemorial, they teach it widely in the free cities
there are plenty of fighters, rangers, rogues, sorcerers, and wizards (and maybe mystics for the gith), but other classes are uncommon

It probably goes without saying, but the primary adventuring area is the free cities region, which contains all playable classes and peoples, and still has lots of hidden underground military and science/magic compounds leftover from the old regime.

I like that a lot. Hell yeah.

 

[Major Artifact]

deleted (rough draft, not meant to be posted ).

 

[CreamCloud0]

Dead thread posting because cool thread concept, not a gameworld I’m playing just pure hypothetical worldbuilding.

The four most common species in this world are:
Tielflings(feral and winged variants quite common)
Triton
Goblinoids(Goblins/Hobgoblins/Verdan)
Warforged
The four most common classes in this world are:
Ranger
Paladin
Warlock
Artificer

Originally the Tieflings and the Triton warred spurred on due to their connections and manipulation from the infernal and the great old one who gave out power freely and widely(warlocks) to fight their proxy battles for them, those who didn’t make pacts often became specialists on their opponents and their territory(rangers), caught in the fallout of the war the Goblinoids studied technology(artificers) and eventual created the Warforged, specialised to help protect them(paladins) and who used their divine abilities to push back the influence of the two patrons from their respective civilisations, without the active encouragement from their patrons and the deterrent of the Warforged the Tielflings and the Tritons battle eventually petered out with the two sides falling back to their homelands, the mountain and dessert regions and oceans and islands respectively.

Edit: between the no-learning required warlock magic and the technology based artificer magic the actual knowledge of how pure arcane magic works is very limited.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I stole this from someone and I can't remember who but The kingdom is the HHH.... the Holy Hobgoblin Hegemony and it is a mix of roman and feudal japan (with some wild west thrown in). You have the god king, and he rules with his trusted jedi...i mean marshal...i mean samari... I mean military advisor and a small 'senate' of lords. He himself has no direct forces, except his personal family soldiers and his trusted advisor's students... each senator is from a part of the world he has conquired... basicly each city being a state. That state has it's own family sturture it's own power base and it's own military but they answer to the senate that answers to the god king. That 'notjedi'/'notsamari' is part of a small force of about 100 trained powerful 1 man armies that patrol and keep the peace... but they aren't JUST military or police... they are warrior scholors that have there own code.