D&D 5E Help me design Fantasy Americas D&D (+)

[Tales and Chronicles]

Well people, the title pretty sums it all. I'd like to see what would a setting based around the myths and legends of the Americas instead of the usual faux-medieval Europe tropes.

Ideally, we could go with a colonial-era technology level, but without the trope of the ''new world'' to explore and conquer. One of the main draw of the Americas is their large territories. Its pretty easy to have a bunch of peoples on the main land while still having a lot of wilderness to explore.

We can go with new ancestries, or refluff the PHB's one, but I'd prefer if we avoid the (too) obvious ''dwarves are Mayans because they build stuff'' ''elves are Iroquois because they live in the forest'' tropes. We can also use old D&D tropes to subvert them a little and see what their colonial equivalent would be like. Ex: knightly orders, mage academies, medieval weapons and armors etc

So, a few ideas:

Creatures:
were-caiman
chasse-galerie (fiendish-undead sentient canoe that can fly the PC anywhere...at a cost)
Dame-blanche (some kind of water-based banshee)
loup-garou (greater werewolves)
Various dragon-turtle (dragon-tortoise)
dire beasts (moose, eagle, tapir, bison etc)
spirit beasts (fey type?)
undead pirates
various aberrations as ''old ones'' and mythos creatures
Chupacabra (vampire kind?)
Gargantuan sequoia-treant
Dark stranger (fiendish wandering bard)
Sky-whales?

Ancestries & culture
Arroyo Dwarves
Floating Iceberg dwarves
Witch-clan
Civilized, sentient undeads?
Effigies (mix of firbolg and warforged, sacred construct animated to protect a territory)

Factions
Various explorer guilds
Super powerful merchant guilds
Courreurs des bois (wood runners and trappers)
Spy rings
Secret orders
Exiled ''old faith''
The Gargoyles: founded by a knight cursed into a medusa form a long time ago, they are a secret order of monster hunters. Their name comes from the ritual of joining that requires a secret concoction of basiliks and gorgon blood. It grants them a stony resilience to damage and greater immunity against poison, but eventually it will kill them, turning them into stones. When their time has come they will perch themselves on high structures until they turn to stone, becoming ever watchful even in death. They wear grimacing masks in battle.
Lama-knight?
The Theater of Catastrophes: a cult dedicated to satisfying a demon-lord so that it stays asleep. They produce huge operas and plays based on cautionary tales to scare the people to give offerings to satiate their dark lord. Their creations are often used in villages local plays to scare children into behaving. (Mix of Ravnica's Rakdos and the church of Talos in Faerun).

So, hit me with your ideas if you have some and have a good day!

 

[Thunder Brother]

Great timing! I recently finished reading Manifest Destiny from Image Comics, a pretty good fantasy/survival horror take on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Some of the more non-spoilery ideas from the comic would be:

• Bison minotaurs/centaurs
• cyclopean sasquatches
• giant bullfrogs
• fungal zombies

Besides that.

• "prairie dog people" as a halfling equivalent would probably work well.
• mysterious mothmen in the hills and mountains.
• coyotes as intelligent tricksters
• Pleistocene megafauna! Throw in mammoths, wooly rhinos, ground sloths, smilodons, cave lions, and giant camelids' for a "what could have been" take on the Americas.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Great timing! I recently finished reading Manifest Destiny from Image Comics, a pretty good fantasy/survival horror take on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Some of the more non-spoilery ideas from the comic would be:

• Bison minotaurs/centaurs
• cyclopean sasquatches
• giant bullfrogs
• fungal zombies

Besides that.

• "prairie dog people" as a halfling equivalent would probably work well.
• mysterious mothmen in the hills and mountains.
• coyotes as intelligent tricksters
• Pleistocene megafauna! Throw in mammoths, wooly rhinos, ground sloths, smilodons, cave lions, and giant camelids' for a "what could have been" take on the Americas.

Incredible ideas, thanks for that.

 

[Krachek]

You can also use more recent and actual Americas and transpose it to your world.
For example you can set Dwarves in area with industries south of Great Lake, fueled with coal mine set in Kentucky.
You can revamp cult of dead of mexican into a more DnD cult.
City with actual trope like Las vegas can be refocus in a DnD world too.

 

[imagineGod]

Must it always be D&D. Here is a wonderful fantasy America's role playing game based on an alternate reality where the Europeans never colonized the Americas.

Coyote & Crow the Role Playing Game

A science fiction and fantasy tabletop RPG set in a near-future where the Americas were never colonized, created by a team of Natives.

www.kickstarter.com

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Must it always be D&D. Here is a wonderful fantasy America's role playing game based on an alternate reality where the Europeans never colonized the Americas.

Coyote & Crow the Role Playing Game

A science fiction and fantasy tabletop RPG set in a near-future where the Americas were never colonized, created by a team of Natives.

www.kickstarter.com

View attachment 137015

OP wants to play D&D.

The suggested game is very cool, though. I imagine OP could find a lot of use in it.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I really like the concepts shown off in this art project, called Orken. ORKEN . Maybe switch out orcs for elves, as it's a little weird to have your indigenous analog looks like monsters. But fighting off colonizers like conquistadors is a great concept for a campaign.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

The Princess Project (on the DMsGuild) also includes an adventure (To Wash Away This Dirt) where the party must either assassinate or resuce a kidnapped princess for hobgoblin conquistadors. I kind of love the concept here, as shown by this art.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Must it always be D&D. Here is a wonderful fantasy America's role playing game based on an alternate reality where the Europeans never colonized the Americas.

Coyote & Crow the Role Playing Game

A science fiction and fantasy tabletop RPG set in a near-future where the Americas were never colonized, created by a team of Natives.

www.kickstarter.com

View attachment 137015

Yes, I know that game. But its 1) set in an alternate Earth 2) not D&D.

The current thought exercise is more to try to see what would it be like if D&D was designed, say, by an European women with a taste for American history in an attic somewhere in Denmark instead of an American man with a taste for European history in a basement somewhere in the American midwest

See, I'm a french-canadian guy of both scots settlers and first-nation descent, and sometime I find funny that most of my time playing pretend history is set in a fantasy version of the old world with only few things taken from our actual fictions.

Especially when so many D&D-ism are way more ''wild-west with swords'' than actual European medieval society.

 

[Eltab]

Zorro. You need an area at the limit of one culture's sphere of influence, with an existing cultural group previously in place. Zorro rights wrongs, foils plots. He is obviously from the distant culture-group but his deeds tend to aid individuals from the local group.

The IRL story was a Spaniard in the Pueblo area (US state of New Mexico), the concept can also work if Zorro is an Aztec.