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

[Puddles]

I think once you remove humans from the setting, you either want to delve deep into past and say your world is primordial or you want to venture far into the future and have it be the last days of a dying world.

Making a world Primordial sounds fun to me. The central conflict could be the coming ice age of the North, maybe there is a cabal of Dragonborn sorcerers bringing it, like the Jaghut from Malazan Book of the Fallen.

I would have lots of dinosaurs and prehistoric beasts like sabre-tooth tigers and mammoths as wild creatures, and the intelligent races would be things like Dragonborn, Loxodon (Elephant-men from M:TG), Lizardfolk, Goliaths, Yuan'ti, Triton and Minotaurs.

I would probably have an elder god for each intelligent race, and have those gods walk on the material plane alongside their mortals. I would make the story be about a nascent world and the first civilizations warring with each other under the will of those gods.

I would detach it from anything medieval, and use ancient Mesopotamia as my cultural reference, maybe with a sprinkling of ancient India and Cambodia. You could have bad-ass flint weapons like the T'lan Imass from Malazan Book of the Fallen too. It could be a lot of fun!

The hard part would be coming up with a reason for a multi-racial party, as when you have such exotic races I don't think the players will all agree to just play one.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

1) Mandragoran Gnomes: Primal creatures of stone, they wear mask made of hollowed (but still alive) mandragoras. They use the terrible scream of the plant to stun the beast they hunt, making it easier for them to catch them. Some of them use giant samaras as glider to travel.
(think Dekus from LoZ)

2) Gith: Both of the clan have enclaves hidden in the dark corners of the world. Since their respective home planes are too unstable for any of them to have the upper hand, they use the Prime as battleground for they millennia old feud. They use the other ''old ones'' (kuo-toa, sogoth, lizardfolk, etc) as proxy in their war.

---

be back after the job for the rest.
EDIT: And I'M back!

3) Yuan-ti: Great builders of civilization, superb artificers and masters of the art of transmutation. They are great artisan, slow to trust and even slower to forget. From their incredible fortresses cut from the great canyons of the west, they ride giant-vultures to scavenge the wastes to find material to craft into items of higher value. They believe dragons to be a corrupted version of their own gods and slay them on sight if possible.
(Think the usual leitmotiv of dwarves merged with a byzantine vibe and snake-people)

4) Goblinoids: Gobs/Hobs/Bugs are the main city dwellers that came in exile after a war against the Fey liege of the Feywild. They have a very hierarchized society and favor great orators, philosophers and warriors more than wealth.

And humans, dwarves and elves are still a thing, but in small cities.

 

[Bitbrain]

Okay, there'll be no crapping on anyone else's ideas in this thread, please!

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!

Not the core 4, though preferably not half-elves or half-orcs either.

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.

Okay, this one is a bit of a challenge, but it can be done.

The world of Avernum: Escape from the Pit without Humans.

Gremlin. The surface world is largely dominated by the rakshasa, which take a pretty dim view of most other intelligent and magical creatures. Gremlins are one of the smaller and more despised life forms, so they are often banished deep underground.

Favored class (and sub-class) outside the core four is definitely the fey warlock. Avernum gremlins don’t have much of a habit of dismantling complex machinery.

Slithzerikai. Subterranean lizardfolk. Half of them want to befriend the newcomers from up above, while the other half just wants to eat the newcomers and see what they taste like.

Favored class outside the core four would probably be the barbarian.

Nephilim. Literally just tabaxi that were banished deep underground. Gray, brown, black, and white fur are all common. They really don’t like the fact that they were banished from the surface world.

Favored class outside the core four would probably be the ranger.

Troglodyte. Porcine humanoids with dark red skin. They were banished deep underground too. Trogs have an ancestral enmity with giants, although they are not too pleased with the rakshasa either.

Favored class outside the core four would probably be the paladin. Their elite martial units are called “troglodyte defenders”.

 

[Marc_C]

I never build new worlds from A to Z but I'm thinking of doing a Tabaxi only campaign in a deep jungle. Men have dwindled and almost disappeared hundreds of years ago following an 'event'. Adventurous Tabaxi explore the ruins of human civilization in search of wondrous items.

The few humans who survived are severely deformed (monstrous), lack higher intelligence and have problems reproducing.

Voilà.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Warforged, Goblins, Gnomes, Halflings

Yhv, the Living City, is a massive metropolis with no end in sight. It is ruled by Hartless, the Golem King.

Warforged are the dominant people of this endless city. They are paladins and fighters, wizards and bards, and many are nobles, merchants, and land-owners.

The wealthiest Warforged keep a servant class of goblins to do their bidding. The goblins tend to be artificers and bards, trained to forge or entertain for their masters.

Down in the sewers and pipes of the city, wild gnomes live in warrens, using their natural magic abilities to steal from and sometimes sabotage the Warforged above. They tend to be rogues and sorcerer's, tracing their bloodlines to powerful fey, or transformed by the polutants of the city.

Finally there are the halflings, who have carved out a niche for themselves as planar travelers. Halflings warlocks who have aligned themselves with the Great Old One are able to open up portals into other versions of Yhv, and forage in these other worlds for resources, gold, and magic. They often recruit adventurers to do the dirty work, since these other versions of the city tend to be infested with undead, monstrosities, or just other kingdoms who don't want to be raided!

 

[grimslade]

Children of the Empire Setting
Ancient war between the gods and humans. Humans lose. They are trapped in a prison plane with the god of Law as the warden cutting humans and their allies off from access to magic. With the embodiment of Law cut off from the rest of creation, magic becomes chaos. The souls of the residents of the prison plane can be used to stabilize magic and make some effects permanent. Souls become construction material for the realms of Archfey and Demon lords. Souls are captured as they leave the Prison plane to go to the afterlife in great Wild Hunts. This upsets the natural cycle fundamental to creation. The God-Emperor Law makes adjustments to the ward allowing some access to magic by being able to straddle both sides of the ward. The Children of the Empire are created to protect souls as they travel to the afterlife. These humans, orcs, dwarves, and loyal scalykind swear their eternal lives to the defense of souls in the Feywild/Shadowrealm beyond the ward. They access magic through meditation and projecting their soul across the ward. They are also enslaved to the Empire forever. Unable to marry, hold land, or title. Think Jannisary but Jedi. Children of the Empire are the half-casters: Paladins, Eldritch Knights, Arcane Tricksters, maybe Hexblade warlock.
The residents of the feywild see the holes in the ward and push through to warded side to get souls. Unfortunately, they become trapped in the prison plane as the overwhelming force of Law overwrites their magic. The fey and demons who want access to souls need a 'space suit' to survive the harsh order environment. They offer power to poor, unfortunate souls and grant it in the reverse of the Children of the Empire. They project their souls into willing hosts for access to magic. The power has a price. The more power you use, the closer the entity comes to total possession. These are your full casters and warlocks. I imagine a corruption system similar to Symbaroum with temporary and permanent corruption.
The Dwarves of the Warded Empire are typically artificers and fighters. They harness their magic by mining it from the ancient rubble of the mythical past still steeped in the magic of the Godwar and funneling it into their creations.
The elves and orcs do not pray to the god of Law like the humans, and dwarves. They are both people cut off from the rest of their race because of ancient alliances with humans. The eladrin and high elves still pine for their lost kin within the Ward. The goblins and bugbears miss the strength of their orcish cousins. Both races still pray to the old gods, and gain a modicum of power from their lingering presence in the ward. The only clerics and druids come from the wild elves and orcs, but they are very rare.
The scalykind have advanced a lot from the days when they were servants to the mad hubris of humanity. They have raised an empire of their own. They bypass the ward by trading life memories with their deceased elders for power. The most powerful lizardfolk wizard is said to have traded the knowledge of his own name for power.

 

[Steampunkette]

"Of Scale and Ash"
A Setting for 5e D&D.

The dwarves have retreated into the darkness, below. The elves have turned to distant shores. And what ruin Mankind Wrought is left to the wastrels abandoned amidst ashes. Set 200 years after the end of the Dragonblood Wars, in which mankind was reduced incalcuably by their hubris and Dragonkind was utterly destroyed, the remaining peoples of Veth piece together the once-great empires of those who are lost.

The player races of the setting are:

Warforged: Constructed with the express intent of destroying the scaled menace, Warforged attained sentience soon after their initial construction. Built to serve, to fight, they find themselves lost in this new world where man and dragon are both absent. Built in a manner which does not hold well to society, they nonetheless patterned themselves and their identities upon Mankind. While some hold true to their identities as hunters, as warriors, the majority seek to hold down simple jobs or careers in order to earn enough silver to maintain their bodies over time.

Goblins: In a world where resources are scarce and enemies abound, Goblins are often pressed to the fringes of the world, forced to live in nomadic bands to avoid hunting dragons or conflict with the ever-expanding civilized world that shuns them so fully. Without the constant pressures, Goblinish culture has shifted, flourished, and become one of stoic self-reliance and communal responsibilities. More than any remaining race, Goblinkind are bound to the land, to nature, and while the Warforged seek to rebuild the society they were built to serve, the Goblins create a new civilization. One with roots deeper than the Goblins know... (4'5"-5'5" tall, batty features, long and slender limbs and fingers)

The Twisted: Not all humans were destroyed by their war with Dragonkind. As magics and sciences collided, far more were twisted by esoteric energies and became something new. Few in number, the Twisted are Plane-Touched beings. Aasimar, Tieflings, Genasi, and Changelings are all beings touched by the innate magical essences of other realms, Twisted into a new form. Now their children, more stable both physically and mentally, have begun to return to civilization, as the Warforged rebuild it. Their roles in it are new, and both groups are learning about their positions in society as they grow.

Thri-Kreen: In arid lands and savannahs the Kreen have existed for uncounted centuries. Traders, Hunters, Assassins, and more. Their once great empire fell long before the Dragonblood Wars swept over the lands of Veth. But new forces within their number drive them to push outward, to expand, anew, as their kind once did. An expansion that often puts them at odds with both Goblinkind and the New Nations. Much of the world is still ash and ruin, where the Kreen thrive... But what drives the Swarming Urge?

The Setting in Play:
Of Scale and Ash is a Points of Light Campaign in the ruins of several once-great empires brought low by internecine warfare and dragon breath. It is designed as a Post Apocalyptic setting in which most of what was lost is largely unremembered. Humanity, Dwarvenkind, and Elvenkind had an Industrial Revolution Technomagic society largely functioning with smaller, less developed, societies in the same area. But when Dragons returned to the world and sought to reclaim their old hunting grounds, the Prime Races fought back.

As a result, there are firearms in the hands of Warforged, Thri-Kreen, and the Twisted. They are functionally loud reskins of both Simple and Martial ranged weapons. Heavy Crossbows are Marksman Rifles. Longbows are Repeating Rifles. Shortbows are one-handed and represent revolvers. While light crossbows represent Hunting Rifles and Muskets. Hand Crossbows are, essentially, Derringers.

Players are often hired to scout out potential locations for expansion, clear out dangers, or explore dungeons for magic, magitech, and technological items. Few things recovered from these explorations are more valued than Tomes of Knowledge. Books that -explain- how these once-prominent technologies worked and can be made to function, again.

Artificers are revered as important members of society. Sorcerers were created by experiments to force magic into bloodlines to "Breed" armies of wizards. Bards carry an important role in society as those who carry the Oral Traditions. Paladins and Clerics are few and far between, as much of the old religions are forgotten. Druids, Shaman, and Rangers are largely viewed as the Spiritual Leaders of the healing world...

Yeah... I'd play in that setting.

 

[Stormonu]

World of Khoravim

Aerivold - The first kingdom, it is a realm of cities populated by Warforged as the common people and ruled by Golem barons and Marut Princes. The Aerivold use an army of Modrons to enforce their will. In ancient times, the arrogant Aerivold sought to bring all other races under their rule. After their genocide of the humans, the Velderain successfully sued for peace and the realm has turned mostly inward, seeking

Velderain - Once a vast forest, when the Aerivold began to harvest the trees of the land, the Treants and their Dryad spouses created a race of elvin shifters to protect their lands, and were forced to evolve into a kingdom. Ruled by the Twelve - a council of six Treant Kings and six Dryad Queens, it laced with rural villages of half-elves and protected by an augmented patrols of shifters. Unfortunately, the woods are infested with lone or small groups of lycanthropes - former shifter protectors overcome who have been corrupted by their augmentation into shifters and now follow their darker desires to hunt and feed on their former kind. Where once the shifters fought to ward off the war machine of Aerivold, now it is forced to patrol its own lands and hunt down its former soldiers who have turned against their own people.

Mageris - A meager handful of powerful human Necromancers (not a playable race) are all that remain of humanity. Driven to barren lands unreachable by the other races, they plot in secret using alchemical magic to concoct races and beings to do their bidding. Goblinoids, broken ones, dark creepers and other strange humanoids make up their tiny communities. Armies of human corpses protect the great necromancers as they scheme to bring their own kind back from the dead, a process that has eluded them for hundreds of years (Raise Dead and Resurrection do not work in this world, though Animate and Reincarnate does). While most Necromancers are the declared enemy of the Aerivold, at least one Necroenchantress has allied with the Velderain, providing labor and assistance against the lycanthropes in trade for goods needed for her people.

Kurthain - These nomadic catfolk consist of multiple tribes of Tabaxi, Rhakasha (B/X version), and Leonin. Their ancestors were awakened to sentience by the Velderain before the rise of the Aerivold, and they flit between the lands of the other nations, calling no kingdom their own. Among the Kurthain are smaller awakened species such as the Loxodon (elephantfolk), Saluqi (dogfolk), Tauren (minotaurs) and Revurim (rhinofolk), though in small enough numbers they do not have their own tribes. Among these, the Saluqi are the most populace, trained from birth to protect and guard Kurthain caravans.

 

[Slit518]

For anyone whom is curious:
The core-four races are - Human; Elf; Dwarf; Halfling
The core-four classes are - Fighter; Cleric; Wizard; Rogue

Now, for my race choices outside of the core-four - Aarakocra; Goliath; Ithilid; Merfolk (Air; Land; in-Earth; Water)
Classes outside of core-four - Bard; Monk; Paladin; Ranger

This is as far as I go -- anyone else can come up with the rest.

 

[rgoodbb]

Something in the air means that sentient races cannot grow any larger than small size.

Halflings, Gnomes, Goblins, Kobolds and Grung.

It is a world still in it's early primitive cycle and these small folk are a very tasty meal for medium monsters such as bestial Tabaxi, Leonin, Shifters, Aarakocra, Tortles and Gnolls (all non-playable and who haven't gained intelligence above 3 yet).