Campaign pre-history

[radferth]

Having read some of the POEE/Archanomental thread, I am asking folks what kind of campaign multiverse pre-history they use. There seems to be rough dicotomy between those that privilege Planescape/Blood War sources and those that use older source material and or make up their own. I'd like to hear what folks who aren't particulary interested in Archanomentals (or who just didn't want to post in that thread) have to say on the subject.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Although the homebrew I'm working on is, theoretically, part of the Great Wheel (although most of the knowledge of how to travel the planes has been lost, which makes getting there problematic), the prehistory that matters is for the most part particular to the Prime Material. It involves an Infernal Abomination, so the planes are involved to a degree, but the struggles of the gods are a local prehistory. The average person on the street (or in the hamlet or in a hut in the forest) has no idea about any planes other than Faerie, Heaven, Hell and maybe the Hall of Mirrors.

 

[Phaedrus]

I'm working on a campaign based on the Greyhawk world, with its cosmology and history, but fast-forwarded a few hundred years after an apocalyptic event that largely wipes the continent clean.

I've always had a problem with explaining (justifying) numerous monsters wandering around in medieval-style kingdoms. Farmer out plowing the field, ____ comes running out of the trees and eats him. Seems to me the kingdom's military would have cleaned things up before the farmers moved in.

So I'm building a campaign where the world is just coming out of a dark age where all the monsters have had a few hundred years to run loose without any humans (etc) hunting them. I think I've settled on a city being gated in from a doomed world by a dying goddess and dropped in the Valley of the Mage. From there the inhabitants have to rebuid their civilization and tame this "new" world.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've always had a problem with explaining (justifying) numerous monsters wandering around in medieval-style kingdoms. Farmer out plowing the field, ____ comes running out of the trees and eats him. Seems to me the kingdom's military would have cleaned things up before the farmers moved in.

That's one of the main things I'm using Faerie for.

Most of the time, that deer track through the woods just leads down to the stream on the far side of the hill. Sometimes, though, it leads to very nasty places, and things from there can find their way to our world at those times. And, of course, those times are becoming more frequent ...

 

[Galethorn]

My setting has only a few elements from the standard D&D cosmology (the Positive Energy plane ('life energy') (but not negative; 'negative energy' (i.e making undead) is just a 'perverse' use of life energy in my setting), as well as the Ethereal ('world of magic') and Shadow ('spirit world') planes).

Now, all of this is rooted in the prehistory, which goes as follows (or so the dominant church/philosophy goes at the time)...

There was a single sentience that existed in an 'age' before time and space existed, and it/he/she was called Uru. Uru, after an eternity of contemplation, 'invented' time and space, thus creating it. Uru was destroyed in the process, but its/his/her body formed a lifeless sphere of rock and its/his/her mind went in all directions in the form of the stars.

Four entities coalesced from Uru's spirit; Urui, Yril, Dorn, and Lyri. Yril bound herself to the soil of the lifeless planet; Dorn took up residence with the fire in the world's heart; Lyri and Urui ruled over the sky.

It was lonely and dark on their little world, so Dorn forged the sun and Urui cast in into the sky. Lyri took rocks from Yril and created the oceans to repay her. With Dorn's help, she created a palace for herself; the moon.

With the light and warmth of the sun and the moon, Yril was able to create plants and animals, and the world--Yril--came to life. For an eternity the Four marvelled over their creations, but the plants and animals were beginning to become to numerous for the Four to watch over alone, so Urui created the Nayr from his own essence; divine servants.

The Nayr watched over the children of Yril for another eternity, helping them to grow strong and beautiful.

After that, Lyri and Dorn created the elves and dwarves--far less powerful than the Nayr, but with free will. Some of the Nayr became jealous of the elves and dwarves, so they rebelled from Urui and started the First War. The world itself was scarred, and the rebellious Nayr were all but destroyed; many escaped and went into hiding.

After that, Urui and Yril created the human race together, and all of the Four left the world of mortals, occasionally sending Nayr as observers.

Everything from there is in the grey area of early human existence, and many thousands of years later, humans began recording history. While the dwarves and elves recorded their history countless millenia ealier, all of it was lost when both races all but destroyed each other in the War of Elves and Dwarves, which took place while humans were on their rise to power. It also should be noted that other races arose from Yril's animals, as well as the vile experiments of the fallen Nayr.

Wow, that was long. I think that just about covers it, though...

Now, in 'scientific' terms, the gods made the world livable a few billion years before humans were created, let the 'plants' and 'animals' evolve from simple single-celled organisms, and then humans went for about 50,000 years before civilization took off (and then about 5000 years before written records really began, and 5000 more years before 'campaign standard time'.

 

[Tonguez]

The History of the Universe is told in songs and these have been collated into the Book of Songs which is held by the ancient mystic known only as the Blue Gnome. The Blue Gnome still adds new songs as they are discovered

The Book of Songs
The Song of All Creation - being an acount of the Source who existed eternally and alone, the Source generated thought which became a word and the word became the Song of All Creation
The Song of Dreams - being an account of Creation whereby the One Source became Thought generating both Light and Dark and how the many spirits, gods, fey and powers unnnamed came to be and in turn sought to be
The Song of Awakening - being the end of the Dreaming by terror and war in the heavens, the awakening of Mortals into a primal land. It is the time of the Lawgivers and Spellsingers who came to teach the mortals what they must know
The Song of Law - being a song of the Golden Times, when Mortals and gods walked as one upon the land and the way between the World of Dreams and of Mortals was not yet barred
The Song of Darkness - being the song of terror and depravity when dreams came as nightmares to haunt the Mortal realm until the way between the World of Dreams and of Mortals was barred
The Song of Heroes - being the return of Mortals from their hiding and the rise of heroes to put down the nightmares that remained
The Song Unsung - being the account of current times in which heroes shall arise and new stories will be told

Anyway the Multiverse is encompassed by the Song of All Creation within which flows 'two streams' divided between the Mortal World and the World of Dreams. Spirits mainly occupy various realms in the World of Dreams, as do the gods. In seeking to 'be' (seeking 'Being', Form and Purpose) these gods gave rise to the World of Mortals.
Some lesser 'spirits' occupy the ethereal realm in the World of Mortals, elementals also occupy the World of Mortals (linked to said element) and Fae occupy the Dreams of Mortals (I suppose technically a thrid Plane lying between the two others)

ergo my campaigns cosmography is Song of All Creation surrounding the World of Dreams-Dreams of Mortals-World of Mortals with each World/Plane divided into a number of realms (the Worlds also correspond of course to the Spirit-Mind-Body paradigm)

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

For my SR4 game, I'm rewriting the prehistory implied by Earthdawn, to bring it in line with what's known about the era and certain fringe theories that prove stealable.

Brad

 

[DonTadow]

The first thing I did for my campaign was come up with the prehistory. I don't have the patience to label dates and events that would never effect the pcs so I wrote a story about the campaigns major events and broke them up into time intervals. As the pcs find other books and documents in the game that talk about events I fill it in in the timeline, building a unique history for the pcs that is relevant. Below are the links to my pre campaign history and the timeline.

http://www.chrystaria.com/history.html

http://www.chrystaria.com/timeline2.htm

 

[Shemeska]

I use a version of the Planescape prehistory. It was more detailed, more epic in scope, and more evocative than any of the material that came before it in my opinion. Keep in mind I started playing in 3e so 1e material doesn't have any sort of nostalgia in my mind, it's just getting used or dismissed based on its own quality IMHO compared to 2e and 3e material.

Here's the loose outline of my own version of that pre-history, with much more detail given to the Outer Planes than any of the others. Not to say I don't have prehistory for the prime and elemental planes, but if I mentioned them it'd be serious spoilers for some later plot arcs in my storyhour. Let's just say pages and pages and pages of detailed material for what happened when and where and according to whom.

Ethereal Deep exists outside time and space, before the formation of the planes -> Elemental planes emerge from the raw probability of the deep ethereal -> prime material forms from the elemental planes -> outer planes slowly form as the abstract incarnations of the 5 pure alignments war with one another -> neutrality fosters a truce and planes of Good, Evil, Law, Chaos, and Neutrality spring into existance. Sigil is already present when the planes form. -> Baernaloths emerge from outside existance, heralds of abstract Evil. Heralds of the other alignments emerge at this time, though they either depart, vanish, or hide themselves before the current era. -> Yugoloths created -> Gehreleths created and Apomps is exiled, forming the plane of Carceri -> Ancient Baatezu and Archons wage war -> Ancients of Mithardir obliterate themselves in a 'crime of Passion' and leave the first Eladrin behind as children -> General of Gehenna creates the Heart of Darkness -> Tanar'ri and Baatezu created and sent into the Abyss and Baator where they colonize the planes and displace the original inhabitants -> Blood War begins, mortal derived gods appear, Abyssal Lords and Lords of the 9 either form or make their presence known. Start of standard Blood War history, all dates not up for question after this point as multiple sources confirm their accuracy.

Given that my storyhour/campaign focuses heavily on the politics of the lower planes, a yugoloth civil war, and the prehistory of the Gray Waste, the timeline above is biased towards that in terms of what it mentions and what it glosses over.

I've been giving more and more bits of information as I've been slowly writing up the stories of the Baernaloth cycle if anyone is familiar with those. So far I've gotten 6 of 13 written, each with a story and then non-story flavor text describing a specific member of the group of mad Baernaloths known as The Demented. They were never detailed in canon, so I fleshed out a group of 13 individuals and I've been using them since.

Tellura Ibn Shartalan, The Dire Shepherd
Severeth Na’Halastrian, The Wanderer
Daru Ib Shamiq, The Lie Weaver
Harishek Apt Thul’kesh, The Blind Clockmaker
Tarsikus Ibn Meth’kultesh, The Book Binder
Jezifreth Na’Harsindrian, The Inquisitor

 

[S'mon]

IMC...

3.1 million years ago humans spread from Terra across the Galaxy, the Universe and ultimately the Multiverse. I use a Moorcockian multiverse of countless interacting planes and spheres/planar clusters.
3 million years ago the Eldren, a human offshoot in a high-magic dimension, lost a terrible war and fled across the multiverse to a largely barren world devastated by a huge meteor strike. They settled there, seeding the world with new life.

& that's my campaign world.