Casimir Liber
Adventurer
I guess my vision doesn't have moving clouds a la Monkey. Is just normal atmosphere with some solidified clouds. But is an intriguing idea.
D&D 5E Cloud kingdoms....brainstorming
Mind of tempest
(he/him)advocate for 5e psionics
I mean how big is this cloudland, the size of what a mile, a city, a continent or even multiple?
Casimir Liber
Adventurer
Good questions - I guess my thinking is several cloud areas that are several kilometres across - so maybe 50-100 square kilometres (much like a large high cloudmass from earth. Some of the sentient peoples include aarakocra, cloud giants, storm giants, and the a subrace of neutral (leaning evil) light (aka high) elves I have often incorporated into my campaigns over the years based on the pharisees in Q1 (1980). I also call them the "Cold Ones" for their frosty demeanour and lack of (emotional) warmth. They ride hippogriffs and enslave other beings. In my campaigns they have the Moorcock god Arioch as a patron (yeah I know...Melniboneans but I guess one can be more free with wholesale adoption of material in one's private campaign material 
)
Still developing ideas though - these threads are good for this
)Still developing ideas though - these threads are good for this
Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
for Visualisation purposes Disney World is 110 square kms,, so that makes for a nice sized island if thats what your going forGood questions - I guess my thinking is several cloud areas that are several kilometres across - so maybe 50-100 square kilometres (much like a large high cloudmass from earth. Some of the sentient peoples include aarakocra, cloud giants, storm giants, and the a subrace of neutral (leaning evil) light (aka high) elves I have often incorporated into my campaigns over the years based on the pharisees in Q1 (1980). I also call them the "Cold Ones" for their frosty demeanour and lack of (emotional) warmth. They ride hippogriffs and enslave other beings. In my campaigns they have the Moorcock god Arioch as a patron (yeah I know...Melniboneans but I guess one can be more free with wholesale adoption of material in one's private campaign material
Still developing ideas though - these threads are good for this
Pre-coronapocalypse, I ran a campaign set on a floating island that had many of the characteristics mentioned so far in this thread. For the initial map, we took a topographical map of Hokkaido and marked it up with campaign specific features. The island itself was situated so that it was nestled in thick clouds as if those clouds were a sea of sorts.
During Session 0 we wrestled with a number of questions:
It was a really interesting campaign world, and one I wouldn't mind revisting at some point.
During Session 0 we wrestled with a number of questions:
- Water was at a premium since rain didn't really fall from clouds above. Instead, clouds would creep up on the "shoreline" and their "dew" would be regularly collected by guilds who controlled that water supply. A handful of rivers originating in hidden springs in the central mountains provided the bulk of water otherwise.
- As a result, water played a big part in religion, and the Blue Temple wielded a great deal of power
- We never explained why the islands floated, but the Blue Temple (and it's counterparts) helpfully informed the populace about the situation - the lands below were a hell from which the gods had plucked the island(s - there were several, actually) and only devout worship kept the gods happy enough to keep them aloft.
- The table did decide that the islands were actually lifted some time in the distant path, with the idea that it might feature in the end game of the campaign; the specifics, though, were purposely left out
- As an aside, one request from the players for this campaign was to make sure that the PCs wouldn't be able to go to long lived NPCs (like elves) to ask questions about why the islands were aloft, or what the ground was actually like. To deal with this, we decided that elves that a long walk off a short pier when they hit their 1000th year. They literally gird themselves in the best armor and weapons that can obtain and go off to fight the evils in the hell that is the ground, never to be seen again.
- The islands actually floated independently, so certain lands might be in proximity (a day or two away under sail) for a few years before slowly moving away from one another.
It was a really interesting campaign world, and one I wouldn't mind revisting at some point.
Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
thats sounds really neat and I like how you sorted the water issue and made it an important setting element too.
The Jumpers cult sounds a delicious way to manage elves, immediately in my mind imagined that after multiple millennia there is now a great mountain of elven bones and twisted armour rising up from the ground that has now become an animated undead horde. The next set of jumpers find that they survive the leap only to find themselves in the multiple arms of a gargantuan skeletal horde thats almost tall enough to brush the underside of the clouds....
I can neither confirm nor deny that there's a kingdom of elven ghouls/wights down there. Also, I can share no information whatsoever about the plot hooks I had scheduled for mid levels.
EDIT: Spelling.
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Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
Cloud desserts sound great
Zardnaar
Legend
You could mine the water I suppose buf the clouds are solid.
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