Coolest part of your homebrew?

[Reynard]

A lot of people play in a homebrew setting. In yours -- whether one you created/DM, or one you play -- what is the single coolest and/or most original element?

Share something yoinkable, and maybe yoink something for yourself!

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In Abyscor, my current homebrew setting, dragons come in the usual (evil) colors and sizes. They have no age categories, however. Dragons are born/made out of whole cloth, when a sever natural event occurs at the same time or in the same location that there is a massive influx of magical energy. For example, in my most recent adventure prior to jumping to ToEE, the party encountered two dragons. One was a large sized, not very powerful White, and the other was a massive red that dwarfed "collossal". The white was created when a three day blizzard, a "hundred year storm" if you will, descended on a high mountain pass where a manawell (a "naturally" occuring high magic location) was found. It wasn't the strongest well, and it wasn't the greatest blizzard, so the dragon was "average" for its type. The red, on the other had, was born tens of thousands of years before when a meteor struck Abyscor (which is a continent modelled after Antarctica) at the site of the Pole, which also happens to be the convergence of all ley lines on the planet (magical energy in Abyscor is akin to our own magnetic field). The resultant explosion, on par with a hydrogen bomb, gave birth to an Advanced Great Wyrm red dragon, one of the five Dragon Lords of Abyscor.

 

[Ry]

Well, here's my favorites right now: A culture expressed through a rite of passage, the land through the eyes of a potential invader, and some cursed mutineers looking for a lost city.

If you really want to yoink something cool or contribute something yoinkable in a big way... well, that's what the project is all about.

 

[Rechan]

Well, there's always this thread. Several yoinkable stuff in there.

As for me:

[sblock="The Unkindness"]I mention the Unkindness there, but here, I'll write them up fully. While this was used in an Eberron game, it's easily portable by just removing the War of the Mark stuff.

Eberron had a very powerful woman referred to as The Lady of Plague, who was an aberrant-marked individual of immense power, able to wield disease like a weapon. During the war between the Marked houses the Aberrants, a pack of savage mercenaries called the Bloody Ravens joined the Lady, providing cavalry for her side. They were vicious, picking off the survivors on the battlefield from both sides, rather than bother to heal them.

The Lady rewarded their service and loyalty by turning them into Ghouls, and treated them like her personal knights. They soon began feasting on those that fell to the Plagues she used on the battlefield, and grew to venerate her like a saint. She exposed to them secrets of their nature, giving select few powers over other Ghouls and their own powers.

When the Lady died, her ghost was bound to the the hole her body was flung into. Her ghost sought vengeance against the people who settled above her grave, and she caused plague after plague to visit them. Those that tried to exercise her - a Geas. They were sworn to never seek aid in their mission to exercise her spirit. Not being powerful enough to exercise her ghost, they settled to keeping her bound to her tomb, by using the blood of children from the above community. They formed the secret Order of Scarlet.

The ghouls that still yearned for their Lady's return went to kill the Order of Scarlet received a second part of the Lady's Gease - they could not openly interfere with the Order of Scarlet. So they hid in the shadows, biding their time. A group of ravens are called an unkindness; the ghouls formed their own society, and took inspiration from the Bloody Ravens to call themselves The Unkindness.

The Unkindness are a bunch of ghouls that lurk in the shadows of the city where the Lady's tomb lies. They consider themselves High minded - they are polite and chivalrous, harkening back to their false Knight days, and act as though they are nobility. Wearing fancy clothes (that still smell of death), and concealing their faces behind funeral masks, they gather to practice their fell magics, and worship the memory of the Lady, awaiting the day that the Order of the Scarlet has died out, and they can free her for her return.

If you want to use them as actual adversaries, I suggest Rise of the Ghouls.[/sblock]

[sblock="Klisk and the Country of Arn"]The Klisk are a race of caste based psionic insects. Currently, the Klisk rule the human country of Arn.

Arn was a warlike country, arrogant. It had conquered its neighbors and carved out a nice, big fat area for itself. After a while, there were sudden attacks on farmsteads by bugs from beneath the surface. Arn sent scouts to investigate this, and the scouts said that there were large numbers of the bugs underneath the country.

Arn, eager for a battle, invaded. The Klisk fought back and won.

First, through some marvel that has yet to be discovered, the Klisk sent the entire country of Arn into eternal night - the sun does not rise in Arn. Then, they came and conquered the human nation, and decided to occupy it. The Klisk, you see, are waging a war with a subterranian race, and since they were getting pressure from below and above, they overwhelmed the weaker target and set up a much more resource-rich base of operations to continue their war with their enemy below.

Arn's neighbors, eager to win back the territory that the country had stolen, went to war with the Klisk; the Klisk soon bartered a treaty, and carved up sections of Arn to the neighboring lands.

Now, the country of Arn is occupied by the Klisk, its people drenched in darkness, defeated and destitute. The city of Last, the Capital of Arn, has been carved up by the Klisk and their neighbors, now serving as a fantasy-equivalent of Post WWII Berlin.[/sblock]

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

That it is not a psuedo-European setting.

 

[Ry]

That it is not a psuedo-European setting.

Oh, come on. Such a cop out. I can imagine lots of lame campaigns that aren't pseudo-euopean. "In this setting, there are two rooms: the room with the Texan Double Cheeseburger and the room with the rusty iron statue of Genghis Khan. You are playing south african vegetarians. Look at the roleplaying opportunities!"

C'mon Celt! What's the cool bit?

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

What's the cool bit?

It's psuedo-North America, circa 1502. Aztecs, Mound Builders and Natives Mythic-Monsters... oh my...

And human sacrifice. Lots of human sacrifice. And it's a good thing.

 

[Arkhandus]

....I must compulsively post the link to the awesome old Sovereign Dominion of Eyros creative exercise, from a few years ago on EN World.....

All kinds of cool and unusual ideas in there.

As for my own homebrews.....I dunno if I can cite a single fact or aspect in each that makes it cool. They're built more on a collection of ideas that make them different, rather than a single drastic difference, I think.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Psionic humanoid dinosaur descendants!

 

[Goblyn]

In mine, elves don't give birth, they produce seeds. These seeds grow into plants that produce pixies. These pixies live out their 80-year lifespans before forming coccoons which 'gestate' for a season before giving rise to adult elves. Half-elves can come about through the pairing of male elf/female human, but not vice versa. Thus: why are elves so linked to nature and magic; why are they so 'old' yet are functionally the same as a 20-ish year old human; why are there so few half-elves(house rule); why are said half-elves always raised by humans(house rule)?

This has been the first theory I've found that adequately answers these questions for me. Oh, and AFAIK, this is my own idea so no worries about the yoink police.

 

[Darklone]

My homebrew?

- half-animal races. Lots of them.
- stoneage feeling with differently developped cultures.
- flying ships.
- Lots of history, lost civilisations, lore and science.

It's so normal that it's special.