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Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 8819066" data-attributes="member: 11">I kind of build the world both with "solidified" lore that moves outward from where the campaign begins and becomes more flexible, firming up as it interacted with by PCs or my desire to run particular adventures. This also potentially solidifies it for future campaigns as I like to run multiple campaigns in the same setting (ran games in the same homebrew for 25+ years for example). At the same time, some things that are encountered as "definitive" can change based on new information or a change in perspective - as needed or becomes interesting for me or the players.So for example, over decades and the course of several campaigns, the players heard about how oppressive and religiously orthodox the Kingdom of the Red God of the West was. Anyone they met of that religion or hailing from that part of the world in previous campaigns was a zealot with little tolerance and was on a mission "to convert or punish heathens." As you might imagine, this made them unpopular and frequent villains. However, eventually in one campaign the PCs had to visit the Kingdome of the Red God of the West and braced themselves for having to disguise themselves or hide, or fight off hordes of religious fanatics who thought the PCs' gods were demons in disguise, etc. . . But when they finally got there the people were kind and curious, and let them know what areas to avoid where the church had even more power, etc. . .The players were flabbergasted. Now, for years I too had thought of that part of the world as they imagined it would be and when PCs talked to people about it that was the impression given. But then I started thinking, "How many of those people had actually been there? How much of that rep was based on meeting those pious enough to be driven to go out in the world and convert people, sometimes by the sword edge? How much more interesting will it be have the common people there not being particularly 'evil' but instead having funny ideas about where the PCs come from?" etc. . . And thus, I started to actually detail the KotRGotW with that paradox in mind, without necessarily contravening what had come before.I draw maps with the same principle. I don't create maps of my homebrew with a god's eye view, but with the general sense of what an area looks like and then represented as it might be by different mapmakers over time.  Do the rivers on the map of the Isle of Dwarves look like they violate the laws of nature and geography? Maybe that's because the guy who first sailed the coast and drew a map marked a river in X spot but the next guy marked it 50 miles to the west and then someone who'd never made the trip drew a new map based on both of them and decided it was two rivers, and then someone who traveled inland from a different direction drew a map with a confluence but it didn’t match with existing rivers, so another mapmaker changed it, etc. . . And then when I run an adventure I decide what I need it to be like there. . . maybe the maps are wrong, maybe the rivers are magical, maybe the fact that the setting is a flat world means rivers work differently. . . I'll figure it out when I get to it, but in the mean time the map is "right."</blockquote>

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