As of lately I've been taking a look at the old 2e World Builder's Guide. Coming up with a world for an upcoming campaign, I'd like to take an interesting take on just about everything including the world itself. What are some interesting concepts for planets, rather than just being terrestial spheres? I could take the Norse route and have a world tree with different levels. I could take another route and have the world be the remains of a deity. Or I could have the world be a disc on the back of four elephants carried through space on a giant turtle........What are some other interesting options for a fantasy/sci-fi planet?
fantasy worlds
- Thread starter redwing
- Start date
WillieW
First Post
I remember a British comic strip from about the early 1970s where the main protagonist was a crew-member awoken in the far future on a gigantic spaceship whose population had forgotten they were on a spaceship. The interior was mostly jungle and the inhabitants barbaric.redwing said:
I've gone anti-worldbuilding in my new game. I think a lot of time is wasted coming up with details for the world that never get used.
For this game, All the players know is that there used to be some great kindgom that got wiped out, and their little village is all alone. The PCs decided to see what was in the wild world and came to another village, much the same. The lands between have become wild and lawless, filled with monsters. Sort of a D&D dark ages.
So right now I have two villages, a road between them, and a mountain where I put the Forge of Fury module. That's all I need. The players don't care what continent they are on, or what direction a far-off city lies. They care about the matter at hand.
I know, some people like the world-spanning game, this is just another option to keep things local.
For this game, All the players know is that there used to be some great kindgom that got wiped out, and their little village is all alone. The PCs decided to see what was in the wild world and came to another village, much the same. The lands between have become wild and lawless, filled with monsters. Sort of a D&D dark ages.
So right now I have two villages, a road between them, and a mountain where I put the Forge of Fury module. That's all I need. The players don't care what continent they are on, or what direction a far-off city lies. They care about the matter at hand.
I know, some people like the world-spanning game, this is just another option to keep things local.
Weregrognard
First Post
In a campaign I ran a while back, the world had quite literally blown up! However, it was held together by powerful magic so the pieces of the world ended up as flying "islands" in a roughly ovoid shape (it's fantasy, work with me). Needless to say, magical airships were a big part of the setting.
I would say that you ought to make a very general theme for the world and from there get more specific. As was mentioned above, there is no point in going into great detail regarding areas your PC's will never see or hear about, but you ought to have a general idea of what is where, and if it looks like the PCs are headed there then you can flesh it out based on what your whim is.
One idea you might consider is that of a shattered world/asteroid belt. A world was shattered by magic, or whatever cataclysm you want, and now consists of thousands and thousands of asteroids in a big loop around the sun. Since this is DnD (I am assuming), a good chunk of stuff survived and the area around the belt still has and atmosphere, and the individual asteroids act as islands and archipelagos forming kingdoms and empires. There can be ships that "sail" between the "islands" and you can have birds and fish flying around as well. Different regions of the belt can represent different elemental planes, and you can even have people turn asteroids with mage towers or whatever you want into flying fortresses which they attack other islands with or just fly around the system.
Do whatever you want, just have a good time.
Feel free to plagiarize me.
One idea you might consider is that of a shattered world/asteroid belt. A world was shattered by magic, or whatever cataclysm you want, and now consists of thousands and thousands of asteroids in a big loop around the sun. Since this is DnD (I am assuming), a good chunk of stuff survived and the area around the belt still has and atmosphere, and the individual asteroids act as islands and archipelagos forming kingdoms and empires. There can be ships that "sail" between the "islands" and you can have birds and fish flying around as well. Different regions of the belt can represent different elemental planes, and you can even have people turn asteroids with mage towers or whatever you want into flying fortresses which they attack other islands with or just fly around the system.
Do whatever you want, just have a good time.
Feel free to plagiarize me.
Insight
Adventurer
There's a big difference between map-building and world-building. I agree totally with not going overboard building a huge, involved map, but unless you're using D&D carte blanche, you have to do a bit of world-building to allow for whatever changes you want to make to the standard game.
Yeah, I was just looking for an interesting way to get the pcs involved with the world itself to give a lowlevel campaign an epic feel. Instead of going on an adventure to stop a maniac from blowing up the world, I'm looking for something a little less cliche but still on a grand scale. Something like the dead deity that the world is made of was somehow revived, and the players have to do something before he completely awakens and decides to take a shower. (or something along the lines of when Bender became god in Futurerama). Or even stop the rodents from gnawing at the roots of the world tree.
I'm looking for some way to make an epic campaign so the characters can save the world (possibly from the world itself as mentioned above) without the standard maniac villian trying to blow up the world because he is angry that he was fired from his government job and his wife left him for the manager of said company. Also something absolutely fantastical, not our normal spherical world, where all of the commoners know about it and it actually effects their day to day lives or plays a role in religion.
I'm looking for some way to make an epic campaign so the characters can save the world (possibly from the world itself as mentioned above) without the standard maniac villian trying to blow up the world because he is angry that he was fired from his government job and his wife left him for the manager of said company. Also something absolutely fantastical, not our normal spherical world, where all of the commoners know about it and it actually effects their day to day lives or plays a role in religion.
crazy_monkey1956
First Post
I've done the flat world before, complete with the PCs sailing ship sailing right off the edge. Both sides of the flat plane were "worlds" in and of themselves, with one being almost completely ocean and the other being mostly land. The gods of the Sun and the Moon were punished for loving each other by the over god and were always on opposites sides of the world (the sun and the moon revolved around the planet here).
Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
I've used the floating islands type world
Another was a peices of different worlds which had been ton out of their original plane and were now held together my a magical mist. The Mist could be traversed by Aetherships but was populated by deadly mist dragons
The third was Wall - a massive verticle wall extending out in all directions. The wall did have occasional ledges and cracks which allowed settled habitation and the inhabitants could travel up, down and across Wall. Flight and climbing become important.
Occasionally things would tumble down from above, and noone (including me) knew what lurked at the bottom of Wall
Another was a peices of different worlds which had been ton out of their original plane and were now held together my a magical mist. The Mist could be traversed by Aetherships but was populated by deadly mist dragons
The third was Wall - a massive verticle wall extending out in all directions. The wall did have occasional ledges and cracks which allowed settled habitation and the inhabitants could travel up, down and across Wall. Flight and climbing become important.
Occasionally things would tumble down from above, and noone (including me) knew what lurked at the bottom of Wall
Huw
First Post
Flat worlds work really well in fantasy, as you can get away with all sorts of neat stuff. Glorantha, Oerth (Greyhawk), Dreamlands (Call of Cthulhu) and Iron Kingdoms are all flat. Plus, they're easy to map!
You could always take an outer plane concept and make it the Prime Material plane, minus alignment details. Bytopia (two facing flat worlds), Gehenna (gravity at 45 degrees, making the whole thing a mountain) and of course Sigil (a ring) would be good bases.
You could always take an outer plane concept and make it the Prime Material plane, minus alignment details. Bytopia (two facing flat worlds), Gehenna (gravity at 45 degrees, making the whole thing a mountain) and of course Sigil (a ring) would be good bases.
