Has anyone run a campaign where the world is still in its diapers, so to speak?

[Altalazar]

I've often wondered what a campaign would be like in a very early period - in the original 1E there are all of these ancient artifacts, old ruins, etc - I always wondered what the world was like when there were not ANY ancient artifiacts - when the only artifiacts were, in fact, made last tuesday, and that (in other games ruined) castle was just finished last thursday - so that the characters literally exist in THE first civilization, a world where all swords are new, and it is a savage frontier. Where the oldest elves are not all that old.

Has anyone run such a game? And if so, how did it go? How did you represent this dawn of civilization?

Heck, has anyone run a campaign pre-civilization? (Ever seen Quest for Fire??)

 

[I'm A Banana]

Seems VERY interesting....

I haven't run one yet, but I'm in the market for a new campaign for this spring, and that'll do quite nicely...

 

[AlphaOmega]

I've wanted to do this for awhile now... I'd also be interested in hearing stories on how successful groups have been doing this.

And how close to the beginning have you started??? A prehistoric campaign sounds really interesting but there seems to be some hurdles to leap.

 

[the Jester]

I've thought fondly about this too. However, I haven't actually done it. I think the Scarred Lands are a pretty new world, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[candidus_cogitens]

Have you heard about Dawnforge?

It's a new campaign setting, from fantasy flight games. I have no idea whether it is any good or not. I just saw an ad for it in Dragon, which says "a newborn world coursing with magic."

 

[Kesh]

Well, the homebrew world I was working on only has about 2000 years of history since it was created. That's one of the hooks... the world is young, but apparently dying already. There are only a few artifacts available (two or three at most), and they're quite legendary.

 

[Altalazar]

2000 years is rather a lot of history still - I was thinking more of a world with like 2 years of history. Perhaps where the first magic item is forged. Perhaps where the very first magical library is being written. Perhaps where the characters, as they get above mid-level, are the first individuals to reach those levels EVER. Which makes for interesting magic - all spells are new, researched fresh. Perhaps a handful of wizards in the world - all of whom are in contact, by letter, sharing what they know to build the list of spells that exist. Even evil wizards and good wizards may cooperate to a degree, because there are so few wizards and it is all so new.

probably one of the most difficult initial orders of business is explaining just exactly why "history" starts - perhaps the character wizard is one of the first discoverers of magic spells - perhaps the methods for making steel equipment have just been discovered.

To a certain degree, a pre-history campaign would be easier because you wouldn't need to worry about explaining the "paradigm shift" of magic and steel technology. But then you'd have no wizards, perhaps no writing at all - sorcerers?

And religions - that's another question as well - perhaps this is the introduction of healing magic, of raise dead - that would have world altering effects because the world would not have had it before...

 

[Norfleet]

Well, it depends on how you define "in its diapers". Does this mean the world consists of barely-evolved simianoids that have barely begun to walk upright, and that it would be quite an achievement for the PCs to even possess a loincloth and a sharp stick, or something more like a medieval world where the fantastic elements have just recently appeared?

 

[Dirigible]

Does this mean the world consists of barely-evolved simianoids that have barely begun to walk upright, and that it would be quite an achievement for the PCs to even possess a loincloth and a sharp stick...

Greyhawk?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Yeah, a "prehistoric campaign setting" isn't too difficult to pull off...

But a campaign setting in which your characters (and a few NPC's) are the first, say, beings with Fighter levels in existence (Everyone else was a warrior), or the first who can take Ranger levels (everyone else was a warrior/expert)....that's downright interesting. Every class effectively becomes a sort of 'prestige' class, with the NPC classes representing kind of what the world knew 'till that point....

Or maybe a 'magic young' world.....not so much low magic as new magic....the first person to descend from a dragon and gain sorcerer powers, the first miracle-worker priests running around.....

And then the first empires being built....

You could have this kind of idea with a sort of "new moon" campaign setting. The people come from a very Earth-like, no-magic kind of planet, but then a few settlers get lost and land on the moon...which has dwarves and elves and this new form of science which allows you to cast magic missile....only it takes the new settlers to discover it. Could also be a new-continent kind of thing...or just a new experience. Perhaps the world was ruled by one overpowerful deity who kept everything dead, and that deity just recently died...power pours into the world from the god's corpse, the first magic tomes were written from his skin...

Rather than adventurers digging into the soil and ruins and finding a tome of intelligence penned by the great wizard sung of in legends, you BECOME that great wizard....or perhaps you're his first tutor....

That sounds quite cool....a world where the PC's can shape what comes next....