Help Create My Campaign - Part one Forests

[humantorch40]

Hey Everyone,
I have just started a new 4th edition game and my players are just four sessions into Keep on the Shadowfell.

I have jsut started to think about creating the campaign setting and world around them and thought it would be a lot of fun to get the help and experiance of the guys here.

This is what I want to do, Over the years ive bought and owned nearly every fantasy setting you could nameboth D&D and beyond.

Gloranthia, Warhammer, Talisantia, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Midnight, Scarred Lands, Pathfinder, Dragonlance, you name it ive got a copy of it sitting around somewhere. The only one I have never got round to picking up is Eberron.

And here is my quandry, I like them all, well elements of them, But my creative bone always wants to change them and add my own spin.

So I thought I would take the bull by the horns and create my own setting for the campaign but stealing liberaly and totally from any setting or idea that I loved or fitted both from current settings or your ideas here.

I want a setting drawing from all the influences of fantasy with a lot of elements from LOTR, Conan, Narnia, The Wheel of Time, reflected through the campaign settings listed above and you guys.

So im going to post a topic at a time and get your thoughts and suggestions and build the setting slowly and so you can see the results of your help post my final choices as a wiki.

I want to start with the physical geography of the setting as I like to draw a map pretty early on. Ive decided on one large continental mass ala middle earth with the twist of many islands on the edges of the map and a large inner sea.

My first question to you guys is about different forests and woodlands types in fantasy. I dont want to be like forgotten realms where the continent is so large that every country has multiple forests and to be honest they cease to be distinct, i want each one to have its own flavour and be distinct and original.

I want the following suggestions.

1. What types of forest or wood, both in physical make up of trees and size of forest and more importantly what type of forest in character of why its there in the campaign world and the distinct type of denizens that live there.
for example the different types of elven forest, other good race types such as ents, unicorns or satyrs or plain old woodsmen or evil types of forests such as haunted ones or filled with spiders or beastmen.
(one tip for me is i hate overloading a place with too many races or creates at once, unless its a huge place).

2. What is its overall purpose in the setting, this hopefully should e original and distinct (not five seperate types of haunted wood or forest where good bandits robbing the rich hide out, only one of each).

3. Some suggestions of names (my naming convention for the setting will very much be descriptive english names such as forest of shadows, spiderhaunt wood, the old forest etc. if you want to suggest names from other campaign settings all the better.

4. If you feel your idea has a great example already written out in a campaign setting for example a grreat forest of spiders being the spiderhaunt wood from forgotten realms pls mention it because if i can lift or use something more or less whole as an idea it will reduce my workload a lot.

5. give me a twist with each idea a little creative wrinkle or change with I can use to make it more original for my players

6. Lastly point out any ways i can fit it in easier with the current 4th edition points of light implied setting either in whats been produced so far in setting for example the feywild or monsters produced for 4th.

Thank you guys hopefully this will be a fun ongoing project and stir my creative juices.

 

[timbannock]

Well, I hate to potentially go a bit afield with this suggestion, but a great forest setting that totally works with 4e:

The Blood Wood from Earthdawn.

Why? Well, it's really original, has some very tragically tainted elves, and as another thread pointed out, a lot of Earthdawn is in 4e (in spirit). You prolly don't have Earthdawn, considering you mentioned all D&D campaigns, but I do heartily recommend looking into it.

Quick blurb from wikipedia: "A subspecies of Earthdawn elves are called the Blood Elves. The blood elves rejected the Theran protective magic [against the invasion of the alien horrors], and attempted their own warding spells. These wards failed, and a last-ditch ritual caused thorns to thrust through the skin of the blood elves. These ever-bleeding wounds caused constant pain, but the self-inflicted suffering was enough to protect the blood elves from the worst of the horrors [who feed on pain and anguish, but only that which they themselves cause]."


For strictly D&D settings, a great swampy forest was Blood Bayou, on the continent of Termana in the Scarred Lands setting. That place was creepy as hell, and easily one of the most original "scary forest/swamp kingdoms" I've ever seen.

Everything from pretty much all other settings I read was "this forest is haunted by evil" which means "there's some random monsters and some random caves here," or "these woods are protected by the elves," which generally meant "here's some uber-fairies hanging out being all kewl and effete (sp?) and generally snobbishly boring."

 

[humantorch40]

Well, I hate to potentially go a bit afield with this suggestion, but a great forest setting that totally works with 4e:

The Blood Wood from Earthdawn.

Why? Well, it's really original, has some very tragically tainted elves, and as another thread pointed out, a lot of Earthdawn is in 4e (in spirit). You prolly don't have Earthdawn, considering you mentioned all D&D campaigns, but I do heartily recommend looking into it.

Quick blurb from wikipedia: "A subspecies of Earthdawn elves are called the Blood Elves. The blood elves rejected the Theran protective magic [against the invasion of the alien horrors], and attempted their own warding spells. These wards failed, and a last-ditch ritual caused thorns to thrust through the skin of the blood elves. These ever-bleeding wounds caused constant pain, but the self-inflicted suffering was enough to protect the blood elves from the worst of the horrors [who feed on pain and anguish, but only that which they themselves cause]."


For strictly D&D settings, a great swampy forest was Blood Bayou, on the continent of Termana in the Scarred Lands setting. That place was creepy as hell, and easily one of the most original "scary forest/swamp kingdoms" I've ever seen.

Everything from pretty much all other settings I read was "this forest is haunted by evil" which means "there's some random monsters and some random caves here," or "these woods are protected by the elves," which generally meant "here's some uber-fairies hanging out being all kewl and effete (sp?) and generally snobbishly boring."

Thats a great suggestion, Do you think they can be combined into a single forest?

With the blood elves im prob looking for only one type of evil elf race in the setting and will be going with the name Dark Elves rather than Drow. Would the Blood Elves be easily folded into that?

Im looking for all the different types so i make sure i havent missed one of the iconic fantasy types both good or bad.

 

[timbannock]

Thats a great suggestion, Do you think they can be combined into a single forest?

With the blood elves im prob looking for only one type of evil elf race in the setting and will be going with the name Dark Elves rather than Drow. Would the Blood Elves be easily folded into that?

Im looking for all the different types so i make sure i havent missed one of the iconic fantasy types both good or bad.

Easily...just have the Blood Wood be the northern portion and the Blood Bayou the southern portion that happens to be along a big river (thus the swampitude going on). Or something similar.

I don't know what kind of history you want for the world, but changing the Blood Elves to Drow is easy peasy. Just say that whatever ritual/sin/act they committed in ages past turned them ebon-skinned and white-haired rather than thorny. No problem.

Getting your hands on Blood Wood material might be difficult, unless there's PDFs of old Earthdawn stuff out there...I never looked because I owned it, though I sold it off not too long ago, so I don't have specific info about the place.

Another thought I had that works well with the whole Drow/Lolth/Drider thing -- and could factor into the Blood Wood thing or not -- is to check out the Akkyshan Elves of the setting in Rackham's games (Confrontation, Rag-Narok, Cadwallon RPG). There's not much info on their realm, but their background is great. Basically, it's something like this:

"The princess of the Elves was corrupted by a god of Vanity, and she turned on the other elves with her followers. When they were cast out, they were twisted and became evil, but they also cursed the other elves."

In that game, they become spider-like elves of evil, and they cursed the normal elves so that they do not have children or something like that. You could turn the Drow into elves that cursed the normal elves into being blood elves, or blighted the forest, creating the Blood Bayou.

I'm starting to dream up my own campaign world with this info!

 

[humantorch40]

Easily...just have the Blood Wood be the northern portion and the Blood Bayou the southern portion that happens to be along a big river (thus the swampitude going on). Or something similar.

I don't know what kind of history you want for the world, but changing the Blood Elves to Drow is easy peasy. Just say that whatever ritual/sin/act they committed in ages past turned them ebon-skinned and white-haired rather than thorny. No problem.

Getting your hands on Blood Wood material might be difficult, unless there's PDFs of old Earthdawn stuff out there...I never looked because I owned it, though I sold it off not too long ago, so I don't have specific info about the place.

Another thought I had that works well with the whole Drow/Lolth/Drider thing -- and could factor into the Blood Wood thing or not -- is to check out the Akkyshan Elves of the setting in Rackham's games (Confrontation, Rag-Narok, Cadwallon RPG). There's not much info on their realm, but their background is great. Basically, it's something like this:

"The princess of the Elves was corrupted by a god of Vanity, and she turned on the other elves with her followers. When they were cast out, they were twisted and became evil, but they also cursed the other elves."

In that game, they become spider-like elves of evil, and they cursed the normal elves so that they do not have children or something like that. You could turn the Drow into elves that cursed the normal elves into being blood elves, or blighted the forest, creating the Blood Bayou.

I'm starting to dream up my own campaign world with this info!

Ok, cool im going to try and use the concept as much as possible of a nation/tribe of elves partially corrupted by the plots of evil intelligent spiders from another forest area (spiderhaunt wood). The elves split into two factions the majority become evil and twisted by the spiders becoming the Dark Elves, the others a smaller faction but powerful due to their great magics become even more connected to their ancient forest homeland and create a defensive ritual that helps them save their homeland from the dark elves but forever makes them almost tree like, spiny, thorny and woodlike, the whole forest becomes the sight of an ongoing civil war which has been going on now for over a hundred years.

due to the ongoing bloodshed the forest has become known as the Forest of Blood and the once beautiful river running through its center has become cursed with the blood of both sides and now runs red of its own will used by both sides as the front line of their war parties it is now called simply the Crimson.

 

[Gilladian]

I've been working on a section of a large, deep, primeval forest in my campaign. First thing I do is figure out the terrain and the plant life, then the native non-magical animal life. I suggest comparing your selected forest to a geographically and climatically similar area of the earth for this. Use wikipedia and sites such as national parks to get a basic description. For example, my forest has been pulled from descriptions of the southern coastal forests of Virginia and North Carolina. It's very different from the forests of Vermont and New Hampshire that I used for another region.

Then work up a list of monsters that would be in the area. They don't have to be the arch-baddie monsters, but for example I decided that this forest, Anhieldfast, has hobgoblin and bugbear tribes in it, but no orcs or giants. There are a few evil plant-monsters, but most of the unusual creatures are dire-animals. An evil temple to the Death-god of my campaign is located here, so there are a few abberations and some more powerful creatures that have been drawn in by that vibe. And lastly, because of a previous adventure in the region in an earlier campaign, I know that green dragons are a strong possibility. I'm planning on one dragon lair.

Then I throw in the human/humanoid influences on the region; the Starmistress Adele and her prophetic sorceresses, the evil temple and the tribal humanoids all get fleshed out here, but so do the frog-folk, and the humans who live just north of the Anhieldfast. Once I know whether or not these groups really affect the forest (the temple and humanoids do, but the others are less noticeable; the humans are afraid, the frog-people are reclusive, and the sorceresses are a tiny number).

Once you know all that, you can make an encounter table or three, create a list of adjectives to describe the forest (remember to include as many senses as possible), a seasonal weather/temperature range chart if you like, and you're ready to go.

I realize I haven't described a particular region here, but I hope this will help you think about EACH region...

 

[Tonguez]

I've been working on a section of a large, deep, primeval forest in my campaign. First thing I do is figure out the terrain and the plant life, then the native non-magical animal life. I suggest comparing your selected forest to a geographically and climatically similar area of the earth for this. Use wikipedia and sites such as national parks to get a basic description. For example, my forest has been pulled from descriptions of the southern coastal forests of Virginia and North Carolina. It's very different from the forests of Vermont and New Hampshire that I used for another region.

Then work up a list of monsters that would be in the area. They don't have to be the arch-baddie monsters, but for example I decided that this forest, Anhieldfast, has hobgoblin and bugbear tribes in it, but no orcs or giants. There are a few evil plant-monsters, but most of the unusual creatures are dire-animals. An evil temple to the Death-god of my campaign is located here, so there are a few abberations and some more powerful creatures that have been drawn in by that vibe. And lastly, because of a previous adventure in the region in an earlier campaign, I know that green dragons are a strong possibility. I'm planning on one dragon lair.

Then I throw in the human/humanoid influences on the region; the Starmistress Adele and her prophetic sorceresses, the evil temple and the tribal humanoids all get fleshed out here, but so do the frog-folk, and the humans who live just north of the Anhieldfast. Once I know whether or not these groups really affect the forest (the temple and humanoids do, but the others are less noticeable; the humans are afraid, the frog-people are reclusive, and the sorceresses are a tiny number).

Once you know all that, you can make an encounter table or three, create a list of adjectives to describe the forest (remember to include as many senses as possible), a seasonal weather/temperature range chart if you like, and you're ready to go.

I realize I haven't described a particular region here, but I hope this will help you think about EACH region...

This is pretty much the approach I take and its good advice to give in a thread like this. Afterall in the end your giant tree ferns, redwoods or aspens are descriptive background and its the interaction of each of the elements you name that make the site interesting

 

[arcanaman]

Thirdly of all you need to decide if there is any civilaztion on the doorstep to this forest wheter it be a small town or a thriving metropolis

 

[chronoplasm]

Personally, I generally like to add some kind of theme to my forests. The forests look normal on the outside but as you progress deeper into the woods you start to notice more magical features.

I start with the cardinal greek elements:
Forest of Earth
Forest of Air
Forest of Water
Forest of Fire

Then I do things like...

Forest of Bats
Forest of Bones
Forest of Knives
Forest of Runes

 

[Noumenon]

Forest of Runes

Like, on every tree? That just sounds so awesome! Yet... I'm not sure how it would work. The runes mark the paths, and some are hidden? The runes are explosive/glyphs? The runes are names and each tree marks a dead elf who you can speak to by reading his rune?