[Homebrew] – Truly Original Ideas?

[DmQ]

[Homebrew] – Truly Original Ideas?

When I think back on the official D&D settings that have existed over the years, there is only one setting that I would consider truly original. And that was the Dark Sun setting. Worlds like Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Birthright, Planescape, Greyhawk, and Ravenloft, are all missing something to me… That spark. An unexpected twist. Whatever it was, Dark Sun had it…

(I have not yet looked into Eberron so I have not listed it.)

I am currently creating my own Homebrewed setting that attempts to include everything from the Core Rulebooks but with a unique twist. Not as extreme as Dark Sun, but hopefully just as original. I have many good ideas, that I would consider original enough, however this forum is such a great place for others, that share the same love of RPG’s, to throw in their own opinions that I couldn’t resist.

So how about you? What would you classify as original? It is in your own Homebrew or someone else’s?

Please, I would like to get your take on how you would make a generic D&D setting original.

 

[Karanov]

Please, I would like to get your take on how you would make a generic D&D setting original.

The attempt of me and a group of 11 anothers to create a D&D setting with interesting twists and turns can be found on www.thornhollow.com. It's based on a 20 year old PnP home-brew setting, but is currently being developed as a Neverwinter Nights persistant world. The current website doesn't incorporate many of the twists and turns we've made for the new 'edition' of the setting. I'm currently busy making the new website... which should come online on July 1st.

And I know this is very much a shameless plug. But I do think we've come up with an interesting setting that, while still being a D&D setting, gives plenty of interesting concepts to give it a unique feel.

 

[Gez]

Well, the things that would make my homebrew original...

1° Spirits. Each region is bound to a powerful spirit. Most are sleeping, and their influence is unconscious, some are awake and using all their might to further their own ends.
These spirits are the remnants of the creator gods, and thus each spirit (and in turn, each region) is tied to a part of creation. For example, you have the serpent spirit or the cat spirit or the dolphin spirit...
The influence of these spirits exerts itself both in the subconscious of people (the spirit animal/plant/whatever is often taboo) and on the fauna and flora (encounters with sphinxes, displacer beasts, and other strange felines are more common in the cat spirit's region).
The boundaries between each spirit's domain are not fixed, however, and can change over time. They've been influenced, notably, by animistic tribes long ago. Spirits that weren't popular as totems were thus banished.

2° Planes. No inner planes, they are just dimensions. The flames of the Elemental Plane of Fire are in fact the flames of the material world, but seen with three other dimensions than the three spacial dimensions. Likewise for water, earth, air, or whatever you can devise.
No outer planes as well. Instead, you have the Ethereal planes of the planet, which offer lots of extradimensional domains. In other words, the ethereal is infinite and coexistant with a finite material plane.
Gods live in the ethereal of the Moon, spirits in the ethereal of the Earth, other things live in the ethereals of other planets.

3° Lots of flavor. Lots of little details. For example, each spell level has its own name (from level 0 to level 10: sepis, igis, andris, ormis, arbis, quamis, caltis, zanis, temenis, celentis, is -- the names have been stolen and a bit modified from the stones of Pope Gerbert of Aurillac's abacus: sipos, igin, andras, ormis,
arbas, quimas, calctis, zenis, temenias, and celentis).
If you have a wizard who says "I haven't reached my Quamis yet", it's not the same thing as "I can't cast 5th-level spells yet".

 

[DmQ]

Thanks Gez, those are some interesting ideas… I have some questions though.

Why would the creator gods leave spirits?

How is your idea of an infinite ethereal plane, not just a general recreation of the already portrayed Outer Planes? How would the ethereal plane of the moon, be any different then just assigning the moon its own outer plane?

 

[Gez]

Why would the creator gods leave spirits?

The spirits are the creator gods.

How is your idea of an infinite ethereal plane, not just a general recreation of the already portrayed Outer Planes? How would the ethereal plane of the moon, be any different then just assigning the moon its own outer plane?

There's the coexistant aspect, which outer planes don't have. Not everyplace is coexistant with the material plane, but you can always find a coexistant spot nearby. Think of a city were each building would be much bigger inside than outside. You can still use any door or window to go back to the normally-dimensionned street.
Also the fact that there's only one plane for all gods, regardless of alignment. Sure, each has his own domain, but that's not the equivalent of a layer or whole plane.

 

[DmQ]

Ok, why are the creator god’s spirits? Why would they want to be? Seems a pretty unfitting existence for all powerful beings.

 

[Gez]

Well, there was a kind of disaster (initially, the earth and the moon were a single planet), which had a lot of effects on the cosmology. That's also why the spirits are asleep (comatose would be more appropriate), and why those who are awake are quite insane.

The gods on the moon are responsible for this disaster, by the way, but no one knows that, so it would be a huge spoiler were any of my players to read this forum.

 

[Cerubus Dark]

When I think back on the official D&D settings that have existed over the years, there is only one setting that I would consider truly original. And that was the Dark Sun setting. Worlds like Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Birthright, Planescape, Greyhawk, and Ravenloft, are all missing something to me… That spark. An unexpected twist. Whatever it was, Dark Sun had it…

(I have not yet looked into Eberron so I have not listed it.)

I am currently creating my own Homebrewed setting that attempts to include everything from the Core Rulebooks but with a unique twist. Not as extreme as Dark Sun, but hopefully just as original. I have many good ideas, that I would consider original enough, however this forum is such a great place for others, that share the same love of RPG’s, to throw in their own opinions that I couldn’t resist.

So how about you? What would you classify as original? It is in your own Homebrew or someone else’s?

Please, I would like to get your take on how you would make a generic D&D setting original.

My new setting is pretty much a basic D&D style world, of course how they got there was funny. The old world kinda blew up on them, so the gods saved as any as they could. You know the younger (IE low level) people were saved first. No one over 12th level made it to the new world. Plus there is that whole mess of a lost civilization and the fact that there are "golem factories" scattered about too. But other than that there is nothing strange about the world, or the huge dragon that can be seen flying every now and then, nothing weird like that no sir, not at all.

 

[DmQ]

The old world kinda blew up on them, so the gods saved as any as they could.

What would make the world blow up? And why couldnt the gods stop it from happening?

 

[Cerubus Dark]

What would make the world blow up? And why couldnt the gods stop it from happening?

The way my old world was set up it was around a dragon god that was sleeping. The god would have sleept for ever but a group of evil wizards and the assasins guild, found a wonderful 4 peice artifact that would awaken the sleeping god. They figured that they would use the god to recreate the world and have perfect paridise for their minions.

The standard gods (ie the players hand book gods) tried to send their agents to stop them and were some what successful, if all 4 parts of the artifact were activated no one would have lived. My players were givin several major clues dropped in thier laps but petty infighting prevented them from seeing them. Now they are working together but its a bit too late, altough they don't quite know it yet.

The gods in my world are not all powerful, they have a lot of power but its not all encompassing. Plus they have this wonderful thing about not taking action unless another god is directly active on the prime matieral plane. Sort of a little rule they have. Now their agents are free to act on their behalf but its rare when they do.