Homebrew hooks - share your ideas!

[Desdichado]

I was recently looking over the old Ray Winninger Dungeoncraft articles, and he had a great idea, I think, in that a memorable homebrew campaign setting should feature a "hook" -- something that sets it apart as different from other worlds. His example at the time was the "forest world" setting (a really good hook) but he also later did the "land of the lost" setting, which didn't grab my attention nearly as much.

Anyway, anyone have any more hooks out there you'd like to share? I thought that was a really interesting concept -- something that could be summarized in just a sentence or so, but something that clearly made the setting different than, say Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

Here are some completely random ideas, in no particular order:

1. No continents. Vast oceans, lots of island chains.

2. No humans. Everyone's a demi-. Maybe lots of subraces?

3. Magical airship technology has revolutionized commerce and war.

4. Standard fantasy, but with vast secret societies and Mafia-esque criminal organizations, which the PCs are a part of.

5. Magical power is only accessible in small areas of the campaign world. Huge cities and powerful wizard guilds have grown up around these hotspots.

 

[RangerWickett]

6. Different races have different innate magical auras. If a human touches an Elf, or is affected by an Elf's spell, the next spell the human casts is disrupted. Elves and gnomes share friendly auras, humans and orcs have friendly auras, and there are no dwarves or halflings. Half Elves have the worst of both worlds; if they touch anyone but another half Elf, their magic goes awry. This leads to isolationist cultures, and very strange interaction between races. Different monsters have their own auras too, making some dangerous to even go near. A Dragon's aura is powerful enough to cause Elves and Gnomes to go mad, while demons and celestials have the same effects on humans and Orcs.

7. All monsters were created by wizards. Anything that isn't on earth is magically created by biomancers. Most were made for defending lairs, as pets, or as soldiers in armies; but over centuries, some escaped into the wild and bred. The most famous biomancers had signatures, so all the avian creatures created by the mage Longinus can be mind-controlled if you know the right spell. Many mages seek to find these ancient monster controlling magicks.

8. Adventurers are sponsored by nobles and aristocracy, much as artists were sponsored by patrons on Earth during the Renaissance. Adventurers are expected to deliver regularly, and are always well-equipped. The most famous and successful ones get courted by numerous nobles, hoping to increase their status by associating with great heroes.

9. Centuries ago, a tyrannical dictator killed all disloyal mages, hoping to cement his position as ruler. Now, only a handful of remote villages have mages, and they are fairly primitive. Magic can still be found and studied, but the old Inquisitorial Order still seeks out and kills magic-users.

10. In an ancient war, the humans defeated the Elves and fey, and a treaty was made, splitting the world into two parts. Each group keeps to its own side, and after more than a thousand years, tales of the old fey races are mere myths among humans. But the humans discover the existence of the other world, and plan to invade it, breaking the ancient treaty.

 

[RangerWickett]

Oh, you wanted short ones. Okay.

11. The world has seventeen years to live, before a huge star crashes into it and devours it. Most of the world evacuated decades ago to other dimensions, but a few stayed behind to see the death of the land that was their home.

12. People's souls have stopped moving to the afterlife. They stay behind as ghosts, migrating to a huge mountain range, now populated in the billions. Religions have had to adapt to the loss of the afterlife as a topic of discussion.

13. Everyone that died in the past hundred years suddenly reincarnated as various animals, so practically every animal is intelligent now, some possessed of great powers. Many returned to their old homelands, but several new beastly nations have arisen.

14. There were once 4 great elemental creatures - the Sun Serpent, the Stormchaser Eagle, the Tidereaver Kraken, and the Worldsculptor Worm. Three were hunted down and killed, leaving only the Worm in his huge network of tunnels. Their deaths left the surface world breathless, dry, and dark, so only the land below is habitable.

15. In the eternal winds of the plane of air, most creatures can fly, leading to strange cultures (and dungeons). The only solid land floats amid the clouds, with drifting meadows, and cloud-shrouded forests. Where will your adventures take you?

 

[GMVictory]

Here are some completely random ideas, in no particular order:

1. No continents. Vast oceans, lots of island chains.

The world of Mer from the Pirates of Dark Water! (A setting book and MM was actually published for it)

16. The Kingdom of Gavalin is expanding. A largely unexplored region lies to the south and the king has granted land ownership to those who can afford it. (Think of the Oklahoma Land Rush.)

17. The Old Gods have returned and are engaging the current Pantheon in battle. The Pantheon can't spare extraneous power to it's clerics/paladins. Clerics and paladins can only cast spells that are available to the domains of the god they follow. Arcane magic is in flux and changes between overpowered to non-existent.

18. It rains, all the time.

19. Nobles engage in warfare by proxy. Hiring adventurers and mercenaries to fight their battles for them. There is a code of conduct concerning winning and losing that is enforced by Royalty.

20. The god of death is missing/captured/destroyed. No one can die. Maiming has become the defacto punishment.

These were some of the setting twists in some of the campaigns I have ran.

 

[demiurge1138]

21 (My current campaign world). An alternate Mezosoic. All of the races are reptilian, dinosaurs still roam the earth, and the biggest mammals are rats and shrews.

22. No ocean. No rain. The entire world is a desert.

23. Post magical apocalyse. Plenty of rogue aberrations, twisted horrors and warlords trying to carve themselves a kingdom.

24. Kaiju. These giant monsters, embodiements of nature's wrath, avatars of dead gods or just plain magical mistakes, are common, and the wanton destruction of cities is commonplace. Now, does the party protect kaiju, or hunt them?

Demiurge out.

 

[Emiricol]

25. As with T13K, the gods were banished from the Prime Material, but the gods of good were sent away a century before the gods of evil. The world is still recovering.

 

[Morpheus]

22. No ocean. No rain. The entire world is a desert.

Demiurge out.

See Dark Sun...

 

[DaveStebbins]

26. I wanted to try to capture more of a classic fantasy feel, so I'm running with "High adventure, no fireballs."

I have eliminated evocations from the campaign I'm (perpetually) working on. Some divine evocations have been changed about a bit, many are just gone. Arcane spellcasters are all (essentially) specialists with evocation as their opposition school.

-Dave

 

[dave_o]

27. A dead world. Mostly populated with undead, with fiercely defended places inhabited by the living. Mm. Zombie horror.