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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 4414037" data-attributes="member: 2205">Just noodling with some homebrew concepts.  This homebrew has actually been percolating for a very long time, and I even ran a game in "Mk. II" of it (I'm now on Mk. IV.)  Despite that, a lot of details never got nailed down, and frankly, I'm always tinkering with it, even at the core concept level.  So I'm interested in posting musings about it and getting feedback, questions and commentary, especially if its in the form of great ideas that I can steal.I should state upfront that this is not necessarily a D&D setting (in fact, the times I've run it, I used a different system) but I'm not against the idea of using D&D to run the game.  I am, however, against the idea of assuming that D&D defaults are true; there are many, many ways in which that is not the case.  In the past, I've run this with d20 Modern, and with a d20 system I "created" by combining elements from all kinds of games, including the magic (and sanity) system from the d20 Call of Cthulhu game.  Currently, I'd probably favor using either a Savage Worlds variant, True20 or d20 Modern + d20 Past using the Shadow Stalkers/Shadow Chasers campaign model.  In tone and general feel, I like to think of this setting as equal parts Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom, Charles Dickens, Sergio Leone and H. P. Lovecraft.Here's some basics about the world itself:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Called Kael, intelligent life is not native.  Or, if it was, native intelligent life is long-since extinct.  Humans of various ethnicities make up the population here, but they retain an ancient tradition of coming from somewhere else.  They failed to listen to a prophet, who predicted world-wide flooding, and mocked his boat-building efforts.  When the rains did come, some tiny portion of them used sorcery to flee to Kael and escape drowning. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">With them came some animals; both herd animals that they brought on their own, and a few wild animals that escaped through their magical portal.  It's now been many thousands (tens of thousands--perhaps even hundreds of thousands) of years since their arrival on Kael, and the populations have adapted and evolved to meet their new environment. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The environment on Kael is not particularly friendly.  According to legend, the planet was once warm and inviting, but whichever god or spirit caused the ancestors of the Kaelings to perish in the flood was wroth with them for fleeing his righteous indignation, and sent a comet blasting towards Kael.  The impact literally scalped much of the crust of the planet from the surface.  The debris gradually resettled into a dusty ring which surrounds Kael.  Most of the surface water boiled off into space, and reverberations from the impact caused the planet to convulse in agony, splitting into gigantic fissures and titanic volcanic eruptions.  Therefore, like our own Mars, it's possible to have gigantic shield volcanoes the size of Arizona and massive canyon systems as long as the Continental United States and as wide as Tennessee.  In fact, Kael's equivalents to the Tharsis region and the Vallis Marineris are important terrain points in the setting.  The setting itself is defined by the dry, harsh terrain that covers so much of the setting.  This deific force then forgave the remaining survivors and left them to their own devices. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Civilization grew rather quickly as industry was required to bring water from deep aquifers up to the surface.  Primitive technology, of course, couldn't cope with that, but gigantic steam-powered drills and pumps could.  Luckily, Kael has an abundance of coal (evidence to suggest that a greener past is almost certainly more than legend) to power these steam pumps.  City-states built up around these massive pumps, which could be used to irrigate relatively large areas.  However, due to the harsh terrain between pumps, empire building (or at least holding on to an empire you managed to build) was a logistic impossibility until the recent development of zeppelins. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A few areas do retain surface water; in fact, it's my intention to start any future endeavors here on the shores of a vast sea, nearly as large as the Mediterranean---the largest relict of the world's once vast oceans.  Other, smaller seas exist, but none (other than this one, the Mezzovian) are any larger than the Great Lakes of the northern Midwest, or the Caspian or Black Seas, and most are hyper-salinated as well because the water is evaporating over time.  In fact, the largest and most long-lasting port cities on the shores of the Mezzovian have abandoned ruins stretching for miles into the terrain around them.  Ancient wharfs and quays stand silently miles from any shore, and rotting husks of beached ships stand starkly in the arid scrublands far from the water; mute testament to the slowly dwindling surface water supply. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Because of the extreme amount of time that has passed since Kaelings came from whatever homeworld they came from, they have evolved into completely different ethnic groups, unrelated and dissimilar to ethnic groups found on planets such as earth.  The desert regions away from the sea are dominated by neverending conflict between red and green men; the tribesman of Kvuustu and Komewan.  The red-skinned Kvuustos are consumate nomads, following their herds and water supplies and sweeping out of the desert as reavers and barbarian hordes, while the Komewan have lately turned to empire building and are slowly and surely spreading their monolithic cities out of their core regions on the southeast shores of the Mezzovian seas.  Most of the rest of the Mezzovians, however, have tan skin of varying shades, and brown, black or occasionally pale hair, making them coincidentally not too disimilar to Westerners on earth (meaning that when the movie rights get sold, it'll be easier to cast after all.  Not too many green-skinned actors.)</li> </ul>More details to come...</blockquote>

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