How Dangerous is your campaign world?

[Amazing Triangle]

I would have to say the most dangerous places in my campaigns were always the smaller cities, which would get wiped out or burned to the ground once every few years.

Now some of my players would say the most dangerous places in my campaign setting were where they decided to take retribution against an evil church or two that never did anything to them. They started a holy crusade that ended in them decimating a whole city by calling an angel and wiping out every evil soul in the city's radius.

 

[Arkhandus]

Eh, my homebrews are kinda dangerous to the average joe, but the chances of being subjected to an orcish raid, random chuul attack, or similar are fairly low since people have managed to establish fairly good civilized areas.

That is, with enough patrolling and pre-emptive attacks, the local monsters and tribes will learn to back off and usually stay away rather than risk the civilized folk bringing a small army to bear. Simple-minded beasts will just learn to stay away if, for instance, every other time they go sniffing around the farm for man-meat, someone grazes them with a crossbow bolt.

Travel can be dangerous, for sure, but that's why people need caravan guards or bodyguards! Good work for an adventurer early on while they're still looking for some way to make a name for themselves.

Farmer Bob can take his stuff to market without a problem because his farm's fairly close to the nearest town or village, and enough years of patrolling by guards has driven off most beasts and savages, at least such that they're highly unlikely to attack.

 

[Gold Roger]

I'd say it's pretty dangerous purely accounting for the number of evil humanoids and monsters everywhere (as pretty much every region in my setting is a border region, if it is settled by humans at all).

However, there are no NPC classes, (though children and some people are unclassed- like 1st level commoners) and people up to level 5 are pretty common. So Joe the towns Smith might wear no armor better than leather and have all 10 stats and used his feats for stuff like skill mastery [craft(smith)], but he's still a third to fith level fighter.

Meanwhile, monsters rarely are found in greater numbers than one or two and evil humanoids, unless at war, are encountered only in small gangs. Also, many dangers are far more interested in either driving you off or enslaving or conquering you, than outright killing you.

So it's dead dangerous to go alone in the wild and war is frequent, but as long as you stay with your people, there's a very low percentage of people that die of "fantasy cause" before their time.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

In general I'd compare the overall danger of Siluria on the population as about like living in a war zone, the kind where no one cares about civilian casualties. I don't really make a distinction between "good" and "evil" races. It's very heavy on the civilization versus barbarians aspect and you're as likely to see barbarians of one race as another. Settlements are crammed together and surrounded by walls for a reason and they work the fields in groups. The barbarians themselves are in a state of constant warfare with all the various non-humanoid monsters that populate the landscape. And the wildlife isn't like earth, fairly ordinary animals vie with prehistoric creatures or stranger things and dinosaurs roam freely.

There aren't really any "commoners" I don't tend to stat out kids and things that aren't going to be fought. But the demographics spread I use basically puts adults at from 3-6 levels with ranges up to about 9 for the highest level peasants.

 

[Rabelais]

My own world is like that... I don't know why, but Giant Hornets are a significant threat on my world. You can count on getting attacked at least once by 'em.

 

[rgard]

In mine, rarely if ever do the commoners get messed with. Most of the dangers in my campaign world seem to meet the PCs exclusively. Funny how that works.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Ibram]

It can get fairly hot along the borders between different races (i.e. between civilization and barbarians). but for the most part Joe Farmer has as much to worry about as a peasant in our Middle Ages.

 

[DragonLancer]

Kind of like greek myth. Stories get told about The Minotaur and The Cyclops. Sure they're fantastic beings, but only heroes ever see them. Joe Farmer hears the story one night at the tavern and doesn't think much about it after that.

Thats how my world works as well. Most people can live their entire lives without seeing a monster. It's only really heroes, inhabitants of certain regions and cities, who will encounter them.

 

[Gez]

It heavily depend on the region and the time. Oh, and on what you are. The high elves who rule the rapidly-declining-but-still-largest empire are extremely callous in their treatment of non-elven serfs (or game, as they call them). In the north-eastern part of the world, you can become enslaved by the orcs, and that's a fate even worse. In the south-eastern part, there's a war going on, and if you're neutral but unlucky you may be captured by wizards and turned into a raving berserk mutant monster that will get teleported in an enemy city to wreck havoc. The whole western half is rather calm for now in its civilized parts, though most of it is untamed wilderness.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

My home setting is the modified Flanaess, following the Greyhawk Wars, Solistari War, Coming of Vecna, and Departure of Vecna. It's been 100 years since the Departure of Vecna.

No normal farming is conducted anymore. Normal trade has been supplanted by magical trade (across heavily fortified borders.) Food is grown in magical retreats, or in secret places.
Those nations that remain, have large armies, magical or psionic might, and heavily defended frontiers.
Cities are now fortresses. Villages are within castle walls. The countryside around is abandoned, returned to wilderness (or cleared and leveled, and massively patrolled.)

The world is shrouded in smoke and volcanic fog. Some areas are freakishly hot, others freakishly cold. The weather of the world is overthrown, tossed aside in favor of magical modification and the effects of inland seas of lava.
Seas have uplifted into land. Land has collapsed into sea. Mountains have shattered and fallen, while other mountains have exploded upward. None of the old maps are of much use ... when you leave the safety of civilization, you're on your own in the unknown wilderness.
Since that wilderness is filled with danger and horror, most frontiersmen never return. Adventurers had best prepare themselves for the worst, if they wish to venture out.

There are isolated, powerful, and very altruistic (even exalted) enclaves of good amidst the general evil of the land. These act as sanctuaries for those who can reach them ... or as targets for the evil overlords of many nations.

Greyhawk City stands, amidst the altered Flanaess, but even one hundred years after the Depature of Vecna, it still bears his taint. It is a magnificent, wondrous, and very Menibonean city, wealthy beyond measure, imperialistic as the Great Kingdom once was with swarming armies and fleets of ships and spelljammers, and ultimately deadly.

Mordenkainen and the Circle of Eight still operate. Their base is Mordenkainen's Steel Citadel in the Yatils, now as fortified and deadly as the Tomb of Horrors. Mordenkainen and his fellows are very high level, very dedicated, and very ruthless in their efforts to return the Flanaess to some semblance of normalcy. Interrupt or otherwise bother them at your peril.