D&D 5E Last night I dreamt up a campaign setting... help me flesh it out!

[BookTenTiger]

I had a dream last night that I was rolling up a character in a new campaign setting. I wound up going through a few character concepts, and each one revealed more about the setting.

First I was going to make a Paladin or Cleric. The DM let me know that this campaign had swarms of undead, which would target anyone using divine magic. Furthermore, characters wielding divine magic would not be let into cities.

Next I was going to make an artificer with a mech suit. But it turns out one of the other characters already had a mech!

Finally I decided to play as a Warlock with a technology-based patron. My Warlock would start with a mechanical hand, and as she grew in power more and more of her body would turn mechanical.

Based on my dream, I can tell the setting had the following features:

1. A theme of technology versus undead.
2. Walled cities guarded against swarms of undead.
3. High Technology in a Fantasy World
4. A High Tech Otherworldly Patron that transforms Warlocks
5. Mech suits
6. Undead are drawn to divine magic, and divine magic is banished from cities.

I am really taken with this campaign setting! I would love to flesh it out here on the boards. Those six things should be true, and then everything else is up for grabs. What else do you think is in this setting? What house rules would be appropriate?

Looking at #6, I really like this idea that divine magic, which is what is usually used against undead, is not allowed in cities. The fact that undead are drawn to it, and attack anyone using it, makes me think that there's a connection between the swarms of undead and divine magic. Maybe there was a great betrayal by the gods, or a lost war, and as a consequence the undead were summoned through divine magic? Or maybe the material world is the latest battlefront in the war between the gods, and currently it's the territory of the God of Undead? To hold it, they target any divine spellcasters.

Those are just some ideas! What are yours?

 

[univoxs]

Mech's + Fantasy are not my thing but, Divine magic drawing undead could because the Diety that is the source of the device magic has the ability to put to rest the zombie hordes souls.

Could imply a whole secret reversal thing where the zombies aren't evil actually, just driven to no longer be damned and the use of such divine power from said deity draws them like a beacon.

Idk something to chew on.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Mech's + Fantasy are not my thing but, Divine magic drawing undead could because the Diety that is the source of the device magic has the ability to put to rest the zombie hordes souls.

Could imply a whole secret reversal thing where the zombies aren't evil actually, just driven to no longer be damned and the use of such divine power from said deity draws them like a beacon.

Idk something to chew on.

I love that!

There's some sort of curse that's turning corpses into undead... The undead want to be released, and so swarm sources of divine power!

 

[RangerWickett]

Consider that there are a lot of types of undead. Do you want them all to act the same way? Zombies and skeletons are mindless. Ghouls are driven by urges. Vampires need to feed, but can spend a lot of time alone and angsting. What about ghosts, mummies, and liches?

How high tech do you want your tech? Do you want mecha powered by crystals and armored with enchanted porcelain plates? Or with gears and wires and riveted steel? Forcefields using quantum polarity vacuum warping? Are there robots? Drones?

Are there trains? Are there airplanes? Are there smartphones? Can you decant a clone halfway across the continent with an instanced partition of your consciousness, and do you get XP if your clone dies but you manage to recover his neural backup stack?

Do you care about politics? What do the religious people think of this situation? How recent is this whole undead thing? How do the sapient walking dead structure their societies?

 

[jmartkdr2]

1. A theme of technology versus undead.

You'd want to make tech more broadly available, which might ean subclasses. Alchemical barbarians, electric bards, gunslinger fighters, et al.

2. Walled cities guarded against swarms of undead.

Very Points of Light. I like it. Fleshing out the first town will be important.

3. High Technology in a Fantasy World

See point #1 -you'll want to make sure that all pc's can use tech. I think you'll also want magi-tech as a normal thing.

4. A High Tech Otherworldly Patron that transforms Warlocks

As in one that turns them into clockwork men or one that implants magitech doodad that grant powers? (Obviously both)

5. Mech suits

My favorite implementation of this comes from Exalted - mech suits are treated as armor, except it makes you huge and has it's own strength score. This keeps the focus on the characters. I would make a point of having such things be equally available to all characters - don't make it something only the fighter can use.

Unless, of course, you want it to bee all about the mechs, but that's gonna need a lot more rules.

6. Undead are drawn to divine magic, and divine magic is banished from cities.

I love it. You don't really need to replace clerics since there are no required roles. And of course secret clerics are possible. But it does mean you need to decide what exactly counts as divine magic: warlocks? some patrons? paladins, druids, rangers?

My instinct says "only clerics and holy types" just to not limit players more than the theme demands.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Just to be clear here, I don't have any more ideas about this campaign setting than what I dreamed about.

Feel free to post declarative statements about the setting instead of questions!

 

[Stormonu]

The gods have closed the gates to the afterlife, and the dead have nowhere to go. Those who call on divine magic draw undead to them either out of anger (being denied an eternal rest) or seeking out hope of a chance to escape their cursed existence though the conduit of power.

In the absence of gods, a far realm entity has been contacted who has revealed strange bio-powered devices that can harness great powers. Some have learned to create devices powered by their own living force. Others have turned to powering their devices off the necrotic energies of the undead...and some have become undead trapped within their own infernal devices when it sapped the life from them.

 

[BookTenTiger]

The gods have closed the gates to the afterlife, and the dead have nowhere to go. Those who call on divine magic draw undead to them either out of anger (being denied an eternal rest) or seeking out hope of a chance to escape their cursed existence though the conduit of power.

In the absence of gods, a far realm entity has been contacted who has revealed strange bio-powered devices that can harness great powers. Some have learned to create devices powered by their own living force. Others have turned to powering their devices off the necrotic energies of the undead...and some have become undead trapped within their own infernal devices when it sapped the life from them.

Love it!

 

[BookTenTiger]

I was thinking up house rules that would support the Technology vs Undead theme.

Druid Wildshapes could be considered Constructs instead of Beasts.

The Find Familiar spell could create a Construct, instead of a fey, celestial, or fiend.

I like the idea that technology has leapt from medieval to high-tech, without the steps in between. So there's all this alien futuristic technology added to sword, catapults, castles, etc. It's a society that went from bows-and-arrows to lasers without gunpowder.

 

[jmartkdr2]

The setting is centered on the walled city of Laskan - once a major trade center, but since The Departure (of the gods), trade with other cities isn't a major thing.

(I'm not sold on that name myself, but I can't think of a good name right now.)

The walls are massive, covering dozens of square miles of land, and the inside has a mix of dense urban environments. It's not all clean and not all dirty - any kind of urban landscape can be found somewhere in the oversized metropolis.

Districts include slums of stacked hovels, factory centers choking with smog, ancient docks that still gather fish, trains between include a massive central terminal and a few lines to other cites, Uptown literally above the masses in the cleaner sky, and large parks and massive urban farm that only work with intensive magic. Infrastructure is huge (every pipe is big enough to fight in, it seems) and people come in all shapes, sizes, and colors.

There's a government, but it only has so much reach. Other then anti-undead and anti-divine operations, most government work is effectively farmed out to cartels who compete with each other and local gangs that occasionally actively protect people. And every faction has factions, so knowing who can do what is a talent worth money. (And plenty of less-than-legal ways of influencing business are employed.)

Beyond the walls no one effective keeps the undead at bay - travel there at your own risk. But in those wastelands are the ruins of the society from before the departure - a place of magic and wonder and spread-out wealth (though not much technology.) No one claims to own it anymore, so salvage isn't technically theft, but getting back inside the city can be a bit of a hassle, after a few vampires snuck in.

Inspirations include but are not limited to Camelyn/Tar Valon, Ba Sing Sae, SAO - Alicization, Exalted (the rpg) and Arcane (whatever that city was called). Sharn would probably be a big one if I ever played in Eberron.