D&D General Let's Workshop Some Setting Elements

[Bupp]

As GMs we all have ideas for things that we want to include in our games and worlds that we never quite get around to fleshing out to the point of being able to actually use them. Things like factions and religions and cultures and historical events and discrete regions. So let's talk about some of those things and see of we can't help one another get these setting elements ready for prime time.

NOTE: This is a place for respectful, helpful feedback and constructive criticism. If you think someone's idea is stupid or boring or badwrongfun, ignore it and move on. Thanks.

I'll start: I like the idea of "barrow drakes" -- dragons that guard the tombs of long forgotten kings of old. Tossing the idea around with a friend, we came up with a rough sketch of a culture that had to content with treasure hunting dragons which could not be killed. But the dragons could be bound, so eventually a practice developed where the powerful proved their greatness by binding these dragons to their barrows. The mightier the king, the mightier the bound dragon.

And that's as far as we got. Who were these people? What are the dragons? What state are the dragons in: slumbering, petrified, awake and hungry?

This barrow drake idea has been stuck in my head, and I've added it to my homebrew world.

Eska

World Anvil is a worldbuilding community and collection of tools for authors, role playing games storytellers and worldbuilding lovers

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[Dannyalcatraz]

Can’t contribute specifically at the moment- headed bedward, at the mo- but RangerWickett started a thread years ago along these lines, for much the same purpose. It’s full of good stuff!

Campaigns in a nutshell. Adventures in a sentence.

Let us gather a mighty hoard of adventure and campaign ideas, compressed to what was most important about them. From me: Tides of Homeland: Four heroes with no place to call home come together to stop a mind flayer's attempt to save his people by destroying all other races. The mind flayer...

www.enworld.org

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Inspired somewhat by the Halfling thread, an incomplete thought just occurred to me. What if a campaign world’s primary races corresponded to the 7 Deadly Sins? I learned them by the acronym, PEWSLAG: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Lust, Avatice, and Gluttony.

So, the list might look like:

Pride: Dragonborn
Envy: Humans
Wrath: Orcs
Sloth: Elves
Lust: Tieflings
Avarice: Dwarves
Gluttony: Halflings

In all likelihood, something like this would be a Demiplane of dread.

 

[Steampunkette]

Cave Minotaurs.

Shorter, degenerate, wiry minotaurs that look like Rams or Goat-Men. Adept at climbing up through narrow passages to chase after trespassers in the gloom. They live in the more natural labyrinths caused by erosion and other slow environmental processes.