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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 9413328" data-attributes="member: 2067">One hook that arises out of the agriculture/foraging dichotomy in the classes is the idea of the rise of civilization and the problems it causes.You have things like:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A strong law/chaos divide in the setting. Probably good and evil people on both sides.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Devils and diabolical cults as encouragers of civilization (and who want the evils of civilization to thrive). Infernal machines tearing at the earth. Well-intentioned diabolists killing river fey and forest fey and seasonal fey to grow more grain.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Demons in the darkness. Everything is fragile. Your favorite town can collapse in a season. The forest swallows your megaliths, the desert blows over your tombs.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ancient beings from the Before Times. Dragons and giants as gods or patrons of humanoid effort. You could have dragons as natural destruction (floods, droughts, volcanoes, blizzards, the forest) and giants as Promethean helpers of humanity (stone giants help you build magaliths, hill giants love when the small folk bring them food in the form of vast fields of grain). Elves worrying about the rise of other people, allying with the fey to keep the world primitive, but they are good-hearted, and so try and help the early civs thrive.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Stars and seasonal cycles are critical to understand. The rulers of these early civs desperately need to predict the future. But in D&D the stars also hold alien horrors. Shub-niggurath hides in the woods.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Points of Light in the Darkness become Points of Civilization in the Wilderness. But the wilderness also has its defenders and protectors.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Early civilizations foster despots and would-be-Emperors. Sudden droughts and die-offs are caused by literal evil supernatural beings, and cities fall regularly since they're not well-connected. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The wilderness is poisoned. The rivers dry up. The rats. The plagues. The invention of sewers?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The wilderness hides megafauna and monstrosities. Humbaba doesn't accept your authority. There's still dinosaurs and mammoths around. Maybe some people ride 'em. </li> </ul></blockquote>

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