Our World as a D&D setting

[Beleriphon]

The Timeline was simply to explain how we went from Now to a Fantasy setting. The Weave Fallout helped to heal the planet but also create creatures and Magic Users basically a mish mash of Spells some benevolent and others not so. I run D&D5 as a total fantasy setting where no advanced Technology exists having said that I will occasionally throw in a building / location that the Players can recognise as an In Joke

The Trinket list has a few in jokes. One is a sheriff's badge, another a 9-volt battery.

 

[Ranthalan]

The thread title immediately brought The Immortal Storm to mind. Parts of it take place in modern (1986) New York and Chicago.

 

[Andy1461]

I think it's cool. The cleric/divine caster thing is the only hiccough, but apart from that I think it'd be awesome to play a party fighting the Evil Wizard of Slough, or fighting alongside the Grey Knights of Grimsby.

As an aside, read (if you haven't already) Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban.

Hey - I live in Grimsby - would love to be a Grey Knight!

 

[Elderbrain]

Yeah, the two issues (well, two of them, anyway) that you need to resolve is:

1) How will religion be handled (i.e. will you allow Divine magic and character classes, and if so, will you be using real-world religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc.)

2) How will you handle modern/futuristic technology that the characters possess, buy, or find?

With regards to 1), you could either ban Divine magic/classes outright, or allow them and avoid controversial issues like defining real-world deities' power level/rank and alignments... just let the player of, say, a Cleric pick a Domain and be done with it. If two Clerics of the same deity have conflicting alignments, oh well Let THEM (the characters) dispute about the nature of the deity...

The section in the DMG provides some help with the technology issue, but of course modern-day characters will not regard guns, CD players, etc. as exotic technology (though a person untrained in firearms will still have to learn how to use one).

 

[5Shilling]

Nice idea, and it has a good pedigree in D&D history. There are plenty of clues that the very first D&D settings were post-apocalyptic, heavily based as they were on the Dying Earth stories by Vance. There are a bit weirder than your setting, but still worth reading, and some of them are now free online.

 

[Xeviat]

My own setting is based on future projections of earth. The source of magic I use is Avalon/The Spirit World, operating under the statement (within the setting) that magic existed before and was closed off for a while (after Arthur's death? Who knows). But my setting is Earth 50 million years in the future, so that I can play with newly evolved animals (Griffins, Drakes, and others).

I like how you use the Gith. Very D&D.

Here's a few of my ideas (that aren't super unique, so I'm down for sharing them):

The Angels and Devils in my world are humans, but they've drastically evolved and diverged over the 50 million years. Angels are akin to Grey aliens or Protos: psychicly powerful, and deeply mixed with their technology. The Devils are humans who embraced genetic engineering.

Earth is a nature reserve. The Angels and Devils aren't supposed to interfere directly (but they do).

The humanoid races are evolved animals. Dwarves evolved from badgers, Halflings from Spider Monkeys, etc. High Elves are the people of the Spirit World, Human's reflection.

Dragons are spirits. Lots of creatures are spirits.

Human's were reintroduced by the Angels and Devils. Giants were made by the dragons by magically evolving humans (which is why they can interbreed; ogres are half-human/giant).

In 50 million years, most of today's big mammals died out. From birds came Griffins and from Griffins came Drakes as they got larger and reverted to a more reptilian look. Rodents and Mustelids evolved to fill the niches left by the loss of cats and dogs.


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[Ancalagon]

The Trinket list has a few in jokes. One is a sheriff's badge, another a 9-volt battery.

When I realized that there was a 9 volt battery in there I literally laughed out loud. Great easter egg.

 

[Ancalagon]

The thread title made me recall notes to a campaign idea I had a while back set in Europe and around the Mediterranean area. From what I recall, I set a number of areas for specific PHB races so that I had areas like so:

Britain: Elves
Scandinavia: Goliaths (as Asgardians), Dwarves, Elves
Egypt: Tiefling (As a decadent ruling class), Humans (slave class), Halflings (Bedouin freedom fighters)
France/Greece/Italy/Spain/Germany: Human

Monsters would be appropriate to the area based on mythology and folklore of the various countries.

I did something like that - not in D&D, warhammer. In my game the egyptians were the Elves, with ageless pharaohs etc. I did a lot of research for historical "accuracy" and blended that with dwarves, magic etc. My game notes are over 80 000 words.

At one point I anticipated that the party would cross the Himalayas mountains, and poured over old maps to see where the passes were. I even read a report from the Royal Geography Society published in the 1870 depicting such a trek. Aaaaaand the players went the other way!