Pitch your homebrew!

[jdrakeh]

No website, so no link, but...here's a brief description:

A prison-world, long-term, built by a galactic empire that collapsed a long long time ago, and the inhabitants are their descendants.

The whole thing was supervised by a computer that has not aged well, with the gods being some of the programs, such as gods for sanitation, reform, punishment and grounds maintenance. Magic itself is effectively nano-technology.

And yes, I did get a bit of my ideas from existing sources, but I like to think there's some unique part of it that's mine.

That sounds pretty cool. I really like sci-fantasy and wish there were more of it. Stuff like Skyrealms of Jorune, Tunnels & Trolls (yes, really — just look at that timeline for Trollworld), and Planet Krishna really float my boat.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

No website either, but I will post my reply I put in the "What's So Special About Your Homebrew" thread.

Here it is:

It is set on a infinate plane which is the last refuge of a once powerful multiverse. All the people's of the verse settled here, refuges from their homes taken from them by what is simply called the Blackness.

The Blackness is actually the beginnings of a new multiverse that began to form out of the growing distances between the verses. It slowly began to eat away at and destroy the old verse, the "Blackness" is simply the border of this verse.

For a short while the refuges of the planes peacefully began to colonize this last seemingly impenetrable plane. Then the Blackness came, it came in the form of a seething and boiling darkness blocking out the sky. Chaos erupted and severed the fragile peace; war, genocide, cults to the Blackness all formed in this chaos.

Now a few years has passed and a uneasy truce has been passed across the various points of colonization. Now is a time of discovery, reconciliation, revenge and most of all seeking knowledge of the Blackness.

It is a setting where:

• All manner of race and creature from across every plane converge together in single cities, towns and across this whole plane.
• Advance science, magick and supernatural knowledge left-over from the old verse combine to forge new lives. Cities made entirely of rusted out Astral Skiffs, monolithic skyscrapers kept aloft with science and eldritch knowledge.
• A land of odd and unusual sights; the Blackness above with its tendrils and tentacles weaving down and seeping clean whatever it touches. Great cities plowing along the plains on a wave of tentacles coming from below and not above. A horizon stretching on forever with blackness above and only sliver of red light during the day and the waning moon at night.
• Conspiracy and treason are a daily afare. Many people believing each night is their last. Border conflicts, nights of carnal pleasure and murder mix with desperate delving into archives and gleaming the minds of those of old for a way to stop this doom.
• Once mighty Mega-Cabals of the verse now send research teams to explore and understand this new universe, and perhaps work with the denizens that lay within.
• The mysterious changes in the plane, could the Blackness be seeping in, in other ways.

So yeah, that only scratches the surface really. It is mainly oriented around figuring out what the hell the Blackness is (PCs don't know it is a new universe), figuring out what the corporations are up to, exploring the new plane and deciding whether it is better to fight to survive or enjoy what may be your last days. Plus just cool looking places.

Another setting I have that I'll describe more the history of since that is the most important aspect of it (there is more history and goings on but this is a brief one):

The world is not a real world. It is artificial, a snap-shot of a world from the distant past now gone and destroyed in the great war between the Gods.

This Artificial World slept silently for a time, its God-Machine maintaining it and the ley lines that power its reality. However, remnants of the old war wanted in. The "Angels" as they were called found a entrance in the barriers of the artificial World as the God-Machine began to malfunction.

For a time they ruled on this Artifical World; commanding the God-Machine to build them a race of slaves and a city that crossed the entire sky. For a time the God-Machine obeyed, then came one night where the slaves revolted a repeating message from the God-Machine echoing in their minds.

As the great city collapsed it disrupted the power of the Artificial World and its reality fracturing it into many. The slave race warped into many others, and new creatures formed in the fractures of reality. These aberrations soon took control, becoming the now dreaded rulers, the "Nobles".

The Nobles created massive cities on top of the black monolithic stones that scatter the landscape (remains of the floating city) from here they rule with absolute power. The other races being a beaten people and living in the shadows of the great towers and massive conduits linked to the monoliths, siphoning off its power.

Now some of the new races seeks freedom in the places between reality and learn to manipulate and create their own, or seek out and try to speak too perhaps repair the now massively malfunctioning God-Machines perhaps some distant instinctual memory of the rebellion message still echoing in their minds. Others use simply wit and steel to fight and come face to face with the Nobels.

 

[chronoplasm]

The orcs and goblins never used to be much of a threat. They lived and labored in the radioactive waste lands. Mostly the small tribes fought against each other over the sparse resources and relics in the land.
Occasionally the fell races would wander out into other lands in search of fresh food and water, but they would be driven back by the superior elfen and dwarfen armies.

Something has changed though...
The fell people of the wastelands have banded together into a massive army, as though united by some greater cause.
They no longer strike aimlessly and flee from the first signs of resistance; now they fight with purpose.
Goblins never made very obedient slaves; they would always try and run away whenever they had the chance. The slaves don't run away anymore... now they stand and fight their masters, yelling the words 'Freedom' and 'Revolution'.

What has happened?

There is a small red book that has been circulating, and only the orcs and goblins know how to read it.
A wizard, searching for ancient artifacts of great power, found the book in the ruins of an ancient city.
This was no magical tome... but the wizard realized that this could be something even greater. Combined with the recovered art of 'printing', this book could be turned into a powerful weapon to build a powerful army, the likes of which the world has not seen since the fall of the ancient empire.

That book is the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx.
Orcs and goblins, inspired by this book, now march under the ancient banner of Hammer and Sickle into the lands of elves and dwarves and men.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Let me see...

This is just sort of what I have bouncing around in my head right now.

It is a near future world, the entire "world" of the campaign would consist of one enormous city(Pop. 1 billion). It is eternally night in the land, so the city is always lit up in a truly beautiful display of lights. It also rains frequently Technology, Magic, and Psionics all exist separately. The city is not run on a combination of magic and technology. The world is Humanocentric. The city is sealed off from the rest of the world, but all of the needs and wants of the people can be satisfied by advanced technology. There are strange "things" that are slowly starting to creep into the city, no ones knows what they are. Only that they have been causing disturbances, and that people dissapear temporarily and come back changed, and some do not come back at all.

Yeah, that is all I got off of the top of my head.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I have several homebrew campaigns, either gearing up to run or already established. The most recent of note:

1) The oldest is a mix of the world of Space: 1889, the literature of H.G Wells, Jules Verne and William Gibson, and a host of other sources...with superheroes. First run in the 1990s as Champions 1900 (using HERO 4Ed) in Austin, I'm currently updating it to 1912 to run in my first M&M campaign.

See: http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-rules-discussion/255927-starting-new-m-m-campaign.html

A little tweaking, and it could become a really cool Spelljammer variant campaign.

2) I have a 3.5Ed campaign I've designed that is set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world, with (among other things) Awakened Aspen spellcasters who have in turn Awakened certain creatures to do their bidding, true-fey plant-like elves, psionic dwarves in metal bodies, Nephilim (offspring of outsiders and mortals) walking the world, and an enclave of amnesiac illithids from the future...who caused the apocalypse.

(Some of the ideas in this campaign were posted on ENWorld in the "My favorite thread" link in my sig.)

However, I've never run it- I was asked to run a supers campaign (see above) before I got the chance. Still, I'll probably convert it to Warriors & Warlocks once that comes out, and perhaps I'll get to run it in the future...

 

[seskis281]

Please feel free to check out mine:


Ilshara: Lands of Exile

 

[Crothian]

The greatest thing about my homebrew is that I run it. After over a decade I just know it well and while I can link people to the wiki (or not) I seem to be the glue that pulls everything together.

 

[Cadfan]

My homebrew is heavily affected by the choices my PCs made in character creation, so bear that in mind when noting the prominent races. If your PCs like different races, just change them.

There are two kingdoms, one elvish (including eladrin) and one dragonborn. There was a war between them about 50 years ago that did a lot of damage, and ended with the elves on top. The older generation of these long lived races is still a bit bitter, but the younger generation gets along (think US and Germany/Japan during the cold war). Nationals from both nations now live in the other, but they tend not to be wealthy if they're living outside of their own nation. The dragonborn nation wasn't obliterated or conquered, but it did lose a lot of territory and wealth.

One elven island settlement, notable mostly for export of precious stones, was lost during the war. It was a pretty good distance away from the mainland, and it was assumed that the dragonborn lay waste to it, but the dragonborn to this day deny it and they weren't known for major operations in that area. The PCs have been dispatched to investigate. Pulp fantasy ensues, with prominent monstrous races including "gizards" (technically kobolds, I never named them and let the PCs assign a name), "geykos" (pronounced like Geico, lizardfolk, again never named, PCs assigned a name), and goblins. The goblins are mostly enslaved by the geykos, and the gizards are small and feral and ignored by everyone. Unbeknownst to everyone (though the PCs have been slowly realizing it) SOMETHING EVIL lurks beneath the waters in this area of the ocean- probably reskinned, leveled down Aboleths (PCs should end the campaign at level 5).

That's it, really. I don't believe in adding unnecessary detail. I'll fill in more backstory if or when this campaign on the islands is finished.

 

[Mallus]

What makes our homebrew special? It's a heartbreaking work of staggering genius ! The campaign is set in a port city after the end of the world.

The Port on the Aster Sea

Here's a little more info, for those not inclined to click the link above.

"The Port is the largest remaining seaport in the world, and the only place where ships that ply the Aster Sea, including the Black Ships, which carry the souls of the dead to their final rest, make landfall. It lies in a delta formed by two rivers; the River Livia and the Ossuary Flow, which originates in the Interior. Strange things sometimes float in on the Ossuary; empty stone boats, giant infants in reed baskets, potential Messiahs.

In a way, the city is every port city of the World Before folded into one; a riot of architectural styles and eras. In some places this is the result of normal building on top of previous construction, in others it’s a parfait of folded, urban space-time, including bits of the future world yet-to-come. In the port you never quite know what you’ll find in someone’s basement… "

"The Port sits on whatever part of the world survived the Apocalypse, a narrow band of mundane reality on average a hundred miles wide and stretching several hundred miles from north to south. Commonly called the Middling Lands, it is situated between the Aster Sea (a vast metaphysical ocean whose islands are other planes of existence) to the east and the Interior (equally metaphysical, though more solid and less wet – as a rule-) to the west."

 

[Barastrondo]

I never pitch the world. It's just assumed that it's going to be the same one. The pitches set within the world, though: that's where the money is. A couple of short campaign pitches that got played for a while were:

"Straggling survivors of a betrayed mercenary company, making their way Magnificent Seven-style through the Free Lands to rebuild and get their revenge," and "Nordic-style battle and intrigue in the Wolf Clan holdings; axes, mead-halls and glory."

When I started up a small game just for my brother and wife, we actually narrowed it down to one of three:

• Arabian Nights-inspired corsair adventures, high seas and perilous islands, fantastic treasures and heroic swashbuckling with your ship as your home base

• Political exiles banished to an ancient and abandoned underground city, working to define your fate and that of your fellow prisoners

• Residents of an immense Gormenghast-like labyrinthine city, with far more corridors and vaults and galleries than residents to walk them, exploring the long-abandoned halls and perhaps attempting to find their way to the outside world.

In the end, we had to roll a d3 to decide.

I'm of the school that believes that your world itself doesn't have to be incredibly distinctive, if it's diverse enough to host a myriad of entirely distinct campaign ideas. I'm working on accumulating so many potential campaign pitches that next time we'll have to roll a d20 to pick.