D&D 4E POL Settings in Literature to Base 4e Settings On

[Belorin]

The Dying Earth.

It's pure D&D. Step outside your house and go into the forest, you encounter three or four different monsters. There's also tons of magic items.

I would dispute that Conan and Middle-Earth are PoL. Although most of the world is wilderness (which is true of *all* worlds, including our own) this is insufficient. There must be no well guarded nation states, such as Aquilonia and Gondor.

Gondor was hard pressed to keep it's own borders, once you got close to the Misty Mtns. it was fend for yourself. Some pockets of civilization had the presence of the Dunedain to help, but they were streched pretty thin. Places like the Shire and Bree were exceptions to the PoL rule.

Bel

 

[Ydars]

I have to agree with Belorin on this one Doug; at the time of Lord of the Rings, the "country" of Gondor was pretty much reduced to a glorified city state around Minas Tirith. I would say Middle Earth in the thrid age is pure PoL.

As for literture, try looking at any of the books from Black Library based on the Warhammer Roleplaying World (exclude anything to do with the wargame; they certainly aren't the same world at all).

In this world, all towns and cities are allegedly part of big Kingdoms but in fact the authorities have almost no control and the areas between settlements are monster haunted and very dangerous. Finding a coach where everyone has been killed is a common occurance and the sudden disappearance of entire villages is also par for the course.

 

[Andor]

The Sharing Knife series by Lois Bujold is very PoL. It's a world slowly recovering from a magical apocalypse and still dealing with the aftermath of it. Not really a good D&D parallel but a good read and gleanable for ideas.

For that matter her Vorkosigan novels are set with a background of a world which only recently emerged from being a PoL setting and is still coming to grips with the idea of being civilized.

Some of Cordwainer Smiths short stories are set in a PoL Earth recovering from a very high tech war. (I particularly like the bit in Scanners live in vain where he's trying to get into a city and mulls over all the things that might be trying to pass as human.

 

[rhm001]

Westeros, the setting for George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series.

There's an ongoing war, but several factions' leaders are dead; most of the armies have retreated from the battlefields and are centered around castles and/or fortified larger cities. Most of the crops have been destroyed with winter coming, and seasons run for years rather than months, so most of the population is consolidating in fortified areas or turning to banditry. There are additional external threats on the way as well: viking-like raiders from the sea, armies from overseas and an invasion of extra-worldly creatures from the arctic north.

 

[wherwrthal]

I appreciate these and will look them up as soon as I can.
Some of them I have already read, but need to give a good re-examine to.
Keep them coming, please.

 

[psionotic]

duplicate post, my apologies.

 

[psionotic]

Just because it hasn't been listed, D&D's own Dark Sun setting virtually epitomizes PoL.

Which gets me thinking, that a setting in which all governmental structure is by necessity local (via City States, barricaded towns, etc.,) is PoL, assuming that the reasons for local governance have evolved principally from an inability to exercise control over significant distances due to geography, monsters, raiding bands, etc. Severe cultural isolation and differentiation and likely, xenophobia, are common results of this phenomenon.

Which is a reason that I don't think Star Trek is as PoL-like as some of the other settings. There is a common culture (and virtualized language) among hundreds if not thousands of planets, and the 'frontier' (ie, unknown space) constantly shrinks instead of expands.

 

[Stone Dog]

Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker. Yeah that's right, the world is covered in water except for the rare occasional island and the heroes must travel over the treacherous waters to get anywhere! This idea is on the back burner as a potential future homebrew setting for me.

Okay... I really like this one. I mean REALLY like this one. An archipelago that is the shattered remnant of an ancient empire with ruins and monsters and terrible horrors of the Deep. No one island is enough to support an entire country, some have mineral resources, some have arable land for farming and some have other resources.

It could be like Settlers of Catan, but with monsters and islands. It could be a lot of fun...

 

[Belorin]

In Andre Norton's Witch World series once the story gets to Escore, the land beyond the eastern mountains, the world is very much PoL. The land is rife with pockets of good and evil creatures that are the basis of the myths and legends of the people of Escarp that are fleeing a war over the mountains.

Bel

 

[Dinkeldog]

Piers Anthony's Xanth
Stasheff's Warlock series
Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books
Wurts' War of Light and Shadow