Searching for a Brutal, and Harsh Setting.
- Thread starter ReignofGeekaos
- Start date
Kerrick
First Post
RAVENLOFT
My god, people, Ravenloft is the epitome of "harsh and unfrgiving". Course, a lot of DM's don't play it that way...
Also, our DM's homebrewed world of Darksword Bay is THE most harsh and unforgiving world I've ever seen. This place is worse than RL... the motto here is "survival of the fittest." Some people can escape from RL... but they NEVER get out of DSB. The gods of other crystal spheres have interdicted DSB. Imagine a world run but near-deific lich kings who can fling about world-changing magics (extremely powerful, but extremely costly too). This is our world.
My god, people, Ravenloft is the epitome of "harsh and unfrgiving". Course, a lot of DM's don't play it that way...
Also, our DM's homebrewed world of Darksword Bay is THE most harsh and unforgiving world I've ever seen. This place is worse than RL... the motto here is "survival of the fittest." Some people can escape from RL... but they NEVER get out of DSB. The gods of other crystal spheres have interdicted DSB. Imagine a world run but near-deific lich kings who can fling about world-changing magics (extremely powerful, but extremely costly too). This is our world.
It sounds like you should take an existing game world (one like Forgotten Realms, with Drow, Genasi, and Elves) and make it more brutal. That shouldn't be hard.
In fact, there's an old thread on just that topic: Maintaining Grim and Gritty Flavour!
If you want a more Conan-esque flavor, I suggest keeping magic rare and out of the hands of the PCs. Consider making all the spellcasting classes Prestige Classes with stiff prereqs.
Codex Arcanis
There is a witch king who sends out "Harvesters" to find those with arcane talent to be his mana batteries
The dwarves are cursed and make devilish deals that your grandchildren will have to pay off. Oh and they'll consider lichdom a good way to make sure they finish their final project.
The Elves are not nice since the human tried genocide and deiticide on them. The elves are also the escaped slaves of ancient snake men.
The Gods have no actual alignment. The indvidual churches of the gods have alignment. One god of disease may be a healer for one church and then spread pestilence for another church. Jyhads are commmon.
One nation is run by a lich and necromancers. The poor toil to make their mausolums. Oh and their idea of law enforcement is to have you accept a demonic mark on your head. You take your chances without the mark, but then agian it is a demon that will protect you from pickpockets, and muggers.
Sound like a promising start?
There is a witch king who sends out "Harvesters" to find those with arcane talent to be his mana batteries
The dwarves are cursed and make devilish deals that your grandchildren will have to pay off. Oh and they'll consider lichdom a good way to make sure they finish their final project.
The Elves are not nice since the human tried genocide and deiticide on them. The elves are also the escaped slaves of ancient snake men.
The Gods have no actual alignment. The indvidual churches of the gods have alignment. One god of disease may be a healer for one church and then spread pestilence for another church. Jyhads are commmon.
One nation is run by a lich and necromancers. The poor toil to make their mausolums. Oh and their idea of law enforcement is to have you accept a demonic mark on your head. You take your chances without the mark, but then agian it is a demon that will protect you from pickpockets, and muggers.
Sound like a promising start?
Drakmar
Explorer
um.. I think that the food was imported.. um...some areas in the "kingdom" were kept more secure from the greeblies.
but.. the DM mainly glossed over that aspect. and well.. we let him. he would have just killed us off if we asked too many questions.. possibly our characters too.
as for mushrooms? hmmm.. that could explain why there was a 200gp bounty on all dwarves heads.. the DM said that the bounty was cause Dwarves were Dragons natural enemies.. but really.. it must be because the dwarves kept nicking the "food" mushrooms
but.. the DM mainly glossed over that aspect. and well.. we let him. he would have just killed us off if we asked too many questions.. possibly our characters too.
as for mushrooms? hmmm.. that could explain why there was a 200gp bounty on all dwarves heads.. the DM said that the bounty was cause Dwarves were Dragons natural enemies.. but really.. it must be because the dwarves kept nicking the "food" mushrooms
Skywalker
Adventurer
For dark and grim fantasy worlds I would try the following, though most are not d20:
1. Riddle of Steel http://www.theriddleofsteel.com
2. Gemini RPG
3. Slaine d20 RPG http://www.mongoosepublishing.com
3. Tribe 8 http://dp9.com
4. WFRP http://www.hogshead.demon.co.uk
5. Mechanical Dream http://www.steamlogic.com
1. Riddle of Steel http://www.theriddleofsteel.com
2. Gemini RPG
3. Slaine d20 RPG http://www.mongoosepublishing.com
3. Tribe 8 http://dp9.com
4. WFRP http://www.hogshead.demon.co.uk
5. Mechanical Dream http://www.steamlogic.com
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What about d20 Dragon Lords of Melnibone? While not as brutal as Conan, Michael Moorcock's Stormbringer/Eternal Champion setting is very dark and wildly imaginative. The Elric stories arguably started the "dark fantasy" genre. Chaosium has a lot of older materials for their (non d20) version of the Elric RPG, which are convertable to d20 as well, and some of these adventures are excellent (IMHO better than any of the official WOTC published adventures for D&D). Try Perils of the Young Kingdoms, Sailing on the Seas of Fate (a very good anthology) or the Campaign Book, Rogue Mistress--a campaign taking place in a ether-flying ship that travels through the multiverse.
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Graf
Explorer
You think the gods of evil are mean.... you should see their parents....
unfortunately mmadsen beat me to the punch with this one. So I guess I get to expound on the point.
This assumes: You want a harsh dangerous world but don't have the time to make it yourself.
Take a regular world (FR is especially good for this). And then change it a little bit:
The city of shade appeared above Waterdeep, conquored and enslaved it. Baldur's gate's merchant lords have subverted the rest of the area. Efreet have returned to Calmishan. The red wizard's trading enclaves have enabled them to take over many smaller regions where they rule discreetly as puppet masters. Etc.
The idea of Szass Tam using Elminster:s heart as a ritual focus is probably almost as creepy as putting people into a real ravenloft game.
Things seem much more gritty when the players think that they're finally getting somepalce safe only to discover how bad things really are.
In general less divine magic (cures, etc) and more monsters the PCs can't hurt the more grim it gets. (Monsters that can only be hurt by the weird black magical dagger that slowly turns the PCs flesh blue, eyes yellow and gives her an uncontroable craving for brains is also good).
You might want to be careful about this though:
1. One of my PCs made his character's tag line "things are improving, everythings getting worse more slowly." And you start to hear a lot of 'jokes' about how many negative levels people are going to get today.... In otherwords abject unending horror leads to mutinous players.
2. If you're following standard 3e experience rules then throwing PCs up against high CR monsters will tend to lead your party up to rather high levels quickly. This can help offset the unhappy PC syndrome.
If you're looking for a really good game setting with enough grit and grim to fill a ship there is always SL. NF did a good job talking about how neat the world is but the one thing worth reiterating is that the vast majority of Scarn is a pretty tough place to be.
I use it myself and the players complain all the time about how hard it is. The best was when they tried to sell some magic items last session.
"but the players handbook says its worth at least 8000 gold..."
"sure its probably worth a lot, but there ain't nobody around here gonna buy it. sorry 1000 pentacles. take it or leave it."
They'd been carrying around that magical silver tipped spear for a month....
unfortunately mmadsen beat me to the punch with this one. So I guess I get to expound on the point.
This assumes: You want a harsh dangerous world but don't have the time to make it yourself.
Take a regular world (FR is especially good for this). And then change it a little bit:
The city of shade appeared above Waterdeep, conquored and enslaved it. Baldur's gate's merchant lords have subverted the rest of the area. Efreet have returned to Calmishan. The red wizard's trading enclaves have enabled them to take over many smaller regions where they rule discreetly as puppet masters. Etc.
The idea of Szass Tam using Elminster:s heart as a ritual focus is probably almost as creepy as putting people into a real ravenloft game.
Things seem much more gritty when the players think that they're finally getting somepalce safe only to discover how bad things really are.
In general less divine magic (cures, etc) and more monsters the PCs can't hurt the more grim it gets. (Monsters that can only be hurt by the weird black magical dagger that slowly turns the PCs flesh blue, eyes yellow and gives her an uncontroable craving for brains is also good).
You might want to be careful about this though:
1. One of my PCs made his character's tag line "things are improving, everythings getting worse more slowly." And you start to hear a lot of 'jokes' about how many negative levels people are going to get today.... In otherwords abject unending horror leads to mutinous players.
2. If you're following standard 3e experience rules then throwing PCs up against high CR monsters will tend to lead your party up to rather high levels quickly. This can help offset the unhappy PC syndrome.
If you're looking for a really good game setting with enough grit and grim to fill a ship there is always SL. NF did a good job talking about how neat the world is but the one thing worth reiterating is that the vast majority of Scarn is a pretty tough place to be.
I use it myself and the players complain all the time about how hard it is. The best was when they tried to sell some magic items last session.
"but the players handbook says its worth at least 8000 gold..."
"sure its probably worth a lot, but there ain't nobody around here gonna buy it. sorry 1000 pentacles. take it or leave it."
They'd been carrying around that magical silver tipped spear for a month....
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