Setting Gimmicks

[Fanaelialae]

You don't necessarily need a "gimmick", but I do find that they can help alleviate jadedness of "yet another fantasy setting". An idea I've been toying with is from Brandon Sanderson's novel, Warbreaker.

Therein, one of the major religions worships people who have risen from the dead, called the Returned. It's claimed that only those who died in an extraordinary manner are worthy of this. They have no memory of their previous lives, but their priests claim that their dreams are prophetic. Although ageless, they must consume one soul (called a Breath) each week to survive. This isn't quite as bad as it sounds, as giving away your Breath simply turns you Drab; you lose your "sixth sense" and are more prone to being sick and getting depressed, but largely you're still you. Their worshipers even consider it an honor to give their Breath to one of the Returned. Each Returned is capable of giving away their own Breath to accomplish a miracle that can heal the sick or even raise the dead, but doing so kills that Returned. Other religions outright dispute the divinity of the Returned.

I find it interesting because, fundamentally, they're just people who are worshipped as gods. They possess power, but not of the "Zeus strikes you down with lightning from the heavens" variety. I'd probably expand their ability to give away their Breath to accomplishing one godly miracle - which still kills them. In addition, I think it would be interesting for them to invest clerics and paladins with divine power. As such, not only have you met your deity at level 1, but they derive the bulk of their worldly power from you and their other invested followers.

I think I'd make the other religion(s) of the "do the gods really exist" variety, just to give them a counterpoint. Do you worship the deity you can see with your own eyes, who is far from omnipotent and therefore might not even be a god, or do you take your chances upon a supposedly omnipotent creator who might not even exist?

 

[pukunui]

That is a good hook. Here are some follow up questions:

Excellent questions! Thank you.

Why did the rise of civilization result in the decline of magic? For example, Eberron is an example of the opposite trend, where magic became technology and contributed to civilization.

Right. My initial inclination was to say that there was some kind of witch hunt that drove out magic users and magical creatures, but that would likely result in people fearing/banning mages from their lands, even centuries after magic has all but disappeared, which in turn could result in it being unfun to play a magic user, which isn't my goal.

Perhaps it was just, as in real world history, as the empire brought stability and peace to its citizens, they encountered magic and monsters less and less frequently, until it got to the point where they had mostly been reduced to the subject of superstitions and fairy tales. As their "belief" in magic faded, so too did the connection between the natural world and its more magical mirror planes.

Perhaps in the more urban areas, mages never disappeared entirely, they just withdrew into their enclaves and the common folk again stopped witnessing their power on a regular basis. "Those wizards always keep to themselves in their towers. Can they even do magic anymore? Maybe they hide away because they're too ashamed to admit that they can't."

Perhaps no one even really knows why magic faded. It could be one of the great mysteries of all time. And maybe the fact that it happened as the empire was reaching its height is mere coincidence (or just appears to be).

Did the monsters literally fade to another realm? If not, where did the remaining monsters go while the forces of the empire hunted them/kept them at bay? To the Underdark? Does that mean they all are dark-adapted and are familiar with the Underdark?

Depends on the monster really. I'm thinking more in terms of the mystical, otherworldly creatures ~ pixies, demons, maybe even dragons. They would've come from these mirror planes originally, and so as the connection faded, they wouldn't have been able to cross over as easily in either direction. Those that remained in the natural world would've been killed or driven away ~ either into the untamed wilds or down into forgotten dungeons and such.

What areas of the world were never touched by the empire which acted to diminish magic & monsters?

There certainly would've been areas outside the empire's borders. I'm thinking more the Roman Empire at its height, not some globe-spanning empire or anything. However, I would imagine that areas outside the empire also lost magic, although maybe not to the same extent.

When a PC Mage casts a whiz-bang spell (fireball), how would common folk react?

I think it depends on what the mage was doing at the time. I mean, even in a place like Waterdeep, you can't just drop a fireball in the middle of the street without some kind of consequence. I think if the PC was actively trying to hurt the commoners, or was just being harmfully reckless, the commoners would feel a mixture of fear and anger. If the PC was actively trying to help the commoners by dropping a fireball on some bandits or zombies or whatever, then the commoners' relief at being saved might override their fear. The local lord would definitely be keen to speak with such a mage, though. He might be worried at the power the mage possesses, or he might want to try to get the mage into his service so he can control the power.

Would this be fun in play, or would it just make being a Mage a hassle?

My goal is not to make it a hassle to play a mage. I merely want to restore a sense of wonder and mystery into the world. I don't like the idea that in many D&D worlds, knowledge of the planes and demon lords and whatever else are so commonplace that they might as well be taught in school. The dead rising from their graves shouldn't be something anyone expects to have happen for real. A dragon would be a creature shrouded in myth. Orcs and goblins, though, are probably just going to be part of the setting.

You don't necessarily need a "gimmick", but I do find that they can help alleviate jadedness of "yet another fantasy setting".

Yes, exactly!

That's an interesting idea about the Returned. Thanks for sharing.

 

[pukunui]

OK, some more thoughts:

As the empire gained more power, it started to impose more laws on public magic use in the name of peace and stability. This certainly would've resulted in some conflict, which may have just led to the empire to crack down even harder, and eventually most mages just withdrew from the public eye. Thus by the time the campaign opens, arcane magic is simply something that hardly anyone's ever witnessed firsthand. [It also seems likely that studied wizardry would be almost non-existent; most arcane magic would be wielded by innate users (sorcerers) or those who've gained their power from pacts with magical beings (warlocks). One could also make the case that divine casters would fall into the latter category as well, maybe also druids and rangers.]

Meanwhile, as the empire reached its height, the holy warriors of the land grew powerful and numerous enough that they were able to keep a lid on the undead (if you'll pardon the pun). However, as the empire crumbled, the holy orders lost power and influence to the point that they can no longer stop the dead from rising. [EDIT: Come to think of it, wouldn't any sensible society, when faced with the threat of the dead rising from their graves, start cremating their dead as a rule, thus relegating skeletons, zombies, ghouls and the like to ancient cemeteries and battlefields? Or, if there's some religious reason not to cremate the bodies, then at least locate the cemeteries far from town? Or put up lots of anti-undead magical wards and the like?]

Same for crossings between the natural world and its magical mirror realms ~ maybe the empire had a special organization that watched over these crossings, making sure that otherworldly creatures didn't come through ... but now those watchers are too few to stop the monsters from crossing over.

Stuff like that.

 

[Quickleaf]

Excellent questions! Thank you.

Right. My initial inclination was to say that there was some kind of witch hunt that drove out magic users and magical creatures, but that would likely result in people fearing/banning mages from their lands, even centuries after magic has all but disappeared, which in turn could result in it being unfun to play a magic user, which isn't my goal.

Perhaps it was just, as in real world history, as the empire brought stability and peace to its citizens, they encountered magic and monsters less and less frequently, until it got to the point where they had mostly been reduced to the subject of superstitions and fairy tales. As their "belief" in magic faded, so too did the connection between the natural world and its more magical mirror planes.

You're welcome! You do have plenty of ideas that make your setting unique, you just needed a bit of encouragement and some guiding questions to go a bit deeper with your ideas is all.

You can make the whole witch hunt thing work for PC magic-users if you really want to. You would need to think thru how much you want "the need for subtle casting" to permeate your campaign though. It is a massive change in feel, one that I have run before.

But the way you're presenting it is almost Mage: the Ascension like. Magic sounds like it is tied to belief (or perhaps other worlds?) in your setting, as you're describing it here. I would almost imagine pockets of banality/reason where it would be harder for a magic-user to cast spells, or at least a very rationale person to have a bonus to resist magic.

It seems like you're setting up Magic ("The Old Ways") vs. Reason ("Civilization") as a theme.

Perhaps in the more urban areas, mages never disappeared entirely, they just withdrew into their enclaves and the common folk again stopped witnessing their power on a regular basis. "Those wizards always keep to themselves in their towers. Can they even do magic anymore? Maybe they hide away because they're too ashamed to admit that they can't."

This makes a little more sense with your further example about the Empire persecuting magic-users. Maybe you could answer the "why"? Why did the empire crack down on magic-users? What was it a reaction to? Or was it some sort of misguided nationalist ideology? If so, what was the ideology that condemned magic? To happen on such a mass scale it should be frighteningly more than "magic is evil".

Perhaps no one even really knows why magic faded. It could be one of the great mysteries of all time. And maybe the fact that it happened as the empire was reaching its height is mere coincidence (or just appears to be).

That's a perfectly good way to present it to the players. However, you as DM have to answer that question if for no other reason that eventually your players are going to be asking it!

Depends on the monster really. I'm thinking more in terms of the mystical, otherworldly creatures ~ pixies, demons, maybe even dragons. They would've come from these mirror planes originally, and so as the connection faded, they wouldn't have been able to cross over as easily in either direction. Those that remained in the natural world would've been killed or driven away ~ either into the untamed wilds or down into forgotten dungeons and such.

Ok, if you're differentiating monsters by plane of origin, then that would indicate more ecological inches for "natural monsters" like orcs, hobgoblins, manticores, pegasi and the like. This creates further questions:

Which monsters are "natural"? For example, what about dragons?
What was the relationship between these natural monsters and the Empire?
With fey, shadow, demons, devils, and angels mostly absent, that has implications for characters which allude to such things (e.g. warlocks, tieflings, eladrin)...how will you handle that?

My goal is not to make it a hassle to play a mage. I merely want to restore a sense of wonder and mystery into the world. I don't like the idea that in many D&D worlds, knowledge of the planes and demon lords and whatever else are so commonplace that they might as well be taught in school. The dead rising from their graves shouldn't be something anyone expects to have happen for real. A dragon would be a creature shrouded in myth. Orcs and goblins, though, are probably just going to be part of the setting.

Sense of wonder. That's tricky because if you are gaming with players who know D&D there is a certain amount of jadedness and joking that comes with the territory. Your answer seems to be story-based: IOW how the NPCs react the magic, and the prevalence of magic the PCs encounter being restricted. If you've got players who really go in for immersion that can work. OTOH players who know trolls are hurt by acid/fire and skeletons by bludgeoning...it's hard to instill a sense of wonder in them unless you start hacking the monster stats (or other rules) to throw a curve ball at them.

I think if you want a sense of wonder, you've got to do two things:

(1) Make it wondrous, both in how you describe it, and in what it *actually* is in terms of rules and monster/setting ecology. For example: Skeletons. You can describe them with as much flowery prose as you like, and it can be very evocative, but on the Player's end one or more of them is going to think or say "OK, so basically skeletons." You've also got to follow thru on the promise of wonder. What is different about these skeletons?

(2) Give the players a reasons care or to explore. For example: Skeletons in most games are there to be killed and not much thought is given to them. What if they all had runes on their bones that had messages which could be deciphered, or even spells? But destroying the skeletons risks destroying parts of the spell? What if a simple Mending Cantrip would put it back together...and reanimate the skeleton? What if skeletons only activate on specific triggers which smart play can circumvent?

 

[pukunui]

You're welcome! You do have plenty of ideas that make your setting unique, you just needed a bit of encouragement and some guiding questions to go a bit deeper with your ideas is all.

Precisely! Thanks for taking the time to help.

This makes a little more sense with your further example about the Empire persecuting magic-users. Maybe you could answer the "why"? Why did the empire crack down on magic-users? What was it a reaction to? Or was it some sort of misguided nationalist ideology? If so, what was the ideology that condemned magic? To happen on such a mass scale it should be frighteningly more than "magic is evil".

Yeah, this aspect of it definitely needs more thought.

Which monsters are "natural"? For example, what about dragons?

I'm not sure yet.

What was the relationship between these natural monsters and the Empire?

Some of them would just be seen as being like elephants and lions and whatnot. They're just the native fauna of this particular world.

With fey, shadow, demons, devils, and angels mostly absent, that has implications for characters which allude to such things (e.g. warlocks, tieflings, eladrin)...how will you handle that?

Well, but that's just the thing. They were mostly absent in the past, but now they're coming back. I want to include all the usual stuff, I just want it to feel "new" ~ for the PCs at least, if not the players.

Sense of wonder. That's tricky because if you are gaming with players who know D&D there is a certain amount of jadedness and joking that comes with the territory. Your answer seems to be story-based: IOW how the NPCs react the magic, and the prevalence of magic the PCs encounter being restricted. If you've got players who really go in for immersion that can work. OTOH players who know trolls are hurt by acid/fire and skeletons by bludgeoning...it's hard to instill a sense of wonder in them unless you start hacking the monster stats (or other rules) to throw a curve ball at them.

Yeah, exactly. That's the thing.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=54629]pukunui[/MENTION]
I greatly recommend the AD&D Worldbuilder's Guidebook by Rich Baker. It's not available on DnDclassics.com but you should be able to track down a copy elsewhere.

One of the things he says in the start of the book is that there are multiple approaches to designing a campaign world, and that if you want a game emphasizing politics and intrigue in a standard medieval setting, then there's little reason to deal with landforms and climate bands. IOW pick the right tool for the job. He goes on to discuss the various approaches to world building...

Macroscopic - Birthright was apparently designed this way, looking at a planetary map and using some sort of random generator.

Microscopic - Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, and Greyhawk started with a small area described and then grew from there.

Sociological - Al-Qadim and Planescape both were more interested in the cultural and faith aspects rather than environmental mapping.

Character-based - Dragonlance is the prime example of a world built around the PCs/NPCS.

Situation-based - He offers Dark Sun as an example, but I'm not sure. I guess the definition is suitably vague that any number of approaches based on defining a conflict could fit. For example, Dragon Age with its mages vs. templars theme would be an example of a situation-based approach.

Historical - This approach involves establishing at least one major historical event as a setting defining element, or drawing on alternate earth histories. Many of the AD&D books like "Vikings" had historical themes. Eberron I believe had elements of this approach, and Dragonlance definitely did.

Literary - This approach involves emulating literature, for example the Lankhmar book.

Of course, regardless of where you start, you can mix an match these approaches. They're just a tool to orient you and help focus on the strengths & identifying features of your setting.

So with your setup, you could come at this from a number of angles:

• Macroscopic: focus on the parallel/multiple worlds and the interactions/paths between them.
• Microscopic: focus on a small locality to emphasize the feel of a dark dangerous world on insular people who are frightened by what lurks in the darkness over the other side of the hill.
• Sociological: focus on the ideologies around magic vs. reason, or the old ways and the new religion, and how societies are shaped by where they fall on that spectrum.
• Situation: focus on the return/reawakening of magic in the world as an event which is changing everything that people knew or took for granted.
• History: focus on the empire's deeds and their fallout, for good or evil, or perhaps some sort of magical cataclysm that explains the persecution of magic.

 

[pukunui]

Yes, I really need to get myself a copy of that book! It looks like I could get a second-hand one relatively cheaply on amazon.

This is a rough idea of what I have in mind for my 5e campaign:

*Based primarily in 4e's Nentir Vale and vicinity, which will be placed in a world of my own design

*The early levels will be based around dungeon delving, although I may run an adaptation of 4e's Reavers of Harkenwold adventure if it fits in

*Then I will attempt to hook the PCs across the vale to Winterhaven, where I will run an adaptation of Justin Alexander's modified version of 4e's Keep on the Shadowfell

*From there, I will run the group through 4e's Madness at Gardmore Abbey, with the idea that they will be able to claim the abbey for themselves as a base

*By now, they should be nearing the mid levels, and should they accept the idea of building a home base, they can then explore the surrounding area, clearing out monsters and bandits and attracting settlers to come to Gardmore Village and make it a living community again

*Should the campaign last into the high levels, then I'd have to start thinking about some kind of world-spanning (or at least vale-spanning) threat, but I'm not too worried about that now


Short version: my goal for the campaign is to have the PCs go from green wannabe adventurers to powerful lords, transforming their homeland from a sparsely populated frontier into a safer, more civilized land in the process


To be honest, the Nentir Vale setting already treats magic and magic-users as a fairly rare thing, so I don't know that I really need to do anything crazy in that regard. Maybe I can find something else to make the setting less generic.

To be even more honest, I love the Dragon Age setting, and I keep finding myself trying to transpose ideas from that setting into D&D, when really what I should probably be doing is trying to convince my group to play the Dragon Age RPG with me. Once I've got that out of my system, I can come back to D&D and just play it as it is.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=54629]pukunui[/MENTION]
I've heard mixed reviews about the Dragon Age rules, and the stunts getting repetitive if you make it your main RPG of choice. But there's no reason you couldn't pick up the boxed set for the map, take what you know of the setting, and tweak D&D 5e just a bit to get the result you want.

For exampl, do what Birthright did with evil humanoids (lumping them as "Orogs"), only label them "Darkspawn." Introduce Grey Wardens as a plot device. Limit races to human, elf, dwarf, or Qunari (using some homebrew half-giant race). Make all spellcasters Mages, but have clerics and paladins be associated with the Chantry. Dwarves cannot play spellcasters (but probably should get some form of magic resistance as a house rule). Treat the Fade as a conglomeration of the other planes.

It really wouldn't take much work.

 

[pukunui]

I've actually got the first two sets already, and the stunts mechanic is one of the main attractions of the system for me (Set 2 introduces more stunts). I wouldn't say they are any more repetitive than your average pre-4e D&D fighter's attacks would be.

 

[Ramaster]

Consider something different. I've worked on this for some time a couple of months ago:


Two planets, Alpha and Omega. They orbit each other (Binary System) and the nearby star.

They also "share" a moon. The moon's orbit is in the shape of a number "8", with the planets located on the "holes" of the 8.

Once every 3 months, the moon passes EXACTLY through the middle of both planets... and on this night... portal open on both worlds that connect them for a few hours.

During this time, travel between them is possible, and so trade is made ands news exchanged.

The portals are of varying sizes, some large enough to move a couple of trucks at the same time, others the size of a coin. Mayor cities are built around the big ones.

Different races/cultures have adapted to this in strange ways.

Elves on Alpha are all LG High Elves, but as soon as they cross to Omega, they become CE Drows.

All Dwaven males live on Alpha, and all females on Omega (they had a big fight centuries ago). On the nights of The Crossing, they briefly meet to arrange marriages, trade, breed, etc...

Gnomes on Alpha are obsessed with magic, while on Omega they crave technology.

Half-lings live a peaceful shire-like lives on Alpha. On Omega, they have a shared Hive-Mind that makes them similar to MTG Kithkins on Shadowmoor.