So... Anybody got a Light, Point of?

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Who remember darkearth ?
This was a point of light setting. Literraly : magical darkness cover the whole earth, only a few place are blessed with the sun light. Mutant monsters roam the darkness, and adventurers are the only one fool enough to risk their souls outside the light of the cities.
BTW, it was also an pen&paper RPG.

A literal interpretation, eh?

I can see that, perhaps even in a less blatant sense where the PoLs are actual environmental anamolies.

Not to the extent that creatures from the Points couldn't go into the darkness, but at least to the point where the anomolies allow you to live in way you can't in the darkness. Then the PC races become those cultures who can really derive advantage from the spaces where the non-PC cultures can only derive advantages from raiding the PC cultures.

Water would be an obvious possibility, but that really limits the terrain you can play in. Unless you specify a form of water, or have the water appear in many forms ala John Carter of Mars.

 

[DogBackward]

Just a basic idea now, but I've been working on converting an E6 campaign idea to a Points of Light 4e basis. The original idea was a world where almost all the gods* had been killed by a group of "adventurers" years ago. The one who killed one of the gods would gain a piece of their immortality. In game mechanics, that would raise their level cap by 1; so the only way to get past level 6 is to kill gods.

* I was originally using D&D high-CR creatures as the gods. For example; Io'Zhan the Ogrelord was an Ogre-Mage, a covey of Hags were a mini-pantheon of their own, and so on and so forth. I wouldn't use any of the "true" gods for this setting. This also explains how a group of 6th level heroes were able to kill their first god to advance beyond level 6.

Only thing is, the gods were the source of all magic in the world, though nobody but a very few knew this at the time. THe world was going to be very low-magic because of this, as magical power began to fade after the death of the gods.

This is where my Points of Light idea comes in. The dead gods, and the places where they died, possess a lingering magical aura. Whereas the areas outside the gods' places of death are slowly dying out and becoming overrun by beasts and monsters previously kept away by divine will, the areas near the dead divinities are still (mostly) bright and liveable.

The idea was that a god cannot be truly killed, only subdued for a time. Imagine the surprise of your average peasant when the dead bodies of the gods rise up in the middle of the city. This is especially relevant with the Points of Light idea added on, as the area around the "dead" gods is the only place suitable for civilized life at all...

Anyway, it still needs some work, but I think it makes a decent basic idea. I might change things, though, so that you need to kill deities to go from Heroic to Paragon, and kill more powerful deities to go from Paragon to Epic, since I doubt I'll use E6 with 4e. Not that E6 isn't awesome, but I don't think it'll be needed (I hope).

 

[bgaesop]

Points of Light is pretty much my favorite flavour basis for a setting, and is how almost all of my homebrew games have gone, to at least a degree. I'll post more in a bit about my homebrew world, but for now let me just say:

 

[howandwhy99]

Personally I don't see this style of world creation in such stark terms. I think it covers most D&D worlds. It's more of a patchwork design method though than something sweeping. I mean, it's not like you couldn't create a whole country as you went along. One that was part of a larger empire.

I think the real benefit here is the simplicity and ease with which cool stuff can be added without painting yourself into a corner. You can grab from anywhere and put it in your homebrew world. And when a Player gets creative with their backstory you can write that new portion in too as if it has always existed, because, for all the players know, it always has.

To my understanding PoL is one of the best things about 4E because it is both so simple and so inclusive. Not to mention it gets players and DMs thinking as if they are the creators of their world regardless of where the material comes from.

I guess I'm so for this 'cause it's the way I like to make campaign worlds. Plus our group campaigns in the Wilderlands of Harn in the Grey Realms (a big mishmash + over 10 years of our Ref's previous homebrew).

 

[med stud]

Personally I don't see this style of world creation in such stark terms. I think it covers most D&D worlds. It's more of a patchwork design method though than something sweeping. I mean, it's not like you couldn't create a whole country as you went along. One that was part of a larger empire.

I think the real benefit here is the simplicity and ease with which cool stuff can be added without painting yourself into a corner. You can grab from anywhere and put it in your homebrew world. And when a Player gets creative with their backstory you can write that new portion in too as if it has always existed, because, for all the players know, it always has.

To my understanding PoL is one of the best things about 4E because it is both so simple and so inclusive. Not to mention it gets players and DMs thinking as if they are the creators of their world regardless of where the material comes from.

I guess I'm so for this 'cause it's the way I like to make campaign worlds. Plus our group campaigns in the Wilderlands of Harn in the Grey Realms (a big mishmash + over 10 years of our Ref's previous homebrew).

Well, what are you waiting for then? Give us a contribution

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

World of Greyhawk From the Ashes by Carl Sargent was the FIRST point of light campaign for D&D.

I don't know about it being the first Points of Light for D&D campaign. The Grand Duchy of Karameikos was firmly PoL-themed. A difference would be the degree of danger in the darkness. In From the Ashes, the danger was extreme, dangerous for even high level parties to step outside the safe cities. Karameikos was designed as a PoL setting for the Basic-level characters and the danger outside the safe towns was far less for higher-level characters.

 

[ONINOTAKI18]

The Darksun campiagn world for me, not only is it my favorite and premade, but it is also just full of points of light ideas and sources.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

And then, there was Raveloft, where even the Points of Light seemed snuffled out to minisemal amounts...

 

[Orius]

Some of the ideas I've been working on for a new campiagn world can easily fit into the points of light.

The main campaign area was once home to a large human empire which grew corrupt and decadent. After a time, the dwarves ceased trading with the empire, while the elves grew angry with them, and stirred up a barbarian rebellion which ended up shattering the empire. In the time of the campaign, several centuries later, the empire is trying to rebuild, and there are a small number of human kingdoms which are relatively safe. The rest of the area is either wilderness or home to a number of squabbling baronies constantly at war with each other.

In the west, the clerics of the main LG deity have become intolerant zealots, they have established an oppressive theocracy and they and their paladins are on a crusade to convert the people of the land. Their main enemies are the old empire and a city of thieves that prizes its freedom.

In the south, a goblin empire has become far more militant and organized after years of slavery under the old empire. The hobgoblin rulers are now bent on a genocidal campaign againt a neigboring elf kingdom, which may erupt into an even bigger war.

The ancient elf kingdom was long ago destroyed in a war which followed the seperation of the elves and drow. The drow created extensive tunnels underneath the elf kingdom, and then collapsed them, sinking most of the kingdom under the sea. The few survivors still live on the islands which remain of the old elven kindgom, but many of them have fled to a new homeland far off in the eastern ocean. This old elf kingdom will probably be converted to eladrin if I go to 4e.

The dwarves are thriving in their realms, but long ago they lived far to the north, in an area that was very rich with mineral wealth. They were driven out by an invasion of powerful dragons and many of them hope to one day reclaim their ancient lands by force.

Between this ancient dwarven homeland and the main campaign area are the Witch-lands, ruled by cruel and evil spell casters. The theocracy wants to unify the main campaign area in part to purge the Witch-lands of its evil. The Witch-lands would pose a greater threat to the main campaign area, but the rulers refuse to cooperate with each other and constantly fight among themselves.

Across a sea from the theocracy is a small collection of primitive and barbarian kingdoms (if I go with 4e, I'll just turn it into empty wilderness to more fully embrace the PoL concept). Beyond these kindgoms is a long, wide, and deep river filled with ferocious predators and beyond the river is the terrible Crystal Desert, created in an ancient cataclysm. The Crystal Desert (which I intended as an area for epic adventuring) is home to many powerful monsters, and very few dare to tread there.

Anyway, while I have been designing parts of this world with 3.5 considerations in mind, I think 4e might work alright with it. I'll probably dump the dragonborn, since they don't fit into anything I've come up with, or I can just find a place to shoehorn them (there's still plenty of room). Same with tieflings, but maybe I can put them in the Witch-lands (that would work).

What I had in mind was a campaign where the characters would be able to establish a barony and become lords in their own right, like a traditional campaign, rather than having lots of big kingdoms where there's little room for the players to be large and in charge. I can easily work the points of light into this.