Well, I guess I should have posted this earlier, as I had posted these extra details on the OpenRPG forums in response to someone's similar inquiry, but I kept forgetting to post it here too. These are some details on my custom 3rd Edition D&D settings. I'm not very good at writing up introductions or attention-getters, so I don't have any evocative descriptions to post right now... So this will have to do for the moment. Based on the responses I've gotten in e-mail and the OpenRPG boards, it looks like I'll probably run 3E D&D, as few people have mentioned interest in Rokugan, Arcana Unearthed, or D20 Modern. Seems likely that Saturdays or Sundays will be the game days. I'll give some more info soon, and e-mail some replies to folks this week.
1. Tentatively called "Umbra" for now... A world where the Godwar has recently ended, and all that remains are the mortals. All deities have fallen in battle with one another, and the world has finally started to recover from the near-apocalypse, mortals picking up the pieces and rebuilding their kingdoms and empires in a godless world.
Divine magic is gone, the divine power of the world nearly spent, barely sustaining the souls of mortals, who now suffer short and harsh lives. Humanity is on the rise now, and mankind has begun to forge mighty and noble kingdoms across Umbra, their knighthoods sweeping across the lands held by weakened elves, dwarves, and hobgoblins. Gnomes, halflings, dwarves, elves, and half-orcs still exist in fair numbers, but have lost much and become the equals of Men rather than superiors. The once-ubiquitous goblinoids have largely been scattered and diminished, reduced to primitive savagery after their grand civilization's fall.
With divine magic gone, priesthoods have been almost universally crushed and discarded, and arcanists have taken the opportunity to show off their mighty and usefulness, filling the power void. Some mages have even learned to tap into the Positive and Negative Energy Planes, learning spells of healing and slaying that are mere shadows of what clerics once wielded, but still useful in the now-godless world.
"Umbra" uses mostly core 3E rules, but all divine magic-users are gone, replaced with the custom classes of Scout, Royal Knight, Verdant Knight, Spectral Knight, Ecomancer, and Necrosavant. The first two are mundane replacements for the ranger and paladin, though the RK can be of any lawful alignment and is focused on true knightly pursuits. I've designed numerous new arcane spells available to the other four custom classes, which function similarly to certain divine spells but are less potent (but with clerics gone, who's going to complain if the local ecomancer can only heal you half or two-thirds as well?). Healing is less efficient and less common than in the core rules, and returning from the dead is tricky and difficult business, but despite the greater danger in the world, mortals band together more strongly and with greater loyalty to their fellows.
2. Rhunaria, a largely-unexplored world where danger lurks over the next hill and riches await beyond the next valley. Humanoids have evolved and spread across the continent, but harsh lifestyles with many threats have kept their numbers low, their territories small. A vast elven kingdom once controlled much of the known land, but only briefly before the other races rebelled against the conquering elves and the vile elven Mage-King, whose name none dare to speak again.
The Mage-King disappeared a few hundred years ago during the rebellion, just as the dwarves, orcs, humans, halflings and others invaded the elven capitol. The Mage-King's twisted experiments created many of the world's abominations and misfit creatures, including the minotaurs, grimlocks, yuan-ti, dark elves, aquatic elves, kobolds, and lizardfolk. In the rebellion, the aquatic elves managed to escape their wretched creator and survive in the deep sea until the war ended, being of a peaceful mindset. However, the dark elves were engineered to be utterly loyal to the Mage-King, and though many died fighting the rebels, no one knows how many dark elven cities the Mage-King may have created underground.
Now, the rebellion ended a few hundred years ago and humanoids have restored their individual sovereignty, building their own kingdoms and empires, though none as grand as the previous elven nation. The elves of the former empire have survived only by fleeing into the ancient forests they inhabited before civilization, and the small tribes of them which remain have reverted to primitive ways. Humans, dwarves, goblins, and others have developed keen technology as the gnomes, dark elves, aquatic elves, and others have developed more magical techniques. The technology-advocates have recently developed primitive firearms, unreliable but useful nonetheless.
Rhunaria uses mostly the core 3E rules, but the selection of races is somewhat different and expanded, with altered and slighlty improved stats for humans, gnomes, and halflings, and some adjustments to dwarves and the elven races. Besides those races, goblins, hobgoblins, lizardfolk, and kobolds are playable, with some adjustments to goblins and kobolds that make them easily the equals of gnomes or halflings. Magic and technology would be slightly restricted, in that certain races have only limited knowledge of magic and others have only limited knowledge of technology, i.e. dark elves don't know jack about guns or crossbows, but they're born and bred for sorcery or wizardry.
3. Aurelia, a campaign setting where the Planes are all interconnected and close, where you can walk to any corner of the world and cross into an elemental Plane, or fly straight up into the Positive Energy Plane, or dig down until you burrow into the Negative Energy Plane. The Outer Planes are merely a short trip away through the Ethereal or Astral, and hidden portals across the Material Plane can take you to any of these realms. However, the gods are an active force in the world, preventing any planar invasions or the like, but involving many mortals in their battles and exploits. Thus, the "Prime" Material Plane is sometimes neutral ground and other times a fierce battleground.
Many strange creatures live in Aurelia, especially with the elemental Planes so close, and even those creatures familiar to planewalkers of other Primes will differ. Ancient human tribes allied with elemental denizens, producing the numerous tribes of Firagi, Endari, Aquari, and Aeragi that live near the elemental borderlands. Strange denizens of the nearby Positive and Negative Energy Planes likewise consorted with other human tribes, forming the noble Celestri and the vile Draegi, though much more rare. Humanity still survives by itself however, and pure human kingdoms still reign in many places. However, the orcs, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings have their own empires and kingdoms as well, and the world is rife with war between all these many nations. Peace settles in occasionally, but Aurelia is largely a warlike Plane where members of the same race often cannot get along.
Aurelia uses the core 3E rules only as a baseline, and nearly everything is tweaked to some degree. Many "splatbooks" are also mined for new feats, prestige classes, spells, etc. Psionics are used as well, with a few minor tweaks, but most things in Aurelia are at least very similar to the core rules. Playable races include humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, half-orcs, half-elves, orcs, firagi, aquari, aeragi, endari, celestri, and draegi. The last six are blends of humanity and elemental creatures, but primarily resemble humans (they are not merely Forgotten Realms planetouched, mind you, and there is quite some difference between, say, a firagi and a fire genasi, or a draegi and a tiefling).
One important facet of Aurelia is that I have modified all 11 core classes, as well as the 2 psionic classes, but the changes are only minor and oriented towards balance and flavor. Also, I have created 3 alternates for each class, each of which is treated as the base class (i.e. a totemic druid is still a druid, so no multiclassing between the two), but is oriented towards a different aspect of the class. For instance, the totemic druid gains power from three beast totems, which limits their wild shaping and other abilities somewhat, but gives them special affinity for those totem creatures, allowing them to take on similar traits and more potent wild shape forms that resemble those creatures. Another example is the troubador sub-class of bard, which focuses on more bardic music options, better bardic knowledge, and better acrobatic and performance abilities, in exchange for reduced spellcasting and combat ability.
4. Azeria, a simple, amalgamated campaign setting where just about any 3rd Edition D&D material could potentially see use. Azeria is the first setting I worked on when starting to DM, and it is what I used for my first campaign, so it's also the setting I've had the most time to ponder and flesh out, though I've focused largely on one region, the kingdom of Dargoth where humans, elves, dwarves, and a few others live in harmony under a benevolent and fair human king. Azeria is an ancient world where just about anything can be found if you look hard enough, long enough, and far enough. Untold ages have passed, while the gods have destroyed numerous incarnations of the present races and some that were never remade. Ruins of ancient civilizations are everywhere, but not much history is known of them due to the gods' wrath every few millenia.
The most recent major power in the world was a vast empire of psionic individuals, whose mental gifts instilled a sense of superiority and authority, resulting in their banding together and conquest of Azeria's main continent. After a few hundred years of psionic rule, the empire spread at least partially onto the other continents and held most of the world under its sway. A cabal of mages, priests, and mundanes eventually gathered together on a distant island and then attacked the psionic empire in a surprise blitzkrieg, where the beautiful and glorious psionic cities were devastated with assaults of vast magical power, and mundane warriors invaded to mop up any remnants of the diabolical psionics. However, during the rule of the empire, much of the ancient histories and magical texts were destroyed, and when all was said and done, only the mundanes really had any power, and thus did they take firm control over the few centuries following.
Now, mages, priests, and psionics are no more numerous or powerful than knighthoods, spread far and thin across Azeria. However, many old magical and mental traditions yet remain under the wreckage of old civilizations, and numerous secret cabals work to discover and hide away this ancient knowledge, practicing the ancient arts of magic and psionics. A local oracle, for instance, is equally likely to be a wizard, psion, runemage, shaman, cleric, shugenja, or other strange spellcaster.
Azeria allows for just about any 3E D&D material to be used, but focuses on the core rules and does not utilize any modifications to the core rules. However, optional rules and additions from many splatbooks are available and useable with Azeria. Psionics are as common as arcane magic in Azeria, while divine magic is a little more common. Although the core rules and splatbook rules are not changed when used in Azeria, I do work on several customized feats, prestige classes, monsters, magic items, psionic items, spells, and so on. Many secret orders, and some of the more mainstream organizations, have their own small prestige class, feats, or spells that make them unique, such as the Blademaster from the Order Of The Mystic Blade, the Glyph Magi from the Order Of The Shining Sigil, the Herald Of The Dawn, the Blood Praetor, or the Ninja Of The Silent Blade.
5. "Convergence," a setting that I have yet to name as it includes two separate material planes, which suddenly become connected by magical gateways, through which the denizens explore eachothers' world and interact for the first time. I would like to run a campaign set in the fantasy realm of this setting, a material plane I haven't named yet, but is designed for high fantasy, with active deities and priesthoods, as well as strange arcane magics and myriad fantasy creatures running amok. A powerful central pantheon of deities holds sway over most mortals, a familial pantheon of 11 related elemental "spirits" of great power, whose bodies make up the world. Humanity worships this pantheon, as do many individuals of the other humanoid races, but other humanoids also have some priesthoods venerating minor deities and spirits, and such priests are the typical divine casters from the core rules.
The 11 great spirits, however, grant their followers access to new classes of divine spellcaster, such as the Light Weaver who worships the Sun Spirit, master of using positive energy for turning enemies, or the antithetical Shadow Reaver who venerates the Shadow Spirit and masters the undead and powers of corruption, or the largely-neutral Skyspeaker who devoutly follows the whimsy of the Air Spirit as they channel prophetic dreams and whispers from the goddess herself.
Wizards and sorcerers have no place in this setting, instead replaced by mysterious Warlocks and Magi. The Warlock studies strange, hermetic magicks of nature, elements, fate, and summoning, with a keen familiarity for their spells. A Magus channels innate power that consumes their lifeforce, weakening them with every spell but giving them supreme flexibility with how they develop and cast their spells, while requiring little study or practice and thus allowing them to develop a powerful physique and fighting talents.
"Convergence" uses the 3E core rules mostly, except for the new classes mentioned above, and the playable races are expanded upon to include a few different subraces of dwarf, gnome, and elf, as well as including halflings, orcs, and humans, while also including various hybrid races. Humans, half-orcs, and the various half-elves gain certain regional benefits based upon their homeland, and have access to certain regional feats. The most significant rules alteration used for "Convergence" is a custom system of Health/Vitality replacing hit points, allowance of crippling injuries, armor granting some damage reduction and somtimes energy resistance, and a general increase in the realism of combat through these changes and a few others. It is overall a little more complicated than the core rules for hit points, armor, and AC bonuses, but not overly complicated and it is more realistic.
