D&D 4E Suggestions for designing a 4e setting

[Quickleaf]

I'm writing a campaign setting I've always dreamed of, and I'm curious what suggestions you folks have about how to make a setting suit 4e (based on what we know so far)?

My tendency is to make the system suit the setting, which is why I ask. I'm not wedded to any particular system, just want to see if I could do this in 4e without too much difficulty...

Setting: Karathia is a fallen magocracy, whose human only population lived under the oppression of the Witch-Finders of Suleistarn, dogma of the Imperial Church, and greed of the Emperor's war tax. Now, trade routes are being reclaimed by nature and monsters, packs of unpaid soldiers turned mercenary raid villages, ghosts of the uprising haunt the land, and petty warlords cling to imperial dreams. Neighboring nations are ready to pounce when the empire heaves its last gasp. The elder races are a distant memory, magic is rare and mysterious, and the Otherworlds exist. Outsiders are restricted from entering the world by the Veil. Wizards (indoctrinated to be loyal to the empire) are governed by a body of rights & limitations known as the Compact.
Campaign: Prophecies of the Phoenix Age are whispered by hearths, and carried from village to village by bards. With the rebirth of the Phoenix the elder races will return, magic will blossom, tyrants will be deposed, and the slumbering fires within the earth will purify the land. The heroes face off against shadow fey, ghosts, mercenaries, the thieves' guild, templars & inquisitors, witch-finders, foreign invaders, monster cults, and rakshasa to resurrect the Phoenix.

 

[Traycor]

Looks to me like it will fit with the new edition just fine.

 

[Drammattex]

Sounds good, Quickleaf.

Now that you have a basic sketch, my suggestion would be to choose a very, very small locale. It could be a village or a city neighborhood or a frontier settlement. Draw up ONLY that one locale (keeping in mind the sketch you made in your head of your basic idea of the rest of the world). Detail as many NPCs as possible and concentrate on that tiny area with all your focus. Run the adventure around that area. That will be your seed for how the rest of the world will grow... or the "candle" by which the rest of the world will be illuminated.

If you start on the local level, you get a very personal, very real sketch of how the multitude of NPCs feel about the world around them, and you can use those to further develop your world concept. It will inform your world and make it grow. Let it be fluid and evolve as you create content for each adventure.

Anyway, it works for me. Good luck with your campaign setting.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I think you need to define your terrain, given the new terrain geography for the races, but otherwise it looks pretty good.

As an aside, why is the imperial church so powerful in a magiocracy? That sounds like an interesting story in its own right.

Is it the body that also happens to enforce the compact? Has it become so oppressive precisely because in the degradation of all other aspects of civilzation enforcing the compact is the only unifying trait the culture has left?

 

[Arkhandus]

Step 1) Forget everything you knew about the fantasy genre up to this point.

Step 2) Wait half a year for the 4th Edition Player's Handbook and purchase it.

Step 3) Mold whatever you had in mind to fit the New Official Vision of Fantasy Roleplaying.

:\

 

[Acid_crash]

Step 1) Forget everything you knew about the fantasy genre up to this point.

Step 2) Wait half a year for the 4th Edition Player's Handbook and purchase it.

Step 3) Mold whatever you had in mind to fit the New Official Vision of Fantasy Roleplaying.

:\

pretty much what he said.

 

[med stud]

Step 1) Forget everything you knew about the fantasy genre up to this point.

Step 2) Wait half a year for the 4th Edition Player's Handbook and purchase it.

Step 3) Mold whatever you had in mind to fit the New Official Vision of Fantasy Roleplaying.

:\

Why would he? He could just as well mold 4e to fit his POV. His description does seem non-specific enough to use in any RPG that I'm familiar with.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Regarding the OP:

Are non-humans only going to appear after the rebirth of the phoenix? Or might the PC races themselves be heralds of the coming of the actual elder races.

So that the Eladrin and Elves represent the Scouts and Chroniclers of One House, the Dragonborn and Dwarves the footguards two others, Half-Elves and Tieflings the descendants of the long hidden exiles of some houses, and Halflings a race that has long followed such conjunctions and delights in the opportunity they present for profit.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Step 1) Forget everything you knew about the fantasy genre up to this point.

Step 2) Wait half a year for the 4th Edition Player's Handbook and purchase it.

Step 3) Mold whatever you had in mind to fit the New Official Vision of Fantasy Roleplaying.

:\

D&D was never a canon on what is fantasy - it was it's own genre, but as shown by the often quite exotic settings produced in the past, it could means VERY different stuff. Why it would be different?

And why Fantasy have to follow default D&D (or the grognards's classic, pseudo-european, faux medieval fare)?

 

[Irda Ranger]

Step 1) Forget everything you knew about the fantasy genre up to this point.

Step 2) Wait half a year for the 4th Edition Player's Handbook and purchase it.

Step 3) Mold whatever you had in mind to fit the New Official Vision of Fantasy Roleplaying.

:\

There is no "Official Version" of anything. The OP (and this goes for all of us) is free to dream up any campaign world he chooses, and adapt it to 4E or adapt 4E to it, as he chooses.

Yours was not a helpful post.