D&D 5E Tell me about your Homebrew 5E campaign setting

[KirayaTiDrekan]

That sounds cool. I love B5, so that's such a fun idea

I like this idea, would love to see more about it.

I actually have everything I've come up with so far here on EN World.

The Fifth City Campaign Group.

 

[Jester David]

Very much not mine. The artist's name escapes me now. I'm on my phone. But that link is from his Deviantart page.

Did you commission the piece or just create a concept for an existing piece?

 

[Hussar]

Did you commission the piece or just create a concept for an existing piece?

Naw. Shamelessly "borrowing". Funny thing is, I had a rough hand drawn map of the setting, basically a huge crater and then hemmed in the setting with mountains that looked surprisingly similar to this.

 

[jace]

My homebrew 5E campaign is based on the never-published Stormfront setting. The world is covered by a thick, supernatural cloud layer called the Veil and what remains of civilization lives among the mountain peaks above it. Below the Veil, the ever-twilit land is called the Gloom, and remains a place of ruins, bloodthirsty monsters, and dangerous tribes. Skyships travel from city to city, with some adventurers braving to go beneath the clouds to seek lost riches. There's a lot more to it, but my players might read this and I don't want to spoil the campaign.

Oh, and many of the elves here are transmutation researchers who live on a massive jellyfish called the Gossamer that floats among the clouds. The elves are trying to seed the surface with magically-modified life that can survive in the Gloom and transform it, but their efforts are not always very successful.

 

[Colin_Fredericks]

I've been running a Planescape game, so it's not quite a homebrew setting, but I've still had a lot of work to do. The Inspiration mechanics plug nicely into the "belief matters" ethos of Planescape, and we're using that to power Faction abilities.

 

[Mouseferatu]

My homebrew 5E campaign is based on the never-published Stormfront setting. The world is covered by a thick, supernatural cloud layer called the Veil and what remains of civilization lives among the mountain peaks above it. Below the Veil, the ever-twilit land is called the Gloom, and remains a place of ruins, bloodthirsty monsters, and dangerous tribes. Skyships travel from city to city, with some adventurers braving to go beneath the clouds to seek lost riches. There's a lot more to it, but my players might read this and I don't want to spoil the campaign.

Ha! I just wrapped up a campaign based on that! No sky-ships, though; the PCs had basically a mobile village on the back of an enormous (like longer than a football field) wind ghost.

In mine, the endless storm wound up being the result of clashing rituals. The aboleth had been trying to flood the world, the mind flayers to blot out the sun, and the two reacted with each other to create the permanent storm and a rash of aberrations/mutations.

 

[jace]

Ha! I just wrapped up a campaign based on that! No sky-ships, though; the PCs had basically a mobile village on the back of an enormous (like longer than a football field) wind ghost.

In mine, the endless storm wound up being the result of clashing rituals. The aboleth had been trying to flood the world, the mind flayers to blot out the sun, and the two reacted with each other to create the permanent storm and a rash of aberrations/mutations.

Nice! My version's backstory also has links to mind flayers, but to mind flayers and the githyanki/githzerai. I can't say more until the players get further along.

 

[Mage of Spellford]

I'm just trotting out my old campaign for another day in the sun. My modus operandi has been the same for about 30 years -- since '84. Every time that I start a new group I just time-leap my campaign 7 years into the future. For the latest incarnation though, I have done something different: I like the bones but sometimes the minutiae of previous campaigns can become overwhelming.

This time I have set the campaign in an unspecified time period. There was a war of some kind between the forces of dark and light (ie: the good guys and the bad guys) but the victors? or survivors? know very little of history. Only legends and oral histories.

There have been intimations that the bad guys have been actively and systematically removing all traces of past histories, especially written histories. The good-guys are just getting wind of the resurgence of the bad-guys. Omens have begun to appear and some, but importantly not all of the good-guys have begun to believe that evil is again on the rise. The goddesses curiously have so far been silent -- although IMC the gods are beyond mortal ken.

My world, so far I have just designed the smallest corner of it, now has no organized good-guys. There are individuals that are investigating the return of the 'others' and their 'agents' but so far they have only found rumours and hearsay, they are definitely not of one mind--with conflicting views on who the enemy even is. Meanwhile the nobility and the leaders of the population centres simply don't care. Not interested in fairy-tales.

The heroe's though have patrons from among the 'good-guys' that do believe. Two of my player's have character's that are 'boogey-men' out of legend: one is a Tiefling and a warlock, the other is a half-orc barbarian.

Interestingly enough, in my world the only people that seem to have a reliable grasp on past events are the druids (forest wardens) and they are untrustworthy and have an agenda of their own that has not yet come to light. Oh yeah and the forest warden's don't trust either orcs or tieflings

I started a small website using weebly but its mostly for my players to keep track of events and npc's etc.

The opening event of my campaign was the murder of a monk outside the gate of the kingdom's capital city. He was savaged to death by a flock of crows, sent the heroes have since learned, by one of their patrons an ancient forest-warden to prevent him from bringing an artifact into the city.

 

[Fralex]

I remember back before my account on the Wizards of the Coast forums got all screwed up, making it impossible for me to even look at a thread without being redirected to another page, this cool guy named Foxface started a collaborative effort to create a campaign setting. We called it "Kohlcamm," and it was actually shaping up to be really cool.

In the beginning there was unsteady chaos. Then, the ambitious, ideological, and proud Gods each tried their level-best to shape the chaos in accords with their Own Image. And no one god had more nor less power and ambition than any other, though their interests and designs were varied. So the chaos took the shape of their Will and reflected their competing desires. The world of Kohlcamm emerged as the central point of tension - an intersection of each God's Will and influence. They constantly vie for more sway - that reality itself might reflect Their Glory.

Unsurprisingly, this divine fervor and conflict is the cause of much turmoil among the many peoples of Kohlcamm, who, to one degree or another, are imitations of their creators.

The Forgotten God, whose voice was never heard escaped the noisy song the other gods, is hiding in the center of the world. Waiting from darkness, stretching their wicked tendrils to silence the song of life, consumed by jealousy, only the complete destruction of this world will bring peace to the rage within! The thing that should not be rips the earth with desruction (volcanoes), and pulls fire from the skies (meteors). Members of all the Races have connections with this god (even if they do know the god exists) and some even harness the raw energies to wonderous effect! But every time they pull from this mystic force the world becomes more unstable, for the Forgotten God is made stronger as the energy is spread...

Whether they realize it or not, all arcane casters are drawing from the latent power of the forgotten god. The mystic runes, the incantations, the elaborate gestures, they are all derived the unheard and ignored lamentations of The Forgotten God.

It is believe by many that the Forgotten God exacts a price from the world of mortals for his arcane knowledge. For every bit of mystical knowledge gain other knowledge is lost. The Forgotten God is blamed everytime a name or appointment is forgotten. Mental ailments that cause a lose of memory is often blamed on selfish casters who draw too deeply from the Forgotten God's font of knowledge.

The gods themselves take an active role in the affairs of the world, frequently meddling with mortals and their institutions. The gods are also notoriously fickle, and often change who their "favorites" are. Mortals have had to adapt in turn.

As a result, a secret group known as the Ormahr formed. The Ormarh are dedidicated to ridding the world of meddling gods and their priests. Ridding the world of the Ormarh is the one thing all of the gods can agree on.

The Ormarh move in the world in secret, as they know that the eyes of the gods (and in some cases the gods themselves) are everywhere. Though they have many secret enclaves throughout the world, only a single unhidden citadel, Dunormarh, stands in open defiance of the gods, in the city of Moth... Moth is so named because it lies in a shallow crater which is shaped like a moth, the city's walls following the contours of two giant moth-shaped wings with the fortress of Dunormarh at its center. For unknown reasons, the gods have no power within this ancient crater, and thus no power in Moth.

[sblock]

In every town there is at least one tavern called "The Streaky Sausage". They all sell identical pies and identical mugs of ale. This is good, because you can go into any Streaky Sausage anywhere, knowing exactly what you will be getting. It is also bad because their pies and ale taste equally awful everywhere.

Streaky Sausages are frequented by all those unsuccessful characters who were rolled up by players and then discarded because their ability rolls were too low. They have to eat somewhere.

They are a great place to pick up rumours, make contact with low-life, fraternise with the town guard and generally spend down-time.

The Goblin Folk Hero "Scratch" was a legendary bard with a beaten-up fiddle. He was known for "pulling fast ones" on the larger races for the benefit of Gob-kin. His name is now synonymous with getting buffaloed or pulling off a caper, prank or heist.
"I got scratched!" (Complaint that one was grifted, etc)

"We're gonna scratch 'em." (Describe an intent to trick someone).

"Oh, we need to figure out how to scratch that itch." (Plan a heist, etc).

"You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" is a threat.

The Tarrasque is a bear and during its dormant stage is the constellation Ursa Major.

[/sblock]

 

[Mercule]

My homebrew originated with 1E and really gained a lot from the 2E priestly rules. It focuses mainly on "PC race" bad guys, with a streak of traditional horror critters (undead, lycanthropes, fiends, etc.) doing their things. Civilization is fairly well established in many places, but there are some major evil threats. Psionics are often the second or third generation result of contact with artifacts or magical experimentation (one evil empire was known for lots and lots of experiments on segments of its population and the area still has a very high wild talent rate, with psions being more common than wizards.

The standard PHB races exist, sans halflings. Tieflings are rare manifestations of fiendish ancestry and dragonborn are rarely seen and come from remote area. Goblinoids are split, with one group of hobgoblins having channeled their lawful tendencies to following a god generally associated with paladins, valor, and the sun.

The BECMI spheres (entropy, energy, matter, time, thought) exist, but are outside the knowledge of most folks. Gods are BECMI-style immortals, but hail almost exclusively from the early celestial races. This is all generally immaterial to most campaigns, but has been fleshed out in a couple of very high-level games, including one PC who ascended to godhood and one who discovered that elves are a celestial race that gave up immortality to live among and shepherd the mortal races, but have also been devolving for millenia (shorter and shorter lives, less magic, forgotten origins, etc.) until they aren't much different than the other PC races.

The biggest unique element is probably the importance of gems, cosmically speaking. Each type of gemstone has properties associated with it (see the 1E DMG for some examples). These have some impact on magic and magic items, but the major impact is in some mysterious artifacts that appear from time to time, usually resulting in great war. The artifacts run along the lines of weapons, staves, shields, etc., formed from solid gems. Each is associated with some deeper purpose, but not all are beneficial (yeah, surprising, I know). Occasionally, these show up one or two at a time, but generally there are dozens in play. There have been three great cataclysms directly related to the appearance of the gemstone weapons, and a handful of lesser "falls" (like the fall of Rome) that have set back civilization to darker ages, only to grow strong again.