Just was wondering if you play a standard boxed settings like Forgotten Realms or do you have you made your own setting you build your campaigns around? If so, what are the major hooks and description of them?
Tell me about your Homebrewed Settings?
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
While I do have a campaign each in Eberron and Forgotten Realms, I have a few home brews we play in, and my Forgotten Realms is a mix of 4e Realms and homebrew elements and features an Abeir that is a world of islands in which the rule of dragon overlords is being challenged and whole regions are free while others are in dire conflict.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
I generally run every campaign in it's own homebrew setting that has characteristics that make possible the central themes of the campaign. I have run one setting for two campaigns in a row, with basically the same group of players, 80 years later so they could see the effects their heroes had on the world but exploring different aspects and for the most part different geographic places.
Currently I'm running a setting where the world itself is the body of a dead god, with the moon the decapitated head. That deity had been drawn into a plane with next to no other power sources in order to be killed, so that body (and orbiting skull) are the only sources of magic. The party formed as each of the characters had awoken an Imperial Mask, each a sentient and powerful artifact (supposedly) from the peak of the Imperium. Most of the masks slumber, only awakening when someone compatible is chosen. This made the characters important and influential at the beginning of the campaign leading to being able to do very different low level play then clear out those rats and various fetch quests. The Imperium is failing, has been failing for a long time, and there are many signs of high magic and magic-as-technology all about but they barely work - a sky tram across the capital city has a single working car left, and it requires a wizard in there constantly feeding it power.
Dwarves have been genocided, and the drow are a created race to inhabit their place underground and continue to mine the Bones of the Earth (literal) for the Imperium. The halflings are also a created race, servitors and agricultural workers. (The genocide and the created races were from player suggestion/request during Session 0.) It has later come up that the nobility of the Imperium are also modified humans, to be better, though the bloodlines have mixed some with normal humans. This was a plot point but also conveniently described racial Humans vs. variant Humans in the PHB.
The seas, after a point, are far enough from the land (the body) that there is no magic, so all of the discovery of continents and such had been ones close enough. But now with magic failing and navigation on the seas becoming perilous they have discovered other, non-magical ways and a new continent has been discovered. The Imperium has started a colony over there, and the land is plentiful.
The Child-Empress Olixia, sixth of her name, saw six masks awaking at the same time, something unheard of in many generations, and determined they should stay together - to be sent to the new lands she believes is the future of the Imperium. So the group started with being sent there.
To discover that it was also full of magic. Dragons are (supposedly) extinct on the continents the Imperium can reach, though a skeleton of one is in the Imperial Library. Here they saw (and avoided one). Met as ambassadors to a powerful and established empire (needed to flip colonialism on it's head). They realised that fabled lost spells - those of the 7th and higher level - would actually work over there, that their land had been mostly drained of magic through long, flagrant and extensive use of it.
But I've got half a dozen new setting ideas fleshed out to a degree in a document, and more than that in a nutshell format. I have more setting concepts then I will ever get to run campaigns. (My last campaigns all completed, but were 4 years, 7 years, and 4.5 years long.)
Currently I'm running a setting where the world itself is the body of a dead god, with the moon the decapitated head. That deity had been drawn into a plane with next to no other power sources in order to be killed, so that body (and orbiting skull) are the only sources of magic. The party formed as each of the characters had awoken an Imperial Mask, each a sentient and powerful artifact (supposedly) from the peak of the Imperium. Most of the masks slumber, only awakening when someone compatible is chosen. This made the characters important and influential at the beginning of the campaign leading to being able to do very different low level play then clear out those rats and various fetch quests. The Imperium is failing, has been failing for a long time, and there are many signs of high magic and magic-as-technology all about but they barely work - a sky tram across the capital city has a single working car left, and it requires a wizard in there constantly feeding it power.
Dwarves have been genocided, and the drow are a created race to inhabit their place underground and continue to mine the Bones of the Earth (literal) for the Imperium. The halflings are also a created race, servitors and agricultural workers. (The genocide and the created races were from player suggestion/request during Session 0.) It has later come up that the nobility of the Imperium are also modified humans, to be better, though the bloodlines have mixed some with normal humans. This was a plot point but also conveniently described racial Humans vs. variant Humans in the PHB.
The seas, after a point, are far enough from the land (the body) that there is no magic, so all of the discovery of continents and such had been ones close enough. But now with magic failing and navigation on the seas becoming perilous they have discovered other, non-magical ways and a new continent has been discovered. The Imperium has started a colony over there, and the land is plentiful.
The Child-Empress Olixia, sixth of her name, saw six masks awaking at the same time, something unheard of in many generations, and determined they should stay together - to be sent to the new lands she believes is the future of the Imperium. So the group started with being sent there.
To discover that it was also full of magic. Dragons are (supposedly) extinct on the continents the Imperium can reach, though a skeleton of one is in the Imperial Library. Here they saw (and avoided one). Met as ambassadors to a powerful and established empire (needed to flip colonialism on it's head). They realised that fabled lost spells - those of the 7th and higher level - would actually work over there, that their land had been mostly drained of magic through long, flagrant and extensive use of it.
But I've got half a dozen new setting ideas fleshed out to a degree in a document, and more than that in a nutshell format. I have more setting concepts then I will ever get to run campaigns. (My last campaigns all completed, but were 4 years, 7 years, and 4.5 years long.)
R_J_K75
Legend
This is how I run a FR campaign. I use the core setting or whatever boxed set/book for the area we're playing in but its heavily modified and follows little if any canon timeline.
I have little interest in either creating my own strictly home brew or playing in anyone elses. Not because their bad but more because I usually have no investment in the setting and the people that Ive played in their homebrews were poorly documented so I couldnt even read up on it before making a character and playing in it. Nowadays when someone says to me...In my campaign, homebrew, my eyes glaze over, I tune right out then hit the eject button. I prefer established pre-published campaign setting so I can at least have a base starting point to hang my expectations on.
Bayushi_seikuro
Hero
My last homebrew was Winter Eternal. I apologize if this gets long and rambley!
Premise: Five years back, a large object hit the planet, causing an impact winter (like a nuclear winter). Temps drop, crops fail, and it becomes a bit of a 'points of light' situation.
The object was Ymir's corpse and when he died at Ragnarok, the corpse was sent plummeting between planes until it collided with this planet. As it passed through some unknown domain, it acquired parasites that made 'fast zombies' out of the victims. When they moved, it wasn't even that they were fast as much as it was like watching film that frames had been cut from, giving a quick hurky-jerky motion to.
The eladrin had recognized the event was coming and put up a barrier around their realm, after bringing in as many refugees of all races as they could. They also had volunteers choose to remain outside the 'bubbles' to gather and share information in secret.
The orcs raised barbaric hordes that rampaged through the land. In desperation, the wood elves turned to blood sacrifice to Yeegnoghu and cannibalism to protect themselves, but fell further under the sway of their Winter Queen - as their patron, she also gives them the ability to ignore snow's effects on movement, as well as to pass without trace on snow and ice.
The humans to the far south were largely unaffected as of now, but have closed their borders and cities to outsiders. Large tent communities and tradetowns have grown up around these cities.
The hinterlands - where the PCs first begin - are various towns, ruins, and places left behind. The lone exception (where the PCs have started, in both campaigns I've ran of this) is Halvor's Stand. Halvor was an elderly human academic who turned to druidism and woodcraft with the coming apocalypse. He led his followers to the Great Oak, and found a way to awaken the spirit. Now, while the hinterlands remain largely frozen, the Stand's magic radiating from the Oak keeps it around 50F.
In the face of the orc - and now elven - hordes, the gnomes created warforged to help defend themselves, and perfected firearms. Together with the warforged and halflings, they took a stand against the waves of barbarians. It was a losing stand. The halflings, along with some of the warforged, sacrificed themselves to stop the hordes and buy time for the other races to regroup ala 300. The last Sheriff of the halflings died that day - only to return as a freewilled specter. There remain less than two hundred halflings now, and much of their lore - including powerful food magic - has been lost. However, the specter remains an enemy of these invaders - he'd recently taken an infected human prisoner and keeps him in the cells beneath the ruined town hall. He's been experimenting on him, trying to discover the secret of the black ichor that's in his veins.
Long and rambley!
Premise: Five years back, a large object hit the planet, causing an impact winter (like a nuclear winter). Temps drop, crops fail, and it becomes a bit of a 'points of light' situation.
The object was Ymir's corpse and when he died at Ragnarok, the corpse was sent plummeting between planes until it collided with this planet. As it passed through some unknown domain, it acquired parasites that made 'fast zombies' out of the victims. When they moved, it wasn't even that they were fast as much as it was like watching film that frames had been cut from, giving a quick hurky-jerky motion to.
The eladrin had recognized the event was coming and put up a barrier around their realm, after bringing in as many refugees of all races as they could. They also had volunteers choose to remain outside the 'bubbles' to gather and share information in secret.
The orcs raised barbaric hordes that rampaged through the land. In desperation, the wood elves turned to blood sacrifice to Yeegnoghu and cannibalism to protect themselves, but fell further under the sway of their Winter Queen - as their patron, she also gives them the ability to ignore snow's effects on movement, as well as to pass without trace on snow and ice.
The humans to the far south were largely unaffected as of now, but have closed their borders and cities to outsiders. Large tent communities and tradetowns have grown up around these cities.
The hinterlands - where the PCs first begin - are various towns, ruins, and places left behind. The lone exception (where the PCs have started, in both campaigns I've ran of this) is Halvor's Stand. Halvor was an elderly human academic who turned to druidism and woodcraft with the coming apocalypse. He led his followers to the Great Oak, and found a way to awaken the spirit. Now, while the hinterlands remain largely frozen, the Stand's magic radiating from the Oak keeps it around 50F.
In the face of the orc - and now elven - hordes, the gnomes created warforged to help defend themselves, and perfected firearms. Together with the warforged and halflings, they took a stand against the waves of barbarians. It was a losing stand. The halflings, along with some of the warforged, sacrificed themselves to stop the hordes and buy time for the other races to regroup ala 300. The last Sheriff of the halflings died that day - only to return as a freewilled specter. There remain less than two hundred halflings now, and much of their lore - including powerful food magic - has been lost. However, the specter remains an enemy of these invaders - he'd recently taken an infected human prisoner and keeps him in the cells beneath the ruined town hall. He's been experimenting on him, trying to discover the secret of the black ichor that's in his veins.
Long and rambley!
I have a fantasy setting of my own creation that I've used more than once. It's a detailed account of a starting village and the immediate surroundings, plus a bunch of evocative but nebulous information about the wider empire and surrounding world. I like to leave space for players to author a little background during char gen and to give the players an idea what the wider setting looks like without locking it in too much. It ends up being different every time I use it. The village itself is fully populated with characters, motivations and faction type stuff and more than enough drama that the players end up doing something cool pretty much right away, and I have a variety of IDK, lets call them AW style threats that provide some structure to most of the main adventuring options, and I just start with whichever one the players decide to do first. Or I'll make a new threat if they go a path less travelled.
Despite having DMed for decades, I'm currently running my first truly homebrewed campaign. (We're 18 adventures in, out of a planned even 100. And it's a 3.5 campaign.) The PCs are some of the few people who can recall their dreams when they wake up, which makes them perfect to receive training from the Queen of Dreams - every night, they learn how to enter, interact with, and alter people's dreams, which is a valuable bit of knowledge considering there's an unexplained wave of people across the continent getting trapped in their own dreams, while their physical bodies enter a dormant state of stasis. So the PCs are traveling across the continent, freeing those trapped in their dreams while they try to figure out what's causing this dream plague.
Johnathan
Johnathan
My grown son has been DMing for a few years now, too, and his two 3.5 campaigns are both set in the same homebrewed world.
In the first campaign, "The Durnhill Conscripts," the PCs were working for the King of Durnhill to do missions that couldn't be allowed to be traced back to the kingdom - we were kind of a "Suicide Squad" without being criminals ourselves. That campaign had us up against the Mithral Mage, an immortal lich whose phylactery was "everyone living who knew his true name," and then one particular sect of the Seekers of Eternity, a group that worshiped the Mithral Mage as a god.
In the second campaign, "Raiders of the Overreach" (which we're still playing in, having gone through 44 adventures thus far), we all started out as slaves to the drow forced to make raids against the surface world for them. Our main enemy in this campaign, besides the drow themselves (especially the Mortal Queen, a drow matriarch who decided she represents Lolth's will for all drow on the planet), is the Dying One, the decapitated head of an illithid Elder God who's been kept alive only due to the time wonkiness on the Far Realm. Our five PCs are prophesied to be the ones who can stop him.
And speaking of "time wonkiness," it came out that this second campaign not only takes place in the same game world as the first one but it's also running concurrently in-game, in that the events happening in this campaign are intertwined with the events we already knew played out in the first one. Case in point: in this second campaign, we were tasked with freeing the Mithral Mage from Dwarven Hell, as doing so was one possible way of stopping the Dying One from destroying the world when he tried returning to the Material Plane. That didn't exactly work out as we had hoped (the Mithral Mage basically just buggered off after we'd rescued him), but it did explain how he'd escaped from Dwarven Hell in the first place, something our first-campaign PCs had always wondered about....
Johnathan
In the first campaign, "The Durnhill Conscripts," the PCs were working for the King of Durnhill to do missions that couldn't be allowed to be traced back to the kingdom - we were kind of a "Suicide Squad" without being criminals ourselves. That campaign had us up against the Mithral Mage, an immortal lich whose phylactery was "everyone living who knew his true name," and then one particular sect of the Seekers of Eternity, a group that worshiped the Mithral Mage as a god.
In the second campaign, "Raiders of the Overreach" (which we're still playing in, having gone through 44 adventures thus far), we all started out as slaves to the drow forced to make raids against the surface world for them. Our main enemy in this campaign, besides the drow themselves (especially the Mortal Queen, a drow matriarch who decided she represents Lolth's will for all drow on the planet), is the Dying One, the decapitated head of an illithid Elder God who's been kept alive only due to the time wonkiness on the Far Realm. Our five PCs are prophesied to be the ones who can stop him.
And speaking of "time wonkiness," it came out that this second campaign not only takes place in the same game world as the first one but it's also running concurrently in-game, in that the events happening in this campaign are intertwined with the events we already knew played out in the first one. Case in point: in this second campaign, we were tasked with freeing the Mithral Mage from Dwarven Hell, as doing so was one possible way of stopping the Dying One from destroying the world when he tried returning to the Material Plane. That didn't exactly work out as we had hoped (the Mithral Mage basically just buggered off after we'd rescued him), but it did explain how he'd escaped from Dwarven Hell in the first place, something our first-campaign PCs had always wondered about....
Johnathan
aramis erak
Legend
D&D: homebrewed at home, FR in public.
Traveller: Not going to run OTU again, as I am tired of fighting with players over what is canon. I may run a "prototraveller"-ish variant, using many fewer sectors, ships max at 5000 td.
T&T: homebrew, due to lack (until recently) of an official setting.
Most others? official.
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