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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mrtomsmith" data-source="post: 3812184" data-attributes="member: 51141">A few off the top of my head. I'm thinking of the fantasy angle more than the historical, or at least leaning that way within the intersection.DRAGONS: A subset of Beasts, surely, but a critical and unique subset with its own problems. Intelligent, hugely powerful Beasts, possibly with their own society.NONHUMANS: In a D&D setting, many of your Raiders and Criminals are going to be of the various non-human sentient races, which creates a different dynamic. For example, it's easier to have many different types of Raider groups, as each race generally doesn't get along with the others. Some of these may even be semi-civilized, making for multiple antagonistic sets of lights. "If you have infravision, everything's a point of light"ANCIENT EVILS: Dark wizards who experiment on passers-by. Ancient demons who have been chained under the temple for thousands of years, corrupting the land around them. Evil gods. Portals to other worlds. Cities cursed by the Gods. These can corrupt large areas and make them points of darkness rather than light.WILD MAGIC: Depending on how you view magic in your world, there may be vast areas where the basic rules of reality don't work quite right. The Plains of Madness where anyone entering is driven insane. The Lands of Eternal Darkness. Various ancient permanent magical changes that turn more lights into darkness and make travel difficult.XTREME NATURE: Based on the Monster Manual, there are various flora and fauna that aren't quite beasts, but do make areas inaccessible to humanoids. Places where the basic herbivores shoot lightning or gore for 2-20 damage. Treant forests. That field where it rains poisonous frogs every afternoon. Of course, if there is a sentient creature that CAN inhabit that land, it might become a Raider or other stronghold instead.WARLORDS: Petty dictators who take over a point of light by force, turning it dark. Even easier to do in a world where magic can make individuals very powerful. Gets yerself a +3 Sword and +2 Plate and you could walk into any of the smaller points of light and have your way with them. And the Warlord won't always be of a PC race - outsiders, dragons, high-level non-humans, and others can take over areas and rule on their own. If it works in Myanmar, it works here.UTOPIAS: It's not terribly well known, but back in Medieval times, there were many little groups of people who would go off into the woods and found their own little societies in an attempt to get away from the corrupting influence of everyone else. Often religious heretics, but not always. Throw some magic or some non-humans in and they get a lot more interesting. Leave them alone for a while and they usually get very xenophobic. If you've played BioShock, you can quickly realize the possibilities for D&D adventures here.CORRUPTED: A former point of light that has been thoroughly corrupted from within. Everyone is now under the thrall of the powerful vampire and/or spellcaster and/or demon. Everyone crosses between their town and Faerie every night for The Ceremony, and comes back confused and half-asleep. There are a few Conan stories (REH originals, of course) that give good examples of these.</blockquote>

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