The Day After....

[Warchild]

Something has just occurred to me. It seems that a majority of homebrew settings seem centered around the aftermath of great wars, often just barely recovered or even not entirely whole OR recovered. Why do you think this is? I'm a victim of this trend as well!
Though my setting's current "campaign" era is well after the terrible war that sundered the world, its results still have great ramifications on the setting at its present times.

Do you think that it is because it gives us a sense of a clean slate. Which would be strange since they are our own settings, with which we create anything we want.

I don't know, maybe i am imagining things!!
What do you think?

 

[Azure Trance]

I think it's because it offers the most opportunity for new and exciting things off the tip of the hat. While there are situations in which this wouldn't apply, a 'just recovered from world war or other cataclysmic event' makes it much easier.

 

[Gilladian]

I agree. If you want plenty of ruins (dungeons, castles, towns, sunken vessels), isolated civilizations (villages that retreated underground, castles locked in time, were-folk guardians), unusual geographic areas (blasted wastelands and uncanny fogs) then you need a comprehensive reason for all these goodies to exist.

A world war that caused the destruction of an empire is just ready-made as a solution. Can anyone provide another idea or set of ideas? I'd love to hear them!

Gilladian

 

[Buttercup]

*An Asteroid strike
*A flood of biblical proportions
*An angry god or gods
*An attack by demons who came through a portal, wreaked havoc and then left.

However, I use the fallen civilization too. It's just so convenient.

 

[LufiaLillystorm]

Hmm well maybe

Well you do need to have a reason for things not to exist When you run across a ruins you don't want to reason to be "well the mighty empire of Busha busha ran out of money...so no one lives here anymore okies?" It kinda makes the place seem less haunting and more....mundain.

Sometimes I don't do wars. A lot of the time, things are forgotten, so I don't explain anything. The beginning of my game doesn't have to be like the beginning of a video game, where the history is revieled. However, the PC's are not existing in the beggining of time, and there needs to be a reason why teh problem with the orcs or whatever hasn't been attempted to be tackled. There are bunches of things that require a bit of history.

So what would a world of peace be like, I think the best example is Arborea in teh Planes of Choas. They have spats but there is little there that is in ruin I believe. THen again I could be wrong .

Sometimes, though, I don't do great wars, maybe natural desasters or sometimes ruins exist just because it does. You dont' knwo why it is there, unless you struggle to find out. And it could be for a simple reason like, the people moved on.

I hope I helped and this post isn't too long

 

[Crothian]

So far, my groups third edition games have started because:

1) The Ale wasn't getting to the local bar. Turned out it was intercepted by an orc army. (actually second edition but it was the foirst campaign in this world. All of these are one the same home brew world).

2) Someone was killing people for their parts. Take a stomach from certain people, heart, from other, and the lungs from others.

3) Evil ruler was dominating the land tand the PCs got mixed up with trying to find the rightful king. Turned out to be a PC, he was mad at me for doing that too him.

4) Prophocey predicts a great evil from ancient time coming and the Pcs are the chosen ones to stop it. THis one ended prematurely, so I guess if we ever go back to that world it will still be threatened by the great evil.

So, none of those are really dealing with the afterevents of war. Although our current game is set on Greyhawk, after the Greyhawk wars.

 

[wolfpunk]

My personal use of the homebrew setting is set after apocalyptic events. The reason being, the introduction of items that are in the present time uncreatable, technology that is not understood, or unable to be produced by currect technologies.

However, I have this broken up into several stages. Since I have several realms in my setting the effects have been drastically different in each realm. I have one realm which has been blasted back to the stone age in terms of technology, 1 realm is now a dead magic zone, 1 realm has been blasted to oblivion, everything is waste, and then I have 1 realm which looks like a utopian paradise, but nothing lives there at all.

My post apocalypse setting is somewhere between 1000 and 1400 years past the actual war, so things are starting to recover to a point where they are workable.

 

[Ace32]

My homebrew setting is unique... it takes place before, after, and during a great universe-spanning war.. hehe.. but that's cuz I have three different groups, (two before - one explaining the origins of the world, another is going to explain some mysteries of the science of the world; the other is about 500 years after), and the first game I ran in the world told the story of how the war started and the group played out the major events of the war (it wasn't really mass-battle stuff, lots of political machinations and stuff). Fun none the less!

 

[Aeris Winterood]

My campaign worlds

I have three distinct but similar worlds.

The first one is a very primitive world. Early beginings of civilization. Bronze weaopons, late late stone age, first smithing going on. There are still prehistoric animals roaming around and some dinosaurs to keep all of the locals on their toes.

The second setting fills a void for me. I hate it that IMO all worlds created are at the onset of human domination, i.e. the elves are retreating and in decling along with the dwarves. So, I like to have a setting where pc's adventure at the height of elven and dwarven civilizations.... a world where artifacts are being created, massive wars amonst the humanoids (elves and dwarves included) The humans in this era are just trying to establish themselves.

The third type I like is one inwhich the land has been breifly inhabited, such as a few ships from a far away land have established a foot hold on a new continent and must deal with trying to explore and settle into new and dangerous lands....

But, that is just me... I get tied of the whole devastaion, cataclysm, destruction stereotype world....