Torturing my brain with a homebrew: help needed, new questions!

[Turanil]

I am on my own quest for the holy-grail: designing the perfect campaign setting... probably an endless quest , but one of utmost worthiness!

So, this threads follows in the tracks of "Is it possible to have an exciting and long-lasting campaign in a historical setting?", and others before that. Hence, I have more questions for your brilliant minds!

So, to begin with, if I don't do a pseudo-historical setting on an alternate Earth, what if I add historical elements into a fantasy setting?? I mean, real-life elements added into a fantasy place. After all, knights, full-plate armors, kings, ogres, etc. come from our hitory and legends; so what if I put in a fantasy setting Charlemagne, the Chrisitan faith, etc., along D&D staples?

Here is my homebrew setting right now:

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-- Style: Medieval Dark-Ages with sword and sorcery, plus vaguely Cthuluesque / Moorcockian stuff thrown in.

-- Races: I ditch all the D&D races. There are humans; Nakhmir'ites, a race of degenerated humanoids practicing sorcery, who resemble stunted humans and live in underground cities; Sidhe, who resemble Melniboneans but truly are human with yuan-ti ancestry; and Thungols, a race of savage humans raiders with beast traits (look more like half-orcs; druids and lycanthropes can only be of that race; while gnolls are in fact a degenerated strain of thungols).

-- Religions: The True Faith (clerics) is monotheistic and almost Christian, and uses the Christ as its main figure. Paladins are always individual warriors who devote themselves to the defense of the True Faith (although there aren't Church Knights or Templars per se). Barbarians have beast cults (druids), and evil individuals serve some demons in exchange of magical powers (it could be unfaithful clerics who secretely turn to the "devil's worship" to regain the magic they lost for being unfaithful).

-- Geography: Vaguely ressembles western Europe in 500 AD. The empire of [xxxx] is decadent, and thus has fallen to the rampaging hordes of barbarians (the thungols) from northern wastes and eastern steppes. Only remain a few roman-like city-states, plus a small kingdom resisting against the invaders, and that is heavily based on Charlemagne's empire and Camelot.

-- Greatest Foes: Two ancient races whose empires' ruins mostly lie far away, are trying to come back. They are vaguely Cthuluesque (based off mind flayers for one, and yuan-ti dfor the other), and are responsible for the chaos in human lands. Also, demons and the like are just the most powerful of these races, who elevated to an almost divine status after millenaries of acquiring magical power. These races fell from incessant wars and infighting, and now renew their wars through human puppets on a distant land.

-- Adventures: Begin in a simply wartorn land during the invasions, up to dealing with the two ancient races. Typical PCs are christian clerics, knights, roman legionaries raising their batallions of mercenaries, Nakhmir'ite sorcerers, etc.

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What do you think about it. Should I do it more fantasy, or more pseudo-Europe?

 

[Thanee]

So, to begin with, if I don't do a pseudo-historical setting on an alternate Earth, what if I add historical elements into a fantasy setting?? I mean, real-life elements added into a fantasy place. After all, knights, full-plate armors, kings, ogres, etc. come from our hitory and legends; so what if I put in a fantasy setting Charlemagne, the Chrisitan faith, etc., along D&D staples?

That's what just about every setting does. Real world history (and myth) strongly influences fantasy worlds.

That's cool, because there are elements you are familiar with already, thus it appears more realistic, while they are usually taken out of context and put into a new fantasy context, which lets everything appear exotic and interesting.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Aeson]

Your off to a far better start than I ever have been when I start working on a homebrew. I always give up after awhile.

Some advice. Use names that are not hard to spell or pronounce. Why do people have to use every letter in a name just because they can? Keep it simple. It will be easier on your players to catch on.

 

[Whisper72]

Hmm... just a thought... add in a 'Jerusalem' like place, holy to both races, which they both fight about. Maybe it is a place haunted by demons, dragons etc. (if you add a bit more fantastic elements to the mix), that way the place is basically deserted, and both groups send parties to retrieve important relgious artifacts (which need not be magical items).

Maybe the human 'Christ' figure was killed by the Nakhmir'ite, thus ensuring a deep hatred between the two races.

Personally I think that 'a lot' of fantastic elements is not necessary at all.

Are you thinking of making it low-magic as well? One way to go about it is to ban the wizard and sorcerer classes (only available for the Yaun-Ti and Illithid perhaps, representing a sort of 'Elder Magic', with the Yuan TI being sorcerers and Illithid having Wizards), and have all (N)PC magic spells come from the Adept and Bard classes. That way, you could balance a lesser amount of magical weapons and armor for fighter and clerical types. At the same time, you add that bit of Cthuluesque to using Wizard spells. Maybe PC's can learn special wizard spells based on feats/skills or so, but with SAN checks etc. thrown in. Maybe even make the Wizard or Sorcerer classes special prestige classes...

Just some random thoughts...

 

[Turanil]

Hey, absent for 30 minutes, and already cool ideas coming in!

Hmm... just a thought... add in a 'Jerusalem' like place, holy to both races, which they both fight about. Maybe it is a place haunted by demons, dragons etc. (if you add a bit more fantastic elements to the mix), that way the place is basically deserted, and both groups send parties to retrieve important relgious artifacts (which need not be magical items).

Maybe the human 'Christ' figure was killed by the Nakhmir'ite, thus ensuring a deep hatred between the two races.

I like the idea of a Jerusalem-like place, and will try to incorporate it. On the other hand, I want to be careful to not offend some RL religions. The True Faith won't be portrayed in an offending way (at least from my point of view), so I would have no qualms about using the word "Christ" for their messiah. On the other hand, something I thought of, I will not do. I was thinking that the Christ (in this homebrew) was a Nakhmir'ite who revolted against their ways and founded the True Faith as a lawful good alternative to their evil ways. However, he was banished from Nakhmir, and thus left for the human empire where his religion flourished. Now, those nakhmir'ites who followed him established many communities in the human lands, so a Nakhmir'ite PC would come from such a place, while those still in Nakhmir remain foes. Also, wizardry (the acceptable magic) comes from those banished Nakhmir'ites, while those still in Nakhmir rather delve in Demonology. Well, if I do that, it could look like a veiled offense against some RL religion. So, I will have to find something else (suggestions welcome!).

Some advice. Use names that are not hard to spell or pronounce. Why do people have to use every letter in a name just because they can? Keep it simple. It will be easier on your players to catch on.

I will remember that. I try to think about the important names:

-- Nakhmir: An old nation of sorcerers, now just a city states in deert mountains. They live in fortified underground cities, and are evil paranoid constantly scheming and watching behind their back. "Nakhmir" (the name of their city) is supposed to vaguely sound and remind the words nightmare and mire. Nakhmir'ite is harder to pronounce than Nakhmirian, I agree, but I believed it has a more exotic sound to it.

-- Thungol: Barbarian nomads and raiders from the northern wastes and eastern steppes. "Thungol" is meant to sound as thunder, and then remind of mongols and gnoll (who are a degenerated strain of thungols in my campaign).

That's cool, because there are elements you are familiar with already, thus it appears more realistic, while they are usually taken out of context and put into a new fantasy context, which lets everything appear exotic and interesting.

Things people are already familiar with, I will remember that.

 

[Hand of Evil]

See links in my sig.

 

[Quickleaf]

I like the idea of a Jerusalem-like place, and will try to incorporate it. On the other hand, I want to be careful to not offend some RL religions. The True Faith won't be portrayed in an offending way (at least from my point of view), so I would have no qualms about using the word "Christ" for their messiah.

I would get that fear out of your mind. If someone really wanted to be offended, there is plenty out there in the RPG world that is offensive. What you're attempting seems tame. For example, I'm working on a medieval Islam setting - talk about the most debated history ever! I begin to write something like: Thus, with the death of Ali, ended the reign of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, and already I've offended the Shi'as and forgotten about who some consider the fifth Rightly Guided Caliph. Basically, no matter what you do, somebody might be offended.

What kind of magic does your setting have?

 

[Turanil]

What kind of magic does your setting have?

I want make things simple. Clerics and druids work normally. Arcane magic likewise, but I want to add something that currently don't know how to implement: Nakhmir'ites are those who invented arcane magic. Those exiled from Nakhmir generally use arcane magic (i.e.: wizards per the normal rules), but those still in Nakhmir also heavily rely on demonology. For demonology I want to invent a system where a wizard first need to take a feat; then he performs long rituals with pentagrams and what not, to summon fiends and bind them to his service. It's different from Summoning spells, in that summoning spells are cast quickly and have a duration of a few rounds. I want something different: long and difficult casting times involving complex rituals, plus creatures that stay bounded to the caster for extended periods of time. This would spend spell-slots that would remain unavailable for the entire duration of fiend bound to caster. Something like a spell slot for summoning, another one for binding, further slots to improve success, etc. Other than that, it is a normal wizard who still can cast spells provided he has spell-slots left. Maybe I will begin a thread on this on the houserule forum.

 

[Hand of Evil]

One of the biggest issues I have always had when designing a homebrew is what system do I want to run it around. Yes, D&D is the most common but you have to ask yourself if it matched up to what you are trying to do. You may want to look at a different system.

As for magic, maybe a mana system would workout better, duration spells then could have a cost to keep going. Rituals could be batteries (mana holders), having mana stored in them over a period of time to cast a spell that would over flow a magic user if they tryed to cast it.

 

[fuindordm]

(For those easily offended, remember that Christ is just derived from the Greek word for 'Lord'. It's a title, not a name!)

I'd be more inclined to make the Christ-figure a human who perhaps met his end preaching to the Nakhmir'ites. I find it much easier to swallow than humans en masse deciding to find their messiah in a nonhuman.

Some were converted by his/her words, but even though they live in human lands they don't follow exactly the same strictures as the humans, and are therefore suspect. They can do certain useful things in society that Christ forbade, such as usury (lending money at interest) and the crafting of magic items (because investing xp in an item is thought to harm the soul). Humans think of them as a necessary nuisance at best, and look at them with bigoted loathing at worst--and yet, the surface Nakhmar'ites have rejected most of the evil ways of their forebears, and in their own way are trying to follow the words of the Christ and lead virtuous lives. They live among humans to work on gaining acceptance as followers of a similar faith (which the church supports) and for the rich business opportunities. Still, their society is quite insular and most do not mix socially with humans.

(Yes, they fill a similar societal role to that of the Jews, but their history and race are entirely different!)

They would probably be less accepted than the jews were, but more so than the gypsies. Despite their status as an ally race, they would probably suffer some backlash when one of the more powerful ancient races attacks, as the more bigoted humans suspect them of being in league with the enemy.

Ben